nowledge, when lawlessness was at its height and murder
ran riot, these men wore little patches of white on the lapels of their
coats so that their fellow detectives of the two thousand would not
shoot them down by mistake."

He, of course, referred to the great strike at Homestead, Pennsylvania,
in 1892. In point of fact, there were only six private detectives
engaged on the side of the employers at that time, and these were there
to assist the local authorities in taking charge of six hundred and
fifty watchmen, and to help place the latter upon the property of the
steel company. These watchmen were under the direction of the sheriff
and sworn in as peace officers of the county. Mr. Beet seems to
have confused his history and mixed up the white handkerchief of the
Huguenots of Nantes with the strike-breakers of Pennsylvania. It is
needless to repeat (as Mr. Robert A. Pinkerton stated at the time),
that the white label story is ridiculously' untrue, and that it was the
strikers who attacked the watchmen, and not the watchmen the strikers.
One striker and one watchman were killed.

But this attack of Mr. Beet upon his own profession, under the guise
of being an English detective (it developed that he was an ex-divorce
detective from New York City), was not confined to his remarks about
inciting wanton murder. On the contrary, he alleged (as one having
authority and not merely as a scribe) that American detective agencies
were practically nothing but blackmailing concerns, which used the
information secured in a professional capacity to extort money from
their own clients.

"Think of the so-called detective," says Mr. Beet, "whose agency pays
him two dollars or two dollars and fifty cents a day, being engaged upon
confidential work and in the possession of secrets that he knows
are worth money! Is it any wonder that so many cases are sold out by
employees, even when the agencies are honest?"

We are constrained to answer that it is no more wonderful than that any
person earning the same sum should remain honest when he might so easily
turn thief. As the writer has himself pointed out in these pages, there
are hundreds of so-called detective agencies which are but traps for the
guileless citizen who calls upon them for aid. But there are many which
are as honestly conducted as any other variety of legitimate business. I
do not know Mr. Beet's personal experience, but it appears to have been
unfortunate. At any rate, h