Occasionally there were very sad circumstances attending the death of lonely English people in Paris. At the close of the Boer war, an English soldier who had fought in South Africa died in the Beaujon Hospital. We could not discover how he had wandered to Paris, or get from him any information as to relatives.
The only persons present at the grave were myself and the vestry clerk. Just as the body was being lowered into the grave the clerk placed upon the coffin a small British flag.
And here I should like to bear testimony to the devoted work of Mr. Wicker. His father was Vestry Clerk before him for many years—through nearly the whole of the long ministry of Dr. Forbes. When he died I appointed his son. Brought up in Paris and speaking both languages, and thoroughly in earnest in his work, his services are invaluable to the Chaplain.
Another sad case was that of a girl named X⸺, who had run away from home four years before her death with the son of a ship builder, who deserted her two days before her end. The parents had lost sight of her, and were too late to see her alive. The funeral was most distressing. The number of English people “under a cloud” who bury themselves in Paris is not small, and the chaplain has frequently very sad cases with which to deal.
Of late years, since the French have taken so kindly to “afternoon teas,” English people have been tempted to open tea shops, without having carefully considered the difficulty and expense of carrying on a business in a foreign land. Several came to grief during my sojourn in Paris.
One of the saddest cases, which may prove a warning to others who have had similar ideas, is the following:
In the year ⸺ two ladies, daughters of an English clergyman, came to Paris and opened a tea shop. For a time they did fairly well, and their business fell off chiefly owing to a French shop being opened in the neighbourhood. Things got so bad that they suddenly closed the shop and left for England.
On the way, under mental excitement, one of the sisters jumped from the train and was seriously injured. As a report was spread that only one of the sisters had left, I went down with the officials and forced the establishment, expecting to find the other sister dead. The report, however, proved to be false, for both had left. It was a sad ending to a foolish venture.
One Sunday evening as I was returning from Church, I was overheard speaking English, and two young men stopped me. They said that being out of work in England, they had realized their savings and come to Paris, with the idea of selling fruit in the streets. I asked them if they spoke the language, and they said “not a word,” and they were in great difficulty to know what to do, when they heard me speaking English and stopped me. We got them back to England the next day.
It was extraordinary the number of English working people that turned up time after time, with no knowledge of French, expecting to get work, and had to go—or be sent—back, wiser men.