Steamers on the Seine Everyone who has enjoyed travelling on
the Seine steamers at Paris will regret to hear that this summer they will no longer run. The General Council of the Seine Department has decided to stop them, since for some summers past they have been run at a loss. This will be bad news for Mr. A. P. Herbert and the rest of those among us, who would like to see Thames " water buses " ; for the argument to the Thames from the Seine was really one of the strongest arrows in their quiver. Yet the facts, when looked into, scarcely seem so damning to the " water bus " idea. The Seine concern and its boats were old and, like many other things in French official hands, theyhad drifted into a phase of bad and expensive management. Now that Paris is suffering so acutely under the. trade slump, the calls for economy have grown peremptory and almost reckless. That the saving to be effected in this direction is real may well be doubted by the many lovers of Paris, who have cared for its steamer-trips in the past and will miss them in the future. After all, in the narrow sense it would be " economy " to abolish the parks=they cost a lot to keep up and never show a money profit.
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