I have seen a man press his fingers on a clean sheet of paper, apparently without leaving the faintest trace. But Mr. Collins is not baffled so. A pinch of black powder—graphite is commonly used—scattered over the paper, and behold the prints standing out in high relief. A grey powder will act in the same way on a dark surface, and a candle which has been pressed by the fingers may have the print rendered clear by a judicious use of ordinary printer's ink.

A corps of expert photographers, equipped with the latest appliances, is attached to the department, and their services are in constant requisition by the C.I.D. for many purposes other than those of finger-prints. One room is entirely devoted to a powerful lantern apparatus by which every photograph may be thrown up to a hundred times its normal size for the purpose of minute study. This has often proved useful in detecting forgeries as well as aiding the work of the Finger-print Department.

I have said that the primary purpose of the department is not the detection of crime. Nevertheless, it has played no small part in the solution of mysteries where other clues have failed. There was the case of the Stratton brothers, for instance, where the print on a cash-box led to arrest, although other evidence aided the conviction.

Perhaps the most interesting case is that which first focussed the public attention on the value of the system. It occurred in 1898, shortly after the present Commissioner initiated the system in India. He himself tells the story.

The manager of a tea-garden was found murdered, and a safe and despatch-box robbed of several hundred rupees. Suspicion was at first divided among the coolies and cook, the relatives of a woman with whom the dead man had carried on an intrigue, a wandering gang of Kabulis, and an ex-servant whom he had prosecuted for theft—a wide enough field, in all conscience.

But the police were unexpectedly helped in their investigation by the discovery in the despatch-box of a small light-blue book, a calendar in Bengali characters. On the cover were two indistinct smudges. Under a magnifying-glass these proved to be the impressions of a blood-stained finger.

Search was made in the records of the Bengal police, and it was found that the finger-print was that of the right thumb of the ex-servant.

He was arrested some hundreds of miles away, and charged with murder and robbery. On the ground that it would be unsafe to convict him of murder, as no one saw him do it, he was acquitted on that charge, but was convicted of theft.

It would be possible to write largely on cases where finger-prints have afforded culminating proof of a person's guilt. One that has a grim touch of humour may be recalled.

A constable pacing his beat in Clerkenwell noticed a human finger on one of the spikes of the gate of a warehouse. Closer investigation showed that the place had been broken into, and that the marauder had been disturbed and taken to flight in panic. In scaling the gates he had caught the little finger of his right hand on the spikes, and it had been torn away.

It was sent to the Finger-print Department and identified as that of a man well-known to the police, and the word was passed round the C.I.D. to keep a bright look-out for him. Time went on. The finger, carefully kept in spirits, remained at Scotland Yard.

Then one day a detective arrested a man for picking pockets near the Elephant and Castle. One hand was bandaged, but the prisoner was unwilling to say what was the matter with it. Soon the reason of his reluctance was disclosed.

The Finger-print Department held his missing finger.

But if the Finger-print Department makes it hard for the guilty, it often helps the innocent. Such a case as that of Adolph Beck would now be impossible. There are two criminals alive to-day who are said to be so much alike that the difference can only be told by their finger-prints.

One hears often that the police will bolster each other up when a mistake is made. That is, of course, preposterously false throughout the service. There have been cases where police officers have been prepared, quite honestly, to swear to a man as an old offender, and the department has stepped in in time to prevent the error.

It should be understood that the fact of finger-prints being found at or near the scene of a crime does not mean that they are of any use in solving a mystery, unless facsimiles are in the records—that is to say, a criminal has been convicted before. This rarely happens in the case of murder, for the reason that a murderer is unlikely, in an official sense, to be an habitual criminal. Of course, if a person is suspected and arrested it is easy to compare his finger-prints with those found where the crime was committed.

In the system the human liability to err is almost completely eliminated. A prisoner's prints are registered automatically, and, to prevent any chance of mistake, are examined and checked by a series of officials, each of whom signs the record.

Nor do those engaged in this business have an idle time. Between 70,000 and 80,000 sets of prints are dealt with every year. The following list shows the number of recognitions effected since the system came into being at Scotland Yard. It must, of course, be remembered that they have increased as the number of records has grown:—

1902 1,722 1903 3,642 1904 5,155 1905 6,186 1906 6,776 1907 7,701 1908 9,446 1909 9,960 1910 10,848 1911 10,400 1912 10,677 1913 10,607

That, in itself, is a record which justifies the faith now placed in the system.



CHAPTER IX.

THE SCHOOL OF POLICE.

In the long chain forged for the preservation of law and order in the metropolis the constable is the chief and, in some ways, the most important link. The heads of Scotland Yard have to make it certain that at moments of unexpected strain or heavy stress no link will fail. To that end every candidate for the Metropolitan Force is rigorously tested and prepared, physically, morally, and mentally, before he becomes an accredited member of the service.

For, to vary the simile, the constable is the foundation on which all the rest is built. Every man in grades right up to the superintendent has begun at the bottom of the ladder. You will have seen the constable, placid and unemotional, pacing the streets at the regulation beat of two and a half miles an hour—do you know how much he has to know before he is trusted alone on his duty?

He has to be ready to act decisively and firmly at an instant's notice, to solve on the spur of the moment some intricate problem of public order, to know the law, so that he may arrest a person on one occasion, and let him go on another, to act as guide or consultant to the public, to aid at a fire, or capture a burglar.

He must know everything out of the common that comes in his sphere of duty, enter the particulars fully in his note-book, and be prepared to swear to the accuracy of his notes at any time. It would be easy for a man less carefully selected and trained to make a slip of judgment, to succumb to a temptation.

It would be futile to pretend that there are twenty thousand plaster saints in the Metropolitan Police—there are not. Yet, man for man, in efficiency, in honesty, there is not their equal in the world in any profession.

The Metropolitan Police is a business body, controlled by business men, and run on business methods. But it is a specialist business, and so it has to train its recruits, making sure, first of all, that they are of the right material.

Before Sir Edward Henry's time a candidate had only to fulfil a medical qualification and a test of character, and then, after a few weeks' drill at Wellington Barracks and a few days' watching the procedure in a police court, he was turned out into the street to get on as best he could. A veteran detective officer told me how he was treated twenty years ago.

"I was pretty raw," he said. "I came straight out of a Bedfordshire village, and was boarded out at a sergeant's house. He put fourteen of us in a back room with a tiny window, and charged us 14s. 9d. a week out of our pay of 15s. The food! I should smile. In case we overdid our eating, meals were never placed on the table until just before we had to parade at Wellington Barracks for drill.

"Then we were sent to the old Worship Street Court. We were glad enough at last to get out on the streets for a breath of air with all our troubles before us. The very first day, I was called on to arrest one of a gang of men in Whitechapel. His friends had knives, and they threatened to 'lay me out' if I touched him. I didn't know whether I was justified, but I drew my truncheon and swore I'd brain the first man who came near me. But I was in a cold sweat all the time. They didn't coddle us in those days."

That was the old system. The wonder is that the police did so well. But now all that is changed. A policeman is prepared for his responsibilities by a thorough course of training, as scientific in its way as that of a doctor, a lawyer, or a school teacher.

Instead of going on his beat redolent of the plough, with a thousand pitfalls before him, the young constable now has a thorough theoretical acquaintance with his duties before ever he dons a helmet. More than that, he has been shrewdly observed for weeks to see whether his temperament is fitted to his calling. If it is not, be he ever so able in other respects, he is of no use as a police officer.

In a big building, hidden away in a back street at Westminster, the embryo policeman learns the first principles of his trade. Peel House, as this school of police is called, was established by the present Commissioner a few years ago, and since then has trained thousands of men.

Always there will be found two or three hundred young men gathered together from the remote corners of the British Isles, being gradually moulded into shape by a corps of instructors under Superintendent Gooding.

They have two characteristics in common—a character without flaw, and a good physique. For the rest, there are all types, with the agricultural labourer predominating—a country-house footman, an Irishman from some tiny village near Kilkenny, a sailor, a clerk, a provincial constable hoping to better himself, and, more raw than the rawest, men from Devonshire, Yorkshire, Wales and Scotland.

It is said that a good Irishman makes the best officer, while perhaps the least teachable is the Londoner. A countryman is fresh clay to the potter's hands, the Londoner has much to unlearn before he can be taught.

While these men are undergoing their training, they are not uncomfortable. Peel House has all the comforts and conveniences of a big hotel and club. Each man has his own cubicle; there are a billiard-room, a library, gymnasium, shooting gallery, scrupulously kept dining-rooms and kitchens, and, for the primary purpose of the school, a number of class-rooms.

