Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1860-11-15
Stittlep 1gtlsteilaug.
HOW GREAT CITY Is GUARDED,

HOW A GREAT CITY IS GUARDED
The city of New York has nearly a mil
lion Of inhabitants, and within a circle Of
three miles radius from the City Hall, there
may be twelve hundred thousand people.
As humanity is constituted, it is but
natural to expect that there will be In such
q, 9uG;her q :"";'' $50" I".2"> Il ".
allow that Que maa III L thuusanu Is a ras'
cal, which is not, perhaps, a very extraVa-
CANT estimate, we must have twelve hun.
dred r~ascals. If one man in a hundred may
on some account need watching, then there
are twelve thousand people who may some
times need attending to.
And when we remember that New York
has an average floating population Of sailors.
merchants, visitors for business or pleasure
and Adventures of various kinds from al
parts of the world, perhaps the only won
der is that there is not more crime and i'm
morality than is actually found among us.
The city of New York is guarded by one
thousand policemen on patrol; though the
entire force of the metropolitan district,
which includes Brooklyn and other parts
adjacent, is 1878. In New York, the
number of arrests during the last three
months was 1881, and the arrests for the
year will count up nearly $4,000.
But these figures Of the police reports are
liable TO mislead the reader. It is not true
that eighty thousand persons are arrested
in a year in N. York. An habitual drunk
ard and brawler may be arrested twenty
times over. More than four 6fths of all the
arrests are for drunkenness, disorderly con-
duct and assaults. People drink, get quar-
<relsome, kick up a row and are marched of
to the station house. Of the nearly twenty
three thousand arrests during the last three
months, less than four thousond were for
offences against property, and four-6fths Of
these and probably a larger proportion,
were for petty misunderstanding for but
slight punishment, the same peerson being
arrested several times.
The entire amount of property supposed
to have been stolen in New York che past
: quarter, was a little less than fifty thousand
dollars, of which eighteen thousand was re-
8 GOV cred. There is no doubt that a much
larger amount was made away with by per.
sons not suspected to be thieves, and never
missed by the owners. The known total
loss, however, is considerably over a hun
Died thousand dollars a year-whioh,
though a handsome sum, would be but a.
bout an average of a York shilling to each
inhabitant; not a very severe tax if fairly
distributed.
rhe police force has many duties. 10
the course of the year it finds and restores
to their distracted parents some ten thous
and lost children, the greater portion, it
is presumed, having wandered round the
corner. The little babes in the woods, who
are really lost, and who are not old enough
to give an account of themselves, are taken
to the a~lmshouse and kept till called for.
Every day the police are called upon to
assist sick and disabled people. Some fall
down in the streets from fatigue, privation,
suu.stroke, and fits of various kinds. Some
ARE brought from a distance by people who
wish to be rid of them, and left in the
streets. Nearly two thousand persons a
year are 80 assisted.
Great numbers of strayed horses are ia.
ken up by the police and restored to their
owners. Careless clerks leave their stores
open, and the police take charge of four or
FIVE hundred a year, keeping all safe until
the owners can be found to take care of
them. Hundreds OF dwellings, left open at
night by careless servants, are in like man
ner attended to. The police, also, exiting
uish fires, when they have not got so much
under way as to make it necessary to call
out the 6remen.
During the last three months, the pc
lice have rescued eleven persons from
drowning. Some man with deliriuu ire
mems, or some poor outcast girl, wretched
and desperate, jumps off the dock. The
policeman hears a splash, or somebody
makes an outcry, and he rushes to the
water, pulls out the would-be suicide, and
takes him or her to the station house.
The patrol man is going his rounds he
hearsa faint, mufaed cry. He listens, looks
about, and, by the light of the street lamp,
finds a little basket or bundle of humanity
on the steps, or 10 the area of some house
or, perhaps, iu some ash-barrel. Tweu-
ty-seven little babies were picked up dur
< ing the last three months, aud taken to
the city nursery. We have some twelve
hundred children of the city on Randall's
Island, where they are educated until old
enough to be sent to trades.
Finally, there are always improvident or
unfortunate persons in New York, who
have. not where to sleep and no money to
pay for lodgings. Every station house has
some bunk-not very luxurious, perhaps,
nor always over clean, fitted up for their
accommodation. More than a hundred
thousand such gratuitous lodgings are fur,
nished in the course of a year; but proba.
s bly, to not as many different persons.
tits also the duty Of the police to report
all violations of the ordinances, aud all
nuisapces, unsafe buildings, examine steam
boilers, keep the streets orderly, diseutan-
gle the jams of omnibuses in Broadway,
protect passengers laudiug from rail cars
and steamboats,, watch the shipping, look
out for pickpockets, guard the parks, escort
ladies across crowded thorough.fare give