AN AMOROUS TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 101, 30 April 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

AN AMOROUS TRAGEDY.

fMany poets/. i*?6nv; Shakspere to Victor Hugo, have depicted the loves of coloured men and white women. The French bard, notably in his 'Bug ; Jargal,' has shown the self-denial of a dark-skinned lover who adored a fair lady of the Caucasian race. The Rue Monge, in Paris, a street not far from the great schools (says the London 'Daily Telegraph') has now been the locality where., an amorous tragedy has been enacfeoT^the central characters being a very good-looking, publican's wife and and her passionate admirer, a coloured young man from the possessions of England in the far East, somewhere near the place where, as a modem poet says, 'The dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the bay,' The darkrfeatured young man was sent to Paris by his parents in order to learn French. He applied himself so diligently to the language of diplomacy that he was soon able to write verses in it. There was a little account chalked against him in a tavern, but he tried, to get it wiped out by the.wife of the owner of the «tablishment, to' whom -he ad-' dresst^ daily poems. The woman Avas amused for a while and listened to the i impassioned Asiatic, who called her his Laura. She even accepted his amorous addresses in alleged Alexandrines, and hid them away in a box under the counter behind which she sat raking, in money from noon to ; midnight. After awhile, however, she gfew heartily tired of the 'poet of the sombre brow,' as be called himself, especially as the Asiatic was becoming compromising, while his debts were literally weighing down the slates kept as the archives of shifty customers. The Oriental was furthermore guilty of a habit common to many debtors of his kind. When he obtained remittances from home he went away from the Rue. Monge for a while, and spent the money sent to him on the'more brilliant right bank of the Seine. . Then he. returned empty pocketed, but with his hand* full of flowery verses, to the tavern in the Rue Monge and ran up another bill. The landlady at length told the Asiatic. to go back to the Far East. She was even ready to pass the sponge overgfihe slates if the dark-ekinned person billy kept away. He refused to do so, and handed hi a longer poem than usual, ending with the following lines: —

Give back my heart, Marie, Whom I adore, Or else I'm off to die At Singapore.

The landlady transferred the effusion to her husband, who when next he. saw the poet caught him by the cravat and swung him round towards the door. The amorous Asiatic, who was accompanied by a white companion, was ejected from the premises. This European prevailed upon him to reenter the place in order to have his revenge. He did so, and felled his ejector to the floor by a blow from a loaded Malacca cane. The coloured poet and his European aider and abettor were subsequently arrested, and are now sharing with a common crowd of criminals the hospitality of the general police depot.