STOLEN SALARIES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1356, 6 February 1912, Page 9

STOLEN SALARIES.

FRENCH PROFESSORS' CURIOUS PLIGHT. During the recent discussion on the French Budget a curious fact was exposed in connection with the expenditure of the Department of Fine Arts. One of the officials last year stole .£GBO, which was to4>«v the salaries of several distinguished profcWs and quickly lost it at the bacarat tables of Enghieu. He confe-sed Ins guilt, and was prosecuted. The. Ministry, however, declined to pay tho professors their salaries, not because they were suspected of having boon sleeiiing partners in tho gambling venture, but because they had not applied for their money at the end of the month, and as it had "since then passed out of the possession of the State into other hands the State could not be called upon to pay it!" This evasion of responsibility was humorously compared by M. Beno'ist to an Eastern custom. "When you go on shore at Tangier," he said, "an Arab seizes your bag. You lay your cane across his shoulders, and he turns round upon a Biskra native, who belabours a Tunisian, who falls upon a negro, who goes for a peasant, who beats his donkey." The Chamber promptly agreed that, the savants were not responsible for (lie peculations of the cashier, and by a show of hands a vote was passed that they should at once receive their salaries, for which they hnd been waiting lor six months.