Private detective agency

“ In order to secure a position in any line it is essential that one have not only a talking knowledge, but also a working knowledge of the line. Careful study of what I shall set forth should enable any ambitious young man not only to secure a position as a private detective, but to “make good” as well; and if he so desires, to start and successfully conduct a private detective agency of his own. ”

“ Concerning the private detective agencies, it has been said by one of their number:
"They are no better than the regular officers so far as skill is concerned. The only real difference is that there is a superior intelligence in the make-up—their disguise—of the agency people. They are first-rate at shadowing a man, but any man with ordinary good sense, who knows how to keep his mouth shut, will make a good shadow. ”

“ In order to engage in the business, in some states it is necessary to secure and pay a business license, the rate per year being approximately the same as is paid by any other business concern. In some states licenses to engage in private detective work and to conduct private detective agencies are granted only by the courts of the county in which it is proposed to establish the main office or headquarters of the agency. ”

“ When you have found the motive for a crime, the balance of the work is usually easy.
There is one more phase of the detective business that I want to refer to briefly. Many men believe they were created or born for the express purpose of becoming detectors of crime. They believe they have missed their calling—it makes no difference by what means they are making a living now—because they have not been "called" into the detective business and many of them actually put in all their leisure time trying to "catch on" to a job, either in some municipal department or with some private agency. ”

“ The national detective agency, with its thousands of employees who have, most of them, grown up and received their training in its service, is a powerful organization, highly centralized, and having an immense sinking fund of special knowledge and past experience. This is the product of decades of patient labor and minute record. The agency which offers you the services of a Sherlock Holmes is a fraud, but you can accept as genuine a proposition to run down any man whose picture you may be able to identify in the gallery. ”

“ A private detective may, and usually does, become possessed of information even more valuable to the person who is being watched than to the person to whom he owes his allegiance. Unreliable rascals constantly sell out to the other side and play both ends against the middle. In this they resemble some of the famous diplomatic agents of history. And police detectives employed to run down criminals and protect society have been known instead to act as stalls for bank burglars and (for a consideration) to assist them to dispose of their booty and protect them from arrest and capture. ”

“ It is popularly supposed to be accompanied by force and sometimes brutality—and in wrong hands often is. Commissioner Dougherty’s experience with a commercial detective agency, however, has led him to develop intelligent methods. The commercial detective 100organization has none of the authority of an official police force, and at the same time, through its national operations and the general character of its work, deals chiefly with the most accomplished criminals. ”

“ There are two classes of cases where a private detective must needs be used, if indeed any professional assistance is to be called in: first, where the person whose identity is sought to be discovered or whose activities are sought to be terminated is not a criminal or has committed no crime, and second, where, though a crime has been committed, the injured parties cannot afford to undertake a public prosecution. ”

“ If the suspect is on the move and trains or steamships must be met, you have practically no choice but to employ a national agency. It alone has the proper plant and equipment for the work. In an emergency, organization counts more than anything else. Where time is of the essence, the individual has no opportunity to hire his own men or start an organization of his own. But if the matter is one where there is plenty of leisure to act, you can usually do your own detective work better and cheaper than any one else. ”

“ If a police detective doesn't make arrests and send a man to jail every once in a while there is no conclusive way for his superiors to be sure he isn't loafing.
There are a very large number of persons who go into the detective business for the same reason that others enter the ministry—they can't make a living at anything else, Provided he has squint eyes and a dark complexion, almost anybody feels that he is qualified to unravel the tangled threads of crime. The first resource of the superannuated or discharged police detective is to start an agency. ”

“ It was said he built up a secret service, composed of men and women from private detective agencies, whose duty it was to discover discreditable secrets in the lives of such claimants as refused to compromise, or, failing in discovery, to manufacture or invent such incidents. One married woman from Syracuse, who had been injured in a wreck in New York and came there to press her suit, was inveigled into a friendship with a woman detective commissioned to engage a neighboring room in the house where the plaintiff took temporary lodgings. ”

“ Murder, burglary, damage and divorce cases supply needs for a great deal of detective work.
State, county and city governments are large employers of private detectives. Counties and cities often have their own staffs of detectives, but there are many occasions when special detectives must be pressed into service. Nowadays election frauds are practiced practically everywhere. Private detectives are needed and can easily obtain employment wherever there are professional politicians. Trusted employees often go wrong and disappear with public funds. ”

“ Beet, "of private detective agencies are rotten to the core and simply exist and thrive upon a foundation of dishonesty, deceit, conspiracy, and treachery to the public in general and their own patrons in particular. There are detectives at the heads of prominent agencies in this country whose pictures adorn the Rogues' Gallery; men who have served time in various prisons for almost every crime on the calendar." ”

“ The strength and efficiency of a detective agency does not lie in the name at the top of its letter-paper, but in the unknown personnel of the men who are doing or shirking the work. I believe that most of the principals of the many agencies throughout the United States are animated by a serious desire to give their clients a full return for their money and loyal and honest service. But the best intentions in the world cannot make up for the lack of untiring vigilance in supervising the men who are being employed in the client's service. ”

