they think that it will enable them to obtain luxuries that lie beyond the reach of their industrious and honest companions. It is obvious, therefore, that an effective police, by making the profession of dishonesty difficult and precarious, can remove the principal incentive that makes men criminal. The circle of police employment is constantly widening, and many of the functions delegated to the Constabulary by Parliament and by local authorities have not been so much as touched upon in this book, which, in a small compass, has endeavoured to trace the main features of police development in England through a great number of years. It is to be hoped, however, that the tendency to load police officers with duties heavier and more diverse than they have to perform already will not go on increasing. It is difficult to fix the precise limits within which it is proper that they should act; but it is certain that by indefinitely multiplying their duties we run a twofold risk, viz., that of rendering the work of police constables so complex and varied that men of average talent and education will be unable to perform it thoroughly, and further of undermining the popularity of the force by exhibiting its members before the eyes of the people as universally interfering and censorious. It is, of course, right and proper that the policeman should endeavour to prevent the commission of any act that he knows to be illegal, at all times and in all places; but it is generally advisable to employ functionaries who do not belong to the police for purposes not closely connected with the maintenance of the peace, whenever the employment of outsiders is equally effectual: it is more convenient, for instance, that game-keepers should protect the rights of owners on sporting estates, and that custom-house officials should examine portmanteaux, than that such duties should be performed by constables. His Majesty's Coastguard, the Inspectors of Mines and Factories, and other persons appointed by Societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and for the suppression of mendicity, etc., relieve the police of much work by carrying out the various parts assigned to them by Government or by private enterprise; it is worth considering whether it would not be more profitable to delegate to functionaries, other than constables; all duties connected with the inspection of weights and measures, the enforcement of sanitary laws, the protection of arsenals and dockyards, and with the maintenance of order on racecourses. A force specially devoted to the last mentioned object is desirable on many grounds. In the first place the knowledge that such a body would possess of the welshers, cardsharpers, and pickpockets who travel about from one race-meeting to another, and with whom the different local police forces are unable to cope, would put an end to a great deal of the crime which is at present unchecked and