OUR DETECTIVE SYSTEM.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1271, 9 February 1883, Page 2

OUR DETECTIVE SYSTEM.

to the editor. Sir, —I observe that there has just arrived in Gisborne a very important individual, viz., Mr Detective Grace. It is rumored that this gentleman has come to Gisborne for the express purpose of investigating the origin of the numerous attempts at incendiarism which have occurred within this district during the last year and the commencement of the present one. Now, with all due respect to Mr Grace and the intelligence of the gentlemen from whom he takes his orders, I do not think that a detective who is desirous of arriving at a truthful solution of the mystery, should come here with a flourish of trumpets and his name announced in the public prints as an important visitor to the Bay. My idea is, of course I may be wrong, that if the incendiarism which un. fortunately has been Gisborne’s Mt noir is permitted to drop into oblivion then there will be no safety and no comfortable sleep afforded to our hearths and homes, but to send a gentleman here to investigate the matter, md endeavor to run the fire fiend to earth, a gentleman who is so well known by every man, woman, and child in tho community, is simply a waste of public money, a waste of puoltc time, and a waste of the energetic brains of the police and detective force. In order to obtain a proper clue to the identity of this attrocious fire fiend scoundrel, the police should go upon another lay altogether. It is not my business to say how this is to be done, because that would he opening the eyes of those miscreants who are guilty of such deeds. I may state, however, that I was once a resident of a city where fire after Are took place, and no one could be spotted for the diabolical acts perpetrated and the large loss of property which was destroyed, and I atn proud to say that I was one who assisted to run the scoundrel to earth, and he received the well-merited punishment of seven years' penal servitude. It only requires a little tact, a little cunning, a silent tongue, and a want of any display of authority to lay hold of these pests of society, and I for one shall be only too glad to ace the culprit or culprits caught in fiaflrantt deliolo, and punished with the utmost rigour of the law.—Yours, &e., Beta.