OUR PARIS LETTER. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Paris, November 22.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1953, 13 January 1885, Page 3

OUR PARIS LETTER. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Paris, November 22.

Thf cholera tells truwt >e\eioly on thoshopkteping classes an 1 ) hotelkeepms, became it h is killed right off their tu-tomers, > w lio as tourists, amid tho "city of light' -..•> quote Victor Hugo's 212 degrees patriotic simile, or as the Upper Ten, who remain next to heinietically sealed up in their country seats. Bearing in mind Toulon and Marseille*, the wonder is cholei.v did not fraternuo e.irlitu with tho slums of Paris. Some philosophers assert it w«» timing its debut with the opening of Parliament. With a death rate of hut one decease per every thousand inhabitants, the disease hardly ments to be called an endemic, and still less an epidemic. Then it is not c«>ck-of the walk, for in the quarters where it first appened it has been actually ejected by typhoid fever. The latter arrives in its due season —the present, as regulaily as the swallows in theirs. The cold weather is nipping the microbes also. In the hospice of the Avenue de Breteuil, where the cholera made a dash and carried off a score of aged inmates m an afternoon, it h.-vs leaked out that the old folks were anything at all but at home there, having been left without food, in consequence of circumlocution office bquabbles. Pans considers her.^elf so well out of the ' cholera wood that she indulges compassionately on the condition of villages in -^ get.eral. This smacks of the two middies during a storm cozily seated in the crow's nest, and lamenting the hardships of the land lubbers. Veiy few ullages, or even towns, in France practice sanitation : liquid manure pours in streams before the dwellings ; ana thero are cabins possessing but one window, which has never been opened, becauso constructed to remain per manently closed. " Fiat lux," "aid tho Creator ; " no ventilation," adds man. The c )oles>t head-, and the impartial Republicans now concur that the economical and financial situation of Fiance is \eiv grave. America »nco boasted that she beat all other nations in running up a big national debt. Fiance nny soon dispute that champion's belt. I see numerous subterfuges to disguise the leality of the situation, but, talk excepted, no plans to chock the evils. A pitiless exercise of the surgeon's knife is necessary. The war estimates are nearly double at piesent, as compared with 1870. England would do well to note that, in 1876, the navy estimate-, which wero annually 13(5, are now 200 million!*, plus 10 millions for extiaordmary needs. In 1870 the estimates of tho Minuter for Commerce weio7V millions— due to the bounties accorded? The Civil Service estimates hare run up 150 per cent in the last eight years, and though there be less judges now, owing to " reforms" than in 1870, the augmentation of the judicial estimates is 10 per cent. When Louis XIV wished to make Le Peletier Minister for Finances, the Keeper of the Heals objected. " Why ?" demanded the King. " Because his soul is not hard enough. The thud Republic has had no Chancellor* of the Exchequer with the requi ite fhntine&s of heart to refuse the npphcitions for evtravagant expenditure. And the goose has ceased to lay the expected golden eggs. The Parliament of Rouen, in 17C3, proclaimed that the actual state of the finances of tho nation was such that in time of peace the taxation was heavier than in tune of war. Proof that the evils had come to the worst, and presaged a frightful future, Louis XV replied with his customary insouciance, " that can well con tmne as long as ourselves, and then after us — the deluge " No new sources of taxation exist. A fresh loan would be only piling Oss.i on Pelion. A Gladstone is required to apply the axe to the root of the tree. France may be rich enough to pay for her glories, but she certainly is not for her extra va"ances. The return to protection will not mend matters. It is not so much the size of the loaf that occupies the bread-winner, as how to cai n the money to buy it. Germany is held responsible for killing the industries of France, by the most favoured nation clause she inserted in the Frankfort treaty. Only a war can destroy that treaty. Certainly German goods inundate France, and undersell similar articles by a difference of 50 to 100 per cent. If looked into, that difference represents the lower priced labour with tho Teuton, fabricants less needy for profits ; superior, modernized, and scientific processes of production, and more energy and speculation in the general conduct of business. The leportof the inquiry into the conditions of the industrial arts and artizans has just been issued by M. Antoine Provost. He states that in the tenible competitim existing, neither pre-eminence of knowledge nor superiority of taste, will now suffice to en-uro victory •<> Jong as employers and employed have excessive pretensions to remuneration and salaries. M. Provost remarks : " Parisian workmen disdain the means of instruction afforded by the free technical schools, and they are foreigners who most assiduously frequent them." This is more terse still : " The elevation of salaries coincide* w ith a certain abasement of professional knowledge, and with the production of a le«s quantity of work. If this bo persisted in, tho foreign market will be closed to France, and her artistic industries miwt succumb." Those who aro enamouied with soldienzing nations onght to ponder on this elegant extract— The director of the famous Baccarat glass factory states : " I have never seen a young man, after the interruption occasioned by compulsory military service, become a distinguished workman." Haid tiir.es are brooming the thermometer is in .■tdv.)iice of the almanack, black, aie succeeding white frosts, and work is \ cry slack, and will be more so. M. Grevy has been blamed for not vUiting any of the cholera patients, ho might imitate the outage of the Empress Eugenie, a woman at Amiens, und of King Humbert, at Naples. Peihups he will visit the famished, and distribute to them personally rohef. In the severe winter of 1784, Louis XVI went through Versailles eveiy night on foot, giving the needy money, and soeing that the nobles kept fires burning in their court yards, or before the mansions, to warm the destitute, and for such good works, Parisians did not cut off his head, but erected a " snow statue " to him, and Marie Antoinette, before the Louvre. President Grevy might go in for a snow statue, it would in addition be a change m the reigninir mania for statue raising to everybody, and nobody. Tt would endure less 'tis tine, than bronze or marble. But in pmbiliiHMits, do not spices only prolong deny .' A new repiino would sweep away all the lepublic statue-. The Chinese question passes all under* Ht Hiding. It may be dc-cnbed in two woids, silence and mystery. The Tonquin (oiimiittee has produced its report ; after * month's laboni the mountain has brought fii tii a nimise. M. Feny has neither a pi. m fui dealing with Chum, ii"f a prospect of hriujrin." Ik i 111 1 her knees. One day it is to U'Lp ii<*i in hot water in Tonkin ; the next to use Foimosa as a "thorn in her flesh." Well may the Celestials Uugh at all this. Nothing would suit them better than to continue tho "reprisals" and "judicious distinctions" on these lines. But Western nations and the United States may have a word to put in. John Chinaman is skilfully using the politico! discontent in France and the lowering European horizon. But M. Ferry has his majority to back him up. So had Napoleon 111., till the Ith September, 1870. Opinion here is apprehenbive that Bitmark's Colonial Congiens ostensibly convoked to permit Germany to pick up_ any disjecta membra of the world's territory k will prove to bo the beginning of a strife, fc.whi(.h is like the letting out of water. The HLiberalism of the Continent, which looks to BKngland as her custos and champion, is de- * lighted; the intends arming a new fleet. The mere announcement has already produced an excellent effect. Freedom and civilisation unhappily cannot now-a-days exist without their auxilano", Blut and Ewen. It is said, '* there is some soul of goodness in things evil " ; perhaps it is not a misfortune for the world or France herself that she be in the Octopus clutches of China at present, as Bismarck and the other absolute monarchies, which doat upon R«Kublicanimn, might egg her on by fanning er chauvinism to assume an attitude in Egypt that would necessitate England's precipitating the cour»e of events to general war. . Tho Exhibition Commission is actively at work examining all the project! for the proposed structure. The President assures us it will not be a bazaar like preceding international shows, still less a fair green. There is not a particle of enthusiasm for the wholo affair, save in the official world. The constitution ot the Commission is not approved of : It consists of too many guinea-pigs, or, as the French themselves say, of gros legumes, Not the least of tho curiosity will be to see autocratic government* a«-i»ting round the catalogue, and at the I)e Profundis of their feudal principles. With Freedom and Progress chanting their C<t*ra and Kaisers ought to bo

