tongue. Canler was, perhaps, more legitimately engaged when he put a stop to that vile system of intimidation by which ex-galley-slaves torture unhappy comrades at the Bagne, who are striving to gain an honest livelihood. Here is an instance : A carpenter, who had been established in business for several years, had previously been sentenced to five years of the galleys, and married in the provinces when he regained his liberty. Hard-working and saving, he managed to lay by a portion of his wages, and eventually opened a shop, which enabled him to support his family honestly. As, however, he was prohibited from residing in the capital, from the fact of having been convicted, he carefully avoided company, never visited the barriers, and went about Paris as rarely as possible, for fear of meeting any of his fellow-prisoners. Still, in spite of all the precautions he took, he was one day recognised by one of his ex-companions, who was authorised to live in Paris, and who, under pretext of renewing their acquaintance, offered to pay for a bottle of wine. The carpenter did not dare refuse, and when they had finished drinking the carpenter's friend proposed to accompany him home. “No, thank you," the latter replied, "for I have several calls to make, and I have to go to my wood-dealer's.” Very good! Still, give me your address, so that I may pay you a friendly visit when I am in your part of the town." "Oh! of course, I live at And the carpenter gave a false address; but his friend, who was very artful, suspected the trick, and followed him at a distance. The next day the carpenter was thunderstruck by a visit from the exconvict. "There, you see," the latter said, laughingly, "you played me a trick yesterday, but I am a good-tempered fellow, and the proof is that I have called on you to-day." "Indeed!" said the carpenter, still greatly confused. But bless me, you are in luck's way. Won't you introduce me to your wife? Am I going to breakfast with you this morning?" 'Oh, certainly; of course. But the truth is- 'Well, what? Do you want to get away from me, as you did yesterday? I tell you that you had better not play fast-and-loose with me, or I shall tell everybody that we were companions at college." At these words the unhappy carpenter turned pale, and fear mastering him, he treated his unworthy friend to the best of his ability. The next day the same farce took place, with this exception, that the convict borrowed twenty francs from his victim, then thirty, forty, and so on, so that the carpenter at length played his last trump, by coming to ask for my protection, at the risk of being arrested for breaking his bond. After making some inquiries, I referred the matter to M. Carlier, who turned out of Paris the convict who had plundered the carpenter so shamelessly. The latter obtained permission to remain in Paris, and a few days after came and thanked me for having drawn him from the clutches of such a villain. ور 66 "Yes. Canler was no longer in the police service when the celebrated Orsini attempt took place, and he-possibly with some lurking jealousy-discusses the conduct of the police during the whole affair very severely. As our principal object in the present paper is to show the working of the French police system, and as Canler is well qualified to pass an opinion upon it, we cannot do better than conclude our article by an analysis of the chapter which he devotes to Orsini and his confederates, for we fully agree with him that the vaunted detectives of Paris slumber at times like Homer. On January 7, 1858, a telegraphic despatch informed the Minister of the Interior that a man of the name of Pieri was proceeding to Paris, accompanied by another individual, with the intention of killing the emperor. Pieri and Gomez, who left London on January 6, reached Calais at a quarter to two A.M. They at once went to Lille, where Gomez waited, while Pieri proceeded to Brussels, and on the 8th both arrived in Paris. On one side, the Moniteur said that information had been received in the previous June, that bombs were being manufactured in England to be thrown under the emperor's carriage; on the other hand, the Count de Morny stated, in a speech at the opening of the Legislative Chamber, that the provincial secret societies were expecting in the middle of January a catastrophe, followed by a movement. We might suppose that, after such precise information, the police would have taken their measures to arrest Pieri immediately on his arrival in Paris, but nothing of the sort. Pieri put up at an hotel in the Rue Montmartre, one of the most frequented parts of the capital. We might assume that he kept in concealment, waiting for the moment of action to arrive, but he behaved quite differently. He arrived at the hotel with a passport bearing the names of Joseph Andreas-Pierey-a very slight falsification to conceal a man so marked as himself. There he dined at the table d'hôte with other travellers: he remained in the dining-room to read the paper: if he went out, he frequented cafés or places of public amusements. He went thrice to see his wife at Montrouge, but for all that the prefecture of police had not the slightest notice of his presence in the capital. What did the police do to lay hands on Pieri? Nothing, in spite of the simple means they required to employ. The peace-officer who arrested Pieri on the night of the 14th, in the Rue le Peletier, was specially entrusted with the surveillance of the lodginghouses and political refugees, and he was expressly ordered to discover Pieri among the persons who arrived from London and Belgium on the 8th. Canler proves that he did not do his duty, because he knew Pieri by sight, and the slight alteration in his passport ought at once to have attracted his attention. Moreover, this agent knew where Pieri's wife lodged, and where his son was apprenticed, and he ought to have exercised a strict surveillance over both. Then, again, Canler urges that it was an extraordinary piece of negligence to let Orsini and Rudio go on, after Pieri was at length arrested. When Pieri was searched, a bomb-shell was found on him, and yet the police agent took no precautions, although he had half an hour to spare. Instead of assuming that Pieri must have accomplices in the crowd, and ordering the street to be cleared, he quietly let matters take their course. Again, when the catastrophe had occurred, it was not