METAPHYSICS OF THE POLICE.
HARD CASE OF AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN AT BOW-STREET.
WE were much struck with the consistency of discretion which was lately displayed in a Bow-street Police affair, in itself of no extraordinary consequence, but acquiring distinction from the scope which it has afforded for the manifestation of Magisterial judgment. Some days ago, an elderly gentleman complained that he had been knocked down near Arundel-street, in the Strand, and robbed of bank-notes to the amount of 360/. Sir RICHARD BIRNIE directed SMITH, one of the principal officers, "to take the case in hand," as they phrase it ; and observed to the complainant that he (Ssirrn) would probably discover the thieves, or at least recover some of the property. This declaration from the Bench first gave us occasion to marvel, as it implied the repeatedly denied negotiation between officer and thief. For, without the supposition of communication between the two, it is clear the booty could not be expected to be surrendered. On Wednesday, SMITH stated to the Magistrates, that from all he could learn, the gentleman must have been mistaken with respect to the manner in which he described himself to have been robbed ; for he had seen the conductor of a party of the Thames Police, who affirmed that he and three of his men were in the immediate neighbourhood at the time of the outrage. Having made this statement, SMITH wound up the matter by suggesting the extreme probability that the elderly gentleman had been plundered, not as he described in evidence, but in a house of had fame. Upon which, Sir RICHARD BIRNIE and Mr. HALLS agreed with their officer in his supposition that the old gentleman had been in a house of ill fame ! Now it is a sufficient evil to an elderly gentleman inhabiting this well-watched metropolis, to be knocked down and robbed of 360/., and wounded both in his flesh and his pocket—which was the complainant's case ; and it is provoking enough, when he applies for justice, to hear from the Bench an implied confession of understanding between officers and thieves : but it is the climax of vexation, after all this, to be coolly and flatly convicted nem. con, by justices and thief-takers, of misrepresentation—or, in stricter terms, falsehood, attributable to naughtiness in a house of ill fame.
The next day, however, this much-abused elderly gentleman— abused in his purse, his person, and his reputation—comes forward, wholly denies the house of ill fame to which the Magistrates had sent him, and makes affidavit of the facts he before gave in evidence; Mr. MiNsinter.. coolly observing, that "he had no objection to swear him to the truth of his former information if he wished it, though he saw no necessity for it." What ! no necessity for it, after the Bench had decided una voce, that the party had been fibbing, and conducting himself naughtily ? And here the matter drops ; the Magistrates not seeing that the officers who questioned the truth of the gentleman's statement are necessarily implicated in point of conduct or veracity, probably both, by his perseverence in his representation. If they were close to the spot at the time of the robbery, what were they about ? how happened it that they heard no scuffle, no cries, knew nothing in short about the matter ? When Mr. MINSHULL credited the complainant's oath, he had surely irresistible grounds for calling the officers to account. They belong to another establishment, it is true; but we suppose our Police is not so infamously ill organized that there is no communication between the heads of different departments. This affair is a very complete and consistent triad—lst, On the part of the Magistrates, we have the implication of negotiation between thieves and thief-takers ; 2d, The ex parte decision that the elderly complainant had not told the truth, by reason of his being in a bad house ; 3d, The dropping the case without any allusion even to the officers whose representation is so glaringly inconsistent with the sworn deposition of the plundered party ; the very same reason which, in the judgment of the Magistrates, warranted the officer's doubt of the gentleman's veracity, now applying with equal force to their own. If so near the spot, how could the outrage occur without their knowledge ? They are in the horns of their own position.
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