re the nearest chef de
police. In past days the coachman thus complained against was forced to
go in person to the complainant to beg his or her pardon, and to pay
over the extra sum demanded. A frightful catastrophe which occurred some
twenty years ago put an end to this form of retribution. On the 16th of
September, 1855, M. Juge, director of the normal school at Douai, took a
cab in the Place de la Concorde and went for a drive in the Bois de
Boulogne. The driver, one Collignon, insisted on being paid more than
his legal fare, and M. Juge forwarded his complaint to the prefecture of
police the next day. Collignon was condemned to make restitution in
person to M. Juge. He sold his furniture, purchased a pair of pistols
and went on the appointed day to the house of M. Juge in the Rue
d'Enfer. No hard words passed between them, but while the gentleman was
in the act of signing the receipt the coachman drew out one of his
pistols and shot him through the head, killing him instantly. Collignon
was at once arrested: he was tried and condemned to death, and expiated
his crime on the scaffold on the 6th of December following. Since that
event another system of restitution has been followed, the sum exacted
in excess of the legal fare being deposited at the prefecture of police,
whither the traveler is compelled to go in quest of it.

At the prefecture of police is likewise situated the storehouse of
articles forgotten or left behind in public carriages. According to the
law, every coachman is commanded to inspect carefully his carriage after
the occupant has departed, and to deposit every article left therein,
were it but an odd glove, in the storehouse above mentioned. Each object
is inscribed in a register and bears a particular number, and the number
of the cab in which it was left as well. These articles fill a large
room, whereof the contents are ever changing, and which is always full.
Umbrellas, muffs, opera-glasses, pocket-books (sometimes containing
thousands of francs) are among the most usual deposits. In one year
there were found in the cabs of Paris over twenty thousand objects,
among which were six thousand five hundred umbrellas. Should the article
bear the address of the owner, he is at once apprised by letter of its
whereabouts; otherwise, it is kept till called for, and if never claimed
it becomes the property of the city at the end of three years, and is
sold at auction. A vast row of underground apartments