The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-04
FRENCH OFFICERS
 AS OPIUM TENDS Woman Makes Some Sensa-
 tional Charges THE COUNTRY IS AROUSED Look Before You Leap," Is Significant Warning the Government Gives
 French Girls Who contem-
 plate Matrimony.
THE COUNTRY IS AROUSED
BY PAUL VlLLIERS.

Paris. October 3.-"Among all the
 French naval officers stationed at Toulon
 l did not know one who was not addicted
 to opium smoking and most of them went
 around in a constant state of semi-intoxi- cation which l should think made them totally unfit to fulfill their duties is the sensational statement just made by La Belle Ligon," the mistress of the traitor Lieutenant Ullmo, who was arrested and sentenced for high treason some months ago. This statement, made by woman 1 who was on intimate terms with scores l of French naval officers has created | sensation throughout France and a gen. eral outcry is made that the government 1 must put an end to the sale of opium in France or the magnificent French fleet will be useless to the country in case of war as was the Russian in the war with the Japanese.
 The minister of marine announces that a rigid physical examination of all French
 naval officers will be made and that those found to be opium fiends will be given reasonable chance to recover and unless they do they will be dismissed from the service. The city of Toulon, where the French Mediterranean fleet is stationed, is full of opium dens where anyone may indulge in the drug, but very few officers frequent these places. Instead they fit up
 little rooms either at their homes or in
 private houses where they spend nearly
 all their leisure hours. As for Ullmo there is no doubt that this young man who was an unusually brilliant and promising off, cer owes his downfall to opium. Accord ing to the statement of La Belle Ligon"
 he began at Il in the morning and went on for an hour and half At in the afternoon he started again. continuing until s, and wound up with 4-hours smoke from Il oclock until in the morn
 ing, with the result that he was continu ally suffering from hallucinations even when on duty.
 Look before you leap" is the advice
 which the French government has just
 given girls who contemplate marriage
 with Bulgarians. This warning is con-
 veyed in the form of note which sets forth that French girls have often mar
 ried Bulgarian students in the university
 towns of France, the ceremony being per-
 formed by a civil officer and that when
 they have arrived in their new home they
 have been deserted by their husbands,
 who have, however, taken good care to
 appropriate their dowries. The complaints of these poor creatures have invariably
 been ignored by the Bulgarian courts on
 the ground that the civil wedding had not
 been supplemented by marriage accord
 ing to the Greek Orthodox rite. Now, as
 the French and Bulgarian legislations re-
 garding matrimony are essentially differ
 ent in principle it has been found impos- sble to remedy such abuses by means of negotiations. The moral of it all is that
 girls who are about to contract marriages with foreigners cannot be too careful in
 the matter of ascertaining the laws re-
 lating to matrimony in the countries of
 the men whom they are about to wed.
 The first female bill poster has made bar n cfrppfS of Paris
 She wears a long white coat and carries
 her pail of paste, her brush and her post
 ters in a business-like way. She has
 mastered all the tricks of bill posting, which is not so easy an accomplishment
 as it seems an dthe oldest male hand cannot give her points. At first she had
 to stand much teasing and abuse, but she
 is a powerful lady, with a ready wit and
 a quick tongue, so she can answer back
 with the best of them and little boys who thought 1t safe to jolly her soon
 found it was not and felt the whack of i her wet paste brush.
 The failure of a wine crop in Cham
 pagne is a worldwide calamity, and this
 year is disastrous, as it is estimated that
 Champagne will produce only SS,0O0 gal ;, Ions of wine, which is no more than the average annual output of one of the
 largest vineyards. The grocers are dis mayed, but they are even more indignant. It has long been the practice to import
 all sorts of white wines into Champagne ] from the South of France, from the Mo
 selle country, and even from Hungary
 and there to 'champagneize."
 ] Interruptions dealers buy these wines 1 at one-tenth of the price of genuine cham pagne. The vineyard owners are up in
 arms against these importers and have long called upon the chamber for law
 restricting the use of the name of Cham
 pagne to wine growers in that country. 'The Midi set us the example, they cry, ''let us in Champagne show the same l energy and win our case as they did"
 And they are determined to do as Amer jeans did at the Boston Tea Party to i throw the O,000 casks of foreign wine ex- i pected to arrive at Epernay during this 1 month into the river.