A QUEER PLACE IN PARIS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 100, 15 April 1876, Page 4

A QUEER PLACE IN PARIS.

The Paris correspondent of Wilkes* Spirit, gives the following picture of queer life in that gay capital :— that many of your readers annually visit Paris and are -glad to know something of the highways and byways of the "Fair Lutetia," I now venture to send you a brief description of a queer place I fancy few foreigners have ever visited, and yet which, if they have courage enough to undertake the expedition, is well worth their seeing. Now, if any of your American friends care to go, after what lam going to describe, let them do so; but let them not make too gorgeous a toilette for the occasion. Let their raiment be of a sombre tint, and let them bide the golden bands which bind their watches to their pocket. Locketa are to be dispensed with, and as to diamond pins, unless the. gem which | sparkles in their centres comes from Alaska's mines, or from those of Paste, which are situated in our Palais Royale, they had best' be left at home. If you have. an enemy over here, whose nose; you would like to see broken, or whose eye it would gratify you to see smashed in, write to him and bid him go to the Belle Moissonneuae in his best attire, wearing a two hundred dollar watch and chain, and a diamond, worth ..a thousand in the centre of his Bhirt bosom. . . La Belle Moiseonneuse (ihe Fair I Harvest Woma.n). is the name of ' the awful place : where I am going to , lead readers. It is no Mabille -nor I Frascati, but a rowdy-dowdy, dancinghall, situated near the Barriere deFontainbleau. As you approach the door, a man's voice is heard shouting out— '" Come in. ladieß and gentlemen ! only 20 centimes a-head admission." And tben you perceive that the voice proceeds from a human being, whose sex

1 never could define, for, whereas this he or she is dressed in petticoats, thia she or he possesses a thick beard and a moustache. Having presented this personage with the amount demanded, the doors open, and you enter, leaving, however, your stick or umbrella behind with the personage just mentioned. If you wish to dance, you must pay 2 cents for a quadrille, but nothing for a waltz or polka. The ball-room is a Tory large one, bnt quite plain and white-washed. The musicians sit on a table in the extreme owner, and are much to be pitied, for the dancers have a remarkable manner of poking fun at them by throwing corks at their heads and calling them name 6. They even make bets that they will throw a walnut at a particular musician's nose, and, if it strikes, give a bottle of wine to the thrower. The language talked all around is undeniably funny and witty, although, of course, very vulgar. But there is nothing so witty as true Parisian argot. It is beyond translating, and perhaps it is as well it should be so. The ladies here are very terrible persons, probably descendants of the famous tricoteusee of the Revolution of '93. They dance like furies, and when the company is thoroughly warmed up with coarsa wine, the noise is deafening, and the whole scene a perfect vision of pandemonium; but still for all that worth seeing. At the door of this chaste establishment stand two gardes de Paris, well armed and ready to put; down any serious riot. Sometimes terrible battles take place among the dancers. They will use their knives with Corsicaa ferocity, and many a fair guest of the Belle Moissooneuse — the Handsome 'Harvest woman—* leaves the ballroom for the hospital Ward with a gash in her neck an inch or so deep. ! Sometimes she inflicts it herself on one of the rougher sex. Americana who come to Paris wonder where the furies of our revolution keep themselves. Let them visit such places as La Belie Moissonneuse and they'll soon see. Under the glittering surface of Parisian life flows a dark stream.