368 
them, he has too much reason to appre- 
hend revenge. 
The business to which any man is 
brought up is certainly that in which 
he is most likely to excel; and the per- 
manent police officers are conversant 
with all the tricks of rogues and rob- 
bers, know all their haunts, are sin- 
gularly alert in the discovery of an of- 
tender, and acute in directing their sus- 
picions to the right person. Mr. Col- 
pitts, however, is strenuously hostile to 
‘this class of people: he considers it a 
reflection upon society that police officers 
should be living, perhaps upon terms of 
intimacy, with those very villains upon 
whom they pounce in an unguarded 
moment; he considers it also irrecon- 
cileable with the idea of a constitutional 
and effective police, that a part of so- 
ciety should be constantly under the 
suspicion of the police ; that individuals 
having committed crimes, for which 
they cannot be punished yet, (being not 
ripe for punishment) instead of checking 
the dissoluteness of their lives, it should 
be the interest of these hired constables, 
rather to encourage them in their career 
of ruin, in order, that at some future 
time the conviction of their depreda- 
tions may bring in 2 more fruitful har- 
vest. Mr. Colpitts is also of opinion, that 
society does not gain much by the ex- 
clusive knowledge of these officers: if 
they know the depredators, the depreda- 
tors know them ; sagacity is opposed to 
sagacity, cunning to cunning, both par- 
ties live by the constant exercise of their 
wits, and vigilance in detecting, may be 
foiled by superior vigilance in eluding. 
This ts very true, but it must be recol- 
lected that the original cunning is in the 
thief; his will never be thrown off, and 
therefore it is necessary that he who 
watches him should be possessed of, at 
least, an equal degree of the same qua- 
lity. How Mr. Colpitts’ plan would 
operate, if—about which we have the 
strongest doubts—it could possibly be 
brought into operation, our readers will 
judge for themselves when we lay it be- 
ore them. As to the disgracefulness 
of having one class of society constantly 
watching over the actions of another ; 
it may be disgraceful that such vigilance 
is necessary, but so long as it is necces- 
-sary, it must not be abated. Persons 
Rading a notoriously reprobate and 
abandoned life, ought to be, and must 
be vigilantly watched, for the sake of 
public security ; and jealous as we. pro- 
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND STATISTICS. 
fess to be of our rights and liberties, we, 
cannot enter fhto all Mr. Colpitts’ alarm 
on the present occasion. ‘ 
Mr. Colpitts proposes to have the pre- 
sent race of police officers disbanded, 
and the police placed in the hands of 
the citizens at large ; he would have 
respectable inhabitants of the several 
parishes, take the acting part upon them- 
selves in rotation, being annually elect- 
ed. As to the present officers, they 
might be employed as tide-waiters when 
vacancies take place, or put into any 
vacant posts about the victualling-office, 
or dock-yards ; some few of them might 
be retained as messengers for removing’ © 
prisoners to and from the country, but 
acting subordinately to the elected con- 
stables, not between the magistrates and 
them. 
«© The district of each constable in his 
parish, ought to be no larger than he can 
conveniently superintend ; and where it is 
larger, associate constables should be named 
to assist him; every inhabitant of such dis- 
trict, both male and female, above the age of 
childhood, eught to be known to him : for 
this purpose, every occupant of a house 
should be obliged annually to give in a list 
to him of his family, and every inmate in his 
dwelling, as they came and removed, with- 
out, however, being obliged to declare from 
whence they came, or whither they are re- 
moved, (unless such inmates themselves 
chose to declare it) or anv other particulary 
respecting them, without they had abscond- 
ed, and were charged with some crime. 
And for the purpose of gaining a personal 
knowledge of such inhabitants within his 
district as are unknown to him, he ought to 
visit each house as soon as he was induct- 
ed inte his oflice ; when such inhabitants 
of it should present themselves before hii, 
and every new inhabitant and lodger, when 
they entered, both male and pall should 
present themselves before the constable of 
the district, accompanied by the landlord, 
or letier of such premises, and their name 
and age only taken down ; nor should it be 
allowed that any occupant of a house in 
London should take in a stranger, even for a 
night, without such stranger appearing before 
the constable, or his associate, or if too late 
to see either of them, before the superinten-. 
dant of the watch, at the nearest watch- 
house, to whom he should declare his name 
and age, but nothing more.” 
Mr. Colpitts is not singular in his opi- 
nion of the necessity there is’ to revise 
the laws respecting the responsibility of 
proprietors and occupiers of houses, in 
order to prevent those infamous resorts 
of lewdness, which now infest almost 
