Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1883-05-16
TRACKED TO DEATH.

Methods of Criminal Detection ia France.
[From the Cornhill Magazine.l
man in France be arrested, or
merely suspected, he must say who he
is. Concealment is useless, for the po-
lice will not release the man until they
have exhausted all means of ascertain.
ing the truth. He may give false
name, or say that he is foreigner, hut
the authorities of the place where lac
processes to have been born will he
written to, and, if the information he
has given 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 viii be placed under
surveillance till his life becomes SO bur-
densome that he will tell the truth to
get little peace. -
French criminals of the lower classes
scarcely ever try to conceal their iden-
tity. In the course of fifty years the
Prefecture have had many cases of En-
glishmen and Americans who gave false
names, and whose identity could not he
discovered because the English and
American police could afford no assist
ance in the matter, but they can only
quote one case of FrenchInan who OBJ
stinately resisted all endeavors to ascer-
tain 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 thet no person
bearing his name had been born in the
commune which he described as his
birthplace.
He was kept in prison fifteen months
and questioned eighty times by Judg'
d'Instruction, but to no purpose, so that
he was at last tried for being thief and
q vagabond, and sentenced to years
imprisonment, On his release he was
treated as foreigner-that is, he vas
expelled from the country by order of
the Project of Police, and, being con-
yeyed to the frontier between two
gend'armes, 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 OF him.
self. 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 vagabond-
age, and on the expiration of his term
he was sent back to FraDce.
Yhis time the French police did not
arrest him, but they watched him. The
unhappy man, seeking for work as q
stone-mason, soon found employment,
but gave his master a name different to
that under which ne had beep sen.
fenced. 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, "pour
usurpation de faux mons, 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
depot for incorrigible vagabonds, and
there committed suicide.
Who he was has never been ascef-
tanned, 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 him
self out for an Englishman, and had got
himself conveyed to Dover, his troubles
would have ceased when he touched En-
glish soil, for the British police would
have no right to worry him or to ship
him back to France.