Crime and Punishment

Evening Star, Issue 20053, 19 December 1928, Page 9

Crime and Punishment

SOME FRENCH CASES EX>CONVIGT'S STORE OF DISEASE GERMS The trial of Pierre de Eayssac who drowned the eightccn-mdnths-old baby of which lie was the father rather than contribute to its upkeep has brought out something very typical of the French character (writes the Paris correspondent of the ‘Observer’). It is certainly not the inhuman crime itself, nor the cold premeditation with which the murderer undressed the baby, as it lay by his 'side in the motor car, before dropping it into the river, so that there should bo no evidence of its identity. It is not the cruelty of the murderer’s parents who dismissed the young servant girl when she was found to be with child. It is the nature of the public reaction to the horror of it all; and the typical thing about that reaction is that what has shocked French opinion at least as much as the crime itself, is the fact that both tho murderer and the child’s mother could talk about tho whole thing at the trial without visible emotion, without a tear. For convulsive sobs there might have been pity For that calmness there is none. THE CASE OF AHMAND SCHIHMEK. Something typical, not about French character, but about the administration of law in France is illustrated by another case which has come up this week. Armand Schirmer is a man who has been convicted more than a dozen times for fraud. One of these convictions led to his serving a sentence in the penal settlement of Cayenne, and since his return to France he has been supposed to bo living under police supervision. This, however, did not prevent his setting up as a general financial agency in the little provincial town of Nogent-sur-Marne and opening an office to which ho gave the higii-soundiug title of tho Omnium Hogeutais. It also did not prevent his carrying on, from another address, a lucrative trade in morphine, cocaine, and other forbidden drugs. Most sensational of all, it did not prevent his Slaving established, at this second address, a well-equipped laboratory, where the police have discovered a number of phials labelled as being each the virus of a dangerous and contagious disease, such as leprosy, typhoid, or cholera. This discovery has naturally stimulated the public imagination, and it is already being asked whether this exconvict with the German name was not preparing to destroy tho population of Franco on behalf of a foreign power, though tho less chauvinistically-minded merely recall tho case of a certain Girard, who insured the lives of his friends and then inoculated them will) typhoid. The report that Schirmer, on being questioned, has stated that ho set up the laboratory for his own study and amusement, and was first taught to take an interest in chemistry through having been attached to the dispensary of the penal settlement when he was serving his sentence, has naturally added another picturesque element to tlie affair. Certainly he appears to have, had employment as a chemist's assistant, for a short time since his return to France, and his continued interest in the subject is shown by bis possession of a number of recently published books of medical prescriptions and treatises on poisons. DISEASE GERMS. The case has naturally directed attention to. the ease with which cultures of disease germs can be procured. The Pasteur Institute has declared that it only supplies such cultures to persons whom it knows well, but that there are German, Austrian, and even French firms wlho are quite willing to sell them, while there is nothing to prevent students at the School of Medicine, who have been given tubes of germs, and encouraged to cultivate them in order to study the evohdion of microbes, from taking some of the tubes away. A mere laboratory attendant at the school could do so.

These rather fantastic and melodramatic developments are not, however, what is really the most interesting thing about tho case. This is that nothing has been done until now to prevent this notorious swindler resuming his career of fraud. He has at last been disturbed, because one of his victims has succeeded in inducing the Procurenr de la Eepnbliquo to take action; but it appears that this is by no means the first complaint that has been laid against him at the Procureur’s office, and that tho other complaints led to nothing and were not. followed up.

Whether this is true or not, it is certain that other cases have Recurred of the victims of dishonest hbanciers and business firms making official complaints, of' which nothing further is ever heard. It is said that the office of the Procurenr de la Eepublique is overwhelmed will) such petitions, and that it is impossible even to examine all of them, and far less to take action. Perhaps this flagrant case of a convicted swindler resinning his practices with impunity may stir tho office to greater activity.