French postal clerks have supplithe atest instance of the pre ing mania for decorating very ordinary occupations by. attractive names, They have asked to officially styled "postal secretaries. A similar process has already been carried out in other branches of the public service. In the Roads and Bridges Department we now have technical assistants" and, in the Customs, "assistant controllers." Not so very long ayo the appella tion of "tide-waiter" was not un-
Known in the outdoor department of our own Customs service, where it is no doubt as vigorously ree pudiated to-day ax anything corresponding to it would be spurned The example was set xome_ years ago, when the Municipal Couneit ennobled the pawnshops by making them branches of the "Credit Monieipale" a name which is more dignified if less pieluresque than "Mout de Pieté" To be really polite to a tutor nowaday, one miast address him as an "assistant ptofessor." The occupants of the porter's lodge ina Government building are now "entrance guardians." The useful person who specialize, in the care of children ig a "nurse" n that the English Hain amount of hie her occupation, The same iden is no doubt at the bottom of the custom which bestows (the hybrid word "littler" on the young man in the charge of the office or hotel lift. The went with couple of emall rooms and a typist calls his place "technical inves gation office and many a modest flat hus a corner called the studio.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.