Try to select some of these men for a physical feat, say of speed and endurance, like running or rowing, and see how few would be fit for the work. Pair them off, give them gloves, and set them to boxing, and there would scarce be one hundred good sparrers out of the whole brigade. Once, right in front of Trinity church-yard, on Broadway, we saw two of the Broadway squad put up their hands for a little good-natured sparring, and the way they did it would hardly have been creditable to a ten-year-old. To see two great, hulking six-footers, ignorant of the first rudiments of good sparring, actually whirling their fists round and round each other as if winding yarn, and with no sort of idea how to use even one hand, let alone two, was positively ridiculous. A hundred-pound thief, handy with his fists and quick of foot, could have slapped their faces, and, if they could run no better than they sparred, could have been at the Battery before either of them was half-way. And what good would their weapons have been? Their revolvers they would hardly dare to use in a crowded street at broad noon, nor would they have been justified in so doing. And their clubs--of what use would they be if the culprit was a block away? The writer once saw a fellow, apparently a sneak-thief, cutting across the City Hall Park, in front of the _Tribune_ building, at a clipping pace, while some distance behind came one of those majestic but logy guardians of the peace, making about one foot to the other's two, and, finally, seeing how hopeless was the pursuit, bringing his club around and throwing it after the escaping thief--and with what result? Excellent for the thief, for, instead of coming anywhere near him, it passed dangerously close to the abdomen of a worthy but obese citizen, who chanced to be passing that way. At a public exhibition, held early in 1878, under the auspices of these very Metropolitan Police, at the Hippodrome, in New York, where doubtless the very best boxers on the whole force were on the boards, and with ten thousand spectators to spur them on to their utmost, the thoroughly skilful and accomplished workmen could be counted almost on the thumbs; while, in the tug of war, the string of policemen were overhauled and pulled completely down by the Scottish Americans, who weighed half a hundred weight less per man than their uniformed antagonists; though it is but just to add that, later on, the latter did manage to win, yet what was that to brag of?