AN HEROIC WOMEN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 48, 17 July 1914, Page 4

AN HEROIC WOMEN

DRAMA IN A SIGNAL BOX. The '"Echo de Paris" asked recently that the Oo3* of thte Legion of Honor should be bestowed on Mmo. Pouliaiii, the woman who worked tho rigiu!>' after her husband, a. railway signalman, ihad been ehot, writes John >T. Rnphdel in the London Evening News, It happened quite caidy in tile morning, and it happened in a place which every Englishman knows who lias over been to Paris—tha line from Chantilly into the Gasrw du Nonl. So that yon all know, even if you. haven't noticed it. particularly, the little signal Vox between St. Denis and Epinay, with itie number "11" upon it. It was in this, 'little box that- Prrn Ulyase was murdered with his hand on the signal. He wan only fifty-one, though everyone knew the old soldier as "Father" Ulysae, and comparatively few called him by >hia proper name of Ulysse Poullnin.

Pare and hia wife and their son Ferdinand, a promising young man of twenty, lived in tho little brick house a dozen yards from the signal box, and lived very happily there. The little brick house lia-s clean white blinds, and the step is .-ictuMxhl c;u-h morning till it {"'.earns pure wilvite again ii< spite of coal dust and of smoke. There are ft wis in the little chicken run behind the house, there are vegetables in the garden of the size of a large tablecloth, there are flowers 1 , and there are ribbons on the window curtains, for the Pcullains loved their Jittlo home, and earned good money. La More Poullain had no views fIR to votes for women. She was a servant of the company, and when her hutfband was not on duty she was as good a man as he was. THO WORKMATES.

When Pere Ulys e came out of the box at. (six in the morning la Mur? Poullain, in her clean blue apron, left the wash tutj at which she Iliad been at work since five, to run up the. steep wooden stairs, and she worked the signals till Pere came out again after his four hours' sleep. Each got the meals ready in turn, each worlted in the house and in the garden when tfcey came off duty. But at three o'clock in tilio morning Death spread his dusky wings over the happy little home at Semaphore No. 11 on the line from St. Denis 'to Epinay. A revolver shot rang out. Nobody knows u&o fired it. Nobody, in all probability, ever will know, for hhe neighbourhood is a bad one, and there are apaches and loafer# ;f an evil kind, who hang about the Jailway. lOne of thes-> prowlers of the night, a man, perhaps, who had some quarrel with the Pere tilysse, had wreaked his

vengeance on the old soldier. Perhaps he was a man whom Pere Wynne had ciuigiht and thrashed some time ago for prowling round the little garden and 'being rude when spoken* to. Perhaps he waa another scoundrel whom la Pere Ulyase tad interrupted many montfe ago and thrashed because he suspected him of designs on a luggage train. Anyway, the stop crack of Unit shot, woke fn Mere Poul'lain, who sleeps hut lightly. She ran out of the littf'e brick house in her nightdress, she rail ui» the steep wooden stairs of Box No. 11, and shrieked and slu-ieked flf«ain for holo. DEATH'S MESSENGER. Lo Pere Ulrsse had been down on the line witih'hia lamp. Ho had jurat climbed the atairs again when the shot ' wfcs fired. Ho had been standing in the doovwtiy. The bullet penetrated his loft eye, wounding him niortnMy. It had connout tlhrough the old man's neck and bounded from the wooden wall on to the floor. La Mere Pcullain shrieked loudly for assistance, and heard a shrill whistle in reply. Her husband lhy groaning on the floor at her feet, but there w no time to give Hir. help just then, though lie* begged pitifully for a glass of watSr. The whistle she had heard was the whistle of an express train carrying hundreds of English passengers into Paris, and th.i signals needed her attention. The woman worked, sobbing an «he puiled over tho levers, and the train passed in safety. Help came before long. Fcrirand

Pou'dtim had heard his 'mother'* cry, and ft man named Lcrert had heard it. They came up to the signal box and did what they conhl, but la Mere Poullain did not, could not, desert the signal box. At. lialf-past tlvree anathir train csimc through and stopped. Levert and Fe.rnaiid Poullain carried Pere Ulysfp down a, gently ns they could, put. him into a first-class carriage,. and vviil to Paris with him. There is a hospital, T'Flopital Lnriboiaktrps, quite nea.r the' Rare da Nord. If help were possible, if there were anything to be done it would be dene immediately. La Mere Poullain toiled on, the hot tear* dropping 011 the lever handles .as she pulled them till a man named Lcitzv, on his way to work, possod the signal box before five. fft'e called to him, "They've kilHl my husband' Pwuand ami Lever!, havfi taken liiai to Paris! Co for help! I want to go to (tim. but T must stay here till 1 am relieved," she said. jFt was six when ToJief came. T.i Mere Poullain had worked for Hire" hours. —one ilniivlred and eight? Ion::: minute* of aflonr. She snatched un petticoat anil a sllrawl in the little bri.-k house and went to Liirisboisdfcre 11' • pital. Le Pere Ulysse had died in the IWchiHH railway carriage on his way into | Paris. He had been killed bv ti revo]vw bullet from a service pistol of the 1802 model Oh, yea. La Mere Poullain \vi!' <yt j little pension.