Directory (France)

“ When the directory for London was established, which was about seventy years ago, the necessary information was gathered or furnished by post-office clerks; hence the book was called, naturally enough, the "Post-Office Directory." In later years the post-office aid was discontinued; the proprietor of the enterprise continued, however, to issue the book annually, on information gathered by his own canvassers. ”

“ Each district of France, however, has its own special objects, all interesting and instructive, and all claiming your careful study, though the central district bears most directly upon ourselves, excepting only Normandy, with its Romanesque identical with our own, and its host of charming village churches, which remind one so much of those of England. ”

“ The eighty-three departments were subdivided into 374 districts. In every department was an elected administrative body for the management of its affairs; in every district an elected administrative body, subordinate to the administration of the department, for the management of affairs special to the district. These bodies were composed each of a general council and a permanent executive, styled the directory. In every district the former divisions, called communes, were left unaltered. ”

“ Total men, 44,155. The system of rural posts in France is of extreme interest. For the first thirty years of the present century, out of 38,000 communes 35,587 were without direct relations with the Post Office. To obtain a letter it was necessary to send, in many districts, distances varying from fifteen to twenty-five miles. By a law passed in May, 1829, every commune of the kingdom was to be afforded, from the 1st of April, 1839, postal communication, not less than every second day, with every other part of France. ”

“ The place of deposit of the prototypes shall be opened only by means of three keys, one of which shall be in possession of the director of the archives of France, the second in that of the chairman of the committee, and the third in that of the director of the bureau.
The standards of the class of national prototypes alone shall be used for the ordinary comparing work of the bureau. ”

“ With respect to those regulations published for the control, or guidance, of persons proceeding to, or residing in, India, fluctuations must at times take place. Messrs. Black, Parry, and Kingsbury, publish yearly a Directory, under the immediate authority of the Court of Directors, the latest edition of which ought to be purchased in the first instance. ”

“ The outside is covered with stone figures, most of them rude in art, but giving at a distance an appearance of prodigal richness of material. A little periodical called France Illustrated is published at fourpence each number, with a map of the Department, several woodcuts of notable places or events, and a brief history of the principal towns, concluding with a résumé of the statistics of the Department. ”

“ Landes.—A maritime department in the southwest of France, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. It derives its name from the landes, or marshy heaths, which occupy a considerable portion of its surface. The capital of the department is Mont-de-Marsan, and its area 3599 square miles. The population in 1893 was 35,143. ”

“ The arrangements for mailing and receiving letters in Paris are, in general, very satisfactory,—the branch post-offices are over a hundred in number, and they will receive not only letters and mailable packages, but telegrams. They do a very large business, and are generally thronged all day in the popular quarters,—the registry department being greatly in favor. ”

“ Every citizen owes his services to the fatherland and to the maintenance of liberty, equality, and property whenever the law summons him to defend them.
Constitution.
1. The French Republic is one and indivisible.
2. The totality of the French citizens is the sovereign.
Title I.
3. France is divided into — departments.
These departments are . . . [list omitted] .
4. The boundaries of the departments can be changed or rectified by the legislative body; but in that case, the area of a department cannot exceed one hundred square myriameters (four hundred common square leagues) . ”

“ The territorial communities of the Republic shall be the Communes, the Departments, the Regions, the Special-Status communities and the Overseas Territorial communities to which article 74 applies. Any other territorial community created, if need be, to replace one or more communities provided for by this paragraph shall be created by statute. Territorial communities may take decisions in all matters arising under powers that can best be exercised at their level. ”

“ But the total number of workingmen in France, according to the Census of 1906, is about 10,000,000, of which about 5,000,000 are employed in industry and in transportation. The numbers of independent producers in industry, commerce, and agriculture is about 9,000,000, of which about 2,000,000 are petits patrons. ”

“ Nor can Rural claim originality in its coordination and arrangement of facts. The white pages do nothing more than list Rural's subscribers in alphabetical order. This arrangement may, technically speaking, owe its origin to Rural; no one disputes that Rural undertook the task of alphabetizing the names itself. But there is nothing remotely creative about arranging names alphabetically in a white pages directory. It is an age-old practice, firmly rooted in tradition and so commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course. ”

“ Of the 2,100 registrars’ districts, comprised in England and Wales, about 400, containing a million and a-half of inhabitants, have no Post Offices whatever. The average extent of these 400 districts is nearly twenty square miles each; the average population, about 4,000. The average population of the chief place of the district, about 1,400; and the average distance of such chief place from the nearest Post Office, between four and five miles. ”

“ This method of seeking persons is most common in France, where, within twenty-four hours of your arrival, your passport and address have to be left at the prefecture's, under the penalty of a fine, should it not be done. ”

“ DIRECTORY, a term meaning literally that which guides or directs, and so applied to a book or set of rules giving directions for public worship. The directorium or ordo of the Roman Church contains regulations as to the Mass and office to be used on each day throughout the year, and the word is found in the Directory for the Publick Worship of God drawn up in 1644 at the Westminster Assembly. ”

“ We have under other heads alluded to the carelessness of persons in addressing their letters. To make them legible and complete, give the name of the post-town, and if there be more than one town of that name, or if the post-town is not well known, be careful in giving the name of the county, which in all cases is as essential as that of the State. The number of the house, too, if in a street, is a great assistance. ”

