COAL MAN WINS £62,500

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 January 1934, Page 12

COAL MAN WINS £62,500

FRENCH LOTTERY PRIZE,

PARIS, November 22.

M. Bonhoure, the Tarascon barber, who won the £62,500 prize in the first draw of the French National Lotteiy, is followed by a coal merchant of Avignon, another town in the South, as winner of the prize of the same amount in the draw which took place yesterday. He is M. Louis Ribiere, 32 years of age, and recently married. M. Ribiere learned the good news shortly after six o’clock this morning in the cafe where he breakfasts on his way to work. When he saw his number in the newspapers he was so amazed that he rushed out withept drinking his coffee, and without paying for it. M. Ribiere’s only plan at the moment is to travel and then “to build up his business.” But he hopes that he will never again deliver coal to his customers on his back, as he has often done in the past.

To-day’ M. Bonhoure made a triumphal entry into Paris, which he has never visited before. He already has the five-million-franc manner.

He tells his friend's proudly that he has bought a country seat, the Chateau de Beauvoir, near Tara scon, for which he paid £ 5,000. Almost his first act in Paris was to visit the Avenue des Champs Elysee, and-pro-vide himself with two luxurious motor-cars.

M. Bonhoure was welcomed to the capital in a manner usually reserved for Presidents. Hundreds of natives of Tarascon and many Parisians received him to the strains of the “Marseillaise.” DIVORCE SUIT SEQUEL. Although the national lottery has made a number of people happy, it has caused misery to others. A case in point is that of a man who, after 20 years of married life, is suing for divorce.

He bought a ticket, but his wife said that he had wasted 100 francs (£l/5/-) which might well have been spent on the ordinary needs of the household. She had heard', however, she added, that a neighbour who very much wanted to take part in the lottery- had offered to pay 150 francs for a share in the first drawing. The husband argued for some time that he wanted to chance his own luck, but eventually gave way and parted with the ticket. When later it proved to have won £7OO he addressed his wife in terms which caused' a compound fracture of domestic happiness. He then left home. . . His action for divorce is based on the plea that his wife bullied him into doing a foolish thing. Whether the Court will accept this entirely new argument in a divorce case remains to be seen.