Mr Monro was appointed to take charge of the detective department. His appointment marked an epoch in Police administration in London; but the good which ought to have resulted from it was largely hindered by the bickerings which, after a time, began between him and the Chief Commissioner. And those bickerings were aggravated by Sir Charles Warren's relations with the Home Office. As several of the men concerned are still with us, I cannot speak freely on this subject; but this much I may say, that if that if Sir Adolphus Liddell had been still in office, and the influence of Whitehall had savoured of a plaister rather than of a blister, the course of events would have been different. The result was that Mr Monro resigned. But London's loss was my gain, for I succeeded to the office.

Mr Monro's place was not easily filled, and the matter was dealt with by a Committee of the Cabinet. The Departmental Committee of 1877 stipulated that the head of the detective department should be a criminal lawyer; and the obvious importance of this was now recognised. Mr Monro had given valuable assistance to the Irish Government in relation to political crime; and Mr A. J. Balfour, who was then Chief Secretary, urged that his successor should be qualified to render similar service. Of course it was essential to have a man who would work harmoniously with the Chief Commissioner, and Sir Charles

Warren had said more than once that "if Anderson were at Scotland Yard all would go smoothly." On an earlier page I have spoken of my capacity for imposing on people who don't know me; and here was another proof of it, for Sir Charles and I were practically strangers. The names and claims of a number of men were duly considered; and by a process of "negative induction," it appeared that I was the only man who possessed all the necessary qualifications.

Sir Charles Warren's appointment to the head of the Force was a risky experiment. The Police cannot tolerate military discipline, and this was their first experience of a military Chief Commissioner. For it is no disparagement of Sir Edmund Henderson to say that he was more of a civilian than a soldier; and, moreover, he came to Scotland Yard from Whitehall, where he had been at the head of the Prison Department. The effect was precisely what might have been anticipated. I speak with knowledge such as few others possessed, and I can say with definiteness that there was a dangerous want of sympathy between the Commissioner and the rank and file; and Sir Charles Warren was not the man to make things smoother in such a case. There is no doubt that sedition was smouldering throughout the Force, and serious trouble might have resulted. But a change of sentiment was brought about in a most unlooked-for way. When, with his proverbial bold

ness, Sir Charles Warren stood forward to defend the Force against the unjust strictures of the Home Office after the Trafalgar Square riots of November 1887, his faults were condoned; and by the time that I became his colleague, ten months later, his popularity with the uniformed Force was established.

I may here say at once that, though I was warned by many, including officers who had served under him in South Africa, that "I could never get on with Warren," my relations with Sir Charles were always easy and pleasant. During all my official life I never failed to "get on " with any man, no matter what his moods, if only he was honourable and straight. I was told that he had a dog-like nature. But I am of that breed myself. I always found him perfectly frank and open, and he treated me as a colleague, leaving me quite unfettered in the control of my department; and when his imperious temper could no longer brook the nagging Home Office ways of that period, and he decided to resign his office, I felt sincere regret at his going. But no one may justly charge me with fickleness and duplicity, if I add that my regret gave place to feelings of unfeigned pleasure when the unexpected followed, and Mr Monro came back to Scotland Yard as Chief Commissioner.

My satisfaction with the new appointment was by no means based on personal grounds only. If we had been left together for half a

dozen years his administration would have made a permanent mark upon the criminal statistics of the Metropolis. Mayne was was thoroughly sympathetic toward detective police work, but he had no proper staff. And during the first ten years of the "C.I.D." the Chief Commissioners were men who were out of touch with work of that kind. But now at last we had a thoroughly efficient detective Force, and a Chief Commissioner who had himself done much to make it what it was, and who had both acquaintance and sympathy with its duties. He told me, indeed, more than once, that he sometimes wished himself back in his old chair. And I traded upon this at first by referring specially difficult cases to him. But this he vetoed, telling me plainly that he was not going to do my work for me. But he added in his genial way that the oftener I came to him as & friend to talk over my cases the better he would be pleased.

But it was not to be. His predecessor had been driven out by the Home Office, and he soon yielded to the same influence. I am anticipating events, for I have something to say about my first year at Scotland Yard; but I wish to deal once for all with these personal elements. If Liddell had been at Whitehall, Warren and Monro would have been friends. And with Liddell at Whitehall there would have been no fatal friction between the Commissioner of Police and the Home Secretary. In each case there were two sides to the quarrel.

That is a matter of course. But to repeat my inelegant simile, where a plaister is needed the effect of a blister is intolerable; and but for the blister Mr Matthews and Mr Monro might have made bon ménage, as the French phrase it. With his many excellent qualities Godfrey Lushington's intervention and influence were generally provocative and his manner was irritating.

To show how grotesquely Mr Monro was misjudged at Whitehall, I may mention that when he summoned the superintendents to a private conference on the Police Pension Bill he was suspected of a design to foment sedition, and an appeal was made to me confidentially to watch the proceedings.

