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.