TRAGEDY OF WANT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 2 July 1913, Page 6

TRAGEDY OF WANT.

A STORY OF A BIG CITY,

Three months ago two girls, Camille Leot and Alice Jean, aged 18 and 19, left their homes m Lisieux and came to Paris —where the streets, of course, are paved with gold—to make their fortunes there, writes the Daily Telegraph's Paris correspondent, under date of May 13th. As sisters, and under the name of Martin, they took a small furnished room on the highest } floor-of a lodging-house in the Hue Clery. There they plied their trade of feather workers. They were quiet and industrious, and no one had anything but a good word for them except a crusty old gentleman, whose room was next to theirs, and who complained that they were always singing at their work. Of late, however, the singing had ceased. It was noticed that the Martin sisters looked weary arnd depressed. On Saturday night, when they entered the hotel, they were in tearß. They had, so they told the "patron," lost a fifty-franc note. Next day > there was no sign of them, but as they rarely went out no one was j alarmed. This morning at 5 o'clock, the "patron" was awakened by a feeble but persistent knocking at his door. It was the younger of the two ' girls, who, ghastly pale and breathing with difficulty, lay huddled outside. ' "Please come upstairs," she implored. "Mv sister is very ill." Then she fainted.* Leaving her to the care of his wife the "patron" went up to the room on the fifth floor. The door wag ajar, and a glance showed him what had happened. The room was full of the fumes from a cauldron of charcoal, which still burned. The windows had been stopped with old newspapers. In the.room lay the body of the older girl, already rigid. A doctor was summoned,/but he came too late. The younger girl—she. is only a child'of 18—when at last she recovered consciousness, told her pitiful story- .. , "We ran away from home, not because we were unhappy there —our parents were kind—but because- we hoped to get a splendid situation in Paris. We worked very hard, but we didn't have any luck. Then a few days ago wo lost th*. little work we had. That was why we were crying on Saturday, and not because we.had lost any money. We had not even a franc to lose. Our parents are poor, and wo were ashamed to aak them for help. So we made up our minds to die." , . The telling of the story so exhausted the girl that sho fainted again. The parents of her defltf companion have been communicated ?rith.