results were obtained by this excellent institution; it almost completely ended highway robbery, and if any rare case occurred, the guilty parties were soon apprehended.

THE BOW STREET RUNNERS.

Bow Street may be called the centre of our police establishment at that time; it was served by various forces, and especially by eight officers, the famous Bow Street runners of that period, the prototype of the modern detective. They were familiarly known as the “robin redbreasts,” from the scarlet waistcoat which was practically their badge of office, although they also carried as a mark of authority a small bâton surmounted by a gilt crown. The other police-offices of London were also assisted by officers, but these were simply constables, and do not appear to have been employed beyond their own districts. The Bow Street runners, however, were at the disposal of the public if they could be spared to undertake the pursuit of private crime. Three of them were especially appropriated to the service of the Court. The attempt made by Margaret Nicholson upon George III., and other outrages by mad people, called for special police protection, and two or more of these officers attended royalties wherever they went. They were generally MacManus, Townsend, and Sayer, Townsend being the most celebrated of the three. He has left a self-painted picture in contemporary records, and his evidence, given before various police committees, shows him to have been a garrulous, self-sufficient functionary. It was his custom to foist his opinions freely on everyone, even on the king himself. He boasted that George IV. imitated the cut of his hat, that the Dukes of Clarence and of York presented him with wine from their cellars; he mixed himself up with politics, and did not hesitate to advise the statesmen of the day on such points as Catholic Emancipation and the Reformed Parliament. It generally fell to his office to interrupt duels, and, according to his own account, he stopped that between the Duke of York and Colonel Lennox. His importance, according to his own idea, was shown in his indignant refusal to apprehend a baker who had challenged a clerk; he protested that “it would lessen him a good deal” after forty-six years’ service, during which period he had had the honour of taking earls, marquises, and dukes.

No doubt these runners were often usefully employed in the pursuit of criminals. Townsend himself when at a levée arrested the man who had boldly cut off the Star of the Garter from a nobleman’s breast. The theft having been quickly discovered, word was passed to look out for the thief. It reached Townsend, who shortly afterwards noticed a person in Court dress who yet did not seem entitled to be there. Fearing to make a mistake, he followed him a few yards, and then remembered his face as that of an old thief. When taken into custody, the stolen star was found in the man’s pocket.

Vickery was another well-known runner, who did much good work in his time. One of his best performances was that of saving the post-office from a serious robbery. The officials would not believe in the existence of the plot, but Vickery knew better, and produced the very keys that were to pass the thieves through every door. He had learnt as a fact that they had twice visited the premises, but still postponed the coup, waiting until an especially large amount of plunder was collected. Another case in which Vickery exhibited much acumen was the clever robbery effected from Rundell and Bridges, the gold jewellers on Ludgate Hill. Two Jews, having selected valuables to the amount of £35,000, asked to be permitted to seal them up and leave them until they returned with the money. In the act of packing they managed to substitute other exactly similar parcels, and carried off the jewels in their pockets. As they did not return, the cases were opened and the fraud discovered. Vickery was called in, and soon traced the thieves to the Continent, whither he followed them, accompanied by one of the firm, and tracked them through France and Holland to Frankfort, where quite half of the stolen property was recovered.

Vickery subsequently became jailer at Coldbath Fields Prison. One of the prisoners committed to his custody was Fauntleroy the banker; and a story has been handed down that this great forger all but escaped from custody. A clever plot had been set on foot, but timely information reached the authorities. On making a full search, a ladder of ropes and other aids to breaking out of prison were laid bare. No blame seems to have attached to Vickery in this, although some of his colleagues and contemporaries were not always above suspicion. They were no doubt subject to great temptations under the system of the time. It was the custom to reward all who contributed to the conviction of offenders. This blood-money, as it was called, was a sum of £40, distributed amongst those who had secured the conviction. No doubt the practice stimulated the police, but it was capable of great perversion; it gave the prosecutor a keen interest in securing conviction, and was proved, at times, to have led persons to seduce others into committing crime. It is established beyond question that at the commencement of the nineteenth century persons were brought up charged with offences to which they had been tempted by the very officials who arrested them.