It is chiefly by the Pension Act that he will be remembered in the Force. Under that statute a police officer can claim a pension after twentyfive years' service; and after twenty-six years he can retire on a full pension of two-thirds of his pay. Formerly a medical certificate was necessary to enable an officer to retire on

pension before the ordinary Civil Service age limit was reached. But experience proved that, after twenty-five years of ordinary police duty on the streets, a man might be practically worn out, though organically sound. And on this fact the new scheme was framed.

on

But owing, it may be, to special vigour, or to having been employed special duties, many a constable is perfectly fit after twenty-five or twenty-six years' service; and in the higher ranks the duties, though of course more responsible, are generally less wearing. It was assumed, however, that the serious financial sacrifice involved in resigning from the Force (and any one can judge what it means to lose a third of his income) would be sufficient to deter officers from making an undue use of their pension rights. And if that assumption has been falsified, it is not those who framed the measure who should be held responsible for the inordinate charges which, in its operation, it has imposed upon the ratepayers of the Metropolis and the public purse.1

EXTRACT

Orders " by Sir B- Rmanding M 10th Dec. 18-:

Major-General

K.C.B., comDistrict, dated

"All troops in garrison will parade as strong as possible on the brigade parade-ground at 10 A.M. to-morrow to witness the execution of No. 1393, Private Thomas P, 1st Batt. Regiment. Adjutants and markers to be on the ground at 9.30 A.M."

A glorious December morning in Upper India nearly twenty years ago. A touch of frost during the night, a keen fresh breeze from the Himalayas tempering the warmth of the sun's rays, blue sky, green trees, the honk of wild geese overhead as they returned from their nightly depredation of the wheat-fields-all combined to make the blood course vigorously through young veins, and men rejoice that they were alive. All in that large garrison but one, who now realised that his earthly career was about to close, and that in another hour he would have paid the penalty for taking a man's life.

Never was a more senseless" crime committed, and to this day I am convinced that the man was insane when he fired the fatal shot. The victim was a young officer named Beauchamp, of six or seven years' service, regarded with

"good fellow find between Peshawar.

a

as you could Calcutta and

He was commanding his company during the absence on leave of his captain, and was putting it through its annual course of musketry. This meant many long hours for him on the range every day, for though the men came up in successive sections, fired their daily allowance, and returned to barracks, the officer had to be on the ground the whole time. So Beauchamp used to have his breakfast sent to the range, and ate it in a small shelter-tent pitched in rear of the firing-point.

On the morning in question he was having his breakfast when one of his men walked slowly up to the tent and shot him through the heart-stonedead.

The murderer made no resistance when seized, and no effort to defend himself when his enraged comrades attempted to lynch him to lynch him an attempt which was at once frustrated by the non-commissioned officers on the spot.

Questioned later as to the motive that led him to commit the crime, the man could give no other reason than that Lieutenant Beauchamp had ordered him and several others to have half-an-hour's extra "aiming-drill" the pre

vious afternoon on account of their having shot badly in the morning. It suddenly came into his head that evening that he would shoot the officer for this, but, "to give him a fair chance," he determined to toss up whether he should do so or not. The coin came down for shooting. He slept calmly that night, and carried out his purpose next morning. He said he had no other grievance whatever against his officer.

If that was not the crime of a madman, even though his madness lasted but a few hours, I do not know what it

was.

The man was of course tried by general court - martial, found guilty, and condemned to death, and it was to witness the last act of this tragedy that we of the M- -Brigade marched out of our lines and standing camps that bright December morning.

The brigade parade-ground, the scene of the execution, was a large "maidan" or grass plain, circled by the racecourse and the 'ohasecourse, but disfigured to-day by a gallows, black and high, which had been erected during the night. In front and on each flank of the gallows the troops formed in hollow square, cavalry and artillery (dismounted) on the left face, the prisoner's own regiment in front, other infantry battalions on the right face. Careful precautions were taken to prevent any one from witnessing the execution except the troops themselves. Otherwise, I have no doubt, the big native city,

which adjoined cantonments, would have sent out its thousands to see a white man die, but cavalry patrols and infantry piquets surrounded the parade-ground and forbad all approach.

The regiment to which I then belonged had at that time among its pets a young black buck, which lived in great content on the toll it levied on the horses' grain, and was equally at home in the lines of all the squadrons. It never followed the regiment when mounted, but would sometimes accompany parties marching to the range or to foot drill, and, on this particular morning, after we had moved off, it came running and skipping after us out of the lines, stopping occasionally in its absurd inconsequential way, and then bounding forward again till it joined the column and accompanied it to the execution ground, where when we formed up it wandered up and down the ranks, and finally drifted out into the middle of the square. The troops had all been in position for perhaps half an hour, when, far off, from the direction of the nearest British guard-room, we saw a sad procession coming slowly across the maidan towards us. In front marched the band of the prisoner's regiment, playing the "Dead March in Saul"; then came the chaplain in his robes, reading the Funeral Service; then the condemned man, surrounded by an escort with fixed bayonets, and, in rear of all, a hospital ambulance-"tonga