We are glad to bear testimony to the fact, however, that there is a great improvement in the detective force of this city, noticeable during its present administration. The men now engaged on the local detective force are as a class, those who have kept their eyes open, and have formed a wide acquaintance among criminals in the district, and are therefore able to obtain information from these crooks about the movements of those suspected of having been mixed up in certain criminal work. For when the reader reflects how easily criminals keep out of the reach of the police in St. Petersburg, Paris and Vienna, where every concierge, every porter, every storekeeper, every housekeeper, is required to report to the police at least once a week all the details of strangers with whom they may have come in contact, it should be no wonder that criminals can elude the police in New York and other American cities. Concerning the private detective agencies, it has been said by one of their number: "They are no better than the regular officers so far as skill is concerned. The only real difference is that there is a superior intelligence in the make-up--their disguise--of the agency people. They are first-rate at shadowing a man, but any man with ordinary good sense, who knows how to keep his mouth shut, will make a good shadow. If you will watch the private agency men carefully you will find that they associate largely with the high-toned criminal class. They are solid with one or two leaders and all the gamblers. All thieves of any prominence are gamblers, and as soon as they turn a big trick, they are sure to turn up here or in some other city and 'play the bank' a little. The agency men who are associating with the gamblers hear of this as soon as the crook strikes town, and a little inquiry set on foot will show where the crook came from. If, then, in the course of a few days, a complaint is lodged with the agency people from the town where the suspected party has been that a big confidence game has been played, or that a forged or raised check has been worked on some bank or other institution, it is not very hard to imagine that the thief who was recently so flush is the one who turned the trick."