DESCRIPTIVE.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 143, 12 June 1903, Page 2

DESCRIPTIVE.

MAD CRIMINALS IN PARIS. Paris is at present infested by .maniacal criminals, whose, extraordinary behaviour fills the populace with uneasiness. Leon Bouteilhe, who threw the bomb whose failure to explode saved from wreok the structure in the Bus Laffitte where the RothschUcU have their banking house, will probably be placed in an asylum for the criminal insane, for there seems to be little doubt among alienists that that is the place for him. Bouteilhe has one remarkable peculiarity that was quite harmless. In his little room, high up under the roof of a taU tenement at No. 348 Bue Traversiere—a chamber whose scant furniture he was continually changing about— the detectives noticed when they arrested him an odor of strange perfumes. In- ! quiry disclosed the fact that Bouteilhe would go to a near by chemist's shop •ilmost every day and buy two sous* ! worth of half a dozen different kinds | of perfumes, and then, in his cell-like chamber* %would sit the entire afternoon amusing himself by forming all sorts of combinations with them. His neighbors frequently complained of the sickening smells which were evolved. Mazaury, the murderer cf a " fille galante " had been considered by his employers in the roast-meat shop where he worked as a sober, hardworking fellow of fair intelligence. Yet one night after leaving the shop and climbing the stairs to his room an uncontrollable thirst for blood came over him as he saw lying on his bed along, keen dagger and a 32-calibre revolver. He did not remember that he had bought them that very afternoon, yielding to a fierce impulse whioh had momentarily seized him. He armed himself and descended to the street The first woman who accosted him was a pallid, consumptive wreck of a thing. In a room in a hotel in the Bue Amelot, as she stooped to pick up' some silver pieces he had tossed upon the floor, he planted his knife square between her white shoulders, and, as she sank down, fired two bullets into her neck. Then as tranquilly as he had entered, he opened the door and gained the street. But the woman was not dead. He could hear pitiful groaning when he reached the sidewalk, so he turned swiftly about and called one of the attendants of the place. " A crime has just been committed in your house," he said. " Help me to seize the murderer. • Tenez, there he goes around the corner. Bun." He himself went in the opposite direction. The " affair " was a mystery, though the police worked' hard to find the murderer. Three weeks ago the oommissaire of tbe quarter reoeived a letter signed " Maria," which accused a clerk in the Bue Angoulmene of having committed the deed. A second and more detailed letter soon followed the tirat, and the police at last laid ha. ids on Mazaury, the real assassin. Mazenry had written the letters himself. Among madmen whose mania has not yet reached the homicidal pitch the " cutter of ears " stands easily first. His latest victim was a fifteen-year-old errand boy, who was resting oa a> bench in the. Boulevard Sebastopol. A handsomely dressed middle-aged matt sat down beside him arid commenced a conversation. A few moments later the hew comer noticed a pimple on the end of the boy's nose, caused by the heat, and at once remarked in a tone of commie? seration, " Ah, I see by the red point on your nose that you ore suffering : from a cancer. Yes, I know the sign , well." The boy grew pale with fright, for he had heard his father say j that his grandmother 'had died with cancer.- The* stranger continued— "What causes cancer at the end of the nose is an exaggerated development of tbe lobes of the ears. I see also that you are on the point of having typhoid fever. • An operation on your j ears is the only thing that -will save j you." The boy, thoroughly frightened willingly followed the man into the Jardin des PI antes, where the selfstyled doctor, after rubbing his ears vigorously, stuck large carpet each. Then he remarked, "If I had ub francs I would change your ears. They are too large and that is a very bad sign. But all is not lost, for you have moist hands. That is excellent." Soon afterwards the " doctor" removed the tacks and bade the boy follow him. They wandered for many hours about Paris, and finally reached the Bois de Vincennes. In a secluded path of that great park the man stopped, and, after rubbing the boy's ears once more, took put a pair of scissors* and snipped off the lobe of the left one. Tile boy fainted, and when he returned to consciousness found that the lobe of his, right ear was also missing. The man with the scissors had disappeared, (load-looking women who were passing along one of the thoroughfares in the outskirts of Paris one afternoon of last Week were subjected to the .un-- • pleasant attention of a lunatic. This person went about brandishing a dagger, and when he saw a pretty girl he asked her for a kiss or her life. Some of the astonished women so addressed complied .with the madman's request and were allowed to go on their way without further molestation. There were: a few strong-minded ladies, however who took the madman to 'be some practical joker, and told him in emphatic language to go away.' They had harrow escapes from being stabben The neighbourhood "where this occurred was just beginning to assume its accustomed tranquility, vvhcu a f usilade of pistol shots rang out. There was at once a fresh stampede, and that portion of the street whence the shots came was soon entirely wAmWtwAL Whs* the oalin* A*mm

■> i I T- ; : [ tunning up and met the flying crowd, I they paused for a moment to listen to the hysterical exclamations which Came from the breathless men and women as f hoy glanced affrightedly back over their shoulders. Some said there were five, others eight or nine, Mid yet others asserted there were more than twenty frantic madmen around the corner, all armed to the teeth and shooting to kill. The police advanced Cautiously, and after peering around the corner and seeing no corpses and hearing no snore shots, they pulled their moustaches and started to swagger boldly along the deserted thoroughfare. They had gone scaroe a dozen yards When from above their head* a re-_ volver cracked again, and looking up they saw the smoke drifting v . away from a window on the second floor of an apartment house. _ Sheltered, in a doorway, two of the guardians of the peace watched for the reappearance of the lunatic, and two others entered the house. A moment later a young and a very handsome woman cautiously showed her face at the open window and then leaned forth, a pretty gold and silver-mounted revolver in her hand. She peered up and down the street with the cunning look in her eyes which is a distinctive mark of- some phase of madness. She caught sight of the policemen at last, and with a charming smile cocked and aimed her revolver at them. Just as she was about to pull the trigger there was a noise behind her and she half turned her head. As she did so she was seized by four brawny arms and, fighting tooth and nail, was carried to the police station. From her ravings it was surmised that she had become crazed through a disappointment in love.