Mr. Gooding holds no light responsibility. His duty is to see that no man leaves the school to be attached to a division who is in the faintest degree lacking in all that goes to make an officer of the Metropolitan Police.

Tactful and sympathetic, a shrewd judge of character, able to discriminate between nervousness and stupidity, a disciplinarian, with a gift of lucid exposition, an organiser, and a man with a fixed belief in the honourable nature of his calling. That is Superintendent Gooding, and his characteristics are reflected in his staff.

As the corps d'elite of the police services of the world, the Metropolitan Police is careful in the selection of its men. Before a candidate is admitted to Peel House he must prove that he is of unblemished good character, be over twenty and under twenty-seven years of age, stand at least 5 ft. 9 ins. in his bare feet, and be of a strong constitution, free from any bodily complaint.

Then he is passed on to the school, which will be his home for at least eight weeks—unless before that time he is shown to be obviously unfit for the service. There he will work from nine in the morning till half-past seven at night, learning the thousand and one laws, written and unwritten, that a policeman has to obey. In cold black and white the curriculum, of which even a summary would occupy many thousand words, looks formidable. But so minutely, so lucidly is everything taught that a man of average intelligence finds no difficulty in grasping it.

Every contingency that a constable may have to face, from dealing with insecure cellar flaps to the best method of stopping a runaway horse, to action in cases of riot, and the privileges of Ambassadors is gone into. Nothing is omitted. And day after day the instructors insist: "Remember, the honour of the service is in your hands; you are to serve, not to harass, the public."

That is dwelt upon and reiterated until it is indelibly impressed upon the memory of the most dull student.

A candidate begins in the fifth class. He is supplied with an official pocket-book and a thin paper-covered book called "Duty Hints" wherein is set forth, carefully indexed, a mass of concise information as to laws, regulations, addresses of hospitals, and so on. Should he ever, when a fully-fledged constable, be in a difficulty he has but to refer to his "Duty Hints" to have his course made clear. It is, in fact, a precis of the "Instruction Book," which deals with everything a police officer should know and be.

He is told the difference between a beat and a fixed point. He is shown how to make a report, and warned of the perils of making erasures or tearing leaves from his pocket-book. The unobtrusive marks to be placed on windows, doors, walls, shutters, and padlocks so that he shall know if they have been disturbed are made clear to him. He is told what to do should there be a sudden death in the street, should the roadway subside, should a street collision occur, should a gas explosion occur, should he be assaulted. He is initiated into the mysteries of the Dogs Act, the Highways Act, the Vagrancy Act, the Aliens Act, the Lottery Act, the Licensing Act, the Larceny Act, the Motor-Car Acts, the Locomotive Acts, the Children's Act, and others.

Nor is he merely crammed with these things. He has to know them, to be able to make a plain report, to answer an unexpected question.

As he passes upwards to the first class his instructor reports as to his progress and prospects of becoming an efficient police officer. It is a tedious process, this hammering raw countrymen—for most of the candidates are from the country—into serviceable policemen. Yet it is worth it.

Very craftily a candidate is instilled with the self-reliance and confidence so necessary in a police officer. He is not bullied or badgered. The staff patiently discriminate between nervousness and stupidity. The ordeal of giving evidence for the first time, for instance, is feared by a raw countryman, and for that reason a practical object-lesson is given to the senior classes at Peel House once a week.

Three of the instructors play the part of shopkeeper, thief, and constable. Little strain is put on the imagination of the men. They see everything for themselves, from the actual robbery to the procedure at police station and police court. In quiet, level tones Mr. Gooding gives the reason for every action taken. Then the men are called upon, one by one, to take charge of the case. Mr. Gooding explains:

"Now take hold of your prisoner. No, no, you must not use ju-jitsu except in self-defence. Take hold of your man firmly, so that he is in custody. That's it. Bring him to the station. You will let him stand by the dock and outside. In no circumstances must a person be put in the dock unless he is violent. Now I am the inspector on duty. What is this?"

Candidate: "At 2.40 this afternoon, Sir, I was on duty in the Strand, when I heard loud cries of 'Stop thief!' I saw this man running towards me, closely followed by prosecutor. I stopped him till prosecutor came up, who said (referring to official pocket-book): 'This man has stolen a gent's gold wristlet watch from my shop 1,009 Strand. I wish to charge him.' The prisoner then said: 'This is monstrous. I really must protest.' I then took him into custody and brought him here, Sir."

Mr. Gooding (suddenly): "Suppose he had been a well-dressed man and had said, 'You're a fool, constable, I am Lord So-and-So, and I shall report you to the Commissioner for this stupid insolence'?"

Candidate: "I should have still brought him to the station, Sir."

Mr. Gooding: "Why did you refer to your pocket-book for what he said? Couldn't you remember it?"

Candidate: "Yes, Sir, but it is necessary to give the exact words as far as possible. I am not to put my own construction on what is said."

So the case goes on, with now and again a little lecture in the law of evidence or the police regulations.

"Remember, the only evidence you may give is as to the prisoner's actions, your own actions, things said by the prisoner or in the prisoner's presence—not things heard. In a court you swear to speak the whole truth—all you know in favour of, as well as against, a prisoner. It matters not a jot to you whether a man is convicted or discharged. You are not to judge. Every person whom you have to take into charge must be considered as innocent, and is innocent in the eyes of the law, until proved guilty. Don't forget that."

After which the prisoner is searched, makes some remarks, and the charge sheet is signed. Then there comes another little hint—one of vast significance in view of the misapprehensions of many of the public of the police system.

"You must never take your own prisoner to the cells unless directly ordered to. A constable in reserve will see to that. A man may bear you ill-will and may assault you in the corridor or he may say that you have assaulted him. If you only bring him to the station such a charge can be easily refuted."

It is in this manner that the constable is shown not only the purpose of the regulations but how easily a little thing may trip him up.

Following the charge-room procedure, the case is brought before a magistrate. Each man is warned to state exactly what took place. The evidence is the same as at the station, but, in addition, the result of the search has to be stated, and what the prisoner said on being charged.

A great trap this last. Many of the men omit it altogether, and again and again the importance it might have as bearing on the guilt or innocence of the accused is pointed out. But always the instructors are kindly, forbearing, tactful. A man blunders.

"Perhaps you feel a bit nervous," says Mr. Gooding. "Go to the other end of the room. The rest of the class look this way. Now."

And so the candidate gets through, without the disturbing effect of twenty or thirty pairs of eyes fixed on him.

I cannot refrain from emphasising the manner in which the relations between police and public are dealt with during the training—a matter of greater importance, to my mind, than anything else taught in Peel House. A course of lectures is interspersed with lessons and drill on, among others, the following subjects:

Truthfulness, Civility, Command of temper, Inquiries by public, Complaints by public, Constable to readily give his number on request, Tact, Discretion, Forbearance, Avoidance of slang terms, Necessity of cultivating power of observation, Liberty of the subject (unnecessary interference, etc.), Offences against discipline (drunkenness, drinking on duty, etc.)

To familiarise the men with the surroundings, they are taken sometimes to a real police court while a magistrate is not sitting, and lectured on the surroundings. Everything is done with the idea of wearing away their rough edges, of smoothing the path for them when they should come to have only their own knowledge to rely on. All that takes place at Peel House is aimed to that end. There are classes on such subjects as reading, writing, grammar, composition, the use of maps, drawing plans. There is foot drill, Swedish drill, revolver practice, and ambulance classes—all these in addition to an acquaintance with police law and the routine work of the force.

As they progress they are taken to the Black Museum at Scotland Yard, where they are given a practical demonstration of the kind of tools criminals use—from scientific and complicated oxygen and acetylene apparatus, used to break into safes, to the simple but efficacious walking-stick to which may be attached a bird-limed piece of wood for lifting coins off a shelf behind a shop or public-house counter.

So for eight weeks the candidate is taught the manner of work he will have to perform. He is given every opportunity to prove himself capable, but at any time he may be courteously told that he is not fitted for the work; 15 or 20 per cent. of the candidates are rejected for one reason or another before their term is over.

But, thorough as the training is, no constable is considered fully qualified when he is drafted from Peel House to a division. Tuition, both theoretical and practical, still goes on while he is a unit in the station. He goes out with an older man to see how things are done, to learn his "beat" or "patrol." There is a class-room at the big police stations where his education is carried on. For a period too, he must attend an L.C.C. evening school. And at last he becomes a unit ranked efficient in the critical and criticised blue-coated army of which he is a member.[3]

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Peel House during the war has been temporarily converted into a club for overseas soldiers.



CHAPTER X.

IN A POLICE STATION.

Ten o'clock at night, and the West End.

