Now that the Paris season is in full swing and those of Lo Touquet, Deauville, Cobourg and other fashionable summer resorts are! close at hand, the dancing masters of Crepe have new dances, which are just as ponsible as new dresses to the social world, These experts have held parks earnest debates, enriched by estimate the number of hunters, white, black, brown and yellow, in all the tropical countries of the world, who now look upon snakes as the most profitable game to pursue. The big boas and pythons, which used to be left severely alone, are having a bad time. Their skins fetch from Fr. 200 to Fr. 500 a yard in the Paris market, according to th, the beauty of the markings, and condition, which varies siderably, the skins often being very inadequately treated before they are shipped to Europe. Inch for inch, an Indian cobra's skin is even more valuable than a python's, on account of the variety and fineness of its markings, which) make it very becoming, especially for collars or any ornament worn near the face. Handbags are made chiefly from lizards and iguanas. The demand, of course, has created imitation, and the skin of the innocent sheep. duly camouflaged, frequently masquerades as that of the wily serpent, Unromantic Firemen Every Paris theatre and music-hall has at least one fireman on duty behind the scenes when a performance is going on, and many of these valuable public servants remain for long periods at the same establish-went. Tt occurred to a person of ingulfing whether such close acquaintance with the stage might not fill a fire man with the desire to emerge from the wings and figure as an actor or inger, or even a gymnast, The westigator could trace only one instance of such ambition and its. results were not encouraging.
One fireman remarked that an artiste's career is not always amuse ing, that there are such things as to feel sure of getting one's pay at the end of the month. A fireman the Comedie Francaise, asked if he did not feel inspired to declaim beautiful poetry, replied that unfortunately he had never been to get rid of An officer of the brigade sadly remarked that firemen are less roman-tie than they used to be. He said that, some 20 years ago, all the men in his detachment were crazy about "Cyrano de Bergerac; them knew long passages by heart, but no one could imagine fireman in the year-1927 spouting poetry. The inquiry rather seem: to confirm the modern adjectivs meaning of the word "pompier (fireman), now applied to any unimaginative and stereotyped specimen of art or literature.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.