The Police of Paris.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 206, 4 June 1887, Page 2

The Police of Paris.

Tirtf police of Paris nuniW' aUout 10,000 men, without counting the? secret police, the gendarmerie, or the Republican Guard ;',' and the annual budget di the Ihiafecfeure is more than £1,000,000. The .gendarmerie belongs to the Minister of the Inrfferior, and the Guard to the Town Council! The divisions of this force are numerous and complicated. There are brigades for* clubs and gambling-houses, for -the theatres* for balls, for the press, for markets, for the cabman at the cab depots and can the streets, for hotels and lodging-hous?es> for the gardens, for the " mcours," and various otfier brigades, from the corps who guard tihe palace of the President down to the brigade who look after the nurses. The prefecture of police is divided into four great departments— police administrative, police purely municipal, police political, and police judiciary. The first is concerned in the deliverance of passports, certificate^ permissions to hunt, and other matters indoors. The next service, the municipal police, contains 7,756 men, and is under the direction of the chief, M. Caubefc, and not the prefect. They are subdivided, into the garctfens dc la paix (our ordinary policemen), a central brigade, the, detective depai'tment, the brigade of " recherches," the hotel and lodging-house service, which in turn are cut , up into more sections. About 6,800 men serve on the streets. They a c well paid, and are on duty only eight hours a day. In order to make them discharge this duty faithfully, they have to sign a register (it different points in their beats at fixed hours.

Reporter Detectives. One branch of the "brigades dcs recherches " is occupied in watching street polioemen, reporting irregularities, bad conduct, and in making inquiry concerning applications for admission into the force. The members of another brigade act as reporters to the prefecture. They attend all sorts of political meetings and demonstrations, and take stenographic notes of the speeches. They watch the creation of political cliques from their cradle, and are said to know more about the ins-and-outs of journalism and the position of parties than anyone else.

A Premium on Malefactors. The Paris detectives, in addition to their regular salary and to recompenses for exceptional merit, receive premiums for each malefactor they catch. A thief -if he attempted violence— brings 20f ; an ordinary beggar is worth 15f, and so on to the apprehension of a man for playing a game of hazard in the streets, who is put down at 3f. These premiums are the light of the detectives by law ; and>they atfd paid on the same principle for serving writs. The detectives, however, are not rewarded individually for their vigilance. The premiums are pub together, and divided among the foroe monthly.

The French Detective. M. Mace thinks that tho London detective department is far superior to and more workable than that of Paris. The London detective is a power in himself; in Paris the detective is nothing without the chief. The Paris detective cannot follow a criminal out of the department of the Seine without special permission ; and the formalities to be gone through before this can be obtained prevent an expeditious hunt. Then tho Paris detective gets no help from the ordinary street policeman. The British bobby acts " from information received," on his own impulses. His Paris antitype will not budge without definite instructions. Another drawback for Paris detectives is that a telegram which informs the chief of a crime passes through so many hands before it reaches him that the criminal has always a good twelve hours' start. On the whole, M. Mace's opinion is that the Paris police system suffers from the dual dry rot which withers everything in France — politics and red tape.

Missing Murderers. Owing to the fact that numerous murders committed recently have not been sifted by the police, that body has been suffering from a crusade by the Paris press. The detective department receives most of the blame ; but the whole system is attacked. Henri Rochefort declared that during the last four years so many murderers have been c< missed " that if they were to meet to discuss the position of their profession and to pass a resolution in favour of the present Paris detective system, the Cirque d'Hiver would not hold them. The detectives, said the same journalist, search assiduously for the legs, arms, head and different parts of the victim, but never follow up the assassin.