Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/policeofenglandaOOblac 
 
THE 
 
 POLICE OF ENGLAND: 
 
 II 
 
 AS IT WAS, AS IT IS, 
 
 AND 
 
 AS IT SHOULD BE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 CHIEF CONSTABLE FOE NORFOLK. 
 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 J. RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY. 
 NORWICH: R. N. BACON. 
 
 1856. 
 
ERRATUM. 
 
 In the reference to Parliamentary Committee on Police for 1854, 
 read 1853. 
 
 
 
 
 ^!t 
 
 
 ^■^ 4 , 
 
 it) 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Police, in the sense in which it is generally accepted and 
 understood, is that branch of administration which has for its 
 object the peace and safety of society; and the machinery which 
 it sets in motion is designed to afford such protection to pro- 
 perty as may render the commission of offences hazardous and 
 difficult, to bring criminals to justice, to suppress the tendency 
 to vagrant and idle habits amongst the poorer classes, and to 
 preserve order generally throughout the community. 
 
 From the earliest times, nations which had established regular 
 laws, had also some defined and well-understood regulations of 
 police. They ai’e to be found in the Mosaic law, and in the 
 institutions of the Egyptians and the ancient Greeks. The 
 Romans also thought it necessary to devote a special branch of 
 their law to this subject, and there are extant ordinances of the 
 German empire of the years 1548 and 1577, providing regula- 
 tions of police for the empire, the circles, the counties, and 
 the towns. In France, whence comes the word police^ many 
 laws relating to its institution are embodied in the national 
 code ; but the system sought to be perfected in that country, 
 with its espionage and its haute police, or government sur- 
 veillance, is not one that Englishmen would tolerate for a day. 
 The object of a police is well stated in the law of France, although 
 to English minds the practice may appear very ill calculated 
 to fulfil it. The law declares that a police is instituted “ to 
 “ maintain order and public tranquillity, liberty, property, and 
 “ individual security, and its great characteristic is vigilance^ 
 
2 
 
 III the present state of tliis country, where prodigious wealth 
 and unmitigated povertyare to be found in close proximity; where 
 a stern necessity has compelled the retention of our criminals in 
 our own land; when armed bodies of ti’oops are declared to be 
 unfitting instruments for the suppression of tumults and the 
 support of civil authority, police is an indispensable engine for 
 ensuring the safety of life and property and for preserving 
 internal peace and social order; yet, it is patent to all who have 
 given any consideration to the subject, that the constabulary 
 system of England is far from being in a state of efficiency for 
 general and national purposes. This is shewn by the reports of 
 parliamentary committees ; it is attested by the changes which 
 have been introduced from time to time, — and by those the 
 government recently desired to introduce, — in order to impart 
 greater usefulness and more uniformity to its operations ; it is 
 manifested by the existence of voluntary associations for the 
 apprehension and prosecution of felons ; and it is still further 
 exhibited in the conviction which every day becomes stronger 
 in the public mind that the better prevention of crime, no less 
 than the reformation of its unhappy votaries, is a subject 
 demanding the attention of the statesman and the philanthropist. 
 
 The question of a general and uniform police would probably 
 have been determined ere this, but in addition to the antago- 
 nistic array of private interests, local privileges, and petty jea- 
 lousies, there have been opposed to the introduction of any 
 comprehensive and efficient system those who imagined that 
 they could perceive some well-founded constitutional objection, 
 and others who looked upon reformatory schools to be the 
 panacea for all the evils of our social state. Those whose oppo- 
 sition proceeds from interested motives are not likely to look 
 dispassionately at the question, nor to make any concession 
 for the general good if it should chance to involve some fancied 
 sacrifice of local rights or individual interests. Such opponents 
 are to be found among the municipal functionaries of our cor- 
 porate towns, and such also are the men, who professing a 
 regard for social order and public morality, suffer naught to 
 weigh with them in the consideration of this subject but mistaken 
 
3 
 
 calculations of expense. Sooner or later these opponents must 
 be subjected to a light which will expose even to themselves the 
 narrowness and the error of their position. 
 
 Constitutional objectors there are who see some arbitrary 
 purpose, some vision of an “ ukase” in every act of the govern- 
 ment having for its object the removal from local coteries of 
 the sole power of adminstering affair's connected with the gene- 
 ral well-being of society. To such men a standing army was 
 for a long time a horrible bugbear ; and now that it has become 
 an institution of the country, a national police rises to their 
 imaginations as a new demon of oppression. 
 
 Reformatory schools and a system of general education 
 would, no doubt, do much for the people; but the sure 
 detection of crime will be a great aid to any scheme for moral 
 improvement; and the policeman, under proper training and 
 proper management, will be found no insignificant auxiliary in 
 this great and good work. Reformatories may cover the face of 
 the country like the workhouses of unions, and they may 
 reclaim many castaways, but they will never alter human 
 nature nor destroy the germ of wickedness in the human heart ; 
 that germ will continue to shoot up and blossom in the son in 
 despite of the reclamation of the father. 
 
 Those who desire that the present system should remain 
 unaltered ai'e actuated — some by the purest and most honest 
 intentions — others, by motives less commendable; but it is not 
 my object to argue upon the erroneous impressions entertained 
 in the one case, nor to attempt an exposure of unworthy motives 
 in the other. Much of the opposition existing to the establish- 
 ment of an improved system of police has arisen from want of 
 general information upon the subject; and hence the induce- 
 ment to throw together the notes and observations which 
 follow. 
 
4 
 
 POLICE AS IT WAS. 
 
 The earliest dawn of any definite scheme for enforcing 
 social order and repressing crime, or in other words, of 
 any general system of police, may be traced to the Anglo- 
 Saxon era. In the time of Alfred all freemen were com- 
 manded to assemble at stated periods, not only for military 
 exercises, as a preparation for war, but for the disposal of 
 all matters of dispute and of criminal jurisdiction. The com- 
 munications of the country were then few and difficult, and, 
 although the land was thinly peopled, the inhabitants of 
 counties were too numerous, as well as too widely separated, 
 to be conveniently assembled for those purposes in one place. 
 The people were in consequence divided into companies of 
 ten freemen each, tei’med a decennary or tithing ; ten of these 
 companies formed a hundred, and it was this body of ten 
 decennaries which was called together periodically for the 
 consideration and settlement of all affairs connected w’ith the 
 safety and well-being of the body politic. Thus it will be seen 
 that the word hundred” signified originally a division of 
 population, and not of territory as in later times. Those 
 companies of a hundred, consisting of freemen above the age 
 of 12 (not specially exempted), were bound to assemble at the 
 order of the Sheriff" of the county, who made occasional visita- 
 tions within the limits of his jurisdiction in order to preside at 
 those meetings and to direct their proceedings. The assembling 
 of the hundreds in this way was called the sheriff’s torn, or 
 court of the hundred. These courts were held at irregular 
 periods through a long course of years ; but after the passing 
 of Magna Charta it was enacted, that the sheriff should hold 
 his court in every hundred twice during the year. 
 
 In each decennary the men were held to be reciprocal 
 pledges for the loyalty of each othei’, as well as for the due 
 observance of the laws ; and at every sheriff’s torn all men 
 had to swear to their being incorporated in a decennary, that 
 they would keep the peace, and w’ould be faithful to the King. 
 The term decennary is used in ancient statutes and by early 
 writers indifferently with that of “frankpledge” or tithing; 
 freeman was also synonymous with “ fribourg,” or “ freeborhoe,” 
 or free pledge, — “ borhoe,” in the Saxon language, meaning 
 pledge, — that is to say, security for the good behaviour of his 
 fellows. The better enforcing of this order seems anciently to 
 have been the chief purpose of the court of the hundred; a 
 
5 
 
 court or assemblage as well known by the name of “ view of 
 frankpledge” as that of; sheriff’s torn. The court of the 
 “ leet,” or lathe,” which word is said to be derived from the 
 Anglo-Saxon “lathian,”or “gelathian,” signifying to assemble, 
 was originally the same in purpose and in power as the torn, 
 if not identical in composition; but in later years the lords 
 of manors and townships obtained gi’ants from the crown 
 to hold these courts within their several jurisdictions, and they 
 were entirely independent of the judicial authority of the 
 sheriff of the county. By this system of mutual pledge and 
 responsibility peace was preserved, and felonies and riots were 
 said to be unfrequent. This may well be believed, for to the 
 pi’ospect of almost certain detection there was added the 
 powerful effect of summary punishment according to the 
 nature of the offence. 
 
 William the Conqueror retained the law of free pledges, but 
 it is evident that soon afterwards there was found to be some 
 difficulty in making all men responsible for the misdeeds and 
 omissions of their neighbours ; for in the reign of Henry the 
 First it was ordered, that over every nine pledges one should 
 be put in authority. The person or officer chosen for this 
 purpose by the decennary was designated “ head borhoe,” or 
 “ borhoe’s eolder,” or chief pledge (signifying the elder or chief 
 of the pledges), or tithingman. This is the first innovation 
 upon the Anglo-Saxon system of mutual responsibility, and is 
 evidently the origin of the office held by the constable of a 
 later period. Lambard, an eminent lawyer, who published a 
 work in the year 1614, upon the office of justice of the peace, 
 and the duties of constables and borsholders, states that the 
 names of borowhead, borsholder, and tythingman “ doe 
 “ signifie the chiefe men of the free pledges, and whereas each 
 “ thii'd borow onely hath a constable, there the others be called 
 “ third borowes : also as touching borsholder, it doth contain 
 “ within it the meaning of tythingman, borowheads, third- 
 “ borowes, and chief pledges ; and these have it is in manner 
 “ al one with the office of a constable of a town or parish, 
 “ which is commonly named a petie constable or under con- 
 “ stable.” Down to the present day, we find in the Acts of 
 Parliament the terms “ headborough, borsholder, and tything- 
 man,” synonymously used with that of constable of a parish. 
 
 The Saxon law of frankpledge received a further shock in the 
 reign of Henry the First, inasmuch as that monarch established, 
 by his own appointment, justices itinerant who disposed of 
 divers matters that before were heard in the sheriff’s court, 
 and it may be fairly presumed that the headborhoe was the 
 
6 
 
 officer whose duty it was to execute the judgment of those 
 justices within their jurisdiction. 
 
 The following is an extract from “ Early Regulations for 
 the Conservancy of the Peace,” contained in the appendix 
 to the report of the Royal Commissioners upon Consta- 
 bulary (1839): — “From that period “(Henry the First’s 
 “ reign) the preservation of public peace has undoubtedly 
 “ resided in the Sovereign, as will be established by the 
 “ instances hereinafter given, of the Parliament’s acknow- 
 “ lodging and the Kings claiming and enjoying that pre- 
 “ rogative, in despite of some attempts of the Parliament to 
 “ arrogate such power to itself. To the King, as the foun- 
 “ tain of honour and justice, belonged not only the execution 
 “ of justice upon delinquents, but also the prevention of 
 “ offences and delinquencies. The power to do both, though 
 “ distributed and confided to different officers as their appro- 
 “ priate duties, was exercised in his name anciently by the 
 “ Sheriffs, afterwards by justices itinerant, and subsequently 
 “ by the Justices of the Peace.” 
 
 The term “ constable” is of great antiquity, and its 
 origin is somewhat involved in obscui’ity. Some writers, as 
 Spelman, and Ducange, suppose it to have been derived from 
 “ Comes Stabuli,” an officer of state in the middle ages. 
 Others, as Lambard, Blackstone, and Dr. Johnson, assume, 
 that it is a corrupt compound of the Saxon words, “ Keening,” a 
 king, and “ stabel” or “ stapel,” a stay. Be that as it may, the 
 term constable has been applied, in different ages, to various 
 grades of public officers. The post of greatest dignity, con- 
 nected with the term in this country, is the office of Lord High 
 Constable, which was an office not known until after the Norman 
 Conquest^ and probably was introduced by the Conqueror. The 
 office fell into disuse after the attainder of Stafford, Duke of 
 Buckingham, then Constable of England, in the reign of Henry 
 the Eighth, and it has never been restored, excepting tempo- 
 raz’ily upon some solemn and state occasions, when the Crown 
 appoints jpro liac vice, an officer of state bearing that appellation. 
 
 In the second great charter, made in the ninth year of Henry 
 the Third, confirming the charter of King John, we find 
 “ constables” mentioned in refei'ence to the duties of castellains, 
 or wardens of castles, — that is to say, in chap. 19, it is directed, 
 that “no constable, or his bailiff, shall take corn or other 
 “ chattels of any man, if the man be not of the town where the 
 “ castle is and in chap. 20, “ no constable shall distrain any 
 “ knight for to give money for keeping of his castle;” and in 
 chap. 17 of the same statute, it is enjoined, that “no sheriffj 
 
7 
 
 “ constable or bailiff, coroner, nor any other our bailiffs, shall 
 “ hold pleas of the crown.” In the succeeding reign we find 
 constables mentioned, as follows: 3 Edward I,, c. 16. “If 
 “ the sheriff, or any other, let any go at large, by surety that 
 “ is not replevisable, if he be sheriff or constable, or any other 
 “ bailiff of fee, which hath keeping of prisons, and thereof be 
 “ attainted, he shall lose his fee and office for ever ; and if the 
 “ under-sheriff, constable, or bailiff, of such as have fee for 
 “ keeping of prisons, etc., they shall have thi’ee years’ impri- 
 “ sonment.” It is evident therefore that the term “ constable,” of 
 that period, embraced a wider signification than the title of a 
 single class of officers. Like the office of alderman in early 
 times, it had a very different signification to that which the 
 appellation has been understood to bear in later days.* 
 
 In the reign of Edward the First crime seems to have in- 
 creased with the growth of the population, and the means of 
 repression to have been insufficient, for in a statute then pro- 
 claimed (3rd Edward I. c. 9.) known as the statute of West- 
 minster, it was enacted that all men should pursue felons. This 
 statute provides vigorous measures for overcoming an evil 
 against which we are no less called upon at this day to supply 
 a remedy. It is to this effect : — “ Forasmuch as the peace of 
 “ this realm hath been evil observed for lack of quick and fresh 
 “ suit, making after felons in due manner, and namely, because 
 “ of franchises tsohei'e felons are received, it is provided that all 
 “ generally be ready and apparelled at the commandment and 
 “ summons of sheriffs, and at the cry of the country, to sue and 
 “ arrest felons when any need is, as voell voithin franchise as 
 “ without.” 
 
