The following extract from the Times of September 16th gives an account of the police as they were at the expiration of twelve months from their inauguration:—
"There are 16 divisions of the police, and each division contains, on an average, 200 men, except the K division, which contains 32; there are also, in each division, six inspectors and one superintendent. The whole number of privates and sergeants alone amounts to 3600, without reckoning the inspectors and superintendents. The greater part of this large body of men were necessarily taken from the lower classes of the people, and it can readily be believed that the Commissioners were unable to make strict inquiry into every individual case, and yet there have been very few bona fide cases of improper behaviour on the part of the men. In each division there is a defaulter-book, in which the names of the men considered unfit for duty are written down and shown to the Commissioners, and they are immediately discharged."
The subjoined advertisement, which is singular, from the modesty of its diction, appeared in the Times of September 15th, and, as in the scheme of this book there is no special place set apart for such, it may as well come in here in order of chronology.
"A youth who has completed his 18th year within 100 hours of his writing this advertisement, wishing to make head against the res angusta domi, hereby TENDERS his CAPACITIES to any honourable patronage which the chapter of accidents may raise up in his behoof. Born to better hopes, his bringing up has not been wholly neglected, and he would fain apply some of the little items of his unpretending culture towards honest advancement in a life which even his short experience has proved to be not altogether unchequered—the mind's eye irresistably glancing at an example which recent events have revived and made too memorable to be overlooked by such a votary to fortune as the advertiser; to wit, the august example of King Philip the first,[6] who when, in "the turns of chance below," even his star was dimmed, did not disdain to extract independent maintenance from knowledge which, in his early days, he had learnt as mere ornament. Far from aiming, like the variously accomplished Duke of Orleans, at geometry, or the sublimer sciences, the humble advertiser ventures to hope that his tolerable, hourly improving fluency in French, Italian, and modern Greek (the latter language now become of increased English interest from the increase of English colonization in the Mediterranean), would enable him to give lessons, and materially conduce to perfect pupils in each of these branches, at most moderate remuneration. That same Mediterranean has been the sad cause of this advertisement. Nearly 1900 years after the prince of Latian poets wrote his description of the storm which, all but, engulfed Æneas and his followers—that description which, from Homer to Shakespeare, from Shakespeare to the present hour, the universe of poetry has never equalled—even in that very part of that very sea, a sudden springing up of that wind, which, though the desire and delight of northern regions, is proverbial for storms (creber procellis Africus) not confined to illustrating the poet's text, in abruptly shrouding a shipful of 'noble creatures' from the sight of the clouds, from the face of heaven and the light of day, not confined to a presentiment of instant death to all on shipboard, but in rending reality, depriving every soul of clouds, of light and life, by sinking the whole in fell ocean, without a single survivor—the advertiser's dear father (an English functionary in the Ionian Islands) being one of the sufferers—leaving his son a burden, where he would be an alleviator, to the most affectionate of mothers. A statement of other capabilities, penmanship, arithmetic, etc., is forborne, because they may be implied. Indeed, friends, too partial, no doubt, imagine that to any mission, especially southward, the advertiser might be a not ineligible appendage. At all events, he thus adventures his speculation, trusting its result to 'the caterer for the sparrow.'"
CHAPTER IV.
1830.
Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway — Death of Mr. Huskisson — Agricultural lawlessness — Captain Swing — Executions for riot — Riots throughout the country — Special Commissions — Prayer to be used in churches and chapels.
About this time a melancholy but all-absorbing topic of conversation was the death of Mr. Wm. Huskisson, one of the M.P.'s for Liverpool; and the most succinct account I can find of this sad accident is in the Annual Register. It happened on September 15th, at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
"On Wednesday morning, as early as seven o'clock, the people of Liverpool were seen flocking in crowds to the tunnel in order to secure good places for a view of the procession. The whole line of road, for the distance of seven or eight miles out of Liverpool, was lined by dense crowds; and several stands, to which the public had been admitted at half a crown a head, were completely filled. Eight of the Company's locomotive engines were brought down to the mouth of the tunnel at about half-past nine. The Duke of Wellington arrived about ten o'clock, and was greeted with enthusiasm by the immense crowd. The splendid state carriage, which had been prepared for his Grace, was taken down the tunnel; the military band played 'See the Conquering Hero comes;' and, in a few minutes, the Duke was drawn from the tunnel, amid the loud cheers of the spectators.
"The procession left Liverpool twenty minutes before eleven o'clock, drawn by eight locomotive engines, in the following order: Northumbrian, with the directors and numerous distinguished visitors, including the Duke of Wellington; Phœnix, green flag; North Star, yellow; Rocket,[7] light blue; Dart, purple; Comet, deep red; Arrow, pink; Meteor, brown; with visitors and proprietors. On issuing from the smaller tunnel at Liverpool, the Northumbrian took the south, or right-hand line of railway, and drew three carriages, the first containing the band, the second the Duke of Wellington and a number of other persons, of distinction, and the third the directors of the railway. The other engines proceeded along the north line.... The total number of persons conveyed was stated to be 772. The procession did not proceed at a pace of more than fifteen or sixteen miles an hour.