REFINED CRUELTY OF MODERN CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 254, 23 October 1920, Page 19

REFINED CRUELTY OF MODERN CRIME.

A new refinement of crime has been discovered by I'arts gunmen. In a little apartment In one of the poorest quarters of the city. Mme. Langvln. the widow of a soldier killed in the second year of the xvar, lived xvith her only sou Andre. A Government pension wns almost the sole Income of the household as Andre rarely brought xvages to help tbe family fund. A few days ago she fold her neighbours that "Pede," as the son was nicknamed, had got a steady job as a waller in a cafo dance hall in the Faubourg St. Martin. I.ate one night Mme. Langvln was waiting up for her son, xvho had said his duties kept him till after midnight. Shortly before 1 a.m. nn unknown man suddenly appeared in the door of the dim-lighted room. "Mme. Langvln?" he queried, "I bring you bad nexvs. Your son" —he paused as the poor xvoman swayed against the doorway "your son was shot dead this eveniug in the dauce hall at 181, Faubourg St. Martin. To the mother's heart the words brought a thrill of doom. She bad feured that all had not been well xvith her boy during the past fexv months, and Ihe terrible nexvs xvas but confirmation of th. fears she had not dared to formulate. „ Now the strange element in the case is the fact thnt the midnight visitor was either the murderer himself or one of the murderer's companions or accomplices. At the hour xvhen he told Mme. Langvin of her son's death, young Andre xvas gasping his life out in the anus of the cafe proprietor before there had ex-en been time to summon a doctor or the police, lie was shot by a masked man from the door of the cafe.