 In the reign of Edward the First, the statute of Win- 
 chester was passed (13th Edward I. sta. 2.), a statute cele- 
 brated for containing the earliest English record of any detailed 
 instructions relating to matters of police in country and in 
 towns, to the prevention of crime and the detection of offenders. 
 As a police code, it is so important, that I think it indispensable 
 to a right understanding of this early organization of a system 
 approaching to a national constabulary, to make several extracts 
 from that remarkable statute. The preamble of the act is as 
 follows : — 
 
 “ Forasmuch as from day to day, robberies, murthers, 
 “ burnings, and theft, be luore often used than they have been 
 “ heretofore, and felons cannot be attainted by the oath of 
 
 * Alderman was the hig:hest rank, after royalty; during the gi-eater part of the Anglo- 
 Saxon age. Every county had its Aiderman. — liallam. 
 
a 
 
 “ jurors, which had rather suffer strangers to be robbed and so 
 “ pass without pain, than to indite the offender, of whom great 
 “ part be people of the same country ; or at the least, if the 
 “ offenders be of another country, the receivers be of places 
 “ near.” 
 
 The statute proceeds as follows : — “ Our Lord the King for 
 “ to abate the power of felons, hath established a pain in this 
 “ case, so that henceforth for fear of pain* more than for fear 
 “ of any oath they shall not spare any, nor conceal any felonies, 
 “ and doth command that cries shall be solemnly made in all 
 “ counties, hundreds, markets, fairs, and all other places where 
 “ great resort of people is, so that none shall excuse himself by 
 “ ignoi-ance, that henceforth every county be well kept ; that 
 “ immediately upon such robberies and felonies being committed, 
 “ fresh suit shall be made from town to town, and from country 
 “ to country,” It is further provided — “ That in every city, six 
 “ men shall keep at every gate; in every borough, twelve men; 
 “ in every town, six or four men, according to the number of 
 “ the inhabitants of the town, and shall watch the town conti- 
 “ nually all night, from the sun setting to the sun rising, and if 
 “ any stranger shall pass, he shall be arrested.” Again, in the 
 same statute, it is commanded — “ That every man shall have in 
 “ his house armour for to keep the ancient assize, and that view 
 “ of armour be made every year two times, and in every hundred 
 “ and franchise two constables shall he chosen to make the view 
 “ of armour, and the constables aforesaid present before justices 
 “ assigned such defaults as they do see in the country about 
 “ armour, and of the suits of towns and of highways, and also 
 “ shall present all such as do lodge strangers in uplandish towns, 
 “ for whom they will not answer ; and the justices assigned shall 
 “ present at every parliament unto the King such defaults as 
 “ they shall find, and the King shall provide remedy therein. 
 “ And from henceforth let all sheriffs take good heed, and 
 “ bailiffs witbin their franchises and without, be they higher or 
 “ lower, that have any bailiwick or forestry in fee, or otherwise, 
 “ that they shall follow the cry with the country, and after, as 
 “ they are bounden to keep horse and armour for so to do, and 
 “ if thei’e be any that do not, the default shall be presented by 
 “ the constables to the justices, and after by them to the King, 
 “ and the King shall provide a remedy as afore is said.” In 
 this statute much that remained “of t'fre view of frankpledge” 
 
 * The pain was this : — It behoved the people in every hundred and franchise, to answer 
 within 40 days for the bodies of offenders by whom robberies were committed within their 
 hundred or franchise, and failing that they were answerable for the amount of property stolen 
 and for damages. 
 
9 
 
 is struck down, the conservancy of the peace being vested in 
 “ justices assigned,” to whom defaults were to be presented, 
 and we see a firm determination to repress felonies, breaches 
 of the peace, and the improper harbouring within the realm of 
 all suspicious persons. 
 
 This statute is the parent of every subsequent enactment 
 relative to watch and wai’d, as well as the better pursuit of 
 felons, and it is conceived in the true spirit of constableship. 
 A sufficient voatch from sunset till sunrise, fresh suit from town 
 to town and from country to couniru, the responsihilities of the 
 constables and justices to the King that no duty connecied with 
 the detection of criminals shall he neglected, form the very 
 essence of a police system. It is true that the injunction to be 
 apparelled at the command of the sheriff and to pursue felons, 
 did not originate with Edward the First, but w’asa law supposed 
 to be coeval with frankpledge. The vigour of the King is 
 shown in his having discarded all that he considered inefficient 
 in the law as he found it, and in having grafted upon it such 
 alterations as he deemed necessary to ensure peace and good 
 order in his kingdom. In this statute, constables are for the 
 first time mentioned as the executive officers “ chosen” in the 
 hundred and franchises, and from the duties assigned to them it 
 would appear that the office was still intended to be one of 
 considerable power and responsibility, for they were directed to 
 present the defaults of all who might neglect to obey that statute, 
 even to the slicriff and the bailiffs of franchise.. Lord Coke, 
 Lambard, Blackstone, and other high legal authorities, have 
 held the opinion that constables of hundreds are not of more 
 ancient creation than this statute, but Salkeld, Dalton, Hawkins, 
 and others, also of high repute as legal authorities, maintain that 
 constables of hundreds or high constables, and even petty 
 constables, were by the common law before the statute of 
 Winchester. In Hawkins’ “Pleas of the Crown,” 2 vol. c, 10, 
 sec. 33, we read, “ For that statute doth not say such officer shall 
 be constituted, but clearly seems to suppose that there were such 
 before the making of it.” Salkeld, at page 175 says, “ The 
 high constable was an officer of common law before the statute 
 of Wfinton, as well as petit constable ;” on the other hand. Lord 
 Coke holds that this officer w’as first appointed by the statute of 
 Edward the First. Lambard, at page 5 of the book on Constables, 
 after describing the office of constable of England, says, “ out of 
 “ which office this lower co-stableship was at the first drawn and 
 “ fetched, and is (as it were) averie finger of that hand.” “ For 
 “ the statute of Winchester, made in the time of King Edward the 
 
 c 
 
10 
 
 “ First, and by which these lower constah\esv,’ereJirst ordained, 
 “ cloth (amongst other things) appoint, that for the better 
 “ keeping of the peace, two constables in every hundred and 
 “ franchise should make the view of armour.” “ So then the 
 “ name of constable in a hundred or franchise doth mean, that 
 “ he is an officer that supporteth the King’s Majesty in the 
 “ maintenance of his peace within the precinct of his hundred 
 “ or franchise.” Again, at page 9, he says, “ A constable of 
 “ a town, or parish, which is commonly named a petie con- 
 “ stable, or under constable, because he is a small constable 
 “ in respect of the constable of his hundred, within whose limit 
 “ he is. M>r about the beginning of the raigne of King Edivard 
 “ the Third, petie constables were devised in towns and parishes 
 “ for the aid of the constables of the hundred.” Blackstone in 
 his Commentaries supports this view of their origin. 
 
 It is not worth while to discuss this point further, but I cannot 
 help remarking that judging by the duties of constables, so far 
 as we are enal)led to do so from the statutes prior to the statute 
 of Winchester, as well as by the precise worHing-of that Act, 
 the presumption of correctness seems to lie on the side of those 
 writers who hold to the belief that constables of hundreds were 
 first ordained by the statute of Winchester, and that petty, 
 or under constables, were subseqtiently created in towns and 
 other localities. It is very probable that at first they may have 
 held authority at common law, and afterwards were recognised 
 by statute. 
 
 Lambard states, that it was the practice in some shires 
 to appoint a constable to every three tithings, “in which 
 case, the officers of the other two be called thirdborows.” 
 In this manner, the petty constable, i. e., the constable of 
 three borows came to be considered an officer of somewhat 
 more importance than the borsholder, or tithingman. I do 
 not find however, with the exception of having a general 
 superintendence of these thirdborowes, a separate jurisdiction 
 in towns and hamlets, and l)eing probably under the direction 
 of the high constable (although this point is not clearly 
 shewn),* that any gi’eater powers w'ere at first given by law to the 
 petty constable than were possessed by the borsholder. That 
 the petty constables were not appointed by the high constables, 
 but, like the high constables themselves chosen by popular 
 election, or by rotation, is beyond a doubt. The constable 
 
 ♦ Lord Bacon held that petty constables only differed from high constables in having a 
 more limited jurisdiction. In later years than those referred to, all doubt is removed, for 
 the 42 Geo. 111., sec. 90, directs “ high constables to issue orders to the constables, head- 
 boroughs, and tithingmen within their hundreds.” 
 
11 
 
 and borsholder were alike chosen and sworn at the Sherift’’s 
 Torn, or at the Court Leet. 
 
 Although no positive enactment was passed from the 
 statute of Winchester throughout the reigns of successive 
 Sovereigns up to tlie time of James the First, by which 
 the duties of constables were satisfactorily defined, there arc 
 several which prescribe certain services to be performed by 
 them, and by those acts some idea may be formed of the 
 nature of their i-esponsibiiities.aud official position; by observing, 
 for instance, the class from which they seem to have been 
 chosen, and the officers with whom they were more or less 
 associated on public duty. In the statute 2nd Edward III., 
 c. 3, it is enacted, that no man shall come before the justices 
 to go or ride armed, and commands “ That the King’s justices 
 “ in their presence, sheriffs, and other ministers in their baili- 
 “ wick, lords of franchises, air.i their bailiffs in the same, and 
 “ mayors and bailiffs of cities and boroughs within the same 
 “ cities and boroughs, and borough holders, conslablcs and 
 “ wardens of the peace within their ward, shall have power to 
 “ execute this act.” In the 15th Edward III., c. 14, it is thus 
 ordered, “ Because there have been divers manslaughters, 
 “ felonies, and I'obberies done in times past by people that be 
 “ called robberdesmen, wastors, and drawlatches, it is accorded, 
 “ that if any man have an evil suspicion of such, be it by day 
 “ or by night, they shall be incontinently arrested by the con- 
 “ stables.” 
 
 The 28th Edward III., c. 11, the 7th Richard IL, c. 6, 
 and the 27th EL, c. 13, re-enact with unimportant modifica- 
 tions that part of the statute of Winchester for the following 
 of hue and cry ; and great stress is laid upon the necessity 
 that immediately after felonies done, fresh suit shall be made 
 from town to town, and from country to country. In the last- 
 mentioned statute of Queen Elizabeth, very stringent com- 
 mands are given for taxing the hundreds which neglect to make 
 fresh suit after felons ; and it is therein provided, that “ after 
 “ such taxation made, the constables and headboroughs of every 
 “ such town, parish, etc., shall have full power and authority, 
 “ within their several limits, rateably and proportionably to 
 “ tax and assess, according to their abilities, every inhabitant 
 “ and dweller in every such town, etc., for and towards the 
 “ payment of such taxation made upon such town, etc., by the 
 “ justices.” The 33rd Henry VIII., c. 9, relates to the search- 
 ing of houses, where unlawful games be kept, and contains this 
 provision : — “ Be it farther enacted, that the mayors, sheriffs, 
 “ bailiffs, constables, and other head officers, within every city. 
 
12 
 
 “ borough, town, and place within this realm, where any such 
 “ officers shall fortune to be, as well within the franchises as 
 “ without, shall make due search, etc.” In a statute enacted 
 in the reign of Hem-y VIII., for the government of the princi- 
 pality of Wales, 34 and 35 Henry VIII., c. 26, sec. 70, it is 
 commanded, “ That the said justices of the peace, or two of 
 “ tliem at least, shall appoint and name, in evei’y hundred 
 ‘•within the limits of their commission, two substantial gm- 
 “ tlcmen or yeomen to be the chief constables of the hundred 
 “ wlierein they inhabit, which two constables, of every hundred, 
 “ shall and may use the offices in all and singular things, as is 
 “ used b}' the high constables of the hundreds in England. 
 
 In tlie Act 2nd Jac,, I., c. 10, it is provided, that if a person 
 committed to prison has not money, nor goods and chattels, 
 wherewith to defray the expenses, “ then an indifferent tax or 
 “ assessment shall be made by the constables and churchwardens, 
 “ and i'iSoo or three other, the honest inhabitants of the parish, 
 “ township, or tithing,” &c. Lambard, in his work on the 
 Duties of Constables, says at page 56, “ Those four justices of 
 “ the peace that be authorised by the statute to make taxation 
 “ of money for the amendment of any decayed bridge in the 
 “ highway, ought to make that taxation by the assent of the 
 “ constables, or of t-coo of the most honest men of every town or 
 “ parish.” 
 
 It is unnecessary to make further extracts from early legis- 
 lative enactments. They throw but little light upon the 
 appointment or the various executive functions of high and petty 
 constables, though they show satisfactorily the importance of 
 the office. True it is, that each of the statutes I have quoted 
 either provides some new service for constables, or re-enacts 
 some old one, and all of them afford abundant evidence of 
 those duties being responsible and multifarious ; but it is not in 
 Acts of Parliament that we can discover the true nature of the 
 constable’s office. It is by tracing the traditionary observances, 
 and the laws ol order which constables, under one title or other, 
 have had to enforce and administer ever since society has ceased 
 to be protected and ensured by the mutual guarantee of its 
 members, that we are able to discover all that these public 
 officers of the peace have been, and still are required to 
 perform ; and in doing this, we are carried back to a time before 
 Parliaments were known. 
 
