The Daily Mail of Wednesday gives an account of a
"police blunder" which, if it can be substantiated, adds another to the list, already too long, of arbitrary and un- justifiable actions by the police towards persons under arrest. It appears that on Tuesday evening Mr. Jaspar Selwyn was arrested on leaving the Pavilion Music-Hall, taken to Vine Street Police Station, searched and placed in a cell on the accusation of being an ex-convict who was "wanted" for failing to report himself on ticket-of-leive. Such a mistake in identity is unfortunate; but no reasonable man can expect that the police should never arrest the wrong man by mistake. If, however, the facts given in the Daily Mail are correct, Mr. Selwyn has far graver cause of complaint than this. Accord- ing to his statement, the police behaved with unnecessary roughness and added insult to injury. A specially ugly feature of the case is the allegation that when a military friend of the moused, who happened to see him being con- veyed to the police station, followed in order to give what assistance he could, he was threatened with arrest for obstruction. This inclination on the part of the police to treat the attempts of friends or onlookers to see justice done as a kind of Thse-majeste which deserves an instant counter- attack in the shape of charges of obstruction or drunkenness has been a very disagreeable element in several recent "police blunders." Mr. Selwyn, we note, asserts that the man who arrested him was " very free with his sneers and gibes, putting his face quite close to mine to give vent to them." After he was put in a cell, two police officers peered through the trap. door and indulged in more gibes. Ultimately Mr. Selwyn's identity was established and he was set free.
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