The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-31
A SUBSTITUTE

Translated from the French for the Posr-ISrEL-
LGESCER.
At the time of his first arrest-for vag-
rancy-he could not have been more than
10 years old.
To the magistrate he said:
My name is Jean Francois Lecture. and
for the last six months | have been with
the ballad singer in the Place de la Bas-
tile who accompanies himself upon an
old fiddle. Ny part was to join with him
in TIE chorus, and al the end of each song
to cry out: Buy collection of the latest
songs! Only ten centimes-two sousi'
He would often get drunk. then he would
beat me. That is why the police found me
the other night hiding in an empty build
ing. Before that was with a street peddler
of toys. Ny mother was q laundress.
She was called Adele, and her rent
for ground floor at Montmartre
was paid by some gentleman.
She washed very well and she loved me,
too. She made great deal Of money be-
cause she had the custom of many fine
gentlemen who wore much linen. On Sun
days she would put me to bed quite early
SO that she herself might go to the bail,
but on week days she sent me to the school
Then this happened. The sergeant de
vile, who was stationed in our street.
would often stop before my mothers win
dow and chat with her. He was fine
man and wore the Crimean medal. Now
they are married and everything has gone
wrong. He took dislike to me and set
my mother against me. l was always
being cufed and beaten, and so would
hs
time on the Place Clichy, where l got to
know all the mountebanks and street
performers. My step-father lost his
position, and my mother lost her private
custom. She went to the public wash
house so that she might support her hus-
band. There, thanks TO the lye used in
the washing. she became consumptive
She is buried at Lariboisiere She was a
good woman. Since then I have lived
with the street peddler and the fiddler
Is that why you are going 10 send me to
pri SOM"
He said all this calmly and even cyni-
cally, speaking as a grown man might.
He was a small, ragged urchin, his face
almost hidden by a mass of tawny-colored
hair. As no one claimed him he was sent
to the house of detention. Unintelligent,
without industry, and awkward with his
hands, the only trade he could learn was
that of chair mending. Yet he was
obedient and well-conducted. in a pas
sive, taciturn fashion, and did not
appear to be corrupted by the school of
vice. But when, having reached his
seventeenth year, he was once more
launched upon the streets of Paris, he met
with, as luck would have it. his former
prison companions, each of whom was
living more or less dishonest life. A few
months after leaving the house of correc-
ton he was again arrested for some tri-
fling crime, the theft of an old pair of
shoes. AS result he was sentenced for a
year to Sainte Pelage, where he was en-
ployed as a servant to those detained for
political offenses.
His time expired. He was again a wan
derer on the streets of Paris, his every
movement watched by the police as cat
will watch a mouse. confident of its power
lessness 10 escape. He became one of
those fugitive, frightened creature with
whom the law so cruelty sports, arrested
one moment, released the next, like a
fish restored by its captors to the water.
Among the archives and official
papers of the Rue de Jerusalem
(poiice head quarters) his name
and record were formally Endorsed in care
full round hand. Lecture the street arab, Lee
turc accused of theft. Lecture the convict
and jailbird. For two years he remained
outside the prison walls, eating as best he
could, sleeping by night in some dark
doorway or among the limekilns and tax
ing part with companions like 70 himself
in midnight orgies on the boulevards near
the barriers. In the CONSUMPTION he I'M
fortunately drew lucky number, for per-
haps his single hope of salvation at this
period lay in military discipline and the
ense of honor which surrounds a soldier