detective police would very soon become established in what has been foolishly called ‘the safest city in the world.’ In England, we have a curious but very erroneous idea that if a policeman wears a suit of plain clothes instead of his regular uniform, he is fully able to find out all about any crime that has ever been committed. A greater mistake was never made. Not only to the ‘dangerous classes,’ but to almost every Londoner who is anything of an observer regarding his fellow-men, ‘plain-clothes’ officers, as our detectives are called, are actually as well known as if they wore the helmet, blue tunic, and black leather waist-belt of the regular policeman. It is quite otherwise in France. A French detective, as we have remarked before, has nothing whatever to do with serving summonses or warrants. He never arrests a criminal, but he points out to the regular police where criminals are to be found. It is only on very rare occasions that he even appears as witness against a prisoner; and when he does so, he assumes for the future a dress and general appearance quite unlike what he has hitherto borne. A French detective who cannot disguise himself in such a manner that his oldest friend would not be able to recognise him, is not deemed worth his salary. He takes the greatest professional pride in this art. In a word, the French detectives are the spies sent by the army of law and order to find out all about the enemy that is constantly waging war against life and property. In England, we have no similar set of men, and what are the consequences? Why, that unless a murderer, burglar, or other offender is either taken red-handed, or leaves behind him some very plain marks as to who he is or where he is to be found, crime with us is, as a rule, undetected. Sooner or later, notwithstanding our national prejudices against all that is secret and underhand, we must adopt a system for the detection of crime on the plan that is found to work so well in France; and the sooner we do so the better, unless we want to make England in general, and London in particular, more than even it is now the happy hunting-ground of all the scoundrels in Europe. All Frenchmen who have visited our country say that our _ordinary_ police is the very best in the world; that the manner in which they preserve order in the streets is above praise; and they are right. Nor can a word be said against the character, the integrity, or the intentions also of our detectives. But the system on which they are trained is essentially bad. They are the wrong men in the wrong place—the square pegs in the round holes. BY MEAD AND STREAM. CHAPTER XXX.—CURIOUS. ‘I am going to the village, Ada, to see Mr Beecham, but I shall not be long,’ said Wrentham to his wife.