The Sun.
London, England, 1829-04-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON

JOURNALS.

It would be an easy matter to heap either
praise or blame upon Mr. Peel's new Bill for the
improvement Of the Metropolitan Police ; but
it would be rash to pass a hasty opinion of either
kind upon a measure which has long occupied
the attention of so cautious a man ; we cannot
comprehend and judge that in a few hours,
which, it has, or
.ought to have, cost him the
utmost stretch of anxious thought, during many
months, to project, order, and arrange. Be
will at least, however, have deserved the appro-
batiwn of his country for having conscien-
tiously endeavoured to correct that which all
must acknowledge to be a crying evil, or
rather a system of crying evils—the existing
police in the metropolis and its environs. And
his plan has this merit, that commencing with a
partial application, it may be corrected or modified
as it goes on and is brought into general execution.
There may begreat merit " in unity ofdesign" in the
arrangement of the police ; but unity of design
ought likewise to produce a simplification of
accounts, and consequently a diminution of ex-
penses ; and it would at least be with great regret
that we should find the new Board, with all its
appendages, more costly to the public than the
ancient watch-tax. he Right Hon. Gentle-
man thinks that one certain effect of the new
measure will be to diminish the number of pro-
secutions in Middlesex and London ;—" and
thus, while the inhabitants will be relieved from
the watch-tax, they will also be relieved from
other parochial rates, which have been materially
increased by the expense and number of those
prosecutions." For our own parts, we arc some-
what inclined to dread summary jurisdictions:
however, there will no doubt be an appeal to the
established Courts. And we do hope,—though
we do not see that it makes any part of the pro-
ject as at present sketched,—that time expense
of prosecutions, when they are necessary, will
he diminished, and the attainment of justice
facilitated : above all, that there will not be

that d►aught upon the time of the prosecutor,
which to an industrious tradesman is more
cruel than the first loss of his property ;
that he will not be obliged- to attend, day after
day, to the neglect of his business, at the
Sessions-house or Old Bailey, and then,
perhaps on a moment's casual absence, have the
mortification to find that his case has been called
the criminal acquitted, the stolen property
carried off by him, and the recognizances of the
prosecutor entreated. The increase of Govern-
ment patronage is likewise an evil consequent
upon the new plan ; and we do not know that it
is any abatement of that evil to be told that
Government has also (and that unavoidably)
the selection of persons for the army and
navy." Our civil polity has always been in our
own hands ; our military and naval force in those
of the Crown. Might not some choice or re-
commendation be exercised by the parishes, of
the agents to be employed under the new system
This would be consonant to the principle of the
old laws, and agreeable to the ancient method
of watch and ward. It would bg.: a division of

powers if the parish elected, anti Government
cashiered for incompetency or neglect. In any
ease, all persons employed in the new office
should lose the power of voting for Members of
parliament.— Times.

We cannot from Mr. Peel's speech judge
how far his plan is calculated to improve the
Police of the Metropolis. He dwelt chiefly on
-the defectiveness .of one, branch of Police—
watching, and left us very much in the dark as
to the functions of his new Court. There can
be no doubt that, with a view to efficiency,
watching ought to be general and systematic ;
'and it ought not to be left to the discretion of
districts, whether they will or will not be
at the expence of an efficient watch. But
watching is only one branch of Police, and
badly as it is conducted at present, we fearthat it
still is the only part of our Police which is
worth anything. Differing as we do from
a contemporary (the Standard), as to the
necessity of a change in our system of Po-I
lice, we must own that there is some foun-
dation for the following strictures :—" It
is scarcely fair in Mr. Peel, who has al-
ready the command of eight Police Establish-
ments, entertained at an expence of somewhere
about 70,000/. per annum to the public, to cast
all the blame of the imperfect protection of pro-
perty in the metropolis upon the inefficiency of
the nightly watch alone, they, the nightly watch,
being questionless the only protection that the
metropolis possesses ; and Mr. Peel's eight
Police Offices being positively useless
.for every
purpose but to provide slang Reports for the
ewspapers," &c. The present Police Offices
are, unquestionably, of great benefit to the coin.
Triunity, in as far as relates to the dispensing of
sunnnary justice to the community, in a variety
of cases assigned by law to Justices of the
Peace. But in as far as relates to Police, in the
true sense of the word, they are worse than use-
less. It has been proved that the Magistrates
are kept in the dark by the officers respecting
a variety of transactions, and that the offi-
cers have a direct interest in the encou-
ragement of crime ; their rewards rising with
the increase of depredation. It may, there-
fore, be truly said, that inefficient as the
watch is, it is still best part of the existing sys-
tem. The watchmen sometimes connive at
crime, but, generally speaking, they are only
inefficient to prevent it from their age, the ex-
tent of their rounds, &c. The Police, on the
contrary, are in an understanding with the lead-
ing criminals, with whom they negotiate for the
restoration of stolen property. We do not
mean to say that the watching is not susceptible
of immense improvement, but the chief im-
provement must be in the Police, properly so
called. An interest must be given to the per-
sons employed as Police to diminish crime, in-
stead of encouraging it. However, every thing
must have a beginning ; and though com-
plaints of the defectiveness of the present sys-
tem are to be heard every where, yet, even the
present faint attempt at change will, no doubt,
have to encounter nut a little opposition.—
Morning Chronicle.
During the recent discussions of the Catholic
Question both the Duke of Wellington and Mr.
Peel intimated pretty plainly that they were com-
pelled to it by motives the whole of which they
could not prudently divulge. Some of those
reasons, it would seem, are now divulging them-
selves : and, if persons who move in well-
informed political circles are to be credited, the
Duke means to be no longer an idle spectator of
events going on both in the East of Europe and
in Portugal ; but that—haviog quieted Ireland,
as he hopes, by the concessions which have been
made to her—he will he able to employ a consi-
derable part of the forces which have hitherto
formed its garrison, in giving to this country
that attitude to the affairs of Europe which the
ticklish state of Ireland had heretofore prevented
her taking. That Great Britain should always