Paris continues to put up cheerfully with imconvenences. One of the greatest is the scarcity of coal. Thie 1s chien due yo lack of vigorous organization at Kouen, the port at which cargoes from across the sea are unloaded and put on light ers for conveyance up the Seine Although there are thousands of refugees who would be only too glad to earn a living by shifting coal, the authorities have been unable to get enough jabour, with the result toat the port is congested, steamers are kept waiting for weeks to load, demurrage charge# are mounting up, British shippers are swearing that they will send no more coal to such a chaotic place, and the stocks in Paris are rapidly dwindling. The big dealers can only serve their customers after a delay ranging from a week to a fortnight, and then only in small quantitice As for-the small vendors, they decline to deliver more than one sack at a time.
It is fortunate that, except for a cold snap last month, the winter 9 far has been mild, for, under pre sent conditions, the wretched women, thousands of whom are trying to exist on a shilling a day while their husbands are at the front, would have to freeze.
Not the Ville Lumiore, The most marked sign of coal scarcity is the reduction of street lighting. Before twelve o'clock all the electric lights and most of the gas-lamps in the streets are put out, and the boulevards are considerably darker than a small provincial town in normal times. Those whose business—I will not say pleasure, as there is none of a public nature at night—keeps them out after mid: night grope their way along through the darkness to the next solitary lamp, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards ahead. And Paris used to call itself the City of Light!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.