W. L. Melville Lee

“ A cursory glance at the conditions prevailing in Trafalgar Square reveals in a moment the reasons for the defeat of the police; it is at once apparent that their failure must not be attributed to any physical cause whatever. The police force on duty was quite large enough, and the units of which it was composed were sufficiently well endowed with muscle, nerve and morale, to have kept in order a crowd twice as violent and many times more numerous than the one actually opposed to it; the collapse of authority was due to defects of organization, to bad strategy, and to tactical blundering. ”

“ Liberty was impossible under a system which arrogated to itself the right "de tout voir, de tout connaître, et de tout juger;" when no man could call his conscience his own, and when no fireside was secure against the paid informer. "If three men meet together, I can rely on it that at least two of them are on my side" boasted Sartines, a famous Chief of police. What plan could be more demoralizing than the one which sets the servant to spy on the master, the son to watch his father? ”

“ Are our present methods for the maintenance of the peace, for the suppression of crime, and for the encouragement of social virtue, perfect or nearly so? We can hardly suppose that posterity will answer these questions in the affirmative, but we can at least congratulate ourselves that the people of England, no longer living under a barbarous criminal code, enjoy to-day no small measure of security for their property and persons, without having to submit to a host of meddlesome restrictions and unreasonable formalities. ”

“ When poverty or the want of life's necessaries lead to theft, or where native cruelty and love of bloodshed give rise to deeds of violence, police, however efficient, can effect but little in the way of prevention; but it is the almost unanimous opinion of those best qualified to judge that the bulk of the offences committed in this country are perpetrated by those who enter upon a criminal career because it appears to them that it is easy and profitable, and because they think that it will enable them to obtain luxuries that lie beyond the reach of their industrious and honest companions. ”

“ If the police are to be efficient, they must earn for themselves the respect and sympathy of all classes, they must be popular. It is only on the rarest occasions that a policeman is actually the eye-witness of a crime, nor in the nature of things is he likely to be in the confidence of the criminal. As a rule he must rely on information, and generally speaking the public is the only source from which the necessary knowledge can be obtained. If the public are hostile, the one source of information is closed, and the police are rendered powerless. ”

“ The country, in fact, too often had to witness the ridiculous spectacle of a Legislature solemnly filling the Statute Book with elaborate enactments, whilst the constables whose duty it was to see the law enforced, were quietly going about their own business, following the plough, or minding the shop. English police was in truth at a low ebb, and the inevitable consequences of such a feeble executive quickly followed; bullies and blackguards of every kind overran the realm, and the weak had no rights except such as the strong chose to leave them. ”

“ The members of the English police are public servants in the fullest sense of the term; not servants of any individual, of any particular class or sect, but servants of the whole community—excepting only that part of it which in setting the law at defiance, has thereby become a public enemy. The strength of the Man in Blue, properly understood, lies in the fact that he has behind him the whole weight of public opinion; for he only wages war against the law-breaker, and in this contest can claim the goodwill of every loyal citizen. ”

“ Frequent sentences of imprisonment will never deter the delinquent who is well acquainted with the inside of a gaol, as long as he can count on brief spells of exciting and luxurious liberty between whiles; moreover the tax on the police is excessive, for the habitual criminal may be trapped again and again, only to be released time after time to devise new and more elaborate attacks on a long-suffering society. ”

“ With such an example of reckless disregard of the King's peace before them, it is not wonderful that the lower orders of the people ignored the restrictions that the law imposed; the weak had no protectors, so the hand that was strong enough to take and to hold fast was seldom empty. These predatory rovers waxed so powerful, and grew so numerous as the result of the impunity they enjoyed, that nothing short of a regular military campaign sufficed to free the land from their ravages. ”

“ It is no valid argument to say that duelling was merely a passing fashion; by the Law of England any duel is a gross breach of the peace; and that such deliberate infractions should have become fashionable only proves that the law was held in contempt, and that the police system which failed to compel people to keep the peace was totally inadequate to the requirements of the times. ”

“ Nothing is so fatal as vacillation: partial success leads on a mob to the commission of fresh excesses, partial repression only aggravates it. It is far better to leave a crowd altogether alone, than to sustain even an apparent defeat. Force is no remedy unless it is unswervingly and unhesitatingly applied; and as it is comparatively immaterial in what direction repression is exercised so long as it is consistent and irresistible, it is usually good policy to divert the energies of the mob towards the line of least resistance. ”

“ People in England who knew these things, not unnaturally asked themselves the question, Why, with our eyes open, should we forge against ourselves a weapon similar to that, whose sharp point has goaded our neighbours till they were driven to set alight the torch of revolution and to destroy the whole fabric of government? ”

“ Only second in importance to the magistracy comes the constabulary, "the primary constitutional force for the protection of individuals in the enjoyment of their legal rights," [3] designed to stand between the powerful and the [xii] weak, to prevent oppression, disaster and crime, and to represent the cause of law and order at all times and in all places. In every court and alley the policeman stands for good citizenship, he is a reality that the most ignorant can comprehend, and upon his impartiality, efficiency, and intelligence depends the estimation in which the law is held by the masses. ”

“ On the other hand whole fields of industry were arbitrarily closed to honest and capable folk by the absurd restrictions imposed for the sole benefit of corporations, which, when full allowance has been made for the good they did, and when full credit has been given for the service they rendered by standing in the breach at the critical moment, were, after all, thoroughly reactionary in their tendency, bent, as they were, upon stifling healthy competition whenever possible, and inclined to look upon any new invention as a crime against their craft mysteries. ”

