The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-11-04
lCornhill Magazine.l
Tracked to Death.

If a man in France be arrested, or merely
suspected, he must say who he is. Conceal
ment is useless, for the police will not release
the man until they have exhausted all means
of aseertaining the truth. He may give
false name, orsay that he is foreigner, but
the authorities of the place where he processes
to have been born will be written to, and If the
information he has giveni be found incorrect
he will be liable to six months imprisonment
for being vagabond; nor will his troubles end
there, for the Police will take it 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
become SO burdensome that 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 English
men and Americans who gave false names and
whose identity could not be discovered be-
cause the English andt American police could
afford no assistance in the matter, but they
could only quote one case of a Frenchman who
obstinately fresisted all, endeavors to ascer-
tain what his name was. This wretched man
that he was an Italian. This proved to be
false; at least it was discovered that no person
bearing his name had been born in the COM
mune which he described as his birthplace
He was kept in prison Is months and question
ed 80 times by a Juge d'Instruction, but to no
purpose, SO that he was at last tried for being q
thief and vagabond, and sentenced to year 9
Imprisonment. On his release he was treated
as foreigner-that is, he was expelled the
country byorder the Perfect of Police, and
being conveyed to the frontier between two
gendarmes he was given up to the Italian au-
thorities as suspected criminal. The Italian
Police system being like the French, the vaga-
bond was taken to Jail and asked to give an &C
count of himself. AS he persisted in telling
palpable untruths about his birthplace he was
kept for several months in durance, then SEN
fenced 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 unhap-
py man seeking for work as stone mason soon
foundIemployment; but gave his master name
different to that which he had been sentenced.
The Police were down upon him at once hay
ing ascertained that his new name was not his
own they got him sentenced again to years
imprisonment, pour usurpatio7l de fduc
nofps," 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 Mendicate" or depot for in
corrigble vagabonds, and there committed sui
eide Who he was has never been ascertalned;
but the relentless pertinacity with which he
was hunted to death shows what grim duel
it is which the French Police wages against
crimirals. If this unfortunate man had given
himself out as an Englishman and had got him.
self 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 70
France.