apartments, because their poor little notices “Chambre à louer” were exempted from the ten-centimes tax, was a fair specimen of the frivolous and vexatious spirit which animates the children of la Grande Nation. For their neatness they are proverbial; and any one walking through the streets of Paris cannot fail to notice the admirable order in which the various stations are kept. No rain-soaked bills peeling off, no mud-plashed announcements of pieces which have been withdrawn for weeks—all is neat and fresh, and corrected to date. The gay colours of the posters, the many-tinted sides of the kiosques, the illuminated “spectacle” columns, the gilt-lettered balconies, the quaint gas devices, and the thousand-and-one pretty and ingenious ideas which are pressed into the service of the modern goddess Publicity, are all items in one lovely and harmonious whole, the most beautiful and the best-arranged city of modern times, Paris. We can teach France many things, probably she can teach us one certainly—which is, that art, even genius, may be successfully applied to such a very small pursuit as that of advertising.
The consideration of réclames, which are now regarded as so essentially French, has reminded us, not alone that they were fashionable, though under a humbler