The Express.
London, England, 1862-11-07 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 7, 1862.

On the 27th of October the Committee of In-
vestigation made their report. The passage in
which they give their judgment is as follows :
" The Committee having duly considered the evi-
" deuce of the witnesses who appeared before
"them, and the • ritten statements of Colonel
" BURNABY and Captain ANNEBLEY, are of opinion
" that it is not proved that Colonel BURNABY in-
" tended that the Tarragona should be pulled in
" the match with Michel Grove, or that he made
" • fictitious bet with Captain ANNEBLEY." It
was impossible that the two officers could regard a
halting and dubious acquittal like this with
satisfaction. Colonel Buarisev had demanded the
most searching investigation and an honourable
acquittal ; the report of the Committee left every-
thing in its original state of doubt. The Colonel
has appealed to the public by sending a commen-
tary on the report, in the form of a letter to the
members of the Jockey Club, for publication in the
Morning Post. It appears that the inquiry was
not conducted at all as that gallant officer had ex-
pected, and the difference has been very painful to
his feelings. He says, "It would be impossible
" for me in writing to convey in adequate language
" the pain which we have experienced from the
" mode in which tb's inquiry has been conducted,
" and the apparent disregard of our feelings in
" the matter." It is not clear whether he is re-
ferr;ng here to the magnifying glass and the witness
from the Bank, or to the question about running
straight. But it would seem that inasmuch asnothing
could be so gratifying to his feelings as a triumphant
acquittal, nothing less than the most searching
inquiry could be acceptable to him. He appears
to have thought that all that was necessary was
that he and his comrade should go before the Com-
mittee, make their statements on their honour as
gentlemen, and having done this receive a certifi-
cate of honour from the Committee. The inves-
tigation having been conducted as if it were just
possible that the imputations might be true, they
complain that they " were treated with such a want
" of that consideration which marks individually
" the members of the Jockey Club as made them
" almost forget the tribunal before which the inves-
" ligation was proceeding." Colonel BURNABY is of
opinion that the Jockey Club will sink infinitely in
public esteem for having acted so rudely. His chief
point, however, is that he has been tried before a
prejudiced tribunal. The Duke of Basuroirr and
Mr. ALEXANDER, he says, had expressed opinions on
this case unfavourable to him before this inquiry
began. Admiral Rona, he tells us, had stated to
Captain Arriszsmr, before the Committee met, that
he "utterly abhorred " Colonel BURNABY, and had
informed the Committee during its sittings that the
Colonel had been guilty of making a former ficti-
tious bet with a Mr. STEWART respecting the spelling
of the word " Reindeer," the name of a parti-
cular horse. The controversy on this last subject
has become more vehement and voluminous than
that about Tarragona. But no court has investi-
gated this new scandal. The public owe their
knowledge of it entirely to a faahionable contempo-
rary, in whose columns honourable and gallant gen-
tlemen are impeaching one another and themselves
with a vivacity which makes us tremble for some
eminent reputations. Explanations are still going
on, and letters succeed to letters, leading up to what
our American cousins call "startling develap-
menta." Perhaps the next four-and-twenty hours
may bring the information which is much wanted
to enlighten the Reindeer mystery, and we may be
able to treat it without injustice to any party.
In the meantime, our readers will probably think
that Colonel BURNABY had enough on his hands
already without dragging this new quarrel before
the public.

