The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-31
STRANGE THINGS IN
 ALSACE-LORRA|NE Inhabitants Enthusiastic for
 Aeroplanes SHELTER FOR POOR Dawson Writes Book on Southern Negro-Paris Women Are Afraid of All Chauffeurs Since the Recent Outrages
By GEORGE DuFRENsE

authorities are discovering many strange things in Alsace-Lorraine. Their latest
 discovery is sedltous dog. In the
 streets of Mulhouse one fine morning, the
 authorities found tri-color dog. At its
 birth the dog was white, but it had been
 birth the dog was white, but is had been painted blue from the head to the should CTS, while the rest of the body was red l The police were much disturbed. It was a case of punishing the dogs insolent owner. Therefore they followed the poodle, who wandered through the streets | seeking its home It stopped in front of 1 the sub-perfecture building and entered | It was at home. It was the poodle of the
 sub-perfect of Mulhouse. Some practical | jokers had seized the animal, and un- known to it's master had painted 1t with the French colors. The police have been | looking for these practical jokers but in vain.
 Things are happening in Lorraine which will not suit the book of the German au- | thorities. It will be remembered that the | idea of raising a national subscription,
 with a view to supplying the army with
 aeroplanes. had it's birth at Nancy which
 was the first town to offer flying machines
 bearing it's nafe. While all othertowns in | France have taken up the movement | Lorraine has not been idle. Nearly all the communes are subscribing toward
 aeropanes for the French army The movement is, in fact. universal in this Host province.
 l In the Mouse there is a village called La Forge, which has about 800 inhabitants | mostly small cultivators The other day
 the municipal council assembled, and on . h. t.r. IL. | imously voted 800 francs, a franc per
 lnhabitant, for the purchase of military aeroplane
 l The department of the Vosages has de- cided to present the army with five flying machines. They will bear the names of the chief town and the four sub-per- lectures. It is calculated today that, if the departments of France and Algeria do as much. the French army will be in possession of nearly 500 aeroplanes. A wonderful scheme Is spoken of for converting an old paupers night shelter near the Central markets into a palace for the poor. The Quincampoix lodging house is famous or notorious in many a story as one of the sights of the Grand Dukes" tour, where visitors to the slums of Paris are shown through cellars of old chambers with dilapdated walls and
 floors occupied every night by hundreds of vagrants, beggars or tramps Some of these are content with mere sitting room and a bar in front of them on which they can rest their heads. By paying an extra sou or two they may get an arm chair, but the real luxury of the place costs ten cents. It consists of bed with a mattress in big whitewashed room containing several dozen beds.
 l The Quincampoix shelter Is governed by | a maitre de'hotel. who conceived the idea, of the wonderful palace. He has secured the services of an architect and | capital to the amount of 100000 francs With this sum 1t is proposed to build an entirely new night shelter, but 1t is to have so many comforts that 1t may be called the Palace hotel of the poor. There will no longer be common dormi- tories. The guests are to have each a separate chamber with iron bedstead, two mattresses, sheets, and blankets thing unknown at present; and greater | wonder still will be a wash basin fixed | in the wall, and a looking glass. The | plans are for a magnificent stone front,
 which will have an imposing appearance.
 There will also be restaurant where
 meals will be served at ? cents and 5 cents each and the guests with lesure to
 spare also have the use of the reception room and library.
 l MT. Washington Dawson, the young American author whose novels dealing
 with negro problem from the Southern
 point of view are widely known, has writ l ten book in French on the same sub
 jcct It is to be published in few days | The work, I am told, Is particularly in- teresting MT. Dawson who accompanied
 ex-President Roosevelt on his African
 hunting expiditon, has been able. from personal observation to draw compari-
 sons between the negro in his natural state and the negro in America. The tenor of his argument Is that the black man should be treated as a black man and not as a white man-that Is to say
 with kindness and sympathy, but not with 1 false ideas as to his capacities and pos-
 abilities The two races should be kept
 in parallel lines but there should be no
 converging.
 Practically the note of the book is to
 plead in the light of history and current
 evnts. that the south was right in 1860.
 Paul Adams preface emphasizes the fact
 that the American negro fs descended from the least developed of the east African race. The mutual jealousy Of
 the blacks contribute to their madiocrity,
 which induces M. Adam, with his skill as litterateur to draw a comparison
 between them and certain classes of
 French society today. Finally he asks
 whether the return to Nature," which Is
 the ideal of the negro, is not menace
 to civilization.
 | When people are in a panic they will | believe anything. So I make consider
 able allowance for the stories that are go-
 ing about with regard to the chauffeur
 community? The women folk have got l 1t into their heads that about one in
 every three is bandit and that for noth-
 ing in the world would they enter a taxi
 alone. These rumors have taken firmer
 shape since outrage on the poor lady,
 who on leaving the opera, was driven by | the chauffeur to the depths of the Bols
 de Boulogne, robbed and stripped of her
 clothing and left to wander lamentaby
 to her home and die of pneumonia as a
 consequence.
 l I know quite number of ladies who
 have given up the public motor car for
 the Metro and the notorious. A frequent
 practice of the Paris chauffeur Is to drive
 rapidly in all sorts of out of the way
 directions so as to mount up the fares.
 This succeeds especially with American
 ladies. Meanwhile. niurderous attacks
 on the police by chauffeurs have become
 standing peril. requiring immediate
 and drastic legislatiorH Lepine. the pre-
 feet of police, spoke corageously when
 he blamed the higher authorities for let
 ting criminals go to save expense. The