THE MOTOR BANDITS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1523, 20 August 1912, Page 8

THE MOTOR BANDITS.

EXTRACTS FROM GAENIBE'S DIAEY. The "Matin" publishes extracts from the notebook of Gamier, the notorious motor-bandit of Paris. The notebook was found pierced by a bullet and stained with blood in tho breast pocket of the bandit's coat after the fieige of Nogent-sur-Marne. . On its-first page were written the words "Why I robbed, and why I murdered." There is no doubt that this apology for his life had been drawn up by Gamier for the use- of his advocate should ho have been brought to trial. This is a document at onco intensely interesting (says the "Weekly Scotsmau"), and from another point of view, utterly banal —interesting for the light it throws on tho psychology of the criminal, and yet what a pitiful hash it is of crude, ill-assimilated Socialism and platitudes of Anarchism. One recognises what a dangerous intoxicant is an idea when taken on an empty head. "I do not see why I should not eat. tho grapes of Mr. X, because they are his property. What has he done more than I that he should own them ? Nothing, I reply. Therefore I have the risht to profit by them according to my needs. If ho wishes to prevent me by force I shall oppose my force to his." Exactly, but behind Mr. X is the force called 6ociety, which even according to Garnier's tenets, has tho right to protect itself; and opposition to that fore* is, as the bandit was soon' to discover, a losing and even a profitless game. For what does emerge from these memoirs is that it is not worth, while, not oven in meTO monetary gain. At 17 Gamier takes to pilfering from goods exposed in front of shops. It<docs not bring him in much; and he has to confess only three months' imprisonment. Later on ho becomes a coiner, but the tale is the same. "I couldn't make money at it, so I gave it up." Burglary was little better. A haul of over was an exception, and the expenses were heavy, "Many of our friends had been bothered by tho police, and we had had' to give them pecuniary aid." ' Meanwhile tho sentences had been' mounting up, and tho end of each imprisonment found Gamier more embittered, moro in revolt, and less inclined to work. This hatred for work emerges again and again. "Getting among Anarchists, I soon mode up my mind," he writes. "I .became like them. I refused to work for others." If he works at all it is only for a few days. Tho thought of military service is revolting. "I left Paris when about 19J, for I saw with horror the regiment looming ahead." ' Tho meeting with Bonnot -was a turning point. Gamier knew something about driving a car, and hud been looking out for a "chauffeur chum." In Bonnot he found his man. Then comes the story, told with a brutal coolness of the first "gros coup," the murder of the bank messenger on the morning , of December 21, in the Rue Ordener. Gamier ond Bonnot, with two others, set out in the early mormjrc in their stolen car from Boulogne. They drive about Paris till dawn, Gamier at the wheel. He is rapidly paining confidence in the management o'f the car. Useful this, for "we needed two chauffeurs, should one of us be wounded." At nine o'clock they see the bank messenger leaving a tramway-car, accompanied, as- usual, by another. "It is a serious moment. One must act promptly, or all is lost. The car advances. I descend with one of my companions. Bonnot remains at the wheel and the fourth stands by the car. I walk along the pavement to meet the mesrenger. About three paces from him I draw my revolver, a.nd his companion flies, panic-stricken. I pick up on© ha" and rav chum the other, which the fool won t let, go till he lows consciousness. I hen we get into our can; once more " All the vanity aiid brutality' of tho modern criminal are in that frijrM narrative. It is a document that Lombresn would have been oager to add to his collection.