Guards, and the Inns of Court, which are never free from inspection for a single moment.

There are 130 police stations in the metropolis, and by a telegraph signal a Police Commissioner at White Hall, in Parliament street, which is contiguous to Scotland Yard,—the headquarters of the Metropolitan Detective force, who are separated in their duties from the Old Jewry or City of London Detective force, can concentrate in an hour and a half as many as 6,000 men for instant duty. This vast force, each man receiving but three shillings to three and sixpence a day, is really under a wonderful control. Each officer has to walk twenty miles a day in his rounds beside attending the police courts, which is equal to five miles in addition. 98,000 persons were arrested in one year-1869, of which number 40,000 were discharged. The cost of the Metropolitan Police for one year was about £525,000, and the City Police, for the same term, £60,000—the City Police numbering 700, the Metropolitan force nearly 7,000.

The expenses of the Police Courts, for 1869, was £88,240, including the salary of one Magistrate at £1,500 a year, and thirty other Magistrates at £1,200 a year, each. Sixty pounds and six shillings were expended for rattles, swords, and clubs, in the same time. The City Corporation are allowed, by act of Parliament, to have their own Police and Commissioners in the heart of the metropolis, or City proper. There is, besides, a "Horse Patrol" for public occasions; eight hundred of which were on duty on the day of the Oxford and Harvard race; a "Thames River" Police, the Westminster Constabulary," and a "Police Office Agency," for recovery of stolen goods. Before the establishment of the Thames Police, in 1797, the annual loss by robberies alone on the river, was £750,000 a year, the depredators having various, curious names, such as "River Pirates," "Light" and "Heavy Horsemen," "Mud-larks," "Capemen," and "Scuffle-hunters."

They were frequently known to weigh a ship's anchor, hoist it with the cable into a boat, and when discovered, to hail the captain, tell him of his loss, and row away chcerily. They also

would cut shipping and lighters adrift, run them ashore and then clean them out. Many of the "Light Horsemen" cleared as much as thirty pounds a night, and an apprentice to a "mock-waterman" often kept his saddle horse and country seat. During the first year of the Thames Police, the saving to the West India merchants alone amounted to £150,000, and 2,200 river thieves were convicted during that time, of misdemeanor.

In those days, the magnificent docks which are now the chief ornament of London, had not been built with their high walls to keep out the swarming thieves who haunted the shipping.

CHAPTER XXI.

HUNTING THE SEWERS.

IDDEN in the bosoms of the sewers of every Great City lies a world of romance. The secrets of thousands of human beings, with their hopes and aspirations, their de feats and disappointments, are garnered, in the relics of myriad households, whose rubbish is shot through drains, to be imbedded in the accumulated masses at the bottom of the soggy sewerage.

London has two thousand miles of bricked sewers, and the entire metropolis is honey-combed by these effluvious passages. These sewers are, of course, choked with refuse and swarming with rats and other pestiferous vermin, by night and day, and are pervaded with noxious gases, which, when inhaled, cause almost instantaneous death. The rats grow as big as kittens in the sewers, and will face strong, healthy men, and give them combat-in legions. The rats feed on offal from the butchers' slaughter houses, which is poured into the sewers, and they also subsist on the grain which comes from the breweries, in different parts of the city.

Twenty years ago, the main sewers of London, having their outlets on the river side, were completely open, and it was lawful to enter them to search for valuables, but since then so many people have died of the gases, or have lost themselves in their noxious recesses, that a law was at last passed, by which persons entering the sewers to explore them, unless they were employed as workmen, became amenable to imprisonment, and at present the law is strictly enforced.

Formerly, when the spring tides in the Thames began, it was of common occurrence for the waters to dash into the sewers, sweeping everything in their way, and very often engulfing the workmen, or others engaged illegally in searching the sewers; and days after one of these tidal floods had occurred bodies of drowned and disfigured men would be vomited from the mouths of the sewers.

Now, however, this is changed, and hanging iron doors, with hinges, are affixed to the mouths of the sewers, and are so arranged that when the tides are low the iron doors are forced open by the rubbish and wet refuse which is emptied into the Thames, and when the tides rise the volume of water forces the doors back, and the river cannot enter the sewers.

There are two or three hundred men in London, who earn a living by working in the sewers. These men, though there is a law against the practice, search the sewers, night and day, for old iron, rope, metal, money, or whatever is of value to the finder. They are called "Toshers," or "Shore-men," and are, in some things, very like the "mud-larks," who frequent the river sides.

Some of these men are very fortunate at times, and succeed in obtaining good prizes from the black, stinking mud of the sewers. Gold watches, silver milk-jugs, breast-pins, bracelets, and gold rings, are obtained by them. These sewer hunters, however, do not trouble themselves to collect coal, wood, or chips, as is the case with the mud-larks. There are better prizes for them, and accordingly, they do not waste their time on such trifles.

The Sewer-Hunter, before penetrating a sewer, provides himself with a pair of canvas trousers, very thick and coarse, and a pair of old shoes, or high-topped boots-the higher the legs the better. The coat may be of any material, only it must be of heavy fabric, and there are large pockets in the sides, where articles may be crammed at will.

They carry a bag on their backs, these sewer-hunters, and in their hand a pole, seven or eight feet long, on one end of which is fastened a large iron hoe to rake up rubbish.

Whenever they think the ground is unsafe, or treacherous, they test it with the rake, and steady their steps with the staff. Should a Sewer-Hunter find himself sinking in a quag-mire, he immediately throws out the long pole, armed with the hoe, and seizes the first object in the sewer, to hold himself up. In some places, had the searcher no pole, he would sink, and the more he tried to extricate his person, the deeper he would imbed his body.

Use is made of the pole to rake the mud for iron, copper, or bones, and occasionally the rake turns up the remains of a human being, who may have perished in those fetid cells. Great skill is necessary in the hunter, to know always when the tide leaves and comes, so as to enable him to find articles at certain points.

The brick work in many parts is rotten, especially in old sewers, and there is great risk in traversing the channels, as sometimes, when the sewers are being flooded from the dams erected at stated intervals, the passage is flooded to a height of three feet, very suddenly, and if the Sewer-Hunter be not notified the first intimation of his danger is given by a thundering, rushing sound, and before he can escape the waters are upon him, and he is enveloped by them or hurled down with tremendous force, and swept along for miles in darkness, and filth, and despair, cut off from all human aid, no ear to hear his shouts, and no hand stretched forth to save.

In some places where the arches are unsafe, he will not dare to touch any part of the roof of the sewers, or the sides, fearing that he may be buried beneath the ruins. The main sewers are generally five feet high from floor to ceiling, but the branch sewers are much lower, and it is necessary to crawl on hands and knees to proceed. In the main sewers, there are niches built in the brick walls of some depth, with a raised platform, and the hunters always step into one of those when the sewers are being flooded, to clean them.

Rats, unless in great numbers, will not attack a man if he passes them quietly, but if driven to a corner they will fly at the intruder's face and legs in hundreds. A bite from one of these rats will swell a man's face or arms to an enormous