DIOGENES IN PARIS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XIX, 7 May 1898, Page 591

DIOGENES IN PARIS.

Diogenes, looking in the street with a lantern for an honest man, hail a sort of imitator in a wealthy citizen of Paris who died recently. Having a fortune of £22,000 ami no heirs, this man resolved to bequeath his money t<> some person who hail proved to be perfectly honest without any motive of policy. He hail retired from business, and spent his time in riding up and down Paris in omnibuses. He always stationed himself near the front part of the interior of the omnibus, where he would have an opportunity to pass up to the driver the fares of passengers, and hand back the change. Frequently, when the change was of a character to admit it, he quietly slipped into it, after the driver had put it into Ids hand, a fifty centime piece, ami awaited the result. A Parisian newspaper asserts that the old man rode up and down the streets for eight years, during all of which time not a single passenger upon whom he had bestowed the coin saw tit to restore it to the driver, from whom it was to be supposed it had come. But at last, one day when the elderlj' cynic had slipped his usual small silver piece into the change for a live franc piece, ami passed it to a young working-girl who had entered the omnibus, he was delighted to hear her say in a clear voice to the driver : ‘ But, driver, you've given me fifty centimes too much !’ The old man said nothing, but made inquiries about, the young lady ; and having ascertained her name, family and circumstances, he made a will, entirely unknown to her, bequeathing her all his property. Lately he died, ami the young woman came into possession of her benefactor’s fortune of £22,000, a large return, surely, for a restitution of ad. The story is told as a true one, but if it is really true, honesty is a virtue much more rare in Paris than it is in this country.