In a back street a lonely blue lamp twinkled, a symbol of law and order placed high above the door of the police station. The street itself was appallingly quiet and gloomy. Yet a few hundred yards away the radiantly lighted main thoroughfares seethed with thousands of London's pleasure seekers, and an incessant stream of cabs and motor cars flowed to and from restaurants and theatres.

Here were men and women in search of pleasure and excitement, and other men and women on the alert for opportunities of roguery that might present themselves amid the stir of gaiety. There were the "sad, gay girls" sitting in the night cafes and strolling the streets. Pickpockets, beggars, and blackmailers were mingled with the crowds. A little later and unwise diners would begin to come unsteadily into the streets.

The West End, as the police know, is always pregnant with possibilities. And things usually happen after the time I have sketched. A fight, a robbery, even a murder is always a contingency.

There is a class of men and women who frequent the neighbourhood among whom passions run high. From a police point of view, it is a difficult place to handle—a district even more difficult than the East End, for here the iron hand must be concealed in the velvet glove. Every officer, from constable to inspector, must be possessed of infinite tact and firmness. Every man on patrol, point, or beat has usually at least one delicate decision to make in a night.

Yet the lonely blue lamp shines serenely, and serenely the constable on reserve duty at the door stands at ease. Within, under the shaded electric lights, men are at work as quietly and methodically as though they did not hold the responsibility for the safety of one of the richest quarters of the richest city in the world in their hands for eight hours at least. During that time, as a rule, it is the busiest police station in London.

For all that it has special problems to deal with, this station is typical in procedure, discipline, and other essentials to nearly two hundred others scattered over London. There can be no uniformity in the classes with which the Metropolitan Police has to deal.

For the convenience of visitors and inquirers, a couple of waiting rooms are provided, a first and second class, so that the respectable citizen does not find himself in the unpleasant company of a "tough," who may be a pickpocket come to enquire about a friend's welfare, or a not too cleanly ticket-of-leave man.

Near by is the inspector's room, a lofty, well-lighted chamber furnished with high desks, tables, and a variety of official books and papers. Everyone is quietly busy here, for there are always reports and records to be made of everything that occurs, of callers, complaints, lost property, inquirers, charges, particulars of persons reported for summonses.

Clerks in police officers' uniform bustle to and fro. In an adjoining room there are telegraphists and telephone operators receiving and dispatching messages.

There are two telephones—one attached to the ordinary public system, the other to the private system of the Metropolitan Police. The telegraphs are a couple of tape machines—one for receiving, the other for dispatching. Every message is automatically recorded.

A small, quiet room, one side occupied by a couch, and all sorts of medical and surgical appliances at hand—this is the divisional surgeon's room. He lives close by and can be on the spot in three minutes, if necessary, but on busy nights he is at the station.

On the first and second floors are the offices of the superintendent (for this is the chief station of the division) and the C.I.D. The detective force is a strong one, composed of men, specially picked—men of good appearance and address, who have never-ending work in the district.

Below the ground floor there are open pillared halls with asphalted floors where the men assemble for parade, and, before they are marched off under the command of their section-sergeants, have orders and information read to them. There is a drying-room through which a current of hot air continually passes, where an officer may place his sodden clothes after a wet day or night in the street, and a room where the instruction of young constables is continued under the supervision of a sergeant after they have been drafted from Peel House.

The personnel of the station is interesting. Apart from the superintendent and the chief-inspector, who are in control of the whole division, it is in charge of a sub-divisional inspector, with a dozen or more other inspectors under him and over three hundred sergeants and constables.

The bulk of the men are single—it is an expensive district for married men to find quarters in—and live, not at the station itself, but at a couple of section-houses some little distance away. There they have cubicles, where they sleep, big reception rooms, sitting-rooms, dining-rooms, a canteen, and all the comforts of a club.

With these men a complex game of chess has to be played, varying according to the ever-changing conditions of the West End, where one day may see a Suffragette window-smashing campaign, and the next a royal procession, and the following a riot in a park. To deal with these occasions a number of depots are available—private houses, garages, and other places where bodies of police may remain out of sight, but instantly available.

There have been many fantastic stories told, to which the public lend a sometimes too ready ear, of what occurs in police stations. Always one can find some person to assert positively that the police as a body are bribed by bookmakers or prostitutes—that, in fact, there exists a practical blackmail. These things were investigated and disproved at a Royal Commission some years ago. They are pure silliness.

Take the case of the police station with which I am dealing, situated where it might be supposed there were ample chances of such a thing. Such a suspicion involves a gigantic conspiracy among more than 300 men. And by the Metropolitan Police system every man promoted is transferred to another division, so that the rank and file would have to induce a continually changing series of strangers to connive at their malpractices. It is on the face of it absurd.

I recall a little story which shows how keen an eye the public has for the probity of the police. A famous detective had occasion to question a veteran constable, and took him into a tea-shop to do so. At the close of the conversation he handed the officer a half-crown. A day or two later a highly respectable country vicar wrote to Scotland Yard. He had been having a cup of tea at a certain tea-shop. There he had seen a constable, Mr. So-and-So, in talk with a suspicious character, and had seen money pass. Of course, there was an investigation, and it was a long time before the "suspicious character"—who is one of the best-dressed men at Scotland Yard—heard the last of it.

Let us see the method of "taking a charge." Prisoners, as they are brought in, are placed in one of a couple of large rooms, with a low partition, near the corridor, over which it is impossible for anyone to see them. There they are kept for a while until the inspector is ready to take the charge. Presently they are ushered into the charge-room, a big apartment with a tall desk in the centre, and a substantial steel structure a few paces away—the dock. But the dock is not used nowadays except when a person is violent.

The first charge is that of begging, the accused being a boy who looks 17, but says he is 13. The policeman who arrested him stands by his side, and a reserve man stands at attention a little distance away. The boy is quite at ease. There is little of the terror of the law here. He admits that he was begging, his father is on strike, and he hadn't done well at selling papers.

"Don't be frightened, my lad," says the inspector kindly. "What's your name? Where do you live?"

The boy hesitates, but at last gives an address.

"He gave me a different address, Sir," says the constable, and the boy hurriedly protests that he has told the truth now.

"H'm," comments the inspector calmly. "Look here, sonny, you don't want to stay here all night. You'll have to, you know, if we can't find your father. Tell us the truth."

The facts elicited, the boy is searched, the main contents of his pocket are a handful of coppers and a cigarette end.

The inspector picks up the latter. "Do you know it's against the law for a boy of 13 to have cigarettes? All right. Put him in the detention-room until his father comes. You'll be charged with begging, my boy."

In an hour the youth is free, his father having entered into recognisances for his due appearance at the police court.

It should be explained that no person is detained at the police station, except on a serious charge, who can prove his identity. Often no further inquiry is necessary than reference to a directory.

The detention-room, too, which is attached to every police station is intended to spare a respectable person the ignominy of the cells. It is a comfortably furnished room, with tables and chairs, and sometimes with a few papers and magazines.

The charges begin to multiply towards midnight. There are several beggars, one of whom is a dirty, round-shouldered old ragamuffin with a long, matted beard. He cringes in front of the inspector's desk, and suddenly his hand flickers upwards with a deft movement. The next instant he is looking as innocent as though butter would not melt in his mouth.

There is a sharp "Put that down" from the reserve man, and it is discovered that a cigarette end taken from the boy has found its way to his pocket. He curses the keen-eyed officer as he is led away to the cells.

Then there are the "drunks," some quiet, some riotous, some still in a torpor, others defiantly asserting that they are perfectly sober. Some of these latter are seen by the police-divisional-surgeon, who by now is in the station. The Inspector sifts each case thoroughly, making sure that there is a prima facie case before allowing the charge to proceed. It is at his discretion to grant or refuse bail.

It is after one o'clock. A girl is brought in by a constable, pale and sullen, and with dark eyes a little apprehensive, a little triumphant. The officer handles a man's jacket carefully. The whole of one sleeve and one side of the coat is wringing wet—but it is with blood, not with water. It is a more serious case this—one of attempted murder, which later developed into one of murder. There was an altercation with a man, a lover who had abandoned her, and she stabbed him with a pocket knife, and waited without attempting to escape. An unsavoury, sordid drama, but it is treated in the same cool, business-like way as the other trivial charges.

"I only meant to hurt him," says the girl, and she is led away by the matron. I may as well finish the story here. The man she had stabbed died in hospital, and she was charged with murder. Eventually she was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment.

In the intervals of taking charges, there are other things to be done. There is a woman half hysterical because her daughter is missing. A couple of people walk in to hand over a gold match box and a purse found in the streets. These things have to be entered in official documents for prompt communication to headquarters.

The tape machine rattles out a report of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Surrey, and fresh orders relative to the passage of cattle through London. This will have to be made known to the reliefs when they go out.

