y is
ready to and does serve both parties to a case with impartial wickedness,
and earns its wages by giving to both precisely the sort of evidence each
requires. Sometimes it is made to order, with no other foundation than
previous experience in like affairs; but sometimes it has a more solid
basis in fact. Two men from the same office are often detailed to
'shadow,' one the husband and the other the wife, and it occasionally
happens that they have mastered the spirit of their calling so thoroughly
that they do a little business on private account by 'giving away' each
other. That is to say, the husband's man informs the wife she is
watched, and gives her a minute description of her 'shadow,' for which
information he of course gets an adequate reward, which the wife's man
likewise earns and receives by doing the same kindly office for the
husband. In such cases there are generally mutual recriminations between
the watched, which end in a discovery of the double dealing of the
Agency, and not unfrequently in a reconciliation of the estranged couple.
But this rare result, which is not intended by the directing power, is
the sole good purpose these agencies were ever known to serve. Lord
Mansfield, it must be admitted, once seemed to justify the use of private
detectives in divorce suits, but he was careful to cumber the faint
praise with which he damned them by making honesty in the discharge of
these delicate duties a first essential. Had he lived to see the
iniquitous perfection the business has now attained, he would undoubtedly
have withheld even that quasi-endorsement of a system naturally at war
with the fundamental principles of justice.

"The waiters in the reception-room are never allowed to state their
wants, or certainly not to leave the place, without being astonished by
the charges made by the detective for attention to their business.
Whatever differences there may be in minor matters, all these
establishments are invariably true to the great purpose of their
existence, and prepare the way for an exorbitant bill by a doleful
explanation of the expenses and risks to be incurred in the special
affair presented, dilating especially upon the rarity and cost of
competent 'shadows.' Now the principal agencies estimate for them at $10
a day, whereas these disreputable fellows are found in multitudes, and
are rarely paid more than $3 a day as wages; their expenses, paid in
advance by the patron, are allowed