Evening star., 1922-02-19

in the sealing wax, and q duplicate
seal made within four minutes.
ssT WAS rather proud Of this discov-
L cry and believed I had solved
tho mystery Of the lightning sub
stitution. But meanwhile. the pro-
fessional detectives Of the Yard were
securing London to find a diemaker
who had been employed to copy
seal. They found him in Hammer
smith and the mystery was cleared
up. The thieves. who had suborned
the postman who delivered the packet.
had stolen the seals of q previous
letter to Mr.. Meyer. Thus they had a
duplicate Of tho seal used by the
Paris jeweler all ready. The post
man handed over the packet to them
the packet containing the necklace
and it was a matter OF small diff
Guilty to remove the pearls, substitute
the coal to give the packet the neces-
sary weight and reseal 1t. I was
then an amateur in detection, and the
incident illustrates how the neophyte
will be beaten, in 80 cases out OF 100,
by tho trained professional who.
through long practice. is familiar
with the workings of the criminal
mind and with crook methods"
At this point Sir Basil was asked
why it is. considering the known effi-
cheney of Scotland Yard. that the au-
thors of so many crimes committed in
London remain undetected.
"The fact is." he said, that we Sc
cure convictions in considerably
higher percentage of cases than do
the police forces of the great Ameri-
can cities. To illustrate we may take
the records Of Chicago and London.
In Chicago, with q population OF be-
tween two and three millions. nearly
four times as many cases Of murder
in the first degree occur in year as
In London. which has q population Of
between six and seven millions. And
In London we bring about twice as
many murderers to Justice Il speak
roughly and without the actual fig
ures) as they succeed in capturing in
Chicago.
'It is not actually surprising. how
ever, that the police fail In many
or I, on the impulse Of the moment
and for no reason. go out and murder
somebody the chances are good that
we shall get off scot free. Tho es-
sence of discovery is motive. If you
can find that a murder has been in
spired by the motive Of robbery or
revenge, you can almost invariably
get to know something abou the mur:
derer. It is the motiveless crimes that.
more often than not, defy detection.
'But il our proportion of capture
is proportionately higher in England
than is the case in America, It is even
more strikingly in excess Of the rec
ord that is attained in France and the
other Latin countries. This is large
ly due to the fact that in England
the entire population desires to have
criminals brought to justice. Wit
nesses and others who are in possess
sion Of information are quick to come
forward and aid the police; the press
lends invaluable assistance. But in
Latin countries the public generally
regards the police as it's natural
enemy. and individuals are unwilling
to be dragged in. will illustrate
what mean by little story which
is current at Scotland Yard.
+ y y X
"SoME years ago the Paris police
~ chiefs decided to study our
methods of handling street tranic.
They sent to London twelve sergeants
Nde willie, each Of whom carried little
white wand. They underwent the
Same course Of training that is given
to our own men on point duty. They
then went back to Paris-and were
all dead in fortnight. That. at
least, is what We heard. The point Of
the story, however, is this: it is not
80 much the capacity of the London
police for controlling the trafiic as n
capacity on the part of the traffic to
control itself"
Sir Basil was asked by the inter-
viewer IL he would give one or two
instances Of what he considers ex-