It must be admitted that the emoluments of the police officers were not extraordinarily high; a guinea a week appears to have been the regular pay, to which may be added the share of blood-money referred to above, which, according to witnesses, seldom amounted to more than £20 or £30 a year. Besides this, the officers had the privilege of selling Tyburn tickets, as they were called, which were exemptions from serving as constables or in other parish offices—an onerous duty from which people were glad to buy exemption at the price of £12, £20, or even £25. Again, a runner employed by other public departments or by private persons might be, but was not always, handsomely rewarded if successful. He had, of course, his out-of-pocket expenses and a guinea a day while actually at work; but this might not last for more than a week or a fortnight, and, according to old Townsend, people were apt to be mean in recognising the services of the runners. These officers were also the intermediaries at times between the thieves and their victims, and constantly helped in the negotiations for restoring stolen property; it could not be surprising that sometimes the money stuck to their fingers. The loss incurred by bankers, not only through the interception of their parcels, but by actual breakings into their banks, led to a practice which was no less than compounding felony: the promise not to prosecute on the restitution of a portion of the stolen property. It was shown that the “Committee of Bankers,” a society formed for mutual protection, employed a solicitor, who kept up communication with the principal “fences” and “family men.” This useful functionary was well acquainted with the thieves and their haunts, and when a banker’s parcel—known in cant language as a “child”—was stolen, the solicitor entered into treaty with the thieves to buy back the money.

In this fashion a regular channel of communication came to be established, offers were made on both sides, and terms were negotiated which ended generally in substantial restitution. Many bankers objected to the practice, and refused to sanction it. Still it prevailed, and largely; and several specific cases were reported by the Select Committee on the Police in 1828. Thus, two banks that had each been robbed of notes to the amount of £4,000, recovered them on payment of £1,000. In another case Spanish bonds, nominally worth £2,000, were given back on payment of £1,000; in another, nearly £20,000 was restored for £1,000; and where bills had been stolen that were not easily negotiable, £6,000 out of £17,000 was offered for £300. Sometimes after apprehension proceedings were stopped because a large amount of the plunder had been given up. The system must have been pretty general, since the committee stated that they knew of no less than sixteen banks which had thus tried to indemnify themselves.

A strong suspicion was entertained that Sayer, a Bow Street runner already mentioned, had feathered his nest finely with a portion of the proceeds of the Paisley Bank robbery at Glasgow. He was an acquaintance of the Mackoulls,[12] and it was he who proposed to the bank that £20,000 should be restored on condition that all proceedings ceased. When Sayer reached the bank with Mrs. Mackoull the notes produced amounted to no more than £11,941. Whether Sayer had impounded any or not was never positively known; but when he died, at an advanced age, he was worth £30,000. And it has been said that shortly before his death he pointed to the fireplace and a closet above it, using some incoherent words. This was probably the receptacle of a number of notes, which were afterwards found in the possession of one of his relatives, notes that were recognised as part of the Paisley Bank plunder. He must either have got them as hush-money or have wrongfully detained them, and then found it too dangerous to pass them into circulation. Probably he desired to have them destroyed, so that the story might not come out after his death. The runners must have found it difficult to resist temptation. The guilt of one of them—Vaughan—was clearly established in open court, and he was convicted as an accessory in a burglary into which he had led others; he was also proved to have given an unsuspicious sailor several counterfeit coins to buy articles with at a chandler’s shop. When the sailor came out, Vaughan arrested him and charged him with passing bad money. Vaughan absconded, but was afterwards discovered and brought to trial.

Townsend tells of a case in his own glorification—and there is no reason to deny him the credit—in which he arrested a notorious old pickpocket, one Mrs. Usher, who had done a very profitable business for many years. She was said to be worth at least £3,000 at the time of her arrest, and when Townsend appeared against her he was asked in so many words whether he would not withdraw from the prosecution. The Surrey jailer, Ives by name, asked him, “Cannot this be ‘stashed’?” Townsend virtuously refused, and still would not yield, although Mrs. Usher’s relations offered him a bribe of £200. He also tells how he might have got a considerable sum from Broughton, who had robbed the York mail, but he steadfastly refused to abandon the prosecution. As much as a thousand pounds had been offered to keep back a single witness.

