It is only fair to the police of New York to credit them with considerable success in dealing with crime. Whatever suspicion may have rested on their good faith where offenders have been able to purchase their connivance, there is no doubt that a large number of crimes have always been detected and avenged in New York. They have to deal with cosmopolitan rogues drawn to the happy hunting ground of the New World, and with a large mass of indigenous crime of the most serious kind. The unlawful taking of life is very prevalent in the United States, where the percentage of murders is larger than anywhere in the world, but these crimes do not go largely unpunished. Again, the American "crook," the bank robber, the burglar, the counterfeit-money maker, and the wholesale forger are to be met with in large numbers across the Atlantic, and the warfare against them is unceasing. It is true that the detective forces of the country are very much in private hands: agencies like Pinkerton's have a fine record; the triumphs achieved by the breaking up of some of the Secret Societies in the south, such as the Molly McGuire and the Kluklux clans, are feats deserving the warmest recognition. At the same time, the detective bureau, composed of officers of Mulberry Street, has done excellent service, and Inspector Byrnes, its chief, has earned a high reputation in thief-taking. The Detective Bureau of New York "has attained national importance," says a writer who knows it and its services well. He instances especially the protection given to the great business centre of Wall Street at the time when the "down town" district was specially favoured of thieves and depredators. Robbery from the person, burglarious entrance to banking and other premises, the abstraction of money, bonds, and valuable papers used to be of constant occurrence. More recently the presence of a "crook" below a line drawn, say, through Fulton Street was _primâ facie_ evidence against him, and he was then and there arrested, and called upon to give account of himself. Unless he could show good cause for venturing within the peculiar precincts of finance and commerce he was relegated to gaol. The detectives are always "on the spot," ever keen and active in coping with the evil-doer. A dozen are always on duty at the Stock Exchange, where it is boasted that not a ten cent stamp has been stolen by a professional thief for years.