Precautions to be taken against a Fire.Forbid your men to use lucifer matches, smoke, or light pipes or cigars, destroy wasps’ nests, or fire off guns, in or near the rickyard, or to throw hot cinders into or against any wooden out-building on the farm, on pain of instant dismissal.Place your ricks in a single line, and as far distant from each other as you conveniently can.Place hay-ricks and corn-stacksalternately; the hay-rick will check the progress of the fire.Keep the rickyard, and especially the spaces between the stacks and ricks, clear of all loose straw; and in all respects in a neat and clean state. The loose straw is more frequently the means of firing than the stack itself.Have a pond close to the rickyard, although there may be but a bad supply of water.When a steam thrashing-machine is to be used, place iton the lee sideof the stack or barn, so that the wind may blow the sparksaway fromthe stacks. Let the engine be placed as far from the machine as the length of the strap will allow. Have the loose straw continually cleared away from the engine; see that two or three pails of water are constantly close to the ash-pan, and that the pan itself is kept constantly full of water.How to act when a Fire has broken out in a Rickyard.Do not wait for the engines, nor for the assistance of the labourers from a distance. Depend entirely upon the immediate and energetic exertions of yourself and your own men.Do not allow the rick or stack on fire to be disturbed—let it burn itself out—but let every exertion be made to press it compactly together, and, as far as is practicable, prevent any lighted particles flying about.Get together all your blankets, carpets, sacks, rugs, and other similar articles, soak them thoroughly in water, and place them over and against the adjoining ricks and stacks, towards which the wind blows.Having thus covered the sides of the ricks adjoining that on fire, devote all your attention to the latter. Press it together by every available means. If water is at hand, throw upon it as much as possible.If engines arrive, let the water be thrown upon the blankets, &c., covering the adjoining stacks, and then upon the stack on fire.Among the numerous hands who flock to assist upon these occasions, many do mischief by their want of knowledge, and especially by opening the fired stack and scattering the embers. In order to obviate this evil, place your best man in command over the stack on fire, desire him to make ithis sole dutyto prevent it being disturbed, and to keep it pressed and watered.Place other men, in whose steadiness you have confidence, to watch the adjoining ricks, to keep the coverings over them, and to extinguish any embers flying from the stack on fire. In order to effect this, it is most desirable that there should be ladders at hand to enable one or two of the labourers to mount upon each stack.If the ricks are separated from each other, and there is no danger of the fire extending to a second, it is of course desirable to save as much of the one on fire as may be possible. That, however, is not unfrequently accomplished by keeping the rick compactly together rather than by opening it.Send for all the neighbours’ blankets and tarpaulins: these are invaluable, they are near at hand, and can be immediately applied.
Precautions to be taken against a Fire.
Forbid your men to use lucifer matches, smoke, or light pipes or cigars, destroy wasps’ nests, or fire off guns, in or near the rickyard, or to throw hot cinders into or against any wooden out-building on the farm, on pain of instant dismissal.
Place your ricks in a single line, and as far distant from each other as you conveniently can.
Place hay-ricks and corn-stacksalternately; the hay-rick will check the progress of the fire.
Keep the rickyard, and especially the spaces between the stacks and ricks, clear of all loose straw; and in all respects in a neat and clean state. The loose straw is more frequently the means of firing than the stack itself.
Have a pond close to the rickyard, although there may be but a bad supply of water.
When a steam thrashing-machine is to be used, place iton the lee sideof the stack or barn, so that the wind may blow the sparksaway fromthe stacks. Let the engine be placed as far from the machine as the length of the strap will allow. Have the loose straw continually cleared away from the engine; see that two or three pails of water are constantly close to the ash-pan, and that the pan itself is kept constantly full of water.
How to act when a Fire has broken out in a Rickyard.
Do not wait for the engines, nor for the assistance of the labourers from a distance. Depend entirely upon the immediate and energetic exertions of yourself and your own men.
Do not allow the rick or stack on fire to be disturbed—let it burn itself out—but let every exertion be made to press it compactly together, and, as far as is practicable, prevent any lighted particles flying about.
