The Paris Fire.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 3, 3 July 1897, Page 3

The Paris Fire.

WOMEN ASSAULTED BY MEN. One of the points to be investigated •( iba official enquiry into the Paris fin will be the alleged cowardly conduot oi men who were suceenfal in escaping from the terrible fate whioh overtook many ol the ladies. Rumonr had it, sayt the Daily Newt, that Mdme, Feuiard, wife oi Dr Feuiard, who died in carrying out a lady in hie arms, was •truck acrosi the face by a man. His widow v too ill and upiet to make any deposition, but an intimate friend of hen who wu by her ■ide iayi the rumour is false as far as as Mdme. Feuiard it concerned. "But," this lady adds, " several of my friends were the witnesiee or the victims of sets of brutality on the part of men. I would rathor not mention Iba names of those they accuse. They themselves would rather not remember the things that occurred. You may, however, lake it as a fact tbal the women gave the men in that terrible crisis a great example and a fine lesson." Madame Baffaelli says : — "It i* unfortunately too true that several young men, three or four of whom ■re known, behaved miserably. Even admitting that in the first moment of panto it was natural for everybody to » think of saving himself, bnt these men ccc safe in the street, might have come back, even at the risk of a few barns, to ■aye the poor creatures lying in a heap in front of the door." LADY'S FINGERS BROKEN. A friend of the late Dr Feuiard says that three of bis wife's friends were struck by men. One ot them, who is dying, was standing near the ladder let down by the staff of the Croix newspaper— by which fully 100 persons were saved— when a man to make her let go the lach der, struck her a blow on the hand with his walking- Stick that broke all h«i fingers. " I must, however, add," says this witness, " that according to other witnesses this lady was clinging to the ladder, paralysed by terror, unable to advance, and preventing those behind from ■aving their lives. COWARDLY CONDUCT. M. Achille Fould, tha banker, whose wife is injured, says that two men, whose names he knows, but" does not wish to Snblish yet, passed bis wife and one of aem dealt ber a blow in the face. On* of the ladies on the committee of the bar says she saw very few men in the place. She knows, however, that one gentleman whose name is being held up in the papers to public admiration was ■een slashing right and left with bis stick the ladies who stood in his way.