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Detectives and Railway Crime.

THE railway detective is sometimes ridiculously at fault whether on the track of pickpocket, luggage thief, stealer of goods in transit, or perpetrator of more heinous crime; but notwithstanding his failures, he is a valuable servant to railway company and travelling public, and does much useful work. In whatever guise he appears, he is an amiable person to converse with. Unless you have some knowledge of his method and resource, you would scarcely dream that he was a detective at all. The sleek, white-haired, ruddy-faced man, in broad cloth, who looks like the valet of an archbishop as he stands sedately on the platform at crowded station, certainly does not look like one. Nevertheless he may have a telegram in his pocket from the chief of police containing the description of a forger who is likely be a passenger by the express, and will no doubt blandly place his hand on the thief's shoulder as he enters the compartment. The railway traveller, as he hurriedly laces his boots, and devours his breakfast, preparatory to his morning race to the city and to business, seldom gives a thought to the fact that he may be watched and suspected of some crime by the quiet, unobtrusive individual against whom he bangs in his haste to catch the train. But he is; and though you, being perfectly honest, and free from vice, have never, except through mistaken identity, been in his clutches, he has caught many a criminal and brought him or her to justice.

Murder on the Track.

      There have been many piteous assaults on women in railway trains; and two dreadful murders have, in the past quarter of a century, accentuated the peril of railway travel in this country, notwithstanding our boasted civilisation and the safeguards railway management has devised for the protection of passengers. On July 9, 1864, when the night tram from Fenchurch Street reached Hackney, the compartment of one of the carriages was flecked with blood, and contained a hat, walking stick, and hand-bag, but no passenger. Search being made along the line, a man was discovered on the track. He was identified as Thomas Briggs, chief clerk in a Lombard Street banking house; but no information could be obtained from him, for he was terribly wounded in the head and speechless. He died not long after he was found. His assailants had not taken his money, but there had been a fierce struggle, for the passenger's watch-chain had been ripped out of his vest button-hole, and his watch had gone, as well as his gold eye-glass which he was accustomed to wear attached to a hair guard. The bank clerk s watch-chain had been exchanged for another by a foreigner named Franz Muller and his barter of this chain proved an important link in his detection; but the dramatic incident in the crime was the fact that the hat left in the railway carriage was not the victim's hat. It was altogether too small for his head. In the excitement of the moment Muller had appropriated the bank clerk's hat instead of putting on his own, and when questioned as to his whim in wearing a hat several sizes too large, became disquieted and fled. He succeeded in crossing the Atlantic from Liverpool; but was arrested in New York, brought back to London, tried, and sentenced to death.

      Till his feet touched the scaffold he protested his innocence, then he confessed that was the murderer, whispering as the hangman adjusted the rope: "Ja, Ich habe es gethan!" ("Yes, I did it.")

      The man who stood out most conspicuously in railway crime was Thomas Mapleton Lefroy. On June 27th, 1881, he travelled by the express from London to Brighton, undoubtedly with malice aforethought to commit murder. He attacked a fellow passenger, Mr. Gold, a city merchant, with revolver and knife. Though severely wounded, Mr. Gold struggled desperately, but finally he was overpowered, and Lefroy, swinging open the carriage door, flung his body on the line. Search was made for it, and Mr. Gold's lifeless form was found in Balcombe Tunnel. His face was grievously cut and bruised, and his throat was pierced by a revolver bullet. The guard noticed Mr. Gold asleep in the carriage at Croydon. At Preston Park the merchant had disappeared; Lefroy was the only occupant of the compartment, and his collar was torn and his look perturbed, as though he had been engaged in fierce encounter. A bullet was found in one of the panels, another was discovered embedded in a cushion, and the carriage was spotted with blood. Lefroy's denial of his part in the tragedy was discredited, because Mr. Gold's watch was secreted in his boot. But he was not arrested at the time. Two days afterwards the detectives tracked him to Stepney, and apprehended him in a room, where he was hiding, with the blinds down. It was at first difficult to tell whether he was suffering most keenly from hunger or remorse, but as the officers pounced upon his false moustache, whiskers, and blood-stained garments, he admitted his guilt, saying: "I am glad you have found me; I am sick of it. I should have given myself up in a day or two. I have regretted it ever since I ran away." When taken through Balcome Tunnel, on his way to Lewes, was a prey to remorse, and became fearfully excited. At Maidstone Assizes, where Lord Coleridge, in passing sentence of death, said the crime reminded him of the story of Hood's "Haunted House," the prisoner asserted that was innocent, adding: "The day will come when you will know that you have murdered me." Nevertheless, Lefroy was hanged.

Jewel Robbers.

      The detective has caught many a bullion thief, and being as alert as a cat on the railway carriage front-board, has frustrated attempt at outrage on woman, and assault on male passenger. He met his match, however, some years ago on the Midland Railway. A discharged porter, quite as clever a railway acrobat as the detective, turned thief, and committed numerous robberies from running trains. It was his habit to travel an ordinary passenger. When the train got well on the swing coolly opened the carriage window, flung out somebody's portmanteau, and before they had recovered from their surprise, he opened the carriage door, and stepped out on the foot-board. Being accustomed to the difficult feat of springing on, and alighting from a moving train, he dropped on the line, severely shaken now and again, but otherwise uninjured, and making his way back to the bag or portmanteau he had pitched out, appropriated everything of value in it. But the wrongdoer, sooner or later, is overtaken retribution, and inasmuch as he alighted one night on a very awkward part of the line, and broke his leg, the detective's task was, by this accident, made easy, and the gymnastic porter soon found himself prison.