 Some of the early chroniclers speak of the constables and 
 the watch in London, and, though interesting, these sketches 
 throw little light upon the dry details of their ordinary 
 duty. For example, Stow, in describing a city pageant by 
 
night, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, tells us, “ Onward 
 came the marching watch, for whose furniture there were 700 
 cressets ; besides which, every constable^ amounting to 250, had 
 his cresset and a man to bear it, so that the cresset train 
 amounted, in number, to almost 2,000 men. There were demi- 
 lances on great horses, gunners with their arquebuses and 
 wheel locks, archers with bows bent and sheafs of arrows by 
 their sides, pike-men in bright corslets, and bill-men with 
 aprons of mail. Following came the constables of the vjatch, 
 each in bright harness, gleaming from beneath his scarlet 
 jornet and his gc'lden chain, with his henchman following him, 
 his minstrel belore him, and his cresset light by his side. 
 
 ‘ The front of Heaven was full of fieiy shapes 
 Of burning cressets.’ 
 
 The constable so romantically here depicted was evidently 
 a man of some consequence, but the body to which he belonged 
 was more remarkable for its showy appearance than for its 
 utility. In the year 1560, the marching watch was put down 
 by Henry the Eighth, “ considering the great charges of the 
 citizens still the lovers of pageantry tried several times to 
 revive it. In 1569, it was determined, “ in the room thereof, to 
 have a substantial standing watch for the safety and preservation 
 of the city.” Thus, we are elsewhere informed, the watchman 
 became gradually “ transformed from a sturdy man in harness 
 into a venerable personage, with halbard and lanthorn, — a 
 valuable functionary, not unknown to the recollection of men 
 living in these times.” 
 
 As early as 1416, street light was discovered to be a great 
 auxiliary to nightly watch ; and there existed a law, that 
 lanthorns and lights should be hung out from houses in the 
 winter nights, as a check upon deeds of violence and robbery, 
 which were then so frequent. Stow says, that in Queen Mary’s 
 time, one of each ward “ began to go out all night with a bell, 
 and at every lane’s end and at the ward’s end gav'e w'arning of 
 fire and candle.” This practice fell into disuse from the diffi- 
 culty of enforcing it ; and we read in Macaulay’s History, that 
 in the reign of Charles the Second, most of the sti-eets of 
 London were in profound darkness, and thieves and robbers 
 plied their trade with impunity. He writes, “ There was an 
 Act of Common Council, which provided, that more than a 
 thousand watchmen should be constantly on the alert in the 
 city, from sunset to sunrise, and that every inhabitant should 
 take his turn of duty; but this Act was negligently executed. 
 Few of those who were summoned left their houses; and those 
 few generally found it more agreeable to tipple in ale-houses 
 than to pace the streets.” 
 
u 
 
 From Defoe’s History of the Plague of London, we learn 
 tliat to constables were entrusted all the important and the 
 responsible executive duties during that awful visitation. 
 
 Fortunately, records have been made by men learned in the 
 law, upon all that is of importance in the duties of enquiry, 
 repression, and prevention, belonging to the constable’s office 
 since the commencement of the 17th century; but the origin 
 of the office, and of the very name, as well as the nature of the 
 appointment, are matters of speculation and dispute. It is for 
 this i-eason that I have thought it necessary to quote more ex- 
 tensively than I intended from early statutes and early writers. 
 My object has been to endeavour to trace the original con- 
 stitution of this country’s constabulary and the changes intro- 
 duced into it, in order to ascertain if possible when constables, 
 as officers of the peace, were first instituted, by whom chosen, 
 and how far and when the principle of selection, or election, was 
 subsequently altered. 
 
 I confess to having experienced considerable difficulty in 
 this research. For instance, in the last-mentioned statute 
 of Henry the Eighth for regulating the government of 
 Wales, it is provided, that two justices of the peace shall 
 appoint the chief constables of hundreds; whereas, the practice 
 in England where the law was similar in other respects, was 
 tliat they should be chosen by the leet of the hundred. This 
 is shewn by a case tried in the fourteenth year of the reign of 
 George the Third, reported in “ Williams’ Abridgment,” in 
 which a person chosen high constable of a hundred by the leet, 
 refused to serve. It was decided by the judges that the custom 
 of so appointing being proper according to law, the appoint- 
 ment was good. 
 
 The Act of Charles the Second, 13 and 14, c. 12, autho- 
 rises two justices to appoint constables in default of the 
 lord of the leet doing so, or in the event of vacancies 
 occurring, until such lord shall hold a court, or until the next 
 quarter sessions. The necessity for appointing constables 
 between the time of holding the leet courts, the irregularity 
 which had taken place in the sitting of those courts, and the 
 gradual discontinuance of sheriffs’ courts, or courts of the hun- 
 dred, led in time to the appointment of high constables being 
 re'ferred to the Court of Quarter Sessions, and the appointment 
 and swearing of petty constables to the justices of the Hundred 
 or Division ; and thus, the permission given by the statute of 
 Charles the Second, became, of necessity, a 'practice and a 
 rule, and afforded in some degree a remedy for the difficulties 
 and defects which had been found to prevail. 
 
15 
 
 Long after the passing of Magna Charta, the power of 
 directing the administration of criminal justice, and the measure 
 necessary for the prevention of serious offences, continued to 
 reside in the Sovereign. It is difficult to say whether it was 
 owing to the jealousy of Parliament lest this power should be 
 unduly exercised, or to some other cause, that so little regard 
 was had to the necessity of making gradual improvements in 
 the police of the country, proportioned to the advancement of 
 civilisation. Statutes were indeed enacted with the intention 
 of providing a remedy for some pressing evil, but they were 
 partial and limited in their application, or inconsistent with 
 former enactments, or unsuited to the exigencies of after years ; 
 and so, in course of time, the uniformity prescribed by the 
 statutes of Edward the First ceased to exist. Old titles 
 were retained and new ones adopted, without any very clear 
 distinction being drawn between the respective powers and 
 responsibilities of the several offices. As an instance of the 
 loose manner in which constables were designated, I may cite 
 the Act 2 and 3 Phil, and Mar., c. 9, “ directing that estreats 
 of fines shall be made by the stewards of leets for defaults 
 presented;” “that the steward shall deliver one part thereof 
 (the estreat) to the bailiff and high constable of every hundred, 
 and the other part to the constable and churchwardens of 
 the parish and again, “which estreats shall be a sufficient 
 warrant to the chief constable, etc. and “ if no sufficient 
 distress can be found by the said bailiff or head constable” 
 Here we have no less than four different titles of constables, 
 and three of them intended to designate the same officer. This 
 singular and unbusiness-like confusion of terms exists to this 
 day — nay, it is even worse, as I shall afterwards explain. 
 
 As early as the 16lh century, a difference seems to have 
 sprung up between the duties and powers of the petty constable 
 and the borsholder, although they continued to be classed 
 together in Acts of Parliament up to a very recent period, in 
 a manner which seemed to imply that they were altogether 
 similar. Such difference as did exist originated probably in 
 this way. In Edward the Third’s reign, the constable was 
 chosen from among the chief pledges or borsholders of three 
 tithings, becoming in some degree, a kind of superior officer ; 
 and it is likely that some of the more important duties of the 
 borsholder were confided to his superintendence. As laws 
 were afterwards passed conferring certain powers, and imposing 
 certain duties upon constables, meaning probably in the first 
 instance the constables of hundreds, — though not declaring 
 it, as did the statute of Edward the First, — the petty constables 
 
16 
 
 came to be considered qualified to undertake those duties, 
 and to possess that power; nay to be invested by law with 
 an authority not conferred in all cases upon the borsholders ; 
 but as far as regards the ordinary duties assigned to peace 
 officers, the borsholder and the petty constable were entirely 
 upon the same footing. 
 
 Lambard enters very fully into the detail of the different 
 duties which high constables, constables and borsholders, were 
 liable and authorised to perform ; and it appears that the 
 exceptions applicable to the latter were certain services uncon- 
 nected with felonies or breaches of the peace, introduced into 
 statutes after the institution of high constables. It is to be 
 remarked, that at the time Lambard wi’ites (1610), the con- 
 stable is not spoken of as the chief officer of three tithings (the 
 original institution), but as the constable of a town, or parish 
 or hamlet — for instance: “that when there be many tithing- 
 men in one parish, onely one of them is a constable for the 
 King.” The high constables appear to have had the following 
 duties assigned to them, over and above those allotted to 
 constables and borsholders generally — viz. : 
 
 1. — To receive from the churchwardens, every Sunday, the money 
 levied for the relief of prisoners in gaol. 2. — To hold statute sessions 
 for servants and labourers. 3. — To make presentments to justices of the 
 defaults of watches, and the defaults of the King’s highways. 4— To 
 hear and determine the complaints of the workpeople of clothmakers, 
 
 examination of the jiarties, having power also to commit to gaol 
 such as refuse to pay the said workfolks. 5. — To pay, at every quarter 
 sessions, such monies as they may have received from churchwardens 
 for disabled soldiers, prisoners, &c. 
 
 The constables of towns and parishes had the following 
 duties, which the borsholder or tithingman were not eligible 
 to perform — viz. ; 
 
 1. — If wools or other merchandise should be shipped in the staple, 
 in any suspected place, an indenture to be made thereof between the 
 owner and the mayor, or constable. 2 — The mayor, sherifi's, bailiffs, 
 constables, and other head officers, within every city, borough, and 
 town should, once every month, make search in all places where 
 unlawful games are suspected to be, and imprison the keepers and 
 frequenters of the same. 3. — To search and guage barrels in towns, 
 where no warden of coopers may be. 4. — To view and inspect malt 
 made in towns, so that no improper malt be put to sale. 5. — In default 
 of agreement of the parishioners among themselves, the constables and 
 churchwardens had power to assess the proportion for the county stock, 
 and to levy upon any parishioner, by distress, for the same. 6. — Con- 
 stables and churchwardens might levy penalties inflicted by mayors, 
 bailiffs, and justices of the peace, upon innkeepers who suffered 
 impioper tippling, or charged dishonest prices. 7. — To have power, 
 in conjunction with the mayor, or other head officers of towns, to 
 enforce certain sanitary regulations during an infection of plague. 
 
17 
 
 8. — To present, at quarter sessions, the absence from church of Popish 
 recusants. 9. — To levy forfeiture on persons destroying the spawn of 
 sea-fish. To have certain powers, in conjunction with the clergyman, 
 chui’chwardens, and overseers in paiishes and toums, not incoi’porated, 
 relative to the apprenticing of the children of the poor. 
 
 These exceptional duties relate exclusively to civil, and not 
 to criminal proceedings, and there is no apparent reason why 
 they should not equally have been executed by the tithingmen ; 
 unless, as I imagine, constables were then so carefully selected 
 that they were a class whom it was safer to entrust with the 
 more responsible and delicate duties of police. The difference 
 of class, or position, is clearly shown at a later period by a 
 statute passed in the first year of George the First, relating to 
 the security of the King’s person and the succession to the 
 Crown, which enjoins that the various public functionaries, 
 including constables, then holding any office, should take the 
 oaths of allegiance and abjuration; and that all persons of 
 a like station, including high or chief constable, who might 
 be afterwards appointed to office should do so ; while bors- 
 holder, headborough, and tithingmen, were exempted from this 
 obligation. 
 
 Thus, it is apparent that in the beginning of the 17th 
 century the powers of peace officers, whatever their denomi- 
 nation, were little different in all the important matters of the 
 arrest and pursuit of felons, the preservation of the peace, 
 and the service of precepts, from those which are exercised 
 by constables in the present day. 
 
 A class of peace conservators not yet alluded to, are the 
 watchmen or guardians of the peace by night. After their 
 institution in the reign of Edward the First, they were sub- 
 ordinate to whatever constabulary authority existed in the 
 places in which they were employed. Their mode of appoint- 
 ment has been various, at different times and in different 
 places. In some instances, the inhabitants of towns have 
 observed the law which required watch to be kept, by 
 taking upon them that service in rotation. In others, the 
 number of men necessary to keep the prescribed watch have 
 been appointed by popular election. Down to a comparatively 
 recent period, constables in many places have had watchmen 
 as their deputies or assistants ; they were even empowered 
 to appoint them, and their authority has been recognised by 
 law. In more modern days, watchmen have been appointed 
 by towns, parishes, and even by private individuals, for general 
 and special purposes, and their power and authority to act 
 publicly as guardians of the peace have been legally acknow- 
 ledged. At what time the offices of constable and watchman 
 
 D 
 
18 
 
 became first united in the same person it would be difficult to 
 tell ; but I find that the Act 8, Geo. IL, sec. 2, c. 15, was passed 
 in compliance with a petition to the King from the vestries of 
 St. James and St. George, Westminster, praying for a sufficient 
 and well-regulated watch ; and amongst other things it provides 
 “ that one constable shall watch every night by turns.” In the 
 29th year of the reign of the same Sovereign, an Act was passed 
 authorising the Dean of Westminster or his deputy to call 
 together certain of the parishioners of every parish within the 
 city of Westminster, from among whom a “ leet” of thirty 
 persons should be chosen, which leet should appoint a high 
 constable and eiglity constables to isoatch the city. 
 
 As towns increased and walls no longer encircled them, the 
 statute of Winchester became inoperative, and gradually, city 
 after city and borough after borough, adopted other arrange- 
 ments of security. Finally, the corporate bodies sought the aid 
 of Parliament, and obtained special acts for better watching 
 (frequently combined with lighting and paving) of places within 
 their jurisdiction. So general was this course, that by the 
 end of the reign of George the Third there was scarcely a 
 town which had not its own separate system and order of 
 police. In some there was only a night watch ; in some there 
 were constables by day and a watch by night ;* and in others 
 there were constables for duty both for day and night. The 
 government of those peace guardians was more varied than 
 their titles or the mode of employing them, and while each 
 town boasted of its superior and economical management, the 
 harvest of the thieves became more abundant year after year, 
 and the usefulness of the watchman became a “ bye-word and 
 a reproach.” 
 
 Special constables have been known as casual aids in the 
 administration of criminal justice, and in the suppression of 
 riots and tumults for a considerable period. The first legislative 
 enactment in which they are mentioned is the 41 Geo. III., c. 78, 
 which provides, “ that the expenses incurred by any person 
 employed as a special constable to execute a warrant in any 
 case of felony shall be allowed, etc.” The preamble of this 
 Act refers to a similar authority in a former statute, though 
 special constables are not mentioned in any previous Act. 
 
