It is popularly believed that the least efficient department of English police is that which is concerned with the detection of crime, and our detective service is often compared with corresponding agencies abroad in order to point the moral that we should do well to imitate the methods of our neighbours. It is certainly true that our detectives are proportionally less numerous than their continental confrères, true also, that extraordinary facilities for successful police action such as are granted in foreign countries are here denied; but the familiar accusation that we maintain a clumsy gang of amateurs who are deficient in the finesse necessary to cope with the skilful forger or the accomplished cracksman, is either spitefully or ignorantly advanced. The self-constituted censors who are so ready to lament the alleged incompetence of our detectives would be the foremost to complain should a measure of State protection, equal to that enjoyed by foreign police functionaries, be conferred on any such agent at home. The traditional love of liberty which, in this country, has always opposed espionage with so much resolution, is altogether admirable; but like everything else that is precious, it has to be purchased at a price, and in this case the price is the dangerous latitude conceded to "the powers that prey." Before attempting to estimate the efficiency of the detective service, two considerations in particular ought to be weighed. One is that any institution which perforce must shun recognition and advertisement is little likely to be appraised at its true worth by the public. The other is that whilst the wealth of London attracts the best criminal talent of both hemispheres, its expanse renders the detection and pursuit of crime more than ordinarily difficult. In spite of this, and in spite also of the limitations imposed by national sentiment, the success achieved by the sleuth-hounds of the English police need not fear comparison, if fairly made, with that attained by any who are engaged in the same work elsewhere: it may be that tenacity of purpose and honesty of motive go a long way to compensate for any genius for artifice or power of disguise that the English detective lacks.