Morning journal and courier., 1881-12-27

l 8 cigar that has been soaked in oil for four-
 and-twenty hours, will, if man can stand a l little nausea in consuming it. make him look for three days as if he had the jaundice. Spectacles or double eyeglasses make won- derful difference in the wearer's glance though they are apt to excite suspicion if worn by man in very poor circumstances, and would therefore hardly be assumed by q fugitive who had been in good position and was disguising himself in the clothes of a workingman. Clothes make enormous alter ations in one's appearance. If man adver- tised as being dark and dressed like gentle-
 man dyes his hair and puts of the attire of workman, costermonger, or street loafer, it would require far more than common pene- tration to suspect him. It may be remarked however, that the sustaining of disguise on the part of a fugitive for any length of time requires money, and that man of good education who had cut himself on from his ordinary pursuits and from correspondence with his friends would soon be starved into surrender by the impossibility of earning his
 livelihood. This would be truer objection abroad than in England. On the Continent pauper cannot so much as grind an organ sell matches in the streets or handle broom at a crossing, without getting g written license, which the police will deliver only on obtaining satisfactory proof of his identity: but in England we have whole tribes of vag- abonds who earn living, nobody knows how, by attending race courses, regattas, and other places of crowded resort. So long as they do not misconduct themselves the police have no right to ask them any questions They come they go they enjoy English freedom in its plenitude and they certainly contrive Co earn their bread, else one would not see them in such numbers
 The British police have certainly not the same facilities for hunting down criminals as
 are enjoyed by their colleagues abroad Warehouses, lodging houses, even iails, re- tTaO ties to establish their identity. Wherever an Enghshman goes the account he gives of him. self is accepted without question, unless he happen to have drawn suspicion on himself and 1t requires good deal to excite the sus- picions of British officials. If man enlists. he is asked to fill up a paper stating his name
 and age, but no steps are taken to ascertain whether his declaration be correct He may
 marry, be imprisoned, set up in business, , become bankrupt, reenlist after desertion,
 and finally be buried-an under false names
 without anybody being the wiser Such
 liberty has its precious advantages, but also
 it's drawbacks. And these should in fairness
 be remembered when people are tempted to
 accuse the police of dullness when theyldo not
 unearth criminal so quickly as to satisfy
 public impatience. They should be remem-
 bered all the more as the Continental police,
 notwithstanding all their facilities, let crimi-
 nals slip quite as often ifenot more often
 than is the case in England. The only diff
 ference IS that they are much prompter to
 arrest innocent persons, and much slower to
 let them go free when their innocence is
 proved. If murder like that on the Brigh-
 ton railway had taken place in France. half
 the persons arrested by mistake would have
 been kept in prison for weeks while their
 antecedents were bei investigated in order
 to ascertain whether the. accounts tbey had
 given of themselves were strictly true; for
 the French police, when they get hold of a
 man, act up to the idea that, if blameless of
 the offence with which he is charged, he may
 by means of a little burrowing into his past
 life, be found guilty of something else. This
 system may, indeed, enable the police to
 some lucky catches occasionally; but it helps
 also to make them so unpopular that they
 get little or no assistance from the public
 when hunting criminal. Foreigners have
 thus become much looser than the English in
 their notions respecting the public duty of
 surrendering offenders to the law and on
 the continent pecuniary rewards are never
 offered for the apprehension of the most
 rascally murderers. A foreigner who accept
 ed ''blood money" for getting 8 murderer
 arrested would be dishonored as a police
 hireling, which is the heaviest.term of oppro-
 brium that can be hurled at a man abroad