THE INCREASE OF THE LONDON POLICE.
IN a state of high civilisation, security of person and pro- perty might be supposed to be the most valued of bless- ings. What men take great pains to gain they ordinarily dis- like losing ; consequently, they must be willing to pay highly for its safe keeping. Comfort becomes dearer to them, in pro- portion as the means of obtaining it become more numerous and more accessible ; consequently, bodily pain, which is absolutely fatal to comfort, is naturally viewed with greater and greater dislike. So long as either form of annoyance, loss or pain, is likely to happen to them, they are kept in constant anxiety, and anxiety is in itself as wearing as loss and pain put together. There are reasons enough to prove a position which might seem not to need proof, and yet all these reasons are of very little worth by the side of the singular fact that Londoners, the inhabit- ants of the richest and most luxurious city in the world, are content to go without an advantage which can be bought, and in comparison with much else that they have to pay for can be bought very cheaply. London might be made so secure, that attacks on property, and attacks upon persons when they are in the nature of attacks upon property, might be almost unknown. Under any circumstances, this last limitation would have to be made, because assaults prompted by anger cannot so easily be foreseen, and, therefore, cannot so easily be prevented. The man who commits robbery with violence is a member of a known class, and the desire to escape detection is always pre- sent with him. There is no such thing as a passion of theft which makes the thief indifferent whether he escapes with his booty, or is captured as soon as he has got possession of it. But there is a passion of cruelty, a passion of revenge, a passion of sudden rage, and any one of these may make the man whom it animates altogether careless of consequences. There are men who would beat their wives, or kick a comrade who had offended or injured them, inside a ring of policemen.
But the well-to-do Londoner is not concerned with criminals of this type. The assaults that he has cause to fear have for their motive his watch or his purse, and this kind of emo- tion is kept in perfect check by the presence of a constable. Yet this kind of security so easily, and, considering the num- bers and the means of those who would have to pay for it, so cheaply to be had, is enjoyed in a very imperfect way by Londoners,—how imperfectly, perhaps they hardly realise themselves. The show parts of London are usually well guarded. The Thames Embankment is an exception, but then the Thames Embankment is only a show part of London by day. There is no need to pass along it at night, and the view of the police authorities seems to be that if you choose to go that way to see the moonlight on the river, or to admire the long line of quivering lights, or to enjoy the freshness of the air or the absence of noise, you are fair game for any one you may happen to find there. Coventry Street, again, and the Haymarket and Waterloo Place are not well looked after by the police. But then the kind of disturbance which goes on there at certain hours of the night is, so to speak, part of the show. It is that which ordinarily takes people to these particular streets at these par- ticular times. Otherwise, the police are constantly within reach in the really busy parts of fashionable London, and at any point or time when there is any special need for them, they are usually present in some strength. They are always to be found marshalling the carriages at a great reception, and directing the street traffic at crowded crossings, and con- sidering the terror that reckless hansoms and equally reckless railway vans are calculated to inspire, there is none of their functions that calls down so many blessings on their heads. But as we go out towards the suburbs, a sad falling-off be- comes visible. When the foot-passenger leaves his fellows behind, the sense of danger which was dormant in the crowd, wakes to life, and he feels keenly how much his safety hangs on the neighbourhood, if not the presence of a policeman. But the presence is vouchsafed to him at intervals so remote, that do what he will, he cannot per- suade himself of the neighbourhood. He looks up one long, dimly-lighted road and down another, and even listens for the distant tread of those heavily-booted feet. But however still the night air may be, it rarely bears such music to his ear; and when, at last, he reaches home in safety, he feels that it is chance, not the constable, that has stood his friend. Once there, however, he is inclined to wish that the constable bad neglected him more completely. A policeman has called, it seems, in the course of the evening to tell the household that there are burglars about, and has frightened the servants out of their wits by stories of their superhuman cunning and ruthless cruelty. That is his only appearance during the night, and if the inmates happen to hear him trying the doors or moving about in the garden, they are too frightened to distinguish the footstep of the protector from that of the assailant against whom they have been warned. Yet the outlay needed to make the suburbs as secure as the more central parts of London is very small, in comparison with the comfort the inhabitants would derive from the sense that they were so. The reason, probably, why the Metropolitan Police is so much too weak for the work it has to do, is the disproportionate value of property in certain districts. Any in- crease in the rate would fall most heavily on those who are suffi- ciently protected already. Really, this is no argument against the increase, because the unprotected state of the suburbs is, in part, due to the feeling of the police authorities that those who pay most ought to get most in return. This theory is subversive, however, of the whole principle of rating, which is that the administrative unit being once determined, all within it pay in proportion, not to their wants, but to their means. The absence of policemen is a grievance that weighs very heavily on the London suburbs, and it would be well if the
inhabitants would combine to bring some pressure to bear on the Home Secretary in regard to it. They could do
so with great effect, if they chose. Sir William Harcourt• would not long withstand the representations of a deputa- tion from the Vestries of the suburbs, headed by the Members for the boroughs or counties in which these suburbs are situated.
Within the last few days, indeed, the order has been given to make a little addition to the London Police. The reinforce- ment has been a long time coming, and now that it has come, no one can complain that it is too large. Five hundred re- cruits are something, but they are not much, and they will probably be used, at all events in the first instance, simply to replace trained men whose services are needed elsewhere. Thus, for the moment, the effect of making the Force stronger may be to make it, as regards the suburbs, less serviceable. The motive which has led Sir William Harcourt to concede even this addition has probably nothing to do with the state of the suburbs. The Home Secretary's business lies with the more central parts, and it is in those that he, no doubt, thinks that more men are wanted. In this respect he is perfectly right. The Fenian alarms have made the duties of the police in connection alike with public men and public buildings a great deal heavier than they used to be, and an addition of five hundred men to the total strength of the force is no more than is wanted to meet these new demands.. But the needs of the suburbs are permanent, and the more the attention of the police is concentrated upon dynamite in West- minster, the more free the housebreaker and the footpad will be to work their will in Blackheath or Wimbledon. These are the kind of districts whose cause seems to want an advocate, and though the Home Secretary has done rightly in caring for Whitehall and Palace Yard, he should not be suffered to forget that the Metropolitan Police has the whole Metropolitan Dis- trict in charge, and that it ought to be strong enough to give a proportionate sense of security to every part of it. The local High Street does not need as many constables as Regent Street or Bond Street ; but equally with Regent Street or Bond Street, it should have as many constables as it does need.
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