A constable hurries in with the report that a window in a certain big business firm's premises is open. A man has been left to guard it.

The inspector is a little impatient. "They're always leaving windows open," he says, and gives a few instructions. Half a dozen men are sent out to surround the place, while a search is made for possible burglars. Of course, there are none. The window has been left open by a careless clerk, which was what the police knew all along, but they could take no risks.

Several of the cells are occupied now. There are about a dozen of them all told. You pass through a locked door from the charge-room into a wide, stone-flagged corridor, lined on each side with massive doors. Swing back one of these doors, and you will enter a high pitched room with a barred window at the farther end, and a broad plank running down one side, the full length of the cell. This serves either as a seat or a bed. Washable mattresses and pillows are served out at night-time, and I can imagine that, if lonely, the cells are not uncomfortable. The doors lock automatically as they are swung to. There is an electric bell in each cell which communicates directly with the inspector's room. Thus the senior officers are made responsible for sending to answer a prisoner's ring.

Besides these cells there are a couple of large apartments—technically also cells—where a large number of prisoners may be kept together. They are often useful when suffrage demonstrators are on the warpath, or when, say, a gambling raid has taken place. These, like the other cells, have what their most frequent occupants call "Judas holes"—a small trapdoor which can be let down from outside to see that all is well within.

The matron's room also opens into the corridor—a pleasant little chamber where often women prisoners who cannot be allowed bail, but whom it is felt should not be placed in a cell, are allowed to sit.

I have said that all the prisoners are searched. This is done thoroughly with a twofold object—to ensure that no prisoner has means of doing himself bodily harm, and to discover whether he carries on him anything bearing on the charge, as, for instance, in a case of picking pockets. Everything discovered has to be entered with particularity; but although such things as matches or a knife might be taken from a man, he would usually be left with his own personal property, watch, keys, pocket-book, money, and similar things.

Every person having business at a police station is treated with courtesy, whether prisoner or prosecutor. That is one of the rigid rules of the service which is rarely neglected. Even the man on duty at the door is not allowed to ask a caller his business without permission. That is for a senior officer.

I was much struck by the fair and impartial manner in which the inspector elicited the facts of a case before accepting a charge. Always polite, with no leaning to one side or the other, he endeavoured by careful questioning to elicit whether an arrest had been made on reasonable grounds. There was no bullying, no taking it for granted, except in an obvious case of drunkenness, that a charge was proved.

I have, perhaps, not made clear the distinction between reserve men at a station and reserve men in a division. The latter do ordinary duties, and are the first called upon in the event of emergencies anywhere in London. They receive a small sum in addition to their ordinary pay. The former are men who, instead of doing eight hours' duty in the street, do it at the station itself, and are available for any sudden contingency that may present itself within the subdivision.

The personnel of the London police is, as I have indicated, selected and tested under the most rigorous conditions. No less relentless in the search for efficiency are the promotion conditions. The Commissioner is an absolute autocrat so far as promotion is concerned, though, in practice, he usually acts upon the recommendation of the superintendents.

A constable, before he is promoted, must serve at least five years—in practice, the average is eight years—and must then pass two examinations. One of these is set by the Civil Service Commissioners to test his education, the other is an examination in police duty before a board of high officials. Should he be approved then for promotion he is immediately transferred to another division. These examinations are carried out at every step in promotion. In the words of a keen American observer:

"That such a system is successful in bringing to the front the best men available, that it is carried through without favouritism or political considerations, that, in its fairness and justice, it has the confidence of the uniformed force is a splendid commentary not only on the integrity of the Commissioner and his administrative assistants but on the stability and sound traditions of the entire department."



CHAPTER XI.

THE RIDDLE DEPARTMENT.

The perpetual solving of riddles is one of the commonplace duties of Scotland Yard, not only in the C.I.D., but in every branch of the business. Luck may, and sometimes does, help a detective to solve a mystery; but luck never helps to quell a riot or maintain order on the King's highway in times of stress.

It is for such matters as these that they keep a Riddle Department at headquarters. They call it the Executive Department, but no matter—as Mark Twain would say. It is there to supply the answers to the conundrums that are always cropping up in police work.

Everyone in the Metropolitan Police who wants to know anything goes to the Executive Department. And it does a heavy work by the sheer light of common-sense and a meticulous organisation which is ready for anything, for many of its riddles are simply variations of the great one:

"Here are twenty thousand men who must eat and sleep and guard seven hundred square miles and seven millions of people; how can we concentrate a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand swiftly into a particular district to meet an emergency without leaving other places unguarded?"

An unthankful task. I can imagine that at times subdued but bitter revilings are heaped upon the head of the department.

You cannot take men from the comparatively pleasant surroundings of the West End and dump them into Dockland, for instance, without evoking grumbles. Naturally, every division which is drawn upon thinks it ought to have been some other division. But discipline and tact do great things.

Rarely is there any cause for complaint, although the known fact that the force is undermanned naturally entails hardships on individuals at times.

Now let me introduce you to the Riddle Department at work. In the telegraph-room of Scotland Yard one of a cluster of tape machines breaks into hysterical chatter, and a constable springs to read the message of the unreeling coil of paper. It is a message from the East End. A riot has occurred which the local superintendent fears may become greater than the force at his disposal will be able to cope with.

The constable dashes into an adjacent room with the message, and the superintendent of the department takes in its import at a glance.

He picks up a typewritten table, and his finger glides to a particular spot. That table tells him how many men a 5, 10, or 20 per cent. draft from neighbouring divisions will give.

In another minute he is in consultation with Sir Frederick Wodehouse, the Assistant Commissioner who controls the department, and possibly with Sir Edward Henry himself. All three are men used to unhesitating decisions, and with an intimate knowledge of the force.

A few sharp words and the private wires again begin to get busy. Almost immediately the reserves from the neighbouring divisions commence to mobilise, and are poured into the disturbed area as swiftly as means of communication allow. It is a riddle solved with quiet precision, and no district is bereft of adequate guardianship. One of the exigencies of the business has been met.

If the public ever thought about such a feat at all, they would consider it as something of a miracle. But it is not as spectacular as the catching of a criminal, and the only persons who call indirect attention to it are those who would have us believe that great, hulking policemen have batoned helpless men and women who were, of course, doing nothing, although broken bottles and stones may litter the thoroughfare where an affray has taken place.

It is curious this suspicion of the police which sometimes affects otherwise clear-headed people. You pick out men whose character is without flaw from their childhood upwards. You put them into a blue uniform, and lo! their whole personality alters. They are hypocrites and bullies, bribed by bookmakers and prostitutes, and capable of any sort of baseness.

Let us return to the Riddle Department. The secret of dealing with such a happening as I have painted above lies naturally in the organisation. Every division has a certain number of reserve men—approximately 10 per cent.

They are picked veterans of not less than eight years' service, who receive an additional eighteenpence per week, and must always be ready to carry out special work when called upon. These, then, are first called out, and other men are taken as occasion demands.

There are other branches of the Metropolitan Police where a mistake would make havoc in a department or division; here it would affect the service as a whole.

The Executive Department is as much concerned in the work of every other part of that complex machine as the engineers of a great ship are in keeping the vessel moving. Sir Frederick Wodehouse, who is at its head, in his quarter of a century's service as police administrator—twelve of which have been spent with the City Police and the remainder at Scotland Yard—has always been keenly alive to the necessity of keeping pace with the science of organisation. He has as his right-hand men Superintendents West and White, who split up the work between them—one in charge of the Executive Department itself, the other supervising the Statistical Department.

It will be understood why I call it a Riddle Department when I explain some of its duties. It is concerned with the discipline and administration of the force as a whole; the organisation of men when they have to be used in mass; it controls the public and private telephone and telegraph service of the force; it compiles statistics on all sorts of police subjects: it edits and issues "Informations," "The Inebriates' List," "The Cycle List," "The Pawnbrokers' List," reward bills, and police notices; it makes traffic regulations; it works with the Board of Agriculture when cattle disease breaks out; it issues pedlars' and sweeps' certificates; it keeps a gruesome record—a sort of photographic morgue—of all dead bodies found in London; and it has to give its consent before any summons may be taken out by a police officer.

That is the merest inadequate list of its duties. While other departments are clean-cut, knowing where their work begins and ends, the Executive Department has no limit.

Anything that does not properly belong anywhere else goes to the Executive Department. That is why it specialises in solving riddles.

It is in such a department as this that alertness of mind and elasticity of resource are developed. When war broke out, it had to spend many sleepless days and nights in what was practically a redisposition of the force. Hundreds of the force had enlisted, and innumerable new duties and problems arose. A system of co-ordination between the immense new bodies of special constables and the regular force had to be evolved. Depleted divisions had to be readjusted, men selected for particular work, a system of co-ordination with the Special Constabulary made, and a hundred re-arrangements made.