“ I am an anti-detective. Never heard of that sort of person, I suppose?"
"Never," said Lawrence, curtly.
"Well, sir, the organization which I belong to is one which is filling a long felt want. You know very well, sir, that this country is full of detective officers, not only those who belong to a regular police force, but lots of private ones, who, if anybody will pay them for it, will go to Jericho to hunt a man up. Now, sir, our object is to protect society against these people. ”

“ The moment an informer is put in the witness-box his value as an instrument in the detection of crime is destroyed for ever.
The system is absolutely necessary. After the commission of an offence supposed to be the work of a professional criminal, the detective department must know where it can obtain accurate information as to the latest movements of the men likely to have been concerned. It does know. There is scarcely a criminal on the police books who is not kept under observation by one of his own class who "for a consideration" will betray him. ”

“ In times past the detection of crime was left very much to chance; but now and again shrewd agents, both public officials and private persons, contributed to the discovery of frauds and other misdeeds. Long ago, in France, as I have shown, there was an organised police force which often had resort, both for good and evil, to detective methods. Here in England the office of constable was purely local, and his duties were rather to make arrests in clear cases of flagrant wrong-doing than to follow up obscure and mysterious crime. ”

“ In the first place, the vigilance of the ordinary police is so great, that, as a rule, they lay hands upon a very great number of criminals, and cause a vast deal of crime to be punished. But, on the other hand, if a murderer, burglar, or other offender against society does manage to get clean away, he is rarely if ever caught. The police—that is, of course, the detective police—invariably ‘get a clue’ to the affair; and there the matter seems to end. The detection of crime is evidently not an art that has been cultivated in England. ”

“ Detective agencies are private affairs, except those connected with the police department of various cities. The salaries are not by any means munificent, and are earned by a vast amount of privation, exposure and hard work. ”

“ It sounds so awful to say 'detective.'"
Larry found the man he knew in the office of the agency, and the latter introduced him to the chief. The reporter explained the reason for the visit, and Grace added a plea that they do all in their power to locate Mr. Potter.
"I thought you'd come here sooner or later," said the chief with a smile. "Most folks do when they find the regular police don't give enough attention to the cases. It's not the fault of the police, though. They have so much to do they can't give much time to a single case. But of course we can. ”

“ The aid of the police is secured, and the officers of a dozen of the shrewdest private detective bureaus are put in possession of the few facts that have been ascertained. In a hundred directions public and private sleuths are set in motion. But their untiring efforts are unavailing. They have to combat a more adroit, more nervy and more intelligent force than they have ever before been brought in contact with.
The Committee of Forty has its ever watchful sentinels on guard, and every move of the detectives is anticipated and provided against. ”

“ Or it may be any of a thousand instances in which an employee ceases to retain the full confidence of his employer, and the convenient private detective's services are at once put in requisition. Undoubtedly it would greatly surprise the army of clerks, cashiers and assistants of this and every great city to learn how many of them are thus under detective espionage. The young fellow may have fallen into the web of the siren. He may be down at Coney Island or at the races enjoying himself; utterly unconscious that a pair of watchful eyes is observing every motion and chronicling every act. ”

“ And as the agency is protecting banks all over the United States it has greater interest in all bank burglars as a class than the police of any particular city who are only concerned with the burglars who (as one might say) burgle in their particular burg. Thus, you are more likely to find a detective from a national agency than a sleuth from 300 Mulberry Street, New York, following a forger to Australasia or Polynesia.
The best agencies absolutely decline to touch divorce and matrimonial cases of any sort. ”

“ Then, as now, its chief work lay in classifying the records and photographs of habitual criminals, compiling the "Rogues' Gallery," which is still of inestimable value in the prevention of crime.
The finger-print system is, of course, of enormous aid in identification, and, as I have said, is a complete safeguard against the possibility of a wrongful conviction. The ordinary detective is most often engaged in tracing a criminal after a breach of the law has been committed. The Criminal Record Office has the more delicate duty of trying to prevent crime. ”

“ This may save the master a disagreeable experience, but it is the simplest sort of police work and is done vicariously for the taxpayer, just as the public garbage man relieves you from the burden of taking out the ashes yourself, because he is paid for it, not on account of your own incapacity or his superiority.
The real detective is the one who, taking up the solution of a crime or other mystery, brings to bear upon it unusual powers of observation and deduction and an exceptional resourcefulness in acting upon his conclusions. ”

“ A divided responsibility simply doubles the criminal's opportunities for escape.
Among the many difficulties of the detective's work, none are more embarrassing than the early development of false clues. In the stories heretofore published, the direct steps leading to the detection and arrest of the criminals have been related, without referring to the innumerable other investigations, which were progressing simultaneously, and which, though involving the expenditure of much thought, time, and money, proved after all to be of no value whatever in developing any evidence in the case. ”

“ Stolen property has to be traced, pawnbrokers visited, convicts on licence watched, reports made, inquiries [Pg 52] conducted by request of provincial police forces. It means hard, painstaking work from morning to night.
As I have said, so far as is consistent with his duty, a man keeps on good terms with those criminals he knows. It is a point of policy. They know that the average detective does not wish them harm. If he has to arrest them they know he will be scrupulously fair when it comes to giving evidence. ”