NEW IDEAS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 671, 25 October 1933, Page 7

NEW IDEAS

PARIS DAY BY DAY LATEST TAXIS HAVE SLOT MACHINES FOR SWEETS. BRIGHTER POSTAGE STAMPS. Paris, S-ept. 16. Londoners, accustomed as they are to taxicabs of curious designs, which to foreign visitors look like exhibits from a MSuseum of Transport Through' the A-ges, would probably consider ■that Paris taxis are coanfortable beyond all possibdlity of improvement. Parisians, however, are used to rid■ing with all the ease of private car owners for a few fraones a kilometre and take a different view. They are fickle about their taxis. Every few mionths one of the leading manufacturers places a vehicle of dmproved design on the streets, and enjoys public favour until one of his rivals produces somlething better. Tn the saime way individual owners of taxis take great pains to render travelling as atttractive as possible. The latest fashion is to place slot machines in the vehicles so that passengers can help themselves to chocolate and other delicacies. The idea ds certain to be extended. It is pointed out that the taxis of Paris, in which some 200,000 people pass periods carrying from five minutes to half an hour 01* more every day, form a vaist potential market place. Not only sweets, but cigarettes, books, soaps, razor blades, and many other sm'all objects might be displayed inside them to the profit of imlanufacturers and the conveni■ence of fares. The Self-Stamp Club." '"Brighter Posta'ge Stamps." has long been the slogan of all Frenchmen dnterested in art, tourist propaganda and philately. As I have already reported, an exhibition of French and foreign stamps was recently held in Paris with the object ef persuading the authorities to'make dts issuies more dnteresting. But as nothing has been done Parisians are taking the matter int'6 their own hands. 'A body loiown as the "Self-stamp Club" has just been formed by arItists and actors at Montmartre. They have decided that if France refuses to advertise herself on postage stamps, Frenchmen will. The club's productions are not necessaxily intended to flatter its raembers. On the contrary, one of these days you may be receiving from Paris a letter bearing a small caricature. Butt you will have to admit that the letter has been made brighter. tOf cours© the "Neo-Philateldsts," as they might well be called, will have to use the ofiicial French stamps to frank their letters besddes thedr own. 6 The Little Tin Soldiers at War. W!ar has been deelared. Military despatches are reaching Paris from the town of Grenoble, in the southieast of France. The military manoeuvres in the Champagne district have been quite eclipsed in public interist by the Grenoble hostilities. Firmly entrenched on the one side are the Socialist Mayor of the town and all his political supporters. In the opposite trenches are little tin soldiers. The meital warriors were in the 1 field first. Arrayed neatly on a stand at a local fair, they proved t0 be mercenary troops. They were there to be sold in aid of a statue to be erected in memory of local war heroes. ■Objecting to them, however, on the ground that Ithey fostered the militarist spirit, the Mayor of Grenoble routed them from the field. With them ddsappeared the posters appealing for funds for the monument. But now the counter-attack has begun. The tin troops are pursuing" their mercenary campaign all over Grenoble, and shopkeepers are displaying- the wicked posters in all the main streets.