EVENING SPIDERS
The unity of construction sites

It is promised, it is sworn, the prefect of the Seine is his guarantor, we will soon have in Paris "the unity of construction sites". Understand by that that, if Mr. Naudin keeps his word, we will no longer witness this picturesque spectacle of a road being turned upside down six times in a row for the execution of works that could very well be done at the same time.
Currently, the various municipal services, imitated in this by a certain number of large companies, exploit the Parisian soil with this magnificent independence that designates to our admiration the miners of Alaska.
As soon as a street is newly repaved, the prospectors of the T. C. R. P., the Métro or the Nord-Sud hurry to come and make their hole there. Once the work is finished and the paving stones are put back in place as best they can, it is the Water workers who take over, while the Gas gravediggers, standing behind the rope limiting the worksite, patiently wait for the end of the performance to enter the stage in their turn. As for the Electricity pioneers, it is the fresh bitumen of the renovated sidewalks that inspires their best pickaxe blows.
It seems that all that is going to change. From now on, all these road breaker workers will have to get along and do their little business together, in the same trench. Between us, I don't believe it. The unity of work sites must not be feasible; otherwise, wouldn't it, the Prefect of the Seine would really be guilty of not having thought of it sooner.

Bernard GERVAISE.