The Detective Corps of New York consists of twenty-five men, under the command of a Captain, or Chief. Though they really constitute a part of the Municipal Police Force, and are subject to the control of the Commissioners and higher officers of that body, the detectives have a practically distinct organization. The members of this corps are men of experience, intelligence, and energy. These qualities are indispensable to success in their profession. 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, incur great personal risks, and is often subjected to temptations which only an honest man can resist. It is said that the Detective’s familiarity with crime is in itself a great temptation, and often leads him from the path of right. However this may be, it is certain that a member of the New York force committing an act savoring of dishonesty is punished by immediate expulsion from his post.

The Detectives have a special department assigned them at the Police Head-quarters in Mulberry street. There they may be found when not on duty, and the Chief, when not in his office, is always represented by some member of the corps. They are kept quite busy. The strangers who visit the city throw an immense amount of work upon the Detectives. These people often get drunk over night, and frequent houses of bad repute, where they are robbed. They naturally invoke the aid of the police in seeking to recover their property. Frequently, by making a plain statement of their cases, they recover their money or valuables, through the assistance of the Detectives. Sometimes the stolen property cannot be regained at all. These people, as a rule, refuse to prosecute the thieves, and declare their determination to submit to the loss rather than endure the publicity which would attend a prosecution. Thus the Detectives are forced to compound felonies. The injured party refuses to prosecute, and the Detective knows that to make an arrest in the case would simply be to take trouble for nothing. Consequently, if the plunder is returned, the thief is allowed to escape without punishment.

None but those whose duty it is to search out and punish crime, can tell how much the administration of justice is embarrassed, how much the officers of the law are hampered, and how greatly their labors are increased by the refusal of respectable persons to prosecute criminals. These refusals are not confined to those who seek to avoid such an exposure as is mentioned above. Merchants and bankers who have been robbed by thieves, seem to care for nothing but the recovery of their money or property. They will even sacrifice a portion of this to regain the remainder. The Detective may fairly work up his case, and fasten the crime upon the perpetrator, but he is not sure of meeting with the cooperation upon the part of the injured person that he has a right to demand. The thief seeing that an arrest is inevitable, may offer to return a part or the whole of the property on condition of his being allowed to escape. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the proposal is accepted. The merchant recovers his property, and immediately exerts himself to secure the escape of the thief. He refuses to prosecute the wretch, or if the prosecution is carried on in spite of him, his evidence amounts to nothing. He has protected his own interests, and he cares nothing for society or justice. He throws his whole influence against both, and aids the thief, in going free, to commit the same crime in another quarter. The Detectives complain, and with justice, that it is of no use for them to arrest a burglar where the stolen property can be recovered. If persons who have been wronged in this way would refuse all proposals for a compromise, and would endeavor to secure the punishment of the offender, the criminal class would be wonderfully thinned out, and the Detectives would not, as now, be obliged to arrest the same person over and over again, only to see him go free every time.

In June, 1870, a gentleman, passing through Bleecker street, on his way home, at two o’clock in the morning, was knocked down and robbed of his watch and money. He was struck with such violence by the highwayman that his jaw was permanently injured. He was very eloquent in his complaints of the inefficiency of a police system which left one of the principal streets of the city so unguarded, and was loud in his demands for the punishment of his assailant, and the recovery of the property stolen from him. The best Detectives in the force were put in charge of the case, and the highwayman was tracked, discovered and arrested. The friends of the culprit at once returned the stolen property to its owner, and promised to reward him liberally if he would not press the prosecution of their comrade, who was one of the leading members of a notorious and dangerous gang of ruffians from whose depredations the city had been suffering for some time. The offer was accepted, and the gentleman flatly refused to prosecute, and when compelled by the authorities to state under oath, whether the prisoner was the man who had robbed him, became so doubtful and hesitating that his identification was worth nothing. This, too, in the face of his previous assertion that he could readily identify the criminal. In spite of his misconduct, however, there was evidence enough submitted to secure the conviction of the prisoner, who was sentenced to an imprisonment of ten years.

