that makes Scotland Yard able to carry out its myriad
duties, from testing motor omnibuses to plucking a murderer from his
hiding place at the ends of the earth, from guarding the persons of
Emperors and Kings to preventing a Whitechapel bully from knocking his
wife about. The work must go on smoothly, silently, every department
harmonising, every man working in one common effort.

The administrative and financial sides of the police are divided, the
former being under the Commissioner, the latter under the Receiver, Mr.
G. H. Tripp. The maintenance of the Metropolitan Police is naturally
expensive, the average cost of each constable annually being L102. The
gross expenditure during 1913-14 was L2,830,796; of this, L886,307 was
received from the Exchequer, L244,383 was from sums paid for the
services of constables lent to other districts, L1,512,072 from London
ratepayers, and the remainder from various sources.

CHAPTER II.

MATTERS OF ORGANISATION.

The great deterrent against crime is not vindictive punishment; the more
certain you make detection, the less severe your punishment may be. The
brilliant sleuth-hound work of which we read so often is a less
important factor in police work than organisation. Organisation it is
which holds the peace of London. It is organisation that plucks the
murderer from his fancied security at the ends of the earth, that
prevents the drunkard from making himself a nuisance to the public, that
prevents the defective motor-bus from becoming a danger or an annoyance
to the community.

Inside the building of red brick and grey stone that faces the river,
and a stone's throw from the Houses of Parliament, there are men who sit
planning, planning, planning. The problems of the peace of London change
from day to day, from hour to hour, almost from minute to minute. Every
emergency must be met, instantly, as it arises--often by diplomacy,
sometimes by force. A hundred men must be thrown here, a thousand there,
and trained detectives picked for special work. With swift, smooth
precision, the well-oiled machinery works, and we, who only see the
results, never guess at the disaster that might have befallen if a
sudden strain had thrown things out of gear.

In the tangle of departments and sub-departments, bewildering to the
casual observer, there is an elastic order which welds the whole
together. Not a man but knows his work. The top-notch of efficiency is
good enough for Scotla