STRANGE STREET NAMES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1938, Page 7

STRANGE STREET NAMES

SOME FRENCH EXAMPLES. One street of Paris, the Street of the Fishing Cat, has given its name to a famous novel, and has incidentally called attention to the many strange street names in Paris and other towns of France. There are many picturesque names in Paris, such as Almond Tree Street, or the Green Road Street, now with not a vestige of the greenery which bordered it when Jean Jacques Rousseau passed along it musing. Big Stone Street, Street of Naughty Boys, Wooden Sword Street, Dry Tree Street, CutPurse Street, Butter Mill Street, and Street of Mules’ Footsteps, are all to be found in quarters where old houses abound. In the suburbs of Paris, at Sevres, on the bank of the Seine close to the wooded hills of St Cloud, is the Street of the Wineless Well, and the Alley of the Headless Woman, echo probably of some crime. At Epinal, picturesque town of the Vosges, is an Alley of Vain Endeavour. Matching this is a street of the cathedral city of Beauvais, the Street of the Ascension with Regret. Renowned for good meals, Strassburg can show you a Garlic Street and a Sucking Pig Square. Marseilles grows romantic, with Street of Little Brides, and Lovers’ Street. One of the strangest street names in France, however, is undoubtedly that at Lille, which has a Street of Humpbacked Cats.