ABOUT DETECTIVES—"HONOUR AMONG THIEVES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 733, 28 September 1870, Page 3

ABOUT DETECTIVES— "HONOUR AMONG THIEVES.

«. (From Chambers' Journal.) The members of the police force— more especially of that branch known as detectives — who manage to flare enough to take " a public," are by no means few, and among them resides, in my own neighbourhood, one to whom I am indebted for the materials for this paper. Sergeant Straightforward, the individual in question, is an intelligent man, and hia cunning is not exceeded by that of the acutest rascal that ever polluted the earth. He is up to every trick and dodge that ever sharper knew or dicer played — h» has, " professionally," as he says, been compelled " to be fly to every move." Yet though as knowing as the astutest sharper, he is as unstained in morals as though he had never heard the name of craft — and perhaps more so. Some who have read the highly-spiced " reminiscences of detectives," may take it for granted that a halo of romance o'erhangs the life of a professional taker of thieves and mnrderers. But in actual experience it is not so. Contrariwise, the life of such a man is rather prosaic than otherwise ; nor, in nature, does the detective go about in those wonderful disguises the books we have referred to so enlarge upon. The veteran Straightforward assures me that he has never adopted what could be legitimately called a " disguise " on any occasion. " Why," said he, " I should not have got half-way down the street, or past a soul I knew, before one of the covei would h&va twigged m«. ' Hollo!' he would have thought, ' what's the sergeant got them togs on for?' And then it would have been all up with my little game, for the ' office ' would at once have been given, and my bird flown. Not I; I never used any disguise. I went out just as I was — plain clothes, of course. When I wanted my man, I always knew where to put my hand on him. In fact, I had only to go to his house of call at a certain time, beckon him out, and he would almost always come with me as quiet aa a lamb." I interrogated the sergeant upon the matter of burglary, and he instanced the follow-

