MONSIEUR DE PARIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 40, 16 February 1929, Page 16 (Supplement)

MONSIEUR DE PARIS.

GETS ' A SALARY INCREASE. Notwithstanding the fact that the public executioner of France, AnatcJe Deibler, better known as "Monsieur de Paris," receives only £91 a year, or 11,373 francs, there are several men after his job, and every little while their petitions have to be dealt with by the Ministry of Justice. Although he has never bungled, any more than his father did before him, any of the hundreds of executions he has been ordered to carry out, it has been charged that as he is in his seventy-fifth year, he "ought to bungle them." It is also alleged that he has a weak heart. '"Monsieur de Paris" is said to be a very modest and retiring man, notwithstanding his grim duties, and was the only official who did not clamour to have his pay raised with the post-bellum drop of the franc. Recently the Ministry of Justice has had him placed under observation, and the result is that, instead of being dismissed, his yearly stipend has been raised to 18,000 francs, or £144. Already the bubiness in M. Deibler's department is rather bad, for not more than 30 per cent of murderers in France now go under his knife. So it was feared that a demand for an increase of his salary, even if it did not result in abolishing his office, might result in a reduction of what be received. Aside from the £144 per annum which he is henceforth to get, a larger allowance has been made for his travelling expenses and his trouble in keeping his knife always ready for use. This he carries with him in a leather case, each place of execution having its own scaffold.