It seems to me, as it must do to all who study the question, that this is the fundamental mistake we make, and that it is for this reason our detection of crime is so defective. We have no spies in the enemy’s camp. Our detective officers are merely policemen in shooting-jackets and billycock hats. The great criminal army knows who they are as well as if they wore their blue tunics. A French detective has nothing whatever to do with arresting criminals. He is not the sportsman who shoots the bird, but only the dog which points out where the game is to be found. The French agents of police, or detectives—many of whom have been over in England on business, and are well acquainted with our system—say that our regular police who keep order in the streets are the best guardians of peace and order in the world, but that our detective system is the worst and, practically, the most useless in Europe. Nor can any one acquainted with the subject say they are wrong. Even the most casual readers of the papers must be struck with two facts relating to crime in London. In the first place, the vigilance of the ordinary police is so great, that, as a rule, they lay hands upon a very great number of criminals, and cause a vast deal of crime to be punished. But, on the other hand, if a murderer, burglar, or other offender against society _does_ manage to get clean away, he is rarely if ever caught. The police—that is, of course, the detective police—invariably ‘get a clue’ to the affair; and there the matter seems to end. The detection of crime is evidently not an art that has been cultivated in England. The French detective is a man who would never be thought, by any one who did not know him personally, to be connected with the police. In fact, he generally does his best to hide his real occupation from even his most intimate friends. Like our Londoner who is ‘something in the City,’ he assumes the indefinite appellation of _un employé du gouvernement_; but in what office he is ‘employed,’ or what his ‘employment’ may be, he refrains from stating. He is generally a quiet, unpretending individual, who neither courts nor avoids notice. The facility with which he assumes all kinds of disguise, and the admirable manner in which he acts the part he assumes, must be seen in order to be realised. As a rule, he takes some time before bringing his inquiries to a close; but he is rarely at fault in the long-run, and generally manages to bring down the game he is hunting.