POLICE OFFICIALS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23274, 17 February 1939, Page 10

POLICE OFFICIALS

Two events of moment in the civic life of Auckland occur to-day. Mr. D. C. Fraser relinquishes the office of superintendent of police after a long and honourable career. In its course, while serving in various ranks, he became well-known in Auckland City and Province, and will carry with him into retirement a large volume of good wishes from those with whom he came in contact. Mr. Fraser's successor, who takes up his duties to-day, is also widely and most favourably known in Auckland. Superintendent James Cummings, while he did not actually begin his service in Auckland, was posted for duty early to this city, and here laid the foundations of that • successful career which, by a sequence of rapid promotions, has brought him back as officer in charge of the district. While in Auckland he was responsible for, or closely associated with, several of the most notable pieces of police investigation in the history of the country. The keynote of his work in these was not those brilliant strokes of deduction by which the detective of fiction solves a mystery, but patient, unremitting attention to detail—that genius which consists of an infinite capacity for taking pains. Having built up his case, he was also notable for presenting it with scrupulous fairness, a characteristic which drew compliments from the Bench on many occasions. All told, Superintendent Cummings established a reputation such that Auckland can feel the responsibility for law and order in the city to be in safe hands.