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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."
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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
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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,
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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
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