Ghost of a flea

It sounds like a tale from the Mexican order. In the Rue de la Roquette some twenty toughs were fighting together with knives and pistols-two bands, one against the other. Eight policemen, requisitioned by the frightened shopkeepers, tried to separate them.

Then what always happens, happened. The thugs at once forgot their personal differences to make common cause against the "agents'" and one explanation of their insolent daring is found in a really too humane police regulation. While the toughs use knives and pistols freely, the police may draw their revolvers and sword bayonets only in the last extremity; and then they often hesitate, fearing to hear the next morning a veritable howl set up in the Socialist newspapers and the "Extreme Left" of the Chamber of Deputies - enemies of all authority.