Evening star., 1932-01-31

DaUrOlllllS UtlC IlSiSllOoI ii1ON. DuC W eA@S
average Englishman Scotland Yard" has
another meaning that does not include
the patrolmen on their beats or the
white -sleeved traffic policemen. Scotland
Yard has now become a symbol for one
oart of the Metropolitan Police, the &C.
/. Criminal Investigation Depart
ment-Which, with less than thousand
employees, concentrates on the detection
of crime.
1t is this branch of the Yard that is
best known; the publicity which it has
received from English authors has been
priceless 1t seems to be depository OF
Superhuman intuition. In fact" 1t is
composed of a group of men who work
with the most proSaic methods and who
have several unique advantages, due to
the geographical position and psyche
logical makeup of England. Not only
can these men not enter cases outside
the metropolitan area unless asked, but
they cannot take up all the cases IN
London the central part-the city-haS
always had its own separate police and
detective forces. Finally, the men of the
Yard, whether in uniform or in plain
clothes, have all come into the service in
the same way-by spending several years
as ordinary patrolmen on their beats,
pounding pavements Scotland Yard and
it's c. l. D. branch takes no men who
have not come up through the ranks.
The Metropolitan Police has numerous
branches besides the C. l. D. There IS
a Flying Squad" patrolling the streets
by motor; a Lost Property Bureau, a
Criminal Records Bureau and Special
Branch. The Special Branch is the most
mysterious group at the Yard; its duties
are chiefly political-protecting royalty
and other important persOnages, watch
ing for SubverSive movements and doing
work that closely approaches that of a
Secret Service. Accounts of their activ-
tiles almost never appear in the news
papers.
The uniform branch has given Scot
land Yard its reputation for politeness
and quiet ability; and the bobby" is a
we'll known figure with qualities that
every American in London has expert
enced with admiration. But it is the
c. I. D. which has given the Yard its
reputation for efficiency, and the c. 1.
D. is proud of the statistics that show
it's work In 1929-3O there were 2O,553
crimes known to have been committed
in the metropolitan area. In 1900 of
them persons we're found, many of them
by the c. I. D., against whom proceedings
were taken.
kiURDER-real murder-s a crime
w rare in London. In 1930-31 there
were only II murders in the metropolitan
area, and this has been the average
number for the last 10 years. In nine of
these cases the murderer committed
suicide; in one case the G. I. D. feels
certain that it knows who committed the
murder, but, from lack of sufficient evi-
dence, the case is still recorded as un-
solved In the other II cases, one of
them a double murder, arrests were made
and seven of the murderers we're found
to be insane. In the other three cases
the suspects were acquitted. But the
figure of which the c. I. D. is most proud
is this: Between 1926-31 there were 95
murders committed, and only eight of
them are unSolved at this time, one of
these a case involving three victims.
Any detailed study of a number of
the cases solved by the system used by
the c. l. D. will reveal that the charac-
teristics of the system are disconcertingly
prosaic, and, in most cases, far from the
flashes of rapid second sight which
marks the detective in fiction. The
same system is used whether the case
be a spectacular murdex> problem or a
trivial matter of petty larceny.
The first essential of the system is
speed. Every man available is detailed
on the case when a murder is discovered,
for the Yard has found by experience
that as a rule more can be learned in
the first IL hours than in the next Il