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
two additional Police Offices should be established in the City of
London, consisting each of three Magistrates, to be named by the Lord
Mayor and Aldermen, and paid out of the General funds, and to have
Commissions from the Crown, extending over the whole Metropolis, and
the Counties of Middlesex, Kent, Essex, and Surry; and that the
Commissions of the Magistrates of the other eight Offices should
extend in like manner over the whole Metropolis, and the four
above-mentioned Counties.[169] And finally, the Committee recommend
that no time should be lost in carrying into effect the Plan and
Proposal of Jeremiah Bentham, Esq. for employing and reforming
Convicts, as a measure which bids fairer than any other that was
offered to the Public, to diminish the Public expenditure in this
branch, and to produce a salutary Reform in the object of the proposed
Institution.
[Footnote 168: See Appendix to the 28th Report of the Committee.]
[Footnote 169: It is not proposed in the Bill, now in preparation,
hereafter stated, to introduce any thing respecting the City of
London, unless the consent of the Lord-Mayor, Aldermen, and
Common-Council, shall be previously obtained.]
Other measures are stated by this Committee as well calculated to
facilitate the means of detection and conviction of Offenders, and to
reduce the expence which is now borne by the Public, or sustained by
private Individuals, in the maintenance of a very inefficient Police;
while they seem calculated to lessen the growing Calendars of
Delinquency, but which may be better matured after the consolidation
of the Offices here proposed shall have taken place.--"Such as the
appointment of Counsel for the Crown, with moderate Salaries, to
conduct all Criminal Prosecutions, and rendering the Solicitor to the
Board useful, either in such Prosecutions as any of the Public
Officers might find it necessary to institute; or in such Criminal
Prosecutions at the suit of Individuals, as the Public Justice of the
Country should render expedient.--Such as a Register of Lodging-houses
in the Metropolis.--Such as the establishment of a Police Gazette, to
be circulated at a low price, and furnished gratis to all persons
under the superintendence of the Board; who shall pay a licence duty
to a certain amount: And such also as an Annual Report of the state of
the Police of the Country."
In considering this Report in general, it is no slight gratification
to the Author of this Treatise, to discover that all the great
features of his original design for giving to Police its genuine
character, unmixed with those judicial Powers which lead to
punishment, and properly belong to Magistracy alone, have been
sanctioned by such high authority.
In taking a general view not only of what is specifically recommended
by the Select Committee of the House of Commons; but also of the
Report itself, two leading objects appear to be in contemplation,
namely--
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