hey occasionally robbed the
treasure chest of the mail steamer when a parcel of valuable securities
was passing from London to Paris. Tidings reached me that they were
planning a _coup_ of this kind upon a certain night, and I ascertained
by inquiry that a city insurance company meant to send a large
consignment of bonds to Paris on the night in question. How the thieves
got the information is a mystery; their organization must have been
admirable. But Scotland Yard was a match for them. I sent officers to
Dover and Calais to deal with the case, and the men were arrested on
landing at Calais. But they were taken empty-handed. A capricious order
of the railway company's marine superintendent at Dover had changed the
steamer that night an hour before the time of sailing; and while upon
the thieves was found a key for the treasure chest of the advertised
boat, they had none for the boat in which they had actually crossed.
But, _mirabile dictu_, during the passage they had managed to get a wax
impression of it! We also got hold of a cloak-room ticket for a
portmanteau which was found to contain some L2000 worth of coupons
stolen by the gang on a former trip. The men included in the "bag" were
"Shrimps," "Red Bob," and an old sinner named Powell. But the criminal
law is skilfully framed in the interest of criminals, and it was
impossible to make a case against them. I succeeded, however, by dint of
urgent appeals to the French authorities, in having them kept in gaol
for three months.

And now for the point of my story. Powell had left a blank cheque with
his "wife," to be used in case he came to grief; and on his return to
England he found she had been false to him. She had drawn out all his
money, and gone off with another man; and the poor old rascal died of
want in the streets of Southampton.[G] He it was who was Raymond's
accomplice in stealing Mr. Agnew's picture, and with his death all hope
of a prosecution came to an end.

If my purpose here were to amuse, I might fill many a page with
narratives of this kind. But my object is to expose the error and folly
of our present system of dealing with crime. When a criminal court
claims to anticipate the judgment of the Great Assize in the case of a
hooligan convicted of some vulgar act of violence, the silliness and
profanity of the claim may pass unnoticed. But when the
"punishment-of-crime" system is applied to criminals of the type here
described, the imbecility of it