RUEFF, JULES:

By: Isidore Singer, Jacques Kahn

French merchant and ship-owner; born at Paris Feb. 16, 1854. At an early age he turned his attention to colonial affairs and navigation. In 1872 he went to Indo-China, and became one of the pioneers of French influence in that country. Later, he became president of the "Société Franco-Africaine," which established the first commercial counting-houses in Abyssinia, among others that at Jibuti. He is the originator of the plan for the railroad of Saigon-Mytho, in Cochin-China, and the founder and present (1905) general director of the "Messageries Fluviales de Cochin-chine," which greatly facilitated the spread of French trade in Indo-China by the route of Mekong. One of the company's vessels took part in the military expedition that forced the pass of Meinam. Jules Rueff was also of great assistance to the French government in organizing its various colonial expositions. Since 1900 he has been administrator of dockyards at Saint-Nazaire, the greatest of their kind in France. He was made commander of the Legion of Honor in 1900.

S. J. Ka.