They are approachable by bribes, and prone to serve those who pay the most. They release pick-pockets and burglars who divide; persecute unfortunate Cyprians who refuse gratuitous favors; steal from drunken men; swear to anything; levy black-mail, and are guilty of any mean act their low minds can conceive of. They are usually on the scent of any misbehavior with which reputable persons are connected, using their knowledge to extort money by threat of exposure.

Glaring as their misconduct is, they are cunning knaves, and contrive to keep in office when decent men are removed. I have heard of scoundrels who are veterans in the force, and who won't quit it while there is a dirty thing to do, or a dollar to steal. They are strangely long-lived, too, on the hypothesis that Satan stands by sinners, and rarely have their brains blown out, or their throats cut, as they deserve, by the desperate characters with whom they come in contact. Such mishaps befall only the better class, who are more ready to expose themselves to real dangers.

The police-stations are 32 in number, in as many precincts, and are generally as clean and wholesome as such places can be. Their atmosphere, however, is repulsive at best, and a sensitive nature avoids them as it does painful scenes or horrid sights. Their patronage varies with the season and the occasion. In certain times of quiet not more than 200 arrests are made in the entire 24 hours; while at others the arrests will reach 600 or 800, or even 1,000. During the severe weather, lodgers, men and women who have no place to sleep, are very numerous. They huddle into the stations, ragged, dirty, shivering, either bloated or emaciated, and convey some idea of the poverty and wretchedness of the Great City.

Those who are committed to the stations are guilty of various crimes, among which drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and petit larceny are the commonest. When a first-class burglar, or a real incendiary, or an actual murderer is thrust into the lock up, his presence creates a momentary sensation. The meaner prisoners want to catch sight of the rare monster, and peer at him through the iron bars. The policemen hurl rude jests at him, or curse him; while he either curses them in return, or sinks down on the rude bench in sullen indifference to his fate. 

Now and then a bird of higher game is taken, a bank-teller or book-keeper who has been embezzling or forging; a gentleman of position who has shot his sister's seducer or his wife's lover; a fashionable rowdy who has undertaken to break windows and watch-men's heads, with a charming indifference whether it is one or the other; a well-dressed man about whom strict orders are given, but whose offense is not stated. Such persons are usually treated with courtesy and distinction, for they have means and can pay for civility, and have a faculty of getting out that is impossible to vulgar sinners and law breakers.

It is a sad and revolting sight to see the station houses emptying themselves in the morning. The prisoners are a few of the unwholesome and painful things the night hides, and the day keeps beyond vision. Bleared and blackened eyes, bloody faces, festering rags, horrid countenances, demonized brutes, hideous hags, guarded by policemen, and going to court, soon to be sent to the Tombs or Blackwell's island for the fifth, or tenth, or twentieth time.

How mechanically the policemen swear (half of them have no idea of the solemnity of an oath, so accustomed are they to that form of statement), and how indifferent they are to the scenes and characters before them! They are insensible, stolid, brutal, very many of the class, and laugh where others would weep. They consider crime and its punishment something of course, part of their business, and to be encouraged, inasmuch as their livelihood depends upon it. Unfortunate the sensitive being who from some stress of circumstance falls into their hands. They will lacerate with looks, and stab with jeers, and never dream of giving pain. They have walked so much among thorn bushes and strong hedges they do not suspect the existence of the violets or daisies they are crushing under their feet.

The gross injustices of a police court, every week of the year, would fill a small volume if enumerated in detail; but they are usually practised upon paupers and outcasts, and no one cares for them. That they are unfortunate and friendless, is proof of their guilt, and their liberty is sworn away and their sentences fixed, without reflection or conscience. It is the policeman's duty to swear and the judge's to punish, and the sooner the duty is discharged the better, at least for themselves.

The detectives are a peculiar and distinct part of the police force. There are no less than 14 or 15 organizations (including about 400 men, with a few women) in the Metropolis, and its members are the shrewdest and most dishonest of the entire body. The organizations are divided into the central detective police, detectives of the separate wards or precincts, car-detectives, insurance and bankers' detectives police, national police agency, North-American detective agency, merchants' detective police, bureau of information, Matsell's police-detectives, hotel-detectives, divorce-detectives, United States detectives, internal revenue detectives.

Their regular pay varies from three to eight dollars a day for "piping," "shadowing," "working-up," etc.; but they have such latitude in "contingent expenses," "special arrangements," and "individual enterprises" that no limit can be fixed to their profits. The chief detectives have a salary of $2,500 a year but they make five or ten times that sum often, and frequently acquire a large property. Bank officers and persons having responsible positions in stores are watched, the moment the least suspicion is excited by their conduct; and, if they are using money not their own, they are always found out and reported, unless they happen to pay the detective better than his employer does. 

There is a good deal of excitement and no little romance in the profession of the detective. He must be very shrewd, understand human nature, be prolific of resources and inventions, cool, self-reliant, courageous, and resolute. He goes everywhere; adopts all disguises; plays many parts; combines, analyzes, manipulates, manages, and does work often that is a credit to his brain and a discredit to his principle.

Dickens, it is said, is very fond of consulting the detectives, who have helped him to many of his plots, at least in parts; and other novel-writers would do well to imitate the great master of fiction. The detective sees life and nature in its most peculiar and often interesting phases, and he has the capacity to unravel out of the tangled skein of his experiences threads of narratives as startling as truthful. Half they say would not be believed (they are fond of telling sensational stories); but, if they merely related the facts that come under their daily observation, the public would be incredulous. They behold strange things unquestionably; see demons as angels, and angels as devils, and naturally learn to believe that what we call good and evil is merely a refraction of moral light passing through different mediums.