The Express. — 1846-09-26 (London, England)

THE CONDUCT OF TILE POLICE IN TILE.DAGENHAM INVESTIGATION.—Such an atrocity as that perpetrated at Dagenham it has not been our duty to chronicle for many years, if all the circumstances attending it be but duly considered. Less reasonable causes have scared lone houses from their propriety, and spread an irresistible panic even through populous towns... The disclosures which have come to light during the inquest on the unfortunate police-constable, George Clarke, are of a character tending to shake our confidence in that system on which we now entirely rely for the security of life and property. It would be very unbecoming in us to anticipate a conclusion which a patient jury has declared itself as yet incompetent to form. Who murdered Clarke we do not pretend to say, though we trust this most heinous crime will struggle into day with that irresistible power of emersion proverbially attached to it. But there are circumstances incidental to the inquiry which demand all the exposure which the public press of a country can give. On the night of the 29th of June a policeman, who had marched whole and sound to his beat, was missing. Four days afterwards the body was found, in a spot admirably chosen for such a deed of blood, and exhibiting marks of such brutal mutilation that revenge, and not robbery, alone was naturally inferred to have been the object of the murderer. Se far the crime wears no other features than that of a peculiarly horrible murder. A constable was not unlikely to have been an object of hatred to a desperate character ; nor was there anything strange in the concealment of the crime for a few days, though it might not unfairly have been presumed that the professional activity and necessary sagacity of the police would have been sharpened by tome promptings of the esprit de corps, and that so singular an atrocity, of which a comrade had been the victim, would have been marked with the most unwinking watchfulness, and tracked with the moat untiring exertion. But no sooner is the man reported missing than, even before the discovery of the body, we find the serjeant on duty pro. posing a tale to be reported to the magistrates, and adhered to by the whole guard, respecting the incidents of this eventful night ! This proposition of deliberate and systematic perjury—this gratuitous desertion of a most serious duty— this abominable falsification of a story which it was their express business and bounden office to clear—is instantaneously acceded to; and five constables go before the magistrates and swear together to a most wicked lie, in order to defeat the ends of justice in detecting the murderers of an unoffending comrade ! What shall we conclude concerning the conduct of these men ? Were they ready to forswear themselves to abet the guilty ? Were they ready to blink a murder to save themselves from a charge of inattention ? Or is such the spirit of those to whom we intrust our lives and property that killing is held no murder, and robbery no theft, if it should disturb the private arrangements of the police—that perjury is so familiar and habitual a practice as to be in request and useat the first call, to promote any favourite device or secure any agreeable end ? Which of these suppositions will the most charitable of our readers be inclined to adopt ?..Suppose these five constables, who so coolly forswore themselves at a moment's warning, and who gravely came before the coroner on Tuesday and deposed again, with great solemnity, to the truth of " their lose evidence"—suppose that these men, insteal of taking oath to an unintelligible lie, bad sworn the murder against some guiltless person—what would have been his chance of escape ?..Surely it is high time that more signal notice should be taken of the infamous habits which this mysterious atrocity has disclosed, and under the influence of which no 'man's life or character can for a moment be reckoned secure.—The Times.