355 Police of the Metropolis. APRIL, 



uch a character marched away " He'll come back a better man than 

 he went \" and the comment was a just one. The stern and unceasing 

 discipline of the army ; the certainty of punishment, from which (except 

 in avoiding offence) there was no escaping ; tamed and regulated those 

 spirits, which, less tightly curbed, would have carried their owner to his 

 ruin. Many a rogue that, at eighteen, shewed every symptom of making 

 a figure at the Old Bailey, made a figure at Vittoria and at Waterloo, 

 and returned to his native village a sergeant. Less fortunate, or less 

 meritorious men, were sobered, if not radically cured, by the habit of 

 restraining themselves ; they became cautious if not entirely honest; 

 and even this is something. The discipline of a battalion does that for 

 the human character, which the bar wig does for the human head ; the 

 one equalizes habits, and morals, and temperaments, as the other, with- 

 out being in any high degree ornamental, levels personal appearance : 

 no one perhaps shews very well but no one shews very ill in it. The 

 advantage to society, and to the interests of humanity, from the reception 

 of these people into the service, was incalculable ; it was often rather a 

 reckless than an abstractedly vicious spirit which was leading them into 

 mischief: but it was leading them to a course, which society was com- 

 pelled, at all hazards, to repress, and it would never have been eradicated 

 by any mild or ordinary course of discipline.* 



Then when it is considered that, during the war, our enlistments and 

 press system, carried from 20,000 to 30.000 men every year away, it will be 

 evident that the opportunity existed for more than all our knaves to go, 

 and the very best temptation that could be offered to attract them. The 

 question is as to any means by which, under a peace establishment, any 

 approach to the same advantage can be enjoyed. The inconvenience of 

 the existing system is, that the same individual offenders through a 

 long course of smaller crimes, ending generally in a capital one con- 

 tinue to pester society often for a long series of years. Thieves, per- 

 fectly well known, and from time to time convicted, nevertheless live 

 on, and sometimes become wealthy men, in the exercise of their voca- 

 tion. Juries- especially where an offence is called capital although 

 there be no chance of the capital sentence being carried into execution 

 are unwilling, except upon the most indisputable evidence, to convict. 

 Smaller depredations are punished by terms of imprisonment : and for 

 these, the same men are regularly tried, and convicted, over and over 

 again, session after session. The pickpockets, who are confined from 

 time to time under the ' ' police act," are in the same situation ; liberated 

 in one month, and tried for a fresh offence in the next. The result is, 

 that their whole lives are maintained at the charge of the public ; for 

 one half their time is occupied in committing depredation, and the other 

 half in expiating the offence in prison. Now, with reference to one 

 description of offenders the females there is no help for this. One 

 favourable circumstance is, that their criminality is less dangerous than 

 that of men : and society must be content to keep them in order as well 

 as it may, by an expensive system of confinement, and now and then to 

 make an additional outlay, in the way of transportation, to get rid of 

 them. But, for the male offenders, we are not inclined, for the sake of 



* Immediately upon the termination of the war (and of the levies) the amount of crime 

 rose enormously. The number of commitments in the year 1815 (the last year of the war) 

 yyas 7j818, In 1817, they were 13,500 j and they have never decreased materially since. 