Get together all your blankets, carpets, sacks, rugs, and other similar articles, soak them thoroughly in water, and place them over and against the adjoining ricks and stacks, towards which the wind blows.
Having thus covered the sides of the ricks adjoining that on fire, devote all your attention to the latter. Press it together by every available means. If water is at hand, throw upon it as much as possible.
If engines arrive, let the water be thrown upon the blankets, &c., covering the adjoining stacks, and then upon the stack on fire.
Among the numerous hands who flock to assist upon these occasions, many do mischief by their want of knowledge, and especially by opening the fired stack and scattering the embers. In order to obviate this evil, place your best man in command over the stack on fire, desire him to make ithis sole dutyto prevent it being disturbed, and to keep it pressed and watered.
Place other men, in whose steadiness you have confidence, to watch the adjoining ricks, to keep the coverings over them, and to extinguish any embers flying from the stack on fire. In order to effect this, it is most desirable that there should be ladders at hand to enable one or two of the labourers to mount upon each stack.
If the ricks are separated from each other, and there is no danger of the fire extending to a second, it is of course desirable to save as much of the one on fire as may be possible. That, however, is not unfrequently accomplished by keeping the rick compactly together rather than by opening it.
Send for all the neighbours’ blankets and tarpaulins: these are invaluable, they are near at hand, and can be immediately applied.
The companies are always very willing to pay for any damage done in attempting to save their property.
The business of the Fire Brigade is to protect property and not life from fire, though the men of course use every exertion to save the inmates, and are always provided with a “jumping-sheet”to catch those who precipitate themselves from the roofs and windows of houses. As the danger to life generally arises at a very early stage of a fire, when the freshly aroused inhabitants fly distracted into very dangerous places, and often destroy themselves by needless haste, it is highly necessary to have help at hand before the engines can possibly arrive. There are, it is true, ladders placed against all the parish churches, but they are always locked up, often rotten, and never in charge of trained individuals: accordingly, they may be classed for inefficiency with the parish engines. A proof of this was given at the calamitous fire which occurred in Dover Street, at Raggett’s Hotel, on which occasion Mrs. Round and several other persons were lost through the conduct of the keeper of one of the fire-escapes of the parish of St. James being absent when called, and drunk when, upon his arrival, he attempted to put his machine in action: the keeper of a second escape belonging to this parish, and stationed in Golden Square, refused to go to a fire in Soho, which occurred in 1852, because it was out of his district: the consequence was, than seven persons threw themselves from the windows and were all more or less dangerously injured.
In 1833 the Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire, which had been imperfectly organized a year or two before, was fully established, and has continued to increase the sphere of its influence year by year. The committee of management, appreciating the value of celerity in attending fires, have marked the metropolis out into fifty-five squares of half a mile each: in forty-two of these they have established a station,[46]inits most central part, at which a fire-escape and trained conductor are to be found from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. from Lady-day to Michaelmas, and from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. from Michaelmas to Lady-day. When the remaining thirteen squares are furnished, there will be means of rescue from fire within a quarter of a mile of every house in London: thus the nightly watch for this purpose is better organized with respect to number of stations than even the fire brigade, and, like this force, it is under the general management of a single director. We are all familiar with the sight of these strange-looking machines as they come towering along in the dusk of the evening towards their appointed stations; but few perhaps have seen them in action or have examined the manner in which they are constructed. There are several methods of building them, but the one chiefly used is Wivell’s, a very simple machine and speedily put in action, a description of which we take from the society’s report:—
“The main ladder reaches from thirty to thirty-five feet, and can instantly be applied to most second-floor windows, by means of the carriage lever. The upper ladder folds over the main ladder, and is raised easily in the position represented, by a rope attached to its lever-irons on either side of the main ladder; or, as recently adopted in one or two of the escapes, by an arrangement of pulleys in lieu of the lever-irons. The short ladder, for first floors, fits in under the carriage, and is often of the greatest service. Under the whole length of the main ladder is a canvas trough or bagging, made of stout sailcloth, protected by an outer trough of copper-wire net, leaving sufficient room between for the yielding of the canvas ina person’s descent. The addition of the copper-wire is a great improvement, as, although not affording an entire protection against the canvas burning, it in most cases avails, and prevents the possibility of any one falling through. The soaking of the canvas in alum and other solutions is attended to; but this, while preventing its flaming, cannot avoid the risk of accident from the fire charring the canvas.”
