There is probably no more forlorn street in Paris at the present moment
than the Rue de la Paix, the headquarters for dressmakers and milliners.
Upwards of seventy-five per cent. of the shops are closed, and on both
sides the street presents a long, gray expanse--broken only at
intervals--of forbidding iron shutters.

It is not here, however, that one must look for the effect of the war on
American business, but rather along the Avenue de l'Opera, the Grand
Boulevards, and other well-known business streets.

In the Avenue de l'Opera, at the intersection of the Rue Louis-le-Grand,
the Paris shop of the Singer Sewing Machine Company is closed, while on
the other side Hanan's boot and shoe store is also shut. Just off the
avenue, where the Rue des Pyramides cuts in, the establishment where the
Colgate and the Chesebrough companies exploit their products likewise
presents barred doors. Two conspicuous American establishments remaining
open in the Avenue de l'Opera are the Butterick shop and Brentano's.

Mr. Lewis J. Ford, manager of Brentano's, said that they had lost a
quarter of their employes and fifty per cent. of their trade by reason
of the war, but proposed to keep open just the same.

In the Grand Boulevards the Remington typewriter headquarters are
closed, as is the Spalding shop for athletic supplies; but the
establishments of the Walkover Shoe Company, both on the Boulevard des
Capucines and the Boulevard des Italiens, are open.

In spite of the hardship entailed upon American firms, they are far from
complaining. On the contrary, there is a concerted movement among
American business men at this time to assist the French in keeping the