The Detectives are in constant telegraphic communication with other cities, and intelligence of crimes committed is being constantly received and transmitted. Criminals arrested for serious offences are photographed, and their pictures placed in the collection known as the “Rogues’ Gallery.” These likenesses are shown to strangers only under certain restrictions, but they aid the force not a little in their efforts to discover criminals. The amount of crime annually brought to light by the Detectives is startling, but it does not exhibit all the evil doings of the great city. “The Police Commissioners of New York,” says Mr. Edward Crapsey, “have never had the courage to inform the public of the number of burglaries and robberies annually committed in the metropolis; but enough is known in a general way for us to be certain that there are hundreds of these crimes committed of which the public is not told. The rule is to keep secret all such affairs when an arrest does not follow the offence, and hardly any police official will venture to claim that the arrest occurs in more than a moiety of the cases. There are hundreds of such crimes every year where the criminal is not detected, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property stolen of which the police never find a trace.”

The individuality of crime is remarkable. Each burglar has a distinct method of conducting his operations, and the experienced Detective can recognize these marks or characteristics as he would the features of the offender. Thanks to this experience, which comes only with long and patient study, he is rarely at a loss to name the perpetrator of a crime if that person be 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, and he can gather up and link together evidences which entirely escape the unpractised eye. He rejects nothing as unimportant until he has tested it, and is able to conduct his search in a systematic manner, which in the majority of cases is crowned with success.

A few years ago a man came into one of the police stations of the city, and complained that his house had been robbed. He had pursued the thief without success, but the latter had dropped a chisel, and had torn up and thrown away a piece of paper in his flight. The captain commanding the station and an experienced Detective were present when the complaint was made. They carefully examined the owner of the house as to the mode by which the entrance had been effected, the marks left by the tools, the kind of property taken, and the action and bearing of the thief while running away. When these facts were laid before them, the two officers, without a moment’s hesitation, concluded that the robbery had been committed by a certain gang of thieves well known to them. This settled, it became necessary to identify the individual or individuals belonging to this gang, by whom the robbery had been committed. The chisel was examined, but it could give no clue. The house-owner had fortunately secured the bits of paper which the thief had thrown away. The officers spread a layer of mucilage over a sheet of paper, and on this fitted the scraps which were given them. This at once disclosed the name of the robber, who was well known to the police as a member of the gang to whom the officers attributed the robbery. Their suspicions were at once confirmed, and the next step was to make the arrest. The Detective said that the thief would certainly be at one of three places, which he named. Three policemen were accordingly sent after him, one to each of the places named, and in an hour or two the culprit was safely lodged in the station-house.

It would require a volume to relate the incidents connected with the exploits of the Detective Corps of New York. Sometimes the search for a criminal is swift and short, and the guilty parties are utterly confounded by the suddenness of their detection and apprehension. Sometimes the search is long and toilsome, involving the greatest personal danger, and abounding in romance and adventure. Some of the best established incidents of this kind would be regarded simply as Munchausen stories, were they related without the authority upon which they rest. Such adventures are well known to the reading public, and I pass them by here.

But the Detectives are not always successful in their efforts. If they are ingenious and full of resource, the criminals they seek are equally so, and they find their best efforts foiled and brought to naught by the skill of this class in “covering up their tracks.” To my mind the most interesting cases are not those in which the Detective’s labors have been crowned with success, but those in which he has been baffled and perplexed at every step, and which to-day remain as deeply shrouded in mystery as at the time of their occurrence.

Inspector James Leonard, in the spring of 1869, related the following case to Mr. Edward Crapsey, in whose words it is presented here:

“One spring morning, during the first year of the war, a barrel of pitch was found to have disappeared from a Jersey City pier, and the porter in charge, when reporting the fact to his employers, took occasion to speak of the river-thieves in no very complimentary terms.

“On the same day, Ada Ricard, a woman of nomadic habits and dubious status, but of marvellous beauty, suddenly left her hotel in New York, without taking the trouble to announce her departure or state her destination. The clerks of the house only remarked that some women had queer ways.

“A few days after these simultaneous events, the same porter who had mourned the lost pitch, happening to look down from the end of his pier when the tide was out, saw a small and shapely human foot protruding above the waters of the North River. It was a singular circumstance, for the bodies of the drowned never float in such fashion; but the porter, not stopping to speculate upon it, procured the necessary assistance, and proceeded to land the body. It came up unusually heavy, and when at last brought to the surface, was found to be made fast by a rope around the waist to the missing barrel of pitch. There was a gag securely fastened in the mouth, and these two circumstances were positive evidence that murder had been done.

