Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1914 — PARIS, THE GLORY OF EUROPE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PARIS, THE GLORY OF EUROPE

PETER THE GREAT said of Paris that if he possessed such a town he should be tempted to burn It down, for fear it would absorb the rest of his empire. Truly Paris is of interest to all men. To the student it is a vast university, from the Sorbonne to the Blbllotheque, Ste. Genevieve. To the pleasure seeker it is one wide world of pleasure, from the Moulin Rouge to Maxim’s. To the Bohemian it is all Bohemia, from the Latin quarter to the outer boulevards. To the devotees of fashion, it is an exquisite exposition of finery from the Rue de la Paix to Longchamps. To the lover of the drama it is one great stage. And the lover of horses can revel in 14 splendid race-courses. The administrative tendency in Paris is for municipal ownership of all works supplying public wants and directly affecting public health. The cleaning, sewerage and water supplies are under the charge of the prefect, and the 615 miles of underground sewers are so largs and kept so clean and well ventilated, that an hour's excursion through them is one of the ordinary experiences of visitors, the journey being made partly in boats and partly by electric trolleys. There is a wonderfully complete surface and underground system, fares three cents second class, five, cents first class for any distance. The city owns all the markets, cattleyards and slaughter houses, and there is a special sanitary police to enforce the laws of the health department. Mecca of Scholars. Its museums and libraries make Paris the mecca of scholars from all over the world. The “Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers” contains a great collection of models of machinery, and class rooms for the instruction of workmen in all departs meats of applied science. Among the numerous learned societies and institutions; the chief are the Academie de Medicine and the Institut de France.

Among the many temples of knowledge, however, the Ecoles des Beaux Arts Is the first of the art schools. The Louvre, the greatest single art gallery in the world, gives courses of study specially designed to Inters pret the collection; popular lectures, and a four years’ course for students preparing to fill positions as curators, librarians and traveling collectors for museums. The Luxembourg is a superb museum of contemporary painting and sculpture, and there are numerous small galleries and public buildings, like the Pantheon, filled with some of the finest creations of the French artistic imagination. But above all, Paris is a city of pleasure. There are 136 places of entertainment, including 55 general theaters. It is after sundown that Parts la seen at Its best and worst. Then the Parisians throng the cases on both sides of the river. You can pass by slow degrees from the splendidly served palaces on the big boulevards to-their degenerate descendants on the Montmartre Heights, then turn night into day. * The open air fife and the never ceasing Interest of the panorama spread before the people serve, however, to keep drinking within moderate limits, and consequently in a country where everybody drinks, few people get drunk. Should absinthe go out of fashion, Paris would become the most sober city in the world. Even now it must compare favorably with many. On Champs Elysees. In these hundreds of cases and restaurants the life of the city seems to focus for a time. Everyone’s purse, everyone’s taste in. cooking, is entered for. One can find in Paris restaurants like the Case Riche, on the smart Boulevard des Italians, where a dinner costs S2O a head, or one can obtain, an excellent student meal at SO cents tn a side street off the Boulevard St. Germain. v ' The tree-enshrouded Champs Blysees will be ablase; the myriad opalescent globes of the

the Alcazar, the Horloge, and those of the Cirque d'Eta win have become illuminated as if by magic, and now at a distance glow fireflies amid the thickly foliaged trees. If it be an opera night, the opera house will be lit up and have its mounted guards with their gleaming accoutrements. But Paris is also a city of sound humanitarianism, which does more for its workmen, Its children and its poor than almost any other city in the world. It supplies its poor children with schooling, shoes and food, it taxes every theater ticket ten per cent for a public fund 'which furnishes every year 15,000 free beds In hospitals and as many more in asylums. This fund has also built a maternity hospital where no questions are asked. It furnishes free medicines for the sick poor, collects a per diem from the employer of an Injured workman, and spends $10,000,000 yearly for benevolence. A public pawn shop, the famous Mont de Piete, which advances funds in any amount at six per cent on any and every sort of security, from a house to a flatiron, has been in existence far more than a century. Among the numerous hospitals and almshouses is La Salpetrise, for women, with 78 acres, and Bicetra, for men, with 8,600 beds. The Hospice des Enfants Trouves, or foundling hospital, provides for the infants brought to it until they reach the age of maturity. The Creches, or public nursersies, receive the infants of poor women at a cost of four cents a day. The educational facilities of Paris are marvelously complete. A system of kindergartens, “ecoles maternelles,” & provided for children between the ages of three and six, next follows the "ecoles enfantiles," which are the transition from the kindergarten to the primary, and then the primary schools for children below the age of fourteen.