The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-01 00:00:00

obscure parents at Vezin, in the department of
Moselle, in 1792. His father was a Custom-house
officer. At the- age of sixteen M. Gisquet entered
the well-known house of the Brothers Perrier as a
clerk, and soon obtained the entire confidence-of the
head of the firm, M. Casimir Perrier. Casimir Per-
rier became a Minister, and was so esteemed in
France that his funeral, in 1832, was the most gor-
geous and imposing ceremony of modern times.
Gisquet, from a poor banker's clerk, at a salary of
£24 a year, became himself an influential banker,
and on the 14th October, 1831, was appointed Pre-
fect of Police under Louis Philippe. He was then
39. Gisquet's administration of the Police Depart-
ment was marked by despotism, and the most ar-
bitrary regulations. There were police spies every-
where. Perhaps the system he adopted was so
odious in the eyes of the Parisians that his measures
had the basis of that unpopularity which ultimately
drove Louis Philippe from the Throne. It is only
just to say, however, that his agents were very
clever in detecting crime. When the great
robbery of gold and silver medals and
other valuables took place at the Royal
Library in 1831 he soon discovered the thieves. The
principal one was a man named Fossard, an escaped
convict. One of his accomplices was an elegant and
fashionable lady, who lived in great style upon the
produce of stolen property. A great quantity of
the gold and silver medals was melted into ingots
and the rest were thrown into the Seine. Under
the immediate superintendence of M. Gisquet they
were fished up near the Pont de la Tourrelle. They
comprised some valuable numismatics, including the
seal of Louis XI., the silver shield of Hannibal, and
the medals of Antiochus. M. Gisquet took very
severe measures against the St. Simonians, and
forcibly dispersed a meeting, at which their head,
the father Enfanten, presided. The father soon
after left France for the East with a largo number
of followers. M. de Chateaubriand was imprisoned
by order of M. Gisquet in consequence of his parti-
cipation in the well-known affair of the Duchess de
Berri. During his administration an impostor
who pretended to be a Dauphin of France, was
arrested. He called himself Baron de Richemont,
but his real name was Louis Hector Hebert. Be-
fore the Court of Assize Hebert persisted that he
was Louis XVII., and said that he escaped from the
Temple, not on a wooden horse like that at the siege
of Troy, but on a horse made of pasteboard. Hebert
was sentenced to be imprisoned for 12 years. In
this case Gisquet was not so fortunate as usual, for
Hebert contrived to escape. Gisquet was Prefect
of Police at the time of Fieschi and the infernal
machine. Fieschi had a great desire to have a pri-
vate interview with the Prefect, and while in prison
wrote him a letter begging the Prefect to come and
pay him a visit, humorously remarking that M.
Gisquet would be sure to find him at home. So
determined was M. Gisquet to put down dan-
gerous allusions everywhere that he waged
eternal war against the theatres. The most
harmless verse or dialogue was suppressed
under a threat of having the theatre closed. Even
the harmless mummery of the procession of the fat
ox on Shrove Tuesday was alarming to M. Gisquet's
eyes, and he tried, but unsuccessfully, to induce
Louis Philippe to suppress it. It is only justice to
say that M. Gisquet's administration was not all of
a mischievous tendency. He it was who arranged
the omnibus system in Paris. I may remark that
this system is most admirably arranged at the pre-
sent time. It is remarkable for cheapness, speed, and
regularity. As an instance, I may mention some
of the omnibuses which go beyond the barriers.
The charge is regulated by distance from station to
station. By what are called the American omnibuses
you may go for more than a mile outside for one
sous, and upwards of three miles for three sous.
Under M. Gisquet's superintendence search was made
among the records of crime, and he found that in
1840 the number of persons whose names appeared in
the archives of those accused was no less than 500,000.
Prefect of Police is comparatively a modern title.
Forinerly the Police Administration of the capital
was confided to what were called Prevots de Paris
and to the Lieutenants Criminals. Among the
names most known as Prefects of Police are those of
Cochon, under the Directory ; Fouch6, under the
Consulate, the Empire, and during the Hundred
Days; Decares, Duke of Gluksberg, during the
early years of the second Restoration. Under the
Government of July (the Revolution), the Prefects
were Mangin, Guisquet, and Delessant. Caussi-
diere and Ducoux, in 1848, and Pietri under the
second Empire. The present Prefect of Police is
M. Boittelle, formerly a cavalry officer.