“When the body was landed upon the pier, it was found to be in a tolerable state of preservation, although there were conclusive signs that it had been in the water for some time. It was the body of a female, entirely nude, with the exception of an embroidered linen chemise and one lisle-thread stocking, two sizes larger than the foot, but exactly fitting the full-rounded limb. The face and contour of the form were, therefore, fully exposed to examination, and proved to be those of a woman who must have been very handsome. There was the cicatrice of an old wound on a lower limb, but otherwise there was no spot or blemish upon the body.

“In due time the body was buried; but the head was removed, and preserved in the office of the city physician, with the hope that it might be the means of establishing the identity of the dead, and leading to the detection of the murderer.

“The police on both sides of the river were intensely interested in the case; but they found themselves impotent before that head of a woman, who seemed to have never been seen upon earth in life. They could do nothing, therefore, but wait patiently for whatever developments time might bring.

“Chance finally led to the desired identification. A gentleman who had known her intimately for two years, happening to see the head, at once declared it to be that of Ada Ricard. The Detectives eagerly clutched at this thread, and were soon in possession of the coincidence in time of her disappearance and that of the barrel of pitch to which the body was lashed. They further found that, since that time, she had not been seen in the city, nor could any trace of her be discovered in other sections of the country, through correspondence with the police authorities of distant cities. They had thus a woman lost and a body found, and the case was considered to be in a most promising condition.

“The next step was to establish the identity by the testimony of those who had known the missing woman most intimately. The Detectives, therefore, instituted a search, which was finally successful, for Charles Ricard, her putative husband. He had not lived with her for some time, and had not even seen or heard of her for months; but his recollection was perfect, and he gave a very minute statement of her distinguishing marks. He remembered that she had persisted in wearing a pair of very heavy earrings, until their weight had slit one of her ears entirely, and the other nearly so, and that, as a consequence, both ears had been pierced a second time, and unusually high up. He regretted that her splendid array of teeth had been marred by the loss of one upon the left side of the mouth, and told how a wound had been received, whose cicatrice appeared upon one of her limbs, stating exactly its location. He dwelt with some pride upon the fact that she had been forced, by the unusual development, to wear stockings too large for her feet, and gave a general description of hair, cast of face, height, and weight that was valuable, because minute.

“When he gave this statement he was not aware of the death of his wife, or of the finding of her body, and without being informed of either fact he was taken to Jersey City, and suddenly confronted with the head. The instant he saw it he sank into a chair in horror.

“His statement having been compared with the head and the record of the body, the similitude was found to be exact, except as to the teeth. The head had one tooth missing on each side of the mouth, and this fact having been called to his attention, Ricard insisted that she had lost but one when he last saw her, but it was highly probable the other had been forced out in the struggle which robbed her of her life, and the physician, for the first time making a minute examination, found that the tooth upon the right side had been forced from its place, but was still adhering to the gum. He easily pushed it back to its proper position, and there was the head without a discrepancy between it and the description of Ada Ricard.

“The Detectives found other witnesses, and among them the hair-dresser who had acted in that capacity for Ada Ricard during many months, who, in common with all the others, fully confirmed the evidence of Charles Ricard. The identity of the murdered woman was therefore established beyond question.

“Naturally the next step was to solve the mystery of her death. The Detectives went to work with unusual caution, but persisted in the task they had assigned themselves, and were slowly gathering the shreds of her life, to weave from them a thread that would lead to the author of her tragical death, when they were suddenly ‘floored,’ to use their own energetic expression. Ada Ricard herself appeared at a down-town New York hotel, in perfect health and unscathed in person.

“The explanation was simple. The whim had suddenly seized her to go to New Orleans; and she had gone without leave-taking or warning. It was no unusual incident in her wandering life, and her speedy return was due only to the fact that she found the Southern city only a military camp under the iron rule of General Butler, and therefore an unprofitable field for her.

