Take the case of the police station with which I am dealing, situated where it might be supposed there were ample chances of such a thing. Such a suspicion involves a gigantic conspiracy among more than 300 men. And by the Metropolitan Police system every man promoted is transferred to another division, so that the rank and file would have to induce a continually changing series of strangers to connive at their malpractices. It is on the face of it absurd. I recall a little story which shows how keen an eye the public has for the probity of the police. A famous detective had occasion to question a veteran constable, and took him into a tea-shop to do so. At the close of the conversation he handed the officer a half-crown. A day or two later a highly respectable country vicar wrote to Scotland Yard. He had been having a cup of tea at a certain tea-shop. There he had seen a constable, Mr. So-and-So, in talk with a suspicious character, and had seen money pass. Of course, there was an investigation, and it was a long time before the "suspicious character"--who is one of the best-dressed men at Scotland Yard--heard the last of it. Let us see the method of "taking a charge." Prisoners, as they are brought in, are placed in one of a couple of large rooms, with a low partition, near the corridor, over which it is impossible for anyone to see them. There they are kept for a while until the inspector is ready to take the charge. Presently they are ushered into the charge-room, a big apartment with a tall desk in the centre, and a substantial steel structure a few paces away--the dock. But the dock is not used nowadays except when a person is violent. The first charge is that of begging, the accused being a boy who looks 17, but says he is 13. The policeman who arrested him stands by his side, and a reserve man stands at attention a little distance away. The boy is quite at ease. There is little of the terror of the law here. He admits that he was begging, his father is on strike, and he hadn't done well at selling papers. "Don't be frightened, my lad," says the inspector kindly. "What's your name? Where do you live?" The boy hesitates, but at last gives an address. "He gave me a different address, Sir," says the constable, and the boy hurriedly protests that he has told the truth now. "H'm," comments the inspector calmly. "Look here, sonny, you don't want to stay here all night. You'll have to, you know, if we can't find your father. Tell us the truth." The facts elicited, the boy is searched, the main contents of his pocket are a handful of coppers and a cigarette end. The inspector picks up the latter. "Do you know it's against the law for a boy of 13 to have cigarettes? All right. Put him in the detention-room until his father comes. You'll be charged with begging, my boy." In an hour the youth is free, his father having entered into recognisances for his due appearance at the police court.