Picture postcard of the Town Hall in the year of celebration of the 50th anniversary of reign of the Austrian emperor Francis Joseph I (1830-1916).     The municipal police were a section of the town administration from 1866 to April 1st 1913, when they came under state authority. As it seems, the police were not adequately efficient at controlling strangers in town. Earlier they controlled the town area; the detectives were monitoring illegal migrations in the broader hinterland of Ljubljana as well. After all, everyone, from porters to emigrant agents, wanted to nip off crumbs from the emigration “cake”, as the transportation of emigrants and returnees was the business of the century. The Town Hall was the seat of the town’s offices, among them of the police as well. Temporary prisons were in the back of the building.

Official delation by the Reka (Fiume) police on departure of 30 emigrants under the guard of the company Zwilchenbart from Switzerland, that did not have a licence for working in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.   A denouncement by Janez Kramar (the name has most likely been made up) from Dolenjska (Lower Carniola), addressed to the “Renowned police” in Ljubljana, on prohibited agitation at the inn Pri Starem Tišlerju, for the route through Bremen. The inn owner was inviting at the door: “Do come in, there are others in there that are going to America”. A town detective was put in charge to observe the inn.   A notification on departure of a group of emigrants, sent anonymously on a postcard dated May 9th 1902 to the gendarmerie station in Ribnica.   With the official letter of the Ljubljana Town Hall dated June 2nd 1903 (see logotype above left), the mayor’s deputy Vončina settled a matter with a boy who wanted to go to America without fulfilling military obligation.                                   A report of a town police officer (1903) on boys that imposed themselves upon passengers in the proximity of the railway station for luggage carrying and at the same time persuading them to buy ship tickets at a certain agent, which was prohibited.   An official denunciation on a form of the police department of the Town Hall in Ljubljana, on the offence of the arrested person. He was suspected of addressing emigrants and persuading them to buy tickets at a certain emigrant agent.   A report on detention (1901) of a man that was inviting young men to America. They found on him a wallet with 276 crowns and 4 kreutzers, securities, a notebook and a knife; at arrest they took his trouser belt as well.

© Institute for Slovenian Emigration Studies, Slovenian Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana | Ljubljana, Slovenia | 2007 | All rights reserved.