IN BOHEMIA 29 



The London which Tegetmeier knew in his 

 young days was a very different place from the 

 Metropolis as we know it to-day : he used to say, 

 when talking of his early surroundings, that he 

 spoke of a world unknown to his hearers. It was 

 the London of cobble-paving and coaches — mail, 

 private and steam ! Automobilists will be in- 

 terested to know that Tegetmeier had made a 

 journey in one of those steam-driven carriages 

 which were fairly common sights in the 'thirties 

 and 'forties, but which for some reason fell into 

 disuse, and were practically unknown to the 

 generation which saw the revival of horseless 

 carriages in the last decade of the last century. 

 Another link with the old times was the " New 

 Police," which had only then been established in 

 the place of the old-fashioned and inefficient 

 watchmen — the " Charlies " of the eighteenth 

 century. 



These New Police were badly needed in those 

 days : among other things for garrotters, who 

 flourished in Tegetmeier's early manhood. The 

 " garotte," the method of executing murderers 

 in Spain, is a machine by which the condemned 

 is fastened to an upright post by an iron collar, 

 and a knob, worked by a screw or lever, dislocates 

 his spinal column ; and the London street robbers 

 were called garrotters because they seized their 

 victim from behind and throwing an arm round 

 his neck, half-throttled him and rendered him 