      But it must be confessed that jewel robbery, either from railway compartment or from railway station invariably vexes and perplexes the detective. As rule he has absolutely nothing to base his inquiry and search upon; and the precious stones, diamonds, rubies, or pearls, cleverly stolen from my lady's case, in her own temporary absence, or while her servant's attention is diverted, may cunningly reset, and gracing the heads, necks, and arms of perfectly respectable society beauties before has obtained any clue to the delinquent. On December 12, 1874, for instance, the Countess of Dudley's jewel case was placed for a moment on the platform at Paddington by one of her servants. Opportunity is a fine thing, and a daring thief took it. He also took the jewel case, containing tiaras, necklaces, bracelets, and gems in various settings, to the value of £50,000. The servant, who had simply been assisting a fellow domestic from a cab, was nearly mad when the jewel case could not be found. A reward of £1,OOO was offered for the thief's discovery; but neither detective nor informer handled the money. The jewels are missing yet.

      In the more recent robbery of the Countess Dowager Duchess of Sutherland's jewels, the railway detective did little towards placing the thief in the dock. A few months ago her Grace, with her husband, Sir Albert Rollit, left the Hotel Bristol, Vendome Place, Paris, for Calais and London. The Duchess placed her despatch box, containing jewels valued at £30,000, in a first-class sleeping compartment of the night train at the Nord Station. Her maid stood the carriage while her Grace was temporarily absent. No stranger, to the maid's knowledge, entered. Her Grace and her husband afterwards took their seats, and the train started. Soon afterwards the Duchess missed the jewel case. At Amiens her Grace and Sir Albert gave notice to the police of the robbery, and then returned to Paris, where they made known their loss to the authorities. The detectives were quickly at work in London, Amsterdam, Calais, Brussels, and other cities; but they could find no trace of the missing gems. The thief, in the opinion of some experts, was a passenger by the corridor train, on which, after stealing the jewels, he had journeyed to Calais, and probably made his way to London. A reward of £4,000 was offered for information, that would lead to his arrest. Weeks went without any clue. Then a woman in London told the police that William Johnson, alias "Harry, the Valet," had stolon the jewels, and indicating his whereabouts, the man was arrested by the Scotland Yard detectives. Fashionably dressed and bedizened with diamonds and rubies, had for some time led a sort of Monte Cristo life in the West End. No extravagance was too great for him, and with the gold he had obtained from traffic in a portion of the jewels, he had indulged the wildest dissipation. He was a skilful station platform and train thief; but inasmuch he was sentenced seven years' penal servitude, his preying upon travellers has been checked. But he left the dock with a smile. Only about £5,000 worth of jewels were recovered. The bulk of the precious stones are secreted; and the prisoners smile was eloquent of the fact that when he is liberated he intends to enjoy the residue of his plunder.

The Guard's Wealth.

      It is the detective's task sometimes bring home charges of dishonesty to the company's own servants. One of the most conspicuous cases of this sort occurred on the London and North-Western Railway. A guard in care of a train running from Birmingham to London was suspected of purloining articles from the luggage in his van. He was watched on several journeys, and seen to open a number of boxes with ingeniously constructed keys. He had a weakness for appropriating jewellery. He stole brooches, necklaces, bracelets, rings. When detected he was becoming rich with ill-gotten gains. He had developed his thieving into a system. He found the van such a rich gold, diamond, and ruby mine that he could not dispose of his finds with sufficient celerity, and concealed them till a more convenient season beneath the grass and gravel near his house, or by the line side. Like the servant in the parable, but with different motive, he hid the trinkets in the earth.

The Wine Party.

      The railway detective occasionally finds himself in an awkward position. Robberies from goods trains are frequent, and the officer is now and again puzzled to discover the delinquents. The general practice is to bore holes in each end of the truck so that the detective secreted inside can ascertain at a glance the approach of any marauder. Ned Farmer, who was for years a noted railway detective, was one of the first to make use of these eye-holes. He was an interesting figure on the line for years among the privileged few who were cognisant of his occupation. He was not only a capable detective, but a poet, and wrote the pathetic rhyme, "Little Jim." He was a shrewd, practical man, full of resource, and never permitted his poetic instinct to interfere with his duty. Ned Farmer was instrumental in transferring many a felon from railway carriage and the siding into the police-court dock.

      One of the cases in which he was engaged was a curious one. A goods train was shunted in the Midlands to let the express pass. Two members of the detective staff were concealed in bored truck that formed part of the luggage train. The siding was a lonely one. There was no habitation near; not a sign of life. When the express thundered by the goods driver quitted his engine and assisted by the signalman went to a truck laden with wine. Broaching a cask they acted upon the advice given in the old song. They poured out the Rhine wine; they let it flow — into buckets. The signalman and the brakeman enjoyed long pulls at the generous liquid. The driver and stoker took what remained to the footplate and drank with much gusto. It was a Bohemian and unsuspicious wine party; the guests being quite unconscious of the presence of the eager detectives in the bored truck. They had not even a whistle warning; not a hint of coming trouble. The driver was unmolested. He ran the train forward to its destination. Then the detectives came out of their hiding-place. There was surprise, consternation, and indignation; but denial was useless. The buckets were still rich with the aroma of good wine.

(THE END)