The French have amongst their other characteristics a striking ability of getting right down to essentials amd in their classification of apparatus used in the production of jazz sounds they seem to have got at the root of the matter even if they have been a little gentle in ranking the implements in question as toys. From an exchange we learn that.
Hitherto musical instruments coming into France have paid the Customs duty applicable to the particular class ati instrument to which they belong. Customs officials ha', lately been puzzled by curious wonden' instraments, the exact use of which they could not determine, neither could they place them in any particular category are now to be helped in the atter of discrimination.
The "Journal j Mficiel'' publishes a decree stating that "wooden objects intended to produce sound'' employed in jazz band orchestras are to be deprived of their right to the designation of musical instruments and will in future be classed as playthings and be subject to the Customs duties levied on toys.
It is just a little hard on toys that they should be so insulted by being classed with the atrocities used in the modern ball room, but the gentle suggestion that jazz instruments merit derision as mere frivolities is in true Gallic style.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.