A GRIM STORY FROM PARIS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9092, 23 November 1907, Page 4

A GRIM STORY FROM PARIS.

A WOMAN'S HALLUCINATION

Great was the surprise of a number of persons who happened to be in one of the publio squares of Paris (says the correspondent of the " Daily Telegraph"), when they _aw a woman rush to the rescue of a big wax doll which was about to be run over in its perambulator by a heavy truck, and horror was added, to their astonishment when they saw the woman trampled to death after saving the doll. The tragic event revealed a strange story of a mother's insanity. Tho woman was the young wife of a prosperous merchant. A few years ago she gave birth to a son, which rendered boa- happiness complete, as her one great desire, as well as that of her husband, had been to have a boy. But one day an epidemic of croup came and carried off her son It affected her so that she lost her reason. She continued calling out for" her child day and night, and a specialist suggested that perhaps the only way to calm her, and ultimately cure her, was to have a wax doll made for her resembling the boy. Tlie device succeeded beyond the expectations of tho doctor. Tlie woman not only imagined that the doll was her dead boy and recovered from her illness, but day after day she insisted on taking the doll out in a perambulator for an airing. Neighbours were surprised to see her wheel the doll about in the publicsquare, and stopping from time to time to kiss the wax figure. She happened to be wheeling the wax baby about as usual when the perambulator left her band and got into the way of a truck. She rushed frantically after it to save the wax doll, and in doing so slipped and fell under the horses of the truck, which trampled on her. The poor woman never recovered consciousness, and expired in a chemist's shop, whither she I had been carried.