 In the first year of George the Fourth, an Act was passed 
 by which the mode of appointing specially to this office, and 
 the circumstances justifying it, were clearly laid down; the 
 
 * According to Blackstone. this was the true " watch and ward.” He writes “ ward, 
 guard, custodian, applicable to day time ; and at discretion of justices and coitstables watch 
 applicable to night. Ward begins when watch ends.” 
 
19 
 
 measure was afterwards amended by the 2 Wm. IV., c. 41, which 
 enacts, “that two or more justices,” upon information on oath 
 of any credible witness, that a riot or felony had taken place, 
 or is apprehended, may appoint special constables from amongst 
 those liable to serve the office of constable, for the suppression 
 and the prevention of the same, which special constables shall 
 have all the authority, powers, and privileges of any constable 
 within his limits. 
 
 It is very evident that the police of the country continued 
 through a long course of years to be unequal to the successful 
 detection of crime, — hence arose the necessity for successive 
 alterations of law and practice with a view to its iinpi’ovement. 
 Unfortunately the attempts to effect this merely led to the graft- 
 ing of supplementary enactments upon the old stem, while the 
 parts decayed and worn out were left unpruned. 
 
 In the year 1798, Parliament had under its consideration 
 some important suggestions of a Committee of Finance, sub- 
 mitted with a view to an impx'ovement in our constabulary 
 system, likewise a proposition from Mr. Colquhoun, — well 
 known as an able magistrate of the metropolis, and an acknow- 
 ledged authority on questions of crime and police,* — for the 
 establishment of a central police board ; but it was not until 
 many years afterwards that any material change was brought 
 about. 
 
 It was in the year 1829 that light first broke in upon the 
 murky obscurity of police management. In the tenth year of 
 Georo-e the Fourth’s rei^n Sir Robert Peel introduced his 
 
 O , ® 
 
 great measure for the institution of a police in and near the 
 metropolis, and the I'easons for the introduction of that measure 
 are so cleai’ly expressed in the preamble of that bill, so unde- 
 niably true, so applicable not only to the metropolis, but to the 
 country at large, that I cannot refrain from quoting them. 
 “ Whereas, offences against property have of late increased in 
 “ and near the metropolis, and the local establishment of 
 “ nightly watch and nightly patrol have been found inadequate 
 “ to the prevention and detection of crime, by reason of the 
 “ unfitness of the individuals employed, the insufficiency of 
 “ their numbers, the limited sphere of their authority, and 
 “ their want of connection and co-operation with each other.” 
 In these few words is contained a perfect description of the 
 state of crime at that period, and of the means then existing of 
 battling with it throughout the whole extent of Great Britain. 
 
 O O 
 
 * One of the reasons assigned by Mr. Colquhoun for the necessity of an improvement in 
 the means of repressing crime was, that the amount of property stolen in the metropohs, ia 
 the course of a year, amounted to two millions of money. 
 
20 
 
 The principle of this important measure I shall have occasion 
 again to refer to ; suffice it now to say, that it gave a new 
 starting point for police organisation, — nay more, though 
 limited in its immediate operation, it was a second “ Statute of 
 Winchester,” if viewed as a foundation for a constabulary 
 system for the whole country. 
 
 In the same year a local Act was passed, 10 Geo. IV., 
 c. 97, to enable the magistrates of the county of Chester to 
 appoint special high and petty constables within the hun- 
 dreds and parishes of that county who were to be paid. This 
 was undoubtedly a great step in advance, and it is much to the 
 praise of the magistrates of Cheshire that they were the first 
 to discover the recklessness and folly of trusting to men as 
 guardians of property and conservators of the peace, without 
 qualification for the office either in point of intelligence, 
 education, or private habits; without interest, zeal, or responsi- 
 bility in executing it; and to whom the duties of constable 
 were in all probability as unpalatable as they were unsuited. 
 
 The next slep towards shaking olt dependence on the old 
 constable, tithingman, borsholder, or by whatever title he may 
 have been called throughout the rural parishes of England, 
 was in 1830 when the Act 11, Geo. IV., c. 27, was passed, 
 which provides for lighting and watching in towns not incorpo- 
 rated, as well as in country places. This Act empowers the 
 inhabitants of parishes to appoint in vestry certain inspectors 
 for local purposes, and these inspectors to have authority to 
 appoint as many “ able-bodied watch housekeepers, serjeants 
 of the night, watchmen, patrols,” &c., as they shall think fit, 
 who are to be sworn as constables, and to have all the powers 
 which constables are invested with according to law. This 
 statute was not compulsory but permissive, and as a necessary 
 consequence it was but partially adopted. It was subsequently 
 altered with a view to making it more practicable, by the 
 3 and 4 Will. IV., c. 90. 
 
 Five years after the introduction of the measure last men- 
 tioned, an Act was passed to provide for the regulation of 
 municipal corporations; and by the 76th clause, it was made 
 incumbent upon the Council of evei’y borough to select a Watch 
 Committee from among their own body, which committee 
 should appoint “ a sufficient number of fit men” to be sworn 
 to act as constables “ by night and by day.” Thus the worn- 
 out and drowsy old watchmen, under the effete system which 
 had existed for hundreds of years, became numbered with the 
 things that were. I shall hereafter offer a few remarks upon 
 this organisation. 
 
21 
 
 Few measures relating to the police of this country have 
 been of greater importance than the appointment of a Royal 
 commission in the year 1836, to inquire into and report upon 
 the best means of establishing an efficient constabulary for “ the 
 counties of England and Wales.” The labours of this com- 
 mission extended over a period of about two years and a half, 
 during which time information was sought from every bench of 
 magistrates in England and Wales, from the authorities in the 
 several chief towns, and from the boards of guardians of the 
 parochial unions. The report of a commission, composed of 
 such men as Charles Shaw Lefevre, Charles Rowan, and 
 Edwin Chadwick, could not but command attention and con- 
 sideration from all who read it ; but being a blue book, and 
 rather a voluminous one, few became acquainted with its 
 valuable contents. 
 
 The first principal recommendation of that report was to 
 this effect : — “ That as a primary remedy for the evils set forth, 
 “ a paid constabulary force should be trained, appointed, and 
 “ organised on the principles of management recognised by the 
 “ legislature in the appointment of the new metropolitan police 
 “ force.” The commissioners pi’oceed afterwards to state, “ the 
 “ principles embodied in our recommendations being based on 
 “ extensive experience, we feel confident that however they 
 “ may for a time be impeded by adverse interests, those 
 “ interests and the prejudices engendered by them will yield 
 “ before the light of future experience, which will lead to the 
 “ ultimate adoption of measures on the principles of those we 
 “ propose. If one uniform and trained force be efficiently 
 “ directed to the prevention or repi’ession of crime, we cannot 
 “ doubt of success.” This report was presented in the early 
 part of the session of 1839, and a bill for the establishment of 
 county and district constables (2 and 3 Vic., c. 93), by the 
 authority of justices of the peace, commonly called “ the County 
 Constabulary” or the “ Rural Police Act,” was the immediate 
 result. This Act empowered the justices in counties, with the 
 authority of one of the Secretaries of State, to determine the 
 number of constables necessary to be raised and their rates of 
 pay, and to levy a rate to defray the cost; the government and 
 disposition of the force to be entrusted to a chief constable. 
 
 In consequence of a strong feeling manifesting itself in 
 some counties that the adoption of the last statute would not 
 confer a benefit upon the community commensurate with the 
 expense which it would entail, and also of a desire that some 
 less expensive machinery should be set up, a bill was passed in 
 1842 (5 and 6 Vic., c. 109) for the appointment and payment 
 
2-2 
 
 of parish constables. According to this Act, lists of persons in 
 every parish qualified to serve the office of constable are to be 
 prepared in vestry, and delivered to the magisti’ates of the 
 divisions in session, who shall choose from the lists such 
 constables as may be necessary in the several parishes ; and 
 superintending constables, to be appointed by the justices in 
 Quarter Sessions, to have superintendence of the parish con- 
 stable. It also provides that constables shall not be appointed 
 in courts leet. 
 
 There are also two recent Acts of Parliament (2 Vic., 
 c. 80, and 3 and 4 Vic., c. 50) relative to providing, when 
 necessary, constables to preserve the peace during the con- 
 struction of public works by private individuals, and for the 
 protection of property in transitu upon navigable rivers and 
 canals; but these are casual and not general appointments, and 
 are not of sufficient importance to be separately considered. 
 
 I have now traced, as succinctly as the natui’e of my subject 
 would permit, the different classes of peace officers from the 
 time of the Anglo-Saxon “ chief borhoe,” until the introduction 
 of the latest improvement in police. Some further steps in 
 advance were intended by the government so recently as the 
 session of 1854, but the light of truth and experience had not 
 sufficiently removed the obstacles which “ adverse interests 
 and the jealousies engendered by them” interposed to the 
 adoption of “one uniform and trained force, efficiently 
 organised and directed and this, notwithstanding a very 
 able report founded upon another patient and impartial 
 investigation, conducted by a committee of the House of 
 Commons only the year previously, — a committee which the 
 House had appointed to inquire into the subject of a general 
 police, and to report to the House. In that report is embodied 
 the following resolution: — 
 
 “ It is the opinion of your committee, that it is most 
 “ desirable that legislative measures should be introduced, 
 “ without delay, by her Majesty’s Government I’endering the 
 “ adoption of an efficient police force, on an uniform principle, 
 “ imperative throughout Great Britain.” 
 
 'The attempt made to carry out this suggestion was unsuc- 
 cessful, and England rests satisfied with a police that has no 
 systematic organisation, nor any general or well-defined plan 
 of operation. Such is the state of things now to be considered 
 under the head of the Police of England as it is. 
 
POLICE AS IT IS. 
 
 The several orders of police now existing in England, and 
 having a different organisation, are these — viz. : 
 
 I. The Metropolitan. 
 
 2. The City of London. 
 
 II. The Municipal. 
 
 III. The Rural ; 
 
 consisting of 
 
 1. Watchmen or constables, appointed under 
 
 the 2 Geo. IV., c. 27, and 3 and 4 Wm. 
 
 IV., c. 90, commonly called the Lighting 
 and Watching Act. 
 
 2. County and distinct constables. 
 
 3. Parish constables. 
 
 4. High constables, and constables (paid) in 
 
 the county of Chester, appointed under 
 the Act 10 Geo. IV., c. 97. 
 
 IV. Special constables. 
 
 
 I. 
 
 The Metropolitan Police was established in the year 1829, by 
 the Act 10, Geo. IV., c. 44, which was amended ten j'ears after- 
 wards, by the ..,2nd 3rd Vic., c. 47. The principal provisions of 
 these statutes may be thus briefly described. To the Sovereign 
 was given power to appoint by Royal Commission two justices, 
 to be termed Commissioners of Police, within the city of West- 
 minster and certain adjoining places, constituting one district, 
 to be called “ The Metropolitan Police District.” A sufficient 
 number of men to be appointed under the direction of the 
 Secretary of State as a police force, to be sworn as con- 
 stables before one of the said justices or commissioners; and 
 the commissioners, subject to the approbation of the Secretary 
 of State, to be empowered to make regulations for the manage- 
 ment of the police force. In addition to the office of ordi- 
 nary constables, considerable powers are conferred upon this 
 body to apprehend loose, idle, and disorderly persons, and 
 those suspected of any evil design ; to prevent offences and 
 irregularities amongst the shipping in the river Thames; to 
 
‘24 
 
 exercise certain control over publicans, pawnbrokers, unlicensed 
 theatres, and gaming- houses ; and to take notice of all obstruc- 
 tions of the public thoroughfare, &c., &c. The officers at the 
 station-houses have power to take recognisances at night, for the 
 appearance of persons apprehended for petty oflFenccs; and to 
 bind over persons making charges, that they shall appear and 
 substantiate the same. 
 
 This police is paid according to a scale of salaries and allow- 
 ances determined by the Secretary of State, and the necessary 
 sums are raised by a rate levied upon the inhabitants, under a 
 warrant from the hands of the Commissionei’s of Police, exe- 
 cuted with the approbation of the Secretary of State. This 
 rate was not to exceed eightpence in the pound, and subse- 
 quently, in order to relieve the inhabitants from so heavy a rate, 
 an Act was passed (-3 and 4 Wm. IV., c. 89), authorising the 
 payment from the Consolidated Fund of a sum of money 
 towards the support of the metropolitan police. This national 
 contribution is in the proportion of twopence in the pound upon 
 the assessed rental. The Secretary of State has power to direct 
 extraordinary expenses incurred in the apprehension of offenders 
 to be paid ; and to grant to any persons belonging to the police 
 rewards for diligence and exertion, or as compensation for 
 wounds and injuries. Additional constables maybe appointed 
 at the cost of individuals for particular duty, if the com- 
 missioners think fit. The constables of the metropolitan police 
 are empowered to act as constables within the five adjoining 
 counties, and no member of the force is permitted to vote for 
 the election of a member of Parliament. 
 
 Ten years afterwards an act was passed for regulating the 
 police of the City of London (2 and 3 Vic., c. 94). Although 
 modelled upon the system of the metropolitan police, and 
 created similar in most respects, the organisation and govern- 
 ment is widely different. A commissioner is placed at its 
 head, but his appointment is by the Common Council of 
 the city, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, 
 and not by the Crown. The commissioner may, however, be 
 removed for any reasonable cause ij/ the Sovereign, as well as 
 by the Common Council. The commissioner, subject to the 
 approbation of the Council, and of one of the Secretaries of State, 
 may make regulations for the management of the police, and 
 shall make such reports to the same authorities upon the state of 
 crime, and the conduct of the force, as may be required of him. 
 The commissioner to have full power in regard to the appoint- 
 ment, promotion, and dismissal of the men. 
 
