OUR PARIS LETTER

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 137, 8 December 1930, Page 19

OUR PARIS LETTER

BOOKSELLERS, WONJDEEING

CIGARETTE HABIT

.(From "Tho Post's'" Representative.) PAftlS, Sth October. One can imagine publishers and booksellers in France being not a litlle perturbed by a judgment just delivered by a Lyons Magistrate. An encyclopaedia , dealing with literature, art, science, law, | and many other matters, published by a certain couutoss, was ordered by a I resident in Lyons. On receipt of the | three volumes, howovcr, the client declared that they Were not worth their price, loafrs., and refused to pay. Tho countess 3ued the subscriber, and an expert, who was a librarian, was engaged to make a report on the volumes, lie found considerable fault with the way in which certain subjects wore treated, and finally declared that ill his opinion tho books wero worth A ! price 20 per cent. loss than that dej manded. The Magistrate acceptod the I expert's view and ordered that the price |to bo paid by tho complainant foi1 the encyclopaedia, should be reduced by 20 per cent. Now, of course, the booksellors are asking whether a client having read a book through, and not finding it oxactly to his taste may, with tho lay behind him, demand a portion oE his money back. ' Tho position certainly needs elucidating. The cigarette-smoking habit hns -increased enormously in France in recent years, judging by statistics just pub' lishod. Whereas in 1913 about 4,000/ 000,000 cigarettes were smoked m France, the number in 1029 was 16,000,« 000,000. Tho Soino department heads tho list with 921 cigarettes per head of the population for a year, the Alpes-Mari-tiines coming next with 868. The Lozore department is at tho bottom of tho list. Thcro tho average number of cigarottcs smoked during 1920 is estimated at 83 per person. The growing vogue of smoking among women partly accounts for the general increase. There has been a slight fulling ofl.' iv cigar smoking. SAVED BY A KILT. Uritons used to bo reputed the most enterprising and self-sufficing of tourists, but- like many other generalisations exceptions to the , i:ule are numcrousi Who, among permanent exiles on the I Continent, has not met the timid Briton i lost maybe in some corner oL' Paris'? j Some appear too proud to solicit help unil almost resent it when disinterestj cdly offered. Others, of course, are grateful. A man and his wife sat iv a litlle Paris public garden the other afternoon, having strayed there, and being tirod.' A littlo girl passed by wearing a kilt. - ' "Look!" said the man eagerly, "that must be a Scottish girl. She might tell us." "Don't be silly, John," replied his wife. "Sho is probably a visitor like ourselves." / Tho girl overheard ttie remarks, and in English asked the couple if she could assist thcin. They asked for the address of a, big store, and found that the girl, who was a patriotic Scot, though she had lived most of her life in Paris, was ablo to direct them. . NO SKYSCRAPERS. Will Paris ever have its skyscrapers? From tiino to time one hears rumours of plans i'Or building these high towers of steel and masonry, but now M, Fortunat Strowski, the well-known

■Franco, who knows something about New York as well as Paris, seems to have settled the question. In a spirited article iv "Paris Soir," he tells us why skyscrapers in Paris aro impossible. l 7or ono thing, M. Fortunat Btrowski evidently does not like s>kysciapers, and ho tells us quito definitely that Parisians do not like them either. They aro against the traditions, both social and artistic, of tho city. • But, his most solid reason, literally tho "bodrock" roason, is that unlike ■ New York, Paris has no bedrock bo- . 'neath it. Builders in New York, it . seems, have only to Scarpo a little earth away and thcro is the rock on which 1 they can rear flicir stoel monsters, just i liko a boy builds a toy tower on a table. To ilnd suitable foundations, Paris builders would haVo to dig &o [ deep that the skyscraper would l>o an ! economic impossibility, while if they • built on ordinary foundations tho whole ■ building, chimney pots and all, in a few years would disappear. Which, of . course, would never do. GIGANTIC'EGG FOR COLONIAL SHOW. , AYhai, must surely be the biggest egg [ the world has seen will, it is announced ! by the organisers of the International 1 Colonial lOxhibtion, be on show at Yin- j ' cciines nest year. It is stated to be I \ SOiiviu diameter and 34in in length, and I will arrive in Paris in time for the | opening of! tho exhibtion next May. s The egg was discovered by cxeavatois in South Madagascar, and is said | to have been laid by a gigantic bird 1 described as the dcplornis, which be- ■ enmo extinct a. thousand years ago. I The contents measure the equivalent o£ 130 hens' eggs. | A New York museum offered a largo sum for the egg, but tho French Go-vernor-General preferred to send it to tho Vinceunes Exhibition.