“The main ladder reaches from thirty to thirty-five feet, and can instantly be applied to most second-floor windows, by means of the carriage lever. The upper ladder folds over the main ladder, and is raised easily in the position represented, by a rope attached to its lever-irons on either side of the main ladder; or, as recently adopted in one or two of the escapes, by an arrangement of pulleys in lieu of the lever-irons. The short ladder, for first floors, fits in under the carriage, and is often of the greatest service. Under the whole length of the main ladder is a canvas trough or bagging, made of stout sailcloth, protected by an outer trough of copper-wire net, leaving sufficient room between for the yielding of the canvas ina person’s descent. The addition of the copper-wire is a great improvement, as, although not affording an entire protection against the canvas burning, it in most cases avails, and prevents the possibility of any one falling through. The soaking of the canvas in alum and other solutions is attended to; but this, while preventing its flaming, cannot avoid the risk of accident from the fire charring the canvas.”
When we remember that the fire-escapes often have to be raised above windows from which the flames are pouring forth, it will be seen how valuable is this double protection against the destruction of the canvas. The necessity for it was shown at a fire in Crawford Street, Marylebone, where an explosion took place which fired the canvas and let the conductor fall through just as he was rescuing an inmate,—an accident by which he was dreadfully injured. When people look up at these fire-escapes, they generally shudder at the idea of having to enter the bag, suspended at a height of forty feet from the ground; but in the hour of danger the terrified inmates never exhibit the slightest reluctance. Once in, they slide down the bulging canvas in the gentlest manner, without any of the rapidity that would be imagined from the almost perpendicular position in which it hangs.
The fire-escape which is stationed near the New Road is constructed so that it can be taken off its wheels, in order to allow it to enter the long gardens which here extend before so many of the houses. The height attainable by these escapes varies from 43½ feet to 45 feet. A supplemental short ladder is now carried by most of them, which can be quickly fitted on an emergency into the upper ladder, and increases the height to 50 feet.
The intrepidity of the conductors of these machines is quite astonishing. Familiarity with danger begets a coolness which enables them to place themselves in positions which would prove destructive to unpractised persons. As in most cases they are the prominent actors in a drama witnessed by a whole street-full of excited spectators, they are perhaps tempted by the cheers to risk themselves in a manner they would little dream of doing under other circumstances. In addition to such a stimulus they are rewarded with a silver medal, andwith sums of money, for any extraordinary act of gallantry. Every instance of a daring rescue is entered in the society’s books, from which we have extracted a few examples, to show what enterprising fellows they are. At a fire which broke out in November, 1844, in a house in Hatton Garden, Conductor Sunshine on his arrival found the following state of things. On the second floor a man was sitting on the sill of one of the windows (there were four windows abreast), and on the third floor a man was hanging by his hands to the window-sill at the other extremity of the house-front. After having rescued the man on the second floor, he did not dare to raise his third-floor ladder, for fear of hitting the hanging man’s hands, and causing him to fall; accordingly, he stood upon the top rung of the second-floor ladder, and by so doing could just touch with his upstrained arms the poor fellow’s depending feet. In this position, having himself but a precarious hold of the window-frame beneath, his only footing being the topmost rung, he called to the man to drop when he told him, and discovered from his silence that he was deaf and dumb. Upon being tapped upon the foot, however, he let go, and the conductor managed, incredible as it may appear, to slip him down between himself and the wall on to the top of the ladder, and brought him safely to the ground. In the next case, Conductor Chapman was the hero of the scene, although the indomitable Sunshine was present. Having crossed the roofs of two adjoining out-buildings, Chapman managed to place his ladder against the second back floor of the house on fire. Having rescued a lady, he was obliged to retrace his steps over the roofs, as the fire was coming through the tiling. He could only cross by making a bridge of the short ladder; and scarcely had they cleared the premises when it fell in with a tremendous crash.
