Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 403, 28 January 1904, Page 7

Traveller.

ACTUAL PAEIS.

is a : good deal that is very adrAg -picturesque in the street callings Paris. The barrows of the

wandering greengrocer, fishmonger, or flower merchant are arranged with as much taste as you find in the average I high-class London shop. E*ch camelob haa hia cry, and : very musical soma of them are. It ia a duly authenticated faob that a former director of the Opera was so much struck with the voice of a marohand de chiffons that he offered to pay for the ' training of hia voice. ' The man subsequently became world-famous as a baritone. But a figure that always strikes mo among this floating commerce is the goats -milk man. He and his beasts must pass an ideal existence in flue weather. Wtfli the awaking, of. the city he gets his little flock of three together, and they start on their morning round. He blows his whistle, and windows open, and Jnga are brought down, and the goat is milked, for the French have a great belief in the properties of this diet. The little party winder oa, and the children follow them. Everyone of the small folk bring them something to eat, and tho goat seems to take kindly to anything up to doornails. On je the morning round is ended, they go back to tho fortifications and eat their fill of grass, while their master lies at full length and sleeps in tae shade of some tcee. The whole lot of them seem a perfectly united and happy family, and the only suffering they get in for is when they have to be held bick by their tails in order to prevent them from blending with the wheels of a passing omnibus. _ More curious, though; than all its strange callings and its strange customs, is the police system in Paris. When an Englishman gets to his hotel, he remarks, probably, to his wife,' Well, now, Martha, we can do as we like. No worry about what Mrs Brown .would say if we had met her at Brighton. Here we are free, and nobody knows who we are or cares who we are.' But before he has time to dress for dinner the'police know that he is in Earia, and his name is inscribed at the Prefecture. Every hotel must keep a register of all foreigners, and hand it over daily to the special officers who are sent round to collect them. In the case of the English or the Amerioan citizen little interest is taken, unless their expenditure is noticeably extravagant, and then , a friendly interest is taken in them, and their description sent to Scotland Yard, It ib almost impossible to conceive the thoroughness of the French police spy system. You never know wno is a mouchard in Frasoe. The waiter who serves you, the man who shaves you, the cocher who drives you, areas likely as not to be in the police pay. They know every- . thing, and they know everybody. Here js an instance that occurred to a friend of mine only the other day. He received from the Prefecture an order to appear on the following day. So far as he knew he had done nothing particularly out of the way, and even if he had, he had done it unintentionally. The magistrate invited him into his private room, and put him at his ease at once by explaining that the affair did not concern him personally, but he vh anted some information on two or three of the English colony with whom he was associated. The answers were perfec ly satisfactory, and, in leaving, he turned to the magistrate and said, laugh- . mgly, ' Now, why don't you ask me gomethisg about myself P' 'But I know all, about you,' he replied. 'Would you like to know what you did on any particular day within tha last throe months P My Mend replied at random: 'Take last Friday week. I haven't the remotest knowledge as to what happened.' 'You got home at half-p*Bt two in a c*b that you had taken at the Madeleine. You rode out on your bicycio at nine. You lunched at tha Cafe de l'Esperance,' and so on, was the reply of the magistrate, as he reaounted everything that had passed. There was no reason to have made the inquiry, as there was not the slightest mack on his dossier, but it suited the police to know just how he passed his time.

A. casserole—that is to say, a mouohard who has, by seme indiscretion, let his connection with the police be known, and is accordingly valueless —onoe told me a lot about the workiag of the system, I ha 1 pointed out to him that it seemed to be thoroughly impossible that I could have my footsteps dogged during a whole day without becoming aware of the fact. Ho answered: —' Naturally. This;' for instance, is how I should have acted if J had wanted to fiad out all about your muvaments. When you left this cafe I should have followed yon until such time I knew that you had noticed that I was at your h'esJs. Than I should have passed the signal.' 'To whom P" I suggested. ' Have you ever noticed/ he said, 'that round all the big cafes there are men cff driag novels out of date, but who are always scanning closely the faces of those on. the terraces P Well, I should have passed the signal on to one of these men.'—H P. Hugh.