In short, so universal is this complaint of "sair tired," and of swelled legs, ankles, feet, hands, and arms, that it almost seems as if one voice spoke the facts; for if we find them varied, it is only here and there by touches like the above, so true to nature, that one would think they must pierce even the most callous and avaricious man to the very core. In one page we find a little child of eight years old complaining that she is "sair tired" every night, and has no time for going to play.
"That, at the age when children suffer these injuries from the labour they undergo, they are not free agents, but are let out to hire, the wages they earn being received and appropriated by their parents and guardians, and therefore they think that a case is made out for the interference of the legislature in behalf of the children employed in factories"—p. 32.
[THE POLICE (1836).]
Source.—Treatise on the Magistracy of England, by Edward Mullins. London, 1836.
Commissioners' Report on Police.
"The constable is most commonly an uneducated person, from the class of petty tradesmen or mechanics, and in practice is usually nominated by his predecessor on going out of office. No inquiry takes place into his qualification or fitness for the office, and indeed he is said to be often the person in the parish the most likely to break the peace. So common is it for the constable to be unable to write or read, that an improper fee is often charged upon that ground by the Magistrate's clerk, 'for making out the constable's bill for conveyance to gaol.'
"'The manner of appointing constables, in my opinion,' says a correspondent, 'might be advantageously altered, for the court leet jury and steward being irresponsible parties, and the jurymen (vulgarly called Tom-fool's men) not liking the burthen themselves, often appoint persons of bad character, and sometimes for the purpose of keeping them off the parish.' If respectable persons are sometimes chosen at the Leet, they 'find substitutes for a small sum, and these deputies blunder through the year, and when they are most wanted are never to be found.' What integrity or propriety of conduct can there be expected from one whose necessity renders every shilling that is offered him an irresistible temptation?
"Entirely ignorant of his duties when first appointed, the parish constable is often displaced at the end of the year, when his acquaintance with them is, perhaps, beginning to improve. Even when suited in other respects to the employment, his efficiency is always in a great measure impaired by the nature of his position with regard to those among whom he is called upon to act. Belonging entirely to their class, and brought into constant contact with them by his ordinary occupations, he is embarrassed in the discharge of his duty by considerations of personal safety, interest or feeling, and by an anxiety to retain the good will of his neighbours. When all these circumstances are considered, it would, indeed, be surprising if the constables were found to render satisfactory service. In point of fact they are deficient in zeal and activity to a degree which it is difficult to exaggerate, and it may be said, without undue severity, that they are in all respects utterly unfit for the duties to which they are appointed.
"The accuracy of this statement, we believe (continue the Commissioners) will be generally admitted by those who have opportunities of becoming acquainted with the subject by personal observation. 'No person can be aware,' says the treasurer of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 'of the reluctance shewn by the parish constables in apprehending felons, particularly since the disposition shewn by the lower orders to retaliate by committing destruction on their property.' 'There is not a single constable,' he afterwards adds, 'who dares move, nor has he any encouragement to move, and if he does move, he is quite incompetent.'