FRENCHWOMAN PROVIDES HOSPITAL FOR PARIS POLICEMEN

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6868, 25 March 1929, Page 2

FRENCHWOMAN PROVIDES HOSPITAL FOR PARIS POLICEMEN

CROSS OF LEGION OF HONOURS FOR Mme. CHIAPPE. In the Boulevard St. Marcel, France, not far from the imposing stone statue of Joan of Arc, nearing her hair after tho fashion recently decreed by tho Paris hairdressers, is springing up a huge brick building concerning which is an interesting story of a woman’s devotion to an idea. In a big city like Paris the policemen were without their special hospital and nursing home. The suggestion of providing an institution of this sort had frequently been made, but it remained for Madame Chiappe, the wife of the Prefect of Police, to carry it out, and she is doing so single-handed. When there are turbulent demonstrations in the street and the police have to intervene, it is not uncommon for more than a hundred of them to be injured. They have to be taken to the ordinary hospitals, and very often they are accommodated alongside their aggressors. Madame Chiappe decided that the police should have their own hospital, and she set to work to raise the money. Millions of francs poured in upon her after she launched her idea in August, 1927. The City Council gave her a site, and now the construction of the handsome building, in which wounded and sick policemen will be looked after, is nearing completion, and will bo inaugurated in June. The success which has attended the efforts of Madame Chiappe has surprised the President, who has conferred the Cross of the Legion of Honour on the poicemen’s friend.