Scarcely a Sunday passes without numerous arrests being made for violations of the excise law. These cases are tried before the Board of Excise Commissioners, who, if the offence be sufficiently gross, take away the license of the accused party, or punish him according to the terms of the law. Some queer pictures of humanity are exhibited at these trials. CHAPTER XVI. THE DETECTIVES. The Detective Corps of New York consists of twenty-five men, in change of Captain Young. They are men of experience, intelligence, and energy. They are well skilled in the art of ferreting out crimes, and generally succeed in the objects which engage their attention. They have a distinct organization from the Metropolitan Police, though they are subject to the orders of the Commissioners. It requires an unusual amount of intelligence to make a good detective. The man must be honest, determined, brave, and complete master over every feeling of his nature. He must also be capable of great endurance, of great fertility of resource, and possessed of no little ingenuity. He has to adopt all kinds of disguises, and is often subject to temptations which only an honest man can resist. Any act, savoring in the least of dishonesty, is punished by immediate expulsion from the force. BUSINESS OF THE FORCE. The men are always to be found at the police headquarters in Mulberry street, where they have a separate apartment, when not on duty. They are constantly engaged. Strangers coming to the city get drunk overnight in places of bad repute and are robbed. Next morning they come to ask the aid of the police in discovering their property. If their statement of the circumstances of the case is true, they can generally recover the lost articles through the aid of the detectives, if they can be recovered at all. The force is in constant telegraphic communication with other cities, and is always giving or receiving intelligence of criminal matters and movements, so that if a crime is committed in any city, the police force of the whole Union is on the alert for the apprehension of the criminal. The individuality of crime is remarkable. Each burglar has a distinct method of conducting his operations, and the experience of the detective enables him to recognize these marks or characteristics, in an instant. Thanks to this experience, which is the result of long and patient study, he is rarely at a loss to name the perpetrator of a crime, if that person is a "professional." Appearances which have no significance for the mere outsider are pregnant with meaning to him. He can determine with absolute certainty whether the mischief has been done by skilled or unskilled hands; whether it has been done hurriedly or leisurely; and can in a few minutes decide upon the course which ought to be pursued for the apprehension of the thief and the recovery of the property.