The history of any national institution should not be totally devoid of interest; and amongst all our institutions it would be hard to find one so eminently characteristic of our race, both in its origin and in its development, or one so little modified by foreign influences, as the combination of arrangements for maintaining the peace, which we call "police." Police questions touch each one of us so intimately in our daily life, in our personal liberty and in our self-respect; the character of a nation is so profoundly influenced by the nature of the control to which it is subjected, that a due appreciation of the scope of police functions, a proper knowledge of the origin and extent of the powers and duties delegated to our constabulary forces, must possess a more than academic interest. Continental gendarmeries, framed for the most part on the Latin model, have been imposed--often ready-made--on various nationalities, without heed to their racial peculiarities, and careless of local tradition or circumstance. Our English police system, on the other hand, rests on foundations designed with the full approval of the people, we know not how many hundreds of years before the Norman conquest, and has been slowly moulded by the careful hand of experience, developing as a rule along the line of least resistance, now in advance of the general intelligence of the country, now lagging far behind, but always in the long run adjusting itself to the popular temper, always consistent with local self-government, and even at its worst, always English.