Evening star., 1922-12-10


is) just the Moulin de la Ga
lette-a dance hall. But. In fact, 1t
was. is, and will remain. probably. a
long time, the society act" parlors
of Partisan crookdom.
| Professional assassins. burglars,
| strong arms. footpads. woman bull
! lies-an the pre-war criminal world OF
Paris-made the "Galette" their 80
lciety" resort for gregarious amenities.
| ostentation, climbing and plain en-
1oyment of eating and drinking. In
all things 1t resembled the polite,
! true social whirl' Of the 400. except
that it was (and is) patheticadly
unique, alone. one spot. and self-con-
| tained.
The orchestra, in Its own balcony.
had sixty pieces. ct has sixty-fve at
present, counting saxophones and jazz
| drums) Around the great dance floor
| still remain the forty half-curtained
refreshment alcoves. with their velvet
hangings, mirrors, cleaning BRASS
work. thick plush carpets. heavily up
| holstered armchairs and marble
topped tables-all bad taste. but gor-
| ReOu0. 4Ho CoiliA6 was JAG Soh-
| rInuous mirror. And when they
struck up the strong mems quadrille,
and you looked from ceiling to floor
and back, you saw a pandemonium OF
polite deviltry unequaled elsewhere.
i They closed up the ''Galette" in 1907
| for Just one reason. Paris cried
out against it as the special nursery
of that youthful thugdom which gave
the Apache" SO bad a name through
out the world, made Paris streets DO
dangerous at night, and has passed.
with the war, to remain today the
! dream of writers at a distance.
All the same. 1t was a pre-war dam
ger. But there Paris fooled them.
as it fooled the world with absinthe
drinking, suppressed by decree in one
war day, not to return. and nothing
said about it.
j0F 275 homicides judged in 1905. 81
~ were work of minors from SIX
/ teen to twenty-one. OF 168 cold
blooded murders, 55 were done by
minors. OF I'll woundings resulting
| in death, ~ were attributable to
| minors. And of IL PARTICLES or mat
J ricides, were unhappy victims of
their minor sons!
The number of criminal cases
| "classed" tthe guilty remaining un-
known amounted in 1901 to s3.466.
BY 1907 it had risen to 110,710.
THE increase lie due" said the Paris
70
unknown masses Of young thugs. bred
up around the establishment which
everybody calls The Criminals Ball.
! The whole neighborhood gives out a
noxious influence. Young fellows do
\ deeds, from which old hands would
shrink, merely to show proofs and
swagger with the big ones in those
parlors"
| All right. To the great regret of
| the high police, they closed up the
Galette, for the first time, in 1907.
And the hoped-for results were not
realized!
! Ardent young thugdom, erring like
lost children, lost contact with ex-
| perienced old hands. of cautious. mod
] crate ways, and raised such Cain as
! made the Paris night more cruel and
wanton than before. The "classed"
cases rose to 1900 in 1908 and to
! 1l4,763 in 1909. And the police. con-
tinually baffled, answered back to the
municipality and press that it could
not be otherwise, since now their
most productive stalking ground to
hunt the guilty had been taken from
them!
"Allow the Galette to reopen" they
said, land there will soon be less un-
solved mysteries Of crime. The thugs
are drawn to it like moths to a
fame"
So It was done.
The Garette reopened gorgeousiy.
It closed, Of itself. like all such
places, in tho war. while the Apaches
Of Paris, in honorable French uniform
(the Bait. DAT. is such!). destroyed
the Prussian Guard in the swamps
Of st. Gond! La, Ia, my children.
there Wits something which redeemed,
4 little. And the, war, which spoiled