As a description
of the political department of the police of Paris would involve
details, the ramifications of which would almost be endless, I will
only briefly state, that from the masters of every furnished hotel and
lodging-house--who are required to insert in a register, indorsed by a
commissaire de police, the name, surname, profession, and usual
domicile of every person who sleeps in their house for a single
night--and from innumerable other sources, information is readily
obtained concerning every person, and especially every stranger,
residing in the metropolis. For instance, at the entrance of each
lodging, and of almost every private house, there sits a being termed
a _concierge_, who knows the hour at which each inmate enters and goes
out; who calls on him; how many letters he receives; by their
post-marks, where they come from; what parcels are left for him; what
they appear to contain, &c. &c. &c. Again, at the corner of every
principal street, there is located, wearing the badge of the police, a
commissionaire, acquainted with all that outwardly goes on within the
radius of his Argus-eyed observations. From these people, from the
drivers of fiacres, from the sellers of vegetables, from fruiterers,
and lastly, from the masters of wine-shops, who either from people
sober, tipsy, or drunk, are in the habit of hearing an infinity of
garrulous details, the police are enabled to track the conduct of
almost any one, and, if necessary, to follow up their suspicions by
their own agents in disguises which, practically speaking, render them
invisible.
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