owing to any police sagacity that the assassins were arrested. The agents went to the hotel, but, finding Rudio asleep, did not consider themselves justified in arresting him, and they did not do so until Gomez had confessed. The latter was arrested in a most singular way. After the attempt he entirely lost his head, and went into the Restaurant Bozzi, in the Rue le Peletier. Here he sat groaning and lamenting for upwards of an hour and a half, until the waiter, considering this very strange, called in a policeman. Gomez made a clean breast of it, and then Orsini and Rudio were arrested, but not before. After summing up the evidence more fully than we have room for, Canler arrives at the following conclusion: The prefect of police, in my opinion, fulfilled all the obligations which his duties imposed on him, by imperiously ordering the chief of the municipal police to make active and constant search, and set every engine at work to effect the arrest of Pieri. Personally, he could do no more, but it was the duty of his agents to seek, investigate, and discover without relaxation. It is sufficiently proved that they did not do their duty, and facts convict them either of negligence or of incapacity. And yet, what was the conclusion of this lamentable affair? The prefect of police sent in his resignation, the chief of the municipal police retained his post, the chief inspector of hotels was nominated Knight of the Legion of Honour, and eventually received a pension. How can we explain such a dénouement ? In conclusion, we cannot conscientiously recommend Canler's volume for family reading. While valuable to those who take an interest in criminal questions, and who anxiously desire to produce the best possible penal code, it contains chapters which it is almost impossible to read without loathing. In recording the experiences of a chequered life, Canler has not neglected a single one of the dangerous classes, and the result is that he has produced a most depressing work. It is sad to find that the crimes which disfigure so large a city as London are intensified in a comparatively small capital like Paris, and sadder still, perhaps, to learn what means the French police employ for the detection of criminals. As we said before, we do not see that there is much to choose between Canler and Vidocq: the latter, it is true, was a cynical galley-slave, who gloried in his villany, the former is an honest, conscientious policeman, who might have sat for the portrait of Javert in "Les Misérables," but both employed the same execrable means of working on the cupidity of scoundrels to ensure the safety of society. Doing evil to obtain a good result is a dangerous theory at all times, but probably never so dangerous as when employed by the guardians of the public peace. AMERICA. 66 INTENDED AS A POSTSCRIPT TO AN EPISTLE IN VERSE AMERICA IN 1812.* WRITTEN FROM How wildly changed the land I left is seen For ardent minds had taught us to believe A time would come when wrong no more should grieve, That willing hands might fail to win their bread. * America, an Epistle in Verse. Longman and Co. 1820. Upon their spreading plains no stinted space No one, from want, beneath that bounteous sky, Their wealth, extent, their influence, and their pow'r, Wasted by that appalling pow'r, the land And arms of friends are raised to strike the blow Can war achieve it? Victory in vain May wave her changing banner o'er the slain, For these are foes unconquer'd by defeat, Whose halts are triumphs and their flights retreat. In forced inaction and in dread repose; Τ 179 TABLE-TALK. BY MONKSHOOD. IV.-ABOUT DINNER-TIME. § 2. PROFESSIONAL DINERS-Out. THAT intended sayer of very smart things, Mr. Tempest, in one of old Cumberland's dreary, effete comedies (save the mark!), declares in his free-and-easy fashion, “I had sooner mess with the savages in Africa than be shut in a room with a company of wits. Your downright stupid fellow is the repose of all society; like a soft cushion in an easy-chair, he lulls you into a gentle slumber, and lays all your cares to rest."* Tastes differ. Airy, breezy, high-flying Mr. Tempest, himself aspiring to be witty as the wittiest of them, is a fictitious personage, though venting an actual sentiment. Now we find no less an actual personage than the President Montesquieu thus recording his preference: "Dans les conversations et à table, j'ai toujours été ravi de trouver un homme qui voulût prendre la peine de briller; un homme de cette espèce présente toujours le flanc, et tous les autres sont sous le bouclier."+ Montesquieu shows French malice in his reason for the preference, but at any rate he does prefer dinner with the brilliant diner-out, to the stagnant calm of a dinner without him. It is quite consistent with this feeling that the President should decline, as elsewhere he does, being trotted out to exhibit his paces, in the province of table-talk. He has no notion of turning out to make either sport for the Philistines, or admiration for crass Boeotian star-gazers. "Quand on s'est attendu que je brillerais dans une conversation, je ne l'ai jamais fait j'aimais mieux avoir un homme d'esprit pour m'appuyer que des sots pour m'approuver."-That same quand on s'est attendu has been a bugbear to many-the matter-of-course expectation that a celebrated man should go through some performance, that he should prove to an assembled company his intellectual prowess-the looking for something brilliant from him; for why else is he there, except to shine? Sydney Smith, who speaks in some sort ex cathedra, and was himself one of the most renowned of witty diners-out, says of professed wits, that although they are generally courted for the amusement they afford, they are seldom respected for the qualities they possess. He calls a witty man a dramatic performer, who, in process of time, can no more exist without applause, than he can exist without air; if his audience be small, or if they are inattentive, or if a new wit defraud him of any portion of the admiration, it is all over with him, he sickens, and is extinguished. "The applauses of the theatre on which he performs are so essential to him, that he must obtain them at the expense of decency, friendship, and good feeling." Sydney reckons it as always probable, too, that a mere wit is a person of light and frivolous understanding,-whose business is * The Wheel of Fortune, Act I. Sc. 1. |