So, when a great procession takes place, as at the Coronation festivities, the most meticulous organisation is necessary. It seems simple to order so many men to arrange themselves at so many paces apart over a certain number of miles. But the problem is much more complex.

First it has to be decided where the men are to come from. Then they have to be disposed strategically so that no man shall be wasted where he is not needed; there have to be reserves ready at hand for emergencies; it has to be decided what streets shall be closed and when, what streets shall remain open; how a vast number of men shall obtain food and rest, and so on.

All this without offending an eager populace, thronging the streets night and day, and without exposing outer London to the risk of marauders when its guardians are enormously diminished in numbers.

We all know that it has been done, and how cheerfully every man in the force, from constable to Commissioner, give up leisure and comfort to carry out the demands made upon them.

But of the long, long planning and scheming we know little. The working out of draft schemes; the hours spent in conference with superintendents of divisions; the poring over maps and sectional plans—of this unceasing labour we never heard, although we accepted its result almost without comment.

Such work as this goes on whenever there is likely to be a gathering anywhere in London, be it a boat-race or a Suffragette procession.

A point that is always borne in mind, and which is emphasised in the "Police Code," is that "traffic should never be closed until the last moment consistent with public safety, and be re-opened as soon as possible." Something of the same process goes on when there is a likelihood of riot and disorder, but in some contingencies it is often necessary to act immediately, as I have already pointed out. Nevertheless, in a district where it is known that disorder may break out the police are usually reinforced beforehand.

The department is responsible for the communications of Scotland Yard. The telegraphs and telephones are continually at work night and day. With a few exceptions, every station is linked by wire to headquarters. Tape machines record every outgoing and incoming message so that a message is clear and unmistakable. One operator at work at Scotland Yard can send a message simultaneously to every main station. There is a private telephone system by which stations can talk with stations and headquarters without delay, and without fear of secrets being "tapped," and the public system is also used.

It is not so very long ago that the only wire communication was by an antiquated A.B.C. instrument which worked laboriously and slowly, and such a thing as a telephone was undreamed of.

Then it was a matter of much formality and sometimes intolerable slowness for a provincial force to get in touch on a matter of urgency. Now it is merely a question of a trunk call.

This naturally brings me to a consideration of Scotland Yard in a new and little-known light—as a newspaper office. For daily, weekly, and evening papers are issued from the big, red-brick building. Some of them are issued by the Criminal Record Office, some by the Executive Department. It will be convenient, however, to deal with them in a mass.

They are papers sometimes much more interesting and informative than those to be procured on the bookstalls, but much gold could not buy one for a private person.

Best known of all, perhaps, is the Police Gazette, a four-page sheet published on Tuesdays and Fridays, and issued broadcast over the kingdom. Its correspondents are police officials everywhere. It publishes photographs occasionally, usually official ones taken in profile and side-face. It deals with what the newspapers call "sensations" unsensationally, and its editor is free from that bugbear of most editors—the fear of a libel action.

The Tuesday edition deals almost entirely with deserters from the Navy and Army, while Friday's issue is concerned with bigger fry—criminals and crime. It is an interesting paper with an extensive circulation, and is, perhaps, more carefully read by those into whose hands it falls than any other publication, however fascinating.

The official title of what may be called the evening paper is Printed Informations. This is a sheet about foolscap size, and its publication is confined to the Metropolitan Police. It is printed four times a day, except on Sundays when it is issued twice, and distributed by brisk little motor cars among the various stations. Some idea of its contents may be gathered from the headings: "Wanted for Crime," "In Custody for Crime," "Property Stolen," "Property Lost or Stolen," "Persons or Bodies Found," "Persons Missing," "Animals Lost or Stolen."

Apart from these papers, which are purely confidential, there are other papers issued. There is the "Black List" issued to publicans, with portraits and descriptions of persons to whom it is an offence to supply liquor, and the "Pawnbrokers' List and Cycle List," which has to be sent to those persons to whom stolen property might be offered for pledge or sale. These latter are distributed from each station by hand.

It is at the Statistical Department that many of the riddles are fired. It has the record of each man in its files, knows his official character, his medical history, and so on.

Now and again some one wants to know how many street accidents occurred in London during a particular week. The department produces a carefully prepared table showing the number and details in each case.

Figures may be unattractive things, yet at any moment the statistics collected in that quiet, methodical office may have a direct effect on any one of London's teeming millions.

When the order went forth that all cyclists in London should carry rear lights it was probably a string of figures put together in that department which was responsible—figures which showed the number of accidents that had been caused in the absence of any such precaution.

It keeps track of everything done by the police, individually and collectively. Ask how many charges were preferred by the police in one year. You will learn at once that there were 133,000, that 26,000 summonses were issued by police officers, and 63,000 were served on behalf of private persons.

There are about three hundred mounted police in the force, and these, as a whole, come under the control of the department, although at ordinary times they are attached to divisions.

They used to be attached to the outer divisions, but it was found that they were too far away when an emergency arose, for, after all, the mounted man is of most use in controlling unruly crowds. So now they are with the inner divisions, within easy reach of the most crowded thoroughfares when needed.

All the men in this branch of the service have been thoroughly trained in horsemanship, and those who have seen them at work on their adroit horses, keeping back a mass of pushing, struggling people, or dexterously dispersing a threatening crowd, know their worth as maintainers of order.

Both the Executive and Statistical Departments are concerned with reports which are the basis of all discipline and organisation in the Metropolitan Police. The first—"The Morning Report"—is compiled by the superintendents of divisions, and passed and commented upon by the Chief Constables in charge of districts.

This is London's bill of criminal health. It shows what has happened beyond the ordinary over seven hundred square miles in the preceding twenty-four hours. A murder, a riot, a robbery, a fire, a street collision—all things are recorded. Every police station, it should be said, keeps an "Occurrence Book" and it is from this that the reports are compiled.

Then there is the "Morning Report of Crime." This is largely the work of the divisional detective-inspectors. Every crime for which a person can be indicted is included here, and an elaborate report of the steps that have been taken. Comments are made upon this by both the Chief Constable of the district and the Assistant-Commissioner of the C.I.D.—commendations, reprimands, suggestions.

The third report is the "Morning State," which deals with matters of internal administration of the force itself—numbers available, disciplinary matters, affairs of health.

All these reports ultimately reach the departments for record and for the transmission of orders.



CHAPTER XII.

THE SAILOR POLICE.

Fantastic reflections dappled the Pool of London—reflections from the riding lights of ships at anchor, and the brighter glare of the lamps of the bridges. They danced eerily on the swift-running waters of the river, intensifying the gloom of the black waters. Here and there the darker blur marked where a line of barges was moored.

The police-boat, its motor chug-chugging noisily, slipped unostentatiously behind one of the tiers of lighters. To my untrained eyes it was incredible that in the labyrinth of craft, amid the darkness, we should be able to pick our way. Yet deftly, unerringly, the inspector moved the tiller, while two constables kept keen eyes on the motley assembly of vessels.

A barge was swinging across the stream with two men at the sweeps. The tide caught it, and it dropped heavily down on us while we were trying to steal a passage athwart another vessel. The launch was caught between the two, and it seemed inevitable that our boat should crack like an egg-shell. With my heart in my mouth, I prepared to jump. But with swift precision the constables acted. Holding tight to the gunwale they forced our boat over sideways, and we sidled through at an angle of forty-five degrees into open water.

I looked for an expression of relief, but the men had calmly resumed their seats. The escape had been a matter of course to them, and they laughed when I spoke of it as an escape. For the men of the Thames Police take things as philosophically as sailors. It was all in the day's work to them.

Since then I have seen much of the men and methods of the force which guards the great highway of London. They have heavy duties to perform, and, from the rank and file to the superintendent, are adequately fitted for their work. The histories of some of those who wear the blue jacket with the word "Thames" on the collar, and the peaked cap with the anchor badge, would make enthralling reading.

There is Divisional Detective-Inspector Helden, who probably knows more of the ways of the waterside thieves than any man living. He is a linguist, as are many of his staff—a qualification much necessary in dealing with the cosmopolitan crews of ships plying to and from the Port of London.

There is an inspector who has saved three lives—a fact none the less noteworthy in that he holds the quaint superstition that all the troubles of those people will accumulate on his own unfortunate head. There is a bronzed, brown-moustached station-sergeant who had been around the world before he was twelve, and who has had strange adventures in every quarter of the globe. There are men drawn from the Navy—and now serving again—the mercantile marine, and river craft.

