WOMEN AS “FAGINS.”

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 23 August 1926, Page 9

WOMEN AS “FAGINS.”

GIRLS TAUGHT TO STEAL. SLUMS OF A GAY CITY. Jules-the-Snail, a slum, boy, has become the hero of the Rue du Bel Air, Pc,ns, because lie discovered a- “college” where two women were training girl* of 10 to 12 to become expert pickpockets and shoplifters. The story of J.ules and his little sister Marcelline, as told by them to the magistrate, sounds like a modern version of Oliver Twist and old Fagin. Jules and his sist-er are the children of ft. woman who earns a livelihood' by selling the rags and papers she finds un the street. His sister, Alarcelline, disappeared from the damp cellar, which she called her home. The mother reported her absence to the police, but no trace of the little girl was found. Jules, who is 10 years old, from that day on did not return ix> school. Ho kept away from the other .street gamins and walked round fox* hours in the neighbour hood of the Place Maubert, sneaking in and out of the narrow streets, that run from the Quftis of the Seine into the slums. One day he saw two girls of about his own age. talking to an elderly man. He noticed that oho of the girls was pointing toward the Solferino bridge, and engaged! the attention of the elderly man while the other deftly drew his handkerchief from his pocket. He watched them till they disappeared in a small greengrocer’s shop round the corner of the Rue du Bel Air. They did not come out of the place again that evening, although Jules knew very well they did not live there. For a week Jules-the-Snail watched the shop from behind a fence across the way. He saw other girls go in and out of the place, ft.ud not one of them was a day older than himself. One evening, just before the closing hour, Jules entered the shop and bought a penny’s worth of candy. It was the woman Baulin who waited on him. As he left he ] ocked bft.ek at the woman. She had her head turned in the. direction of the back door that moment. It was enough for Jules-the-Snail to act-. He dropped on the floor and crawled back along the counter ft.s noiselessly as a cat.

Juries never budged. He lay behind a sack of potatoes as quietly as ft mouse. Presently He saw the woman go out through the little back door. He folio wed her a little while and got into a dark narrow passage that led into a bedroom. Suddenly lie heard a. voice that nearly made him cry out with joy and fear. It was .his lift 1 © sister’s voice. He heard her say she wft.s hungry. Getting out of the shop by breaking a; window, Jules fetched the police, who broke into the room where Berthe Ilaulin and her partner in crime, Amanda- Godard, were just putting the girls through, their exeroisfes. .At the no lice station the girls toiVl the story of how the two women liftd taught thorn the business of stealing. All the girls had been induced to leave their miserable homes by the two women on the promise of .good things to cat and a warm plane to sleep. This isi how Jules-the-Snail became the hero of the Hue du Be I Air.