496 The Police Report. [Nov. 
the executive members of which are not applied to until the mischief is 
pest, who then cannot be induced to move but by the prospect of reward, 
while the reward itself is less than any one of the head thieves would 
give a checque upon his banker for, to induce the thief-taker to walk 
another way. The magistrates evidently do know, or will know 
nothing about the matter. Sir Richard Birnie said, in 1822, “ he had 
heard of compromises between the persons robbed and the thieves, 
through the medium of the officers, but he never could bring it home: he. 
thought the magistrates must have the means of detecting such prac- 
tices.” In his last examination, he says roundly, in alluding to a. parti= 
cular instance, “he believes it to be untrue that a compromise was 
effected through the means of an officer ;’ and Mr. Halls assures the 
Committee, “ that he had tried to ascertain the fact, but he had no know- 
edge of it.” How these gentlemen think they have entitled themselves 
to public respect, from the manner in which they discharge their very 
important functions it would be difficult to guess. The conclusion to 
which the Committee come is so reasonable, so pertinent, and conveys 
so just a censure on the conduct of these magistrates, that it ought to be 
made as public as possible. “ An inquiry also was instituted by the 
Home Office, during the last year, intoa compromise, in which an officer 
was rumoured to have been concerned, without any discovery being 
made, though every officer in the establishment was sworn and examined. 
This ignorance could not, therefore, arise from attention not having been 
called to the subject. Your Committee having discovered, that through 
those years compromises have repeatedly taken place by the intervention 
of police officers, and a regular system to facilitate them has been gra-. 
dually maturing, conceive it is incumbent upon government to exact from 
the magistrates a more vigilant and intelligent superintendence generally, 
and more active inquiries whenever suspicions shall arise.’—Report, 
page 12. 
The fact of the police officers having been repeatedly engaged in 
such compromises has long been notorious to every body who has at all 
looked into the subject : the inquiries of the Committee put the matter 
beyond all question, and even the police magistrates themselves can no, 
longer pretend to be ignorant of a fact which has taken place under 
their very noses,* and which Sir Richard Birnie himself says, he 
believes there is law enough to prevent. The Committee, with a caution. 
which it is difficult to understand the reason of, doubt whether the exist- 
but live like men of property ; and one of these, who appears to be the chief of the whole 
set, is well known on the turf, and is stated, on good grounds, to be worth £30,000.— 
Report, page 14. 
* Suspicion has arisen in one case, that £800 more was received by the officer who 
negotiated, than the thieves asked or received ; and in another, £50 was paid to procure 
restitution of £500, and neither the £500 nor the £50 were ever restored._Report, page 
12. The Committee think it necessary to add, that “‘ it does not appear in evidence that 
any one of them stipulated for a reward before hand ; nor connived at the escape of a thief, 
nor negociated a compromise when he possessed any clue that might lead to the detection 
of the guilty.” Upon which it may be observed, that such facts were not likely to appear 
in evidence; that the reward is always offered before the police officer begins to stir him- 
self; and that, when the non-detection of the thief ensures the officer a large reward 
(while his detection would give him little or none, and the party robbed would inevitably 
lose the whole of his property), we cannot bring ourselves to believe, with all our belief 
for the integrity of police officers, that they would say much about their clwes. But even 
if it were otherwise, the power is too great, the temptation far too overpowering, for the 
principles of such a class of men to be safely exposed to. 