All have an intimate knowledge of that thirty-five mile stretch of river which passes through London from Teddington to Dartford Creek.

They know every eddy, every trick and twist of the tide; they know on any given day what boats are on the river, be they barges or liners; and they know the men who work them.

The force is under the control of Superintendent Mann, who has had a varied experience of many years, and has brought a ripe knowledge of men and organisation to his work.

There are five stations—at Wapping, Waterloo Pier, Barnes, Blackwall, and Erith—with a complement of 240 men, fourteen launches and motor boats, as well as row-boats. The division possesses its own engineers and carpenters, and does its own building and repairs.

Now-a-days, men are only drafted to the division after serving for a time in the ordinary land force, but the rule has only been in force of late years, and consequently most of the men have spent their whole police career on the river.

A different thing this to land work. In the whole thirty-five miles there are only five "sections." These are patrolled by series of boats putting off at different hours. For eight hours they ply to and fro, keenly vigilant, courteous as their colleagues in the West End, as helpful and resourceful in an emergency as men of the Navy. Sometimes a barge gets adrift. It has to be boarded and towed to safe moorings.

Some of these barges have valuable cargoes—tobacco, silk, and what not—and the incredible carelessness of the owners in not always providing a watchman presses hardly on the police, who may, perhaps, have to spend a whole night in looking after some single craft. There was a case in which a barge broke adrift with L20,000 worth of goods aboard.

"Oh, that would have been all right," said the owner off-handedly, when told that it had been safely looked after. "It would have come to no harm."

Not a word of thanks. And that attitude is a typical one.

The patrol-boats beat to and fro, each with two men and a sergeant, in all weathers, amid blinding sleet and snow in the winter, fog in November, and more pleasantly on summer nights. Eyes are strained through the darkness at the long tiers of barges, ears are alert to catch the click of oars in rowlocks. They know who has lawful occasion to be abroad at such times.

Occasionally the sergeant hails some boat. He can usually identify the voice of the man who replies, but should he fail to do so, the police-boat slips nearer. A stranger or a suspicious character is invited to give an account of himself. Should he not be able to do so satisfactorily, he is towed along to the nearest police station until inquiries have been made.

Sometimes, not often, when a man, who on the river corresponds to the sneak thief ashore, is caught red-handed stealing rope or metal or ships' oddments there is resistance. But always the police win. They know the game. A hand-to-hand struggle in a swaying boat, even a fall overboard with a desperate prisoner, does not concern them greatly.

"You see," explained a veteran to me, "if you fall out while you've got hold of a man it's ten to one that he tries to get his breath as he goes under. That makes matters worse for him. All you do is to hold your breath, and let him wear himself out. He's usually quiet enough when you come up again." Of course, every man in the division is an expert swimmer.

There are other tricks of boatcraft in such a case which all river-police officers know. The flashing of a light is an equivalent of a police-whistle ashore, and will bring the assistance of any police-boat in sight.

At the floating police-station at Waterloo Pier a dingey is always in readiness to put off to rescue would-be suicides who fling themselves from the "bridge of sighs." In the little station itself there is a bathroom with hot water always ready, and every man in the division is trained to the Schafer method of resuscitation of the apparently drowned.

A still more grim side of the work is the finding of dead bodies. The average number is somewhere around a hundred a year. Most of these are suicides, a few accidents.

The duties of the patrols are to keep vigil over the river and its banks. There are other patrols at work for the Customs and the Port of London Authority, who see that the revenue is not defrauded, and that the traffic regulations are kept. But this does not free the police from all responsibility in these matters. Here are a few of the things they have to do:—

Secure drifting barges and inform owner,

Detect smuggling, illegal ship-building or illegal fitting out for service in a foreign State,

Report damaged cargoes or food, and offences against the Port of London Authority's bye-laws,

Arrest any drunken person navigating a boat,

Detect cases of navigation without sufficient free-board below Battersea Bridge,

Search all suspicious-looking craft,

Inform harbour-master of vessel sunk or dangerous wreckage adrift,

Report wrecks to Lloyd's.

There is more—much more. For instance, all manner of craft have to be watched to see that they do not carry more passengers than their licence permits, that obstruction is not caused by mooring across public stairs, that more than the fixed fare is not demanded by watermen, that no boat is navigated for hire without a licence, and so on.

Detective-Inspector Helden and his staff of the Criminal Investigation Department of the division are the most dreaded enemies of the river thieves. Time was, when the "light-horsemen" of the river were in their heyday, that L25,000 worth of property was stolen annually. That has been reduced to less than a couple of hundred pounds—a comparatively trivial, insignificant figure.

It is to both branches of the river police that those who use the river owe this complete immunity from theft. Every man of the C.I.D. in the division has a complete knowledge of thieves and receivers on whom it is necessary to maintain constant surveillance. Marine store dealers and old metal dealers are kept in close touch, for it is to them that the odds and ends of ship equipment might be taken by a dishonest sailor or watchman.

One of the most famous of river thieves was a man whom the public knew as "Slippery Jack." He made a rich harvest until he was laid by the heels. Almost naked, and his skin greased lavishly, he would slip aboard likely-looking craft in search of plunder. If he were disturbed, he would dodge away, his greased skin aiding him if anyone attempted to seize him. He was tracked down one evening to Blackfriars, where he backed his boat into midstream and turned at bay with a vicious sheath-knife. Only after a fierce struggle, in which the police did not escape scot free, was he arrested. His exploits cost him ten years' penal servitude.

It was the detective branch of the Thames Police that solved the complicated mystery of a supposed case of murder which attracted much public attention at the time. The full facts have never been made public, and may be interesting.

In August, 1897, the body of a naked man was found floating near the Tower Bridge. A line was woven tightly round the body, arms and neck, and a doctor stated that the body must have been in the water about three weeks, that death was due to strangulation, and that he thought it impossible for the man to have tied the rope round himself, though it must have been tied before death.

A woman identified the body as that of her husband, Von Veltheim—he who shot Woolf Joel in Johannesburg and was later sentenced at the Old Bailey for the blackmail of Mr. Solly Joel—and a jury brought in a verdict that "death was caused by strangulation whether amounting to murder the evidence fails to show."

Here were all the elements of the mystery that might have puzzled Sherlock Holmes. The detectives began to puzzle it out. They were all watermen, and knew, what the doctor had apparently overlooked, that a body will often swell after prolonged immersion in water. Although the rope was woven tightly about the body there was only one actual knot. They came to a directly opposite conclusion to the doctor—that the rope had somehow enwound itself round the man after he was in the water, and that the swelling of the body had tightened it. They began to make enquiries. Soon they discovered that a seamen named John Duncan had vanished from the ship Thames, moored at Carron Wharf, near Tower Bridge. Also a piece of "throw line" similar to that twisted round the body was missing. Also that Duncan, the last time he was seen alive, had declared his intention of taking a bathe. These facts made it easy for the sailor police to reconstruct the tragedy.

Duncan was unable to swim. He attached one end of the rope round his chest and fastened the other end to the ship. Then he had slipped overboard among the piles of the wharf. By some means the end of the rope in the ship became detached. Duncan struggled to save himself and the rope became entangled about him. That was the solution of what seemed a baffling problem.

The men of the division receive the same pay as men ashore, but they are a class entirely apart. On land, men are transferred from division to division as they are promoted, or as occasion demands. On the river this system does not apply in practice. Most of the men spend their whole police career on the water, for it takes so long to make the complete police officer of the Thames Division, and a man once trained is too valuable to be used for other work.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE BLACK MUSEUM.

Outside Scotland Yard they call it the "Black Museum"; within, it is simply the "Museum"—a private museum the like of which exists nowhere else in the world. Money cannot purchase access to it, and curious visitors are only admitted on orders signed by senior executive officials who know them personally. For the museum contains too many of the secrets of crime to be a wholesome place for the general public, although the indiscriminate publicity that it has suffered in print has made it appear to be a kind of gratuitous show-place. If that were its only purpose, it would not exist at Scotland Yard.

It was originally established, some forty years ago, in a cellar of Old Scotland Yard, as a place where young police officers might get an elementary acquaintance of the ways and appliances of evil-doers.

Gradually relics of great crimes began to accumulate there until there are now over six hundred exhibits, ranging over the whole gamut of criminal activity. There is much, perhaps too much, to appeal to the morbid-minded—revolvers by the score, wicked-looking blood-stained knives, hangmen's ropes, plaster casts of murderers taken after death; but more interesting are the tools and equipment of the professional thief and swindler, by which demonstrations are made to raw policemen of the weapons with which his adversaries wage their war upon society.

