AUTUMN IN THE CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS.
The work-girls who take sewing to their homes can earn from 75 centimes to 2 francs a day. In her interesting book on Paris life Mlle. de Pratz gives the following two budgets of midinettes receiving £34 and £48 per annum:—
| 850 fr. per annum | 1200 fr. per annum | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (£34). | (£48). | ||||
| Lodging | 100 | £4 | 150 | £6 | |
| Food | 550 | £22 | 750 | £30 | |
| Clothes | 100 | £4 | 150 | £6 | |
| Heat, light, washing, and recreation | 100 | £4 | 150 | £6 | |
| ____ | ____ | ||||
| 850 | 1200 | ||||
The struggle to make ends meet on the smaller incomes is no doubt great, for Paris, it must always be remembered, does not provide cheap living for any one, not even in its poorest quarters. As a whole the midinette class is badly fed and therefore delicate and too often a prey to consumption. It does not produce a high average of good-looking girls, for, being fond of amusement, late hours are indulged in very generally, with the result that when the hour for work arrives insufficient rest has been obtained. No doubt in so large a class—they are computed to number about 110,000—there is a wide range of character and morals, but there seems little doubt that, as a class, the chastity of the most poorly paid does not rank high. In a moral atmosphere such as that breathed by Parisians as a whole, it would be almost impossible for girls subjected to so much temptation on account of poverty to resist. And there is commonly no loss of self-respect when the downward step has been taken, for even when a girl convicted of such moral laxity is blamed, she merely replies with calmness that it is quite natural.
The Apache class lives in its own particular quarter of the city, and its members are not easily recognisable by the general public. The fraternity tattoo a certain arrangement of dots on the forearm by which recognition is instantly obtained. These dots indicate the motto of the Apache, Mort aux vaches! by which is intended their perpetual warfare with the police. This strange class of anti-social beings is recruited from many grades of Parisian life, all suffering from some abnormal mental condition unless drawn into the grip of the strange brotherhood by mischance when very young, as will sometimes happen with girls at an immature age. In spite of the national training in arms of the young men of France, this incredible class continues to exist and to perpetrate outrage, murder, and robbery. How many of these outlaws of society have experienced military service, and to what extent it has modified or accentuated their abnormality, are questions to which one would like to have answers.
Probably the average Parisian of the middle classes is more aware of the enormities of the concierge than of the Apache. The one is an ever-present annoyance, and the other a thing read about in the evening newspapers, but not encountered personally. Not so La Concierge. This individual is employed by a landlord to act as his watchdog in a block of flats. His duties are connected with showing the flats to prospective tenants, collecting rent, keeping the staircases clean, and delivering letters, the last being required because the Paris postman does not climb the stairs in flat buildings—all the letters for the building being delivered into the hands of the concierge. It is this matter of one's letters which gives the caretaker his power. He uses it to extort liberal gratuities for every small service, as well as a handsome étrenne on New Year's Day. It is the landlord who is at the fountain-head of the trouble. How seldom is it otherwise! He pays the concierge an entirely inadequate sum for his services, and as he has to supplement his income in some other way he, as a rule, leaves his wife in charge for a large part of the day and earns a supplemental sum elsewhere. The Frenchwoman is too often inclined to avarice, and it seems to be the exception to find in Paris a concierge's wife who will not levy a form of blackmail on the tenants whose letters come into her hands. She will make herself familiar with the character of the correspondence that each tenant receives, and if insufficiently tipped will not hesitate to hold up any letters that she believes are of importance. The opening of letters with steam is not beneath the moral plane of Madame la Concierge, and by various means she obtains such an intimate knowledge of the concerns of each tenant that peace and freedom from endless petty annoyances can only be bought at the price which she deems satisfactory. Mlle. de Pratz gives a vigorous picture of this bugbear of flat life in Paris, telling of the scandals that are circulated concerning entirely innocent people who have failed in the liberality of their étrennes, and how the residents of ill-reputation buy immunity from these baneful attentions by their liberal tips. How long, it may reasonably be asked, will Paris consent to this iniquity, which could be remedied by the delivery of letters direct to the door of each flat?
It is often a matter of discussion how far the proverbial politeness of the French goes beneath the surface. Generalising on such a topic is hedged about with pitfalls, and the wary are disinclined to enter such debatable ground. Compared to the British, whose self-consciousness or shyness too often leads to awkwardness in those moments of social intercourse when dexterity is needful, the French are undoubtedly ages ahead. The right phrase exactly fitting the requirements of the moment comes easily to their lips, and with it, as a rule, the right expression and attitude; and yet one must travel often in the underground railways of Paris to see a man give up his seat to a woman who is standing. It is understood that a young man cannot offer his place to a young woman, because it would suggest arrière-pensées; but if this regrettable state of affairs does exist, the restriction to such action does not apply when an old woman carrying a bundle is standing beside a youth, who could not be accused of anything but courtesy if he rose to save her the discomfort of standing. But no one seems to think such action a requirement of common politeness. While one finds great charm and civility among the assistants in shops, which often add very much to the pleasure of shopping, a disagreement on a business matter may be handled with much less courtesy than in a British shop. A hard, almost angry expression will come upon madame or mademoiselle's face, where over the Channel one would meet a look of mere anxiety. But Paris shopkeepers no doubt have a very cosmopolitan world to attend to, and they perhaps encounter many rogues. There is unevenness in manners everywhere, and while one class of workers may be soured by adverse conditions and lose their natural charm in the economic struggle, another will expand in the sun of easy and pleasant conditions. The Parisian horse taxi-cab driver with his picturesque shiny tall hat and crimson waistcoat is not conspicuous for his politeness unless his pour-boire is very liberal, and the railway porter can easily be insulting if he is dissatisfied with a tip. In London there is much unmannerly pushing on to trams and omnibuses during the morning and evening hours, restricted here and there by the method of the queue, but in Paris all the chief stopping-places of the omnibuses are provided with publicly exposed bunches of numbered tickets. On a wet day a little girl or a cripple has merely to tear off one of these slips of paper, and when the 'bus arrives the conductor takes up his passengers in the numerical order of their tickets—all unfair hustling being thus eliminated.
The Parisian bonne à tout faire has been diminishing in numbers for many years. In the thirty years between 1866 and 1896 the total was nearly halved, leaving about 700,000 of this overworked and underpaid class. The day of frilled caps has gone, and even a bib to the apron is considered an out-of-date demand. It is no doubt the need for stringent economy in the flats constituting the greatest part of home life in Paris, which is responsible for the dislike to domestic service on the part of the young women of the capital.
An undesirable arrangement in flat buildings is the housing of all the maids of the building in very small bedrooms on the top floor. In the hours in which the girls are free from duty they are able to do more or less as they please on their floor, and the result is that the natural protection of the home is missing in the hours of rest and leisure, when their need is most pressing. The average bonne à tout faire is not disinclined to hard work, and she is clever and willing to put herself to any trouble in an emergency or when there are guests to be entertained. Boredom however, seems to settle upon her during the normal routine of life, and her buoyant nature makes her inclined to sing and talk loudly about her work. She is in a great proportion of cases more intimate with the family than the servants in London flats, and on this account her manner assumes a familiarity that in the circumstances is fairly inevitable. A man visitor will commonly raise his hat to the maid and call her "Mademoiselle."