These runners were often charged with being on much too intimate terms with criminals. It was said that they frequented

low taverns and flash houses, and that thus thieves’ haunts were encouraged as a sort of preserve in which the police could, at any time, lay hands on their game. The officers on their side declared that they could do little or nothing without these houses—that, being so few in number, it would be impossible for them to keep in touch with the great mass of metropolitan criminality. Vickery spoke out boldly, and said that the detection of offenders was greatly facilitated, for they knew exactly where to look for the men they wanted. Townsend repudiated the idea that the officer was contaminated by mixing with thieves. The flash houses “can do the officer no harm if he does not make harm of it.” Unless he went there and acted foolishly or improperly, or got on too familiar terms with the thieves, he was safe enough. But the houses were undoubtedly an evil, and the excuse that they assisted in the apprehension of offenders was no sufficient justification for them. To this day, however, the free access to thieves’ haunts is one of the most valuable aids to detection, and the police-officer who does not follow his prey into its own jungle will seldom make a large bag.

On the whole, it may be said that the old Bow Street runner was useful in his generation, although he rarely effected very phenomenal arrests. He was bold, fairly well informed, and reasonably faithful. Serjeant Ballantine, who knew some of the latest survivors personally, had a high opinion of them, and thought their methods generally superior to those of the modern detective. We may not go quite that length—which, after all, is mere assertion—but it seems certain, as I shall presently show, that they were missed on the establishment of the “New Police,” as the existing magnificent force was long called. They mostly disappeared, taking to other callings, or living out their declining years on comparatively small pensions. George Ruthven, one of the last, died in 1844, and a contemporary record speaks of him as follows: “He was the oldest and most celebrated of the few remaining Bow Street runners, among whom death has lately made such ravages, and was considered as the most efficient police officer that existed during his long career of usefulness. He was for thirty years attached to the police force, having entered it at the age of seventeen; but in 1839 he retired with a pension of £220 from the British Government, and pensions likewise from the Russian and Prussian Governments, for his services in discovering forgeries to an immense extent connected with those

countries. Since 1839 he has been landlord of the ‘One Tun Tavern,’ Chandos Street, Covent Garden, and has visited most frequently the spot of his former associations.... He was a most eccentric character, and had written a history of his life, but would on no account allow it to meet the public eye. During the last three months no less than three of the old Bow Street officers—namely, Goodson, Salmon, and Ruthven—have paid the debt of nature.”

Among the captures to be credited to Ruthven is that of the Cato Street conspirators, in 1820. These desperadoes, headed by Arthur Thistlewood, had formed a plot to murder Lord Castlereagh and the rest of the Ministers at a dinner at Lord Harrowby’s town house in Grosvenor Square. They were arming themselves for the purpose in a stable in Cato Street, near the Edgware Road, when Ruthven and other runners burst in. A fight ensued, in which Smithers, one of the officers, was killed. Several of the conspirators were taken, but Thistlewood contrived to escape, only, however, to be arrested next morning. He and four others were hanged, while five more were transported for life.

Serjeant Ballantine, as I have said, paid the Bow Street runners the high compliment of preferring their methods to those of our modern detectives. They kept their own counsel strictly, he thought, withholding all information, and being especially careful to give the criminal who was “wanted” no notion of the line of pursuit, of how and where a trap was to be laid for him, or with what it would be baited. They never let the public know all they knew, and worked out their detection silently and secretly. The old Serjeant was never friendly to the “New Police,” and his criticisms were probably coloured by this dislike. That it may be often unwise to blazon forth each and every step taken in the course of an inquiry is obvious enough, and there are times when the utmost reticence is indispensable. The modern detective is surely alive to this; the complaint is more often that he is too chary of news than that he is too garrulous and outspoken.

CHAPTER VII.

MODERN POLICE: LONDON.

Unquestionably the cause of all this was the inefficiency of the police. The necessary conditions, unity of action of the whole and direct responsibility of the parts, could never be assured under such arrangements. Each London parish worked independently, and while some made a fairly good fight, others by their apathy were subjected to continual depredation. The wealthy and populous district of Kensington, for instance, some fifteen square miles in extent, depended for its protection upon three constables and three headboroughs—none of the latter very remarkable for steadiness and sobriety. It was fairly urged that three drunken beadles could effect nothing against widespread burglary and thieving. In the parish of Tottenham, equally unprotected, there had been nineteen attempts at burglary in six weeks, and sixteen had been entirely successful. In Spitalfields, at a time not long antecedent to 1829, gangs of thieves stood at the street corners and openly rifled all who dared to pass them. In some parishes, suburban and of recent growth, there was no police whatever, no protection but the voluntary exertions of individuals and the “honesty of the thieves.” Such were Fulham—with 15,000 inhabitants—Chiswick, Ealing, Acton, Edgware, Barnet, Putney, and Wandsworth. In Deptford, with 20,000, constantly reinforced by evil-doers driven out of Westminster through stricter supervision, there was no watch at all. Then the number of outrages perpetrated so increased that a subscription was raised to keep two watchmen, who were yet paid barely enough to support existence, much less ensure vigilance. Watchmen, indeed, were often chosen because they were on the parish rates. The pay of many of them was no more than twopence per hour.

