Owing to the great increase in motor cars, the streets of Paris are particularly dangerous for pedestrians, and accidents are of almost daily occurrence. A peculiarly sad case was the following:
Two sisters, working girls (English), lived together in the Rue ⸺. They worked in different establishments, but generally met near the Madeleine after working hours and went home together. On this occasion one sister waited near the trysting place, but her sister did not meet her. She noticed a crowd round a neighbouring chemist’s, but did not enquire what had happened, and went home.
It turned out that it was her sister who had been carried into the pharmacy to die. Standing on the “island of safety” opposite the Madeleine, her dress had been caught by a passing motor, and she had been dragged under it and killed. These two girls were supporting an aged mother in England.
Another fatal accident which gave me a curious experience was that of Madame J⸺, who was run over by a cab and killed. In her pocket was found a paper with my name and address written upon it. She was an Englishwoman, widow of a Frenchman, and used to earn her living by selling lace on commission. After the accident she was taken to the Morgue. At that time this gruesome institution was partly open to the public, and some of the bodies—not identified—were exposed upon slabs behind glass, others were kept in boxes in another part until buried. The authorities sent for me, to see if I could identify the body of this poor woman, which I was able to do—but I shall never forget the horror of the scene. The poor body was in a box without covering, and so disfigured that I had some difficulty in convincing myself that it was the person I expected. I was glad to arrange for her decent burial.
One of the most melancholy of English suicides, of which, alas, there are many, was that of Colonel Hector Macdonald, in March, 1903.
He was staying at the Hotel Regina in the Rue de Rivoli, and apparently after reading the “New York Herald,” in which there was a paragraph stating that grave charges had been made public against him, he shot himself. After the necessary formalities the body was removed to the Embassy Church in the Rue d’Aguesseau before removal to Scotland. Colonel Macdonald was a large man, and there being a double coffin, we were unable to lower the body into the mortuary, and this gave rise to a report that sufficient reverence was not shown—a report which was without any foundation.
Many members of the Scotch colony in Paris visited the Church and placed flowers on the coffin, and someone unknown sent a bunch of heather from Scotland for a like purpose. It was a sad ending to the life of a brave soldier.