No less than 421 were known or believed to be living honestly, and those who were suspected of continuing their old career of roguery, but were not convicted, numbered only 95.
The management of the office is vested in Chief Detective-Inspector Thomas—a shrewd, able man, with a wide experience, in which he has gained a keen and extensive knowledge of criminals of all types—who deals with those who come under his jurisdiction with a firm and tactful hand. He has a staff of twenty-two assistants, which includes the only two women detectives—if they are strictly detectives—in the service. In point of fact these ladies are employed by the Home Office and attached to Scotland Yard, so that strictly they must not be considered "policewomen."
These ladies are necessary in carrying out the policy of the department, and their duties are wide. No man is allowed to visit a female licence-holder or supervisee, mainly for the reason that his identity might be suspected. So the women detectives take this in hand, and with feminine tact manage to know all about their protégées, to give a warning here, sympathetic advice there, in a way that would be difficult for any man to do.
Their work takes them at times into some of the worst quarters of London, and all their pluck and firmness are sometimes needed, for habitual women criminals are usually worse subjects to handle than the habitual male criminal.
For criminals, as for experts in other trades, all roads lead to London. Your expert criminal, whatever his branch of rascality, sooner or later tries his hand in the metropolis, and so there is a continual inward and outward flow of persons the office must keep in touch with.
This is done by the co-operation of the provincial police, and by the issue of the "Habitual Criminals Register," which gives detailed particulars of persons entered in the files of a department. This is sent to every police force in the kingdom.
There is another very useful publication which has brought about the downfall of many an ambitious rascal. It is called the "Illustrated Circular," and its subject is travelling criminals.
These form a clever, mobile fraternity who operate swindles and robberies in one part after another, dodging in and out of various police districts. They are as slippery as eels, and, without some means of codifying information as to their movements and delinquencies, many of them would defy justice with impunity.
The "Illustrated Circular" forms a link between the police jurisdictions in this respect. It gives descriptions and particulars of the latest known movements of itinerant criminals, and publishes photographs of them, to enable police officers to recognise them wherever they may go.
Every movement made by a travelling criminal is recorded in the "Circular." Men who have found themselves too closely watched by the Bristol police may, for example, hope to find Cardiff less vigilant. But the "Illustrated Circular" tells of their departure from Bristol, and Cardiff is on the alert. There is little hope of escape from that all-pervading vigilance.