The inspector is a little impatient. "They're always leaving windows open," he says, and gives a few instructions. Half a dozen men are sent out to surround the place, while a search is made for possible burglars. Of course, there are none. The window has been left open by a careless clerk, which was what the police knew all along, but they could take no risks.
Several of the cells are occupied now. There are about a dozen of them all told. You pass through a locked door from the charge-room into a wide, stone-flagged corridor, lined on each side with massive doors. Swing back one of these doors, and you will enter a high pitched room with a barred window at the farther end, and a broad plank running down one side, the full length of the cell. This serves either as a seat or a bed. Washable mattresses and pillows are served out at night-time, and I can imagine that, if lonely, the cells are not uncomfortable. The doors lock automatically as they are swung to. There is an electric bell in each cell which communicates directly with the inspector's room. Thus the senior officers are made responsible for sending to answer a prisoner's ring.
Besides these cells there are a couple of large apartments—technically also cells—where a large number of prisoners may be kept together. They are often useful when suffrage demonstrators are on the warpath, or when, say, a gambling raid has taken place. These, like the other cells, have what their most frequent occupants call "Judas holes"—a small trapdoor which can be let down from outside to see that all is well within.
The matron's room also opens into the corridor—a pleasant little chamber where often women prisoners who cannot be allowed bail, but whom it is felt should not be placed in a cell, are allowed to sit.
I have said that all the prisoners are searched. This is done thoroughly with a twofold object—to ensure that no prisoner has means of doing himself bodily harm, and to discover whether he carries on him anything bearing on the charge, as, for instance, in a case of picking pockets. Everything discovered has to be entered with particularity; but although such things as matches or a knife might be taken from a man, he would usually be left with his own personal property, watch, keys, pocket-book, money, and similar things.
Every person having business at a police station is treated with courtesy, whether prisoner or prosecutor. That is one of the rigid rules of the service which is rarely neglected. Even the man on duty at the door is not allowed to ask a caller his business without permission. That is for a senior officer.
I was much struck by the fair and impartial manner in which the inspector elicited the facts of a case before accepting a charge. Always polite, with no leaning to one side or the other, he endeavoured by careful questioning to elicit whether an arrest had been made on reasonable grounds. There was no bullying, no taking it for granted, except in an obvious case of drunkenness, that a charge was proved.
I have, perhaps, not made clear the distinction between reserve men at a station and reserve men in a division. The latter do ordinary duties, and are the first called upon in the event of emergencies anywhere in London. They receive a small sum in addition to their ordinary pay. The former are men who, instead of doing eight hours' duty in the street, do it at the station itself, and are available for any sudden contingency that may present itself within the subdivision.
The personnel of the London police is, as I have indicated, selected and tested under the most rigorous conditions. No less relentless in the search for efficiency are the promotion conditions. The Commissioner is an absolute autocrat so far as promotion is concerned, though, in practice, he usually acts upon the recommendation of the superintendents.