n
accomplish. There are now in process of construction in the suburbs of
Paris several rows of houses built on the American plan, and it is
hardly possible to tell how comfortable and home-like the neat separate
abodes look to one who has been journeying round amid a series of
"floors," each so like the others. To the casual visitor there is a
despairing amount of sameness in the fitting-up of all French furnished
apartments. The scarlet coverings on the furniture, the red curtains,
the light moquette carpet with white ground and gay flowers, the white
and gold of the woodwork, the gilt bronze clock and candelabra, the
tables and cabinets in marquetry and buhl, are all precisely alike in
each, and all wear the same hotel-like look and lack of individuality.
Nobody here seems to care anything for home or home belongings. A suite
of apartments, even if occupied by the proprietor, is not the shrine for
any household gods or tender ideas: it is a place to rent out at so much
per month should the owner desire to go on a journey. No weak
sentimental ideas about keeping one's personal belongings from the touch
and the usage of strangers ever troubles anybody's mind. Tables and
chairs and carpets and curtains are just so many chattels that will
bring in, if rented, just so much more income: around them gleams no
vestige of the tender halo that surrounds the appurtenances of an
American home.

The servant question is one that is just now of special interest to the
American housekeeper in Paris. I have elsewhere spoken of some of the
trials inflicted by these accomplished but often unprincipled domestics
on their masters and mistresses, so will not expatiate further on the
subject. I will merely specify as a special grievance the law that
forces the employer who discharges a servant to inscribe on his or her
character-book a _good_ character: should the departing help have
been sent away for gross immorality, theft or drunkenness, and should
the master write down the real reason of the dismissal, he renders
himself liable to an action for defamation of character. The person,
therefore, who engages servants from their character-book has no real
guarantee as to their worth. It is a well-known fact also that the
intelligence offices in Paris are far more anxious to obtain places for
bad servants than for good ones, because the former class return to them
more frequently, and are consequently the better customers. As to the
percenta