when this same exquisite walked the
cell of a prison--a convict guilty of a crime.

Through all the various grades of society the detective has wended
his way, and he has looked into men's hearts when infamy stared them
in the face and dishonor impended over them.

His experience has rendered him almost incapable of surprise, or
mobility of feeling. He is ever watchful for the deceptiveness of
appearances, ever prepared to admit everything, to explain
everything, and to believe nothing--but what he sees.

The judicial officer, with the nicety and legal acumen of a thorough
jurist, applies the technicalities of the law to the testimony
submitted to him, but the detective observes with caution, and
watches with suspicion all the odious combinations and circumstances
which the law with all the power at its command cannot successfully
reach.

He is made the unwilling, but necessary recipient of disgraceful
details; of domestic crimes, and even of tolerated vices with which
the law cannot deal.

If, when he entered upon his office, his mind teemed with illusions
in regard to humanity, the experience of a year has dissipated them
to the winds.

If he does not eventually become skeptical of the whole human race,
it is because his experience has shown him that honor and vice may
walk side by side without contamination; that virtue and crime may be
closely connected, and yet no stain be left upon the white robe of
purity, and that while upon the one hand he sees abominations
indulged in with impunity, upon the other, he witnesses a sublime
generosity which cannot be weakened or crushed. The modest violet may
exhale its fragrance through an overgrowth of noxious weeds--and
humanity bears out the simile.

He sees with contempt the proud bearing of the impudent scoundrels
who are unjustly receiving public respect, but he sees also with
pleasure many heroes in the modest and obscure walks of life, who
deserve the rich rewards which they never receive.

He has so often pierced beneath the shining mask of virtue and
discovered the distorted visage of vice, that he has almost reached a
state of general doubtfulness until results shall demonstrate the
correctness of his theories. He believes in nothing until it is
proven--not in absolute evil more than in absolute good, and the
results of his teachings have brought him to the conclusion that not
men but events alone are worthy of consideration.

A knowledge of human nature