On another occasion this intrepid man having made an entrance into the second-floor window of a house in Tottenham-court Road, he was obliged to retreat twice, by reason of his lamp going out in the dense smoke. On the third trial it remained in, and enabled him to search the place. “I called out loud,” he says in his report, “and was answered by a kind ofstifled cry. I rushed across the landing to the back room, and encountered a man, who groaned out, “O save my wife!” I groped about, and laid hold of a female, who fell with me, clasping two children in her arms. I took them up, and brought them to the escape, guiding the man to follow me, and placed them all safely in the canvas, from whence they reached the ground without any injury; and, finally, I came down myself, quite exhausted.” “We thought,” said a bystander, “when he jumped into the second-floor window, that we should not see him again alive; and I cannot tell you how he was cheered when he appeared with the woman and her two children.”
We shall content ourselves by quoting one more exploit from the Reports of the Society, the hero of which was Conductor Wood, who received a testimonial on vellum for the following service at a fire in Colchester-street, Whitechapel, on the 29th of April, 1854:—
“On his arrival, the fire was raging throughout the back of the house, and smoke issuing from every window; upon entering the first-floor room, part of which was on fire, he discovered five persons almost insensible from the excessive heat: he immediately descended the ladderwith a woman on his shoulders, and holding a child by its night-clothes in his mouth; again ascended, re-entered the room, and having enabled the father to escape, had scarcely descended,with a child under each arm, when the whole building became enveloped in flames, rendering it impossible to attempt a rescue of the remainder of the unfortunate inmates.”
“On his arrival, the fire was raging throughout the back of the house, and smoke issuing from every window; upon entering the first-floor room, part of which was on fire, he discovered five persons almost insensible from the excessive heat: he immediately descended the ladderwith a woman on his shoulders, and holding a child by its night-clothes in his mouth; again ascended, re-entered the room, and having enabled the father to escape, had scarcely descended,with a child under each arm, when the whole building became enveloped in flames, rendering it impossible to attempt a rescue of the remainder of the unfortunate inmates.”
The rewards of the Society are not always won by their own men. William Trafford, police constable 344, for instance, had one of the Society’s medals presented to him, for “allowing two persons to drop upon him from the top windows of a house in College-street, Camden-town, and thereby enabling them to escape without material injury.” Nothing is said as to the damage done to poor Trafford by this act of self-devotion.
The real working value of the fire-escapes may be judged from the fact that, during the twenty years they have been on duty, they have attended no less than 2,041 fires, and rescued 214 human beings from destruction. To make this excellent scheme complete, only thirteen stations have now to beestablished, at a first cost of about eighty pounds each; the charitable could not give their money in a more worthy cause than in furnishing these districts, in which many thousands of inhabitants are still exposed to the most horrible of all deaths. To show that the usefulness of the Society has progressed with the number of their escapes, we need only adduce the evidence of the table in the next page, made up to the 25th of March of each year.
The fire-escapes, in addition to their own particular duty, are also of the greatest service to the firemen of the Brigade, as, by the use of their ladders, they are enabled to ascend to any window of a house, and to direct the jet directly upon the burning mass, instead of throwing it wild,—a matter of the greatest importance in extinguishing a fire: for unless you play upon the burning material, and thus cut off the flame at its root, you only uselessly deluge the building with water, which is, we believe, in many cases quite as destructive to stock and furniture as the fire it is intended to extinguish.
Much may be done by the inmates to help themselves when a house is on fire, in case neither the engine nor the escape should arrive in time to assist them. Mr. Braidwood, in his little work on the method of proceeding at fires, advises his readers to rehearse to themselves his recommendations, otherwise when the danger comes, they are thrown, according to his experience, into “a state of temporary derangement, and seem to beactuated only by a desire of muscular movement,” throwing chairs and tables from the tops of houses that are scarcely on fire, and, to wind up the absurdity, he says, “on one occasion I saw crockery-ware thrown from a window on the third floor.”
