The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-02
People Are Aroused by Ere
 quency of Murder
WANT THE DEATH PENALTY
Real Inventor of Telephone Said to be Postoffice Salome" Falls to Shock Paris.
 Mad Mans Prank.
BY PAUL VlLLIERs.

Pars. June LA curious agitation is now shaking France in a mild manner. The leniency of French juries to crimi- nals, especially for those whom jealousy the 'unwritten law" and other incidents connected with the tender passions can be excused is proverbial
 Criminals are condemned to death now and then. but are invariably reprieved, the authorities seeming for years past to have had a horror of spilling blood judieially Last session a bill was intro dueed into the chambers abolishing the death penalty altogether. Now, whether it is a consequence or merely coinei- dence. the series of brutal crimes upon the person, especially upon women and girls, which have been so rife in France of late years, have increased in alarm ing proportion. Daily we hear of out Tages and murders of the most reVolting description.
 The matter has so acted upon the public conscience that a revulsion of feeling has taken place against the leniency of judges and 1uries, and the government Is be- ing bombarded with petitions from grand juries and public authorities of every de- scription to replace the death penalty on the statute book, and not only this, but to enforce it in future, and to do so in strict privacy, so as to avoid any of that public parade which has moi 4- attraction for the lower classes.
 It is generally believed that the in ventor of the telephone is the distin- gushed American scientist, Graham Bell. But this distinction has now been claimed for a much less important man, post office employe, named Bourseul, who has been retired on a pension for some years, and has just died near Paris.
 The authenticity of the fact that Bour- seul invented the telephone is vouched for by M. Moujeot, an ex-postmaster gen eral, and by the association of telephone subscribers in this city. It was in 1s1 that Bourseul, after vainly offering his invention to the French post office, pub lished a full description of 1t in several technical periodicals
 The principle of the instrument was identlcally similar with that of the tele- phone for which letters patent was ap- plied for by Graham Bell at Washington twenty-two years later, namely, February IA, 1876.
 .,l. Moujeot is Tn possession of docu- ments showing that the old employe spent five years in endeavoring to induce the post office to take up his invention. Some years ago the old man came to Moujeot to tell him that his small pension was n- sufficient alleging his claims as reason for it's increase.
 M. Moujeot thought he was harmless lunatic, but on looking Into the archives he found his contention was only too true, and with the consent of the gov ernment, increased the pension by six hundred dollars. This sum paid regu- larly for the last five or six years Is all that M. Bourseul ever got for his epoch- making invention.
 Oscar Wilde's "salome," with the strik- ing music of Richhard Strauss has just been given In Paris, and Paris Is not shocked. In fact. Paris was rather bored by the musical play which set all Amer ica talking last year. We recognize that the music Is very grand and very enig matical but 1t is not at all likely to take on' in Paris. Parisians were interested in the dramatic intensity of the play and Tn the richness of the orchestration, while the acting of Frau Emma Destinn, from the Berlin opera, delighted their esthetic senses, If 1t aid not overwhelm them with the strength of the part. The famous dance of Salon.e of which we had heard so much was found in reality to be very tame affair Here comes the curious part of the production. At another theatre, the Variete, where a sort of humorous pantomine has been going on has been introduced the real "Salome" dance, as it was intended by the authors, and It Is danced In a striltlngly agile and yoluptu- GUS manner by Miss Maud Allan. Miss Allan is astonishingly 1.-the and grace ful, and her snallelike dance of triumph is found to be hendish in its realism 1t is causing a great sensation in Paris.
 Forcing his sister to swallow needles is the queer charge brought against q man living at Tassin, In the department of the Rhone.
 The sister, who is twenty-two years old, declares that he made her swallow nee dles which he stuck in pears and oranges because he wanted to get rid of her, in order to add her share of their fortune to his own.
 The poor girl was kept shut up in the house, and for some months the neighbors heard her crying and calling for help. They were unable to reach her, however, until the Mayor of Tassin had the house entered by force.
 When she was taken to the hospital rot fewer than seventy-two needles were extracted from the girls body, and more were taken from her afterwards Although she has suffered fearful agony, her life is not in danger.
 A woman often wishes she were man, but it is not often that this Is reversed and a man wishes he were woman. Yet in Paris there Is at least one man who does. He is a young man of 20, with beautiful clear complexion and shy modest manner. He has always passed for a girl and was employed a $ @.- '--s--- nurse at maternity hospital, until 1t was time for him to be called up for military service.
 Explanations followed, and he was not allowed to continue to be woman. To his great iov. however, he was declared to be physically unfit for military service owing to general weakness. He then took a situation as assistant to a chemist. But his youthful face has assumed nxed sadness. He was easily consoled for not being accepted as a soldier, but full Of grace and beauty as he was as a girl, he is jnconsolable at belonging to the ugly sex" His name Is Rene Marie --.neret
 gy-la .(.