Espionage Over the Post-Office in France
That country must be in a bad way where the heads of the several departments find it necessary to resort to the most infamous means of tracing out suspected traitors. Thus, in the postal department, every letter is subject to the system of espionage, and the innocent as well as the guilty alike suspected and their private correspondence betrayed. In time of rebellion, insurrection, or an attempt to assassinate a king or an emperor, there might be some excuse for the exercise of such precaution; but in the absence of such startling causes the system is both mean and cowardly. In France, at the present time (1865), private letters, newspapers, and pamphlets are subjected to the most anxious scrutiny. A large portion of every day is devoted to such examinations by a skilful and energetic body of men. Between the time when letters are received at the chief office from the district-offices and the time they are sent out again, two hours elapse. During this period they are in the hands of the police. The police have a list of certain addresses, and are furnished with examples of the handwriting of every one in whose correspondence the government is interested. With these and practised eyes the officials set to work, carrying all suspected letters into the Cabinet Noir, where they are read, copied, delayed, stopped at discretion; and the police are very discreet about seizing letters: it is done as seldom as possible. The system is so perfect, it works so well, that the only chance of evading it is to correspond under assumed names, changed with every letter; and this is actually done by people who are not more treasonable than the majority of Frenchmen, but who, being eminent and powerful, are condemned to the degradation of shifts like these, or every letter they write would be read by the police. Governments maintained thus are never safe in power.