GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2434, 27 May 1922, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Mine. Gaillard, once well known in the brightest Parisian salons, who committed suicide recently in her apartment by taking an overdose of veronal, possessed only a few hundred francs, though at the time her wealth was estimated at more than £1,000,000. The late Prince Dobridin left-to her large estates in Russia, but this property she could not touch, as she was unable to overcome the Bolshevik opposition to recognising her rights as a French citizen. After writing letters to the police and -her mother, expressing her intention of committing, suicide, because her “money was going too fast and all hopes of Undine- another prince had to be abandoned on account of her affection for him,” Mme. Gaillard called in a veterinary surgeon and requested him to kill her pet ape and big black cat. She then laughingly suggested, “And now give me an injection of moi-phine strong enough to kill.” When the veterinary refused, she said, “Never mind then; I will take care of that.” Half an hour later she look a dozen packets of veronal, and was afterwards found dead between the bodies of her two pets on a tigerskin spread on the bedroom floor. .

While the housing crisis in Paris* is owing to the fact tha I there js no building of apartment houses, builders were kept busy in 1021 erecting places of entertainment. Thirty-four music halls were built there lasjj year, and many more are plannee/ for this year. At the same time there has been a marked decrease in the number of criminal cases reported, only lOOO'serious crimes having occurred in 102.1, as compared with 1,587 in 1020. There also was a decrease in the number of attacks against persons and property to the extent of nearly 50 per cent. The number of cases in which wounds were inflicted in quarrels increased slightly. The authorities attribute this improvement in social conditions to. the settling down of certain elements in the population of Paris after the war strain, but at the same time it was suggested that the increased opportunity for public amusement serves to decrease the amount of - drunkenness, which is the chief cause of crime in Paris.

“I have swallowed a spoon,” was the amazing statement made to the police who wrire taking Joseph Tyson. an electrician to the Preston Prison. He was removed to the Preston Infirmary and examined under the X-ravs, when a meallic substance was located near the stomach. An operation for its removal was performed; but Tyson still remains in the infirmary in a serious condition. It appears that lie broke off the bowl of a spoon arid swallowed the shank end. He was under remand on a charge of obtaining £1.20 by false pretences from a woman whom he had proposed to marry.