LIFE IN “THE FORCE”

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12538, 30 August 1926, Page 3

LIFE IN “THE FORCE”

• ONE OF THE “BIG FIVE” ROGUES BROUGHT TO BOOK A POLICEMAN’S ADVENTURES | On his first Christmas night an dim in London, a young policeman heard 1 the faint click of a door being opened | at 4 a.in. 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, 4 ‘policeman, ” and beckoned. As he took a step toward her she 6aid: ‘‘lt’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 cake grasped in om hand he walked away, trying to droj into the official stride as thougt nothing were amiss. Half an houi later he reached the house again. Tin young woman was still there. "It*: all right,” she whispered, “the inspee tor had some, too.” Entering the London Police Force Mi Arrow’s first beat as a constable was in the neighbourhood of Great Peter street, where he 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 4 'called 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 the 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 the shadows. Her voice choked with sobs. Abruptly, without any greeting, she 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 several shops and changed counterfeit florins, for which they duly paid the 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 the same man for stealing a watch at the Alhambra Theatre, London. "Since our first meeting,” Mr Arrow says, "he had probably been as energetic as a thief as I had been as a police officer. To do him justice, when he saw that he was found out again, lie greeted me as an old friend. When he was placed in his cell for the night I gave him a handful of tobacco from my pouch, and, as he took off his boots and rolled himself up in his rug on his plank bed. he said: ‘Well, guv’nor, we have all got to live. Tf T hadn’t been a thief I might have been a policeman.’ He did not add ‘and vice versa,’ but T think it was in his mind as he stuffed the handful of tobacco in his month and composed himself to sleep.” A series of about twenty robberies in eighteen months was once effected in or adioining 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 string 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 the shop. A man outside appeared with a van and the goods were taken away, openly. The burglars’ lookout man was a cripple disguised as a matchseller. MONEY THAT NOBODY WANTED Mr Arrow tells an amusing story of a gang of crooks who forged * cheque for £9OO in Manchester and sent the 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 the account from the milliner’s with precise instructions to go to the bank, get tlie 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, hut did not see him come out for some 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 certain alteration 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 ago when about twenty articles, including the watch and seal of Lord Nelson, were stolen from Greenwich Hospital. A reward was offered for the reroverv of these Telics, but. despite the efforts of the police, three i years passed before a clue waa obtained. Then came a mysterious letter from Australia written by a person who claimed to have bought Nelson’s watch and seal from the thief, and asking for particulars of the reward. Some months later the man presented himself at -Scotland Yard. Without his knowledge Mr Arrow obtained the man's finger-prints and identified hint as an crook. Ho traced the adventurer's luggage nr# in one hag deposited senarately at a small railwav station, found only some old clothes and a concertina. When he got home his wife asked him whs he did not look in the concertina Earlv next morning he did so. and inside the instrument he found Nelson's watch and seal. Tlie prisoner received a sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.