derive it from the same polluted source. | out the postmark. This arrangement failAmong the many amusing anecdotes which ed like the rest; and a few days later, the Canler tells us about his troubles from inspector ordered to follow the postman monomaniacs, somnambulists, magnetizers, into Madame K.'s house could not refrain and others, who constantly denounced from saying to me, "That old Pipelet is malefactors to him, we will select the fol- as obstinate as the true Picard he is; his lowing specimen, to show the manner in lodger must have paid him handsomely." which he managed to secure his point: M. B., an intimate friend of the prefect of police, informed him one day that one K., of whom he was a creditor to the extent of seventy thousand francs, has made a fraudulent bankruptcy. "The rogue is in hiding," M. B. added, "but if I could put my hand on his throat, I warrant that I would make him disgorge." M. Carlier ordered me to make every effort to discover this honest bankrupt. M. B. told me that prior to his disappearance he had lived on the Boulevard St. Martin, and that was the only precise information he could give me. The fact is, that we had hitherto had to deal with a sharp fellow: all had been provided for, and whatever ruses might be employed they had remained unsuccessful. One word struck me, however. "You say that he is a Picard ?" "What makes you believe it?" "Very good," I continued; "if he be so, we perhaps have a chance of our gentleman." I immediately sent for one of my Cossack irregulars, who, having worked for a long time in the different towns of Picardy, I went myself to make inquiries at was perfectly acquainted with the patois, the house indicated. I learned that M. and might very easily pass himself off as a K.'s lodgings were still occupied by his pure-blooded Picard. I explained the af wife, but that he was away on a journey fair to him fully, and concluded: “You at present. The truth was, that since will go to the porter of the house where the day of his flight he had not once re- Madame K. lives, and to get into converturned home. As I fancied that to pur-sation, you will ask him for somebody. sue my investigations further in this quarter might compromise the affair, I withdrew. On the other hand, I had learned from a commissionaire that M. K. had several times given him letters to carry to a female, his mistress, who lived in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. I established a surveillance round her abode, as well as round that of K.'s wife; the agents had orders to arrest the bankrupt if he called on either of the ladies, follow them wherever they went, and as they often went out in a hackney-coach, I placed a cab at the disposal of each agent. All these measures led to no result, and for a whole week that my men remained at their post, from six A.M. till midnight, nothing revealed to us the bankrupt's residence. Every body is aware that postmen are accustomed to utter aloud at the doorway of the porter's lodge the names of those lodgers to whom letters are addressed. I therefore had the postman followed by an agent, closely enough for him to hear the names pronounced, and in the case of there being one addressed to either of the females, the agent was straightway to enter the lodge, commence a conversation with the porter on some pretext, and try and find He will reply that he does not know him, and then will come a small explanation, to which you will suddenly put an end by exclaiming: Why, surely you are a Picard?' The worthy man will reply in the affirmative, and, as a countryman, you will offer him a glass of wine at the nearest bar. But you must take care to sit down with him over a bottle of good wine, which you will succeed by another and another, till you see that you have rendered your Cerberus confiding and chattering. Then you will tell him, under the seal of secrecy, that you have been in trade, that you have been unfortunate, that the police are after you, but that you have succeeded in completely throwing them off the scent. This confidence, offered in your quality of a fellow provincial, will surely provoke his, and as your position is identical with that of K., it may be presumed that the Picard will tell you in his turn the story of his lodger, probably without naming him, but certainly explicitly enough for us to be able to find him." My Cossack was an intelligent man, he played his part admirably, and, as matters turned out as I had anticipated, we learned that our bankrupt was in hiding at Montmartre, under the insignificant name of M. André. But a new difficulty presented itself in the fact that the windows of K.'s room looked on a garden, from which there was a door into a back lane. At the slightest alarm he might, therefore, take to flight, and, moreover, he frequently slept out. The next day I sent three agents to Montmartre, only one of whom succeeded in entering the house indicated: he was disguised as a mail-guard, and carried a bag containing eight hundred francs in silver. According to my instructions, he went up to the porter: "Does M. André live here ?" "Yes; but he is out at present." "What a nuisance! I have brought him eight hundred francs, sent from Bordeaux," (and here he rattled the bag.) Well, I am very sorry for him, but I shall not come all this distance again." "Good gracious!" the porter muttered. "I really don't know what to do, for M. André