Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 20396 in 5 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
OUR DETECTIVE POLICE.
The number of murders that have taken place, and the very few murderers that have been brought to justice in and about London during the last few months, must go far towards contradicting the assertion to the effect that the metropolis of England is 'the safest city in the world' to live in. And if to the list of crimes against life which have not been, and never are likely to be, brought home to the perpetrators, we add the innumerable thefts, burglaries, and other offences against property which go unpunished because the criminals are never found out, it can hardly be denied that we require a new departure in the system of our Detective Police, for the simple reason that, as at present constituted, the practical results of the same are very much the reverse of satisfactory.
I mention these two cases, out of not a few with which I am acquainted, as illustrating in some measure the very different systems on which the detectives of England and France do their work. In the latter country, as in every other country in Europe, London is regarded by the dangerous classes as the happy hunting-ground of thieves and rogues of all kinds. I am fully aware that many Englishmen would regard the French detective mode of working as underhand and mean, and object to what they would term any underhand work of the kind. But surely when a question of such magnitude as the detection of crime is mooted, the authorities ought not to be guided by what is merely a matter of sentiment. Murderers, burglars, thieves, swindlers, and all other evil-doers, do not hesitate to use the most effectual means at their command in order to insure success to themselves. Why, then, should we do so? Crime of every kind is getting daily more and more clever and scientific in its working; why should we not avail ourselves of every possible advantage which the perpetrators of crime can command? One thing is very certain, that unless we take a new departure in the manner we attempt to detect crime, the dangerous classes will very soon have everything their own way. As a French police agent once told me, every crime that is undiscovered serves as an incentive for a dozen more of the same kind.
With respect to the very strong dislike which some persons have to anything in the shape of a secret police--or rather to disguised agents of the police acting as spies in the camp of the dangerous classes--it ought not to be forgotten that the same prejudice existed half a century ago against the 'new police,' or the 'Peelers' as they were called, being substituted for the watchmen or 'Charlies' of our grandfathers' days. If the authorities are wise enough to constitute and maintain a really efficient system of secret police agents in the place of what we now call 'plain-clothes officers,' the result will be much the same as was the substitution of a regular metropolitan police in place of the old watchmen. But if this greatly called-for change is delayed much longer, we shall see the criminal classes gaining in strength every year, until it will become as difficult to get the mastery over them as is the case in some of the Western States in America. A secret police, or rather, a number of secret agents of the police, organised on the French system, is what we must institute ere long, and the sooner it is taken in hand the better. Those who require their services do not hesitate to employ 'Private Inquiry Offices' and other similar establishments; why should the government decline to entertain the idea of such an agency as is here advocated? If any man of influence and authority in the land could be present at a 'business' meeting of English, French, and a few German thieves in some of the lowest haunts of 'Foreign London,' an efficient system of secret detective police would very soon become established in what has been foolishly called 'the safest city in the world.'
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
'I am going to the village, Ada, to see Mr Beecham, but I shall not be long,' said Wrentham to his wife.
She in her pale, delicate prettiness was as unlike the mate of such a man as Wrentham as a gazelle linked to a Bengal tiger would appear. But she was fond of him, believed in him, and was as happy in her married state as most of her neighbours seemed to be. Indeed, she believed herself to be a great deal happier than most of them. So far as the household arrangements were concerned, he was a model husband: he interfered with none of them. He seldom scolded: he accepted his chop or steak with equanimity whether it was over or under done ; and he had even put on a pair of unbrushed boots without saying anything aloud. What woman is there who would not appreciate such a husband?
Mrs Wrentham did appreciate him, and was devoted to him. She had brought him a few hundreds, with which her father, a country tradesman, had dowered her, and of that Wrentham declared he was able to make a fortune. With that intent most of his time was occupied in the City; and she often lamented that poor Martin was so eager to make 'hay whilst the sun shone'--as he called it--that he was working himself to death.
'Never mind, dear,' he would say: 'there is no time like the present for laying by a store; and we shall have leisure to enjoy ourselves when we have made a comfortable little fortune.'
'But if you should kill yourself in the meanwhile, Martin!'
'Nonsense, Ada; I am too tough a chap to be killed so easily.'
Then he would go off gaily to the City . She would sigh, and sit down to wait for the happy time when that little fortune should be made.
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
