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
History
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
The establishment of such a System would be an immediate benefit to
every man of property, as an individual, independent of the Public at
large; but even in another point of view, it is doubly necessary at
this juncture, when new events are daily occurring, of a nature truly
interesting to the peace and well-being of Society, and to the
tranquillity of the State; rendering it more than ever necessary to
establish a System of unremitting vigilance. It is a fact well
established, that it was principally through the medium, and by the
assistance, of many of the twenty thousand miscreants who were
registered, previous to the anarchy of France, on the books of the
Lieutenant of Police, that the contending Factions in that distracted
country, were enabled to perpetrate those horrid massacres and acts of
atrocity, which have been beheld with detestation, abhorrence, and
astonishment, by every civilized nation in the world.
Let it be recollected, at the same time, that Mankind, in a state of
depravity, arising from a long course of criminal turpitude, are
nearly alike in every country; and that it becomes us to look with a
jealous eye on the several thousand miscreants of the same description
which now infest London; for they too, upon any fatal emergency,
(which GOD forbid!) would be equally ready as their brethren in
iniquity were, in Paris, to repeat the same atrocities, if any
opportunity offered.
As the effectuating such an object has become so great a
desideratum;--and as it is to confer those blessings which spring from
a well-regulated Police, calculated to extend a species of
protection[167] to the inhabitants of this great Metropolis, which
has never been heretofore experienced:--it can scarcely fail to be a
matter of general satisfaction to know that the Select Committee of
the House of Commons on Finance, have strongly recommended to
Parliament a System of Police, similar to that which had been
submitted to the consideration of the Public in the former editions of
this Work.
[Footnote 167: In mentioning what regards the protection of the
Metropolis, with the inefficiency of the existing Civil Force in
Constables, it is impossible to overlook those eminent advantages
which have arisen from the excellent institutions of the Honourable
Artillery Company, the Light Horse Volunteers, and the other
associated Corps, who have so nobly stood forth in the hour of danger
to support the deficient Police of the Country.
To these Patriotic individuals, the inhabitants of the Metropolis are
under infinite obligations.
Regardless of their own _ease_, _convenience_, _interest_, or _personal
safety_, the members of these public-spirited associations have ever
stood forward in the hour of tumult and disorder gratuitously, and at
their own expence, for the protection of their Fellow-citizens, and
for the preservation of the Public peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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