The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-12-12 00:00:00

lII'LLIINO THIC POLICE

The Lon,lon Figaro is very wise anent the murder
roder one of it 4 clap-trap style of headings—"•
safe e.moty for untraurers," it says:—

This foul murder, awl incidents ected therewith,
v.rave doubt at to the efficiency of the present
police ,y.teni—we refer to the provincial and not to the
al..tropolitan pollee
.‘nything more audaciously impuibmt we have
seldom rend. To throw a slur upon the provincial
fi,t• being unable to hound down murderers—
flying for their lives, and with almost everything in
their fat our—and timidly to add "we do not refer, 'to
the Metropolitan force, who have, in more cases of
murders than one can count upon the fingers, proved
themselves the most egregions incompetents who have
ever pnt on official clothing—is simply Shoe-lane
toadrami..

- .
Our onitemporary goe. on:- -
The Hutchings—father and son—were known to be bad
and violont men. Last July they attacked fellow-workers
in a hayfield with scythe.. They have been repeatedly
floe.' and imprismn..l. There was ground for suspecting
that they were carrying on an extensive poaching trade.
Why, then, were they not watched by such a force as
would h.ve made resistance unavailing, In such a case
constahltui .hould have been engaged. Then
a codstdblo would not have been beaten to death, and
the Hutchings would not have escaped.

real.ming is °seedy what we might expect
from writeni, who, from Fleet-street garrote, venture
sensational opi RR )) n, upon matters occurring in the
pr,,vine,v, and with which they had not the moat
remote aeqoaintane... Does the Figaro imagine that
In S.. anervet, every little boy who steals an apple
require* six policemen to lake him. The murdered
con.stable was ,ine of the finest members of the force,
and equal to any two ordinary men, but the poor
ideas of emntnon humanity prevented his
believing for a moment, that Atolen game would be
defended -4 the expense of Ids own life's-blood.

The Fifairo e"ntinues :
Whether the Ilutehingv have yet been aporehen.led we
know not, but at all event.% for aeyeral data after the

murder they were at krge. It hi difficult to discover the
unknown perpetrators of a crime, but it (4 monstrous that
thrce ....m who are known to have been concerned in the
crime should be able for days to elude the police. If this
haul happened in Ireland it would have been said that the
eriminalg were screened by their nehzhbours. As it hap-
pened in England we must ascribe the incident to the
amazing inefficiency of the Somerset police, or the police
of :he adjoining counties.

Now as it happens, few thinking people doubt for one
motient that thole brutes, are "screened," if not by
" their !ed.:lll)min,- at dl events by knaves as bad as
the tn.:lves. We have heard men disclaim with wanton
iiipetito..L.ness, az:dust what they chose to call the
employment .4 policemen an gatne-keepers, while if
they h.st ro.,..ter from their yen], they would be the
fir t. to c:all in the representative of the law. This
feelin;; permeates to a large extent the lower classes of
f.,rgetfitl .4 the fact. thst the I.reservation
.'am e i•oli7ect I. --in the empl..yment of keepers, the
r...ptirvnients ~„-rain and food. and the like—henefits
theuvel% es, regard these munlerers very h itt the
sanie light ar the otWanlS, who (rpm hedge
.t ,1..11.11:tvt Insl rent collector, i. looked upon in
the si ter I.le, an homlacters of society. The
...If doe Smottivriet im ,fice, vNiStJI
only the inefficient brain of the writer in
the London