The means to be adopted to prevent the flames spreading, resolve themselves into taking care not to open doors or windows, which create a draught. The same rule should be observed by those outside; no door or glass should be smashed in before the means are at hand to put out the fire.
Directions for aiding persons to escape from premises on fire.1. Be careful to acquaint yourself with the best means of exit from the house both at the top and bottom.2. On the first alarm, reflect before you act. If in bed at the time, wrap yourself in a blanket, or bedside carpet; open no more doors or windows than are absolutely necessary, and shut every door after you.3. There is always from eight to twelve inches of pure air close to the ground: if you cannot therefore walk upright through the smoke, drop on your hands and knees, and thus progress. A wetted silk handkerchief, a piece of flannel, or a worsted stocking drawn over the face, permits breathing, and, to a great extent, excludes the smoke.4. If you can neither make your way upwards nor downwards, get into a front room: if there is a family, see that they are all collected here, and keep the door closed as much as possible, for remember that smoke always follows a draught, and fire always rushes after smoke.5. On no account throw yourself, or allow others to throw themselves, from the window. If no assistance is at hand, and you are in extremity, tie the sheets together, and, having fastened one end to some heavy piece of furniture, let down the women and children one by one, by tying the end of the line of sheets round the waist and lowering them through the window that is over the door, rather than through one that is over the area. You can easily let yourself down when the helpless are saved.6. If a woman’s clothes should catch fire, let her instantly roll herself over and over on the ground; if a man be present, let him throw her down and do the like, and then wrap her in a rug, coat, or the firstwoollenthing that is at hand.7. Bystanders, the instant they see a fire, should run for the fire-escape, or to the police station if that is nearer, where a “jumping-sheet” is always to be found.
Directions for aiding persons to escape from premises on fire.
1. Be careful to acquaint yourself with the best means of exit from the house both at the top and bottom.
2. On the first alarm, reflect before you act. If in bed at the time, wrap yourself in a blanket, or bedside carpet; open no more doors or windows than are absolutely necessary, and shut every door after you.
3. There is always from eight to twelve inches of pure air close to the ground: if you cannot therefore walk upright through the smoke, drop on your hands and knees, and thus progress. A wetted silk handkerchief, a piece of flannel, or a worsted stocking drawn over the face, permits breathing, and, to a great extent, excludes the smoke.
4. If you can neither make your way upwards nor downwards, get into a front room: if there is a family, see that they are all collected here, and keep the door closed as much as possible, for remember that smoke always follows a draught, and fire always rushes after smoke.
5. On no account throw yourself, or allow others to throw themselves, from the window. If no assistance is at hand, and you are in extremity, tie the sheets together, and, having fastened one end to some heavy piece of furniture, let down the women and children one by one, by tying the end of the line of sheets round the waist and lowering them through the window that is over the door, rather than through one that is over the area. You can easily let yourself down when the helpless are saved.
6. If a woman’s clothes should catch fire, let her instantly roll herself over and over on the ground; if a man be present, let him throw her down and do the like, and then wrap her in a rug, coat, or the firstwoollenthing that is at hand.
7. Bystanders, the instant they see a fire, should run for the fire-escape, or to the police station if that is nearer, where a “jumping-sheet” is always to be found.
Dancers, and those that are accustomed to wear light muslins and other inflammable articles of clothing, when they are likely to come in contact with the gas, would do well to remember, that by steeping them in a solution of alum they would not be liable to catch fire. If the rule were enforced at theatres, we might avoid any possible recurrence of such acatastrophe as happened at Drury Lane in 1844, when poor Clara Webster was so burnt before the eyes of the audience, that she died in a few days.
