Word: franc
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...your issue of Feb. 8 (FRANCE), your little article under the caption of "Quel Beau Nu" doesn't exaggerate one bit. I spent the summer in Paris and was at the Concert Mayol several times. Why I went is beyond me, as it is without question the greatest "gyp" joint ever foisted on an American public. You can't turn around without bumping into an extended palm, and my first experience cost a 20-franc note for a one-franc service. They don't know the meaning of the word "change." The insipid Harry Pilcer was the leading (?) attraction...
...years ago, U. S. students at Paris celebrated with notable champagne-bibbing the fact that they could get, roughly, 29 francs for a dollar?and a drinkable quart of champagne for the 29 francs. That was the greatest number of francs ever* exchangeable for a dollar in the history of the world. Then the firm of Morgan loaned the French Government $100,000,000; and one could get only some 14 francs for the dollar. Last spring the franc began to slip badly again. Last week the American Express Co., at Paris, was paying out approximately? 28 francs...
...Reason. Throughout the world financiers placed this discouraging value upon the franc (the record "low" since the Morgan loan) because at Paris there continued, in the Chamber of Denuties, that ignoble squabble (TIME, Feb. 22, et ante) which has brought the legislative machinery of France to practically a full stop within the last few weeks...
...official low was recorded on the Manhattan Stock Exchange, March 19, 1921, at 3.46¢ per franc, or 28.61 francs per dollar...
...eager Parisians were waited upon by the most insolent and rapacious hat-check girls, program boys, and tip-extracting ushers in Western Europe. Forewarned that the foreigners have accustomed the Concert's servitors to pocket a bill of any size without giving change, the Parisians placed exactly one franc 50 centimes (6c) in the hands of the program boys, and rewarded the ushers with 50 centimes per head (2c) for showing them to their seats. Then they settled down to enjoy Quel Beau Nu, successor to last year's devastatingly successful revue, Trés Excitant...