TRAGEDY OF WANT

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 426, 8 July 1913, Page 2

TRAGEDY OF WANT

"MADE UP OUR MINDS TO DIE." Three months ago two girls, Camille Leot and Alice Jean, aged 18 and 19, left their homes m Lisienx and came to Paris —where the streets, of course, are paved with gold — to make their fortunes therei As sisters, and under the name of Martin (says the ' Daily Telegraph's ' correspondent), they took a small furnished room on the highest floor of a lodging-house m the Rue Clery. There they plied their trade of feather workers.' They were quiet and industrious, and no one had anything but a good word for them except a crusty old gentleman, whose room was next to theirs, and who complained that they' were always singing at their work. Of late, however, the singing had ceased. It was noticed that the Martin sisters looked weary, and depressed. On a recent Saturday night, -when they entered the hotel, they were m 'tears. They had, so they told the "patron," lost a fifty-franc note. Next day there was no sign of them, but as they rarely went oat. no one was alarmed. On the following Monday morning, at five o'clock, the "patron" was awakened by a feeble but persistent knocking at his door. It was the younger of the two girls, who. ghastly pale and breathing with difficulty, lay huddled outside. "Please come upstairs," she nr>plored. "My sister is very Dl." Then she fainted. Leaving her to the care of his wife, the " patron " -went up to the room on the fifth floor. The door was ajar, and a glance showed him what had happened The room was full of fumes from a cauldron of charcoal, which still burned. The windows had been stopped with old newspapers. In the bed lay the body of the 1 older girl, already rigid. A, doctor was summoned, but he came too late. The younger girl— she is 18— when, at last she recovered consciousness, told her pitiful stoa-y. "We ran away from home, not because we were unhappy there— our parents were kind— but because we hoped to get a splendid situation m Paris. We worked very hard, but we didn't seem to have any luck. Then a few days ago we lost the little work we had. 'That was why we were crying on Saturday, and not because we had lost any money. We had not even a franc to lose. Our parents are poor and we were ashamed to auk them M* ' > P ™ S ° W ? made U P our ™- inda £ * jxi te ) hn S of the story so exhausted the g,r that she fainted again. Ihe parents of her d-ead companion have been communicated wilth.

Of all the' terrible things that «an happen to a Avoma n, the worst undoubtedly is to be forced to drive past a shop window full of new Easter millinery when she has a stiff neck.