It is satisfactory to find that there is a pretty unanimous feeling among the London police that Sir Chas Warren's policy in Scotland Yard, which only last week brought about the resignation of Mr. Monro, the Assistant Commissioner, will have the effect of abolishing the Criminal Investigation Department or crippling its usefulness very materially. If any such result follows or Sir Chas Warren's action all decent men will be ready to support the Chief Commissioner instead of holding aloof as they do now. The Criminal Investigation Department was up to some years ago a very useful institution in a big city like London, and it would continue always to be regarded as such if its functions were confined to the investigation of crime. But latterly it as been converted into a sort of political bureau. The hunt after the dynamiters completely demoralised it. Mr. Monro and his detectives, instead of confining their attentions to the men who come to London to blow up bridges, made a set upon all Irish Nationalists. They followed and dogged men who have as hearty abhorrence of crime as themselves. They swarmed about the House of Commons for the past two sessions, subjecting Irish members to the most offensive form of espionage, and creating such a scandal that English members like Mr. Bradlaugh and Sir Wilfrid Lawson avowed with shame from their places in the house that no such humiliating spectacle could be seen in any capital in Europe. This being the sort of work done by the Criminal Investigation Department, nobody will regret that Sir Charles Warren has given it a knock on the head. What would have pleased Mr. Monro was to be left a perfectly free hand at Whitehall-place, and to be allowed to do as he liked with his detectives and plain clothes policemen. Evidently Sir Charles Warren has very different notions. Sir Charles Warren is a very stern man, and his action in connection with Trafalgar-square shows that he cares very little for the rights of the public in the matter of open meetings, but still he has strong and not altogether objectionable views about the duty of every individual policeman under his charge.
A WOMAN MURDERED IN WHITECHAPEL
Another brutal murder has been committed in Whitechapel. Constable John Neil was walking down Bucks-row, Thomas-street, at a quarter to four o'clock this morning, when he found a woman lying in the street with her throat cut across. She was immediately conveyed to Whitechapel Mortuary, where it was fond that her abdomen had been cut open also. This wound, which extended nearly to her breast, must have been inflicted with a large knife. The hands were bruised. The deceased, who was about 35 or 40 years of age wore a rough brown Ulster with large buttons, and her clothes were cut and torn in several places. There is at present no trace of the murderer or the name of the deceased. This is the third brutal murder of the kind in the locality, and the police believe the perpetrator must be a ferocious maniac. Part of the underclothing shows that the deceased was recently an inmate of Lambeth Workhouse. The police, who are making most careful investigation into the matter, express an opinion that deceased was killed by a left handed person, judging from the nature of the injuries. No on has yet come forward to identify the body.
