362 Police of the Metropolis. [APRIL, 



in a manner offensive to no one. And, for severity, there needs no 

 iota of it even in the process of abating the evil that we allude to : a 

 woman who haunts the streets for a livelihood, hates confinement suffi- 

 ciently in nineteen cases out of twenty, to induce her to govern her 

 tongue in order to avoid it : and for the severity such a being soul 

 and body is better off while she is in prison than when she is out of it. 

 For the diminution of depredation likely to be produced by a reform 

 of the riot and disorder which now disgrace our streets, we have already 

 stated our opinion, that that reduction could only be of a very limited 

 character. And of the check that can be given to theft by any new descrip- 

 tion of police arrangement unless such an one as public opinion would 

 not acquiesce in we are not disposed to be very sanguine. Some slight 

 alterations of arrangement in the way of detail may have a limited 

 utility ; and many of these would be of a character, probably, at first 

 sight, deemed very trifling and unimportant. The slender alteration, 

 for example, in the regulation of the " nightly watch," of causing it to 

 remain on guard one hour later in the morning, would do more, we 

 suspect, to check robberies in town, than the grand change of the system 

 from parochial to general. This is a little matter of practice ; but, 

 nevertheless, very material. The real difficulty of thieves under any 

 system of police will not be in the getting access to property, in 

 London, in the night : but there is considerable difficulty and danger 

 in the work of removing it. The stoppage of persons found abroad 

 with loads at unseasonable hours of the night, or even of those seen 

 putting them into vehicles, is a measure of great restraint to the 

 operations of the larcenous part of the community. Five- sixths of 

 the house robberies that are discovered in town, are discovered by 

 the apprehension of the thieves, not in breaking into the dwellings, 

 but in carrying off the plunder. And almost the only period at which 

 this can be effected, with any tolerable chances of safety, is exactly 

 at day break in the later months of the year within about one hour - 

 from six o'clock to seven after the night watch has been withdrawn, 

 and yet the town is not sufficiently alive, or lighted, to make interrup- 

 tion from passengers likely. The keeping the lamps lighted in London 

 for half an hour later from September to April, and the watch at their 

 posts an hour longer all the year round, would be alterations attended 

 with very little expense, and such as would, practically, prevent a great 

 many burglaries. The half hour lost by the guard, is always sure to be 

 the half hour gained by the depredator. 



A farther advantage to which the public of London are entitled, and 

 one which would be also obtained at a very slight expense, is an addi- 

 tion to the numerical strength of our evening and night police. By 

 a due attention paid to the placing of a very few extra watchmen or 

 constables, three-fourths of the street robberies attended with violence 

 might be prevented. All those thoroughfares about town, which run 

 through bad neighbourhoods such as those, for instance, of High- 

 street, St. Giles's part of Bishops-gate-street and G ray 's-inn -lane, 

 should be doubly watched. Stationary watchmen, or police officers, 

 should also be placed, constantly after dark, at the mouths of those 

 avenues which run from ill neighbourhoods into the high streets. 

 Ruffians lurk in crowded thoroughfares, near these points of retreat, for 

 the purpose of attacking passengers ; and when once they reach the 

 corner that leads to the general resort, pursuit, on the part of the per- 



