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Show PARIS 15 HOPEFUL DESPIM01I Residents No Longer Fear Germans Will Attack "City of Light." ABSINTHE IS BANISHED Wounded Are Cheerful; Famous Women Work as Nurses. i By GEORGES DUTEESKTB. PARIS, Feb. 27. We are in the carnival carni-val season, and, though it would be too much to say that we aro making merry and enjoying ourselves as we did a year ago. we are, nevertheless, feeling very optimistic, and Paris gradually begins to look like her old self. "Tout va blen" lias become the u6Ur! greeting everywhere among ail claeees, ar.d this In Itself, of course, shows where all our thoughts are with the long line of brave "pioupious" who are slowly forcing back the Germans with a patience of which we had never 'believed French soldiers sol-diers capable. There will be no "Quat Arts" ball, est course, this year for aiJ our younff artists are at the front and their gay models have become nurses or are knitting mittens mit-tens and body belts and sleeping helmets for their absent friends and former employers. em-ployers. But go Into the TutUerioB Garden In the lunch hour and you will find the little lit-tle mldinettes munching their frugal meal and chirping as gaily as birds who feel the first breath of spring In the air. Many of them are wearing the symbols of mourning, many of them are bemoaning bemoan-ing the loss of dear friends, but all are hopeful because they know that Franca Is safe and they laugh at the fear of the spiked helmets which only a few short months ago brooded like a dreadful nightmare night-mare over Paris. Optimism Rules. Or oroea the Seine, go to the left bank opposite where our national lawmakers rule, and you will find the same cheerfulness, cheer-fulness, the same optimism. Dignified deputies smilingly, submit to informal interviews in-terviews on a bench on the boulevard and j white-bearded senators with the red bou-I bou-I tonnlere of the legion of Honor in the buttonhole of the Immortal Prince Albert In Rue de Tournon, who, while he wlelda his razor or whirls around his curling iron, rocltes a new, original impromptu poena In honor of the sword. We have been busy making resolution since New Year's, partly because we have broken some of those we made a few weekB ago, partly because we must somehow some-how show our gratitude because "tout va bien." Most of the new resolutions will go the way of the old, but one is definite and irrevocable ir-revocable we will never again drink absinthe. ab-sinthe. The official decree tabooing the ; green curse of France will be made per-! per-! manent by the French people themselves. ; When you notice birds of passage come ; here again, perhaps this summer, for many of us are optimists enough to believe be-lieve that the kaiser's back will be broken brok-en before then, you. will find a new Paris, a calm, industrious and sober Paris. Its appeal you will, however, find Just as irresistible as that of the old. The spirit and atmosphere will be the same, though their expressions and manifesto- , tions will be more refined. At present we are, perhaps. Inclined to take ourselves a little too seriously. The T healer Francais still clings to the drama of strict classicism ; tho Opera Comique plays "I.a Fille du Regime m ;" French music and patriotic airs, and a. stern censor watches the repertory of the Increasing number of music halls. But wait a few months and you shall find us ready to receive you people from "outre-mer" with open arms and hi tho proper mood. Of course you remember from last summer sum-mer the Hotel Astoria, one of the favorite resting places of Americans of weulth. Well, Its glory lias departed, or, rather. I It has a new one- Tho famous barroom, where formerly American and French ! "jennesse doree" met to exchange coek-i coek-i talis and ideas, Is now a hospital ward, j Among the wounded who are here j nursed back to health are several young i men belonging to England's proudf.st i families, who have been lighting In tlio i ranks. Now, as before, the Astoria I one of i tho centers of lifo in Paris. Whenever I pass there 1 see crowds assembled outside out-side waiting for the ambulances which are to brine new wounded from the battlefields of Flanders. In the afternoon it is very lively outside out-side this headquarters of the British Red Cross. English ofliccrs in khaki come i and go, ubiquitous boy scouts elbow their way throng) the crowds. Aristocratic British women, in the garb of nurses, arrive in their own luxurious motor cars. In front of the main entrance a little Japanese "bonno" is playing with falr-halred falr-halred children. She wears patent leather leath-er slippers, black trousers instead of skirts, and a blue blouse. When she 'catchcH one of her little charges she kisses the child and on her strangely old Mongolian f.joe gleams a sickly yellow smile. Behind ono of the bis plate glass windows of the Astoria restaurant a wounded English soldier Is placidly watching his ally. Patients Smoke Cigarettes. This afternoon I visited the hospital. Invited bv Biironrss 'Ec EasfMir, who founded it. inside I found ilOO English patients, nrarly all on the way to rccov-; rccov-; ery. Tim chk-f surgeon. Dr. Jar vis, conducted con-ducted mo into the former restaurant ! facing tho Champs Elyses. Til ari! 1 fifty bed 3 here, enormous Rilt "Ills do luxe." Tho hall is ligl: I and cheerful. bh are tho patients. Side, by side you find Englishmen and Scotchman. Irishmen Irish-men and "n nn din nn, A nstru Hans s n1 Gurkhas. The air is blue with the smoke of rltrarettps. Tho hospital hn.-i thirty Enclish and thlrtv French trained nursr", many of thfjm with names whirh aro famous In history. In the hotel rooms h1ov aro the officers offi-cers and the more rer.;y wnunled. 1 shall not ntlt-mpt to liescrH,,. what I fmv. In one room oenph-d bv thre soldiers ono man 1h groanlmr loudly. "It is md so oiuh bernus nf pafn." Pr. Jarvly whispers to m "but this man was one of England's most famous football foot-ball pla vers. You undiTHtand ?" On the whole, however, the wounda ! are not as MTious an In form or wars, i Those wounded by rifle bullets recover i remarkably quik. Worse f. re the snrap-, snrap-, nr! wounds, but worst of all the wounds caused by shells, which nearly always canpft blood poisoning. "Have you seen any wounds from , dumdum bulk-is?" I ask. "No. never," Dr. .Tarvis replies. "T don't believe thre Bte any. Why should a nyono d el' berate! y a dd to the horrors of war? We leave that to you newspaper men." he adds, rather maliciously. |