As a fact it has been and is still used with some success for the purpose, but even at the present day, with the system and its immense ramifications in full working order, the “dangerous classes,” as they are termed, manage to exist in strong force. Photography lends its aid in the same direction. Twenty years ago the police established what are known as “routes,” and many an old gaol bird has been recognised by that means. When a prisoner has been arrested, and it is suspected from his familiarity with the prison rules and for other reasons that he is known to the police, notwithstanding his air of pastoral simplicity, he is photographed, and his “picture” is circulated. In a few days it is returned with an accumulation of information signally fatal to the prisoner’s assumed innocence, and largely in the public interest. Instead of a “moon” (a month) in the local gaol he finds himself before a jury as an old offender, and ultimately back again to a convict establishment. But photography is not always quite reliable, and it is not even imperative upon an untried prisoner to sit for his photograph, and only “chumps” (the inexperienced) consent; and, although after conviction a prisoner is duly “taken” and carefully registered, his personal appearance naturally changes. This change, as in the case of Peace, is sometimes assisted by art. As a rule, prison photographs are not excellent specimens of photographic art. The _pose_ is not perfect, nor the subject carefully focussed, and the result of the defect is not removed by a normal squint or a twist of the features at the critical moment. Officialdom felt this drawback, and to meet it to some extent a “black book” was devised. The “Habitual Criminal Register,” as this book is termed, is an imposing-looking tome. In six years and a half the names of nearly 180,000 persons were registered in its pages. In every case the criminal had been more than once convicted on indictment for serious crimes against the community. This formidable catalogue was compiled for the most part by men whose names are to be found in it and printed at “Her Majesty’s Prison, Brixton.” There is a curious irony in the fact that some of these gentlemen should be employed to perfect a scheme destined to react upon themselves and their fraternity. Yet with all these precautions a goodly proportion still evade the clutches of the law. By the free adoption of aliases, identifications through the _Hue and Cry_, and even by means of photographs, have often failed. Amusing exceptions, it is true, have occurred, one woman, who had provided herself with sixteen aliases, being convicted for the thirty-ninth time.