Punch: Punch (54.1868)

Atkil 18, 1868.]

t -—

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

173

FACSIMILE OF A CURIOUS BAS-RELIEF

RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN THE SHED AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

A PLEA FOR THE POLICE.

When Mr. Punch next takes the chair at any public dinner, he pro-
bably will startle some old fogies in the company by making an addi-
tion to the usual list of toasts After dome honour to the Army and
the Navy and “Our Gallant Volunteers,” Mr. Punch will fill a special
bumper to the health of the Police. They may fitly now be classed
among our national defenders; and, indeed, the many dangers they
encounter in our service entitle them most thoroughly to have their
health proposed whenever public toasts are drunk. Knocked down,
and kicked and stamped upon with heavy hobnailed boots, and bon-
neted and bludgeoned, and beaten black and blue—to all this our
Policemen are well nigh as well used as the eels were said to be to
skinning ; and, in addition to all this, they have of late been shot at,
and have served under fire as bravely as any of our troops.

For encountering these perils, and for the weary work of ten hourst
daily watching in the streets, the wage is nineteen shillings weekly,
with a hope by slow degrees to earn six shillings more. The man who
rises to be sergeant, as not one in ten can do, will get eight-and-twenty
shillings weekly for his work ; and, what his qualities must be, the
following will show :—

“ To enter the police as constable a man must bring a long and unimpeachable
character for honesty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, and good temper. . . An

able constable who is offered a Sergeant's vacancy has to go through an educational
examinatiou which, ten years ago, would have broken half the Civil Service candi-
dates. The arithmetic and writing he has to do are, perhaps, in these days not
thought so dreadful as they used to be, but he has to draw out hypothetical cases of
, police charges, and to give answers in writing to such cases, stating whether he
would detain or liberate prisoners under such and such circumstances, and his
j reasons in writing for or against.”

Plenty to do and little to get is evidently now the rule in the Police
Force, and one is not surprised to learn that “the matter is becoming
one of chronic discontent.” Skinflints may contend that while the ranks
continue full, there surely is no need to proffer higher pay. But men
who are not skinflints wdl not let their eyes be blinded by a short-
sighted economy, and will have the wisdom

“ To look at three things—1st, that the police service now requires a much higher
class of men than was thought necessary when they started as watchmen in 1830 ;
2nd, that the growth of the force has by no means kept pace with the growth of the
metropolis they have to guard ; 3rd, that 19s. a week now is not much more than
equal to 14s. a week forty years ago. The deduction is obvious. Not only must the
force be increased, but the pay must be such as to induce good men to enter, and,
above all, when entered, to remain in the service. Entering the police force should,

in its pay and future rewards, be held out as an object of ambition to able and re-
spectable men, and not regarded, as it is now by the most intelligent constables, as
a mere resource against want, to be retained only till something better presents
itself.”

With ruffianism rampant, and Fenianism scarce squelched, and rob-
beries with violence still frequent in our streets, it wilt hardly be denied
that we have urgent need of a strong army of Police. There is little to be
gained by being stingy in the matter, except the chance of a picked
pocket or a broken head; and skinflints who object to increasing the
Police rates, if they find themselves garotted, may be told it serves
them right.

A TERRIBLE STREET IMPROArEMENT.

My Dear Mr. Punch,

I write with mingled horror, surprise and indignation to
inform you that the other day, as I was walking down Park Lane, 1
saw a large steam-roller at work upon the roadway! There was a
crowd of starers round it, as though it were a Dodo or a Plesiosaurus,
or some other prsediluvian and now non-extant monster. Viewing it
myself as a proof of the levelling spirit of the age, I own the sight of it
excited in me pangs of grief and terror. “ Stare super antiquas vias ” \
is the maxim I admire, and I hate new-fangled notions of what same
call “ street improvements.” Especially I hate to see true Britons
condescending to take lessons from the French, as in this matter of
street-rolling. Far better let our carriages be knocked about and
splintered in the good old-fashioned way, and our bones be bumped,
and bruised, and battered as they used to be, than degrade ourselves
by copying those confounded foreigners, and by driving on smooth
roads which may lead us to destruction. Steam-rollers, to my think-
ing, must end in revolutions, and if we Frenchify our streets we shall
soon see barricades in them.

I remain, Sir, yours in some alarm.

One of the Old School.

P.S. Nothing is safe nowadays. The Irish Church is threatened—
Saint Paul’s will go ere long, and Windsor Castle follow it—while the
regalia at the Tower, being useless in a Commonwealth, will be pawned
or put to auction to reduce the national debt.

Feels Aggrieved.—Our Landlord, who is miserly, is envious of the
Metropolitan Board of Works, because thev hce.’-d up so much property.

Vol. 54.

6—2