ing as a" representative" case — "A message arrives at the police-office from Mr Greene Jones, saying his premises hare been broken into, and certain moneys or properties stolen The chief sends myself and another detective to the place. After a few moments' surrey, we glance at each other in a peculiar way, whereupon the proprietor of the stolen property looks uneasy and perturbed. ' Well, officers, what do you make of it ? The marks are plain enough, are they not ?' My mate, Driver, whistles, and swings from one hand to the other, the polished holly stick he always carries with him. I kneel down— Driver having made his inspection first -and 1 examine some marks on the window-sill ' That,' volunteered Mr Jones, ' was evidently done with the chisel found in the garden.' I thought it was rather too strong that he should talk like that to us, who knew what was what, but I determined to be even with htm by-and-by. So I went on asking a lot of tom-fool questions. After a bit, he Baid, ' "Well, what'll you take to drink ?' My mate said that he thought a toothful of rum wouldn't poison him, while I gave a name to brandy hot. He asked us into a little room behind the shop. His wife was there, nursing an infant, and she looked, poor thing, awful down in the mouth. The husband hadn't been long in business, and we knew that business had been queer with him for some time. He had to send out for the stuff, and while he was away giving directions to the girl my mate was led to pump the missis; but I stopped him, for I saw how the land lay. She began, however— uneasily, I could see — to talk of it herself, saying it was strange they had heard no noise, that the servant always slept at her mother's, and so on. When her husband returned, followed soon after by the girl, he had in hot water, and mixed the grogs — stiff ones they were too, though it was only about noon. By the time we had all three finished our second tumblers, our man got maudlin, first snivelled over his losses, and then talked big, all in a breath, as the Baying is. This was more than I could stomach, theugh I had had his grog ; so, when my mate and I went out, Driver being in front — ' I suppose,' said Jones to me, ' you have an idea who did this ?' ' I can give a shrewdish guess,' said I. ' Ay ! I have heard you detectives are clever chaps, and know a man's work, as you call it, by the way he goes about the job. Now, who do you suppose did this ?' ' You !' said I, looking him full in the face. You should have seen his countenance change, sir — first as white as that pipe, then red as that bar-curtain; and all of a minute. I never saw such a thing. Had I wanted proof of the truth of what I had said, 'twas written there in red and white. ' What !' he blurted out, trying to gulp dpwn a something that seemed to stick in his throat, 'me ? How dare you say such a thing?' 'I dare say anything that I know is true. You asked ma a plain question, and I gave, you a plain answer.' Calming down a bit, when he saw I was not cowed or taken aback at all, he says—' Do you think I should be such a born fool as to rob myself?' 'That's another plain question; so, if you want another plain answer, here it is. Not yourself exactly, but your creditors. That's about the breadth of it.' Then he began to bluster again, in the midst of which I left him, and walked after Driver, who said — ' What were you a-jawing with the cove about ? 'Twas his own crack.' ' Right you are,' said I; 'and what's more, I told him so."' " You see, sir, said the detective in explanation, " the marks on the window sill were all made from the inside." The sergeant was so good as to impart to me, in his most airy manner, how the police sometimes get their information. A burglary has been successfully accomplished. Detective Stimpkins wants information. Down h« goes to a certain locality, passing easily and unconcernedly along, "whistling as he goes for want of thought," one might almost imagine, if we did not know him better. He has not proceeded far before he sees a slouching shambling hulk of a fellow standing listlessly in a doorway, sucking a repulsive looking pipe. " Want any one ?" he smirks. "Oh !" says Stimpkins, "is that you, Stepping Sam; haven't seen you awhile." "No; I've been in the country, hop-picking. — Want anyone ?" " Hop-picking— ay ; they didn't make you sign the pledge, did they ?" says Stimpkins, glancing meaningly over his shoulder at the faded sign of the Setting Sun. " Not the leastest bit," retorts Stepping Sam with a hideous leer. " Come across, then." As they enter the bar of the Seeting I Sun, Mrs Lockerby, the landlady, graciously smirks at Stimpkins, and begs to inquire what he'll take this morning. " What's it to be, Bam ?" said Stimpkins. " Some of yer best cream's my pison," is the hoarse rejoinder of Stepping Sam, who little knows the truth of the latter part of his reply. "Poison yourseif with whatever you like," answers Stimpkins; "it'll save Calcraft a job. I shall do a 8.8. It's early times for me." " Very well, sir," says Mrs Lockerby, and Stimpkins and his companion dive into an inner room, where there ensues a little general conversation, during which Sam repeatedly endeavours to edge in his oftrecurrent question—" But do you want any one ?" — always to be evaded by Stimpkins, whose invariable reply to a question is to imitate the Quaker in the story, and ask another. After much verbal sparring of this kind, Stimpkins remarks casually, and as though it were a matter of the supremest indifference to him — "There was a crib cracked up the hill last night." " So I heard, Scuppy Joe the scholar was a reading of it in the paper. It said the perleece were on the track." "Ah I" says Stimpkins, with unconcern. A pause, and then Stimpkins, looking at Sam, whose shifty eyes rest anywhere except on the detective's counttnance, Bays — " Do you know anything, Sam ?" "Not a dous," cries Sam, with a sigh, as though he heartily wished he did. " Because — but that's nothing, of course, if you know nothing." " I might get to know," retorts i Sam uneasily, toying affectionately with the

glass-crusher; "what would it be worth?" "Aflim, Sam." Whereas, with upturned nose, Sam criea out — "I don't knownothink, nor can't get to know nothink." He then looks doggedly over the detective's head at a daub on the opposite wall, and folds his arms tightly over his chest, as though to intimate to his vis-a-vis that he is determined to keep all he does know securely locked up in the safe repository of his faithful breast. " Two, then," said the detective sharply, after a moment's thought ; " that or nothing." "Square," says Sam. The bargain being thus formally concluded, due information is given by Sam, who is paid from funds provided by the person whose house has been robbed. The thieves are apprehended, perhaps before they have had time to dispose of the spoil, or while actually preparing to do so, and no one knows who peached. The constable merely says, " From information I received." If Sam has been actually engaged, no evidence is offered against him; or, if his testimony is indispensable, he turns queen's evidence. And thus has a mother been known to sell her son, a brother hia brother, a wife her husband. This is the romance of crime — this the vaunted " honour among thieves."