A PARIS SENSATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1372, 24 February 1912, Page 7

A PARIS SENSATION.

SISTER CANDIDE SENT TO GAOL.

By Tclecr«.i>b—Press As««oratl<iH—Gopyrleli* Paris, February 22. Sister Caadide has been sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment and fined a thousand francs. She has also been ordered to restore various sums of money.

Sister Candida is an cx-nun who has conducted various hospitals for tuberculous patients, including the Ormesson Hospital and a sanatorium at San Salvador, of which SI. Loubet, whilo President of France, had acted as honorary president, ladies belonging to the highest French society acted as patronesses to her various institutions. In May 1910 two rrnssinn jewellers lodged charges ngninst Sister Candidc and she was placed under arrest. These jewellers had confided to "Soeur Candide" jewels worthy nearly ■£21,000 on the understanding that she was to sell them, and that a portion of the price, at all events, was to bo paid in in June, 1910. Instead of returning tho jewels or reimbursing the owners, "Soeur Candida" pawned the jewels in England through the intermediary of two jewel brokors, who, according to her own evidence before the examining magistrate, knew in what circumstances she had obtained possession of them. "Soeur Candide" received from ono of tho brokers JMOOO, half of which was used to pay pressing debts connected with the charitable institutions and the other half given as commission to tho brokers themselves. She has explained to the magistrate that she was driven to these unusual methods of raising money by the failure of tho lotteries which she had organised to provide a sufficient sum for the needs of her charitable institutions.