Show Many SHin in Inns of Europe I r understand the peculiar terror which stories oC evil inns I Is not dimcult to pecular evi inspire The condition of the man who falls Into such a trap Is I 0 horrible one I l He is alone n stranger I Is I night and dangers are the more redoubtable that J 1 they move against him under n cloak of darkness I I sometimes think of a night I upcnt In an Inn on tho Spanish frontier In n little seaside village surrounded by n thick pine forest five or six years ago I I pros accommodated with a bed Inn large room In which another traveler was lying He wn talkative as most uouthcrn Frenchmen are and curious as tom II to-m business circumstances and future movements I told him a story of my financial troubles which seems to me to have saved my life He was restless I during the nIGht and kept going to the window I could not go to sleep while he was1 moving about I In the end we both fell asleep Ho had given me his name a name with which n year or two later the whole of France was ringing He was tried for a I double murder perpetrated under circumstances of peculiar atrocity and with Buch n motive oC petty robbery that the opinion was lie must have had long 1 familiarity with crime The murder for which he was convicted was carried out to gain possession of 20 and people believed none but r hardened criminal would i nerve himself to murder for gain so paltry j Such was my companion In a lonely Inn where my disappearance would I have aroused neither curiosity nor suspicion How ho would have disposed of II me I could Imagine from the crime for which he was convicted He traveled wtlh 0 large trunk I sometimes think It was the one afterward seized at the cloakroom of a station on the Cherbourg line containing the body of his latest victim I think all that saved me from sepulture within It was the cunning with 1 which I had concealed the fact I was in possession that night of n considerable l cum I was with similar cunning that my brother and myself avoided a like danger I dan-ger at Rotterdam We were lads of 10 and 12 respectively on our way home tot to-t England from our school In Wiesbaden As the ship did not start until the day following our arrival we had been obliged to pass the night In Rotterdam A I oater conducted us to 0 miserable tavern In n slum of the Bompjes where we I paid for the best room As the time for retiring came our villainous looking landlord conducted us to 3 dark closet and told us to sleep thore We have fallen Intoa trap T said to my brother and so It seemed when later we heard n9tealthy step on the staircase Then we began to talk In German and the gist i of our conversation was What would become of us the next day If the money Ic expected from our parents did not arrive We colored the story of distress and probably our being awake saved us instead of the tale overheard We heard the I I step retreating and remaining awake till morning we were not molested I iFrom what I have since heard of this class of house in Rotterdam and Amt Am-t sterdam I have no doubt that we had 0 narrow escape 4 JjTance too is clotted with houses where murder ana theft lurk behind the I mask of treachery In the forest of Chatenay three miles from Macon you s may seo the ruins of a church consecrated to St John Not far from this F writes Raoul Glabert 0 scoundrel had built 0 house for the accommodation of travelers In this house he murdered all who came to lodge The monster used I the flesh of his victims for nourishment A man came there with his wife and asked shelter Having rested his wife I prying Into a closet discovered a heap of human remains At this the travelers I I I jpcw pale and made for the road The innkeeper tried to stop them but terror lent speed so they were able to escape to the town where they Informed Prince I Othon of the discovery A great number of men set out the monster was found I in his den and no less than fortyeight human heads were discovered remains I of travelers whom he had murdered and devoured He was dragged back to I towji tied to a beam In a cellar and burned to death I I myself says Glabert was present at his execution I II From other chronicles of this period cannibalism seems to have been looked I upon by Innkeepers as 1 perquisite of their profession Tills story Is In Its way anore horrble than Hamilton Aides fiction for in his evil Inn only the teeth and I hair of the victims were coveted by the two sisters of Cologne I I XlThe French In of most sinister reputation Is still standing In 3 mountain pass In Auvergne This Is known to history as the Murderers inn The building I was offered for sale some months ago and though less than 200 was asked buiding no I purchaser was found The Inn Is a death trap Rooms assigned t travelers have windows barred with Iron In an outhouse Is the furnace in which bodies I f of Victims were cliaposed of Hundreds of lonely travelers belated in this mac I cessible spot have been plundered and murdered I The clue to the mysterious disappearances of Englishmen In France reported I I j 5n London papers at the beginning of last century could have been reprted by he 1en cIordcd a discovery at PIscot the I Iscover on road from Paris to Calais In the old days of mall j coaches travelers from the north to the French capital arrived at Piscot o toward mal I I nightfall The house had had a bad reputation but the Innkeeper was popular towarl The Inn was poorly supplied with water wa and the I porl suppled wih landlord employed men to dig a well at the back of the Inn 3 wel When the diggers had got down a few feet they came upon a skeleton and having removed this they were digging into a i graveyard Remains of eighteen bodies were found boies Then the old people of Pis I cot bean to talk of the evil stories In connection with the house ole Gruesome was the find made a few months fnd 3 ago by workmen pulling down au old house hi town pulng hous a In the Morblhan district uf Iftown jorblhan of Brittany where the flooring of the kitchen hid 100rIns charnel 1 I thnThere a chanel house of human remains This house had been an 1 There Is evidence that this kind of evlcencc thrt of robbery still nourishes on the continent Only recently came the story of an itinerant Druggist assailed In an contnent near Clermont Ferrand A trap door In the floor of his bedroom was raised two masked men armed with revolvers entered and forced the traveler to hand I travelel over ZO his i hs entire fortUne The man escaped The servant at the inn had with xiesied the I I I I I Jesed jioieeCilcago landlady Tribune dividing the spoils and helped him to give information to wl the I |