The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-20 00:00:00

POLICE " UKASES.'

Several correspondents of the Times protest
against the new police edict against the " sandwich men,"
or boardtnen. At 9 o'clock on Monday evening orders were
Wined from Bow-street that they were not to go out the
next morning. If they were seen by the police they would
be fined, and also the persons employing them. "If
the commix/goners of police," says one correspond-
ent, " could have seen the poor fellows yesterday
morning walking about in the snow, and heard
their piteous tale (many of them had not tasted food that
day), I think they would have regretted their severity to
the old and helpless, and not have prevented them from
getting an honest livine." Another writer says:—" Let
Mr. Superintendent Durkin's exterminating edict at least be
deferred until after Easter, when the streets are more
crowded. It seems a refinement of cruelty suddenly to stop
• long recognised and established vocation in the depth of
winter, in the midst of frost and snow. Unless the board.
men are sent to their respective parishes for the remainder
of their days, they have no alternative but to beg, steal, or
starve. They are mostly • class of infirm men, with
broken-down constitutions, who are incapable of doing hard
work. The occupation is not of a very inviting nature, or
the pay good. No poor man will take to it who can do bet'er.
Our polioe ought to be ashamed of depriving such • large
class of their daily bread just at the very time of year when
labour is most scarce." In a third letter we read :—" It is
now some time since • police edict came forth (under what
special statute or act of parliament, I think, even you, sir,
would be puzzled to tell us), to the effect that no license
should be granted to any cabdriver or omnibus coachman or
conductor; unless he could pass an examination in reading,
writing, and arithmetic. When this was first alleged as an
excuse by a middle-aged father of • family, who had served
for years as a ' has cad,' upon his applying to myself
for relief, I could not believe in such gross injustice
in this 'land of liberty,' but found it to be too true.
This ' ukase,' sudden and peremptory as it wee, in a
country where public education is neither compulsory nor
gratuitous—a way of visiting the sins of the fathers upon
the children—turned hundreds of poor fellows out of
honest employment, and compelled these unfortunate illi-
terates to take a step downwards in the world and become
costermongers and boardmen ; but now what are they to
do ° It is high time that public attention should be spe-
cially called to the encroachments and annually increasing
tyranny of these police nkaass,' particularly since the
Gallomaoia and admiration of the peculiar institutions of
our neighbours across the Channel, among others that of
an armed gendarmerie, are notorious as the charactestice
of some of our would-be iprdets, from whom and all
other petty tyrants, good Lord, deliver us."'

B. I.

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