In their fears, the opponents of the police bill underrated the efficacy of the two safeguards that have proved amply sufficient to defend society against the employment of any objectionable or tyrannical methods by the members of the force. The first safeguard was, that the new police was placed under the immediate control of the Home Secretary, who was directly responsible to the Cabinet, and through the Cabinet to the country, for the actions of the metropolitan force. The second safeguard lay in the power of the public press. The routine duties of a constable were, and are necessarily, performed in the eye of the public, and every bystander is free, through the columns of the newspapers, to tell the rest of London what he has seen. This facility he is seldom slow to avail himself of, and so any act of oppression, any dereliction of duty, on the part of the police is discussed by thousands of people by the following morning. The Turks have a proverb "The dog barks, but the caravan passes on"; and in this case the necessity for ending the existing state of affairs was so overwhelming, that the appeals, threats, and forebodings of the opponents of reform were powerless to prevent, or even retard, its progress. From its first commencement the new force learnt how to combine authority with moderation, and the storms of clamour that attended its birth were disguised blessings that conduced to its subsequent efficiency. The opposition of the less reputable part of the press, and the very lukewarm support that was all it received from the remainder, were not without their effect on the force, though the result produced was far from being that hoped for by the agitators. The Commissioners, instead of being discouraged, were stimulated. With rare wisdom, assuming that the complaints which were continually being published against the constables were made in good faith, they carefully investigated each fresh indictment, with the result that, not only was the constabulary purged of its unworthy members, but the better sense of the country, appreciating the devotion to its interests practised by the Commissioners, was the sooner convinced of the advantages that follow from the establishment of a permanent and properly organized "standing army against crime." Some of the malcontents, however, who, from the first, had been so bitter in their opposition to Sir Robert Peel's design, by no means relaxed their hostility after a reformed police was an accomplished fact, but on the occasion of a projected Royal Procession through London in 1830 again attempted to inflame the ignorant, and to provoke them to violence against the new guardians of the peace, by the distribution of anonymous placards. One of these placards read as follows:--"Liberty or Death! Englishmen! Britons!! and Honest Men!!! The time has at length arrived. All London meets on Tuesday. Come Armed. We assure you from ocular demonstration