The Duke of Wellington, who was the head of the Administration when Peel brought forward his measure in 1829, supported it to the full, and showed from his own experience how largely crime might be prevented by better police regulations. He mentioned the well-known horse-patrol,[13] which had done so much to clear the neighbourhood of London of highwaymen and footpads. His recollection reached back into the early years of the century, and he could speak from his own experience of a time when scarcely a carriage could pass without being robbed, when travellers had to do battle for their property with the robbers who attacked them. Yet all this had been stopped summarily by the mounted patrols which guarded all the approaches to London, and highway robbery had ceased to exist. The same good results might be expected from the general introduction of a better preventive system.

It is a curious fact that the Duke incurred much odium by the establishment of this new police, which came into force about the time that the struggle for Parliamentary reform had for the moment eclipsed his popularity. The scheme of an improved police was denounced as a determination to enslave, an insidious attempt to dragoon and tyrannise over the people. Police spies armed with extraordinary authority were to harass and dog the steps of peaceable citizens, to enter their houses, making domiciliary visitations, exercising the right of search on any small pretence or trumped-up story. There were idiots who actually accused the Duke of a dark design to seize supreme power and usurp the throne; it was with this base desire that he had raised this new “standing army” of drilled and uniformed policemen, under Government, and independent of local ratepayers’ control. The appointment of a military officer, Colonel Rowan, of the Irish Constabulary, betrayed the intention of creating a “veritable gendarmerie.” The popular aversion to the whole scheme, fanned into flame by these silly protests, burst out in abusive epithets applied to the new tyrants. Such names as “raw lobsters” from their blue coats, “bobbies” from Sir Robert Peel, and “peelers” with the same derivation, “crushers” from their heavy-footed interference with the liberty of the subject, “coppers” because they “copped” or captured his Majesty’s lieges, survive to show how they were regarded in those days.

Yet the admirable regulations framed by Sir Richard Mayne, who was soon associated with Colonel Rowan, did much to reassure the public. They first enunciated the judicious principle that has ever governed police action in this country: the principle that prevention of crime was the first object of the constable, not the punishment of offenders after the fact. The protection of person and property and the maintenance of peace and good order were the great aims of a police force. A firm but pleasant and conciliatory demeanour was earnestly enjoined upon all officers, and this has been in truth, with but few exceptions, the watchword of the police from first to last. “Perfect command of temper,” as laid down by Sir Richard Mayne, was an indispensable qualification; the police officer should “never suffer himself to be moved in the slightest degree by language or threats.” He is to do his duty in a “quiet and determined manner,” counting on the support of bystanders if he requires it, but being careful always to take no serious step without sufficient force at his back. He was entrusted with certain powers, though not of the arbitrary character alleged: he was entitled to arrest persons charged with or suspected of offences: he might enter a house in pursuit of an offender, to interfere in an affray, to search for stolen goods.

They went their way quietly and efficiently, these new policemen, and, in spite of a few mistakes from over-zeal, soon conquered public esteem. The opposition died hard; dislike was fostered by satirical verse and the exaggerated exposure of small errors, and in 1833 the police came into collision with a mob at Coldbath Fields, when there was a serious and lamentable affray. But already the London vestries were won over. They had been most hostile to the new system, “as opposed to the free institutions of this country, which gave parish authorities the sole control in keeping and securing the peace.” They had denounced the new police as importing espionage totally repugnant to the habits and feelings of the British people, and subjecting them to “a disguised military force.” These protests formed part of a resolution arrived at by a conference of parishes, which also insisted that those who paid the cost should have the control. Yet a couple of years later these same vestries agreed that “the unfavourable impression and jealousy formerly existing against the new police is rapidly diminishing ... and that it has fully answered the purpose for which it was formed....” This conclusion was supported by some striking statistics. Crime appreciably diminished. The annual losses inflicted on the public by larcenies, burglaries, and highway robberies, which had been estimated at about a million of money, fell to £20,000, and at the same time a larger number of convictions was secured.

