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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 1908)
T " mi mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmminn 1 1 iu bjuumui ' " n 7-s y - . 1 t . ; f . s , . jLiM--jv7 - , v . ? 1 i , v a -5 r - s ? J - - PORLLAND,- OREGON, ' SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 6, 1908 MKT G WdlMbPf The Greatest Amuse ment Trust on Earth in Financial Straits OYEZ Oyezf Hear, all you who design to eMer Paris and -prefer not to leave hope behind! After you have counted and figured and reckoned every one among the many items of expense for your stay in the city of the Greatest Amusement Trust on Earth, after you have added the "inciden tals," which include the tolls of the bri gandage that vAll be levied on you, from the big price you pay for fresh apples to the charge of another dollar or two for the "satisfaction" into uhich your hotel proprietor is entitled to' construe your speechless wrath then, and not till then, add 2 per cent, on the jotr.l. That will about represent the tax you will have to pay for the privilege of sup porting the city of Paris and of relieving the local bandits of their share of taxation, For, strange as it may seem, Paris is plan ning to increase its undersized revenues by placing a 2 per cent, tax on the hotel bills of ajl foreigners. . It there a reason ? There is. It is the same reason, expressed in the same words, that actuated the western rdad agents who, were holding up an excursion of tourists. "Oh, my friends " cried one of the victims, as the leader accepted his pocket book, "why, why are you engaged in this nefarious callingf" "Because," responded the road agent, reaching for his watch, "we need the money." ',r ' I) .J.tt.li-t, ' CUV ,ffr 5 hi t il.. -t:(04'rl r '1 I P kARIS needs tho money. That's all. Peris indulged itself in a financial revolution, for the benefit of the Pa- neians, in lwi. it aDoiisnea me octroi tax on beer, wine and eider. That helped the Parisians along wonderfully, as individuals. Unfortunately, it impoverished them cor respondingly aa a municipality. The city went broke to the extent of $1,00,000 a year. By this time it is $9,400,000 shy on the commodity which Parisians love better than anything else in the world. ' It was at this nerve-racking juncture, when it seemed as though the good Parisians might actually be called upon to support themselves, that Prefect Deselves announced to the Mu nicipal Council: "ATy dear friends, behold, I have a plan, a key to this inexplicable difficulty. We will tax the tourists. "Observe, there is ample precedent. Many summer and winter resorts impose suth a tax on their visitors, in order that the improve ments and conveniences which the strangers enjoy may be maintained. "Does not our beloved Paris impoverish r ITf-J72- S 1 U7sM4 . ill) C0D U" i ,7Z 4 -y 7 A 3! It was immediately afterward'that-the hotel keepers began to breathe hard and acquire crimson countenances. Was it not enough that these wretched Americana should be cutting their stay in Paris down to the period of a swallow's flight for reasons of an unprecedented economy i Wus it not more than enough that upon tho hotel proprietor already fell the for eigners' execrations as the one bandit what charged them for comforts they neither. pe eeived nor appreciated? And must he now ba made tho hateful agent of an obnoxious pre fecture in the collection of what must be a- uni versally execrated tax? So the hotel men are making very vigorous objection to the proposed new tax, which, they; assert, will injure the business of Paris as thai greatest show place, tho Greatest Amusement Trust on arth. , Today most of the "sights" of ' Paris, apart from those stock exhibits which are embodied in the famous buildings, the collections of art and tho historical localities, are planned and ex ploited as deliberately as the act of a modern, mammoth-ringed circus. In fact, tho Paris of the sightseer really la nothing more nor less than a show in a ring, to which it is. now proposed to charge an admis sion. Tho ring,t which circumscribes "Gay Paris" as a parallelogram would be required to bound the Tenderloin of New York, is, at most, a mile in diameter, ft' if - i s i Mi'- ' j ' ' I. i tt:T lit 1 1 1 i caw 'i' K - f v. One- cr fire resr4A72S3csrresrrs cxttsry &us-r?y s?re ycWyL?ucz itself for the support ; of its parks, avenueand 2 per cent.-upon their living expense while they museums I ho are, they who derive from those aro U9ing . our boulevards, gazing upon our ,plcpdoM.