Known to the Police

by Thomas Holmes

When I saw the old man, his month was running out.

I have since learnt that when he was again discharged, he said to his friend, "Cheer up! I shall soon be back." But the dying youth lingers on, and waits for him in vain.

Eagerly he scans every fresh comer, but no glint of recognition lights up his poor face. The officials, too, scan every list that comes with a fresh consignment of prisoners, but the "old lag's" name has not appeared. Neither do the police know anything of him. What has happened to the old convict? Perhaps, after all, his time was up first. Maybe he waits in the spirit-world for the coming of his friend. Maybe the young man will plead for the old convict, and say: "Lord, I was sick and in prison, and he came unto me." And the Lord will answer and say: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto him, ye did it unto Me."

The police effect many smart and plucky captures. Sometimes they are aided by a stupid oversight on the part of the criminal, but quite as often by some extraordinary piece of luck. Let me give an instance of the latter.

A six-foot fellow from the country joined the London police-force. He also, as soon as possible, joined himself in matrimony to a servant-girl living in London. Her health proved to be very bad, but this did not prevent her having children quickly, and so it came about that, before he had been in the police-force many years he was in debt and difficulties. Four young children and a wife constantly ill do not help to make a policeman's life a happy one. His friends made a collection for him on the quiet, but it had little beneficial effect. The children became ill, the wife became worse, the debts heavier, and exposure threatened. It was winter-time. He left his ailing wife and crying children to go on night-duty, wishing he was dead and out of it all. As he went quietly to his beat, his step became slower and slower, until it stopped altogether, and he found himself standing with his back to the wall thinking of suicide.

Some months afterwards he gave me this account of what happened.

"Mr. Holmes, pluck and courage had nothing to do with it, for I had just made up my mind to make a hole in the water, when I happened to look at the window of a jeweller's shop, in which a light was burning.

"I saw somebody move in the shop, so I took out my truncheon and went softly into the shop door. I had an idea it was unfastened, so I stood still for a minute or two, hardly breathing, and then I rushed at the door, and sure enough it opened, and in I went.

"The three fellows were just packing up the jewellery. One of them came for me with a pistol, but before he could get it to fire I caught him on the head with my truncheon, and down he went. Another made for the door, but he had to pass me, and I laid him out. The third came at me with a big jemmy, and we had a fight, but I was too big and quick for him. I almost broke his arm. So I took the lot; but I should not have cared if they had killed me. I was just in a mad fury, and it was nothing but a piece of luck."

Yes, it was a bit of luck. A large sum of money was collected for him by the public. His praises were duly sung in the Press, his debts were paid, and his wife sent for a time to a convalescent home. He might have made headway in the Force, but he was no scholar. I went sometimes to give him lessons in arithmetic, spelling, etc., but it was of no use. He wanted to catch more thieves, and sometimes made the terrible mistake of arresting an innocent person. The last time I saw him he told me that his wife was no better, but that she had had another child.