It is beyond the limits of this work to give a detailed account of the growth and gradual perfecting of the Metropolitan Police

into the splendid force that watches over the great city to-day. The total strength now, according to the last official returns, is nearly 16,000 of all ranks, and it has about quintupled since its first creation in 1829. The population of London at that date was just one million and a half; the area controlled by the new police not half the present size. Now not far short of 6,000,000 souls are included within the area supervised by our present Metropolitan force, measuring 688 square miles of territory, or some thirty miles across from any point of the circumference of a circle whose centre is at Charing Cross. Throughout the whole of this vast region, which constitutes the greatest human ant-heap the world has ever known, ever growing, too; the blue-coated guardian of the peace is incessantly on patrol, the total length of his beats reaching to about 850 miles. He is unceasingly engaged in duties both various and comprehensive in behalf of his fellow-citizens. By his active and intelligent watchfulness he checks and prevents the commission of crime, and if his vigilance

is unhappily sometimes eluded it is not because he is not eager to pursue and capture offenders. He is exposed to peculiar dangers in protecting the public, but accepts them unhesitatingly, risking his life gladly, and facing brutal and often murderous violence as bravely as any soldier in the breach. In the Whitechapel division, where roughs abound, a fifth of the police contingent in that quarter are injured annually on duty; 9 per cent. of the whole force goes on the sick list during the year from the result of savage assaults. A recent return of officers injured shows a total of 3,112 cases, and these include 2,717 assaults when making arrests, 89 injuries in stopping runaway, horses, 158 bites from dogs, and many injuries sustained in disorderly crowds or when assisting to extinguish fires. The regulation of street traffic is, everybody knows, admirably performed by the police, and they ably control all public carriages. The Lost Property Office is a police institution that renders much efficient service, and in a recent year over 38,000 articles which had been dropped, forgotten, or mislaid were received, and in most cases returned to their owners. They made up a very heterogeneous collection, and included all kinds of birds and live stock—parrots, canaries, larks, rabbits, dogs, and cats; there were books, bicycles, weapons, perambulators, mail carts, golf clubs, sewing machines, and musical instruments. In minor matters the police constable is a universal champion and knight errant. He escorts the softer sex across the crowded thoroughfare as gallantly as any squire of dames; it is a touching sight to watch the lost child walking trustfully hand in hand with the six-foot giant to some haven of safety. If in the West End the man in blue is sometimes on friendly terms with the cook, he is always alert in the silent watches of the night, trying locks and giving necessary warning; in poorer neighbourhoods he is the friend of the family, the referee in disputes, the kindly alarum clock that rouses out the early labourer. It may truly be said that London owes a deep debt of gratitude to its police.

No account, however brief and meagre, of the Metropolitan force would be complete which did not include some reference

to the river and dockyard police. I have already described on earlier pages[14] the systematic depredations that went on amid the Thames shipping in earlier days. This called imperatively for reform, and a marine police was established to watch over our ships and cargoes and guard the wharves and quays. Regular boat patrols were always on the move about the river, and the police, who carried arms, had considerable powers. This Thames branch was not immediately taken over by Peel’s new police, but it is now part and parcel of the Metropolitan force, and a very perfect system obtains. The river police has its headquarters in the well-known floating station at Waterloo Bridge, formerly a steamboat pier, with a cutter at Erith, and it also has the services of several small steam launches for rapid transit up and down the river. There is very little crime upon the great waterway, thanks to the vigilance of the Thames police, who also do good work in preventing suicides, while they have many opportunities of calling attention to possible foul play by their recovery of bodies floating on the stream.

