With a class of watchmen totally inoperative as a preventive police, with a class of informers stimulated by unwise enactments to lure men into villany, and with a code savage almost beyond belief—as late as 1800 there were 160 capital crimes, and to break the dam of a fish-pond, or to cut down an apple-tree in a garden, were offences punishable with death; it is not to be wondered at that “the deadly never-green,” as the gallows was called in the slang language of the day, bore fruit all the year round. Old Townsend, the Bow Street officer, who gave evidence before the committee which sat in 1816 to inquire into the police of the metropolis, said, “I remember in 1783, when Serjeant Adair was recorder, there were forty hung at two executions; the unfortunate people themselves laugh at it now, they call it a bagatelle.” Among the more serious offences were the robberies committed by mounted highwaymen; and, in order to give an idea of their frequency, we again quote the racy evidence of Townsend:—“Formerly there were two, three, or four highwaymen—some on Hounslow Heath, some on Wimbledon Common, some on Finchley Common, some on the Romford Road. I have actually come to Bow Street in the morning, and while I have been leaning over the desk had three or four people come in and say, ‘I was robbed by two highwaymen in such a place;’ ‘I was robbed by a single highwayman in such a place.’ People travel safe now by means of the horse-patrol, which was planned by Sir Richard Ford.” This horse-patrol, established in 1805, was the first innovation on the old system of watching; and it succeeded so admirably, that in a few years the highwaymen were entirely banished from the metropolitan counties, and the great roads in the neighbourhood of London, which were once as unsafe as those in the vicinity of Rome, became as orderly as Fleet Street. It does indeed seem strange that while the outskirts of the metropolis were thus provided with a new force which proved itself to be perfectly capable of clearing away the ruffians, no means should have been taken until 1829 to supersede the old parish constables who had flourished from the time of the Saxons, and appear to have been in full bloom in Elizabeth’s reign, since Dogberry is a finished portrait of the race. No means existed by which the watchmen of different parishes could be made to co-operate against their common enemy, the thief. In the city they were under the direction of no less than thirty different authorities. There were the street-keepers, the patrol, the ward-constables, &c., all acting under separate masters; and so complete was the division that the constable of one ward would not interfere to prevent a robbery going on on the opposite side of the street, if it was out of his bounds.
Mr. J. Elliot, in his evidence, given in 1838, before the Committee on “The Metropolis Police Offices,” mentions a glaring instance of the perfect paralysis of the executive which arose out of this absurd system. “Two years ago,” he said, “a neighbour of mine had his warehouse broken open, and a hundred pounds’ worth of tea was taken away; a watchman at the top of the street saw a cart going away from the warehouse; but he said it was not in his ward, and therefore he did not interfere.” The public indisposition to get rid of the old watchmen most certainly did not arise from any ignorance of their inefficiency; they had long, in fact, been bywords of feebleness and imbecility. To thrash a Charlie was a pet pastime of the young bloods of that day. The determined propensity to doze of these worthy functionaries was a standing topic for witticism. “A friend of mine,” said Erskine, “was suffering from a continual wakefulness, and various methods were taken to send him to sleep, but in vain. At last his physicians resorted to an experiment which succeeded perfectly. They dressed him in a watchman’s coat, put a lantern in his hand, and placed him in a sentry-box, and he was asleep in ten minutes.” It might be imagined that tokens like these indicated pretty clearly that a reform would have been hailed with delight. The result proved, however, that to abuse a thing and to amend it are widely different. Mr. Peel, who had been feeling his way to his grand experiment by the establishment of a Bow-street day patrol, obtained in 1828 the appointment of a committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the expediency of establishing a uniform system of police in the metropolis; and the committee having reported to the House in favour of the scheme, it was immediately adopted. This salutary change was not made without creating a deep sensation. That stalking-horse, “the liberty of the subject,” which in truth meant the liberty of rogues to plunder, was immediately paraded before the public; and we have no doubt whatever that in the tavern debating-clubs of the day it was reported that with the fall of the Charlies “the sun of England’s glory had set for ever.” And indeed to Englishmen, jealous of their personal liberty, the establishment of this new force might at first have created some well-founded alarm. It was no longer a question of a few constables, but of a standing army of nearly six thousand men, drilled like soldiers, taught to act in masses, and entirely independent of the control of the ratepayers. The very fact of the appointment, as one of the Commissioners, of Colonel Rowan, who had been employed in that quasi-military force the Irish constabulary, favoured the idea that the new police were to be a veritable gendarmerie. That such was the popular idea was clearly indicated by the numerous prints which appeared at the time of a fierce-looking “Peeler,” armed with a belt full of pistols and a formidable sword.
Those accustomed only to the slow pace of the constitutional watchman, as he waddled out to his post, beholding with astonishment the sergeant’s party as it marched along the kerb in close file, and keeping quick military step, believed that so powerful a force, concentrated under a single head, might be turned to political purposes. The constables never appeared in the streets without being followed by crowds hooting at them, and calling them by the obnoxious names of “Peelers,” “Raw Lobsters,” “Crushers,” “Bobbies,” &c. At last, in 1833, an actual collision took place between them and the great unwashed in Coldbath Fields. A meeting of Chartists was appointed to be held there, from which serious consequences were expected to arise. Directions were given to disperse it; but whilst in the performance of their duty three of the police were stabbed, and one of them mortally. It might have been thought that the very fact of a mob coming thus armed, with the express purpose of resisting a constituted authority, would have excited the indignation of the more respectable classes of the citizens. The contrary was the effect. A coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of justifiable homicide—a pretty significant sign of the feeling towards the new force of the class from which the jury was selected. Such was the ferment that a commission was held to inquire into the conduct of the police, and they were exonerated from the charge of having, as a body, acted with greater violence than was necessary. From that period, with the exception of the investigation during the Beer Bill commotion into the charge of having dispersed a gathering in Hyde Park with undue severity—a charge which was not at all substantiated—their conduct has been so exemplary as completely to have removed the original dislike. Experience has served to teach the men the virtue of moderation and patience; and they are now looked upon as a constitutional force, simply because we have got accustomed to them.