-the. mpst jntense enjpymenttWi paintings, motoring: through our, narks; would Parisians!, JsTeverl The strangers are tho instantly relieve us of this haunting- deficit ; and benc..ai?C8;i i ? i - . -r, , out iUust"03low IsrWell, then," declared tlic great Dosolves, : pursue, with no harrowing care as to taxation, let the atrangers pay. Millions of them draw. their favorite methods of taking away the rest opoa our hpspitfility every'year. An additional of the money." . ; , . - l'he council saw that it had a financial genius to think for it. It acreed, joyfully, that M. Deselves was emitting noises that were dis-ttiii-tlv agreeable, although they sounded more poet ieal than practical. Could the distinguished prelect vouchsafe some hints as to ways and lui'iins of connecting with the 2 per cent, with out having the American battleship fleet hustle forth on another trip around tho world, via Puis? t'ertement. rejoined M. l)eselves. Did tho honorable etnmcilors imagine ho would present Jrinself before them with the dream of a pip1.! Behold, then: Was not the eitv of Paris equipped with the most reliable strong-arm men since the days when tho publican was indicted in the gospels and the money , changers -were scourged out Lof"-.thc".-tennie.f,:::Whrre-uld be found such experts as the Paris hotel keepers!? Let the prefecture supply to eyyhotel and furnished apartment house a book, in which must be entered the charges for the room or the apartments," the period of occupancy, and tho : total of the bill, io that total liouM be added the visitor's tax of l' francs tor every I'm l runes or fraction then ot in the lemti.nat,' ( il. that. the ta.C ituht not be too ,n. mus-ir too difficult of collection there .-hotu'd lv cur tain exemptions. 'I Inn. any strainer occupy ing a room that cor-t less than '2 i runes a day should bo-immune ; so should thos,. wio main tain a permanent residence m Pans, and tor eignera who, renting apartment in.-tali their own furniture and thus qualify as permanent residents, of the city. JThe proprietors of all hotel'? and furnished apartments being directly responsible to the prefecture, and all visitors, with few exceptions, necessarily seeking their roofs for shelter over , aiight,, the system would servo as a net. from ..v.Mfc!, ...... o-- -e- . . . ,-s, . :l wi . escape. -The tax rate being no more than 2 per 5L?ri'nc8 Bna Iour Deers ptr vni' in li' cent. he would be a niggard ,indeed who should ffaon,-'ff -'mti, verses ground out l y gruge soraalharr-extra-eharge for the pleas- Buche, last spring, at the request of t) r ure of being admitted -to the delights of theTrofrietor, for . recitation ly try !,-.;, greatest show on earth. ' , (CONTINUED ON mzioz i a ; . ) Within that charmed circle, around which it would need no Marathon winner to walk in an hour, the stranger will find, in circus slang as accurate as it is picturesque, "the whole show : and the main squeeze." There aro plenty of "lemons." ' You can dine, or wine, or both, at the most picturesque restaurant in the world, where you can see the most mysterious fortune tellers reading palms, an entrancing Spanish dancer pirouetting impulsively on some tablo to whifirj she has bounded in her gay frivolity, and A chimpanzee that condescends to imbibe a glass . ot champagne with any human who has failed " to secure entree to the select circle at Newport, It the sightseer be only young enough to , 1 foolish, or old enough to be childish, the illu Rion may be reveled in for as much as half an hour. It is, indeed, to be here as wicked as th dickens. . .. , . LIKE AMERICAN "FAKERS" Tut to any one who has ever heard tho .rau cous notes of the barker at the American side th-jv, there comes tho native instinct to look -aroiuid lor the snake-charmer, He-Eats-'Em-Ahvc. and the pink lemonade. . . They have, too, poetical cabarets where, in ' the midst of the steins and the cigarettes that proclaim bohemia, and while you are drinking in artistic atmosphere and German lager, somo ' Johl- haired rhapsodist suddenly arises and, rlaa:ing back his romantic locks, permeates tha interior with the sad cadence of an impromptu 1 sonnet on "Death, in ilemoriam for Two Fried v F., i ....... How thrilling! lie must be tho modern ll.uiolphe. adding a post-mortem chapter to the "Vie do Boheme." He has emerged from the bleakness of .ilontmartre'a studios -from tho despairing hunger of "the Quartier Latin toi sing the swan song of his hopes, to fling a last defiance at the crass, material world.'to lay his laurel wreath upon the cold corpse of his arn- 'bitions. ; lie mustn't be anything of tho kind. Ho I t .Louis uanacno doing- ft private vaudeviilo d?u t i in. t .1 3
