The Osceola times., 1881-11-19
s1med respectable position had been
seen in these places.
TRACKED TO DEATH.
The Sorrows Of "suspect." in la Belle
France.
Corkhill Magazine.

Corkhill Magazine.
II man in France be arrested, or
merely suspected, he must cay who he
ia Concealment is useless, for the po-
lice will not release the man until thew
have exhausted all means Of ascertain
inc the truth. He may give a false
name. or say he is a foreigner, bat the
authorities of the place where he pro-
fesses TO have been born will be written
TO. and if the information he have given
be found incorrect he will be liable to
six months Imprisonment for being a
yacabond: nor will his trouble end
there, for the police will take 1t for
granted that he is only concealing his
identity because he has committed some
great crime and he will be placed under
surveillance till his life becomes so bur
densome that he will tell The truth to get
a little peace. French criminals OF the
lower class scarcely ever try 10 conceal
their identity. In the course OF hft
wears the Prefecture have had m
cases of Englishmen and Americans
gave false names and whose identity
could not be discovered because
English and American police could
ford no assistance in the matter, but
they can only quote one case OF French
man who obstinately resisted all efforts
TO ascertain what his name was. This
wretched man had been arrested for a
pettv theft. and stated that he was an
Italian. This proved to be false; at
least il was discovered that no person
hearing his name had been born in the
commune which he described as his
birthplace. He was kept in prison tf-
teen months and questioned eighty times
/ by Judge of Instruction, but to no
plrpose. so that he was at last tried for
being thief and a vagabond, and sem
/ fenced to a years imprisonment. On
| his release he was treated as foreigner
that is, he was expelled the country
/ by order of the Perfect OF Police, and
| being conveyed to the frontier between
/ two gendarmes, he was given up to the
l Italian authorities as a suspected crimi-
/ nal. The Italian police system being
/ like the French, the vagabond was
/ taken to Jail and asked to give an ac-
count of himself As he persisted in
| telling palpable untruths about his birth
/ place he was kept for several months in
| durance, then sentenced to six months
/ for yagabondage, and on the expiration
| of his term he was sent back TO France.
/ This time the French did not arrest
him, but they watched him. The un-
happy man seeking for work as stone
mason soon found employment but
gave his master name different to that
under which he had been sentenced.
/ The police were down upon him at
once. Having ascertained that his new
name was not his own they got him sem
fenced again to years imprisonment,
"po,r usupdtiOn de ta,lr noms," and upon
his discharge they told him plainly that
he could expect no peace until he made
an avowal of his identity. He was con-
signed to depot de Mendicite," or de-
pot COR incorrigible vagabonds, and there
committed suicide. Who he was has
never been ascertained; but the relent-
less pertinacty with which he was
hunted to death shows what grim duel
it is which the French police wages
against criminals. If this unfortunate
man had given himself out as an English
man. and had got himself conveyed to
/ Dover, his troubles would have ceased
when he touched English soil, for the
British police would have had no right
to worry him or to ship him back to
France,