“ One woman skilled as draftsman, at $1,400, prepares the guides for the colors printed on the post-route maps, and has supervision of the map sheets transmitted from and to the photolithographer. Three other women draftsmen note the reported changes in the postal service of a group of States, revise and post-route map sheets of those States, and correct monthly the corresponding diagram maps for the use of officers and clerks of the Post-Office Department. ”

“ A computerized inventory of street names, address ranges, and census block numbers, created by the Census Bureau in cooperation with local agencies, to permit the automated assignment of addresses on a mailing list to the geographic entity codes for the 145 largest urban cores of metropolitan areas (MAs) at the time of the 1970 census. Each file contained the name of each block side that was a street or road, its associated address range and ZIP Code, and 1970 census geographic entity information for that side of the street. It was the forerunner of the GBF/DIME-Files and the TIGER data base. ”

“ In order to travel in France which is all under military rule, a great many documents, tickets, and identification papers are necessary, and it takes a great deal of labor and patience to procure them all. The Y.M.C.A. office in Paris is an enormous and hectic place, with its various departments poorly co-ordinated; so I, like every one else, did a great deal of running up and down stairs and much retracing of steps before everything concerning baggage, tickets, money, equipment, mail, etc., was attended to. ”

“ As a description of the political department of the police of Paris would involve details, the ramifications of which would almost be endless, I will only briefly state, that from the masters of every furnished hotel and lodging-house—who are required to insert in a register, indorsed by a commissaire de police, the name, surname, profession, and usual domicile of every person who sleeps in their house for a single night—and from innumerable other sources, information is readily obtained concerning every person, and especially every stranger, residing in the metropolis. ”

“ If you will, so soon as may be, secure a wideawake, judicious correspondent in each village and township of your county, some young lawyer, doctor, clerk in a store, or assistant in a post office who will promptly send you whatever of moment occurs in his vicinity, and will make up at least half your journal of local matter thus collected, nobody in the county can long do without it. ”

“ The statistics of the traffic which has grown in the furrow of that wind-drawn plough would be fatiguing if they did not carry you to heights of a wider and more exhilarating view.
We have occupied and apportioned the billion acres of French domain among sixty million people. Here is an added domain in which no landmarks can be set—which belongs to all men. ”

“ I proceeded thence to French General Headquarters.
The gentleman authorized to sign orders for tires received me cordially and spoke English.
“Certainly,” he said in answer to my request, “if the car is for an American officer. And what is the license number?” ”

“ Guide-books are so many that it seems probable we have more than any other country—possibly more than all the rest of the universe together. Every county has a little library of its own—guides to its towns, churches, abbeys, castles, rivers, mountains; finally, to the county as a whole. They are of all prices and all sizes, from the diminutive paper-covered booklet, worth a penny, to the stout cloth-bound octavo volume which costs eight or ten or twelve shillings, or to the gigantic folio county history, the huge repository from which the guide-book maker gets his materials. ”

“ And each captain recruited as many working squads, under lieutenants, as the size and character of his district demanded. Reinforcing this territorial organization was another which treated every important industry, trade, and profession, and even large business establishments [199] and office buildings as individual organization units. The territorial organization was known as the Bureau of Investigation; the classified trade, professional, and industrial force as the Bureau of Information. As a matter of fact, they were just the right and left arms of the League. ”

“ Perhaps the limitation began with the approval of the map of definite location which, as frequently held, determines the time at which the right of the company to the odd-numbered sections is established, or perhaps, at least in cases where the grant was to a state, instead of directly to a company, at the date of the official certification to the state of the list of allotted lands. ”

“ Each official transacts business in his own name and no person should sign the name or initials of another. All persons outside the jurisdiction of this office are requested to address communications, including replies, intended for the General Manager or for any Assistant General Manager, simply: “General Manager ................... Co., ..............Bldg. ..............” no name being used in the address unless intended as personal or confidential or to reach an official away from his headquarters. ”

“ In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers, such as we find in all the towns of Italy, and in some of the towns in England. ”

“ THE CHIEF has obtained from the United States Civil Service Commission the regulations governing the examinations in each district, the post offices for which examinations may be taken, the rules relative to the registers for clerk or carrier in each district, the approximate dates when examinations are held and whether or not more than one examination may be taken in the same Civil Service district. Intending competitors should read carefully the section covering their particular district, so as to know whether their names can be placed on the carrier and clerk register, or only on one. ”

“ In some countries a number of divisions are sometimes grouped into provinces with an Officer in charge of the whole province, and each country has its national headquarters under a Territorial Commissioner, all being under the lead of the International Headquarters in London. ”

“ The Circle.—In the Kreis, or circle, as in the province, there exist two sharply distinguished sets of governmental functions, the general and the local; but for the administration of both there is a single hierarchy of officials. The number of circles within the kingdom is about 490, with populations varying from 20,000 to 80,000. Each includes all towns lying within it which have a population of less than 25,000. A town of over 25,000 is likely to be created, by ministerial order, a circle within itself, in which case the functions of government are exercised by the municipal authorities. ”