Recollections of a Policeman

There are few things in this beautiful country of England, more picturesque to the eye, and agreeable to the fancy, than an old Cathedral town. Seen in the distance, rising from...

In pursuance of the intention mentioned at the close of a former paper on "The Modern Science of Thief-taking," we now proceed to endeavor to convey to our readers some faint id...

A few weeks after the lucky termination of the Sandford affair I was engaged in the investigation of a remarkable case of burglary, accompanied by homicide, which had just occur...

Towards the close of the year 1836, I was hurriedly despatched to Liverpool for the purpose of securing the person of one Charles James Marshall, a collecting clerk, who, it was...

In the winter of 1833 I was hurriedly, and, as I at the time could not help thinking, precipitately despatched to Guernsey, one of the largest of the islands which dot the Briti...

Farnham hops are world-famous, or at least famous in that huge portion of the world where English ale is drunk, and whereon, I have a thousand times heard and read, the sun neve...

The following advertisement appeared in several of the London journals in the year 1832:--"If Owen Lloyd, a native of Wales, and who, it is believed, resided for many years in L...

The respectable agent of a rather eminent French house arrived one morning in great apparent distress at Scotland Yard, and informed the superintendent that he had just sustaine...

Levasseur and his confederates sailed for the penal settlements on the ill-fated convict-ship, the _Amphytrion_, the total wreck of which on the coast of France, and consequent...

In the history of crime, as in all other histories, there is one great epoch by which minor dates are arranged and defined. In a list of remarkable events, one remarkable event...

Several years ago I made a tour through some of the southern counties of England with a friend. We travelled in an open carriage, stopping for a few hours a day, or a week, as i...

I am not a young man, and have passed much of my life in our Criminal Courts. I am, and have been, in active practice at the Bar, and I believe myself capable of offering some h...

Viotti's division of violin-playing into two great classes--good playing and bad playing--is applicable to Bank-note making. We shall now cover a few pages with a faint outline...

A little more than a year after the period when adverse circumstances--chiefly the result of my own reckless follies--compelled me to enter the ranks of the metropolitan police,...

Low, narrow, dark, and frowning are the thresholds of our Inns of Court. If there is one of these entrances of which I have more dread than another, it is that leading out of Ho...

The reader need scarcely be told that albeit police-officers like other men, chiefly delight to recount their _successful_ exploits, they do, nevertheless, experience numerous a...

The records of police courts afford but imperfect evidence of the business really effected by the officers attached to them. The machinery of English criminal law is, in practic...

Now, my dear cousin, Mr. B., charming as he is in many points, has the little peculiarity of liking to change his lodgings once every three months on an average, which occasions...

If thieving be an Art (and who denies that its more subtle and delicate branches deserve to be ranked as one of the Fine Arts?), thief-taking is a Science. All the thief's ingen...

"It's a singular story, Sir," said Inspector Wield, of the Detective Police, who, in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid us another twilight visit, one July evening; "...

In Lambeth Marsh stands a building better known than honored. The wealthy merchant knows it as the place where an unfortunate friend, who made that ruinous speculation during th...

The most litigious fellow I ever knew, was a Welshman, named Bones. He had got possession, by some means, of a bit of waste ground behind a public-house in Hogwash Street. Adjoi...