LOUD-SPEAKER MURDER

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 November 1934, Page 2

LOUD-SPEAKER MURDER

NOISE DRIVES TO DISTRACTION PARIS, October 6. M. Lucien Delforge faced a charge of murder here to-day because loudspeakers drove him to distraction. He was convicted on the charge of killing the caretaker in the block of flats in which he lived, and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment The story told in court described the various stages of M. Delforge’s worries. When he took his flat there were no wireless sets in the building. Then the household on the ground floor installed one. M. Delforge made a. bitter complaint, but could obtain no satisfaction. Without warning a second set came to the building—nearer to the flat of M. Delforge. Then another, and ‘;till another, until the speakers grew louder and louder. Every day M. Delforge complained, but he could get no fomedy. Convinced that all the tenants had mgaged in a conspiracy against him,

Delforge purchased the most powerful wireless set with the loudest speaker available in Paris. He kept it roaring throughout all manner of strange programmes. . . This time the neighbours objected. There were angry scenes on the landings, M. Delforge in the centre of them. Insults were shouted up and down the stairs and along the corri|dors, but still M. Delforge’s super-set roared out.

The climax canie aftei’ a particularly bad scene on the staircase. M. Delrorge rushed into his flat and came out with a revolver. H;e fired right and left blindly while tenants hurried through the passages. A moment or two afterwards the tenants were bending ovex* the body of a man who had fallen before the fusillade.

It was that of M. Delforge’s only friend —the caret'alier—who had‘ come to see what had happened. He was the only man in the build- ' ing without a wireless set. “I might inflict a severe penalty,” said the Magistrate, ‘‘but I’m going to give you a chance. Fined £5.” “Where?” asked the defendant eagerly. '