In measuring the means and the comparative advantages of the opponents, of hunted and hunters, it is generally believed that the police have much the best of it. The machinery, the organisation of modern life, favours the pursuers. The world's "shrinkage," the facilities for travel, the narrowing of neutral ground, of secure sanctuary for the fugitive, the universal, almost immediate, publicity that waits on startling crimes--all these are against the criminal. Electricity is his worst and bitterest foe, and next to it rank the post and the Press. Flight is checked by the wire, the first mail carries full particulars everywhere, both to the general public and to a ubiquitous international police, brimful of _camaraderie_ and willing to help each other. It is not easy to disappear nowadays, although I have heard the contrary stoutly maintained. A well-known police officer once assured me that he could easily and effectually efface himself, given certain conditions, such as the possession of sufficient funds (not of a tainted origin that might draw down suspicion), or the knowledge of some honest wage-earning handicraft, or fluency in some foreign language, and, above all, a face and features not easily recognisable. Given any of these conditions, he declared he could hide himself completely in the East-End, or the Western Hebrides, or South America, or provincial France, or some Spanish mountain town. In proof of this he declared that he had lived for many months in an obscure French village, and, being well acquainted with French, passed quite unknown, while watching for someone; and he strengthened his argument by quoting the case of the perpetrator of a recent robbery of pearls, who baffled pursuit for months, and gave herself up voluntarily in the end.