The Home Office has appointed a Committee to inquire into
the state of the London Detective Force. The Committee, as origin- ally composed, consisted of Sir IL Selwyn-Ibbetson, Colonel Fielding, Mr. Massie, QC., and Mr. Overend, Q.C. ; but it is likely to be made more efficient by the addition of two London stipendiary magistrates, who of course know much more about the failings of detectives than the authorities at Scotland Yard. We have indicated in another column what we conceive to be the main defects of our detective system, and we hope that the Home Secretary's Committee will be courageous enough to propose strong remedies, if strong remedies are needed, to restore the tone and heighten the efficiency of the force. We cannot get men of refinement to do their work, but the Committee can surely tell us how we may procure trustworthiness and acuteness. Kurr's revelations at Bow Street—which have had much to do with the appointment of the Committee—are more startling as they proceed. His story is that he and his friends bribed whole- sale the London, Glasgow, and New York police—he gave in his cross-examination the names of ton said to have taken money. Ho described with amusing frankness how be had concocted at his trial an alibi, which he admitted was " very crooked ;" how he had managed to smuggle all sorts of letters, in the guise of "solicitors' instructions," out of Newgate ; and he related a series of swindles which vie in ingenious audacity with those of any of the clever scamps in " Gil Bias."
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