“The ghastly head became more of a mystery than before. The baffled Detectives could again only look at it helplessly, and send descriptions of it over the country. At last it was seen by a woman named Callahan, living in Boston, who was in search of a daughter who had gone astray. She instantly pronounced it to be that of her child, and she was corroborated by all the members of her family and several of her neighbors. The identification was no less specific than before, and the perplexed authorities, glad at last to know something certainly, gave Mrs. Callahan an order for the body. Before, however, she had completed her arrangements for its transfer to Boston, a message reached her from the daughter, who was lying sick in Bellevue Hospital, and so the head once more became a mystery. And such it has always remained. The body told that a female who had been delicately reared, who had fared sumptuously, and had been arrayed in costly fabrics, had been foully done to death, just as she was stepping into the dawn of womanhood—and that is all that is known. Her name, her station, her history, her virtues, or it may be, her frailties, all went down with her life, and were irrevocably lost. There is every probability that her case will always be classed as unfinished business.”

On Friday, July 20th, 1870, Mr. Benjamin Nathan, a wealthy Jewish resident of New York, was foully and mysteriously murdered in his own dwelling by an unknown assassin. All the circumstances of the case were so mysterious, so horribly dramatic, that the public interest was wrought up to the highest pitch.

Mr. Nathan was a millionaire, a banker and citizen of irreproachable character, well known for his benevolence, and highly esteemed for his personal qualities. His residence stood on the south side of Twenty-third street, one door west of Fifth Avenue, and immediately opposite the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in one of the most desirable and fashionable neighborhoods of the city. The mansion itself was palatial, and its owner had not only surrounded himself with every luxury, but had taken every precaution to exclude housebreakers and thieves. But a short time before his death, he remarked to a friend that he believed that his house was as secure as a dwelling could be made.

On the night of the 28th of July, Mr. Nathan slept at his residence, his family, with the exception of two of his sons, being then at their country-seat in New Jersey, where they were passing the summer. One of these sons accompanied his father to his sleeping room towards eleven o’clock, but the other, coming in later, and finding his father asleep, passed to his chamber without saying “good-night,” as was his custom.

On the morning of the 29th, at six o’clock, Mr. Washington Nathan descended from his chamber to call his father to a devotional duty of the day. Entering the chamber of the latter, a most appalling spectacle met his view. His father was lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, dead, with five ghastly wounds upon his head. The young man at once summoned his brother Frederick, and the two together rushed to the street door and gave the alarm. The police were soon on the spot, and, taking possession of the house, they prepared to investigate the horrid affair. The newspapers spread the intelligence over the city, and the murder created the profoundest interest and uneasiness on the part of the citizens. All classes felt an interest in it, for it had been committed within the sacred precincts of the dead man’s home, where he believed himself to be safe. If a murderer could reach him there, men asked, who could tell who would not be the next victim. This feeling of insecurity was widespread, and the whole community demanded of the police extraordinary efforts in tracking and securing the assassin.

The Superintendent of Police at that time was Captain John Jourdan, who was acknowledged to be the most accomplished detective on the Continent, and his principal assistant was Captain James Kelso (the present Superintendent), who was regarded as next to Jourdan in ability. These two officers at once repaired to the Nathan mansion, and took personal charge of the case.

At the first glance Jourdan pronounced the murder to be the work of a thief. The house was carefully searched. The room bore evidences of a struggle between the dead man and his assassin, and three diamond studs, a sum of money, a Perregaux watch, No. 5657, and the key of a small safe, had been stolen from the clothing of the dead man which had been hung on a chair placed at some distance from the bed. The safe stood in the library beside the door opening into the bed room. Jourdan’s theory was that the thief, having stolen the watch and other articles from the clothing, had gone to the safe to open it, and had aroused Mr. Nathan by the noise he made in opening it. Alarmed by this noise, Mr. Nathan had sprung from his bed, and at the same moment the thief had raised himself up from his kneeling posture, with his face toward Mr. Nathan, and lighted up by a small gas jet which was burning in the chamber. The two men had met in the doorway between the rooms, and the thief, seeing himself identified, had struck Mr. Nathan a blow with a short iron bar curved at the ends, and known as a ship carpenter’s “dog.” A struggle ensued, which resulted in the murder, the assassin striking his victim on the head nine times with terrible force. Then, rifling the safe of its valuable contents, he had gone stealthily down the stairs, had unfastened the front door, which had been carefully secured at half an hour after midnight, and, laying the “dog” down on the hall floor, had passed out into the street. His object in carrying the “dog” to the place where it was found by the police had been to be prepared to make sure of his escape by striking down any one whom he might chance to meet in the hall. Once in the street, the assassin had disappeared in safety.

