STREET READERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 208, 30 March 1877, Page 15

STREET READERS.

The streets of Paris, which differ in almost every imaginable respect trom those of our own capital, are frequented by a species of the human race almost wholly unknown to London. This is the street reader, who devours the pages of his journal as he walks alono-, and endeavors with limited success to combine locomotion with mental improvement. An unusually lively contributor to the 'Patrie' gives a graphic account of these curious persons, some of whom every one familiar with Paris will remember to have run ao-ainst m the course of his walks abroad. The ' Patrie ' believes that the existence of the species dates from no more ancient date than 1830. Before that year the street readers who were to be seen occasionally were mere exceptional specimens belonging mostly to the pedao-o°-ic or theatrical class. But for nearly the last half century the street reader has been a familiar object. Few are those whose toes have not been trodden upon, whose hats have not been knocked off, or at least whose meditations have not been roughly interrupted by the charge of this misguided being as he flounders along the pavement, me temptation to read one's paper in the streets is no doubt stron°in the Pans capital. Almost every one buys his daily paper at a Kiosk, and if the news contained in it is suspected of bein°- excitinoit requires some patience to carry it quietly all the way home without even glancing at the contents. It is true that there is the alternative of retreating into the nearest cafe, or, shorter still of taking refuge under the cafe awning-, at one of the alfresco tables invitingly set out. But to that most important of all mortals even this delay is insupportable ; and the neighborhood of the kiosks is at one or two periods in every twenty-four hours a sort of debatable ground upon which eager readers, journal in hand, rush in erratic lines against the more sedate folk who expose themselves to their attack. The remarkable thing is that the street reader has, if the Tatrie can be believed, his favorite hours. From seven to ten in the morning and from four to five in the afternoon are the chosen times in which he indulges in the mental feast. He is, therefore, a member of one of the industrious classes, often a working man' sometimes a working woman, shop girl, seamstress, or lady's* maid' Ihe fianeur pure and simple is never fonnd indulging in the practice — 'Exchange.'