During the twenty-one years that the Brigade has been in existence the firemen have been called out needlessly no less than 1,695 times, often indeed mischievously; for there are some idle people who think it amusing to send the men and engines miles away to imaginary fires. In most cases, however, these false alarms have originated in the over-anxiety of persons, who have hastened to the station for assistance, deceived by lights which they fancied to be of a suspicious character. Nature herself now and then gives a false alarm, and puts the Brigade to infinite trouble by her vagaries. Not only the men at one station, but nearly half of the entire force, were employed in November, 1835, from 11P.M.to 6A.M.on the succeeding morning, in running after theaurora borealis. Some of the dozen engines out on that occasion reached as far as Kilburn and Hampstead in search of those evanescent lights, which exactly simulated extensive fires. In the succeeding year the red rays of the rising sun took in some credulous members of the Brigade, and led them with their engines full swing along the Commercial and Mile-End Roads. Whilst on this false scent they came upon a real fire, which, although inferior to great Sol himself in grandeur, was far more remunerative, as the God of Morning knows nothing about rewards to first, second, and third engines.
The most remarkable and universal false alarm caused by the play of the northern lights was in the autumn of this same year, when the whole north-eastern horizon seemed possessed by an angry conflagration, from which huge clouds of smoke appeared to roll away. On this occasion the public, as well as the firemen, were deceived: crowds poured forth from the West-end on foot and in carriages to see what they imagined to be a grand effect of the “devouring element;” and thirteen engines turned out with the full impression that a whole suburb of the metropolis was in flames.
The alarms from chimneys on fire have called the enginesout no less than 1,982 times during the years the Brigade has been established, or on an average twice a week. Let us hope that, as we are setting about clearing the atmosphere by Act of Parliament, accidents of this kind will gradually cease. We may now watch with satisfaction many a tall shaft, as we steam down the river, that seems to stand idle in the air; the great rolling clouds of smoke that used to obscure the sky on the southern bank of the Thames are no longer seen, and the air is growing appreciably purer. It is evident that our manufacturers, where they have not become alive to the saving it would effect, have been coerced by the vigorous manner in which the Home Secretary has put the law in force against these black offenders; and we may hope that Dr. Arnott’s smoke-consuming grate, or some modification of it, will ere long find its way into every house to complete the work.
Most men who have arrived at that age when the last one or two buttons of the waistcoat are allowed to be unloosened after dinner, can remember the time when the safety of life and property in the metropolis depended on the efforts of the parochial watchman, a species of animal after the model of the old hackney coachman, encumbered with the self same drab greatcoat, with countless capes, with the self same Belcher handkerchief, or comforter, speaking in the same husky voice, and just as sottish, stupid, and uncivil. At night—for it was not thought worth while to set a watch in the day-time—the authorities provided him with a watch-box in order that he might enjoy his snooze in comfort, and furnished him with a huge lantern in order that its rays might enable the thief to get out of his way in time. As if these aids to escape were not sufficient for the midnight marauder, the watchman was provided with a staff with which he thundered on the pavement as he walked, a noise which he alternated with crying the hour and the state of the weather in a loud singing voice, and which told of his whereabouts when he himself was far out of sight.
Up to the year 1828, and indeed for ten years later, in the city these men were the sole defence by night of the first metropolis in the world. The Charlies, as they were familiarly termed, had very little fight in them at any time; but it is well known that they “winked hard,” when required to do so by people who could afford to pay them for it. It is not astonishing that crimes under such a police flourished apace, or that robberies increased to an extent which alarmed all thoughtfulpeople. Mr. Colquhoun, a magistrate, whose work on the police, written at the beginning of the century, gave the first ideas of the reforms which have been since adopted; estimates that the annual value of the property stolen at the time at which he wrote, was at least 1,500,000l.; and that the evil was gaining ground may be judged from the fact that the number of receivers of stolen goods had increased, between 1780 and 1800, from 300 to 3,000!
In addition to the nightly watch there was another class of persons who, if more active, were calculated in a still greater degree to defeat justice, but in a totally opposite direction: we allude to those men who made their bread out of the blood of the criminal population. The Government of the country was mainly to blame for the sins committed by these loathsome creatures. Since the time of Jonathan Wild thief-catchers had been stimulated to make criminals by what was termed Parliamentary rewards, or sums of forty pounds given by the Home Office to persons affording such information as would lead to the conviction of felons. The object of the officers was to secure blood-money, not to suppress crime; and it was their deliberate practice to allow robberies to proceed, which they might have prevented, in order to obtain the reward. To use their own language, they were accustomed “to let the matter ripen” until the fee was secure, and the work was cut out for the hangman. These men must not be confounded with the Bow Street runners, or detective police, some of whom were able and perhaps honest men; but they chiefly occupied themselves with thief-catching in private preserves, where the pay was ample, and contributed little if anything to the suppression of general crime.
