The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-02-02

force; but this Ne local authorities have no power
to do The number Of the police lie limited by
an act Of the Legislature, and since 1850
there has been no increase ini., although since
that period the area and population Of the city
have increased more than one third. 1t is clear,
therefore, that until such an augmentation Of the
force is made as the exigencies of the public SER
vice demand, it is Impossible that the body should
be found equal to all its requirements
1t is true that the experiment suggested to us
by o correspondent might in measure improve
the present state of things and insure greater Sc
curity to our citizens at night 1t is recon-
mended that instead of keeping half the men on
duty during the day whilst the other half are
sleeping, there should be no street patrols at all
before five o'clock in the afternoon. Small
bodies of men, however, should be kept at the
station houses ready to act if called upon. In
this way third more might be added to the
strength of the street patrols at night; and their
greater efficiency would be secured by requiring
the captains to make periodical rounds, like the
field officers of regularly constituted military
force. This, however, is only an expedient to
supply, in part, the measure which the necessity
Of the case demands. 1t remains to be seen
whether it would work satisfactorily as regards
the health Of the men.
If, however, the other parties in whose hands
the conservation Of public order is centred, dis
charged their duties as effectively as the police,
there is no doubt that much of the dissatisfaction
that is at present expressed would be spared.
The evil is not so much that offenders escape
detection but that by one corrupt influence Or
another they are subsequently enabled to evade
punishment. Out of the thousands of arrests
yearly made in our city, scarcely onethird are
sent before the Grand Jury for indictment.
With whom does the blame of this kaches lie?
Certainly not with the police. If our commit
ting magistrates are SO Indifferent to the RESPONSE
bilities of their position as to allow outside
pressure from political sources to sway their de-
cisions the interests of the citizens must suffer,
and the guilty will escape the penalty of their
crimes. The facility with which the most noto-
rious offenders escape by these means the legal
consequences of their acts, cannot but operate
as an encouragement generally to the commission
Of crime. On the depressing effects Of examples
like these on the minds of policemen who find
only frowns where they expected approval, and
censure where they anticipated reward, it is I'M
necessary for us to dwell. The tendency of all
such influences must be to dishearten and de-
moralise even the best disciplined body, and the
only surprise to us is that under such circum-
stances our police should be SO effective and re-
spectacle a force as they are. For the evils of
which their accusers complain, those parties have
only themselves to blame, for it is the corrupt
influences which they have introduced into all
the departments of our city government which
have wasted proftlessly the public revenues and
poisoned the very fountains Of justice.