What is true of the Metropolitan force applies equally to the City Police. The City forms an imperium in imperio, one square mile of absolutely independent territory interpolated in the very heart and centre of London. The City Police was formed at the same time as the Metropolitan, but the great municipality claimed the right to manage its own police affairs, declining Government subsidies as resolutely as it resisted Government control. The House of Commons in 1839 frankly acknowledged that the City was justified in its pretensions, and that it was certain to maintain a good and efficient police force. That anticipation has been fully borne out, and the City Police is admitted on all hands to be a first-class force, well organised and most effective, filled with fine men who reach a high standard both of intelligence and of physique. It has lighter duties by night, when the City empties like a church after service, but during the day it has vast cares and responsibilities, the duty of regulating the congested street traffic in the narrow City thoroughfares being perhaps the most onerous. Like their comrades beyond the boundary, the City police are largely employed by private individuals; banks, exchanges, public offices, and so forth, gladly put themselves under official protection. It should have been mentioned, when dealing with the Metropolitan Police, that some 1,800 officers of all ranks, from superintendents to private constables, are regularly engaged in a variety of posts outside ordinary police duty. Every great department of State is guarded by them; the Sovereign’s sacred person, the princes of the blood, the royal palaces, all public buildings, museums and collections, many of the parks and public gardens, the powder factories, are among the institutions confided to their care. Going farther afield, it is interesting to note that great tradesmen, great jewellers, great pickle-makers, great drapers, great card-makers, the co-operative stores, great fruit-growing estates, the public markets—all these share police services with Coutts’ and Drummond’s Banks, Holland House, Roehampton House, and so on. The whole of our dockyards are under police surveillance; so are the Albert Hall, Brompton Cemetery, and many other institutions.

It is impossible to leave this subject without adverting to the excellent provincial police now invariably established in the great cities and wide country districts, who, especially as regards the former, have an organisation and duties almost identical with those already detailed. The police forces of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the rest yield nothing in demeanour, devotion, and daring to their colleagues of the Metropolis. In the counties, where large areas often have to be covered, great responsibility must be devolved upon officers of inferior rank, and it is not abused. These sergeants or inspectors, with their half-dozen men, are so many links in a long-drawn chain. Much depends upon them, their energy and endurance. They, too, have to prevent crime by their constant vigilance on the high roads, and by keeping close watch on all suspicious persons. For the same reason special qualities are needed in the county chief constable and his deputy; the task of superintending their posts at wide distances apart, and controlling the movements of tramps and bad characters through their district, calls for the exercise of peculiar qualities, the power of command, of rapid transfer from place to place, of keen insight into character, of promptitude and decision—qualities that are most often found in military officers, who are, in fact, generally preferred for these appointments.

CHAPTER VIII.

MODERN POLICE (continued): PARIS.

SOME account of the police arrangements in two or three other capitals, and also in India, may now be given by way of contrast and comparison. The police of Paris has already been dealt with in its early beginnings, and under the First Empire. After the Bourbon Restoration, and during the days of the revived monarchy, the least valuable feature of the French police had the chief prominence. Every effort was made, by means of the police, to check opposition to the reigning power, and suppress political independence. But it was at this period that the detection of crime was undertaken for the first time as a distinct branch of police business, and it will be seen in a later chapter how Vidocq did great things, although often by dishonest agents and unworthy means. In the Second Empire the secret police over-rode everything; Napoleon III. had been a conspirator in his time, and he had an army of private spies in addition to the police of the Château, and these spies watched the regular police at a cost of some fourteen millions of francs. At the fall of the Second Empire there were half a dozen different secret police services in Paris. There was the Emperor’s, already mentioned; the Empress had hers; M. Rouher, the Prime Minister, and M. Piétri, the Prefect, each had a private force, so had other great officials. Most of these agents were unknown to each other as such, and so extensive was the system of espionage that one-half of Paris was at that time said to be employed in watching the other half. This system produced the dossiers, the small portfolios or covers, one of which appertained to each individual, high or low,