A Liverpool Packet Ship Wrecked in
Mid-Ocean.

--+-

RESCUE OF THREE HUNDRED PERSONS.
(From the Boston Advertiser of Jan. 17.)

On Sunday forenoon, intelligence arrived in this city
that a wrecked company of over 300 souls, rescued from a
sinking ship in mid-ocean, had arrived in the lower har-
bour in a condition which required the immediate attention
of a benevolent community. '1 ho facts,which were speedily
developed, make a story of distress and privation which it
is seldom our lot to record.

The three-decked ship Gratitude, formerly the John J.
Boyd, a vessel of 1,310 tons, rating A. I,built in New York
in 1855, and hailing from Liverpool, sailed from the last-
named port on the 18th of November last for New York,
under command of Captain 111`Stother, with a crew of 33
men and 275 passengers, mostly English, Irish, and Scotch
emigrants. The ship had not been many days at sea before
the weather became tempestuous, and several violent gales
succeeded one another in quick succession, badly straining
the vessel, injuring her spars and rigging, and stripping
her of the greater part of her canvas. On Christmas-day a
serious leakage was added to the other misfortunes of the
voyage, and it became necessary for the passengers to aid
the crow in working the six pumps belonging to the ship,
the whole male adult company on board being divided into
reliefs of four hours each, and after performing their allotted
tasks, lying down in wet garments to a fitful and unsatis-
fying rest, to be roused again when their appointed turn
came round. Notwithstanding all exertion; the leak gained
slowly but steadily, rendering it necessary to occasionally
lighten the ship by throwing over a portion of the cargo,
which consisted of lead, tin, and spelter. The ship was
thus relieved of between 300 and 400 tons up to Jan. 1.
On New Year's-day, about noon, in lat. 41.30, long. 33,
when hope had nearly deserted the worn and wearied com-
pany, a sail was descried in the distance. It proved to be
the barque Fredonia, of 431 tons burthen, built in Boston
in 1853, running under a British flag, but still owned in
Boston, commanded by Capt. Edmund Burke, and on her
passage to Boston from Fayal, which port she left Decem-
ber 13. Captain Burke, on discovering that the Gratitude
was in distress, approached her, and passing under her
stern spoke the ship, learning her condition, and deter-
mined to lie near enough to render her assistance. The
leak continuing to gain, and it becoming apparent that
the efforts of her wretched and nearly worn-out passen-
gers and crew could not long keep her above water, Capt.
Burke began to make preparations for taking them on
board his own vessel, for this object throwing overboard
his cargo of oil, between decks.

The process of transferring, which was effected by means
of small boats, began at nine a.m. on the 3d inst., and was
loss of a single life. The women and children were first
finished about five p.m., being accomplished without the
taken from the wreck, Captain M'Stother standing with a
loaded pistol to secure them the first chance of rescue. The
wrecked people had but little opportunity to save their
property, and most of them escaped with no clothing but
what they worn. A few barrels of bread were also taken
from the Gratitude.

When the ship was abandoned she had three feet three
inches of water in her hold. There bad previously been
four deaths on the passage. One seaman, named William
Kavanaugh, was instantly killed by falling from the lower
foretopsktil yard.

Captain Burke, after performing his duty so nobly, found
that his supply of food and water was very scanty for the
large number of persons huddled on board his vessel, and
it became necessary to put them on an allowance of half a
pint of water and one biscuit per day, with the addition of
a few oranges, which formed a part of the Fredonia's cargo.
The condition of the wretched emigrants, thus placed on
short rations and unavoidably crowded together, beggars
description. The constant restlessness, caused by discom-
fort, and the crying of the children, left little opportunity
for sleep, and the women and children grew feebler daily,
while the less hardy of the men became rapidly emaciated.
Most of the passengers, however, bore their sufferings
with fortitude and anxiously awaited their arrival in port.
The Fredonia arrived in our lower harbour early on Sun-
day morning. Upon the arrival of the barque at the wharf
the passengers and crow were immediately landed. It was
a pitiable sight to behold them as they emerged from their
crowded quarters, weak, emaciated, and thinly clad, many
of them—men, women, and children—barefooted. Some
had not strength to walk up the plank to the wharf. An
infant died in its mother's arms as she was leaving the
vessel. The city government and the benevolent people
of Boston provided every necessary comfort for the suf-
ferers.