'25 
 
 The expense of tliis police is defrayed one-fourth from 
 the funds of the Co7'po7-ation of London, and three-fourths by 
 a rate levied upon the inhabitants, which rate is not to exceed 
 eightpence in the pound. The warrants of magistrates of the 
 city may be executed in the surrounding or home counties, 
 and wari’ants issued by the justices of those counties may be 
 executed in the city. In case of special emergency, and at the 
 request of the Lord Mayor, the Secretary of State may authorise 
 the metropolitan police to act within the City of London ; and, 
 at the request of the Secretary of State, the Lord Mayor may 
 authorise the city police to act within the metropolitan police 
 district. The powers of the constables and the nature of their 
 duties are precisely similar to those of the metropolitan police. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Municipal Police established in boroughs under the 
 5 and 6 Will. IV., c. 76, has the following leading features. 
 The Town Council of eveiy borough shall appoint a sufficient 
 number of their own body to form a Watch Committee ; this 
 committee shall appoint a sufficient number of fit men to be 
 sworn as- constables before some justice of the peace acting for 
 the borough, and those constables shall obey all lawful com- 
 mands of any of the justices within such borough, or within any 
 county in which they may be called upon to act. The Watch 
 Committee may form regulations for the guidance of the con- 
 stables, and such committee, or any two justices having juris- 
 diction within the borough, may dismiss any constable whom 
 they may consider negligent of duty, or unfit for the office. 
 
 The Watch Committee, under approval of the Council, shall 
 direct the salaries as well as all extraordinary expenses to be paid 
 by tbe treasurer out of tbe borough rate; and the Council may 
 reward any meritorious services of the constables by a gratuity; 
 they may also sanction the payment of allowances to men 
 wounded or worn out, and these sums the treasurer shall pay 
 out of the borough funds. The constables have considerable 
 powers of arrest and detention, and are empowered to take bail 
 by recognisances at any watch house or station, much in the 
 same manner as is provided in the Metropolitan Act. They 
 have power likewise to act when necessary within the county 
 in which the borough is situated, and in any county being 
 within seven miles of such borough. 
 
 Magistrates of boroughs are further authorised and required 
 to appoint every year as many special constables to serve within 
 the borough as they shall think fit. 
 
 E 
 
•26 
 
 Here we have a police conducted by a committee under the 
 authority of a Council — a representative body — which com- 
 mittee stands somewhat in the same relation to the Council as 
 the commissioners of the metropolitan police do to the Secretary 
 of State ; that is to say, they possess all executive power, having 
 the sole prerogative of appointing constables, punishing and 
 dismissina: them, etc. Besides this committee no one is recog- 
 nised by law as possessing authority. The police is, in fact, a 
 body of paid constables placed under the control and government 
 of a committee ot citizens, and mixing 'wit/i them as voters at 
 every j)arty and political election. No power is vested in the 
 Secretary of State by law to make regulations affecting this 
 constabulary, but the Watch Committee is required to make a 
 quartei’ly report to the Home Secretary, and to transmit a copy 
 of all rules and orders issued by them to the police. 
 
 HI. 
 
 The Rural Police has four branches, viz. : — 
 
 1st. The constables appointed in towns not corporate, and 
 in other parishes under the Lighting and Watching Acts before 
 mentioned. 
 
 This law, enacted by the statutes of the 1 1th Geo. IV., and 
 3 and 4 Wm. IV., before quoted, has become almost a dead 
 letter, but it has not been repealed and may be put in force at 
 any time and to any extent, by the inhabitants of small towns 
 and country parishes in counties which have not adopted the 
 provisions of the Act 2 and 3 Vic., c. 93, for the appointment 
 of a county police. The observations which I have previously 
 made in regard to the introduction of this measure, contain all 
 that is necessary to be said upon the subject. 
 
 2nd. The rural police proper is that body of county or 
 district constables created in 1839, by authority of the last 
 quoted statute, which statute was amended by the 3 and 4 Vic., 
 c. 88. The outline of its organisation may be thus given : — 
 The Act, after adverting to the powers of justices of the peace 
 to appoint special constables upon emergency, provides that 
 those powers shall be increased, that they shall be authorised to 
 pay such constables, and that a majority of the justices of a 
 county may declare that there are needed in such county a 
 certain number of permanent constables. With the Secretary of 
 State’s approbation, a body of constables, not exceeding one 
 to every thousand of the inhabitants, shall be appointed ; and 
 the rates of pay to the chief constable and other constables shall 
 be fixed by the justices. The Secretary of State may mahe 
 
27 
 
 rules for the government^ clothing, ^c., of this force, which 
 rules are to he laid before Parliament. The justices shall 
 appoint, with the approbation of the Secretary of State, a 
 person duly qualified as chief constable of the county, or in 
 case of the county being divided for the purpose of returning 
 members to Parliament, two chief constables, if they shall think 
 fit to do so. The chief constables, subject to the approval of 
 two or more justices in petty session, shall appoint the con- 
 stables and a superintendent to be at the head of the constables 
 in each division, and at his pleasure may dismiss all or any of 
 them, and shall have the general disposition and government 
 of all the constables, subject to such lawful orders as he may 
 receive from the justices in general or quarter sessions. No 
 chief constable or constable shall be capable of voting at 
 elections, and shall not follow any other occupation or employ- 
 ment for hire or gain. 
 
 Upon the appointment of a county police, all other paid 
 constables, excepting in boroughs, shall cease to act. Boroughs 
 may agree to incorporate their police with the county, in which 
 case the consolidated police shall be under the government of 
 the chief constable. The chief constable shall make out lists, 
 to be laid before the justices in petty session, of fit persons 
 willing to serve the office of local constables within their respective 
 parishes for one year; and the justices in petty session shall 
 select from those as many persons as they shall think proper to 
 appoint, and they shall be sworn. Additional constables may 
 be appointed by the chief constable, if he shall think fit, with 
 the authority of the justices in general or quarter sessions, 
 upon the application of private individuals and at their expense, 
 but subject to the orders of the chief constable. 
 
 The expense of a county police is defrayed by a rate levied 
 by the justices in general or quarter sessions; and if they shall 
 be of opinion that a distinction ought to be made in the number 
 of constables in different parts of the county, they may, with 
 the sanction of the Secretary of State, form police districts 
 in which a rate may be levied according to the expenses in- 
 curred for the number of constables appointed for that district. 
 The chief constable may hold his office until dismissed by the 
 justices in general or quarter sessions, provided that notice shall 
 be given by five justices of the intention to propose such dis- 
 missal, and that such notice shall be published with the notice 
 of the time for holding the general or quarter session, according 
 to law. If the justices in general or quarter session consider 
 it objectionable to establish constables for the whole county, 
 certain parishes may be joined to form a district, in which this 
 
•28 
 
 53'stem shall have full operation, having a superintendent 
 appointed to take charge of them, 
 
 "1 here is a marked difference in the constitution of this con- 
 stabulary as compared with the metropolitan police, or the 
 police of municipal towns. In all that relates to authority and 
 command, the chief constable occupies the same position as that 
 held by the Watch Committee of a borough ; but the Secretary 
 of State, in order to establish a further security that this office 
 shall be held by a fitting person, has to confirm the appointment. 
 Another important feature in the organisation of this police, is 
 that the Secretary of State for the Home Department may 
 issue regulations affecting it. It can only be with bis consent 
 that the force can be increased or diminished, or that police 
 districts can be formed. Copies of all the chief constable’s 
 quarterly reports to quarter sessions, and all resolutions of 
 the magistrates consequent thereon, or relating to the police 
 generally, have to be forwarded to him. This system of police 
 is established, not by command, but by 'permission. It has 
 been adopted wholly in 19 counties of England, and par- 
 tially in six others.* Here again is a very striking dis- 
 similarity between the laws which regulate the police of the 
 metropolis and corporate towns, and those aff’eeting rural 
 parishes and towns not incorporated, for in the former the esta- 
 blishment of a sufficient number of constables is made imperative. 
 Lastly, while there is grafted upon the institution of county 
 constables another body termed local constables, parish con- 
 stables having a totally different organisation are allowed to 
 co-exist. Upon these latter I have now to remark. 
 
 3rd. By an Act passed in the 5 th and 6th year of her pi-e- 
 sent Majesty, c. 109, and amended by 13 Vic., c. 20, justices 
 of the peace in every county in England are directed to hold a 
 special session in each year for the appointment of parochial 
 constables in the following manner : — Precepts under the hands 
 of two justices are to issue to the overseei’s of each parish, 
 directing them to make out a list of a competent number of men 
 qualified and liable to serve as constables within their parishes ; 
 upon the receipt of winch precept, the overseer shall summon a 
 meeting of the inhabitants in vestry, and the vestry shall make 
 a list of the number of persons named in the precept to serve 
 as constables, from which list the justices shall choose the con- 
 stables they deem it necessary to appoint. All such persons as 
 may be appointed to serve the office, shall attend and be sworn, 
 or shall find a qualified substitute, under a penalty of ten pounds. 
 
 * It has also been adopted by six counties in Wales. 
 
29 
 
 These parochial constables have all the local powers and privi- 
 leges of other constables, and where a county police is established, 
 they are subject to the authority of the chief constable of such 
 county police. Upon the resolution of any vestry that one or 
 more paid constables shall be appointed for the parish, the 
 justices at the special session before mentioned may confirm the 
 same, and dispense with the appointment of any other con- 
 stable for that parish. Superintending constables shall be 
 appointed by the justices in quarter sessions, in 'counties not 
 having adopted the Rural Police Act, to have the superin- 
 tendence of all the parish constables within such parishes as 
 may be appointed to each, and shall be paid^by a salary out 
 of the county rate. 
 
 The principle upon which this law is founded, isjaltogether 
 unlike any yet mentioned, and is diametrically opposed to three 
 out of four of them. Excepting the Lighting and Watching 
 Act, which is become almost obsolete, it is the system of police 
 which most favours the pi’inciple of local self-govet'nment. Here 
 the constables, whether paid or unpaid, are selected in the first 
 instance by the inhabitants assembled in vestry, and the magis- 
 trates of the district approve such as it may seem desirable to 
 appoint. It is optional with the vestry whether the constables 
 be paid or not: if paid, the necessary sum has to be raised by 
 self-imposed taxation. This however is so rare an instance of 
 disinterested zeal for the public welfare, that I am not aware 
 of an instance in which the compulsory and unpaid services of 
 the parish constable is not preferred. The system was estab- 
 lished to meet the views and wishes of those who were adverse 
 to the scheme of police established in 1839 by the County Con- 
 stabulary Bill, and it has now been fairly tested by the expe- 
 rience of thirteen years. 
 
 4th. The special constabulary of Cheshire was appointed 
 under authority of a local act of parliament, 10 Geo. IV. c. 97, 
 and although from its local character and circumscribed opera- 
 tion, it is a minor branch of the rm-al police, it is nevertheless 
 a distinct and somewhat remarkable one. As stated before, it 
 was the first institution of the kind in this country, and consi- 
 dering how little the subject was then understood, and also the 
 amount of prejudice which existed to the increase of police power 
 and police surveillance^ it may be regarded as a proof of a very 
 determined effort on the part of the magistrates of Cheshire to 
 introduce into their county an efficient system. If they had 
 been possessed of the experience and the information upon the 
 subject that is attainable in these days, I have no doubt the 
 
30 
 
 scheme would have been more enlarged and therefore more 
 practically useful. The act conferred upon the magistrates the 
 power to appoint paid constables for petty sessional divisions 
 and special high constables to superintend them. Alterations 
 have been made in the numbers and disposition of these consta- 
 bles and also as to the mode of paying them. The practice is 
 now to levy a rate in each hundred. 
 
 The principle of government and control in this body is 
 very much the same as in that of the parochial constabulary 
 just described. The chief difference in its organisation — and 
 a very important one — being that the petty constables are 'per- 
 manent and paid. In both cases there is in every hundred a 
 separate and independent police jurisdiction. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Special Constables are those who may be appointed and 
 sworn in times of emergency to assist the authorities in towns 
 or in country in preserving the public peace, when the regularly 
 appointed peace officers are found insufficient for the purpose. 
 The statutes 1 and 2 Wm. IV., c. 41, and 5 and 6 Wm., c. 43, 
 regulate the appointment of special constables. They provide 
 that if it shall be made to appear to two or more justices in any 
 county, division, city, or town, upon the oath of a credible wit- 
 ness, that a riot or felony has taken place or may be appre- 
 hended in any place within the limits for which the justices act, 
 and that the said justices ai-e of opinion that the ordinary officers 
 are not sufficient, they are authorised to appoint as many 
 householders or others (not exempt from serving the office of 
 constable) as they think fit, to act as special constables within 
 certain defined limits, for such time as may be necessary, and to 
 cause them to be sworn. The Secretary of State and the Lord 
 Lieutenant of the County are to be made acquainted with these 
 appointments and with the circumstances connected with them. 
 Special constables have the authority and privileges of ordi- 
 nary constables while so employed. The Secretary of State 
 may issue directions to the Lieutenant of any county to cause 
 special constables to be appointed throughout the whole of such 
 county, or any part of it, and may direct that no person shall be 
 excused from being appointed by reason of any exemption, and 
 all persons so called upon are liable to serve three months. 
 
 The justices of peace, by whom special constables shall have 
 been appojnted, or any two of them, may make regulations and 
 orders for rendering those constables more efficient for the 
 purposes contemplated. In the Act to regulate municipal 
 
31 
 
 corporations in England and Wales, it is provided that two or 
 more of the justices having jurisdiction in any borough, are 
 required to nominate and appoint, as many as they shall think 
 fit, of the inhabitants (not exempt from serving the office of 
 constable) to act as special constables whenever they may be 
 called upon by any of the justices, who shall consider the 
 ordinai'y police force of the borough insufficient to maintain 
 the peace. 
 
