The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-09-29
DAILY NEWS LETTER
General News and Gossip
 From Staff Members at
By HERBERT M. DAVIDSON. International News Service Staff Correspondent,

Paris, Sept. 2s-Danlz prisons. which date from centuries past; bleak colon lal coasts, where all work and no play makes Jacques a living skeleton: even the gie ming blade of the hideous gu1llotine itse1f-thought of none of these is deterrent enough to stem the crime wave that is sweeping over France in general and Paris in par ticular.
 Official figures now confirm the intensity with which the city of Paris Is being infected with the crime germ astounding proportion of the increase or crime is among>the youth.
 These figures, taken from report oy Emile Massard, Municipal Coun- cllior, are quoted by the Paris Midi.
 The sad end of Mecislas Charrier who killed man in the course of rooo1ng an express train and expiated hn ms crime ne under the guillotine- who walk in his footsteps, or even those who go him one better" is the comment made.
 Tn one year the total number of arrests for all crimes has exceeded, of 10000.
 But the most disquieting thing of all is the recrudescence of Juvenile crime.
 -Four hundred culprits were less than fifteen years old; thirteen hun UA Oo HSIe iEOul fifteen to seventeen, and 3,200 had not yet attained the age of twenty!
 And that is only the boys. More than 1,150 girls appeared before the courts. One hundred of these were less than fifteen years old; $50 were between fifteen and eighteen years o1d.''
 Conclusion is reached that educa- ton and the extension of home infiu- ence are the best remedies.
 Modern newspapers record more recounted in all ancient literature sa- cred or profane. There are stranger things 'twixt heaven and earth than were ever dreamed by the most ambitious trick camera man that ever inhabited Hol- lywood.
 La Presse doesn't put it just exact ly that way, but that's the effect of its conclusion after summarizing a series of bizarre happenings that have set the Paris public wondering re- gently. Three of these curious events con- cern mushrooms. The mushroom has been a favorite plaything of cooks, botanists and court poisoners for centuries, but it has never behav ed the way it has been doing the last few weeks.
 First of the disclosures was that
 
 fungus was destroying the walls of the historic palace of Versailles. Close upon the heels of this "new thing under the sum- came the an- nouncement that another mushroom, distantly related, was preventing the development of this seasons oysters and making it necessary to charge prohibitive prices for the succulent haIfSheI. But that was nothing to what a mushroom could do if it got really riled, as the next few days came to prove.
 This master mushroom blew up house in Va1enciennes! Whether Monsieur and Madame Nils, newlyweds, saw the mushrooms before their house exploded, or whether traces of mushroom were explained.
 It seems that certain beams sup ported the house. It was these beams that were attacked by the ma One day the crash came. The young people were seriously injured Some insist that the house just nat ural1y fell in. But the young couple | theory than that the mushrooms blew up and that they were "set off" by spontaneous combustion l turn to fish. It has been reported from fingers that fish have been drowning themselves by thousands in the River Mayenne. Fish that drown themselves in river are miraculous enough. There is no joke about it. The fish have been seen, according to seV- eraI reports, gasping and slplutterlng, and their poor drowned bodies are strewn along the flat river banks