FRANCE: Le Wild West

Sedate Parisians strolling in the Bois one day last fortnight were startled by unfamiliar sounds: the music of ukuleles and harmonicas, wild cries of "Yipee! Yipee!" Drawn by these noises into the Bagatelle Polo Grounds, they saw about 30 young men & women in outlandish foreign dress—broad-brimmed hats and broad-legged pants, loudly checked shirts and brass-studded belts. They were riding horses and twirling ropes.

What the strollers witnessed was the first big show of the three-year-old Club de Lasso. Founded by Serbian-born Artist Paul Coze Dabija, who is a student of Red Indian lore, the club meets weekly at the fashionable riding club Menage Olive. The members, dressed in authentic cowboy clothes ordered from Denver, Colo., learn bronc riding, Western music, plain & fancy roping. Only requirement for membership is sincere interest in Le Wild West, but since its quarters are limited, the club has a long waiting list. Members are all French except for Chief Oskomon. a bonafide Indian, and Pauline Le Breton, daughter of Rear Admiral David Le Breton, U. S. N., assigned last spring to command of the Yangtze River patrol.

Last week, after the show, Artist Coze prepared to sail for America for a visit to Indian reservations and to the Cheyenne rodeo in July. When he returns, the Club de Lasso may found a dude ranch. so that Parisians may ride hard across the mesas of the Loire Valley or along the buttes of the Midi.