 The foregoing resume conveys the outline of eight different 
 systems of police ; for although there are but four heads under 
 which the subject has been considered, one of them has two 
 separate branches and another four, — all of which in themselves 
 are so thoroughly distinct, that it is impossible to class any two 
 of them under the same organisation. Two of these systems 
 embrace the most antagonistic principles, and the others are 
 gradually shaded down from one extreme until they approach 
 the opposite one. For instance, the metropolitan police is 
 governed by a purely central authority, without a particle of 
 local or self-government in its organisation. The system 
 founded on the Watching Act authorises the inhabitants of 
 towns and rural parishes to meet in vestry and to appoint 
 inspectors, who shall nominate paid constables, the vestry fixing 
 their wages, and levying a tax upon themselves for the payment. 
 This is true local self-government, and if a police were never 
 required beyond the limits of its own little republic, and had 
 no duties in common with others beyond that small woi’ld, it is 
 impossible to conceive anything that could be more popular, 
 and probably satisfactory, than this domestic arrangement ; 
 but the best commentary upon its efficiency as a means of 
 ari'esting crime, is to be found in the fact, that it has fallen 
 into disuse in proportion as the system more nearly approaching 
 to that of the metropolitan than any other — I mean the county 
 constabulary — has risen in favour and enlarged its fields of 
 operation. 
 
 Where several schemes, directed to one object, but founded 
 on diverse principles, are being simultaneously carried out, 
 under the direction of men differing in views, differing in feel- 
 ings, and differing in class, — jealousy, distrust, disunion, are the 
 inevitable consequences. So is it with our systems of police ; 
 professedly, they are designed for one common purpose ; prac- 
 tically, some are founded on the broad principle of public, 
 i. e., national usefulness; others upon the narrow basis of local 
 interest and local advantages. Some are governed by men not 
 
3‘2 
 
 only honourable, but high in the social scale, who hold office 
 by the patent of the Queen ; others are directed by the all- 
 important village shopkeeper, “ clothed in a little brief 
 authority” by his vestry’s vote. The shades of power and 
 pretension to be discovered in those who hold intermediate posi- 
 tion between the Royal commissioner and the village inspector 
 are various, and will be found instructive to such as seek to 
 understand the nature of our different police establishments ; 
 for in nothing is more clearly exhibited their complete dissi- 
 milarity in character, in organisation, and in detail. 
 
 The metropolitan police has the largest sphere of action ; 
 still, its limits are closely defined and beyond those limits its 
 members have no desire to pass. Not from any want of 
 liberality in the construction of their public obligations, nor 
 from any want of loyalty in carrying them out, but simply 
 because they feel that by doing so they would be regarded as 
 trespassers, and create jealousy. Jealousy begets hatred, and 
 hatred revenge; and revenge amongst constables is shewn in 
 their using every effort to thwart the public acts of those who 
 are obnoxious to them, totally regardless of the public service. 
 The metropolitan police is always ready to afford assistance 
 whenever it is sought for, but it is not so with other bodies of 
 constabulary. With many, whose limits are much more circum- 
 scribed, as those in boroughs, there is an absence of all desire 
 to co-operate for general purposes. 
 
 The constabulary of a borough is altogether isolated ; it is 
 appointed and paid exclusively for local objects; it has within 
 it the seeds of corruption, and is governed by party men, who 
 have been known to use it for party purposes. 
 
 In many instances the constables are allowed to occupy 
 themselves with other employments for gain. They derive emo- 
 lument from fees in cases of felony — a dangerous incentive to the 
 worst practices of police dishonesty — a fertile source of public 
 suspicion. They are bound to obey the orders of any magis- 
 trate of the borough at any time, and they may be dismissed 
 either by the Watch Committee, or by any two magistrates, at 
 their pleasure. To an upright man this may be a matter of 
 indifference, but with the mass this divided control leads to 
 their endeavouring, hij anij means.) to secure the support of one 
 or more members of the Watch Committee, in order that 
 they may feel themselves comparatively safe from the possible 
 exercise of a capricious and arbitrary power which so many are 
 permitted to wield. This is not only destructive of all self- 
 respect and a high tone of feeling, but is ruinous of discipline 
 also. 
 
33 
 
 Many well-bred and well-educated men — men of integrity, 
 are the chief officers under the Watch Committee ; but there are 
 others whose antecedents are disreputable, and who taint the 
 whole body. The individual and official position of these officers 
 is not well defined. In some of the large boroughs the post of 
 chief officer is one of great responsibility, and the moral influence 
 of his station is not sufficient for the charge confided to him; 
 while in smaller cities and towns an executive police superin- 
 tendent is all that is wanted, and although various the titles 
 given or assumed, the official position and authority are the 
 same. This is very much as if the commander of a line-of- 
 battle ship, and the commander of a revenue cutter, were placed 
 upon precisely the same footing in point of rank. 
 
 The organisation of the county constabulary has been 
 founded upon a tolerably sound basis, but as the adoption of 
 the system has been permissive, and not imperative, the counties 
 which have carried it out have been exposed to disadvantages 
 that would not have obtained had the law been made general. 
 This has stamped it in the minds of the payers of rates, who 
 have had to bear its expenses, as a measure of unfairness, and 
 has given rise to some unpopularity which would not otherwise 
 have prevailed. The efficiency of the system has been impaired 
 by the inadequate means employed to carry it out — a necessary 
 consequence of the Act of Parliament not having fixed a 
 minimum amount of force to be maintained. In some counties 
 there is a police officer in the proportion of one to about every 
 thousand of the inhabitants, and in others there is only one to 
 every three thousand of the inhabitants. In point of area, there 
 is a like disproportion. 
 
 The practical working of this force is in some respects 
 defective. The government is vested in the chief constable, 
 subject to a certain undefined control by the magistrates in 
 quarter sessions ; that is to say, once in every quarter the affairs 
 of the police are discussed by them in a general assembly. 
 Either there is too much to be well done in so short a space 
 of time, or there is too large a body to discuss so small a 
 matter. This difficulty has been felt, and in most counties a 
 Police Committee is formed to consider and submit to the 
 assembled justices, resolutions affecting the police of the county, 
 but this committee has no status in law, therefoi'e no power, 
 and its well-considered recommendations are often unceremo- 
 niously rejected. This constabulary is defective, like all others, 
 in the practieal working of the most important functions of a 
 police. It becomes powerless, at the moment when its authority 
 is most x’equired. It is checked and discouraged in the “ quick 
 
 F 
 
34 
 
 and fresh suit,” for lack of undisputed power to “ sue and arrest 
 felons as well within franchise as without The constables are 
 not really county constables, although they are so styled, for 
 there are privileged nooks into which they only enter upon 
 sufferance (excepting with a wan-ant), and so there is “ lack of 
 suit, hecaiise of franchises where felons are received.” It is not 
 only the county police that is thus foiled, the borough police 
 is equally so, for the thieves of those “ franchises” escape to 
 rural parishes, and, from want of concert and good understand- 
 ing between two branches of the same service, justice is 
 defeated. 
 
 The local constables who are intended to act with the 
 regular county police, have never been forthcoming and they 
 never will. There are no means of paying them, excepting as 
 the parish constable is paid — by fees ; and if even they were 
 willing to serve, they would be of little use without order, 
 without discipline, and without the means of acquiring a proper 
 knowledge of a constable’s duty. 
 
 The system of the parochial constabulary is an anomaly and 
 a delusion, yet the seeming embodiment of the principle of 
 self-government and its comparative cheapness wins for it 
 many supporters. It is an anomaly, inasmuch as the choice 
 of the constable is supposed to rest, year by year, with the 
 vestries of the parishes and the magistrates of the division. 
 In theory this may be so; in practice, how is it? In most 
 cases there is no selection at all ; the same man, without 
 any regard to his fitness, undertakes the office year after 
 year, and the vestry meeting (if any one does attend it) is 
 a mere form. Whether the selection be made or not, the 
 person sworn to the office is not, practically, the working man. 
 The supei’intending constable, who is not appointed by any 
 popular voice or control, is that man. It is a delusion, because 
 there is a show of a constabulary, when virtually there is none. 
 There is neither watch by day nor by night excepting such as 
 the superintending constable may personally undertake ; unless 
 indeed some of the constables are specially paid for some pai- 
 ticular and temporary service as watchmen. The machinery 
 of a nominal police is not required to effect this, for any 
 proprietor may pay a watchman, and that watchman may arrest 
 a felon. 
 
 Let the superintending constable be the most active, the 
 most persuasive, the most ubiquitous of men, he will never 
 succeed in getting the parish constable to leave his shop, his 
 trade, his working engagements, to search for thieves. Where 
 the county police is in operation, and consequently there is no 
 
35 
 
 superintending constable, the constables of parishes are placed 
 under the authority of the chief constable of the county. A 
 knowledge of these guardians of the peace and property is not 
 necessarily, therefore, confined to the counties in which that 
 police alone exists. 
 
 It is well known that the parish constable moves not until 
 his expenses are either paid or guaranteed to him. This is a 
 cause of difficulty, and often of fatal delay. How incompatible 
 with that which is the spirit of police — ’•'Afresh suit from town to 
 town, and from country to country^ 
 
 Men who live and grow to manhood in the same place, and 
 are dependent upon the employment and patronage they may 
 receive from those around them, ai’e biased by local sympathies 
 and prejudices, and swayed by personal interests, which are 
 strong impediments in the way of an impartial course of public 
 duty within their own parishes. The appointment of such men 
 to an unpaid public office is not likely to overcome those dis- 
 qualifying influences. 
 
 With I'egard to the pecuniary advantages of this system, I 
 do not go so far as to assert, that the indirect payments and 
 recognised expenditure amount to as great a sum as a rate 
 levied for the support of a county constabulary, for I have 
 never personally had data upon which to make a satisfactory 
 calculation; but very conclusive evidence to this effect has been 
 given by those who have had the means, and by none so clearly 
 as by Captain McHardy, R.N., the able and clear-sighted 
 chief constable of Essex, one of whose tables I have had re- 
 printed and appended to this pamphlet. 
 
 I have remarked upon three of the police systems enume- 
 rated at the commencement of this chapter, and pointed out 
 what I conceive to be erroneous in them. Upon the fourth, 
 relating to special constables, I have no further comment to 
 offer than this : The arrangement for their appointment is 
 
 simple, efficacious, and well defined. There wants but a pro- 
 vision for the government of this force of irregulars, in ease 
 of their being called upon, and of a necessity arising for their 
 acting upon some systematic order of proceeding. 
 
 The duties of constables generally are ill-defined. In rural 
 districts, a policeman is at one time expected to be a sound 
 legal referee in matters of criminal law — at another he is coarsely 
 spurned and vulgarly abused. In nine cases of felony out of 
 ten, he is virtually the public prosecutor, and yet as such he 
 must not appear; for if he should, either clumsily or of 
 necessity, the case is at once stigmatised as a police case 
 “ got up,” from some improper motive. This is a false position, 
 
36 
 
 which brings upon the police odium and suspicion ; it is one 
 which exposes the men to temptation and needless respon- 
 sibility — their legitimate offices entailing upon them duties 
 sufficiently onerous and responsible. As a class, they are 
 hardly equal in intelligence and address to the requirements of 
 their important and conspicuous position, nor is it likely that 
 they will be improved in this respect, until society treats them 
 with confidence and courtesy. Then will the policeman walk 
 uprightly, and feel as every Englishman ought to feel, that his 
 position is not incompatible with independence of character. 
 Money will not effect this for them, but good manners, fair 
 treatment, and civility may. 
 
 I have but a few words more to say upon this subject. We 
 are overwhelmed by a confusing and endless variety of titles. 
 Some are expressly enjoined by the Legislature, and others are 
 assumed. We have chief comtables of counties named by Act 
 of Parliament, whose appointments are confirmed by the 
 Secretary of State ; and w^e have chief constables in small 
 places, where there are but two irregular policemen — one being 
 “ the chief,” whose appointments are conferred by the parish 
 vestry. We have no less than eight other kinds of constables, 
 viz, : the head constable, the high constable, the superintending 
 constable, the police constable, the local constable, the parish 
 constable, the special constable, and the loch-up constable ; besides 
 chiejs of police, superintendents of police, inspectors, serjeants of 
 police, serjeants of the voatch, and detective police innumerable. 
 
 This surely requires a remedy. The want of uniformity, 
 the want of any combined system, all require remedy ; but this 
 part of the subject had better be considered under the head of 
 police as it should be. 
 
 POLICE AS IT SHOULD BE. 
 
 A police to be effective, in accomplishing all the purposes 
 for which it is instituted, should be devoid of the defects I have 
 pointed out. It should be general and uniform ; under competent 
 and undivided government ; sufficient in numbers ; possessed 
 of intelligence ; strong in public confidence ; vigilant, active, 
 respectable, and respected. 
 
 In considering the mode in which these great requirements, 
 these weighty responsibilities should be met, the first question 
 that suggests itself is — How far is a measure, comprehensive in 
 its objects, compatible with independent local control ? It has 
 
37 
 
 been shewn that in the time of the Heptarchy, and even 
 throughout the feudal period, when the liberty of the subject 
 was hardly the sacred right which it afterwards became, 
 nothing could be more open, more democratic, than the election 
 of the peace officer in the courts of the hundred or leet. It has 
 been shewn, that in the course of time the negligence of those 
 courts and the gradual extinction of their power, led to the 
 appointment (if not the selection) of constables being trans- 
 ferred of necessity from the people to the magistracy, which is 
 not a representative body. It has been shewn, that public 
 insecurity called for the repeated interference of the Legislature, 
 and laws were passed, from time to time, all tending to shew 
 the parish officer to be an inefficient and degenerate successor 
 of the constable of earlier days. I say degenerate, because in 
 Henry the Eighth’s reign the constable was considered not only 
 one of the “ honest men” of the parish, but an authority and 
 an importance were attached to him which he utterlj' failed to 
 retain, under the untrammelled influence of local management 
 and popular control. 
 
