Here is a strange report of needle demons that comes out of Paris in 1922. Apparently women were being jabbed by needles while out shopping. The effect was slight, although no one really knows what kind of “poison” these women were jabbed with. It leads to a lot of tin foil hat theories, don’t you think?
‘Needle Demons’ Puncture Women In Mysterious Paris Crime Wave
Poison Dose, Not Fatal, Injected in Arms of Shoppers and Bus and Subway Travelers.
PARIS, Dec. 13. — “Needle demons” is the title given to the originators of the latest crime wave in Paris, which police reports show has been growing in intensity for the last two weeks until now dozens of women daily are being picked with poison needles by unidentified monomaniacs.
The terror began among the women Christmas shoppers in the big department stores, but the needle jabbers are now operating in the auto buses, the subways and other places where crowds congregate and it is possible to inflict the injury and escape without identification.
The police are as much mystified as they were by last winter’s epidemic of dress and fur coat slashing and so far no arrests have been made. While poisoned, the effect on the victims is not serious, the women usually escaping with slight swellings and muscular pains.
Source: The Evening World newspaper. December 13, 1922. New York, N.Y.
