The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1882-01-06
on suspects, are watched in France.

How Suspectsv are Watched in France.
II man in France be arrested or
merely suspected he must say who he
is. Concealment is useless, for the
police will not release the man until
they have exhausted all means Of ascer-
tanning the truth, He may give false
name, or say he is a foreigner, but the
authorities Of the place where he pro-
fesses to have been born will be written
to and II the information he has given
be found. incorrect he will be liable to
six months imprisonment for being o
vagabond; nor will his trouble end
there, for the police will take it for
granted that he is only eoncealing his
identity because he has committed some
great crime, and he will be placed
under surveillance till his life becomes
so burdensome that he will tell tho
truth to get little peace. French
criminals Of the lower class scarcely ever
try to conceal their identity. In the
course Of fifty years the Prefecture have
had many cases oi Englishmen and
Americans who gave false names and
whose identity could not be discovered
because the English and American
police could afford no assistance in the
matter, but they can only quote one
case of Frenchman who obstinately
resisted all efforts to ascertain what his
name was. This wretched man had
been arrested for petty theft and
stated that he was an italian. This
proved to be false at least it was dis
covered that no person bearing his name
had been born in the commune which
he described as his birthplace Ee was
kept in prison fifteen months and
questioned eighty times by Judge OF
instruction, but to no purpose, SO that
he was ct last tried for being a thief
and q vagabond and sentenced to a
years imprisonment. On his release he
was treated IS 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 Italian authori-
ties as a suspected criminal. The
italian police system being like the
French the vagabond was taken to Jail
and asked to give an account OF himself.
As he persisted in telling palpable un-
truths about his birthplace he was kept
for several months in durance then
sentenced to six months for vagabond-
age, 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 unhappy man seek
ing 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 sentenced
again to years imprisonment, and
upon his discharge they told him
plainly that he could expect no peace
until he made an avowal of his identity.
He was consigned to 'Depot de
Mendicite," or depot for incorrigible
vagabonds, and there committed suicide.
Who he was has never been ascertained;
but the relentless pertinacity 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 Englishman 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.