The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-07 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

TlOl DAT —Morning. :$ll. 4,0 n,
TO-11011ww—llornIng, GO. 12M......Afternoon. 6h. 40m.

- - ---
LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 7.

Arms the cry of " Wolf " has been treacher-
ously raised in London for a twelvemonth, the
animal has actually appeared, has come without
warning, found the shepherds unprepared, and
made havoc in the fold. When a political purpose
was to be served, or a political prejudice indulged,
there were plenty to point out the danger of street
marchings, meetings, and assemblages, but nobody
warned the public against outrages to be expected
as soon as the Militia should make their appearance.
Whythe sight of the Quasit's uniform should stimu-
late robbery more than the ensigns of the friends
of manhood suffrage, we cannot explain ; but the
outrages which occupied so large • space in our
issue of Tuesday took place in the very presence
of the troops. Hitherto street robbery has been
in London • dangerous occupation, pursued for
the must part by individual thieves in lonely places
under cover of night. But scores of people were
robbed on Monday in broad daylight in such
thoroughfares as the City-road, Portland-place, and
the Mall in St. James's-park, bygangs of men operat-
ing in large numbers without fear of consequences.
The plunderers took the road as if it were their
own, and showed themselves more like banditti
than common thieves. The mob of marauders who
followed the Finsbury Militia on Monday were two
or three hundred in number as the corps passed
down the Pentonville-road, and took watches from
tradesmen who were standing at their own doors
keeping shop. When a policeman interposed, he
was of course powerless. MILLS, 128 G, who
attempted to apprehend one, had a hundred upon
him immediately. On Saturday the City Militia
passed along towards the Park to be reviewed :
what happened is thus described by a witness at
the Marylebono Police-court :—" All the way
" along I saw the prisoner with a gang of about
" thirty or forty roughs rushing upon gentlemen
" and taking their watches right and left, and
" breaking umbrellas. Every gentleman the
" gang came near they surrounded and hustled,
" and took whatever they had got. At Hyde-
" park they surrounded an elderly lady and gen-
" tleman, and took the lady's purse. I saw
" about fifty or sixty persons who had lost their
" watches." A physician who was coming out of
the Gower-street railway station was set upon,
and his watch, of the value of sixty
guineas, taken. This was the work neither
of the London mob proper nor of scientific
members of the furtive community : it was done
by ruffians belonging undoubtedly to the criminal
clans, but to that rude and violent section of it
whose numbers are practically unlimited. This is
the dangerous feature of the movement. Lon-
don can turn out any day twenty such gangs, and,
according to the statistical economy of thief-
dom, if only ono man in nine were caught and
punished such outrages as we have described
would be profitable adventures. Evidently the
isolated policemen, so difficult to descry, even when
found could render little protection against scoun-
drels acting in mobs, and pursuing their objects
with a business-like definiteness of aim, the want of
which makes mere mobs comparatively easy to deal
with. The most that one brave policeman can do
is to fasten upon some robber, and by attracting
to himself the immediate friends of the prisoner
bent on a rescue divert a few of the fellowship from
the work of plunder until the main body has passed
on, and so give the peaceable and honestly dis-
poaed public an opportunity of seizing and identi-
fying the stragglers. Something must be done at
once to show these new disturbers of the peace
that they cannot behave in this way with im-
punity. We do not, however, propose that the
marching of Militia and Volunteers through the
streets should be prohibited ; that would be too
great a concession. Arrangements for rapidly
mobilising small but efficient bands of the police
would probably meet the case. When a fire
breaks out no difficulty is found in at once concen-
trating members of the fire brigade on the spot,
and policemen are as easy to convey as firemen.
It would be worth while, also, to consider
whether the heads of the police make all the use
theymight of the telegraphic lines which now extend
above and below ground all over London. Vigorous
punishment, however, should by no means be
omitted while all due precautions are taken. It
is a serious thing that the peace and security of
this great city have been invaded as they have
not been within the memory of this generation,
and as we had fondly believed they could not
be since the institution of the New Police. The
heaviest penalties of the law must be meted out to
those men, or it will be impossible to live and
carry on business in London. Already it is dan-
gerous to carry a watch or purse; a little more
and it will be dangerous to leave them at home.

Ir the none of CLEOPATRA had been half an inch
shorter, says PASCAL, the face of the world would
have been changed. The face of CLEOPATRA

would certainly have been changed, whatever I
might have happened to that of the world. The
nose of one of the midshipmen of Her Ms., esrv's
frigate Phtebe has lately played almost as distin-
guished a part in public affairs as that assigned
by the great Frenchman to the nose of the
Egyptian Queen. It has been the subject
of a report to the Board of Admiralty ; of
subsequent investigations by two captains of
the Royal Navy ; of leading articles in most
of the newspapers ; and of Parliamentary
interpellations, which have excited as much
interest as the fate of a Fenian cons ict or that
of the compound householder himself. M. Amour
has made the "Nose of a Notary" the subject
of one of his most amusing stories. The nose of
a midshipman would form a theme for a
romance of yet more thrilling interest. Readers
of Mr. CARLYLE'S " Life of Frederick the
" Great," know the important part which JEN-
RI NS ear played in the diplomacy and war
of the 18th century. The nose of the mid-
shipman of the Phoebe is scarcely less distin-
guished. Its celebrity illustrates the caprices of
fortune. It is but one of many midshipmen's
noses which have gone through a similar and even
more painful experience. The rumour that the
broad anchor had been indelibly tattooed along its
whole length, and that the unhappy victim had
been lashed to the guns while he was submitted to
this operation, proves to have been without foun-
dation. The nose, on the contrary, was treated
with more than usual leniency. A broad arrow
of the size of a horsebean was, it is true, cut in
the tip of the organ, but not indelibly ; while
the cayenne pepper which, in accordance with
usage and precedent, ought to have been rubbed
into the wound, was mercifully dispensed with.
It is interesting to note in this circum-
stance another proof of the growing mild-
ness of modern manners. The officers
who had conducted the operation, and
who had been dismissel the service on suspicion
of gunpowder, have been restored to it on proof
that they were innocent even of Cayenne pepper.
Perhaps it is not surprising that lads who were
liable as cadets to the discipline of the birch should
have as little respect for the faces of their com-
rades as has been shown to a less dignified part
of their own corporeal frame. A Greek philo-
sopher has denounced the jocosity which makes
sport with a man's name as one of the
coarsest insults that can be offered to him. To
outrage the person, even though it be in horse-
play, is surely a grosser •front. Viewing the sort
of training which is received by many public
schoolboys and cadets, we are not disposed
to censure the mildness of the Admiralty in re-
fusing to inflict a life-long punishment on the
young blackguards who fell short of the brutality
which precedent might, in their eyes, have war-
ranted them in inflicting. They are what they
have been taught to be. One thing is to be re-
gretted—that Mr. Corn, by refusing to produce
the evidence taken, should have given an apparent
sanction to the opinion that there is more in the
affair than the authorities like to make known.
He ridicules the ides of laying on the table the
examination of a number of boys. But if the
testimony was worth taking and acting upon, it is
worth publishing. It is because the victims are
boys that they need to be protected from that
" unofficer and ungentleman-like conduct," the re-
petition of which, Mr. CURRY has informed the
service, will meet with severe punishment.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)