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heart, which has no channel for it in the right direction; the channel has been long dried and seared.
    “Search them,” said I.
    A process which, as regards women, we generally leave to our female searchers, but which I was obliged to have recourse to here in a superficial way to guard valuables, so easily secreted or
cast away, and a process which requires promptness even to the instant; for on such an occasion, the cunning of women is developed with a subtlety transcending all belief. The hair, the hollow of
the cheek, under the tongue, in the ear, up the nostrils, even the stomach being often resorted to as the receptacles of small but valuable articles. We contrived all four to dart upon the
creatures at once, each seizing his prey. The suddenness of the onset took them by surprise, and in the course of a few minutes, we had collected into a shining heap nearly the whole of Mr
Jackson’s most valuable jewels.
    We then marched the whole nine up to the Police-Office, I carrying the magic box, which, if I had been vainglorious, I would have set agoing as an appropriate accompaniment to our march up the
High Street.
    They were all tried on the 25th July 1843; Preger got fourteen years, and Shields ten. The women got off on the admission that they got the jewellery from Shields and Preger. I remember that,
after the trial, Mr Jackson addressed me something in these terms:—
    “Mr M’Levy, I owe the recovery of my property to you. I will retain my jewels, but as for the articles of apparel, I am afraid that were I to wear them I might myself become a thief;
so you may dispose of them, and take the proceeds, with my thanks. The musical box I will keep as a useful secret informer; so that in the event of my house being robbed again, it may have a
chance, through its melody, of recovering my property.”

The Broker’s Secret
    ❖
    I have often heard it said that the past part of my life must have been a harassing and painful one; called on, as my reputation grew, in so many
cases,—obliged to get up at midnight, to pursue thieves and recover property in so wide a range as a city with 200,000 inhabitants, and often with no clue to seize, but obliged in so many
instances, to trust to chance. All this is true enough, and yet in fails in being a real description, insomuch as it leaves out the incidents that maintain and cheer the spirit,—for I need
scarcely say, that if any profession now-a-days can be enlivened by adventure, it is that of a detective officer. With the enthusiasm of the sportsman, whose aim is merely to run down and destroy
often innocent animals, he is impelled by the superior motive of benefiting mankind, by ridding society of pests, and restoring the broken fortunes of suffering victims; but, in addition to all
this, his ingenuity is taxed while it is solicited by the sufferers, and replayed by the applause of a generous public. A single triumph of ingenuity has repaid me for many a night’s
wandering and searching, with not even a trace to guide me.
    On the 28th of September 1848, the house of Mr Gravat, butcher in Hanover Street, was entered in the forenoon, by keys, and a large quantity of jewellery and article of clothing were abstracted.
I got immediate notice; and having examined the people who saw the thieves coming out of the stair, I was enabled, from my general knowledge of almost all the members of the tribe—at that
time, though only twelve years ago, so much more numerous than now—to fix upon my men. I have made the cheering remark “so much more numerous then than now,” and it is suggestive
of a consideration. Society itself has always made its own pests, and it astonishes one to think how long we have been in coming in to this thought,—nay, it is comparatively only a few years
old, as if we had been always blind to the fact, that there are two kinds of thieves and robbers: one comprising those that have no choice but to continue their early habits, got from their