Both Jourdan and Kelso were agreed that this theory of the commission of the crime was correct, and this led to the inevitable conclusion that the murder was the work of an “outsider,” that is, of some one not properly belonging to the criminal class. The weapon with which the murder had been committed was one which the Detectives had never before encountered in the annals of crime, and its appearance indicated long use in its legitimate sphere. No burglar or professional thief would have used it, and none of the inmates of the house recognized it as belonging to the mansion. Again, the professional thief would have despatched his victim with more speed and less brutality. There was not the slightest sign of the thief having forced an entrance into the mansion, and the most rigid search failed to reveal the mark of a burglar’s tool on any of the doors or windows. This fact warranted the conclusion that the murderer had secreted himself in the house during the day. From the first Jourdan was convinced that the assassin was one of a class who pursue an honest trade during the day, and seek to fill their pockets more rapidly by committing robberies at night. From this conviction he never wavered.

As he stood by the side of the murdered man, Jourdan recognized the difficulty of the task of finding the assassin. The “dog” bewildered him. Had the weapon been any kind of a burglar’s tool, or anything that any description of thief had ever been known to use, he would have been able to trace it to some one in the city; but the facts of the case plainly indicated that the assassin was an “outsider,” and even Jourdan and Kelso were at a loss to know how to proceed to find him.

At the time of the murder, the only inmates of the house were Washington and Frederick Nathan, sons of the dead man, and Mrs. Kelly, the housekeeper, and her grown son, William Kelly. Had the murder been committed by any of these they must of necessity have stolen the missing articles, and as they had not left the house, must have destroyed or concealed them on the premises. Without the knowledge of these persons, Jourdan caused a rigid and thorough search of the house and lot to be made from cellar to garret. Every crack and crevice, every nook and corner was rigidly and minutely searched by experienced persons. Even the furniture and carpets were examined, the flooring of the stable was taken up, the water-tank was emptied, the basins, closets, and waste-pipes of the house were flushed, and the street-sewers were examined for a long distance from the house, but no trace of the missing articles could be found; nor could any mark of the “dog” be discovered anywhere save on the body of the victim. One by one, the inmates of the house were subjected to the most searching cross-examination, and within six hours after the discovery of the deed, Captain Jourdan was satisfied that the inmates of the mansion were entirely innocent of the crime. The evidence drawn out by the inquest subsequently confirmed the innocence of these parties.

The only clew left by the assassin was the “dog.” At the inquest, the policeman on the beat swore that when he passed the house on his rounds at half-past four A.M., he tried both front doors, and that they were fastened, and that when he passed again a little before six o’clock, he noticed that the hall-door was closed. Another witness testified that about five o’clock, a man in a laborer’s dress, carrying a dinner-pail, ascended the steps of the Nathan mansion, picked up a paper from the topmost step, and passed on down the street. The introduction of this man in the laborer’s dress but deepened the mystery and increased the labors of the Detectives.

The entire police force of the city was set to work watching the pawn-shops and jewelry stores where the thief might try to dispose of the stolen property. Every ship-yard and boat-yard was searched for the identification of the “dog,” but without success, and almost every mechanical establishment in the city where the instrument could have been used, was subjected to the same inspection, but without discovering anything. A list of the missing property, and the marks by which it could be identified, was given to the public and telegraphed all over the Union. Captain Jourdan declared that it was well to have as many people as possible looking for these articles. Every known or suspected criminal in the city was waited on by the police, and required to give an account of himself on the night of the murder, and it is said that there was a general exodus of the professional thieves from New York. The ten days immediately succeeding the murder were singularly free from crime, so close was the espionage exercised over the criminals by the police.