gave me strict orders not to tell any one, no matter who, where he is." "That is possible, my good fellow," the agent replied; "your M. André, from what I can see, does not wish to be found by his creditors; but if a man hide himself from persons to whom he owes money, that is no reason why he should treat persons who bring him money in the same way. Still The agent left, but under way said to himself: "K. is a clever fellow who distrusts every thing, and who seems to guess that we are after him. If I go to the office and stupidly ask for M. André, he is capable of sending some one to answer in his name, and bolting." The pretended guard, followed by the two agents at a distance, went to the Rue St. Denis, and requested the porter himself to lead him to M. André, that he might deliver a bag of money which he had for him into his own hands. The porter hastily led my agent into an office, and addressing the person in it, said: "M. André, here is a mail-guard who has a bag of money to deliver to you." But, to the stupefaction of the porter and no less that of M. K., the false guard had already laid his hand on the bankrupt's shoulder, and said to him: “M. K., I have a warrant for your arrest." K., starting from the agent's grasp, as if a red-hot iron had seared him, took up his hat, and while making a few observations, was preparing to attempt a new flight; but at this moment the two other agents entered the office, and the bankrupt, considering any resistance hopeless, quietly went off to the prefecture. As for M. B., the prefect's friend, I am not aware whether, through this arrest, he was able, as he stated, to recover his sixty thousand francs. This little affair was certainly managed neatly enough, but we fancy that the Forresters, or Mr. Whitcher, could tell many stories equally as good; indeed, the earliest numbers of Household Words contained some detective stories which surpass any thing to be found in Canler's volume. It is curious to find, also, how constantly the Parisian detectives are thrown out by the passport system and the list of lodgers, and in several murder cases the assassin has escaped justice for a considerable period by employing the papers of his victim. The detectives of Paris also appear to turn their attention to delicate matters, which in England would be intrusted to Inspector Field, and Canler gives us plenty of anecdotes of married ladies who sought his protection against their lovers. By the way, one special trade of Paris may be registered: Frenchmen, who are notoriously fond of boasting of their bonnes fortunes, even to casual acquaintances, often got ladies into sad trouble in this way; for if their confidant be a scoundrel-and there are such persons even in France, let us assure M. Assollant-he will put the screw on the unhappy lady, and plunder her of every thing she possesses, as the price of holding his 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 well qualified to pass an opinion upon it, to lay by a portion of his wages, and eventually we can not do better than conclude our opened a shop, which enabled him to support article by an analysis of the chapter which his family honestly. As, however, he was pro- he devotes to Orsini and his confederates, hibited from residing in the capital, from the for we fully agree with him that the fact of having been convicted, he carefully avoided company, never visited the barriers, vaunted detectives of Paris slumber at and went about Paris as rarely as possible, for times like Homer. On January 7th, 1858, fear of meeting any of his fellow-prisoners. a telegraphic dispatch informed the MinisStill, in spite of all the precautions he took, heter of the Interior that a man of the name was one day recognized by one of his ex-com- of Pieri was proceeding to Paris, accompanions, who was authorized to live in Paris, panied by another individual, with the inand who, under pretext of renewing their acquaintance, offered to pay for a bottle of wine. tention of killing the Emperor. Pieri and The carpenter did not dare refuse, and when Gomez, who left London on January 6th, they had finished drinking the carpenter's reached Calais at a quarter to two A.M. friend proposed to accompany him home. No, They at once went to Lille, where Gomez thank you,' the latter replied, for I have seve waited, while Pieri proceeded to Brussels, ral calls to make, and I have to go to my wood- and on the eighth both arrived in Paris. dealer's.' Very good! Still, give me your On one side, the Moniteur said that inaddress, so that I may pay you a friendly visit formation had been received in the previous when I am in your part of the town.' 'Oh! of course; I live at June, that bombs were being manufac And the carpenter gave a false address; but his friend, who was very tured in England to be thrown under the artful, suspected the trick, and followed him at Emperor's carriage; on the other hand, a distance. The next day the carpenter was the Count de Morny stated, in a speech at thunderstruck by a visit from the ex-convict. the opening of the Legislative Chamber, "There, you see,' the latter said, laughingly, that the provincial secret societies were 'you played me a trick yesterday, but I am a good-tempered fellow, and the proof is that I expecting in the middle of January a cahave called on you to-day.' 'Indeed!' said the tastrophe, followed by a movement. carpenter, still greatly confused. 