Norfolk day book. [volume] (Norfolk and Portsmouth Va.) 1868-1880, 1869-09-06

TIE POLICE DEPARTMENFs-NoW tnat
Governor Walker is soon to be installed, it
ia mete that we should cast about q look to
our city affairs. There are many things
of interest thai suggest themselves to our
serious consideration, but what we propose
particularly to discuss is our police depart
ment. In the first place our police depart
ment is too small. In the second place 1t
is not paid enough for services rendered.
tbs useless to berate the police, or to
charge them with failing to perform their
duty, or to lay to their doors evils under
which the community sometimes labors
especially during the winter season, when
the thieves and desperadoes 60 forth
Seeking whom they may dsvour.' Police
men are but human beings, and can do not
more than other human beings, and, I'M
fortunately they do not possess the power
ofub'quity. They have posts or beats to
patrol, and those beats embrace several
squares, and 1t requires an half hour, or
more, to patrol from one end to the other
of the beats assigned them. Hence the
most vigilant policeman the world has
ever known could not prevent the COM
missien of an offense or arrest the offenders
his beat, while he was at the other end.
Neither is it possible to SO regulate the
beats that all the men should be at the
extreme ends OF their posts at the same
time. 1t is therefore not only idle, but it
is positively criminal, to charge the po-
licemen with being derelict of duty be-
cause crimes are committed on the posts
without the offenders being Immediately
arrested.
That there are men on the force unfit for
the duties o the posit ion we know; but
most of them are equal to similar bodies
to be found any where else. and it is unjust
to condemn the who lie on account of the
acts ola few. AS a public journalist, hav-
ing crime to look after, we have kept watch
of the police department, and while we
condemn its political character, and would
if we had the power, cut off its rotten
branches which tend to bring it into dis
grace,yet we are compslled to award praise
to the men who, under so many disadvan
tages, have maintained the integrity Of the
department, and who have 80 faithfully per
formed their duties.
Ifjurors, judges, and the State Executive
but performed their duties as faithfully as
the policemen, we would not be called upon
to apprehend serious danger. 1t is because
violators of the law are not convicted when
they should be, and when convicted are
not condemned to suffer adequate punish
ment, and when they are sent to prison
they are too frequently pardoned by the
Governor. So that professional criminals
have no fer of punishment before their
eyes; and hence the lives and property Of
the people are placed in jeopardy, as they
are at the present time, and have been for
the past four or five years. What we need
in this department-police dspartment-is
augmentation of force, and larger sal
larry, SO that we may obtain good men and
true. This is a subject to which we cannot
attach too much Importance, and we trust
it W il receive that consideration and ap-
prec iat'on which it SO eminently demands,
MAYORS COURT, Norfolk, Mayor De
Cordy presiding. Sept. 4.
Ellen Chandler, FIR drunkenness and
disorderly conduct, was committed for
five days.
Seven delinquents-five males and two
femalel-were find ST. each, for breach
of the peace
Virginia Dunford, a poor "cast-away,"
was sent to the Portsmouth aims horse.
Several other upimportant cases were
disposed Of