The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1884-12-13 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

APPALITNG INCREASE OF CRIME IN FRANCE.  A correspondent, sending news of the death of M. Morin, the victim of Madame Clovis Hugues" vengeance, which occurred on Sunday at the Hotel Dieu, the victim suffering the most excruciating agony for ten days, goes on to say: "Nearly all the illustrated papers contain this week portraits of the "heroine of the drama of the Palais de Justice," not a few producing, moreover, the shocking scene itself. Public opinion is not now so unanimous as it was in applauding...the action of the wife of the Deputy for Marseilles. Indeed, excep• tions were from the first to be found in refined circles, where deeds of this description are never regarded with the same indulgence as is displayed by the incoherent multitude which passes as representing the French metropolis. The enormous increase of crime in Paris and elsewhere in France, to which I recently directed your attention, isstill agitating'thepublic mind here to an extraordinary degree. In less than a week Paris alone has been the theatre of several terrible murders, all of which (with one notable exception) were committed for the sake of gain. The police are diligently employed in tracking the murderers to their lairs, and thanks to their researches some of the miscreants have been brought to justice. Thus Gamahut, who was one of those who lately murdered Madame Ballerich at Grenelle in the most cold-blooded manner, has been ably followed up to a town in the Department of the Nievre, where he has just been arrested. His capture will probably lead to that of others of the numerous band of assassins, male and female, of which he was the presiding genius. Both Mace, the former, and Monsieur Kuehn, the present chef de la surete, attribute the actual increase of crime to the spread of immorality. MI Kuehn is positive that the atrocious deeds which are of such frequent occurrence are not the work of persons urged to guilt by destitution, or of members of the labouring classes. They are mostly committed by robust young men of ages varying from eighteen to twenty - one, who are allowed by law to act as the protectors of women of ill-fame. Midy, one of Gamahut's partners in the murder of Madame Ballerich, is scarcely twenty years old, and has already been six times in prieon. These men usually give themselves up to murder and pillage while their female associates are undergoing a term of imprisonment at St. Lazare for larceny or other misconduct. They are to be found, moreover, not only in the low quarters, but also in some of the more aristocratic portions of the metropolis, and vary in their appearance and manners according to the locality which they inhabit or the style of the female whom they prOtect.' M. Kuehn is of opinion that the application of the Recidivist Bill on the one hand, and the strictest superintendence of low or equivocal hotels on the other. may tend to stem the tide of crime and corruption which has set in. In the meantime President Grevy is still practising his usual clemency, and has just commuted the sentence of Meerholz, who was condemned to death by the Assize Court of the Seine on Sept.. 27 last. This desperate criminal had enticed a girl named Prevost to the fortifications, where he first murdered and then violated her, finally flinging her dead body into the moat below."