The numerical strength of the detective force has been considerably augmented since its reorganization in 1878 (in 1895 it consisted of 472 officers), and its rôle increasingly tends to grow in importance. In 1880 the newly established Convict Supervision Office was brought into close association with the Criminal Investigation Department, and the constant vigilance that has to be maintained over foreign anarchists domiciled in England, as well as the necessity for frequent correspondence with the American and Continental police, preliminary to the extraditing of fugitive offenders, causes the department to wear the aspect of an international bureau for the unravelment of crime. The detective branch of the City of London police, on the other hand, makes a speciality of the investigation of commercial frauds, a vast field of possible enterprise, not the less extensive for the fact that the area policed by the City force is but a single square mile. It would have been worse than useless to have increased the detective staff unless at the same time care had been taken to safeguard the public from the risk of a repetition of abuses similar to those revealed in the course of the de Goncourt case, and this made the problem of reform a difficult one. It is impossible to devise a method of selection by means of which every black sheep who may seek admission is infallibly recognised and excluded, nor is it easy adequately to supervise confidential agents without interfering with their work; but it may safely be said that since the reorganization of the department, a high standard of honesty has been found to be not incompatible with professional zeal and proficiency. No policeman who is thorough in his work can please all parties, and some thirteen or fourteen years ago a series of ill-natured attacks were directed against both branches of the Metropolitan Police. Constables and detectives were accused of exceeding their authority and of levying black-mail, but the allegations, which were somewhat recklessly supported by prominent illwishers and busybodies, could not be substantiated when the charges came to be investigated by the proper authority.[255]