It is safe to assert that the police never made such exertions in all their history, to secure a criminal, as in this case. Every sensible suggestion was acted upon, no matter by whom tendered. Neither labor nor expense was spared, and all with the same result. Captain Jourdan literally sank under his extraordinary exertions, his death, which occurred on the 10th of October, 1870, being the result of his severe and exhausting labors in this case. His successor, Superintendent Kelso, has been equally energetic, but thus far—nearly two years after the commission of the deed—no more is known concerning it than was presented to Jourdan and Kelso as they stood in the chamber of death, and nothing has occurred to destroy or shake their original theory respecting the murderer and his mode of committing the deed. The mystery which enshrouded it on that sad July morning still hangs over it unbroken.

II. PRIVATE DETECTIVES.

The Detectives, whose ways we have been considering, are sworn officers of the law, and it is their prime duty to secure the arrest and imprisonment of offenders. There is another class of men in the city who are sometimes confounded with the regular force, but who really make it their business to screen criminals from punishment. These men are called Private Detectives. Their task consists in tracing and recovering stolen property, watching suspected persons when hired to do so, and manufacturing such evidence in suits and private cases as they may be employed to furnish.

There are several “Private Detective Agencies” in the city, all of which are conducted on very much the same principles and plan, and for the same purpose—to make money for the proprietors. Mr. Edward Crapsey, to whom I am indebted for much of the information contained in this chapter, thus describes a well-known Agency of this kind:

“The visitor going up the broad stairs, finds himself in a large room, which is plainly the main office of the concern. There is a desk with the authoritative hedge of an iron railing, behind which sits a furrowed man, who looks an animated cork-screw, and who, the inquiring visitor soon discovers, can’t speak above a whisper, or at least don’t. This mysterious person is always mistaken for the chief of the establishment, but, in fact, he is nothing but the ‘Secretary,’ and holds his place by reason of a marvellous capacity for drawing people out of themselves. A mystery, he is surrounded with mysteries. The doors upon his right and left—one of which is occasionally opened just far enough to permit a very diminutive call-boy to be squeezed through—seem to lead to unexplored regions. But stranger than even the clerk, or the undefined but yet perfectly tangible weirdness of the doors is the tinkling of a sepulchral bell, and the responsive tramp of a heavy-heeled boot. And strangest of all is a huge black board whereon are marked the figures from one to twenty, over some of which the word ‘Out’ is written; and the visitor notices with ever-increasing wonder that the tinkling of the bell and the heavy-heeled tramp are usually followed by the mysterious secretary’s scrawling ‘Out’ over another number, being apparently incited thereto by a whisper of the ghostly call-boy who is squeezed through a crack in the door for that purpose. The door which the call-boy abjures is always slightly ajar, and at the aperture there is generally a wolfish eye glaring so steadily and rapaciously into the office as to raise a suspicion that beasts of prey are crouching behind that forbidding door.

“Nor is the resulting alarm entirely groundless, for that is the room where the ferrets of the house who assume the name of Detectives, but are more significantly called ‘shadows,’ are hidden from the prying eyes of the world. A ‘shadow’ here is a mere numeral—No. 1, or something higher—and obeys cabalistic calls conveyed by bells or speaking-tubes, by which devices the stranger patron is convinced of the potency of the Detective Agency which moves in such mysterious ways to perform its wonders. If any doubt were left by all this paraphernalia of marvel, it would be dispelled from the average mind when it came in contact with the chief conjuror, who is seated in the dim seclusion of a retired room, fortified by bell-pulls, speaking-tubes, and an owlish expression intended to be considered as the mirror of taciturn wisdom. From his retreat he moves the outside puppets of secretary, shadows, and call-boys, as the requirements of his patrons, who are admitted singly to his presence, may demand. It is he whose hoarse whispers sound sepulchrally through the tubes, who rings the mysterious bell, and by such complex means despatches his ‘shadows’ upon their errands. It is he who permits the mildewed men in the other ante-room to be known only by numbers, and who guards them so carefully from the general view.

