Word: vexliard
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Parisian, however, the bums of Paris are no proper bums at all, but merely aggravated psychological cases eager for reclamation. After a painstaking study for a doctorate at the Sorbonne, Psychologist Alexandre Vexliard reported in a thesis that some 50% of the Paris clochards are not drinking men. that many of them do useful and vital work at the city's markets and that most of them are "redeemable" to society. The bums of Paris reacted with outraged pride to these black charges...
...doubt," wrote 29-year-old Clerk William Borst, onetime clochard, to Le Monde, "that M. Vexliard's work is a masterpiece of erudition . . . but has he roamed the streets on a winter night looking for a corner to sleep in? Has he had a fist fight over a rotten Camembert? Has he had his shirt full of lice? I am only a former clochard but I affirm that 99.5% of clochards drink. The only thing for which a clochard ever stirs is red wine. Real clochards are not redeemable. They are Bohemians and will fall to pieces the minute...
Unimpressed, Psychologist Vexliard stuck to his guns. "Less than one in ten of these unfortunates," he insisted, "wants...
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