FRENCH POLICE METHODS.

Western Star, 8 December 1933, Page 2

FRENCH POLICE METHODS.

EX-GHIEF'S BOOK. Tt was probably Edgar Allan Poe's M. Dupont who first aroused international interest in the French police. Since then Gaboriau'a M. Lecoq—a ~ bungler to Sherlock Holmes (see 'A Study in Scarlet') but a sufficiently formidable fellow in the bulging eyes of the schoolboy, if any boy still reads him—has carried on the tradition (states the London 'Sunday Times'). .M. Faralicq, who was chief of the "Special Brigade" in Paris during the critical years after the war and has helped to solve some of the most famous mysteries of modem times, reveals the fact that successful detection is much the same everywhere, depending largely on patient ;and tireless research, the" accumulation of minute and at first glance unrelated facts. "

Ifsybui have ever wondered why .murderers do not make use of deadly germs, and thus contrive a less conspicuous end for their victims, you will be interested to hear that this was the method actually used by the prisoner Girard. He insured his'victims .without, their knowledge for large sums, and then got rid of them by giving them poison, or by administering a dose or iyphoid bacillus. It took a morbid imagination to devise such a crime, and exceptional sang froid to carry ifc out. Girard, who had a certain amount of education, devoted himself to medical and chemical studies in order to achieve his ends.

Girard was a dishonest spendthrift who "had several mistresses at once, and ended by marrying one of them—ins future accomplice—while still keeping on the others." In the long run such hardihood could .scarcely pay. His debts forced him •to robbery, forgery, and ultimately to planning wholesale murder for the sake of the -victims' Insurance. Almost a replica, in fact, of the ease of Thomas Griffiths Wainowright. In the end, of course, the insurance companies became suspicious, the police' came in, and the game was up. In Girard's home was found a strange laboratory containing tetanus and anetheax cultures, capsules of strychnine and cyanide ftf pqtassjum, a bottle of cocaine, a great quantity oi pharmaceutical products, a microscope, indiarubber gloves, and a textbook on toxicology. Girard died in prison while awaiting trial.

<#pe of the duties of the Special Brigade ts to suppress traffic in obscene literature. One might be tempted to suggest that here, certainly, is ample scope for a French detective. But M. "aralieq counters effectively with tht statement that "the most constant and eager clients for these honors are moit. numerous abroad than in France. Tin Anglo-Saxons are particularly avid customers." ' •

The magnitude of the trade is shown by the fact that' a single raid in 1920 resulted in', tlw seizure -of 1,500 obseeni prints, 4,b00 engravings, 3,000 photographs, and 200,000 : fraircs' worth cf books. Nine men were arrested, bi'l within a year the trade was flourishing

again; once released, M. Karalieq'Vy;, the cujpri.ts always' resume their a?li\ lies, became 6 r the handsome profits. ii. Karalieq calls the Special Jiriy.Mlf tlie'nu.st efficient,' police Unly In world. If the number oujU-s in » hi.'l he has fo admit the criminals c*e:>fe does pot suggest any superiority ov 1 Scotland Varfl, he has nevertheless writ fen a fyopk oi undenjable interest.

The people who said the- LJ.virie mpjor would pever "work are now pal-

j ising that the motor works all right, Un ■ the people are idle, 1