ANECDOTES OF THE NEW POLICE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
SIIL-AS the New Police has been the fertile source of much vituperation, 1 think it is but fair play, that occurrences honourable to the new force should be made public. Last Ttal7,Thad occasion to make some inquiries on account of a charitable institution. The parties to whom I had to apply for information were located in that worst part of St. Giles's called the Rookery. Upon inquiring in a shop, about seven o'clock in the evening, for Church-lane, the proprietor warned me "that it was in the most dangerous part of St. Giles's; so per ilous, indeed," he said, " that he who walked through it in the day-time, without being knocked down and robbed, might look upon himself as singularly fortunate ; but that e after dark, robbery, if not murder, was inevitable." Not feeling excessively encou- raged by this, I thought it nothing more than a prudent precaution, to inform a police-man ot' the new force, that 'l was about to snake inquiries in Church-lane, and required his assistance. This he instantly rendered ; and accompanied me through the filthy zigzags of this frightful receptacle of dirt, misery, and crime ; the forbidding appearance of which quite justified the shopkeeper's description. I felt, however, perfectly safe, for the man seemed intimately acquainted with all its nooks, and the character of its population. The inhabitants showed, instead of a disposition to molest, a desire to give him no interruption ; saying merely to one another, " There, that's a Peeler." After having transacted my business, 1 asked him his letter and number ; telling him that if it ever lay in my power, I would recommend him, on account of his civility. fie was E, No. 45.-Would
w
aatchman have done his duty thus?' No! 1 sh Id have got nothing from him
but excuses about his beat, or not improbably have received a saucy answer as well as a refusal.
Returning through Stratton's Ground, Westminster, I was a witness of the superiority of the new power in suppressing a street row; a subject which, under the minima regime, wo[r]d have been the fruitful cause of a lengthened disturb- ance, and of edifying reports in the next dav's newspapers. A jealous woman abusing her husband, and. scolding and fighting his paramour, was accosted by two policconen ; and, though it might be too much to say she was brought to reason, she was at least induced to go home and vent her reproaches in private. No rattle was sprung as an advertisement to pickpockets to fly and luxuriate in the crowd ; but the budding disturbance was crushed before more than twenty
people had assembled. - • • ....
The same evening, I was, by a rather strange chance, a spectator of a similar row, near the Asylum in the Westminster-road; but this, on the contrary, was conducted upon the old " time-honoured " system. Here was another jealous wife, her husband, and the suspected lady ; but, instead of the new police-man, a watchman was sounding his rattling crick-crai-ck whir-r-r, echoed by his brother alarmists ; and though I came away before the business was fiuished either by an adjournment to the watchhouse or a bribe to the watchman, I staid lung enough to see a crowd of at least one hundred persons collected.
I remain, Sir, your obedient, humble servant.
51, Providence-street, Walworth -common, T. R. 9th October, 1829.
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