THE CASTLE OF DEATH.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 93, 29 April 1901, Page 3

THE CASTLE OF DEATH.

A FAIR ARISTOCRAT’S CHARITY. THREATENED BY MOB. Paris, March 1. The people of the thriving, busy town of Limoges, whence is shipped most ef the finest table porcelain used in the United Slates, arc up in arms against Mdlo. do, j Noualhicr, one of the most beautiful aris-'" tocrats of France. With this fair patrician lady charity has become a mania, and she sympathises with consumptives so actively that the whole town is imperilled. She has a chateau in the heart of the to.vn, and there she takes by hundreds patients in the last stages of tuberculosis. They aro cared for and finally buried gratis.

The townspeople call Mile, de Noualhier’s home “Le Chateau do la Movt ” (“The Castle of Death ”). Almost daily a funeral procession issued from the great portals, some days two or even three 1 coffins are borne away at the same time. The neighboring streets have been made so melancholy that- shopkeepers and dwellers have gradually tied. When about twenty members of her community have passed away she goes to Paris and scours the slums and hospitals I for another batch. She wants none but desperate cases.

In the Limoges Cemetery, which had to bo enlarged twice on that account, there are over three thousand graves of imported consumptives. The property owners instituted a year ago a joint suit for damages, which Milo, do Noualhicr is fighting tooth and nail, claiming the right to take as many moribund patients as she chooses, and to remove them according to custom when they are dead.

What started Mile, de Noualhicr on this course of unique benevolence is not known. She began five years ago by taking a dozen destitute "consumptives from Paris. Everybody commended her for it then. Gradually she took more and

more, till now over two hundred and fifty are always to be found at the Chateau. (Several buildings have been erected for their accommodation.

At last indubitable signs of general infection of the town by the germs of tuberculosis was noticed by physicians. The proportion of people attacked increased by leaps and bounds, and the thoroughly aroused people demanded that the private hospital be removed. Mile, de Noualhier defied the authorities, and when a crowd of angry people made a demonstration against her she demanded police protection, which was granted. The Mayor and the Prefect have come to Paris to protest, while at Limoges mobs threaten to demolish “the Castle of Death.” Mdlo. do Noublhicr makes it a condition, it is said, that every pauper she admits to her home must become a devout Roman Catholic.