l roads lead to London.
Your expert criminal, whatever his branch of rascality, sooner or later
tries his hand in the metropolis, and so there is a continual inward and
outward flow of persons the office must keep in touch with.

This is done by the co-operation of the provincial police, and by the
issue of the "Habitual Criminals Register," which gives detailed
particulars of persons entered in the files of a department. This is
sent to every police force in the kingdom.

There is another very useful publication which has brought about the
downfall of many an ambitious rascal. It is called the "Illustrated
Circular," and its subject is travelling criminals.

These form a clever, mobile fraternity who operate swindles and
robberies in one part after another, dodging in and out of various
police districts. They are as slippery as eels, and, without some means
of codifying information as to their movements and delinquencies, many
of them would defy justice with impunity.

The "Illustrated Circular" forms a link between the police jurisdictions
in this respect. It gives descriptions and particulars of the latest
known movements of itinerant criminals, and publishes photographs of
them, to enable police officers to recognise them wherever they may go.

Every movement made by a travelling criminal is recorded in the
"Circular." Men who have found themselves too closely watched by the
Bristol police may, for example, hope to find Cardiff less vigilant. But
the "Illustrated Circular" tells of their departure from Bristol, and
Cardiff is on the alert. There is little hope of escape from that
all-pervading vigilance.

The _Police Gazette_, too, is issued by this department twice a week,
not only to all the police forces of the kingdom, but to the Colonies
and the nearest European countries. This is the latest police move to
checkmate the operations of the more widely travelling rogues.

No less important are the "Special Release Notices" or, as it is now
called, the _Weekly List of Habitual Criminals_. Since 1896 prison
officials have furnished to Scotland Yard, every week, a list of
prisoners about to be released who are habitual criminals. This list,
which gives a detailed description of each man, and his index number in
the records, is sent to every police force in the country. It is so made
easy to draw a conclusion should an outbreak of burglaries commence in a
district wherein a burglar has lately been released.