1828. ] The Police Report. 499 
fore, fabricates his forged cheque in his garret, with no human eye upon 
him, and employs a ticket-porter, or a simple boy, to present it at the 
banker’s: if it succeeds, he takes the booty ; if it fails, the utterer being 
an innocent person is not prosecuted, and the forger, even if taken (which 
is unlikely) escapes, merely because he took the precaution of working 
in private, and nobody knows where to lay, or how to prove the venue 
in the indictment. It is proposed that this absurdity shall, for the future, 
be removed ; that the law against compounding penal suits shall be 
extended to informations before magistrates, and that warrants duly 
issued, whether for the apprehension of offenders, or for the search of 
suspected places, shall be valid without being “ backed,” although the 
district in which they may be executed shall be different from that in 
which they were granted. Another suggestion respecting the circulation 
of a Police Gazette seems less useful. It has been proved of late, that 
‘the ordinary newspapers have done more towards the detection of crime 
than all the “ Hue and Cry” publications that have yet been devised. 
Their circulation is infinitely more certain and universal than the publi- 
cation recommended by the Committee could ever become; and it should 
seem that all the objects which it can effect would be better accomplished 
at a much less expense, by a publication in the newspapers, which, if the 
advertisement duty were taken off, might be obtained at a small expense. 
The result of the Committee’s inquiry is, that they can suggest but one 
remedy for the manifold evils they have discovered, and that is, such an 
arrangement of the police for the future, as shall give it vigour and con- 
sistency. An avowal as satisfactory as it is frank, and which proves the 
value and excellence of the system, by recommending an addition to, 
but no material change in it. This leads them to consider the particular 
condition of the police of the metropolis as it now exists. They adopt 
that important’ and obvious distinction which exists between the police 
under the direction of the executive government, and that which is vested 
in the various parochial jurisdictions. They have ascertained the manner 
in which the nightly watch is provided, the sums raised under the 
authority of local acts for that purpose ; and while they find that the 
latter is amply sufficient for all necessary purposes, they denounce, as a 
radical fault in the system, the number of separate and independent 
authorities which it comprises, and which they consider unfavourable to 
that unity of action, that co-operation of force which is sometimes neces- 
sary, and always advisable. The space to which our notice has already 
extended, prevents us from going at any length into this topic. Many 
objections present themselves (notwithstanding certain vices which the 
parochial system contains) to transferring the powers they exercise 
from the local authorities, who must possess an intimate knowledge of 
the particulars of their several districts, and who are immediately 
interested, as well in the expenditure, as in the efficacy of the protection 
which it enables them to provide for their own and their neighbour’s 
persons and property. It is not made clearly to appear, either from past 
experience, or from any light which the discoveries of the Committee 
have been able to throw upon it, that any improvement would be effected 
by this proposition. Future opportunities will be afforded, when the 
matter comes, as it soon will, before the House of Commons, to examine 
the details of this part of the subject, and when those opportunities occur, * 
we shall probably consider it farther. In the mean time, this is obvious, 
that any very great increase of expense is unnecessary ; that if the parochial 
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