ONE of the most amiable weaknesses of human
nature is a belief in wonders. This weakness
was not grown yesterday, nor will it wither to-
morrow. Like many other things it is not for an
age but for all time. It came in with the earliest
conqueror, and it will only go out with the latest
luminary. It feeds with avidity upon the strangest
variety of food. Enormous gooseberries, living
skeletons, calculating plough-boys, winking virgins,
pig-faced ladies, Siamese twins, and statesmen who
do without sleep—all seem to give it equal
nourishment. It belies proverbs, and upsets
theories. It causes the valet to see a hero in
his muter, and familiarity to breed anything but
contempt. It insists upon clothing common-place
men with the garments of the gods ; upon seeing
wisdom in an empty frown, and power in a sleepy,
fakir-like repose. It draws no distinction between
water on the brain, and that conical development
of forehead which distinguishes fancy statues of
Bscow and SHAKESPEARE.
One of the favourite idols of this faith—a brazen
image which does little more than stand still to
be admired—is the detective policeman. This
popular wonder was never in higher favour than
he is at the present moment. He
almost supports a literature of his own.
Mr. Crum.= DICKENS probably Ent set the ball
rolling, as he has set many balls rolling, in his
romantic sketch of "Inspector Bucket ;" and since
the publication of "Bleak House" we have had
many electro-plated copies of this original. Cheap
periodicals are filled with stories in which a fancy
detective is the hero rather than a subordinate
character. The red-fire of romance lights up the
dull walls of ordinary police-offices, and the dull
faces of ordinary police-officers, until they are made
to appear almost supernatural. Stupidity is
Tainted to look like excessive caution ; silence is
described as the result of a fulness of information ;
and volumes of meaning are extracted from a wink
or a tap on the nose.
The most remarkable fact in connexion with
this police-worship is the difference made by •
few worthless garments. The policeman in ordi-1
nary costume—in a blue sackcloth coat, and a
hat like a fire bucke;:--is not looked upon as a
being of surprising intelligence. He is rather re-
garded as a peg upon which to hang mechanical
jokes than a mysterious tracker of crime--a long-
beaded opponent of thieves and sharpers. It is
only when he appears in plain clothes that he
excites either wonder or admiration. The mo-
ment that he dresses like other men—like a con-
stable, in fact, who has left the " force" to
try some other plan of getting a livelihood—he
becomes that " intelligent officer" whom City ma-
gistrates are always praising. It is not very clear
whether he wears the plain clothes because he has
become an intelligent officer, or whether he be-
comes an intelligent officer because he wears the
plain clothes. But any way, in this dress, he is
entitled to use • certain jargon. If our observa-
tion be correct, the favourite term " from infer-
" matioa I received," • term which is always
held to have more hidden meaning than the
utterances of the Delphic Oracle, is reserved
for his special use as a plain-clothes detective.
This faith in the wonderful intelligence of
winking policemen ought to have received many
severe shocks when cases like the Waterloo-bridge
mystery were left without a solution. The over-
rated system was here exposed in all its hollow-
ness, and yet it hardly lost • score of its admirers.
The present Bank-note forgery case, as far as the
proceedings have yet gone, seems to be another

exposure of its unjustifiable pretensions. The
evidence of the prisoner GILITTITHS, the Birming-
ham printer, is delightful for the forcible
simplicity with which it tells against the
intelligent officers. Here was a man who
had bees , working laboriously at forgery
since the year 1846—who had waited patiently for
the intelligent officers for at least seventeen years,
and who grew grey with expectation and hope
deferred. When the intelligent officers, so long
coming, at last entered his little room, he almost
rushed into their arms, and gave them a welcome
which was a bitter satire on their intelligence.
Some of his hospitable warmth may doubtless be
referred to the joy he felt in getting a weight of
guilty suspense off his mind ; but the
bulk of it was due to his feeling of
pride that he had worked undiscovered for
so many years. He waa no vulgar criminal
watched over by intelligent officers to be pounced
upon when he was ripe for the hulks, but a simple
artisan, who had helped to undermine the credit
of the Bank of England note, to cause a drain of
bullion in Threadneedle-street, and a rise in the
rate of discount of probably one-half per cent.
He was honoured by having the exceptionally large
reward of fifteen hundred pounds offered for his
capture, and he felt that he had earned an im-
mortal notice in the Netegate Calendar. He took
the intelligent officers to eves/ place where he had
hidden his tools or his criminal products, and was
as communicative as a child who shows a visitor
his playthings.
The way in which this eminent forger was dis-
covered is another proof that our Detective system
is largely overrated. We believe that an old
woman first put the intelligent officers on the
scent, and that, with othor informers, she was
drawn out by the tempting reward. The intelli-
gent officers, as usual, stood still to receive their
information, and had no more ability to track the
criminals without this aid than they had had for
the last seventeen years. They were pitted
against criminals of superior intelligence—
not against poor skulking Field-lane thieves,
who have a few well-known nests, nor
weak-minded defaulting clerks, who always
fly to Paris or Liverpool. In such a game
they played with all their average skill,
but were beaten for years at every turn. It waa
only when the criminals ventured on a stake which
brought out an offer of fifteen hundred pounds to'
him who should strangle their game, that they
were sold by a looker-on behind their chairs.
The Bank of England note, when not played
with by crotchety financiers, is such an important
instrument in conducting the trade of the country,
that no precautions should be thought too laborious
to preserve its credit. The inconvenience felt
during the last three or four months by thousands
who have found a difficulty in changing Bank of
England notes is more than enough to warrant a
demand for more caution. A blind faith in a de-
tective system which is worked by very ordinary
men for very ordinary wages ie certainly
not sufficient to meet the increasing daring
and ingenuity of superior criminals. We have
been repeatedly assured that the forgeii of
the Bank note engraving was an impossibility—
we have even seen this gravely demonstrated to
an aristocratic audience at the Royal Institution,
while the Birmingham forger was carrying on his
business ; and we expect to hear that the Bank
note paper can never be imitated. Without being
alarmists, or wishing to foster an unhealthy love
for bullion, we believe that it is within the re-
sources of criminal science to advance as far as
*Ye, and then the derangement of the currency
will be far more serious.

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