PARISIAN SCENES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3267, 12 July 1911, Page 2

PARISIAN SCENES.

EXCITING STREET DRAMAS OF AN ORDINARY DAY.

People who flock t-o see uncanny spectacles for the sake of the emotion that they afford might save their money, and take a little healthy exercise as well in strolls through Paris, where a promenade is rarely unattended with some excitement. 'Thus, loungers on the Boulevard de Magenta the other afternoon noticed a middle-aged individual apparently intent on the goods exhibited in a shox> window, but when a certain smart man came along with a cigar between his teeth he whipped out a revolver and blazed away. He would have had another shot at his victim as the later lay on the ground if .passersby had not wrested the, weapon from his grasp. While the wounded man was being conveyed to a private hospital at Passy, with a bullet in his body, the assailant was examined by the police commissary, to whom he said that his only regret was that he had not- killed his victim outright. They are both in business, and. are old acquaintances, and the trouble is \ attributed to a quarrel over some transaction. Later on in the day a ghastly scene was witnessed at the Palais Royal station of the Metropolitan Railway. A young woman, decently but poorly, attired, was on the ■nlatform, when an unkempt and ragged creature walked up to her and tried to enter into conversation. ' As he met with no encouragement he left her and seated himself on a. bench, but as the next train approaching he rushed forward, put an arm round her, and flung her, with himself, on to the line. The two were under the wheels of the third carriage before the train stopped. The man was the first to be extricated. Tlis bead was a mere pulp, and he was stone dead. The young woman was still breathing, although shockingly mutilated, and when she was examined at the Cahrite Hospital the amputation of both feet was pronounced to be unavoidable. She is a very respectable person, and was employed as a waitress at a humble restaurant, where her brutal assailant sometimes ■ took his meals. > He wanted to many her, hut she would not hear of such a thing. After annoying her with his attentions he had followed her to the Palais Royal station and in a fit of mad fury had tried to. kill her as well as himself. Many automobiles, ;as they dash along, are a terror to pedestrians, who often make, any number of futile and risky a tempts to cross a thoroughfare. The popular feeling towards the average chauffeur was 1 significantly illustrated when a man who, after having been nearly run down, pulled out a knife and plunged it into the back of the driver of that particular motor oar, was greeted with loud and approving cries by the spectators of the incident. The dangerous consequences of the; thoughtess- throwing away of lighted, matches and cigarette ends have! mice again been illustrated by the accident which has befallen Madame Duhost, sister-in-law*, of the President of ie Senate. She was driving along the Boulevard Haussmann in an open cab, when she lieord a crackling noiso in her hat. and,, putting a hand up to it, she foil ixl to her dismay ,that it was on fire. The poor lady’s screams brought tlie vehicle to a halt, and a kind-hearted gentleman, who happened to be r ear, realising'what was amiss ' divested himself of his coat and laid it on the hat thus extinguishing the incipient conflagration. Madame Dubost got off with a little damage to her hair, which a coiffeur is repairing, and with a burn on one cliee'k and no the hand. But for'.the gentleman’s presence of mind the mischief would probablv have been very serious. She thinks that a, match or a cigarette must have been carelessly thrown, from the window of a neighboring house. ’