rbidden to private individuals. This bureau
contains records, systematically arranged, of all the sentences
pronounced by the courts and the civil and military tribunals of France;
the number of ordinary bulletins exceeds eight millions. In addition to
these judicial archives, the Prefecture de Police preserves a personal
record of every prominent personage. Less closely connected with affairs
of State, the bureau of lost articles is more appreciated by the
public; it was opened in 1804, but became generally known only after
1848. The number of these objects found in the streets and public places
and deposited here has exceeded twenty-six thousand, and every one of
them is carefully numbered, catalogued, and ticketed. After remaining
here till all attempts to find the rightful owner have failed, they may
be restored to the _inventeur_, the finder, on his demand, after a
period of three months for garments, furs, and woollen stuffs, of six
months for other articles capable of deterioration, umbrellas, books,
and opera-glasses, and of a year for all others.

* * * * *

The first well-organized attempt to light the streets of Paris at night
seems to have been made under Louis XIV. The Abbe de Caraffe had
previously undertaken to establish a force of link-boys and
torch-bearers, but the bureau which he opened in the Rue Saint-Honore
was soon closed, to the great regret of the honest bourgeois who
scarcely dared to stir out of his house after dark without a lantern.
Thieves abounded, and even the lackeys of good houses, sword in hand,
made a practice of insulting and striking the unlucky commoner who fell
in their way. The lieutenant of police, La Reynie, undertook to
establish a regular system of illumination,--at the end of each street
and in the middle, he hung an iron and glass lantern, some two feet in
height, enclosing a candle weighing a hundred and twenty-five grammes,
the whole suspended from a rope, and hoisted and lowered by means of a
pulley. The malicious breaking of these lanterns was punished by the
galleys. This illumination at first was given only from the 1st of
November to the 1st of March, but later, an ordinance of May 23, 1671,
extended the period from the 20th of October to the 1st of April, and,
still later, it was lengthened to nine months, with the exception of
the week in which the moon shone. For the period of six months, the cost
was a million and a half of francs,