THE "APACHE."

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10902, 20 October 1911, Page 3

THE "APACHE."

HOW HE THRIVES IN PARIS. As the word "Apache" has begun to figure not infrequently in English newspapers and periodicals, its origin and signification to the present-day Parisian may be of interest to readers. The word is the name of a tribe of North American Indians who were at one time infamous for the cruelties they practised on the inhabitants of one of the provinces of Mexico. In 1905, when I first remarked the word in a Parisian journal, says a it was apparently new to most French people, as it was-still being printed between inverted commas, as it is now being printed in this country. This tribal name has been adopted in a spirt of brutal bravado by -the most terrible criminal type at present inhabiting tho French capital. From a study for many months of .the crimes committed by the Apaches in Paris, I found that the ages of these desperadoes ranged between sixteen and twenty-three. Very few of the class appear to reach the latter age. Before that time the great majority of them have either been laid by the great majority of them have been murdered by their associates. Return to respectability seems to be impossible for them. An - Apache of sixteen has in all probability already committed murder, for the , rules of the association to which he- belongs forces him to show his valor (!) - while he is still a boj T . Many of these Apaches are the sons of . respectable professional men. Becoming intolerant of control and discipline, tlicy have run away from home and taken to the slums adjoining the great boulevards,. or moro. especially to the outer boulevards, and the fortifications. They are always armed with revolver and knife, and the female Apache, who is invariably in attendance on the male, is as quick and as dexterous with these weapons as her protector. The crimes committed by the Apaches became appallingly frequent about six years ago, when capital punishment was formally abolished in France. At that time the salary of Monsieur Deibler, the State executioner, was stopped;, a, place in a public museum was marked off for his guillotine, and economists of public money began to rub their hands in glee at the saving of two thousand fiv.e hundred francs (a hun-dx-ed poiinds sterling), which each execution outside Paris is said to have - cost. Monsieur Deibler, I. may say, is a quiet-looking individual, who lives (or used, to live) in a retired self-con-tained lioiise in the south-western district of Paris, riot far from the point where the river leaves the city. "He is always, dressed in black," an old Parisian oiice said to me, "he has a. red beard and large hands, and drives a motor painted green. You may sometimes sec him playing cards in a quiet cafe with s'dme friends who are careful not to address him by his surname. He is said to be rich, and has a considerable amount, of house property." It was said'that tlie stoppage of his salary caiised Monsieur Deibler no uneasiness, for-he had-shown signs of nervousness at! his last execution, and had bungled his work, the fatal cut being made obliquely ; but the alarming increase of : murders by Apaches recalled him to office. At Bethune, in the Pas de Calais, he had to carry through a quadruple execution; and as each nead fell into.the basket, the spectators who had lived- in a state of terror for months, shouted. "Vive Deibler!" and "Vive la'vouve!" (Long life to the widow), the term jocularly applied by the French* 'to the guillotine; hence the phrase,, epouser la neuve (to marry the widow, 'or, to be guillotined). Perhaps/the most impelling cause for the reinstitution of the death sentence was a murder committed by three Apaches, ail-under 'twenty years of age, in a. jewellery, warehouse in the centre of Paris. ' When these young desperadoes were'sentenced to death, they jeered at and . insulted the judge, for they knew that they would not be executed. Nor were' they; for, in a few weeks .they, were 'transported to one of tho colonial penal settlements. There is one part of Paris which is carefully avoided by the Apaches—the Latin Quarter, where there are thousands of students who always welcome a disturbance. I only once heard of Apache crime—or attempted crime, rather —in the "Quarter." A young American, going to his lodging late one night, was attacked ill La Rue Monsieur lo Prince by two Apaches. The American, who possessed exceptional bodily strength, seized one of his assailants, and dashing his head against the wall, killed him on the spot. He then collared the other and dragged him to the nearest police station. The word "Apache" now gures in music ball programmes in this country in connection with dances and sketches depicting slum life in Paris. The Apache is a direct product of life in Paris where outdoor sports are unknown among the working and the lower classes.