Colonel Henderson's report to the Home Secretary on the Metropolitan
Police for 1877 was issued on Monday last. It states that the total strength of the force at the end of the year was 10,446, being an increase of 178 over the preceding year, while 40 miles of new streets have been added to the metropolis. Depression of trade figures prominently in the report as a cause of increased sobriety, or rather of a stationary condition of drunkenness ; but at the same time, we are told that "the increase in the number of arrests is due entirely to the increase of crime," which leads to the reflection that perhaps, after all, the gin-bottle is not the sole cause of offences. Burglaries and house-breakings have nominally increased, but we are told that this is owing to an extension of the meaning of those words, which makes them include offences which were formerly classed apart. Upon the most important question connected with the Department, the reorganisation of the Detectives, the Report is almost silent. Colonel Henderson only mentions that the service has been reorganised, and that a Director of Criminal Investigations has been appointed. What the public wanted to know was the impression that the Drusco- vich inquiry had made upon Scotland Yard.
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