Essence of Metro

Like the New York subway system--which it rivals in overcrowding, labyrinthian complexity and financial difficulties --the Paris Metro has a smell all its own.

To the basic ingredients of dankness and soot, Parisian passengers have added an enchanting blend of garlic, tobacco, cheap cosmetics and the sweat of honest toil.

Last week La Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (transit authority) embarked upon an experiment designed to give the subway a daintiness hitherto found only in boudoir and meadow. Each train traveling two of the main routes across Paris was equipped with an atomizer through which gushed a jet of perfume. On the Vincennes-Neuilly line, the fragrance was Eau de Cologne; on the Orleans-Clignancourt line, a workmen's route, it was Essence of Pine. "My," said one happy office worker arriving at his desk, "the Metro smelled deliciously today." But after a careful sniff or two, most subway riders admitted that the Metro still smelled remarkably like Old Metro.

"We shall determine the traveling public's opinion later on," announced one huffy transport spokesman at the end of the first day's experiment.

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