A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis: Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their Prevention — John Shaqi
A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis: Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their PreventionColquhoun, Patrick
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A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis: Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their Prevention
Colquhoun, Patrick
Crime -- England -- London; Police -- England -- London
Hence also, Servants, Apprentices, Journeymen, and in short all
classes of labourers and domestics, are led astray by the temptations
to spend money, which occur in this Metropolis; and by the facility
afforded through the numerous Receivers of stolen Goods, who
administer to their pecuniary wants, on every occasion, when they can
furnish them with any article of their ill-gotten plunder.
The necessity of adopting some effectual regulations respecting the
numerous class of Dealers in old metal, stores, and wearing apparel,
is too obvious to require illustration; and the progressive
accumulation of these pests of Society is proved, by their having
increased, from about 300 to 3000, in the course of the last twenty
years, in the Metropolis alone!
Similar regulations should also be extended to all the more latent
Receivers, who do not keep open shop; but secretly support the
professed Robbers and Burglars, by purchasing their plunder the moment
it is acquired: of which latter class there are some who are said to
be extremely opulent.
It would by no means be difficult to form such a plan of Police as
should establish many useful restrictions, for the purpose of checking
and embarrassing these criminal people; so as to render it extremely
difficult, if not impracticable for them, in many instances, to carry
on their business without the greatest hazard of detection.
But laws for this purpose must not be placed upon the Statute-Book as
a kind of dead letter, only to be brought into action when accident
may lead to the detection, perhaps of one in a thousand. If the evil
is to be cured at all, it must be by the promotion and encouragement
of an active principle, under proper superintendance, calculated to
prevent every class of dealers, who are known to live partly or wholly
by fraud, from pursuing those illegal practices; which nothing but a
watchful Police, aided by a correct system of restraints, can possibly
effect.
Nor ought it to be argued, that the restraints, which may hereafter be
proposed, will affect the liberty of the Subject. They will assist and
protect the honest and fair dealer; and it is perfectly consistent
with the spirit of our ancient laws, to restrain persons from doing
evil, who are likely to commit offences; the restrictions can affect
only a very few, comparatively speaking; and those too whose criminal
conduct has been the principal, if not the sole cause, of abridging
the general liberty; while it subjected the great mass of the people
to the risk of their life and property.
Whenever Dealers, of any description, are known to encourage or to
support crimes, or criminal or fraudulent persons, it becomes the
indispensable interest of the State, and the duty of the Legislators
to prevent them from pursuing, at least, the mischievous part of their
trade; and that provisions should be made for carrying the laws
strictly and regularly into execution.
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