'Yes. 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 every body 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." 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 We might suppose that, after such precise information, the police would have taken their measures to arrest Pieri imme diately on his arrival in Paris, but nothing of the sort. Pieri put up at a 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 travelers: he remained in the dining-room to read the paper: if he went out, he frequented cafes 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 fourteenth, in the Rue le Peletier, was specially intrusted with the surveillance of the lodging-houses and political refugees, and he was expressly ordered to discover Pieri among the persons who arrived from London and Belgium on the eighth. 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 either of negligence or of incapacity. And yet, did not do their duty, and facts convict them what was the conclusion of this lamentable affair? The prefect of police sent in his resig nation, the chief of the municipal police retained his post, the chief inspector of hotels was nominated Knight of the Legion of Honor, and eventually received a pension. How can we explain such a denouement?” In conclusion, we can not 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 checkered 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 insure 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. From the London Eclectic. HINTS TOWARDS A TREATISE ON LAUGHTER.* WE have not read The Wise Men of be impossible to find many names, or perAbdera in its own language, by Wieland, haps to descant on the anonymia of Sacred and therefore we are unable to say Laughter; the vision of Piers Plowman; whether the dullness of The Republic of the somewhat harsh and unwise merriFools is due to its author or to the trans- ment of Martin Masprelate; more espelator; but unmistakably a dull book it is, pecially the Epistola Obscurorum Vivoa safe and most warrantable narcotic. rum. We have before now referred to The editor institutes some comparison be- the humorists of the pulpit, and the hutween it and other great philosophical ro- morists of the table, without calling up mances; but by the side of almost any- any more names. Is it not enough to say any within our knowledge-Swift, Que- the monarchs of laughter have done vedo, Rabelais, it is dull, and very dull; something for the world? Far be if from one can not but feel that really the editor us to inculcate or to commend the habit of can not be altogether to blame that so lit-regarding every thing from its comic or a tle has been made of one of the very best texts that the humorist ever had to descant upon. But perhaps this was an order of humor in which Wieland was not very likely to shine, certainly not among the chief luminaries. Well acquainted as our readers are with the Bridgewater Treatises on the goodness, personality, power, and wisdom of God, it has often occurred to us that many topics not touched upon in those renowned publications may be made subservient to the teachings of natural theology, although they have not yet been permitted to illustrate it. If Sir Charles Bell finds God in the human hand, or Buckland in a piece of coal, or Roget in a place where some alone look for him-the stomach, why may it not be permitted to find divine intentions underlying the causes of laughter? It is a good thing to attempt to see the measure of the divine, the human, and even the infernal, in all things. That we laugh is certain. That even good men laugh who can doubt? That highest, holiest men, great reformers and martyrs, have obtained their irresistible influence over their fellow-men by their skill in wielding the weapons of humor-rousing even to very mirthful views of things who can doubt? True, we all begin to find how wrong it is to laugh when the laugh goes against us. But it would not *The Republic of Fools. By WIELAND. Trans lated by HENRY CHRISTMAS, M.A. Williams & Nor gate. comic side. This can be neither Christian, manly, nor healthy. But there are legitimate worlds of humor and wit, and we do not desire to be so good as to be beyond the rich quaint tracery, the queer and grotesque figures, upon the arras wrought by many of the fathers of our literature. Such independence, alas! would make us independent of the humor of Bunyan and the innocent mirth of Cowper. "To blow a large regular and durable soap-bubble may become the serious occupation of a philosopher," says Sir John Herschell. Certainly, and we know there is a tradition that the venerable Sir Isaac Newton was well laughed at by a fop who saw him so engaged. The poor empty head was little aware that the other head, with its illustrious crown of gray hairs, was engaged in making observations and marking experiments on the prismatic colors. We purpose in some light and almost playful way to call attention for a page or two to some of the bubbles of the mind, which may, although evanescent as bubbles, be prisms also reflecting something of the higher solar light upon their frail forms. For there are aspects of highest wisdom in many of the forms of wit, and Divine life may and does shine through much that only creates laughter. Poetry, harmony, and wisdom are revealed by very incongruity, and are lightened and illustrated by ridicule. It is the office of poetry to reveal to us the |