360 Police ofihe Metropolis. APRIL, 



them. Or, if this last object is attended to, and any advantage gained 

 in it, such advantage can only be looked for in a very trivial and incom- 

 petent degree. In fact, wherever great wealth is abroad, and great 

 traffic always carrying on, the system of prevention must necessarily be 

 inefficient and confined. Every such system can only be founded upon 

 some abridgment of the free agency of the subject : this result, besides 

 any objection attaching to it from other causes, is peculiarly inconve- 

 niten we may say intolerable in a commercial country f such a 

 system would more than outweigh, in its offence, ten times the amount 

 of protection which it afforded. It is too great a demand upon men's 

 time and patience, that, for the sake of those, towards whom they are 

 inclined to feel with very little forbearance, they should go very far in 

 a system purely preventive. Every man's transactions in trade cannot 

 be made hourly subject to inspection, that a few knaves may not deal 

 in stolen property ; nor can the possessions of any other man be so con- 

 stantly watched, that they may not at some time be attacked by the thief, 

 whose business is to find an opportunity of plundering them. It is neces- 

 sary (for the trade, if it is to have existence, will not bear this enormous 

 tax) to find some cheaper and more compendious mode of giving protec- 

 tion. To deter by severe example is one course of effecting this object, 

 and one to which, in case of necessity, we should not hesitate to resort. 

 But that of a prompt removal of offenders combined with such a treat- 

 ment as should make that removal distasteful rather to the habits of the 

 parties than attended with direct physical suffering is a result less 

 offensive to the feelings of humanity, and one which might, in some 

 degree, be attained, we think, under the arrangement that we have 

 described. 



It remains only shortly to observe upon a few of the points connected 

 with the state of our metropolitan police, in which something like a 

 change (now reform is on foot) would be desirable : and this is a part 

 of our subject which we shall treat very briefly, not only because our 

 limits will not permit us to extend upon it, but because the details 

 which it embraces would be better calculated for the consideration 

 of the authorities immediately entrusted with the administration of that 

 branch of affairs, than interesting or intelligible to the public at large. 



Some approach to peaceableness and order in our streets, is of no less 

 value for the general convenience and decorousness maintained by it, 

 than as it would operate to destroy many opportunities for the commis- 

 sion of crime : and in this respect the state of London is disgraceful to 

 the police authorities. The City is incomparably worse regulated than 

 any other portion of the town. From midnight until three or four 

 o'clock in the morning, Fleet-street, at all times of the year, is regularly 

 paraded by gangs of drunkards, thieves, and prostitutes, who render the 

 passage absolutely dangerous to peaceable inhabitants, and to whose 

 conduct of riot and abuse, the watchmen and patrols, having either the 

 cue to that effect from their superiors, or toleration at least from those 

 authorities in their negligence, offer no impediment. In despite of the 

 denials of parliamentary aldermen, there is a general understanding that 

 the influence which certain publicans of this neighbourhood (who gain 

 largely by the expenditure of these wretches) possess in the city elec- 

 tions, induce the London magistracy to endure the scandalous excesses, 

 which go on under their very eye-sight : if this should be proved to be 

 the case as we think, by the continuance of the nuisance, after so much 



