In the Dépôt are deposited temporarily all the individuals arrested in the department of the Seine, for any crime whatever, and held for justice. This general depository receives on an average a hundred and fifty prisoners a day. Any one arrested by a police agent and conducted to the _poste_, if not delivered by some friend before the arrival of the _panier à salade_, is put into this cheerful vehicle, much like a closed-up omnibus, and carted off to the Dépôt. There, he is interrogated, searched, measured by the _service anthropométrique_ of M. Bertillon, and held for three days. At the end of this period, he is transferred to some other prison,--to Mazas, before it was demolished, or to the Santé. The desperate criminals have the privilege of remaining in the Dépôt under the eye of the agents de la sûreté. Within the walls of the Palais de Justice is included a third place of detention, the _Souricière_, in which are confined the accused brought from the various prisons of the city,--la Santé, Sainte-Pélagie, la Petite and la Grande-Roquette, Saint-Lazare,--to appear either for their trial or for their examination before the Juge d'Instruction. The Souricière [mouse-trap] is a gloomy and ill-smelling basement, almost without light and air, and frequently crowded to suffocation, situated under the chambers of the police correctionnelle. The prisoners are very often confined here from eleven o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock in the evening, without being given either food or drink. This abuse is of long standing, notwithstanding the many protestations that have been raised against it. [Illustration: ENTRANCE FAÇADE OF THE ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE. Engraved, from a photograph, by E. Tilly.]