Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-12-14

A BAD COUNTRY FOR BAD MEN.-If a
man in France be arrested or even sus.
pected, he must say who be is. Conceal
ment is useless, for the police will not re-
lease the man until they have exhausted
all means of ascertaining the truth. He
may give false name, or say he is for
eigner, but the authorities of the place
where he processes to have been born will
be written to, and if the information he
has given be found incorrect, he will be IL
able to six months Imprisonment for being
vagabond; nor Ill his trouble end there.
for the police will take it for granted that
he is only concealing his identity because
ne has committed some great crime, and
he will be placed under surveillance till he
will tell the truth to get little peace.
French criminals of the lower classes
scarcely ever try to conceal their identity
In the course of fifty years the prefecture
have had many cases of Englishmen and
Americans whose identity could not be
discovered because the English and Amer
lean police could afford no assistance in the
matter, but they can only quote one case
ofs Frenchman who obstinately resisted all
endeavors to ascertain what his name was
This wretched man had been arr ested for
petty theft, and stated that he was an TtaI,
inn. This proved to be false; at least it
was discovered that no person bearing his
name had been born in the commune
which be described as his birthplace. He
was kept in prison fifteen months and
questioned eighty times by Juge din
struction, but to no purpose, so that he
was at last tried for being thief and
IL vagabond, and sentenced to years i'm
prisonment. On his release he was treat
ed as foreigner-that is. he was expelled
from the country by order Of the prefect OF
police, and being conveyed TO the frontier
between two gendarmes he was given up to
the Italian authorities as suspected Grim.
inal. The Italian police system being
like the French, the vagabond was taken to
Jail and asked to give an account ofhimsef.
As he persisted in telling palpable untruths
about his birth place he was kept for sew
eral months in durance, then sentenced to
six months for vagabondage, and on the
expiration of his term he was sent back TO
France. This time the French police did
not arrest him, but they watched him.
The unhappy man seeking for work as a
stone-mason soon found employment. but
gave to his master name different to
that under which he had been sentenced.
The police we're down upon him at once.
Having ascertained that his new name
was not his own they got him sentenced
again to a years imprisonment. "pour us
urpation de faux noms. and upon his dis
charge they told him plainly that he could
expect no peace until he made an avowal
of his identity. He was consigned TO q
depot de meudicite'' or depot for incorri-
gble vagabonds, and there committed
suicide. Who he was has never been
ascertained; but the relentless pertin-
acity with which he was hunted to death
shows what grim duel it is which the
French police wages against criminals. Il
this unfortunate man had given himself
out as AN En zlshman and had got himsel
conveyed to Dover, his troubles would
have ceased when he touched the English
soil. for the British police would have ne
right to worry him or ship him back tC
France. .-COTnhiH &agGstae.