With a class of watchmen totally inoperative as a preventive police, with a class of informers stimulated by unwise enactments to lure men into villany, and with a code savage almost beyond belief—as late as 1800 there were 160 capital crimes, and to break the dam of a fish-pond, or to cut down an apple-tree in a garden, were offences punishable with death; it is not to be wondered at that “the deadly never-green,” asthe gallows was called in the slang language of the day, bore fruit all the year round. Old Townsend, the Bow Street officer, who gave evidence before the committee which sat in 1816 to inquire into the police of the metropolis, said, “I remember in 1783, when Serjeant Adair was recorder, there were forty hung at two executions; the unfortunate people themselves laugh at it now, they call it a bagatelle.” Among the more serious offences were the robberies committed by mounted highwaymen; and, in order to give an idea of their frequency, we again quote the racy evidence of Townsend:—“Formerly there were two, three, or four highwaymen—some on Hounslow Heath, some on Wimbledon Common, some on Finchley Common, some on the Romford Road. I have actually come to Bow Street in the morning, and while I have been leaning over the desk had three or four people come in and say, ‘I was robbed by two highwaymen in such a place;’ ‘I was robbed by a single highwayman in such a place.’ People travel safe now by means of the horse-patrol, which was planned by Sir Richard Ford.” This horse-patrol, established in 1805, was the first innovation on the old system of watching; and it succeeded so admirably, that in a few years the highwaymen were entirely banished from the metropolitan counties, and the great roads in the neighbourhood of London, which were once as unsafe as those in the vicinity of Rome, became as orderly as Fleet Street. It does indeed seem strange that while the outskirts of the metropolis were thus provided with a new force which proved itself to be perfectly capable of clearing away the ruffians, no means should have been taken until 1829 to supersede the old parish constables who had flourished from the time of the Saxons, and appear to have been in full bloom in Elizabeth’s reign, since Dogberry is a finished portrait of the race. No means existed by which the watchmen of different parishes could be made to co-operate against their common enemy, the thief. In the city they were under the direction of no less than thirty different authorities. There were the street-keepers, the patrol, the ward-constables, &c., all acting under separate masters; and so complete was the division thatthe constable of one ward would not interfere to prevent a robbery going on on the opposite side of the street, if it was out of his bounds.
Mr. J. Elliot, in his evidence, given in 1838, before the Committee on “The Metropolis Police Offices,” mentions a glaring instance of the perfect paralysis of the executive which arose out of this absurd system. “Two years ago,” he said, “a neighbour of mine had his warehouse broken open, and a hundred pounds’ worth of tea was taken away; a watchman at the top of the street saw a cart going away from the warehouse; but he said it was not in his ward, and therefore he did not interfere.” The public indisposition to get rid of the old watchmen most certainly did not arise from any ignorance of their inefficiency; they had long, in fact, been bywords of feebleness and imbecility. To thrash a Charlie was a pet pastime of the young bloods of that day. The determined propensity to doze of these worthy functionaries was a standing topic for witticism. “A friend of mine,” said Erskine, “was suffering from a continual wakefulness, and various methods were taken to send him to sleep, but in vain. At last his physicians resorted to an experiment which succeeded perfectly. They dressed him in a watchman’s coat, put a lantern in his hand, and placed him in a sentry-box, and he was asleep in ten minutes.” It might be imagined that tokens like these indicated pretty clearly that a reform would have been hailed with delight. The result proved, however, that to abuse a thing and to amend it are widely different. Mr. Peel, who had been feeling his way to his grand experiment by the establishment of a Bow-street day patrol, obtained in 1828 the appointment of a committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the expediency of establishing a uniform system of police in the metropolis; and the committee having reported to the House in favour of the scheme, it was immediately adopted. This salutary change was not made without creating a deep sensation. That stalking-horse, “the liberty of the subject,” which in truth meant the liberty of rogues to plunder, was immediately paraded before the public; and we have no doubt whatever that in the tavern debating-clubs of the day it was reported that with the fall ofthe Charlies “the sun of England’s glory had set for ever.” And indeed to Englishmen, jealous of their personal liberty, the establishment of this new force might at first have created some well-founded alarm. It was no longer a question of a few constables, but of a standing army of nearly six thousand men, drilled like soldiers, taught to act in masses, and entirely independent of the control of the ratepayers. The very fact of the appointment, as one of the Commissioners, of Colonel Rowan, who had been employed in that quasi-military force the Irish constabulary, favoured the idea that the new police were to be a veritablegendarmerie. That such was the popular idea was clearly indicated by the numerous prints which appeared at the time of a fierce-looking “Peeler,” armed with a belt full of pistols and a formidable sword.
