A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1906, 4 February 1885, Page 2

A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE.

CRIME IS FRANCE. M. Morin, the victim of the vengeance of Madame Clovis Hugues, whome he so badly slandered, expired on the evening of the Bth inst,, at halkpast ten, at the Hotel Dieu, Paris, after suffering the most excruciating pain for ten days.' Nearly all illustrated papers this week contain the portraits of the "heroine of the drama of the Palais of Justice." not a few reproducing, moreover, the shocking scene'itself, Public opinion is not so unanimous as it was in applauding the action of the Deputy for Marseilles, The Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph writes: The enormous increase of crime in Paris and everywhere else in France, is still agitating the public mind here to an extraordinary degree. In less than a week Paris alone ..has been the theatre of several terrible murders, all of which (with one notable exception) were committted for the sake of gain. The police are diligently employed in tracking the murders to their lairs, and thanks to their researches some of the miscreants have- been brought to justice. Thus Gamahut, who was one of those who lately murdered Madame Ballerich at Grenellee in the most cold-blooded manner, has been ably followed up to a town in the Department of the Nieve, where he has been arrested. Hifl capture will possibly lead to that-of others of the numerous band of assassins, male and female, of which he is: the presiding genius. Both Mace,'the" and Monseiun Kuehn, the present chief

k la sunk, attribute the actual increase of crime to the spread of immorality, Mr Kuehn is positive that the attrocious deeds which are of such frequent occurrence are notthe work of poi-sonsurgedtoguiltby destitution, or of mombors of the labouring classes. • They are mostly committed by robust young men of ages varying from eighteen to twenty-one, who are allowed by law to act as the protectors of women of'ill-fame. Midy, one of Gamahut's partners''in the murder of Madame Ballerieh, is scarcely twenty years old, and has already been six times in prison, These men usually give themselves up to murder and pillage while their • female associates are. undergoing ,t term of imprisonment at St. Lazare for larceny or other misconduct. They are to be found, moreover, not only in the low quarters,, but also in sbmo of tho more aristocratic portions of the metropolis, and vary in their'appearance and manners according to the locality which they inhabit or the style, of the female whom.they ''protect." ' M. Kuehn is of opinion, that tho application of the, Recidivist Bill 'on the one hand and the' Strictest superintendence of low or equivocal hotels on the other may tend to stein the tide of crime and corruption which has set in. In the meantime President Grevy is still practising his usual clemency, and has just commuted the sentence of Meerholz, who was condemned to death, by the Assize Court of the Seine on September 2G last. This desperate criminal had'enticed a'girl named Prevostto the fortifications',' where he first murdered and then violated her, finally flingiiig her dead body into the moat below. ■■-''