The great international exhibition in Paris that is to take place this summer will he conspicuous by the part to be played both by Catholics and the English.
The British Portion, a model of which can now be seen at the Imperial Institution, will in every way be worthy of its exceptional site on the Place d'Honneur. A feature will be a painted frieze, 170 feet long, depicting British Industries. The architecture will be startlingly modernistic.
The whole of Catholic France is being asked to join together in making possible the finest of the exhibition's pavilions, the Pontifical Catholic Pavilion. This pavilion is to be of the shape of a Gothic church with a high tapering tower surmounted by a statue of Our Lady. Part of it will be a church in reality with the Real Presence, while the rest will be devoted to an exhibition of Catholic life and manners.
The committee includes all the bestknown names of Catholic France, Cardinals, academicians, marshals, writers, artists, etc.
But of late a revolution has taken place. Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, Poland, and many other countries, have vied with each other in reducing [arcs to tourists and providing good accommodation at reasonable prices. Ski-ing and tobogganing have long since been -popular sports in these countries, available to and enjoyed by all classes—your correspondent's memories of his childhood days in Vienna. watching the thousands of working-class Viennese ski-ing gaily in the beautiful Vienna woods, makes him almost hitter to think that London's workers cannot have this paradise of health and pleasure at their doors in winter!
Currency devaluation, too, has stimulated the popularity of winter holidays. Transit fares through France and Belgium have been greatly reduced. Prices, in Switzerland, Italy, Czechoslovakia and France. primarily, of course, but also in Austria, Poland, and elsewhere, have reached an exceedingly low level.
A Few Pounds Covers Everything A week's holiday with full accommodation. ski-ing lessons, and travel out and back to London can be had for as low a figure as eight or nine pounds. And, as a result of this great effort to popularise winter holidays and introduce a novel and wholly delectable fairyland, tired masses of Britons are streaming out to Europe's mountains to sample this new thrill.
And very wise they are, for, besides the most enjoyable holiday imaginable, they will build up fresh reserves of health with which to face the rest of the winter and get twice as much benefit from the keen winter air, combined with the sun's ultra-violet rays beating down upon the snow, as they would from a considerably longer holiday in summer.
Our nearest neighbour, France, offers us attractions of every kind, and naturally enough a fine array of winter sports' playgrounds. Megeve, a new resort, and Chamonix lie under the shadow of Mont Blanc and are gaining steadily in popularity.
Mont Genevre, at six thousand feet, right on the Italian frontier, is almost ideal. while little resorts like Beuil and Petra Cava remind one that one can ski among the Alpes Maritimes, and a short two hours' motor drive will bring one to the shores of the blue Mediterranean, where winter is only a legend.
The Pyrenees, too, have their fair shares of good ski-ing stations like Font Romeu and Luchon, while even the Vosges and the Auvergne provide good ski-ing, though the lower altitudes naturally make them less reliable in this respect.
Switzerland, of course, is the skiers' Mecca. The keen instinct of the Swiss caused them to organise their country for winter sports before any other.
St. Moritz, Arosa, Davos, Murren, Engelberg, Grindelwald, Wengen, Villars, Zermatt, and many others, are now household names. The degree of scientific and efficient organisation here is little short of amazing. Nothing is omitted that might contribute to comfort and enjoyment.
Moreover, in addition to the big cosmopolitan centres mentioned, there are still any amount of amazingly inexpensive and