New York possesses its Black Museum, its treasure-house of criminal relics akin to that which may be viewed at the headquarters
[Illustration: 1. PHOTOGRAPHING A CRIMINAL FOR THE "ROGUES' GALLERY" (NEW YORK). 2. CABINET IN WHICH AMERICAN CRIMINALS ARE REGISTERED. 3. TWO LEAVES OF THE "ROGUES' GALLERY."]
of our Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard. A brief summary of the exhibits in this strange depository is, in its way, an epitome of contemporary crime. Every item, even the most insignificant, tells of some flagitious act. The sledge hammers, drills, jemmies, masks, and powder flasks tell their own story, so do the marvellously ingenious burglar's implements manufactured by high-class mechanical skill, and hired out to executive agents on a percentage of results. Here are the bogus gold bricks of some famous confidence trick, the well-named _vol à l'Americain_, lithographic stones from which thousands and thousands of counterfeit notes have been struck off, the curious devices used for opening combination locks, the rope ladders, lanterns, revolvers that have figured in various notable operations.
[Illustration: COMPLETE SET OF AN AMERICAN BURGLAR'S TOOLS.]
Another branch well worked by the New York police is its identification department, which is now fully served by the Bertillon method of measurement, and it has always been rich in photographic portraiture. The famous "Rogues' Gallery," which forms the basis of Mr. Inspector Byrnes' book on American criminals, is a marvellous record of rascality. Each picture is backed with a brief history of ancestry and antecedents, so that the influences at work, whether congenital or accidental, evil traits transmitted from parents, or the growth of bad example acting on weak moral fibre, may be seen at once. As has been said, the United States offers many attractions to wrong-doers, and in this police gallery will be found the portraits of such great criminal practitioners as "Hungry Joe," the ex-Governor of South Carolina; Franklin J. Moses, "Big Bertha," Annie Riley, an accomplished linguist; Max Shinburn, and the rest.
It is a part of the case against the New York police that it fails to control crime effectively, but it can nevertheless show results at least as good under this head as those achieved in European countries. In some respects indeed its operations are marked by a cleverness and smartness which it would be hard to match in the best of the police forces of the Old World.