In one case it is an innocent-looking ring, now palpably tarnished brass. But examine it, and you will find that it bears a tolerable imitation of an eighteen-carat hall-mark. When it was fine and bright it was picked up in the street, very ostentatiously, by an astute gentleman who promptly sold it for as much as he could get from a passer-by, who had probably thought it a bargain when he noticed the forged hall-mark. That same trick flourishes to-day, as it flourished over a century ago when Sir John Fielding issued a warning to the public.

Close by are a little heap of white sapphires, calculated at one time, with their glitter and dazzle when set as "diamond" rings, to deceive all but the most sophisticated of pawnbrokers. Similarly so, "field-glasses" stamped with the names of famous makers. These are little things, perhaps, but they give the most trusting of young constables some ideas of "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain."

Publicans and pawnbrokers seem to be the invariable victims of a certain type of swindler. There is a walking-stick, innocent enough to all appearance, but with a tong-like attachment which, at the touch of a spring, will jump out of the ferrule, enabling a wineglass full of coins to be lifted from a shelf across the counter.

A glazed black bag with hinged bottom, which may be placed over any article and automatically swallow it is another ingenious invention.

All these, however, are byways of crime. There is much more to be absorbed by the learner in police science. Here he is shown the different types of jemmies, and bars of steel so fashioned that they may be used as chisels or levers. Here are bunches of skeleton keys which, in the hands of experts, will open any ordinary lock in the world. A massive steel implement shaped like a gigantic tin-opener, and used to rip open the backs of safes, is another item in the collection. There are vice-like tweezers which, when properly screwed up, will cut quietly through the bolts of, say, a jeweller's shutters.

Still more scientific is a complicated apparatus with tubes in which oxygen and acetylene gas are used to melt through safes with a fierce heat—a quieter, less clumsy, and more effective method than the use of explosives.

It would take more space than is at my command to detail all the practical instruction which is afforded by the object lessons the young constable has in the museum. Not only is he initiated into wrinkles and tricks which he may meet any day, but he is shown into those more subtle branches of crime which few but specialists enter.

Coining is a case in point. There is a complete coiner's outfit—which, for obvious reasons, I shall not describe—and the process is explained from A to Z. Now-a-days the "smasher" is a difficult individual to circumvent. He works preferably with real silver, and with coins like sixpences and shillings which are not so closely scrutinised as those of higher denominations. Of course, even in a genuine sixpence the silver is not worth its face value.

A step higher in the criminal hierarchy is the forger. Of his handicraft, specimens are not lacking. There are relics seized when a notorious forger went into forced seclusion for ten years some time ago. He manufactured Bank of France thousand-franc notes and foreign bonds, and even used lithographic stones to imitate the water-mark. Photography played an important part in his operations.

I have shown, sketchily perhaps, how the primary function of the museum is carried out. But it has another and allied interest of great importance to all interested in police science.

One may study the stages by which the professional criminal has adapted the work of invention to his ends, and mark at the same time how the swindler always strikes the same old chord of credulity in human nature.

Dropped in one of the corners is a heavy bar of brass, originally in the possession of an early gold-brick swindler. Mr. Albert Blair Hunter, of Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A., communicated with two gentlemen in this country, stating that a wealthy relative had died possessed of considerable property, among which was a box of gold from Klondike, value L12,000. For various plausible reasons he was willing to dispose of it to them for L2,000. The good, simple-minded souls went to New York, and handed solid English money to that amount over to Mr. Albert Blair Hunter, of Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A. For what? A bar of brass worth perhaps twenty shillings sterling.

Gambling swindles are numerous, seized for the most part on race-courses. A little tee-to-tum, marked with dice faces, can be manipulated so as to fall high or low, according to the betting, irrespective of the person who holds it, so long as he does not know the secret. There is a board with a dial face and a pointer on a print. The luckless "punters" cannot tell that it is controlled by a magnetic ring. Into these mysteries the police are initiated.

The policy of education at the museum is a wise one, for many young constables, whatever their natural abilities, come fresh to London from the plough, and no more reliable method of destroying a too trustful faith in appearances could have been devised than this which shows them the actual equipment of criminals.

I have deliberately avoided giving too close a description of these things. Nor have I in any way given a complete description of the museum.

The mere manuscript catalogue occupies two portly volumes. Each of the relics contains a story in itself,—a story that has often ended in a shameful death. To recall them would be beyond the scope of this book.



CHAPTER XIV.

PUBLIC CARRIAGES.

"Keep very still, please. Thank you."

A constable replaced the cap on the lens of a big camera, and with a sigh of relief a man rose from the chair where he had been seated under a cardboard number. It was the photograph-room of Scotland Yard, through which every cab-, omnibus-, and tram-driver, and every conductor has to pass once in three years. "The Yard" is as careful with a cabman on licence as with a convict on licence, although for different reasons. But the chief idea is the same—the safety and comfort of the public.

There are thousands of dossiers stored in the vaults, which give a complete history of each man holding a licence in connection with a public vehicle—records of warnings, convictions, medical tests, and so on. Officially stamped photographs are placed on every document which passes into a man's possession, so that there can never be cases of personation, such as I believe have happened many years ago.

It is no mean work that is performed by the Public Carriage Department, although it is done quietly, smoothly, and for the most part out of sight of the public. Not a cab, omnibus, or tramway car that plies for hire in the metropolis—and they average about 16,000 a year—but has passed stringent tests by experts, and this applies equally to the men in charge.

Every human precaution that years of experience can suggest is taken to guard against the passing on the streets of any man or vehicle that might be a nuisance or a danger in congested traffic. Rigid regulations, numbering forty in the case of taxicabs, and sixty-two in the case of motor omnibuses, insist upon details as far apart as adequate brakes and freedom from noise.

We speak about the perils of the street; but they would be increased, perhaps tenfold, but for the unobtrusive care of the Public Carriage Department.

There are other detectives at Scotland Yard than those of the Criminal Investigation Department—detectives, that is, in all but name—for the control and supervision of traffic does not end with the issue of an annual licence.

There are fifty skilled men dotted about London, all holding certificates of proficiency in motor engineering, who exercise a constant surveillance. Quick of eye and keen of hearing, they keep unceasing watch on all public vehicles. An unusual sound as a motor omnibus passes may tell them something is wrong with the engine. Thereafter the proprietors are warned not to use the car until the defect has been remedied. Or they may station themselves unexpectedly at the gate of a garage, and test the brakes and steering gear of every car that passes in or out.

That this is no mere formality is shown by the fact that on one morning an officer stopped no fewer than forty taxicabs from going on the streets. Indeed, during the last year for which figures are available officers of the department reported 35,123 vehicles as unfit for use. In some it was merely a question of noise or a trifling fault easily remedied. In others the trouble might easily have caused a bad accident. The principle acted upon throughout the department is that prevention is better than cure.

Whenever a car of a new type is devised, be it a cab, an omnibus, or a tramway car, Scotland Yard examines it, and, if necessary, calls in a consulting expert for advice.

Should the type be suitable, similar vehicles are afterwards examined by local staffs of the department—there are twelve of these in London—and a certificate presented by the maker that there has been no variation in the type.

In the early days of motor omnibuses complaints in shoals were received by Scotland Yard from tradesmen, private individuals, borough councils, and others as to the frightful noises made by them when running.

That resulted in the establishment of a committee of high executive officials for the testing of every motor omnibus in respect of noise before it is licensed.

Pass through Great Derby Street into New Scotland Yard any day after ten o'clock, and you will find always a number of men clustered about a low building and in the little square. They are drawn from all types and classes, and all are candidates hopeful of obtaining their licences.

A would-be taxi-driver—an "original" he is technically termed—has to be clean in dress and person and not under five feet in height. Two householders who have known him personally for three years must give him a good character. A doctor is required to certify that he does not suffer from any ailment, that he is sufficiently active, that he does not smoke or drink excessively, and that he is fitted for his duties by temperament. After this he will be permitted to undergo examinations in fitness and knowledge of driving. It is a tight-meshed net through which an incompetent would find it hard to pass.

But it is the topographical examination that undoes most of the "originals." I went through a couple of large waiting-rooms; hanging on the walls of one was a slip of paper with the name of one man. "There were twelve yesterday," said my guide; "he was the only one to get through."

And then he told me something of the history of the man whose name was hanging solitary on the wall. It was not an altogether unusual one in that building. The candidate, a University man, had been in possession of an income of about L1,500 a year. He had been neither reckless nor extravagant, but suddenly, at the age of forty, with no trade or profession in his hands, he had seen his fortune lost. So he had taken his place among the "originals" and had started in the world anew as the driver of a taxicab.

