GIRL KEPT IN CHAINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 16, 19 January 1924, Page 12

GIRL KEPT IN CHAINS.

PADLOCKED TO A 810. A STRANGE STOUY. A story which reads like a romance of Zola or \)u Maupassant has been revealed by the arrest of Felix ikmnert, and his wile, who own a small farm near J..; Mans, Sarthe Department, Franc;'. Their daughter Marie, who for many years lias been half-witted, was found by neighbours chained t<; a bed in an outhouse of the garden, while her father was boating her unmercifully with a stick. Twelve years .ipo Marie was a finelooking girl, and ivihi ii: love with a young man of the neighbourhood. Thor went to dunces together, and were already regarded us a happy couple awaiting only the day 01 their marriage. 'I hen one day .Marie came home and told her mother that she had broken nit' with iiir lover. ;'.s she did not feel lit to be It is wife. The young man pleaded with ber. but all in vain. Then he weni away, Haying, "If you ch>\nge your mind, let Mc know.'" hut she never changed her mind. A year later he married another girl. .M'irie became melancholy. On All Saints' Day neighbours heard cries of "assassin" coming from the outhouse, and found the father drunk. beating the girl, who, bound to the bed. wax shrieking. 'the mother said she had lofi the keys of the padlock by which the chains were fastened to lite girls ankles, and tliev had to be. fifed through. " ! Apparently the girl had been imprisoned there for lf> days, the mother maintaining that if. was the only way ibpy could keep her from running".i way. The chain, she said, was a long one. imi allowed the girl plenty of liberty.