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.
It has been my lot, for reasons which need not be entered into here, to see not a little of the French detective system, and of the plans adopted by those employed in discovering crime in Paris. The two systems, those of the London and Parisian detective, differ most essentially. With us, it is as if the general commanding an army in the field was to send spies into the enemy’s camp, taking care they were dressed and behaved themselves in such a manner that every one would know who they were. On the other hand, the French system of detection is based on the principle that the enemy—namely, the criminals amongst whom they have to make their inquiries—should never be able to discover who the spies are. Now, with some fifty or sixty detectives trained to perfection in the art of disguising themselves, must it not be far more easy to discover the whereabouts of crime and the identity of the criminals, than can possibly be done under our system? Our detectives are as well known to a Londoner of any experience, and we may presume they are also just as well known to the criminal classes, as if they wore uniform. Nay, in a very useful volume called The Police Code and Manual of the Criminal Law, compiled by Mr Howard Vincent, it is clearly laid down that ‘the idea that a detective to be useful in a district must be unknown is erroneous in the great mass of cases, as he is then unable to distinguish between honest men who would help a known officer and others.’
It seems to me, as it must do to all who study the question, that this is the fundamental mistake we make, and that it is for this reason our detection of crime is so defective. We have no spies in the enemy’s camp. Our detective officers are merely policemen in shooting-jackets and billycock hats. The great criminal army knows who they are as well as if they wore their blue tunics. A French detective has nothing whatever to do with arresting criminals. He is not the sportsman who shoots the bird, but only the dog which points out where the game is to be found. The French agents of police, or detectives—many of whom have been over in England on business, and are well acquainted with our system—say that our regular police who keep order in the streets are the best guardians of peace and order in the world, but that our detective system is the worst and, practically, the most useless in Europe. Nor can any one acquainted with the subject say they are wrong. Even the most casual readers of the papers must be struck with two facts relating to crime in London. In the first place, the vigilance of the ordinary police is so great, that, as a rule, they lay hands upon a very great number of criminals, and cause a vast deal of crime to be punished. But, on the other hand, if a murderer, burglar, or other offender against society does manage to get clean away, he is rarely if ever caught. The police—that is, of course, the detective police—invariably ‘get a clue’ to the affair; and there the matter seems to end. The detection of crime is evidently not an art that has been cultivated in England.
The French detective is a man who would never be thought, by any one who did not know him personally, to be connected with the police. In fact, he generally does his best to hide his real occupation from even his most intimate friends. Like our Londoner who is ‘something in the City,’ he assumes the indefinite appellation of un employé du gouvernement; but in what office he is ‘employed,’ or what his ‘employment’ may be, he refrains from stating. He is generally a quiet, unpretending individual, who neither courts nor avoids notice. The facility with which he assumes all kinds of disguise, and the admirable manner in which he acts the part he assumes, must be seen in order to be realised. As a rule, he takes some time before bringing his inquiries to a close; but he is rarely at fault in the long-run, and generally manages to bring down the game he is hunting.
Our English detective is the exact contrary of his French confrère. He does not wear uniform, but he might just as well do so, for his appearance and dress proclaim him to be what he is quite as plainly as if he was clad like X142 of the force. He is a well-meaning, intelligent fellow; but both his want of training and the system under which he has to work quite unfit him for the detection of any crime which is hidden in mystery. I remember, some years ago, being on a visit at a country-house, where the jewel-case of a lady visitor was stolen. It was quite safe when the owner had finished dressing for dinner; but a couple of hours later her maid missed it, and gave the alarm. Search was made—it is needless to say, in vain. The house was full of visitors, many of whom had brought with them their own valets and ladies’ maids, besides which there was a large staff of servants belonging to the house itself. A telegram was despatched to Scotland Yard the next morning; and in due time two detective officers arrived from London. They examined the room from which the jewel-box had been taken; questioned, and, as a natural consequence, set by the ears, all the servants of the house, as well as those of the different visitors; made inquiries at the neighbouring railway station about the travellers who had left the place during the last few days; and finally, took their departure, leaving matters exactly where they were—where they have remained to the present day, and where they are likely to remain for all time.
As a comparison with the foregoing, I may mention a case of a very similar kind which I once witnessed in Paris. A friend of mine, living with his wife, daughter, and a male and female servant au second of a large old-fashioned house, found one morning that all his plate had been stolen. It was quite safe when the family went to bed the previous night; but in the morning it had vanished. He communicated with the police; and an elderly gentleman, who looked like the manager or one of the head-clerks of a bank, was sent to the house. Neither the concierge nor any one else had the slightest idea who the individual was. He came ostensibly to see my friend on some business, and only told him what this business really was. He came again the next day and the following four or five days, making his visits purposely when my friend and all his family were out, so as to have an excuse, whilst awaiting their return, of talking to the servants, or of wasting a quarter of an hour in the concierge’s den. He managed to ingratiate himself with this latter individual; and in the course of the next few weeks, during which time he still paid occasional visits, ostensibly to my friend, became quite intimate with the servant. It ended in the concierge being arrested one fine day on a charge of having stolen the plate. This was brought about partly by something the detective had seen in the concierge’s room, but chiefly on account of what he had heard at a place where a number of the agents or brokers for stolen goods used to congregate for business, and to which the detective went in the character of a thief. The crime was thus discovered, and the thief was duly punished.
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.’
In England, we have a curious but very erroneous idea that if a policeman wears a suit of plain clothes instead of his regular uniform, he is fully able to find out all about any crime that has ever been committed. A greater mistake was never made. Not only to the ‘dangerous classes,’ but to almost every Londoner who is anything of an observer regarding his fellow-men, ‘plain-clothes’ officers, as our detectives are called, are actually as well known as if they wore the helmet, blue tunic, and black leather waist-belt of the regular policeman. It is quite otherwise in France. A French detective, as we have remarked before, has nothing whatever to do with serving summonses or warrants. He never arrests a criminal, but he points out to the regular police where criminals are to be found. It is only on very rare occasions that he even appears as witness against a prisoner; and when he does so, he assumes for the future a dress and general appearance quite unlike what he has hitherto borne. A French detective who cannot disguise himself in such a manner that his oldest friend would not be able to recognise him, is not deemed worth his salary. He takes the greatest professional pride in this art. In a word, the French detectives are the spies sent by the army of law and order to find out all about the enemy that is constantly waging war against life and property. In England, we have no similar set of men, and what are the consequences? Why, that unless a murderer, burglar, or other offender is either taken red-handed, or leaves behind him some very plain marks as to who he is or where he is to be found, crime with us is, as a rule, undetected. Sooner or later, notwithstanding our national prejudices against all that is secret and underhand, we must adopt a system for the detection of crime on the plan that is found to work so well in France; and the sooner we do so the better, unless we want to make England in general, and London in particular, more than even it is now the happy hunting-ground of all the scoundrels in Europe. All Frenchmen who have visited our country say that our ordinary police is the very best in the world; that the manner in which they preserve order in the streets is above praise; and they are right. Nor can a word be said against the character, the integrity, or the intentions also of our detectives. But the system on which they are trained is essentially bad. They are the wrong men in the wrong place—the square pegs in the round holes.