s, delivers
to them a moral lecture, and effects a reconciliation. The search for a
missing spouse--whether he or she be really wanted by the abandoned
partner, or whether the latter cherish secret hopes that the search be
fruitless, so that the divorce may be obtained--is one of the most
frequent charges of this confidential police. Those parents who cruelly
treat their children, those dissipated sons of families who will not
listen to parental admonition, are summoned before the Commissaire and
speedily brought to reason.

_Le Service de Surete_ is enabled by its organization to assure
protection to persons menaced. "For example, you receive a letter
threatening trouble at the ceremony of your marriage, at the church or
the Mairie; carry that letter to the Chef de la Surete, Quai des
Orfevres. He will place on the watch inspectors to whom he will give a
description of the author of the threat. This service is completely
gratuitous. It is not so for that which consists, we will say, in
watching over the display of wedding-presents. If you want some
inspectors to mount guard in your salon, so that you may not be robbed,
you must pay them. They have, in fact, under these circumstances, to
meet the expenses of dress which are not provided for in their budget."
La Surete will also place at your disposal, for any legitimate purpose,
retired inspectors who have served their twenty-five years, and who will
shadow any one whom you have cause to suspect, for ten francs a day and
expenses, who will guard banks, or villas, or travellers with valuable
luggage, or assume the duties of a concierge. All these official
services rendered to individuals must be with the consent of the
Procureur de la Republique and the Prefet de Police, the Surete acting
only under the orders of these two officials.

Paris, in fact, may be said to be a very well-policed city,--the police
regulations are intelligent, and cover all those points in which the
safety, or comfort, or peace of mind of the majority of well-meaning
citizens may be menaced or disturbed by the inconsiderate action of
individuals, and yet these strict _ordonnances_, which might become
harsh or tyrannical, are generally administered with discretion and--in
the case, for example, of the peripatetic vendors of vegetables, the
_marchands_ and _marchandes des quatre-saisons_--with due consideration
for the difficulties of the poor. Great care is taken to assure the
free circulation in