innocent or criminal, and was carefully preserved in the archives of the Prefecture. There were thousands and thousands of these, carefully catalogued and filed for easy reference, made up of confidential and calumniating reports sent in by agents, sometimes serious charges, often the merest and most mendacious tittle-tattle. The most harmless individuals were often denounced as conspirators, and an agent, if he knew nothing positive, drew liberally on his imagination for his facts. Great numbers of these dossiers were destroyed in the incendiary fires of the Commune; some of its leaders were no doubt anxious that no such records should remain. The criminal classes also rejoiced, but not for long. One of the first acts of the authorities when order was re-established was to reconstitute the criminal dossiers, a work of immense toil, necessitating reference to all the archives of prisons and tribunals. Within a couple of years some five million slips were got together, and the documents filled eight thousand boxes. It is to be feared that the secret police is still active in Paris, even under a free Republic; secret funds are still produced to pay agents; among all classes of society spies may be found even to-day; in drawing-rooms and in the servants’ hall, at one’s elbow in the theatre, among journalists, in the army, and in the best professions. That this is no exaggeration may be gathered from the fact that the dossiers are still in process of manufacture. M. Andrieux, a former prefect, who has published his Reminiscences, describes how on taking office the first visitor he received was his chief clerk who, according to the regular custom, put his dossier into his hands. “It bore the number 14,207,” M. Andrieux tells us, “and I have it now in my library, bound, with all the gross calumnies and truculent denunciations that form the basis of such documents.”

The regular police organisation, that which preserves order, checks evil-doing, and “runs in” malefactors, falls naturally and broadly into two grand divisions, the administrative and the active, the police “in the office” and the police “out of doors.” The first attends to the clerical business, voluminous and incessant, for Frenchmen are the slaves of a routine which goes round and round like clockwork. There is an army of clerks in the numerous bureaus, hundreds of those patient Government employees, the ronds de cuir, as they are contemptuously called, because they sit for choice on round leather cushions, writing and filling in forms

for hours and hours, day after day. The active army of police out of doors, which constitutes the second half of the whole machine, is divided into two classes: that in uniform and that in plain clothes. Every visitor to Paris is familiar with the rather theatrical-looking policeman, in his short frock coat or cape, smart képi cocked on one side of his head, and with a sword by his side. This agent, sergent de ville, gardien de la paix—he is known by all three titles—has many excellent qualities, and is, no doubt, a very useful public servant. He is almost invariably an old soldier, a sergeant who has left the army with a first-class character, honesty and sobriety being indispensable qualifications. Our own Metropolitan Police is not thus recruited: the Scotland Yard authorities rather dislike men with military antecedents, believing that army training, with its stiff and unyielding discipline, does not develop that spirit of good-humoured conciliation so noticeable in our police when dealing with the public. Something of the same kind is seen in Paris; for it is said that it takes two or three years to turn the well-disciplined old soldier into the courteous and considerate sergent de ville. His instructions are, however, precise; he is strictly cautioned to use every form of persuasion before proceeding to extremities, he is told to warn but not to threaten, very necessary regulations when dealing with such a highly strung, excitable population as that of Paris. The same sergents de ville are stationed in the same quarter of the town, so that they become more or less intimately acquainted with their neighbours and charges. They are thus often enabled to deal with them in a friendly way; a little scolding is found more effective than intimidation, and strong measures may be avoided by tact and forbearance.

The uniformed police are not all employed in the streets and arrondissements. There is a large reserve composed of the six central brigades, as they are called, a very smart body of old soldiers, well drilled, well dressed, and fully equipped: armed, moreover, with rifles, with which they mount guard when employed as sentries at the doors or entrance of the Prefecture. In Paris argot the men of these six central brigades are nicknamed “vaisseaux” (vessels), because they carry on their collars the badge of the city of Paris—an ancient ship—while the sergeants in the town districts wear only numbers: their own individual number, and that of the quarter in which they serve. These vaisseaux claim to be the élite of the force; they come in daily contact with the Gardes de Paris, horse and foot, a fine corps of city gendarmerie, and, as competing with them, take a particular pride in themselves. Their comrades in the quarters resent this pretension, and declare that when in contact with the people the vaisseaux make bad blood by their arrogance and want of tact. The principal business of four at least of these central brigades is to be on call when required to reinforce the out-of-doors police at special times. They are ready to turn out and preserve order at fires, and will, no doubt, be the first in the fray if Paris is ever again convulsed with revolutionary troubles.

Of the two remaining central brigades, one controls public carriages, the other the Halles, that great central market by which Paris is provided with a large part of its food. The cabmen of Paris are not easily controlled, but they are probably a much rougher lot than the London drivers, and they, no doubt, need a much tighter hand. Every cab-stand is under the charge of its own policeman, who knows the men, notes their arrival and departure, and marks their general behaviour. Other police officers of the central brigades superintend the street traffic, but not so successfully as do our police; indeed, parties of the French police