 I cannot conceive anything more opposed to an efficient 
 general organisation, than divided powers and conflicting 
 interests. It may be asked, “ Where is the necessity for a 
 more comprehensive system, when every place can be protected 
 by its own arrangement of police, and it can therefore matter 
 little whether there exist fifty systems or one ?” The man 
 who could ask this question would know little of the wide- 
 spread organisation against which the police have to contend, 
 or of the encouragement which that organisation receives from 
 the divisions and jealousies springing from different systems. 
 If the objects to be attained were entirely local, and their 
 accomplishment could be effected by purely local means, there 
 could be no question that those means would be the most 
 congenial to the constitution of the country, the most popular 
 and the most efficacious. But the objects are not local — they 
 are general, and the means used to attain them should be 
 general also. 
 
 I am aware that there exists a popular dread of what is 
 abstractedly termed centralisation. If by that term be meant 
 an uncalled-for interference in the affairs and fiscal arrange- 
 ments of a community that is not associated with others around 
 them in any common object, there is no doubt that such inter- 
 ference as would deprive the community of the direction which 
 it may justly claim to exercise over its own concerns, and 
 transfer it to some central authority, would be an act of arbi- 
 trary injustice. If, however, the concern be in some degree a 
 
38 
 
 national one, the claims to set up a thousand exclusive and 
 isolated systems of management is neither just nor sensible. 
 
 I shall not enter into the question of whether an institution, 
 in which all men have an interest — be they landholders, house- 
 holdei’S, fundholders, or shopkeepers — should be supported from 
 the national purse, to which all men contribute, and be governed 
 by a central power responsible immediately to an officer of 
 State, and remotely to the people through their representatives 
 in Parliament. Nor shall I stop to enquire whether such a 
 system would be economical in proportion to its efficiency, for 
 the feeling of the country is against it. If the nation deter- 
 mine that while many shall contribute nothing, and others 
 shall contribute much, there shall be no change lest violence 
 might be done to some cherished principle of government, 
 this determination must be respected, even if it be considered 
 unwise. Any proposition to inti’oduce a political institution 
 from a conviction of its absolute excellence, and without taking 
 into account the state of the public mind, would be absurd and 
 injurious. 
 
 The commission of 1839, which I have spoken of before, 
 and the committee of the Plouse of Commons of 1854, equally 
 represented the necessity for an uniform police, and recom- 
 mended the payment from the Consolidated Fund of a portion 
 of the cost. They also suggested the continuance, to a certain 
 extent, of local management. 
 
 By a bill introduced by the Government into the House of 
 Commons immediately after the latter report, admirable pro- 
 visions were made for enforcing a general and uniform con- 
 stabulary system throughout England and Wales, for the 
 appointment of a sufficient number of constables, and for their 
 government; but this bill was withdrawn. The subject had 
 not then received much public attention or discussion, nor was 
 the defective state of our police, with all its anomalies and 
 abuses, generally known. The opposition to the measure, 
 which was systematically organised by those who desired to see 
 the retention of a system in most respects imperfect, and in 
 many respects impure, was successful; and many, without 
 reflection and without care, pronounced all change to be 
 unnecessary. 
 
 Before proceeding to consider the question how the consti- 
 tution and government of a police, based upon the principle of 
 local government, may be best adapted to ensure the efficiency 
 of a general and uniform system, it is necessary to refer briefly 
 to one or two points in the present arrangements, notwith- 
 standing that they may have been previously remarked upon. 
 
39 
 
 For many years the magistracy in counties has been 
 the directing authority in all matters relating’^ to police — 
 and most properly has it been so — for, independently of 
 the public position of the justices as conservators of the 
 peace, it is impossible that local power could have been 
 placed in the hands of more fitting or more upright men. 
 
 In boroughs, the same power has been confided to '^a 
 committee chosen from the members of a Council, elected 
 by the citizens, to conduct the affairs of the corporation. 
 
 Between the different police establishments, in the same 
 county, rural and municipal, there is no connecting link, 
 and there exists no means by which concert and a good 
 understanding can be cemented. The governing bodies are 
 dissimilar, and could not well be associated in the direction 
 of co-operative duties affecting two distinct services ; the 
 organisation is dissimilar; the government and disposition 
 of the respective forces are dissimilar.* 
 
 The measure of police, proposed by the government 
 in 1854, contained a provision for the appointment of a 
 Police Board, which should possess all the powers of the 
 justices in general or quarter session. There can be no 
 doubt that the magistrates of a county are too numerous, 
 collectively, to superintend or examine the various details 
 of management ; and that a board or committee pos- 
 sessing adequate powers, could beneficially undertake that 
 service. 
 
 It is by uniformity of organisation and of system, secured 
 by judicious and impartial supervision, that the objections to 
 local government are capable of being removed or modified. 
 The observance of this rule would necessitate the appointment 
 of a similar eommittee of magistrates in boroughs for the local 
 management of the municipal constabulary ; and here I may 
 observe that a committee so appointed, independently of being 
 more in unison with similar institutions in the country around 
 them, would, for many reasons, be more effective and stronger 
 in moral power. 
 
 The constitution and government of a general and uniform 
 police is an extensive subject, but its leading principles may be 
 condensed into a comparatively small space. Those principles 
 it is now my pui’pose to show. 
 
 1. A constabulary should be as general in counties as the 
 Legislature has caused it to be in towns. There is as great a 
 necessity for it, whether the question be viewed in respect of 
 
 * The county police, by Act of Parliament, is under the government of the Chief 
 Constable. The borough police is under the Watch Committee. 
 
40 
 
 population, or of property, or of crime. In proportion as the 
 police in town increase in vigilance and activity, so does the 
 necessity for protection in the country become greater and vice 
 versa. In the report of the commissioners for taking the last 
 census, it is stated, “ At the same time, too, that the population 
 of the towns and of the country have become so equally balanced 
 in numbers , — ten millions and a half against ten millions and a 
 half , — the union between them has become, by the circum- 
 stances that have led to the increase of the towns, more in- 
 timate than it was before, for they are now connected together 
 by innumerable relationships, as well as by the associations of 
 trade.” How necessary, then, the same relative union in all 
 that concerns the security of life and property. 
 
 Upon the appointment of a general rural police, the Act 11 
 Geo. IV., and 3 and 4 Wm. IV., relative to watching, should 
 be repealed. The total repeal of the Acts relative to parish 
 constables might be a subject for future consideration. The 
 office of high constables of hundreds should be abrogated. 
 There is no duty now performed by this officer that could not 
 be better executed by the superintendents of police. 
 
 2. The police of counties (being rendered general) should, 
 in regard to the appointment of the constables and the govern- 
 ment of the force, continue as at present ; but the local manage- 
 ment, so far as is required by the existing law, should be 
 confided to a committee of magistrates, selected from the 
 general body — one-third retiring annually — which committee 
 should possess all the powers of the justices in quarter session, 
 under 2 and 3 Vic., c. 93, and 3 and 4 Vic., c. 88, excepting 
 the power of levying a rate for the year. In the first quarter 
 sessions of every year, after the appointment of the new members 
 of the police, the justices should empower the Police Com- 
 mittee to raise a rate for the next twelvemonth — in such quar- 
 terly proportions as the committee think fit — but not exceeding 
 such rate as the committee may have previously fixed upon. 
 
 .3. The police in cities and towns not incorporated with the 
 county police, as explained hereafter, and having a population 
 of 100,000 inhabitants and upwards, should be locally governed 
 by a committee of magistrates of the borough selected by the 
 Town Council, and possessing all the powers which are now 
 held by the Watch Committee, excepting those relating to the 
 appointment and dismissal of constables and the government 
 and disposition of the constabulary; all of which powers should 
 be exercised by an officer appointed by the justices under the 
 same title as that held by the head of the police in counties, 
 and the same powers and responsibilities should be given to 
 
41 
 
 him. I cannot conceive that the magistrates would object to 
 perform this duty for the intei’ests of their fellow-citizens ; but 
 this might be provided for by law. 
 
 4. In boroughs with a population exceeding 30,000, and 
 less than 100,000, the police should be placed under the same 
 management as in the larger corporations just mentioned ; but 
 the superior officer appointed by the justices to be placed over 
 the police, and who might be styled “ Head constable,” should 
 possess such power in regard to the appointment, dismissal, 
 government, and disposition of the constables, as the Police 
 Committee might think Jit to entrust to him* 
 
 5. Boroughs with a population of less than 30,000 should 
 be required to consolidate their police with the county consta- 
 bulary, and be formed each into a police district for that pur- 
 pose ; the interests of which boroughs might be represented in 
 the Police Committee of the county by the appointment of a 
 magistrate from each such municipal corporation to sit in 
 the committee. The police should be incorporated for the 
 following reasons : — A number of small and independent police 
 jurisdictions would be destructive of unity; the benefits to the 
 county and borough by the incorporation would be recipro- 
 cally great, both in respect of economy and the pi’evention of 
 crime ; superintendents of a rural police are of the same class 
 as those appointed to have charge of the constables in small 
 towns, and they frequently have within their districts a popu- 
 lation of 20,000 or 30,000 souls, besides having an area to 
 traverse of some hundreds of square miles — a superintendent 
 would therefore suffice. 
 
 6. The Secretary of State should possess the same power 
 to make regulations for the government of the police in boroughs 
 as he has retained in respect of the police in counties ; and the 
 power of voting at elections should cease. 
 
 7. Chief constables and other officers of constabulary, 
 whose appointments require the Secretary of State’s confirma- 
 tion, should not be liable to dismissal without similar confir- 
 mation. He should also have the power of dismissal equally 
 with the justices (according to the principle which guides the 
 retention of office by the commissioners of police of the city 
 of London) upon reasonable grounds, and in such case he 
 
 * My reason for making this distinction is as follows : — It would depend upon the situation 
 of the borough, the state of its finances, and the feeling of the committee, whether the head 
 constable would be selected for his personal qualifications merely as a practical detector of 
 crime, or from his competency to manage men, or in consideration of the moral effect which 
 a good education and a certain social position are calculated to produce in the conduct of a 
 public body. Porrester, the city officer, is pre-eminent as a successful taker of thieves, — that 
 he would have been equally distinguished as a commissioner of police is more than doubtfuL 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 should be empowered to call upon the justices, in county or 
 borough, to elect another officer in his room. 
 
 8. The Secretary of State should have power to appoint a 
 sufficient number of officers to make inspections and reports of 
 the county and borough constabulary, and to give such in- 
 structions to them as may be required, in order to produce 
 concert, accord, and mutual co-operation between the different 
 bodies, without unnecessarily interfering with local arrange- 
 ments and local details. And the Sovereign should be em- 
 powered to direct the appointment of a “ Commissioner of 
 County and Borough Police,” to direct the local inspectors, to 
 receive reports from them, and to prepare a digest of the same 
 for the information of the Secretary of State, to be laid before 
 Parliament. The commissioner and the local inspectors to be 
 paid by salaries from the Consolidated Fund. 
 
 9. A minimum number of police should be determined by 
 law, which ought not to be less in the counties than in the 
 proportion of one constable for every fifteen hundred of the 
 inhabitants, and for every six thousand acres of land ; or, at 
 the option of the justices, of not less than the number arising 
 from a mean of these two ; and not less in corporate towns 
 than one constable for every thousand of the inhabitants. 
 If it should appear to the Secretary of State that the number 
 of police in any county or borough is insufficient for the services 
 required, he should be empowered to direct the assembling of 
 the Police Committee in any such county or borough, to 
 consider the necessity of appointing additional constables ; and 
 if such committee should neglect or object to increase their 
 police upon the Secretary of State’s representation, it should 
 be lawful for the Sovereign, with the advice of the Privy 
 Council, to direct the police to be increased to such extent as 
 may appear necessary, and to be maintained and paid by an 
 additional police rate to be levied upon the inhabitants ; this 
 increase of police to be maintained for twelve months, or until 
 the Secretary of State should signify that it may be discontinued. 
 
 10. Any portion of the police of the country should be 
 liable upon emergency to be temporarily removed and asso- 
 ciated with other forces, upon an order issued by the Secretary 
 of State. During their absence from their own localities, 
 special constables might be appointed if necessary — the expenses 
 attending their appointment being paid from the Consolidated 
 Fund. 
 
 11. In order that the general police should partake of the 
 character of a national institution and be liable to national 
 services, it is indispensable that the recommendations of the 
 
43 
 
 commissioners of 1839, and the Parliamentary Committee of 
 1854, should be adopted, and that at least a portion of the 
 expense should be borne by the country at large. It was 
 stated by Captain Harris, the chief constable for Hampshire, 
 in his evidence before the committee of the House of Commons 
 what the number and the cost of a police force for England 
 and Wales would be, if a general measure were carried to the 
 utmost point of efficiency. The tabular statement submitted 
 by him is appended to this pamphlet. 
 
 This calculation is made in excess of the actual require- 
 ments of the country, and I conceive that a sum of £700,000 
 would amply suffice for all possible expenses. If a fourth part 
 were paid from the general purse (as in the metropolitan and 
 city of London police), there would remain £525,000 to be 
 defrayed by the ratepa}'ers, or about three halfpence in the 
 pound per annum upon the assessment to the pooiv 
 
 It has been more than once suggested, that the country 
 should contribute towards the prevention of crime rather 
 than towards its punishment; and that the money now voted 
 annually for the payment of public prosecutions should be 
 applied to the country’s police. This sum amounts to a 
 quarter of a million of money, while £175,000 is the whole of 
 the sum that would be required to defray a fourth of the ex- 
 pense of a general and efficient police. If this money were 
 disbursed as proposed, and the check upon the expenses of 
 prosecution thrown upon the county, they would sensibly 
 diminish. The expenses of the country would also diminish in 
 the enormous cost of gaols and penitentiaries, and the main- 
 tenance of convicts; but this is a speculative benefit, which 
 is always received with suspicion ; the other is a positive and 
 immediate advantage. 
 
