Melville Davisson Post

“ It would not be exact to say that there is no specialization in Scotland Yard in any way parallel to the detective experts of the Continent. There are individuals in these divisions who become skilled in certain lines and are detailed to handle cases in which particular features are involved. But, as a rule, the whole organization is a rough, matter-of-fact, common-sense system for the investigation of criminal mystery.
The method is illustrated by the manner in which the police went about to discover the assassin of Lord William Russell. ”

“ In the celebrated railway tragedy in 1897, known as the four-minute murder because it was done between Putney and Wandsworth, two stations four minutes apart, the assassin had used a chemist's pestle as the deadly weapon. This he attempted to get rid of by throwing it out of the window of the compartment into the River Wandle; but by accident it struck a telegraph pole and bounded back on the railroad embankment, where it was afterward picked up by the police. This furnished Scotland Yard with the distinguishing clew upon which it always relies in the investigation of crimes. ”

“ No attacks are ever answered; no attempt is made to correct reports in the newspapers; no official ever gives out a statement for publication.
The expenditures of the department are not ever subject to public review. It happens, therefore, that Scotland Yard does not change and is not inconvenienced by change in administration. It is able to go ahead undisturbed with its work and to preserve a continuity in its investigations impossible to any public-detective center of the United States.
Scotland Yard's greatest difficulty in a man hunt is with the Continental criminal. ”

“ Scotland Yard reminds us that it is not alone in detective fiction that one finds a striking coincidence leading to the identification of a criminal. When Mr. Briggs was killed in a compartment of a train somewhere between Fenchurch Street and Hackney a hat was picked up on the floor of the compartment. This hat was found not to fit the head of the dead man and was stamped inside with the name of a shop in Marylebone. The assassin, in his hurry to escape, had by inadvertence taken his victim's hat and left his own. ”

“ Scotland Yard's method of arrest is always direct; it is never by ruse or finesse. Once the man hunt is ended and the quarry rounded up, the constables force in and seize him. It is a method unusually dangerous.
Take, for example, the Houndsditch affair, in December, 1910. Here four desperate foreign cracksmen entered a house adjoining a jeweler's shop. They were at work with a crowbar, forcing the wall, when sounds were detected and the police notified. ”

“ A weekly list of habitual criminals is published by Scotland Yard, describing convicts about to be released from prison, with the names and descriptions of habitual criminals. These lists give a convict's physical aspect, his name and aliases, specialty in crime, office number, record file and finger-print form in Scot land Yard; so that a complete record of the entire criminal class is available everywhere to the police in England. ”

“ Nor will he believe, with Friedrich Gerstacker, that the character of a suspect can be determined by the way he wears his hat—namely, that the honest pedantic man wears his hat set squarely on his head; the nimble-witted and pleasant wears it slightly tipped; the frivolous wears it tipped at a greater angle; the extravagant, conceited and impudent wears the hat on the back of the head ”

“ The number of remaining lines to be discovered will depend upon the degree of minute inspection. The eye of a constable will see only the obvious one, while the trained investigator will discover the innumerable faint and inconspicuous evidences. ”

“ They are trained in the regular metropolitan force and finally, if efficient, are assigned to the detective department.
Scotland Yard is a close, independent organization. It is not accountable to the London public. It cannot be controlled by it. It is little subject to the pressure of public opinion. It is entirely under the control of a commissioner, who is responsible alone to the Home Secretary. The people of London are not able to force explanations from Scotland Yard. The commissioner does not permit himself to be interrogated. ”

“ The finger-print system is now generally relied on. This system was invented by Robert Galton and was forced on Scotland Yard by the present commissioner of police, Sir Edward Henry. It is now almost wholly relied on in the identification of criminals, not only by Scotland Yard but by every other detective department of any standing in the world.
Finger-print impressions are taken by placing the bulb of the finger on a slab that has been thinly spread with ink. The finger is rotated, coating the ridges to the edges of the nail. ”

“ He was one of the experts of Scotland Yard—an old-thieves man. These experts were for a long time the only means which the department had for identifying criminals. There were certain of these persons in every division of the Metropolitan Police. It was their business to know personally all the thieves and crooks operating in that part of London.
For many years the old-thieves man was wholly relied on. If a crime was committed an essential clew was picked up in the theater of the act and the detective worked on that clew in connection with the old-thieves man of his division. ”

“ At daybreak a constable in Chesswell Street saw a man's finger impaled on a spike of a fence. It was evident that someone had attempted to scale the spiked fence and a metal ring on his finger had caught on one of the spikes. The man had fallen and the finger had been severed. Scotland Yard took a finger-print impression of this human document and an old impression of the fingers of the hand to which it belonged was located in the files. ”

“ And a certain dangerous mental state is always indicated when the foot is put forward and the shin bone slightly stretched out, with all the toes drawn in toward the sole of the foot, like a cat when it feels good. ”