Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/912

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FRANCE

be removed only by a decision of tho Court of Cassation constituted as the Conseil Superieur of the magistracy.

The agencies for the prosecution of misdemeanours and crimes in 1909 appeared as follows: — Gendarmes, 21,167; commissaires de police, 914; agents de police, 17,741; gardes champetres, 31,864; private sworn gardes, 45,401; forest gardes, 7,430; fishery police, 2,409; railway police, 275.

The following table shows the number of persons convicted (exclusive of convicts under 16 and certain others) before the various courts in five years : —

Year Assize Courts

Correctional Tribunals

Police Courts

1905 1906 1907 1908 1909

2,285 2,107 2,351 2,379 1,975

196,346 188,906 202,572 206,325 198,837

434,928 403,173 491,021 505,733 512,825

The French penal institutions consist, first, of Houses of Arrest (3,276 chamhrcs de silreti and 70 depdts de silrete in 1910). Next come Departmental Prisons, also styled maisons d^ arret, de justice and de correction, where both persons awaiting trial and those condemned to less than one year's imprison- ment are kept, as also a number of boys and girls transferred from, or going to be transferred to, reformatories. The reformatories are 1 5 for boys and 9 for girls, 10 for boys and 4 for girls being public, and 5 for boys and 5 for girls being private. The Central Prisons {maisons deforce et de correction), where all prisoners condemned to more than one year's imprisonment are kept, provided with large industrial esta1)lishmeuts for the work of prisoners, are 9 for men and 2 for women.

All persons condemned to hard labour and many condemned to 'reclusion ' are sent to New Caledonia or Guiana (military and recidivistes) ; the dep6t de formats of St. Martin-de-Re is a dtpot for transferred hard-labour convicts. Of 785 prisoners detained in this depdt in 1910, 746 were sent to Guiana (430 to hard labour and 316 to relegation).

Pauperism and Relief of Old Age.

In France the poor are assisted partly through public ' bureaux de bien- faisance ' and partly by private and ecclesiastical charity. They are partly under the care of the communes and partly of the departments, both of which contribute, and ultimately under the supervision of Government. The funds of the ' bureaux de bienfaisauce ' are partly derived from endowments, partly from communal contributions, and partly from public and private charity. In 1910 16,623 bureaux expended 47,564,536 francs and assisted 1,182,360 persons excluding 100,322 persons in Paris. Public assistance is rendered to poor or destitute children. At the end of 1910 the institutions for this purpose contained 226,204 children ; the expenditure during the year amounted to 4,061,000 francs. In 1910 the hospitals for the sick, infirm, aged, or infants, numbered 1,878; they contained 191,761 beds, and at the end of the year had 62,897 patients, besides 72,735 aged and infirm inmates ; their expenditure for 1910 amounted to 188,318,000 francs. In the same year 900,334 persons received gratuitous medical assistance at home and 141,621 in hospitals, the expenditure for such purposes amounting to 24,794,436 francs. At the end of 1910 the asylums for imbeciles national, departmental, and private, had 75,606 patients.