Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-05
ENGLISH TRAIN WATCHERS.
Shrewdest Detectives Employed il
Tracing Criminals on Railways.
From T1t-Bits.

From Tft-Bits.
One of the most difficult tasks the police
have to perform is that of tracing a man
on the railway, where there are endless
chances of escape and 400 of the shrewdest
detectives on earth are constantly at work
haunting the great railway termini and the
lines that lead from the metropolis to the
coast.
The detective employed at this work must,
before all things, be able to recognize a
man from a written description. Moreover,
he must be more or less a walking time
table on this particular railway Every
boat train from any English seaport is
watched at both ends, and generally carries
a detective on board
1t often happens that the train watcher
has to shadow man. though he has not
the power to arrest him, especially anarch-
lists going to and from this country the
watching of whom is calculated to cost us
between 10000 and 10000 a year. reg
lister is kept of every suspected person ar
irving in this country and his every move
ment noted until he leaves these shores, for
which the train watcher is responsible.
The first thing the watcher has to do on
recognizing his man is to find out where
he is going If he is not liable to arrest and
this is not an easy matter. A train watcher
on a southern railway adopted a clever
subterfuge in order to obtain this knowl-
edge a short time ago. Seeing the man
he was shadowing embark on the train he
leaped in the guards van just the train
was on the move and quickly explained
matters to the guard. Before the train
drew up at the first stop the detective had
changed clothes with the guard, and when
the train stopped he got out. and in this
disguise succeeded in examining all the
tickets of the passengers without raising
suspicion, including that of the man he was
shadowing.
Another train watcher caught the wrong
criminal by accident on the boat train from
Dover, a shOrr while since. He Swallowed
a man into the train believing him to be
suspected person of whom warning had
been given by the French police. But be-
fore they had progressed very far on the
journey he found to his chagrin that he
was not the man he sought, and he intend
ed to leave the train at the first stopping
place, when the way the man placed his
hand to his clean-shaven face, If in
search of his mustache, aroused his sus-
picions.
Consulting his notebook, he found his WIS.,
avis tailed with the description of crimi-
nal who had slipped through the hands of
the police some months previously, and be-
fore the end of the journey he had the man
under arrest. Though he not the
criminal he sought. he was the identical
individual who had escaped the police
shortly before, and finding France too hot
to hold him had doubled back en- route for
America. and shaved off his mustache to
escape detection.
The arrest of Meunier, the famous anar-
chist, who destroyed Parislan cafe with
dynamite eleven years ago, by Supern-
tendent Melville, at Victoria station, may
be cited as an instance of the difficult
work of the train-watcher. Scotland Yard
received a Geographic description of Meu-
nier who was believed to be attempting to
reach England, and with but this meager
! information Melville set out to watch the
boat trains at Victoria.
Later on he saw man who answered the
description the French police provided, and.
putting his hand on his shoulder, adj
dressed him by his name. Instantly the
anarchist struck out with his fist and to-
gether they fell fighting to the platform,
Meunier trying to get to his revolver But
day or two later the great criminal was
ON his way back to France in custody, and
had to pay the penalty of his crime.