Daily Kennebec journal., 1882-01-16
16 1882 Il
NO. ID.
A Strange. Eventful History.

II man in France be arrested, or merely
suspected, he must say who he 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 a false name. or say that he is a foreign
er, but the authorities of the place where he
processes 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 vagabond;
nor will his troubles end there. for the po-
lice will take it for granted that he is only
concealing his identity because he has com
mitted some great crime, and he will be
placed under surveillance till his life becomes
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 have 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 endeavors to as
certain 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 discovered that no
person bearing his name had been born in
the commune which he described as his birth
place. 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 a thief and vagabond,
and sentenced to years imprisonment On
his release he was treated as a foreigner
that is, he was expelled the country by order
Of the Perfect of Police, and beirg conveyed
to the frontier between two gendarmes he
was given up to the Italian authorities as q
suspected criminal. The Italian Police sys-
TEN being like the French, the vagabond was
taken to Jail and asked to give an account of
himself. As he persisted in telling palpable
untruths about his birth-p place he was kept
for several months in durance, then sentenced
to six months for vagabondagc, and on the
expiration of his term he was sent back to
France.
This time tie French police did not arrest
him, but hey watched him. The unhappy
man seeking for work as a stonemason soon
found employment; but gave his master
name different to that under which he had
been sentenced. The police were down upon
him al once. Having ascertained that his
new name was not his own, they got him SEN
fenced again to years Imprisonment ''pOar
nySuypdtion de faur aoms,' and upon his
discharge they told him plainly that he could
expect no peace until he made an val of
MS luentiN. ne was CoHsiRneu 10 "DepOt
de Mendcte" or depot for incorripible vaga-
bonds, and there committed suicide. Who
he was has never been ascertained; but the
relentless pertinacity with which he was
hunted to death shows what a grim duel it 10
which the French police wage against crimi-
nails. If this unfortunate man had given
himself out an Englishman and 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 to France.