rely escape the unpractised eye. He rejects nothing
as unimportant until he has tested it, and is able to conduct his search
in a systematic manner, which in the majority of cases is crowned with
success.

A few years ago a man came into one of the police stations of the city,
and complained that his house had been robbed. He had pursued the thief
without success, but the latter had dropped a chisel, and had torn up and
thrown away a piece of paper in his flight. The captain commanding the
station and an experienced Detective were present when the complaint was
made. They carefully examined the owner of the house as to the mode by
which the entrance had been effected, the marks left by the tools, the
kind of property taken, and the action and bearing of the thief while
running away. When these facts were laid before them, the two officers,
without a moment's hesitation, concluded that the robbery had been
committed by a certain gang of thieves well known to them. This settled,
it became necessary to identify the individual or individuals belonging
to this gang, by whom the robbery had been committed. The chisel was
examined, but it could give no clue. The house-owner had fortunately
secured the bits of paper which the thief had thrown away. The officers
spread a layer of mucilage over a sheet of paper, and on this fitted the
scraps which were given them. This at once disclosed the name of the
robber, who was well known to the police as a member of the gang to whom
the officers attributed the robbery. Their suspicions were at once
confirmed, and the next step was to make the arrest. The Detective said
that the thief would certainly be at one of three places, which he named.
Three policemen were accordingly sent after him, one to each of the
places named, and in an hour or two the culprit was safely lodged in the
station-house.

It would require a volume to relate the incidents connected with the
exploits of the Detective Corps of New York. Sometimes the search for a
criminal is swift and short, and the guilty parties are utterly
confounded by the suddenness of their detection and apprehension.
Sometimes the search is long and toilsome, involving the greatest
personal danger, and abounding in romance and adventure. Some of the
best established incidents of this kind would be regarded simply as
Munchausen stories, were they related without the authority upon which
they rest. Such adventures are well known t