“By these assumptions of mystery the chief awes the patrons of his peculiar calling, of whom there are pretty sure to be several in waiting during the morning hours. These applicants for detective assistance always sit stolidly silent until their separate summons comes to join the chief, eyeing each other suspiciously and surveying their surroundings with unconcealed and fitting awe. One is of bluff and hearty appearance, but his full face is overcast for the moment with an expression half sad, half whimsical; it is plain that a conjunction of untoward circumstances has raised doubts in his mind of the integrity of a business associate, and he has reluctantly determined to clear or confirm them by means of a ‘shadow.’ Next to him is a fidgety furrowed man, bristling with suspicion in every line of his face, and showing by his air of indifference to his surroundings that he is a frequenter of the place. He is in fact one of the best customers of the establishment, as he is constantly invoking its aid in the petty concerns of his corroded life. Sometimes it is a wife, daughter, sister, niece, or a mere female acquaintance he wishes watched; sometimes it is a business partner or a rival in trade he desires dogged; and he is never so miserable as when the reports of the agency show his suspicions, whatever they may have been, to be groundless. It is but just, however, to the sagacity of the detectives to remark that he is seldom subjected to such disappointment. Whatever other foolishness they may commit, these adroit operators never kill the goose that lays their golden eggs. Beside this animated monument of distrust is a portly gentleman, his bearing in every way suggestive of plethoric pockets. Paper and pencil in hand, he is nervously figuring. He makes no secret of his figures because of his absorption, and a glance shows that he is correcting the numbers of bonds and making sure of the amounts they represent.

“It is plain that this last is a victim of a sneak robbery, and, the unerring scent of the chief selecting him as the most profitable customer of the morning, he is the first visitor called to an audience. Large affairs are quickly despatched, and it is soon arranged how a part of the property can be recovered and justice cheated of its due. Very soon a handbill will be publicly distributed, offering a reward for the return of the bonds, and it will be signed by the Agency. The thief will know exactly what that means, and the affair being closed to mutual satisfaction, the thief will be at liberty to repeat the operation, which resulted in reasonable profit and was attended with no risk.

“There is also in the room a sallow, vinegary woman of uncertain years, and it seems so natural that a man should run away from her, we are not surprised that, being voluble in her grief, she declares her business to be the discovery of an absconding husband. But near her is another and truer type of outraged womanhood, a wasted young wife, beautiful as ruins are beautiful, whom a rascal spendthrift has made a martyr to his selfishness until, patience and hope being exhausted, she is driven to the last extremity, and seeks by a means at which her nature revolts for a proof of but one of those numerous violations of the marriage vow which she feels certain he has committed. It is a cruel resort, but the law which permits a man to outrage a woman in almost every other way frowns upon that one, and she is driven to it as the sole method of release from an intolerable and degrading bondage. In such cases as this might perhaps be found some justification for the existence of private detectives; but they themselves do not appear to know that they stand in need of extenuation, and so neglect the opportunity thus presented to vindicate their necessity by conducting this class of their business with, even for them, remarkable lack of conscience. Anxious always to furnish exactly what is desired, their reports are often lies, manufactured to suit the occasion, and once furnished they are stoutly adhered to, even to the last extremity. Frequently the same Agency is ready to and does serve both parties to a case with impartial wickedness, and earns its wages by giving to both precisely the sort of evidence each requires. Sometimes it is made to order, with no other foundation than previous experience in like affairs; but sometimes it has a more solid basis in fact. Two men from the same office are often detailed to ‘shadow,’ one the husband and the other the wife, and it occasionally happens that they have mastered the spirit of their calling so thoroughly that they do a little business on private account by ‘giving away’ each other. That is to say, the husband’s man informs the wife she is watched, and gives her a minute description of her ‘shadow,’ for which information he of course gets an adequate reward, which the wife’s man likewise earns and receives by doing the same kindly office for the husband. In such cases there are generally mutual recriminations between the watched, which end in a discovery of the double dealing of the Agency, and not unfrequently in a reconciliation of the estranged couple. But this rare result, which is not intended by the directing power, is the sole good purpose these agencies were ever known to serve. Lord Mansfield, it must be admitted, once seemed to justify the use of private detectives in divorce suits, but he was careful to cumber the faint praise with which he damned them by making honesty in the discharge of these delicate duties a first essential. Had he lived to see the iniquitous perfection the business has now attained, he would undoubtedly have withheld even that quasi-endorsement of a system naturally at war with the fundamental principles of justice.

