The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-04-21 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE COUNTY CONS TABULARY.
(From the Preston Pilot.)
The-Subject of a Rural Police is one that is now en-
gaging much, and, we may safely say, well merited at-
tention, for that the adoption or rejection of that kind
of force is a matter of the last importance to any
county, there are few now hardy enough to deny. That
its adoption is becoming more and more a question of
the most doubtful policy, we are continually reminded
by the accounts of the marked rejection which any at-
tempts to introduce it, receive,—the proposition for
such an object seldom being sent to the " tomb of the
capulets" by a less significant and substantial majority
than that of two to one. And there is the still
further testimony to be brought against the gendarmerie
system, that only thirteen out of the fifty-two counties
into which the kingdom is divided, have yet thought it
prudent to accept its questionable advantages.
this constabulary affair is of the same character, as the
parliamentary reform. corporation reform, and poor-
law reform subjects—in all these matters, as they ulti-
mately came to exist, abuses were found, but in all of
them there was a sound and safe principle ; and if the
defects which time and altered circumstances had in-
troduced might have been carefully removed, that prin-
ciple would have been found vitally efficient to work
out every salutary plan which the several institutions
were designed to accomplish. But this system of
pruning the decayed and useless branches was not
adopted.. No, forsooth, the modern march of intellect,
braggart-like, decreed there was no wisdom in the in-
ventions of former ages, and the whole tree, root and
branch, must needs therefore be cut down and eradi-
cated ; and thus it is, that instead of having the good
old system of our forefathers renovated and restored to
us in all their first vigour and freshness, we have seen
introduced in their stead a series of measures assumed
to be based upon those whose names they bear, but
which are diametrically opposed to them in principle
and in every feature of their practical operation. But,
our present object being to show the mischievous ten-
dency of the constabulary police scheme, we will-con-
fine to it the few observations that we intend to make.
Our readers, then, will remember that we gave in our
last a copy of Chief Constable Woodford's report to
the magistracy, presented at the quarter session, and
we think that after reading it they cannot fail to have
felt a most marvellous astonishment at some of the
statements and suggestions which it contains. The
chief constable presumes that the magistracy regard
the present constitution of the force as experimental ;
we sincerely hope they do, because we are quite con-
vinced that the rate-payers would rather tint its con-
tinued existence was a matter of doubt, than that other
experiments be made at their cost by any schemes of
reorganization. But the present constitution of the
force affords no proper stimulus to exertion, there be-
ing no prospect of promotion or any increase of pay.
Now it is most notorious that the motives by which
the individuals are actuated who enter the force have
nothing whatever of an honourably ambitious character
in them, but quite the contrary; for many of the men
belong to trades from which a higher pecuniary remu-
neration might be obtained for their exertions; but in
such case those exertions must be regular and conti-
nued, and. no spare time allowed them for aping the
habits of gentlemen and soldiers, strutting in the pride
of office, or killing the time in listless indifference ;
there needs, therefore, no higher reward for such a class
of individuals, because, for any services they are capa-
ble of conferring, they are abundantly remunerated.
But Chief Constable Woodford has made a discovery,
that by reorganizing the force in the manner he sug-
gests, viz., instead of paying 482 officers each 18s. a
week, amounting per year to £22,557 125., he could
have that number formed as follow :-
20 Inspectors at 28s. p. week 137 Constables at 17s. p. week
45 Sergeants 21s. do. 100 do. 16s. do.
ISO'Constables 18s. do.
The force would be less expensive and more efficient.
As to efficiency that would become an experiment ; but
on the score of expense, why, that is much easier de-
termined. Now the apparent saving of expense, and
mark, only so far as salary is concerned, would amount
to one of Joseph Hume's cheese pairing economizings,
namely, the enormous sum of five pounds four shillings
per year : for as the 482 men, as now formed and paid
cost £22,557 12s. per year; so the " less expensive"
mode of classification of the same number, as proposed,
would cost £22,552 Bs. But we happen to have seen
the uniforms of the superintendents and those worn
by the ordinary officer, and we cannot but think that
the cost of the one will materially exceed the cost of the
other; and in like manner, we doubt not that some
more expensive distinction in dress would be required
to designate the inspectors and serjeants, and'it would
require but a very slight addition to each of the whole
65 superior officers' outfits, lo swallow up' the balance
of £5 45., and thus render more than problematical the
notion of the new organization being less expensive.
But as the chief constable remembered that by his
proposed plan, there would, in a force of 502 men, be
no less than 83 officers ? Here they are :—one chief
constable; two assistant chief constables: 15 super-
intendents; 20 inspectors; 45 serjeants : so that if we
divide the 417 by the division of 83 we shall have a
quotient of five, and an unmentionable fraction ; thus
for every five men an officer. Why the force would
not be allowed to exist a month, were this redundancy
of authority to be infused into it—it would burst by
its own superabundant inflation of self-importance, and
aspirations for increased dignity; and if these did not
procure the explosion, the contempt and ridicule with
which the public would regard the performers in the
great county farce, would most assuredly secure its
extinction. There is, next, another suggestion of the
chief constable's—to allow each superintendent a horse,
because the petty sessional divisions are of too great an
extent. We think if enquiry had been made into the
extent of the duties performed by other public officers,
as the relieving and some of the other officers in poor
• law unions, and the way in which they are remunerated
by the rate-payers, no such a claim as this would have
been put in for rural police superintendents.