 12. There is no part of the system now in force that more 
 requires a remedy than the practice of remunerating police 
 officers by fees for public services rendered by them in the 
 ordinary routine of duty. Criminal prosecutions cannot be 
 too carefully guarded from the possibility and from the sus- 
 picion of collusion between public servants, for the purpose of 
 bringing forward for their pecuniary advantage, unjustifiable 
 and fictitious cases. This source of suspicion and distrust must 
 continue to weaken public confidence in the pure administration 
 of justice so long as there exist a body of officers, or a recog- 
 nised constabulary, not receiving their sole emoluments from a 
 direct salary. The abolition of all fees connected with the 
 bringing offenders to justice, the enforcement of uniformity 
 throughout the different constabulary forces, an efficient super- 
 
44 
 
 vision by duly qualified officers to effect that object, and the 
 establishment of public prosecutors, would place the police of 
 the country upon a higher pinnacle of public confidence than 
 it has ever held. 
 
 13. A police is an engine powerful for good or evil, and 
 there cannot be too much care taken to secure the services of a 
 respectable, intelligent, and educated class of men as constables. 
 I have said they can never be so unless they are treated with 
 consideration and civility ; but the wages also, and the retire- 
 ments after long service or disability, should be such as to 
 command the best material. I fear the retiring pensions, likely 
 to be allotted to the men now serving, will cause disappoint- 
 ment, unless the superannuation funds shall be assisted from 
 some other source. Such a disappointment would have a 
 baneful influence in the future supplies of men. These are 
 points whieh the power of the Secretary of State to make 
 regulations respecting pay, would be able to reach. 
 
 In looking to the steps that are necessary in securing the 
 respectability of a constabulary, not the least deserving of 
 attention are these : — The officer at its head should be a 
 gentleman, to whom those under him could look with 
 confidence and respect;* the officers entrusted with minor 
 responsibilities should be of a respectable class, scrupulously 
 upright, just, and courteous; the constables should be made 
 to know and feel that the respectability, the comfort, the inde- 
 pendence of their position, depends upon their own intregity, 
 straightforwardness, and demeanour. Men of this kind would 
 be conscientious in their duties, respectful and courteous to 
 all ; men of a lower class are obsequious and servile to those 
 above them, insolent to those beneath them, and ready to lend 
 themselves to any crooked proceeding by which they might 
 derive profit, or gain the favour of those having power to confer 
 a benefit. The following quotation from Blackstone, descriptive 
 of the constables of the eighteenth century, shew the impor- 
 tance which should attach to the respectability of the con- 
 stable’s office and the intelligence of the man : — “ The general 
 “ duty of all constables is to keep the King’s peace, and to 
 “ that purpose they are armed with very large powers of 
 “ arresting and imprisoning, of breaking open houses, and the 
 “ like ; of the extent of wliich powers, considering what manner 
 “ of men are for the most part put into these offices, it is 
 “ perhaps very well that they are generally kept in igno- 
 “ ranee.” 
 
 * In Henry the Eighth’s reign, the high constables of hundreds were required to be 
 " gentleinen or i/eomeu.” 
 
45 
 
 It is very necessary that all bodies of men should be kept 
 in order by system and discipline ; but this may be, and often 
 is, carried too far. If the military element be too strongly 
 infused it is destructive of self reliance, and without self 
 reliance, a rural constable is useless. A constable and an 
 automaton should be as opposite as the poles. 
 
 14. There is some confusion arising from the multiplicity 
 of constabulary titles, notwithstanding that the distinct offices 
 are few, and there is some inconsistency in laying aside the 
 term constable, as applicable to the officers of the second, third, 
 and fourth grades — viz. : superintendents, inspectoi’s, and Ser- 
 jeants, who are more or less executive constables, and applying 
 it to the head of the police, under the designation of chief 
 constable. These titles would be better reversed, somewhat 
 after the plan of the Irish constabulary. Thus there might be 
 constables in three classes ; chief constables instead of inspec- 
 tors; high constables instead of superintendents (whose charge 
 extends generally throughout one of the hundreds) ; and a 
 “ director of police” instead of the present chief constable ; the 
 chief officer in the smaller boroughs retaining a separate police, 
 to be styled “ head constable.” 
 
 There would thus be five distinct grades and distinctions, 
 instead of a dozen and more as at present. 
 
 15. Constables are frequently impeded in the performance 
 of some important service requiring secrecy and despatch by 
 the necessity of getting a warrant backed by a magistrate having 
 jurisdiction in the place in which he desires to execute it. The 
 warrant of a magistrate should be effectual everywhere through- 
 out the kingdom, and the protection to the subject should be 
 secured by requiring that the person arrested should be taken 
 before the magistrate as soon as possible after his arrest and 
 previous to removal, the same as would be done if the person 
 were ai’rested in the county in which the warrant was issued. 
 Felons should be pursued without check, and arrested without 
 hindrance, so that for this service a sworn constable should be a 
 constable everywhere. 
 
 16. If a police were general, and that counties maintained a 
 sufficient and proper force, many services now performed by 
 others could be executed by the constabulary; for instance, the 
 inspection of weights and measures, the conveyance of prisoners, 
 the serving of precepts and notices, the inspection of highways 
 as surveyors, the inspection of nuisances, the duties connected 
 with jury lists, &c., &c., and the justices composing the Com- 
 mittee of Police in counties and boroughs should be empowered 
 at their pleasure so to employ them. 
 
46 
 
 17. I am well convinced that a system of local administra- 
 tion in matters of police could be rendered applicable to all 
 purposes of general security and order, if the system were 
 iiniforin and placed under the inspection of officers responsible 
 to some superintending central authority, upon a principle simi- 
 lar to that which governs the operation of the Laws relating to 
 the Poor, and which is found to be practical and satisfactory. 
 The local administration should control expenditure and watch 
 that there is no neglect of duty, no excess of authority, no want 
 of vigilance, no impropriety, no want of respectability in the 
 body committed to their management. 
 
 When there were only parish constables, the justices of the 
 peace were wont to regulate their duties and to give instructions 
 upon them to the constables within their Division, and that 
 practice was not only proper but highly necessary. The justices 
 had then no judicial power in indictable offences; but the cir- 
 cumstances are altered. Now they have power under certain 
 circumstances to decide upon cases of felony, and their judg- 
 ments have all the weight of convictions in courts of criminal 
 judicature. Under these circumstances it is indispensable, 
 as well for public satisfaction as for the dignity of the bench, 
 that no arrest of a suspected person should be brought about 
 through the instrumentality or the private instructions of a 
 magistrate who might afterwards have to sit in judgment 
 upon the offender. The policeman must now stand upon his 
 own merits and intelligence, the counsel which has often been 
 valuable to him in times of difficulty he can no longer 
 receive. The confidence of society in the adimnistration of 
 the recent law relating to summary jurisdiction requires that 
 the executive duties of the police should he carried out solely 
 by police direction. 
 
 If effect were given to the foregoing suggestions no con- 
 stitutional principle would be assailed; on the contrary, local 
 government would receive every possible recognition. The 
 supervision to be exercised by the government of the country, 
 through its own appointed officers would mei’ely have for its 
 object the attainment of uniformity of system and practice, the 
 establishment of concert, and the exercise of a riglit to cause 
 the police to be used, when absolutely necessary, for the bene- 
 fit of the public generally, for which the general public should 
 fairly pay. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that it has ever been the prerogative 
 of the Crown to put in force such measures as may seem best suited 
 to give the fullest effect to the laws relating to the arrest of 
 offenders and the punishment of crime. 
 
47 
 
 So far I have confined myself entirely to a consideration of 
 the services of the police as a body of constables, but there are 
 other aspects under which the subject may be viewed. If a 
 constabulary force were general, it might be taken upon a 
 moderate computation to number about twelve thousand men 
 in England and Wales, exclusive of the police of the metropolis 
 and the city of London, amounting to six thousand five hun- 
 dred more. Whether any other internal protection would be 
 needed in time of peace — whether this body might not be 
 made the nucleus for a magnificent defensive force upon 
 occasions of sudden emergency — whether, in the event of these 
 considerations being well founded, public economy might not 
 be conciliated by the modification of some existing establish- 
 ments, I shall not attempt to discuss.* But if the nation con- 
 tribute to the support of a general police, as in strict justice 
 and in sound expediency it ought, these reflections might 
 not be unimportant. 
 
 I lay claim to little originality for the observations and 
 suggestions contained in this pamphlet. Many of the opinions 
 I have expressed have been held by others before now; many 
 of the principles for which I contend have been advanced by 
 public men, and have even been supported by her Majesty’s 
 government ; nay, had it not been for a threatened opposition, 
 which never was permitted to marshal its forces, the Government 
 would have carried through Parliament a measure conducive 
 to the general interests of the country, in which many of these 
 principles would have been embodied. The opposition which 
 defeated that intention could never have gathered such strength 
 and importance, if the subject had been perfectly understood 
 by disintei'ested persons, whose desire it is to be swayed by no 
 other consideration than the public welfare. 
 
 The more this matter is discussed and known, the better 
 will it be for the ultimate peace and security of society. 
 Actuated by this feeling I have resolved to put before the public 
 some facts, some deductions and some suggestions, and I shall 
 be well pleased if they tend to throw any light upon a very 
 • important subject, which has not as yet received the public 
 l^attention which it deserves. 
 
 * Captain McHardy has exhausted this subject, iu his scheme for rendering the constabu- 
 lary available for many purposes of national usefulness and national defence. If only half 
 the benefits he mention were to accrue, that measure would be a profitable one. 
 
48 
 
 ^ o o o o 
 
 
 .g §= 
 
 03 
 
 bJO 2 
 <5 c3 
 
 The Gross Annual Expense being ... ... ... ... ... ... £15,886 0 
 
 Estimated Savings and Earnings ... ... ... ... ... ... 15,805 13 
 
Summary of the Number of Constables proposed to be appointed for Rural 
 and Borough Police in each County. 
 
 COUNTY, &c. 
 
 Acreage. 
 
 Population. 
 
 No. of Police Officers, 
 of all grades, pro- 
 posed to be stationed 
 in eacb. 
 
 Bedford 
 
 297,632 
 
 107,936 
 
 94 
 
 Berks 
 
 473,920 
 
 161,147 
 
 159 
 
 Bucks 
 
 463,820 
 
 155,983 
 
 137 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 536,313 
 
 164,459 
 
 161 
 
 Chester 
 
 649,050 
 
 395,660 
 
 285 
 
 Cornwall 
 
 849,200 
 
 338,697 
 
 263 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 969,490 
 
 178,038 
 
 230 
 
 Derby 
 
 663,180 
 
 272,217 
 
 226 
 
 Devon 
 
 1,636,450 
 
 533,460 
 
 515 
 
 Dorset 
 
 627,220 
 
 175,043 
 
 186 
 
 Durham 
 
 679,530 
 
 324,284 
 
 248 
 
 Essex 
 
 925,260 
 
 304,988 
 
 274 
 
 Gloucester 
 
 780,600 
 
 309,087 
 
 254 
 
 Bristol (City) 
 
 9,870 
 
 122,296 
 
 134 
 
 Hereford 
 
 643,800 
 
 113,878 
 
 130 
 
 Hertford 
 
 374,380 
 
 146,720 
 
 122 
 
 Huntingdon 
 
 241,690 
 
 58,549 
 
 61 
 
 Kent 
 
 911,490 
 
 423,717 
 
 354 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 1,105,890 
 
 1,137,584 
 
 685 
 
 Liverpool (Borough) 
 
 5,300 
 
 286,487 
 
 300 
 
 Manchester (ditto) 
 
 6,070 
 
 242,983 
 
 256 
 
 Leicester 
 
 511,340 
 
 215,867 
 
 191 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 1,663,850 
 
 362,602 
 
 405 
 
 Monmouth 
 
 324,310 
 
 134,355 
 
 106 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 1,292,300 
 
 412,664 
 
 416 
 
 Northampton 
 
 646,810 
 
 199,228 
 
 191 
 
 Northumberland 
 
 1,165,430 
 
 250,278 
 
 300 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 525,800 
 
 249,910 
 
 217 
 
 Oxford 
 
 467,230 
 
 161,643 
 
 148 
 
 Kutland 
 
 97,500 
 
 21,302 
 
 23 
 
 Salop 
 
 864,360 
 
 239,048 
 
 246 
 
 Somerset 
 
 1,028,090 
 
 435,982 
 
 363 
 
 Southampton 
 
 1,018,550 
 
 355,004 
 
 346 
 
 Stafford 
 
 736,290 
 
 510,504 
 
 332 
 
 Suffolk 
 
 918,760 
 
 315,073 
 
 285 
 
 Surrey 
 
 385,580 
 
 118,867 
 
 133 
 
 Sussex 
 
 907,920 
 
 299,753 
 
 291 
 
 Warwick 
 
 549,150 
 
 218,793 
 
 197 
 
 Birmingham (Town) 
 
 18,780 
 
 182,922 
 
 195 
 
 Westmoreland 
 
 485,990 
 
 56,454 
 
 99 
 
 Wilts 
 
 868,060 
 
 258,733 
 
 242 
 
 Worcester 
 
 '459,710 
 
 233,336 
 
 191 
 
 York (East Biding) 
 
 711,360 
 
 194,936 
 
 212 
 
 York (North Biding) 
 
 1,282,870 
 
 204,122 
 
 274 
 
 York (West Biding) 
 
 1,653,830 
 
 1,040,368 
 
 691 
 
 Leeds (Town) 
 
 21,450 
 
 152,054 
 
 165 
 
 Total of England 
 
 31,355,475 
 
 12,777,011 
 
 11,333 
 
 Total of Wales 
 
 4,752,000 
 
 911,603 
 
 974 
 
 
 36,107,475 
 
 13,688,614 
 
 12,307 
 
 The expense of carrying out the foregoing proposition would he — 
 
 For 57 Chief Constables £34,200 
 
 Superintendents and Clerks 
 
 Inspectors and Sergeants 53,j2 5 ^ 
 
 Constables 510,-ii/i 
 
 Average amount of Clothing 50,028 
 
 Contingencies (say 10 per cent, on pay and clothing) 70,345 
 
 Total per annum £773,798 
 
 N.B. — This calculation is made upon a total of the maximum force in each case, and exceeds 
 what is absolutely necessary. A sum of £700,000 would be ample.— G. B. 
 
I 
 
 (> 
 
!