“The waiters in the reception-room are never allowed to state their wants, or certainly not to leave the place, without being astonished by the charges made by the detective for attention to their business. Whatever differences there may be in minor matters, all these establishments are invariably true to the great purpose of their existence, and prepare the way for an exorbitant bill by a doleful explanation of the expenses and risks to be incurred in the special affair presented, dilating especially upon the rarity and cost of competent ‘shadows.’ Now the principal agencies estimate for them at $10 a day, whereas these disreputable fellows are found in multitudes, and are rarely paid more than $3 a day as wages; their expenses, paid in advance by the patron, are allowed them when assigned to duties, as they frequently are, involving outlay. The general truth is that these agencies, being conducted for the avowed purpose of making money, get as much as possible for doing work, and pay as little as possible for having it done. In their general business of espionage they may make perhaps only a moderate profit on each affair they take in hand; but in the more delicate branches of compounding felonies and manufacturing witnesses fancy prices obtain, and the profits are not computable. It is plain, knowing of these patrons and prices, that reasonable profit attends upon the practice of the convenient science of getting without giving, which, notwithstanding its prosperity and antiquity, is yet an infant in the perfection it has attained. Awkward, flimsy, transparent as they ever were, are yet the tricks and devices of the knaves who never want for a dollar, never earn an honest one, but never render themselves amenable to any statute ‘in such case made and provided.’ To say that the master-workmen in roguery who do this sort of thing are awkward and transparent seems to involve a paradox; but whoever so believes has not been fully informed as to the amazing gullibility of mankind. The average man of business now, as always before, seems to live only to be swindled by the same specious artifices that gulled his ancestors, and which will answer to pluck him again almost before the smart of his first depletion has ceased. Only by a thorough knowledge of this singular adaptation of the masses to the purposes of the birds of prey, can we intelligently account for the vast bevies of the latter which exist, and are outwardly so sleek as to give evidence of a prosperous condition. When we know that the ‘pocket-book dropper’ yet decoys the money even of the city-bred by his stale device; that the ‘gift-enterprises,’ ‘envelope-game,’ and similar thread-bare tricks yet serve to attain the ends of the sharpers, although the public has been warned scores and scores of times through the public press, and the swindlers thoroughly exposed, so that the veriest fool can understand the deception, we need not be amazed at the success which attends the practice of these arts. The truth is, that a large proportion of the victims are perfectly aware that fleecing is intended when they flutter round the bait of the rogues; but they are allured by the glitter of sudden fortune which it offers, and bite eagerly with the hope that may be supposed to sustain any gudgeon of moderate experience of snapping the bait and escaping the barbed hook. Human greed is the reliance of the general sharper, and it has served him to excellent purpose for many years. But some of these operators must depend on actuating motives far different from the desire of gain in money; and chief among them are these private detectives, who draw their sustenance from meaner and equally unfailing fountains.

“It is not upon record who bestowed a name which is more apt than designations usually are. The word detective, taken by itself, implies one who must descend to questionable shifts to attain justifiable ends; but with the prefix of private, it means one using a machine permitted to the exigencies of justice for the purpose of surreptitious personal gain. Thus used, this agency, which even in honest hands and for lawful ends is one of doubtful propriety, becomes essentially dangerous and demoralizing. Originally an individual enterprise, the last resort of plausible rascals driven to desperation to evade honest labor, it has come to be one of associated effort, employing much capital in its establishment and some capacity in its direction. All the large commercial cities are now liberally provided with ‘Detective Agencies,’ as they are called, each thoroughly organized, and some of them employing a large number of ‘shadows’ to do the business, which in large part they must first create before it can be done. The system being perfected and worked to its utmost capacity, the details of the tasks assumed and the method of accomplishment are astonishing and alarming to the reflecting citizen, who has the good name and well-being of the community at heart. Employed in the mercantile world as supposed guards against loss by unfaithful associates or employÉs, and in social life as searchers for domestic laxness, these two items make up the bulk of the business which the private detectives profess to do, and through these their pernicious influence is felt in all the relations of life. Were they however only the instruments of rapacious and unreasoning distrust, they might be suffered to pass without rebuke as evils affecting only those who choose to meddle with them; but as they go further, and the community fares worse because they are ever ready to turn a dishonest penny by recovering stolen property, which they can only do by compounding the crime by which it had been acquired, it is evident that they are a peril to society in general no less than a pest to particular classes.”