organisation to his work.

There are five stations--at Wapping, Waterloo Pier, Barnes, Blackwall,
and Erith--with a complement of 240 men, fourteen launches and motor
boats, as well as row-boats. The division possesses its own engineers
and carpenters, and does its own building and repairs.

Now-a-days, men are only drafted to the division after serving for a
time in the ordinary land force, but the rule has only been in force of
late years, and consequently most of the men have spent their whole
police career on the river.

A different thing this to land work. In the whole thirty-five miles
there are only five "sections." These are patrolled by series of boats
putting off at different hours. For eight hours they ply to and fro,
keenly vigilant, courteous as their colleagues in the West End, as
helpful and resourceful in an emergency as men of the Navy. Sometimes a
barge gets adrift. It has to be boarded and towed to safe moorings.

Some of these barges have valuable cargoes--tobacco, silk, and what
not--and the incredible carelessness of the owners in not always
providing a watchman presses hardly on the police, who may, perhaps,
have to spend a whole night in looking after some single craft. There
was a case in which a barge broke adrift with L20,000 worth of goods
aboard.

"Oh, that would have been all right," said the owner off-handedly, when
told that it had been safely looked after. "It would have come to no
harm."

Not a word of thanks. And that attitude is a typical one.

The patrol-boats beat to and fro, each with two men and a sergeant, in
all weathers, amid blinding sleet and snow in the winter, fog in
November, and more pleasantly on summer nights. Eyes are strained
through the darkness at the long tiers of barges, ears are alert to
catch the click of oars in rowlocks. They know who has lawful occasion
to be abroad at such times.

Occasionally the sergeant hails some boat. He can usually identify the
voice of the man who replies, but should he fail to do so, the
police-boat slips nearer. A stranger or a suspicious character is
invited to give an account of himself. Should he not be able to do so
satisfactorily, he is towed along to the nearest police station until
inquiries have been made.

Sometimes, not often, when a man, who on the river corresponds to the
sneak thief ashore, is caught red-handed stealing rope or metal or
ships' oddments there is resistance. But always the police win. They
kn