I attended a mooting the other day at the Trocadéro which was of a rather remarkable racter, It was the artists' protest t the continuance of the war but, incidentally, there. was a affecting a colonial-administrator, in the French Congo. This young man, twenty-five years of age, has been acoused of yoking or countenancing the most dial cruelty on West African niggers: In one case it is said that the poor wretch was blown to pieces by a dynamite cartridge merely a; an after-dinner spectacle for the Commissioner and his friends. Now the story of this atrocious act reached official ears in Paris precisely by means of the Cabinet Noir—the letter being opened in transit. At least, in thi. case, the institation has served a useful purpose, thong! is to he feared that its common end in to provide a little political information for the masters of the moment.
Spying on telegrams.
No secret is made of the fact that the political telegram, or the ress-od to " political personage, finds its way to the Minister of the Interior and may even, on occasion, be passed on to the Elysee. This, of course applies, also to the Press messages which deal with political subjects, At the offices at the Bourse, where most of these telegrams are collected, censor who looks river the dispatch, judges of its importance, and forwards copies of it to those functionaries likely to be interested in its contents. It is very rarely that messages are stopped, but thie official visa has its consequesices, no doubt direct and indirect, upon the auth ill-considered or ungrateful commun:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.