At the end of the waiting-room there are two little apartments, each containing one table and a chair; there the "originals" are examined in topography, viva voce, one at a time. Now, it is sometimes asserted that trick questions are put to candidates. That is not so. There are twenty-five lists officially laid down, each of eighteen questions, and one of these lists the candidate has to answer.

Here are typical routes which a candidate has to describe:—

St. James's Park Railway Station to Baker Street Railway Station,

Clapham Junction to Brixton Theatre,

Hop Exchange to Royal Exchange.

The names are sometimes varied. For instance, the second might be "from the South-Western Police Court to Lambeth Town Hall," or the third "London Bridge Station to the Mansion House." But in each case the route is practically the same. Thus a complaint of unfairness can be checked by reference to the record kept by the examiner of the list he used.

Some of the men present themselves again and again. In 1913, of 676 "originals" only 366 passed, yet there were 6,339 separate examinations.

Omnibus drivers and ex-horse-cab drivers do not have to pass this topographical test. But all alike have to undergo a driving test of the type of vehicle for which a licence is required.

First of all, there is a preliminary examination in the yard, so that an examiner is not called upon to risk life and limb—to say nothing of those of the public—before he is sure that the candidate has at least a rudimentary knowledge of driving.

Afterwards, there is a more complete test under the difficult conditions of the West End. Should a man fail at his first test, he is not allowed to appear again for fourteen days; if at his second, he is put back for a month; at his third, for two months. His failure at his fourth and final examination is inexorable. Ex-horse-cab drivers are allowed two extra tests. A fee of a half-crown is payable for each of the last two tests.

The necessity of these precautions is evident when it is considered what harm might be done by an ignorant, careless, dishonest, or short-sighted driver, yet I have come to the conclusion that when a cabman gets his licence he has earned it. But the Public Carriage Department has first of all to consider the safety of the public.

I have tried to make clear some of the work that devolves upon the staff. But that is by no means all. Now and again a warning has to be issued to drivers and proprietors on some particular subject. Here is a typical one:

SPECIAL NOTICE.

"In view of the number of accidents in the streets of the Metropolis, and of the numerous complaints of the public as to the reckless driving of certain drivers of public vehicles, the Commissioner of Police gives notice that every case of conviction for dangerous and reckless driving will entail serious consequences, and the renewal of the drivers' licences may be imperilled.

"Repeated convictions for exceeding the speed limit by drivers of public vehicles will be considered to constitute evidence of reckless driving."

Such hints bring home to drivers a remembrance that their livelihood depends upon their good conduct. They never know when they may be under surveillance, and they know that every time they transgress it is entered in the records, which are scrutinised when an application comes for a renewal of licence. Nearly 200 licences were cancelled or recalled in 1913.

There is a Committee of Appeal at Scotland Yard, to which most cases of this kind are referred, so that no man is deprived of his licence without a fair hearing and reasonable cause. This committee heard no fewer than 1,648 cases during 1913.

Some of us may recall painful memories of the early days of taxicabs, when taximeters were not altogether above suspicion, and deft manipulation with a hatpin or some other jugglery was possible, by which fares and cab-owners were defrauded.

Those days have passed. A taximeter when it has once been sealed by Scotland Yard is now a sternly conscientious instrument, with a regard for the truth that might shame George Washington. There is a separate register of taximeters kept cross-indexed to cabs, so that the number of the latter is all that is necessary to reveal the record of a particular taximeter.

Eight different kinds of badges are issued, varying in colour. Thus an officer can tell at a glance who holds a conductor's licence, who has a horse-cab licence and who a taxi-cab licence. In a few cases composite badges are allowed, by which a man may act either as driver or conductor, or as driver of a horse or motor vehicle.

All men of the department are police officers, but they are something more. They are living directories of London and its suburbs from Colney Heath, Herts, to Todworth Heath, Surrey, from Lark Hall, Essex, to Staines Moor, Middlesex; they are skilful engineers; they have a keen eye for the defects and qualities of a horse; they can drive a horse or a motor car, they know the conditions of traffic in Piccadilly Circus or in the deserted roads about Croydon.

Above all, and in this they are again police officers, they have a very sure appreciation of human nature. They do not harass those with whom they are concerned unnecessarily, but whether it is the London County Council, a powerful omnibus corporation, or an unlucky hansom driver, they act impartially, without fear or favour.

Outside their own province they have nothing to do with crime, though it sometimes happens that their records are useful to other departments of Scotland Yard. In reality, the actual police functions of the Public Carriage Department are few, and for this reason there are people who hold that it should be entirely separated from the force. The argument is a forcible one, yet it is not complete.

Time was when all licences were issued from Somerset House. But even then the police were asked to carry out certain enquiry work. It has been suggested that the London County Council should take it over. But the London County Council is not an impartial body in regard to public carriages. It owns tramway cars which are run in opposition to motor omnibuses. A Traffic Board for London might solve the difficulty.

But, however plausible such theoretical reasons for separating this work from the police may sound, one thing is certain. The duties could not be more efficiently performed than they are at present. A perfect system has been devised by which not only are the perils of the street minimised for pedestrians, but the comfort and convenience of all who travel by public vehicles are ensured, whether it be the millionaire in a taxi, or the factory hand in a workman's tramway car.

The Public Carriage Department has learnt its business. It has grown up with the growth of motor traction. It knows the tricks of the trade, and those who would throw dust in its eyes must needs be ingenious. To hand over its duties to an outside body would result, at any rate for a time, in something like chaos.



CHAPTER XV.

LOST, STOLEN, OR STRAYED.

This is the legend of the lost centipede that once held undisputed sway of the Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard before it came to an untimely end. It arrived with a cab-driver, housed in a little tin box, comfortably lined and pierced with air-holes. Casually an official opened the box, caught one glimpse of its contents, and jumped for safety while the centipede pleased at the opportunity of stretching its multitude of legs, cantered incontinently for the shelter of a pile of lost articles.

But even a centipede cannot defy Scotland Yard with impunity. The forces of the law rallied, and, headed by an intrepid inspector with a fire shovel, eventually tracked down the insect—or should it be animal?—and placed him under arrest.

Trial and execution followed summarily, and the honest cab-driver went empty away.

The Lost Property Office is not, as is popularly supposed, a general depository for all articles found in London. It receives only things found in public carriages—tramway cars, omnibuses, and cabs. Other articles are dealt with by the police in the divisions where they happen to be found. But, even as it is, it keeps a large staff busy month in, month out.

In the basement of Scotland Yard there are many rooms filled with articles varying from a navvy's pickaxe to costly jewels. Take an example of one year's working of the department. There were 90,214 articles deposited. Here is a rough classification of things dealt with in one year:

Bags 9,340 Men's clothing 6,749 Women's clothing 7,942 Jewellery 2,395 Opera Glasses 723 Purses 4,340 Rugs 273 Sticks 2,134 Umbrellas 35,319 Watches 451 Miscellaneous articles 20,548

Of each of these things a minute record is taken before it is stored in one of the large rooms, with barred windows, in the basement. Umbrellas, sticks, and bags, for instance, are classified, each under half a dozen or more heads, and the card index with different coloured cards for various months, enables an article to be discovered instantly. Articles to the value of L39,859 were restored to their owners.

Suppose you left an umbrella in a cab on June 16th, enquiry at Scotland Yard would enable it to be picked out at once, if it had reached them. You describe it as having a curved handle, mounted with imitation silver. At once an official turns to the blue cards in the index. Under "umbrellas" he turns to the subdivision W.M.C., which, being interpreted, means "white metal crook handle," and your umbrella is handed back to you. But you do not get it for nothing. There is a reward to pay to the cabman. In the case of an umbrella, or such small article, your own suggestion will be probably adopted, but on most things the scale fixed for gold, jewellery, and bank notes applies. This is, up to L10, 3s. in the L, and over that sum an amount to be fixed by the Commissioner.

The rewards paid out annually form no inconsiderable sum. Recently figures have not been published, but an idea can be obtained from those given a year or so ago. Then 32,238 drivers and conductors shared between them nearly L5,000. One lucky cabman got L100; six received between L20 and L100.

These rewards are mostly for articles claimed, which numbered 31,338 of the declared value of L31,560, out of 73,721. The rest, with a few exceptions, were returned to the finders after an interval of three months. This return to cabmen and conductors is an act of grace—not a right. In some cases where a thing is of value, and remains unclaimed, it is sold, and a percentage of the proceeds given to the finder.

While I was in the office a black cat strolled leisurely out from behind one of the crowded sacks, and rubbed itself against the knee of one of the officials. "Left in a tram car," he explained. "We had a tortoise, some gold fish, and a canary a few days ago, but they have been claimed. It was suggested that we might save space by having the cat look after the fish and the canary, but we did not think it advisable."

THE END