“ The police, who were feeble and timid when danger threatened, and who could never be trusted to quell the most insignificant riot, grew bold on occasions, when, without risk to themselves, they could pounce upon some weak or unpopular individual. Although whipping could be legally inflicted only by order of the magistrate, it was no unusual occurrence for a constable to take a man to the nearest whipping post, and there have him thrashed without reference to any superior authority whatever. ”

“ The more difficult the commission of crime is made, the less necessity will there be for deterrent measures that savour of vindictiveness. The intimate knowledge that an effective police have of the habitual criminal class is not only a safeguard against the conviction of the innocent, but renders it possible to deal leniently with the juvenile, and with the casual, offender. Within reasonable limits, the fear of almost certain detection is a far stronger deterrent than the distant prospect of severe punishment. ”

“ A police system does not only need to be efficient, it must be popular; that is to say, it must conduct its operations with so scrupulous a regard to the susceptibilities of the people that public sympathy and approval are not alienated. The problem of devising an engine of sufficient power and mechanical ability to compel subjection to a rigid standard of uniformity is not a matter of great difficulty, but there is little credit and no comfort in the indiscriminate tyranny of a Juggernaut that mangles its suicidal votaries. ”

“ It is the business of the police to exhaust every art in a sustained effort to prevent the ferment from reaching the critical stage, and to watch the crowd so narrowly that the first symptom of violence may instantly be suppressed. This can best be accomplished by local constables who are acquainted with the persons and names of individual members of the crowd, while it is of even greater moment that the constabulary should not be the first to give offence, or contribute to a breach of the peace by the use of exasperating language or aggressive action. ”

“ POLICE STATISTICS AND PENOLOGY
Attention has already been directed to the excessive zeal of the opponents of the "New Police"; but no mention has been made of those enthusiasts who looked for an instant millennium to follow upon the adoption of the measures they advocated. Yet there were many such who formed extravagant hopes too high for realization. It is seldom easy for the observer to arrive at a just estimate of the value of a new institution until his standpoint is far enough removed from the stress of the moment to secure him from the current partisanship which every novelty arouses. ”

“ But there are other reasons, besides this important question of obtaining information, why a measure of popularity is of such extreme value to every police force. There are a thousand ways in which the members of an unpopular service can be embarrassed and thwarted. No matter how capable and painstaking a man may be, he cannot do himself justice, nor can the best results attend his labours, if his every act is questioned, and if at every turn he has to surmount some obstacle set up to annoy and discourage him. ”

“ At no time is an efficient civil force of such inestimable value as it is at the first appearance of great popular ferment; for in accordance with the strength or weakness of the police at that moment, is the course of after events decided. A crowd is like a great volume of water, harmless as long as its embankments are kept in repair and, if necessary, strengthened, but capable of an infinite amount of mischief if once allowed to break its barriers.
Anything like a full description of the Gordon riots lies outside the scope of this book ”

“ The self-constituted censors who are so ready to lament the alleged incompetence of our detectives would be the foremost to complain should a measure of State protection, equal to that enjoyed by foreign police functionaries, be conferred on any such agent at home. The traditional love of liberty which, in this country, [367] has always opposed espionage with so much resolution, is altogether admirable; but like everything else that is precious, it has to be purchased at a price, and in this case the price is the dangerous latitude conceded to "the powers that prey." ”

“ If the feebleness of the police was in some degree responsible for the ready appeal to arms in 1642, the lawlessness that was so widespread at the close of the century, was largely the outcome of the disorganization of the national police system, which was the natural accompaniment of the Revolution. Civil War is invariably attended by an outbreak of crime that has no connection with the main quarrel, but which arises in the day of trouble because the powerlessness of the executive is the opportunity of the criminal. ”

“ Occasion has already been taken to remark that the freedom enjoyed by the Press of this country is an invaluable safeguard against police tyranny, that the public Press in fact polices the constabulary. This, however, is only one of the many police functions that modern journalism performs. When a serious crime is committed the newspapers raise a Hue and Cry so far-reaching and persistent that soon every tavern discusses the news, every village harbours a potential detective. ”

“ Although it will hardly be denied that our police discharge their office conscientiously, courteously and courageously, the general public has shewn itself somewhat slow to acknowledge the debt which it owes to the men who undertake what is by common consent a thankless task; who armed with no extraordinary powers, and protected by no elaborate exemptions, perform arduous duties on behalf of their fellow-countrymen, for little reward, and at considerable personal risk. ”

“ The immediate result of the institution of an effective police force, whose main object was prevention, was precisely that which was to be expected: convictions for crimes of violence decreased, because evil-disposed persons knew that they could no longer commit them with impunity, and convictions for minor offences increased, because the vigilance of the new policemen brought to their proper punishment many a petty depredator who had easily hoodwinked his familiar friend, the old parish officer. ”

“ Our English police system, on the other hand, rests on foundations designed with the full approval of the people, we know not how many hundreds of years before the Norman conquest, and has been slowly moulded by the careful hand of experience, developing as a rule along the line of least resistance, now in advance of the general intelligence of the country, now lagging far behind, but always in the long run adjusting itself to the popular temper, always consistent with local self-government, and even at its worst, always English. ”

“ The police touch all classes of the public at many points beyond the performance of their sterner duties as representatives of the law, and they touch them in a friendly way.... The police in short, are not the representatives of an arbitrary and despotic power, directed against the rights or obtrusively interfering with the pleasures of law-abiding citizens: they are simply a disciplined body of men, specially engaged in protecting 'masses' as well as 'classes,' from any infringement of their rights on the part of those who are not law-abiding. ”

“ For some time back, in the absence of that restraining influence which an efficient police force might have afforded, people had readily run into factions; and, with arms in their hands, had supported their particular opinions by force, in defiance of all authority, and with a degree of violence that would never have been tolerated for a moment in any community where the value of peace-maintenance was duly appraised and properly insisted upon. ”