foi warded tins consolation of Volt.m<?, *' Let iii <i\ow tb.it a vent.ibly good Icing is thii must beautiful gift th.it he.uen can m.iko to earth." Ni> nno appears willing to accept the diiettoi-lnp ot the National 0pe.1.1, th.it su'veof the Dananie-, like T>>nquin. The ai tistes. ha\e signed a round robin that they mil ie»ignif then -tn sal.mes bo i educed. Madame Iviauss will ily back to Vienna-, and Labile to a tasern w.utetship. The opera runs in, debt at the rate of 80,000fr. per month. No wonder it killed M. Vaucorheil. Some pr >po-e to comert the building into a home for the legislators, or to let it out as a bazaar to Wandei ing Jews. I do not think that other opera house, the Italians, is coining either ; it is being suffocated by stars ciushing in the cash box; and these stars differ, as subscribers know to their" co-t, veiy much in gloiy. We want new operas ; some music of the piesent, en attendant that of the future. M. Planquette's comic opera, introduced from London, and reduced to the title of Rip, has been well received at the lilies Dramatizes ; but his music, like Offen bach's and Leeocy's always plows and amuses. The Palais Royal gnes a faicc in thobioad style peculiar to this house, Le Cupidon in thiee acts, by AI. Bisson. It is a tufle less screaming than similar works. The Odein lias given a fair allround representation of Macbeth. Were Madame Teissandier to put more style into her acting as L.idy Macbeth, and be a little more accurate as to historical costume, she would do. It is not a burlesque impersonation, like the grand Savalis, it comes more up to what Shakspero drew. Ma Femme M inguede Chic, a three act comedy by Mossis Busnach and Debrit, is a rattling play. It will not allow melancholy nor cholera to come with forty miles of the spectator, Broad grins and splitting sides, from the best cordon sanitairo. A correspondent at Tonkin states, the French attribute the terrible slaughterings they inflict on the Chinese, to the use of the Kropatchek rifles ; it works wonders, like the Chassepot at Meutana. It is the lepetitnm principle applied to the Gnu. rifle. It is only excellent on board ships or behind defences; it is a kind of hand mitrailleuse. The Cafe Helder is the rendezvous of the na\ al and military worlds. Between four and si\ of an afternoon it is full of officers, passing through Paris, or quartered in tho capital. The generals sit at one din-ion of the tables, the colonels, lieutenant colonels at others all sipping thoir absinthe, that tfoieiande desbraves. The cafe" is these days .very animated proof that business is not black. > The Australians may consider tho Recidivst question as settled. France has no colony whore to ship off her 60,000 choice Bill Sykeses. New Caledonia is chok full : Guyane is unhealthy : reformation is hopeless. She must keep them at home, The Cook's annual culinary tournament, has been postponed on account of the cholera. Perhaps there might be death in pots. Hint to patriotic lectures.— A Brazilian has just lectured on the advantages of his empire for emigrants. He claims it to be superior to Tonkin. E ich auditor was presented j with a pound of coffee and a pamphlet on entering. That beats the (iieek who brought a brick of the house he was selling to market, as a specimen of the building. M de Nadaillae relates a perfect prev entive of divorce with the zapateques. The adulteious beauty is condemned to death, and all the accomplices of her frailty are compelled to eat some of her flesh. Berlioz the musician begged that no funeral oration would bo delivered over higrave ; the " eloquence would weary me."