The department is responsible for the communications of Scotland Yard. The telegraphs and telephones are continually at work night and day. With a few exceptions, every station is linked by wire to headquarters. Tape machines record every outgoing and incoming message so that a message is clear and unmistakable. One operator at work at Scotland Yard can send a message simultaneously to every main station. There is a private telephone system by which stations can talk with stations and headquarters without delay, and without fear of secrets being "tapped," and the public system is also used. It is not so very long ago that the only wire communication was by an antiquated A.B.C. instrument which worked laboriously and slowly, and such a thing as a telephone was undreamed of. Then it was a matter of much formality and sometimes intolerable slowness for a provincial force to get in touch on a matter of urgency. Now it is merely a question of a trunk call. This naturally brings me to a consideration of Scotland Yard in a new and little-known light--as a newspaper office. For daily, weekly, and evening papers are issued from the big, red-brick building. Some of them are issued by the Criminal Record Office, some by the Executive Department. It will be convenient, however, to deal with them in a mass. They are papers sometimes much more interesting and informative than those to be procured on the bookstalls, but much gold could not buy one for a private person. Best known of all, perhaps, is the _Police Gazette_, a four-page sheet published on Tuesdays and Fridays, and issued broadcast over the kingdom. Its correspondents are police officials everywhere. It publishes photographs occasionally, usually official ones taken in profile and side-face. It deals with what the newspapers call "sensations" unsensationally, and its editor is free from that bugbear of most editors--the fear of a libel action. The Tuesday edition deals almost entirely with deserters from the Navy and Army, while Friday's issue is concerned with bigger fry--criminals and crime. It is an interesting paper with an extensive circulation, and is, perhaps, more carefully read by those into whose hands it falls than any other publication, however fascinating. The official title of what may be called the evening paper is _Printed Informations_. This is a sheet about foolscap size, and its publication is confined to the Metropolitan Police. It is printed four times a day, except on Sundays when it is issued twice, and distributed by brisk little motor cars among the various stations. Some idea of its contents may be gathered from the headings: "Wanted for Crime," "In Custody for Crime," "Property Stolen," "Property Lost or Stolen," "Persons or Bodies Found," "Persons Missing," "Animals Lost or Stolen."