The Wichita daily eagle., 1895-05-04
IN SCOTLAND YARD
Edward Marshall Spends a Week
with It's Clever Sleuths.
The London Police Eorce-Eourteen Thou,
sand Constabies Who Earn Only Six
Dollars Week - Not the Place
Fiction Eas Painted 1t.
TcoPYRIGHT. 1895.


have devoted part of every one OF
the past ten days to Scotland Yard or
roaming about London in the company
of Scotland Yard pensioners. | am as
sured that this courtesy has not been
extended to newspaper man before,
and am inclined to think the statement
accurate. The London police are not
favora bly, disposed toward the London
reporters They call them penny-a-
liners. and speak of them with scorn
and dlstrust.
The open sesame which threw the
portals of Scotland Yards mysteries
apart for me was a letter from Supt.
Ryrnes, of New York. Byrnes is con-
kidered over here to be the greatest de-
tective in the world. There is not a
man in Scotland Yard, from the chief
superintendent down to the cockney IN
uniform at the door, who does not ad-
mire him and listen to tales of him with
reverent interest
Scotland Yard is the most famous de-
tective center in the world It owes its
fame to fction-that Is, TO novels.
Story writers, led by Charles Dickens,
have entered detective tales without
number about it. and Scotland Yard,
as the public knows it, is their creation.
Many writer's of romance, good and
bad, have had hand in its building,
and il is a strange and wonderful struc-
ture. They hide it in a remote part of
London, generally among the docks.
Thev-make 1t dark and gloomy build
ING, low and with little black windows
blinking mysteriously through the
London fog They fill it as full Of
secret passages and uncanny trapdoors
and concealed cupboards as Masonic
lodge room. Shrewd sleuths off duty
lounge about it, waiting for great
crimes. which they may clear away,
and in their IDLE moments telling grue-
some stories of extraordinary sinners.
Shrewd sleuths on duty, clad ever in
elaborate disguises. glide cleverly from
dark doorways out into the highways
and the byways TO recover stolen neck
laces OF incredible value. to find ab-
Quoted maidens, TO solve the dark and
bloody puzzles of impossibly mysteri-
Gus murders.
This is the Scotland Yard of fiction.
The Scotland Yard of fact is hand
some red brick building, elaborately
trimmed with graystone, and facing
the Thames. 1t is one of the highest
buildings in London and more nearly
resembles the modern American office
building than any structure l have
seen here. Its interior is very plain
e rrr1s- "a
walls and tiled corridors. Nowhere
within its doors is there any hint of
sensationalism. The building was de-
signed especially TO afford head
quarters for the vast police business of
the British metropolis, and it is busi-
ness-from its foundation stones to it's
weather vanes.
If this explodes one of the pet bub-
bles of your imagination / am sorry.
But the real Scotland Yard is as inter
esting in its way as the Scotland Yard
of the ictionists has been. One reason
why most writers have so utterly gone
wrong-when they approached London
detectives and their work is that the
police here ike TO shroud their opera
tions in manifold mysteries. Among
the officials, excepting Chief efSuperinten-
dent Shore-ashonest and hearty gen.
tleman as one may meet in a days
journey-there is an intimation that
detective work is full of red fire
and melodrama. An ex-inspector who
was with me in a miserable White
chapel lodging House gravely assured
me that there was not a man in the
place who would not have cut my
throat if the police had not been along
to protect me, although an experienced
eye could quickly class the inmates of
the place as simple paupers, and as far
from professional criminality as pos
sible. The ex-inspector well knew that
a beef-fed citizen, with a good thick