At the present time the Metropolitan Police Force consists of—a Chief Commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne; 2 Assistant-Commissioners, Captain Labalmondiere and Captain Harris; 18 Superintendents, 133 Inspectors, 625 Sergeants, and 4,954 Constables; making a total of all ranks of 5,734. The machinery by which this comparatively small force is enabled to watch by night and day every alley, street, and square of this vast metropolis, nay, tries every accessible door and window of its 400,000 houses, patrols 90 square miles of country, exercises a surveillance over the 8,000 reputed thieves who prey upon its inhabitants, and keeps in awe the 40,000 or 50,000 people who form “the uneasy classes” of the metropolis, is not very complicated. The metropolitan police district extends from Charing Cross 15 miles in every direction, and includes the whole of Middlesex and large portions of Surrey, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire, for which seven counties the Commissioners are magistrates and the police are sworn constables. The river Thames is also under its jurisdiction from Chelsea to Barking Creek, including all its wharves, docks, landing-places, and dockyards. The entire district has a circumference of 90 miles, and extends over an area of 700 square miles, 100 of which, forming what is called the interior area, is covered with our great Babel of brick and mortar. This wide extent of ground is mapped out into 18 divisions, each of which is watched by a detachment of men, varying in number according to the extent of the area, the exposed nature of the property, or the density of the population:—
| Letters of Divisions. | Local Names of Divisions. | Strength of each Division. | ||
| A | Whitehall | 380 | ||
| B | Westminster | 324 | ||
| C | St. James’s | 265 | ||
| D | St. Mary-le-bone | 371 | ||
| E | Holborn | 175 | ||
| F | Covent Garden | 165 | ||
| G | Finsbury | 317 | ||
| H | Whitechapel | 233 | ||
| K | Stepney | 482 | ||
| L | Lambeth | 208 | ||
| M | Southwark | 350 | ||
| N | Islington | 513 | ||
| P | Camberwell | 408 | ||
| R | Greenwich | 454 | ||
| S | Hampstead | 410 | ||
| T | Kensington | 288 | ||
| V | Wandsworth | 381 | ||
| Thames Police | 103 |
This it will be seen that policeman X, who figures so often in the pages of “Punch,” is a myth of our facetious contemporary.
Each division is separated into subdivisions, the subdivisions into sections, and, last of all the sections into beats. Of the main divisions, A, although one of the smallest in area, is by far the most important; it is the seat of the central authority located at Scotland Yard. Its police are much finer men (taller on the average than the Guards), and their duties are more responsible than those of any other division. They attend upon the Sovereign, the Parliament, the theatres, the parks, and all other places of public resort, such as Epsom and Ascot races, the flower shows, Crystal Palace, &c. The A division is, in fact, to the general body of Metropolitan Police what the Guards are to the army. To enable it to perform these extra duties, it has a reserve force of 250 men, drafted off on ordinary occasions in companies of fifty each to the B, C, D, G, and M divisions; upon this reserve force it draws when necessary.
The other divisions are pretty much alike in the nature of their duties, which are simply those of watching. Certain modifications, however, arise from the character of their districts; thus a constable on duty at Whitechapel, if suddenly removed to Westminster or Mary-le-bone, would find himself considerably at fault, inasmuch as a familiarity with fights in courts, disputes with tramps, and the coarse language of low lodging-houses, is not a good school for the amenities required among a more fashionable population. In all the divisions exactly the same organization is maintained, and the same amount of arduous work is performed. Two-thirds of the entire force is on duty from nine or ten in the evening till five or six in the morning. Not long since the night-police were condemned to patrol the streets for nine hours, without sitting down, or even leaning their weary limbs against any support. This severe labour was found incompatible with the maintenance of due vigilance towards the end of the watch; the men are, therefore, now kept on duty only eight hours. Day work is divided into reliefs, and extends from six a.m. to nine p.m. Notwithstanding its greater severity, there are men who prefer the stolid unimpeded walk in the night, in which they go through their work like machines, to the more bustling and exciting day-patrol. The sergeants or inspectors make the round of the districts to see that the constables are duly parading their beats.
If a door or window is discovered in an unsafe condition, its insecurity is immediately made known to the inmates; and if the constable fails to detect the circumstance during his tour, and it is afterwards observed by his sergeant or the succeeding constable, he is reported, and fined for his neglect. Continued inattention is visited by dismissal. Offences of every kind are severely punished, as appears from the fact that, between the years 1850 and 1856, 1,276 policemen were turned out of the force. Of these, sixty-eight were criminally convicted. Thus the men are kept up to their work, and collusions with thieves are rendered exceedingly difficult. Every morning a sheet of “Occurrences” is forwarded to the Chief Commissioner at Scotland Yard, which contains the full particulars of all matters worthy of notice which have taken place during the night throughout the metropolis, and a record of all property lost or stolen, from a gold pin to a chest of plate, is kept at the same central establishment.