at value of the
"agency" to the victim of a theft is the speed with which it can
disseminate its information--something quite impossible so far as the
individual citizen is concerned. Let me give an illustration or two.

Between 10.30 P.M. Saturday, February 25, 1911, and 9.30 A.M. Sunday,
February 26, 1911, one hundred and thirty thousand dollars worth of
pearls belonging to Mrs. Maldwin Drummond were stolen from a stateroom
on the steamship 'Amerika' of the Hamburg-American line. The London
underwriters cabled five thousand dollars reward and retained to
investigate the case a well-known American agency, which before
the 'Amerika' had reached Plymouth on her return trip had their
notifications in the hands of all the jewelers and police officials of
Europe and the United States, and had covered every avenue of disposal
in North and South America. In addition, this agency investigated every
human being on the Amerika from first cabin to forecastle.

Within a year or so an aged stock-broker, named Bancroft, was robbed
on the street of one hundred thousand dollars in securities. Inside of
fifty-five minutes after he had reported his loss a detective agency had
notified all banks, brokers, and the police in fifty-six cities of the
United States and Canada.

In the story books your detective scans with eagle eye the surface of
the floor for microscopic evidences of crime. His mind leaps from a
cigar ash to a piece of banana peel and thence to what the family had
for dinner. His brain is working all the time. It is, of course, all
quite wonderful and most excellent reading, and the old-style sleuth
really thought he could do it! Nowadays, while the fake detective
is snooping around the back piazza with a telescope, the real one is
getting the "dope" from the village blacksmith or barber or the waitress
at the station. He may not be highly intelligent, but he knows the
country, and, what is more important, he knows the people. All the
brains in the world cannot make up for the lack of an elementary
knowledge of the place and the characters themselves. It stands to
reason that no strange detective could form as good an opinion as to
which of the members of your household would be most likely to steal a
piece of jewelry as you could yourself. Yet the old-fashioned Sherlock
knew and knows it all.

One of the best illustrations of the practical necessity of some
first-hand knowledge is that afforded by the recovery of a diam