472 Publication of Police Reports. [May, 



have been a false one ! How is a disgraceful, impudent^ and fil^hv riot, 

 which half a dozen labourers would be sent to Bridewell ficM''X)'cing 

 concerned in, made satisftiction for, where the offenders happen t6, be 

 " gentlemen," by the hush money of a few pounds given to miserable 

 prostitutes or nial-treatcd watchmen ? How arc, among the inferior, but 

 still not needy traders, a multitude of petty frauds and basenesses 

 repi'cssed every day, which the magistrate, confessedly, has tio power to 

 check or prevent, but which, nevertheless, he recommends should be 

 abandoned, and when the misdoer stands at Bow Street, the recommen- 

 dation is attended to, and. they are abandoned. 



It is the publication — the Hue and Crj/, that works all this wonder : 

 it is the ADVERTISEMENT whicli awes those aggressors who would make 

 a stand against the laws. The detestable paragraph — to be read by e\-ery 

 body in I>ondon — " Yesterday, Alfred" — whatever his name may be — 

 " a ridiculously dressed person, Sec. &c. — was brought to this office" — 

 they quail, even in cloth of scarlet, befoi-e the man who knoxvs them, 

 though he walk in rags. The " paper" is a tell-tale that cannot be bribed. 

 There is no buying silence from it. A man's whole famil}', his friends, 

 his neighbours, his tradesmen, his very servants, the very drayman 

 who passes him in the street (thanks to the Charity School !) can read, 

 and he sits in judgment upon him. And there is no point of retreat on 

 any side ; for vice is not a social quality. He who the most freely gives 

 loose to his own knaveries in secret, has very little charity or countenance 

 for those of his neighbour, after they are discovered. There are ten 

 thousand meft in every society, and in eveiy country, who can afford to 

 be villains, for a hundred who can bear the disgrace of being known for 

 such. * 



To say nothing as to the advantage of the system of reporting 

 generally — although an abandonment of it we should look at, were it to 

 take place to-morrow, as the abandonment of one of the strongest 

 bulwarks to the moral order of the country — shut out its operation only 

 from the police offices, and half their power of doing justice, and of 

 giving relief, is at an end. A police office is the peculiar and especial 

 court of the lower orders : almost the only court to which they resort ; 

 and which, from its cheapness and summary process, places substantial 

 redress within their reach. It is the constant point of appeal for the 

 settlement of their private disputes ; their I'eady shelter against the 

 strength and oppression of their superiors ; and it is of the very last im- 

 portance that the conduct and decisions of such a tribunal should be free 

 from the possibility of abuse, or even of suspicion. Once close the 

 doors against the reporters, and the voice of the magistrate loses two- 

 thirds of its efficacy. But the time for doing this is gone by, and the 

 necessity urged for it is contemptible — ridiculous. It is perfectly extra-, 

 vagant to talk of a prisoner's being likely to be damnified upon his trial, 

 by statements which may have been published previou's to it, when we 

 see verdicts of acquittal given by juries every day, in cases where there 

 can be no doubt of the criminal's guilt, but where the evidence does not 

 distinctly reach it. Is it reasonable to say that twelve men, upon oath, 

 cannot try an offender by evidence brought before them, because it has 

 been stated that there was evidence against him, which there appears 

 upon inquiry 7iot to be ? In reality, as far as any feeling is ever excited 

 by the fact of a prisoner's case having been overstated, the effect 

 commonly is, as it naturally would be, a most powerful reaction imme- 

 diately in his favour, It would be easy to quote instances, over and over 



