e pure silliness.

Take the case of the police station with which I am dealing, situated
where it might be supposed there were ample chances of such a thing.
Such a suspicion involves a gigantic conspiracy among more than 300
men. And by the Metropolitan Police system every man promoted is
transferred to another division, so that the rank and file would have to
induce a continually changing series of strangers to connive at their
malpractices. It is on the face of it absurd.

I recall a little story which shows how keen an eye the public has for
the probity of the police. A famous detective had occasion to question a
veteran constable, and took him into a tea-shop to do so. At the close
of the conversation he handed the officer a half-crown. A day or two
later a highly respectable country vicar wrote to Scotland Yard. He had
been having a cup of tea at a certain tea-shop. There he had seen a
constable, Mr. So-and-So, in talk with a suspicious character, and had
seen money pass. Of course, there was an investigation, and it was a
long time before the "suspicious character"--who is one of the
best-dressed men at Scotland Yard--heard the last of it.

Let us see the method of "taking a charge." Prisoners, as they are
brought in, are placed in one of a couple of large rooms, with a low
partition, near the corridor, over which it is impossible for anyone to
see them. There they are kept for a while until the inspector is ready
to take the charge. Presently they are ushered into the charge-room, a
big apartment with a tall desk in the centre, and a substantial steel
structure a few paces away--the dock. But the dock is not used nowadays
except when a person is violent.

The first charge is that of begging, the accused being a boy who looks
17, but says he is 13. The policeman who arrested him stands by his
side, and a reserve man stands at attention a little distance away. The
boy is quite at ease. There is little of the terror of the law here. He
admits that he was begging, his father is on strike, and he hadn't done
well at selling papers.

"Don't be frightened, my lad," says the inspector kindly. "What's your
name? Where do you live?"

The boy hesitates, but at last gives an address.

"He gave me a different address, Sir," says the constable, and the boy
hurriedly protests that he has told the truth now.

"H'm," comments the inspector calmly. "Look here, sonny, you don't want
to stay here all night. You'll have to,