side extra-judicial police has gradually grown up in Paris, with agencies established in many quarters, who offer their services for any purpose without scruple as to the jus tice, morality, or possible consequences of their inquisitorial action. Such agencies have never inspired much respect or confi dence on the part of the public; their in trigues have frequently led to serious, and sometimes to comical results, as was cleverly delineated in the well-known farce of " Tricoche et Cacolet "; and the surveillance they propose to employ with respect to others is often employed against themselves by the authorities of the Prefecture, so that the lookers after others are from time to time well looked after in their turn. The abuses resulting from the tolerated but totally unauthorized existence of such establishments have led to the creation of a new sort of agency calling itself the Police Officieuse, in reality an inquiry office, but which discards every idea of espionage for political or other purposes. This in quiry office, which professes to undertake any admissible* sort of investigation, is of quite recent foundation, and although young in months only, is organized on a footing which places a large staff of old retired police employees at the disposal of its direc tor. Its avowed object is to assist justice by extra-judicial inquiries, without being in any way authorized by the official police to act on its behalf. Each of the employees above referred to possesses some special apti tude, to be made use of, when any particular occasion arises. So far, but few relations have been estab lished between these inquiry offices in Paris and similar establishments existing in Eng land and America, where a great amount of extra-judicial business is transacted quite in dependently of the legally appointed au thorities. Overtures have been made for
that purpose, and when a proper basis of operations can be submitted to the English and American private detective establish ments in London and New York, a suitable and useful understanding with their French colleagues will not be likely to meet with any obstruction. It stands to reason that all the investigations undertaken by the Police Officieuse will be made (professedly) in a thoroughly judicial, official, and confi dential manner. In making these observa tions it is necessary to state, from informa tion received by the representative of the "Galignani Messenger " at the Prefecture of Police, that all the agencies alluded to in this article act entirely at their own risk and peril. No private agency can possess the powerful machinery at the disposal of the Prefecture. When a case has been aban doned by the official police, there is little hope for success by any other means; yet people who have been robbed of either purse or honor, and have applfed to headquarters in vain, often take to these agencies, that resemble men who go to work in an aban doned mine, with the hope of finding a for gotten or hitherto undiscovered treasure. The system of inquiry employed by the inquiry office is the same as that followed out by the Paris Prefecture of Police, to which all its former servitors are, of course, well accustomed. The tariff is also the same as that charged by the Prefecture — ten francs per day's surveillance or inquiry in Paris; fifteen francs per day in the pro vinces, and twenty-five francs per day in foreign countries, besides travelling and hotel expenses to be paid by the client. The extras are often more considerable in amount than the simple tariff charges; and when the inquiries fail to succeed, the disap pointed client finds that he has been uselessly mulcted in the vain hope of discovering something undiscoverable. — Galignani.
