UNCANNY SPECTACLES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 146, 12 August 1911, Page 3

UNCANNY SPECTACLES.

i)HAMAS OF THE PARIS STREETS

People wlio Hock to see uncanny spectacles lor the sake of the emotion (•Tat they afford might save their monev, and take a little healthy oxercise as well, in stiolls through this eilv, where a proininado is rarely unattended with some excitement, 'll mV says the Paris correspondent of the London “Daily Chronicle,” loungers on the Boulevard do Magenta noticed a middle-aged individual, apparently intent on tiie goods exhibit t.al in a shop window, hut when a cci - tain smart man came along wdh a cijirar between his teeth, i.e wiiipped out a revolver and blazed away. Tie would have had anouier shot at his victim as the latter Jay on the ground jf passers-by had not wrested the weapon from his grasp. While the wounded man was being conveyed to a private hospital at Passy, with a bullet in his body, the assailant was examined by the police commissary, to whom lie said that his only regict was that ho had not killed his victim outright. They are both in business, and are old acquaintances, and the trouble is attributed to a quarrel over some transaction.

Later on the same day a ghastly scone was witnessed at the Palais Royal station of the Metropolitan railway. A young woman, decently hut poorly attired, was on the platform, when an unkempt and ragged creature walked up to her and tried to enter into conversation,. As he met with no encouragement he left, her and seated himself on a bench,' hut as the next train was approaching he rushed forward, put an arm round her, and her with himself on to the line. 'The two were under the wheels ol the third carnage belore the train stopped. The man was the first to he extricated. Bis head was a more pulp, and he was stone dead. The young woman was still breathing, although shockingly mutilated, and when she was examined at the Charita Hospital the amputation of both her feet was pronounced to he unavoidable. She is a very respectable person, and was employed as a waitress at a humble restaurant, where her brutal assailant sometimes took hr< meals. He wanted to marry her, hut she would not hear of such a thing. After annoying her with his attentions he had followed her to the Palais Royal station, and in a lit of mad fury had tried, to kill her as well as himself.

Many automobiles,' as they dash along, are a terror to pedestrians, who often' make any numb-er of 1 utile and risky attempts to cross a thoroughfare.:' The popular feeling towards the average chauffeur was significantly ,illustrated when a man who, alter having been nearly run down, pulled out a knife and plunged it into the back of the, driver of the particular jnotoi’ .car was greeted with loud and approving cries by the spectators ol the accident.

The dangerous consequences of the tluuiglitle-'. throwing away of lighted matches and cigarette ends have once again been illustrated by the accident which has befallen Madame Duhest, sister-iu-iaw of the President ol the Senate. She was driving along the Boulevard Tiaussmau in an open cab when she hoard a crackling noise in her hat, and puttug a hand up to it, she found, to her dismay, that it was on fire. The poor lady’s screams brought the vehicle to a halt, and a kind-hearted gentleman, who happened to bo near, realising what was amiss, divested himself of his coat and laid it on tiie hat,thus extinguishing the incipient conflagration. Madame Dubsot got off with a little damage to her hair, which a coiffeur is repairing, and with a burn on one check and on the hand. But for the gentleman's presence cf mind tlie mischief would probably have been very serious. She thinks that a match or a cigarette must have I'.ecu carelessly thrown from the window of a neighbouring house.