The illustrious vistor's rooms at the Elysee Palace Hotel are besieged overs day by crowds of people with various axes to grind. Motor-car makers have been particularly persistent, but his Majesty has not yet yielded to. their blandishments. He evidently thinks the automobile an overrated invention. He lit eight when he was in Paris in the Exhibition year and gave one to the Grand Vizier, who has never used it. The other seven have seldom seen the outside of their shed, and the French mechanic who was engaged to look after them has beaten no records except those for slowness, the Shah considering eight miles an hour quite fast enough for safety—an opinion which many thousands of inoffensive pedestrians would like to see enforced in France.
The Royal correspondence is extensive and peculiar just now. Every day the Minister of Public. Works, who was edu-rated in France, has to' wade through fully a thousand letters. Evidently there is an impression among the French public that the Shah has more money than he knows what to do with, and that he is fled with 2 desire to give it away as fast as possible. One correspondent writes that he saw the sovereign's, baggage arrive and is sure that if one of the trunks were presented to him the Shah would not miss it. Another, describing herself as a poor but honest maiden, petitions for a contribution towards her dowry, so that she may be enabled to marry the man of her choice and breathe blessings on the monarch's head as she walks to the altar. Dozens of fathers. of families declare their homes must. sold up.unless the Shah comes to the rescue with a good round sum. Others intimate that they would be pleased, for a small consideration, to name their newly-born offspring after his Majesty. A self-styled manufacturer holds forth on the immense possibilities of his business, which only requires an advance of £50,000 or so to become a most lucrative concern. It is somewhat curious that all these correspondents ask for money. When ho was in England he had more requests for autographs than anything else. Who will say after this that the English are a more practical nation than the French
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.