LIFE IN "THE FORCE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

LIFE IN "THE FORCE."

ONE OF THE " BIG FIVE."ROGUES BROUGHT TO BOOK, POLICEMAN'S ADVENTURES. HOT WINE ON A COLD NIGHT. On his first Christmas night on duty in London, a young policeman heard the faint click of a door being opened at 4 a.m. Turning, he saw silhouetted against a background of light—not a burglar, but an elegantly-dressed young woman. He was about to pass on, but she called out, softly, " policeman," and beckoned. As he took a step toward her she said, " It's a very cold night. Let me bring you a glass of hot elderberry wine and a cake." Stringent regulations forbade drinking while on duty. When the constable had just drained the glass he looked round and saw his inspector approaching. With the caka grasped in one hand he walked away, trying to drop into the official stride as though nothing were amiss. Half an hour later, he reached the house again. The young woman was still there. " It's all right," slie whispered; " the inspector had some, too!"

This story against himself is told by Mr. Charles Arrow, a former chief inspector of the Crminal Investigation Department, in his book entitled " Roguos and Others " Ingenious rascals by the score have been outwitted aud brought to book—and dock—by Mr. Arrow, who was one of tho original council of five, afterwards known as " The Big Five," formed in 1906. Tho author captured his first criminal when he was only seventeen years of age. A man stole some articles from a schoolroom, and young Arrow chased the thief until he was exhausted. The Commissioner of Police awarded him ten shillings.

Entering tho London Police Force two years later, Mr. Arrow's first beat as a constable was in the neighbourhood of Great Peter Street, where ho was on duty from ten o'clock at night until six in the morning. His sergeant said to him, in a fatherly way: "Look here, my boy, if you are callei to a fight and you are alone, don't go off in a panting hurry to interfere. Most people prefer to see a • friendly fight in a quarter like this than to see a policeman come in and spoil it. Give 'em a chance and step in when you think they have both had enough of it," The author adds that many times he proved the wisdom of tlis sergeant's words. A Woman's Good Turn. Many captures of " good men"—known criminals—are made purely by chance. One of Mr. Arrow's first successes came about in this way. Standing at a corner of a passage early one morning he noticed a woman in tho shadows. Her voice choked with sobs. Abruptly, without any greeting, "sho said: "Two-seven-nine, you have been good and kind to me and I would like to do you a good turn. Would it benefit "you if you got a couple of coiners?" At an agreed time in the morning she pointed out to him a tall woman and a short man who entered soveral shops and changed counterfeit florins* for which they duly paid tho penalty. The writer once secured the conviction of a thief who received a long term of penal servitude, and fifteen years later he tripped up tho same man for stealing a watch at tho Alhambra Theatre, London. " Since our first meeting," Mr. Arrow says, "he had probably baen as energetic as a thief as I had been as a police officer. To do him justice, when ho saw that he was found out again, ho greeted rne as an old friend. When he was placed in his cell for the night J gave him a handful of tobacco from my pouch, and, as ho took off his boots and rolled himself up in his nig On his plank bed, he said: 'Well, guv'nor, wo have ill got to live. If I hadn't been a thief I might have been a policeman.' He did not add £ and vice versa,' but I think it was in his mind as he stuffed the handful of tobacco in his mouth and composed lumiielf to sleep."

A series of about twenty robberieu in eighteen" months was once effected in or adjoining Regent Street, London, The method of the burglars was daringly simple. Mr. Arrow discovered a small gimlet hole in a door, neatly filled with putty. Through this a small strir.jc had been passed and fixed to the latch. When the shop was closed the burglars pulled the cord, opened the door, and walked boldly into title shop. A man outside appeared with ft van and the goodn were taken away, openly. The burglars' lookout man wsb a cripple disguised as a matchseller. Money that Nobody Wanted. Mr. Arrow tells an amusing story of a gang of crooks who forged a cheque for £9OO in Manchester and sent thu head porter of an hotel to the bank to cash it. One of the party, a clever woman " crook," had bought a smart hat. She gave the porter tne account from the milliner's with precise instructions to go to the bank, get the money, then go to the milliner's, pay the bill, and bring the balance and the hat to her at the railway station, where she was catching a certain train. Following the porter to see if any complication occurred, a member of the gang saw him enter the milliner's, but did not see him come out for sorno time. He became alarmed, concluded that the forgery had been discovered, and rushed off to the railway station, where he warned the woman, and they fled. What had happened ? The woman had arranged for certain alterations to be made to the hat—which caused the delay. Presently the porter strolled up to the railway station, bag in one hand and hat in the other. He could not find the woman. Never was an hotel porter in such a fix, running to and fro with £9OO that nobody wanted. The Concertina Clue, A great stir was caused some years aRo when about twenty articles, including the watch and seal of Lord Nelson, were stolen from Greenwich Hospital, A reward was offered for the recovery of these relics, but, despite the efforts of the police, three years passd before a clue was obtained. Then camo a mysterious letter from Australia written by a person who claimed to have bought Nelson s ivatch and seal from the thief, and asking for particulars of the reward. Some months later the man presentfct* himself at Scotland Yard. Withoat his knowledge Mr. Arrow obtained the man's fingerprints and identified him as an old crook. He traced the adventurer's ' a g& 3 ge a nd, in one bag deposited separately at a small railway station, found only some old clothes and a concertina. When he got home his wife asked him why he did nGt look in the concertina. Early next morning he did bo, and inside the instrument he found Nelson's watch and seal. The prisoner received a, sentence of seven years' imprisonment. An extraordinary impostor brought to book by Mr. Arrow was a bogus clergyman who went under various namen. Ho opened missions at various place;} and collected large sums of money, 'absconding in each case before he was finally arrested in Dublin. He was sentenced to five years' penal servitude.