The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1879-10-23
4 FRENCH CHARLEY ROSS CASE
How the Paris Police Solved It

On the Boulevard Malesherbes a
young couple somewhat new to Paris
had just taken the place of concierge
and butler respectively. One afternoon
as their little boy of 4 was playing in
the passage on level with the street,
by which all houses here are entered, a
coupe stopped in front of the house
and o wen-dressed lady descended. The
infant was attracted by the noise and
ran out. The woman stopped and
fondled it and carried it to the carriage
and drove off. The mother, in the mar
row ground-foor allotted to the con-
cierge, saw nothing of this. A neigh
bor's servant had seen it, but supposed
it was all right. If aG
Had this happened in America it
would have been / Charley Ross affair.
4They manage these things better in
. France" as Lawrence Sterne was fond
OF ssying. The mother nursed her in
fant in due time. She went up and
down the street in no great uneasiness,
but, finding no sign, she grew alarmed.
Her alarm became terror as the lights
OF the wide street began to burn in the
early winter evening. By chance the
servant who had seen the cab was en-
countered. She told the story. The
police were called in, and assured the
terrified mother that she should soon
have her infant. One day passed, and
no infant; two days, then two weeks,
and the mother was summoned to the
station of the district. She was shown
into private room, and there was her
small boy in the arms OF strange lady.
The mother made for the lad, but the
lady pushed her away.
"What," said the dismsysd mother,
"am not to have my childP" |ra j.
The policeman spoke up: AMadame
La Comptesse claims the child as her
own"
1T is false" sai,i the mother; @it is
my own. Come tome, Paul"
The child made an effort, but was re-
strained, and burst into sobs. The po-
iceman interfered. He saw q muck
more practical way of deciding the
maternity than Solomon in all his wis
dom. he commanded the childt be left
free to choose. The little boy ran with
q gurgle of deGghtto its mother. Mad
am,e La Comptesses viii ,Sns EaseH
under arrest (e7e surveilleHc0 until
further orders, and viii not attempt to
leave the country"
How had the infant been found?
First every hack in the district was ext
amined as to its work on that particu-t
lar afternoon, and in time this reduced
the, problem to which of dozen or
more ladies had driven with children
that day. Then the problem came
down to . lady living in q modest quarter
of the city who had returned home
with an infant and had Immediately left
the place, and had not been seen since.
Then the history of this parsonage was
looked up. She was the Countess
Lomenin, an English woman, who had
separated from her husband. Then the
departures from Paris were traced, and
so surely that within three days the
train she had taken was known; in an
other the point she had gotten of-Car
lais and crossed to Dover; then in En-
gland the work was slow and promised
to be hopeless, when 10! the bird re-
aliehted in the same bush, though not
in The same cage. She had returned to
Paris and taken quarters elsewhere.
She was visited by the police and vowed
that the child was her own and vows
still that it is, and the easeis to be tried
in the courts. The developments mean
while about the Countess illustrate not
only the portentous espionage of the
police on every man, woman and child
in the capital, but reveal some extraor-
dinary phases OF Paris life. The woman,
it seems, has a mania for seizing chill
dren and putting them in asylums for
infants, to be reared to certain creeds,
Paris letter to Chicago Times.