MTUSIC HALL SENSATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 276, 18 November 1905, Page 13

MTUSIC HALL SENSATION.

JTLTED LOVER SHOOTS A STSGEB.

A remarkable tragedy was enacted en October 2nd in a music ball at Niort. a small tow —i in the sooth-—-est of Prance, an officer in the infantry shooting one of the singers and afterwards holding the crowd which sought to capture him at bay with a revolver.

According to the "London Mail," the officer's name is Rene Thomas, of the 114 th Infantry, In jranison at St. Maixent. He is twenty-nine years of age. Last February he made the acquaintance at the local music hall St. Maixent of Armandine Fer, aged twenty-two, whose professional name is Bose NoeL He became passionately enamoured of the pretty artiste, and behaved In snch an extravagant manner a~ to create a scandal in the tow -a. His colonel remionstra*ed with him. and Rose Noel, becoming tired of her too infatuated lover, quietly left St, Maixent. Ou Sat—-day Rose Noel visited Niort to sing at the Eldorado Music Hah. On hearing of this Rene Thomas took train for Niort, where he arrived at seven o'clock on Sunday evening. He hastened to a barber's shop and had his beard shaved off, and then went to the Eldorado and took a box on the first tier. When Rose Noel came op the stage to «ln s she did not recognise,her ex-lover, and immediately afterwards Thomas sent the program—te man to ask her to come to his bos, saying that a person wished to give her a message from her parents. The artisite went all unsuspectingly to the box. which is an open one As soon as she recognised Thomas she started back. Out he was heard by the people in the next box to say. "Do not be alarmed. I have no intentiou of hnrtiiig you. Reed this letter," and so saying he handed Rose a letter, which she took and bent over to read. As she did so Thomas drew a revolver from his pocket and pressed it to her left temple. There was a load detonation, and tho woman fell to the floor of the bos.

The whole house was at once in a commotion, and clamoured for tbe murderer's arrest, but Thomas rushed out of the box Into the corridor behind, and, covering the advancing crowd with his revolver, said, "I will shoot dead the first person who moves a step.'' Terrorised, the crowd, consisting of tbe manager, the waiters, and about fifty of the audience allowed the oflicer to rush upstairs to the second tier of boxes, where be placed his back against the wall commanding the staircase, and held everyone at bay. In the end, a_ter an _._c~*s persuasion by the first curate of tbe parish church, Thomas gave hj—iseif np to the captain of the gendarmes, and was quietly handcuffed and taken away.