1828.) The Police Report. 495 
the effect of which has been pointed out by another Parliamentary Com- 
mittee.* 
From the facts before them, the Committee are led to conclude, 
that, although numerically the crimes may have appeared to increase, 
yet their nature being less heinous, and the various circumstances we 
have alluded to, having, in greater or lesser degree, operated to produce 
that increase, that no permanent or material deterioration of society can 
have taken place. 
Having disposed of this part of their inquiry, the Committee arrive at 
a topic upon which great curiosity and interest have been excited—the 
compromises which have been openly made between the robbers and the 
robbed, for the restitution of stolen goods of large value, which they 
have ascertained “to have been negociated with an unchecked fre- 
quency, and under an organised system far beyond what had been sup- 
posed to exist.” A more disgusting nuisance, a greater disgrace, to any 
state of society, with even the semblance of a police, never was heard 
of. It is stated in the following terms by the Committee: “ These 
compromises have generally been negociated by solicitors, or police officers, 
or by both, with the plotters of the robbery and receivers ; or, as they are 
commonly called, “ the putters up,” and “ fences.” 
With a police so ignorant, so indolent, or so indifferent, as that of the 
metropolis has proved itself, it is enough for a gang of these thieves to 
propose to themselves the robbery of any place, not guarded by soldiers, 
and they can hardly fail to succeed. For what is to prevent them? 
They put in action exactly the same means as would ensure success in 
any other enterprise. They possess intelligence, activity, and daring ; 
they set about their business like men who know that every thing 
depends upon their own energy ; they have wealth enough to employ 
agents who willingly encounter the immediate peril for the money that 
is paid them for their services, and who have no more interest in the 
produce of their nefarious labours than the skipper of a merchant ship 
has in the freight.t And what is opposed to them? A sluggish police, 
* There can be no greater evil than the abuse of the power of sending to prison for 
triflmg trespasses; so far from preventing atrocious offences, your Committee is of 
opinion, that the mere fact of having been sent to prison is likely to deprive a man of one 
of the greatest moral restraints—the dread of being marked out as a criminal in the face of 
his country. To this evil isto be added, the danger of associating with bad characters in 
prison, and the difficulty which sometimes occurs of finding employment after being dis- 
charged.—Keport of the Committee to inquire into the increase of Criminal Commitments 
and Convictions in England and Wales, June 1827. 
+ The Committee state that “ their inquiries have entirely convinced them, that the 
frequency of these seemingly blameless transactions (the compromises for restitution of 
stolen property) has led to the organization of a system whigh undermines the security of © 
all valuable property ; which gives police officers a direct interest that robberies to a large 
amount should not be prevented ; and which has established a set of “‘ putters up,’’ and 
“ fences,’’ with means of evading, if not defying the arm of the law; who are wealthy 
enough, if large rewards are offered for their detection, to double them for their impunity ; 
and who would in one case have given £1,000 to get rid of a single witness. Some of 
these persons ostensibly carry on a trade; one who had been tried formerly for robbing a 
coach, afterwards carried on business as a Smithfield drover, and died worth, it is believed, 
£15,000. Your Committee could not ascertain how many of these persons there are at 
present, but four of the principal have been pointed out. One was lately the farmer of 
one of the greatest turnpike trusts in the metropolis: he was formerly tried for receiving 
the contents of a stolen letter, and as a receiver of tolls employed by him, was also tried 
for stealing that very letter, being then a postman, it is not too much to infer, that the 
possession of these turnpikes is not unserviceable for the purposes of depredation. Another 
has, itis said, been a surgeon in the army. The two others, of the four, have no trade, 