Those accustomed only to the slow pace of the constitutional watchman, as he waddled out to his post, beholding with astonishment the sergeant’s party as it marched along the kerb in close file, and keeping quick military step, believed that so powerful a force, concentrated under a single head, might be turned to political purposes. The constables never appeared in the streets without being followed by crowds hooting at them, and calling them by the obnoxious names of “Peelers,” “Raw Lobsters,” “Crushers,” “Bobbies,” &c. At last, in 1833, an actual collision took place between them and the great unwashed in Coldbath Fields. A meeting of Chartists was appointed to be held there, from which serious consequences were expected to arise. Directions were given to disperse it; but whilst in the performance of their duty three of the police were stabbed, and one of them mortally. It might have been thought that the very fact of a mob coming thus armed, with the express purpose of resisting a constituted authority, would have excited the indignation of the more respectable classes of the citizens. The contrary was the effect. A coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of justifiable homicide—a pretty significant sign of the feeling towards the new force of the class from which the jury was selected. Such was the ferment that a commission was held to inquire into the conduct of the police, and they were exoneratedfrom the charge of having, as a body, acted with greater violence than was necessary. From that period, with the exception of the investigation during the Beer Bill commotion into the charge of having dispersed a gathering in Hyde Park with undue severity—a charge which was not at all substantiated—their conduct has been so exemplary as completely to have removed the original dislike. Experience has served to teach the men the virtue of moderation and patience; and they are now looked upon as a constitutional force, simply because we have got accustomed to them.
At the present time the Metropolitan Police Force consists of—a Chief Commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne; 2 Assistant-Commissioners, Captain Labalmondiere and Captain Harris; 18 Superintendents, 133 Inspectors, 625 Sergeants, and 4,954 Constables; making a total of all ranks of 5,734. The machinery by which this comparatively small force is enabled to watch by night and day every alley, street, and square of this vast metropolis, nay, tries every accessible door and window of its 400,000 houses, patrols 90 square miles of country, exercises a surveillance over the 8,000 reputed thieves who prey upon its inhabitants, and keeps in awe the 40,000 or 50,000 people who form “the uneasy classes” of the metropolis, is not very complicated. The metropolitan police district extends from Charing Cross 15 miles in every direction, and includes the whole of Middlesex and large portions of Surrey, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire, for which seven counties the Commissioners are magistrates and the police are sworn constables. The river Thames is also under its jurisdiction from Chelsea to Barking Creek, including all its wharves, docks, landing-places, and dockyards. The entire district has a circumference of 90 miles, and extends over an area of 700 square miles, 100 of which, forming what is called the interior area, is covered with our great Babel of brick and mortar. This wide extent of ground is mapped out into 18 divisions, each of which is watched by a detachment of men, varying in number according to the extent of the area, the exposed nature of the property, or the density of the population:—
This it will be seen that policeman X, who figures so often in the pages of “Punch,” is a myth of our facetious contemporary.
Each division is separated into subdivisions, the subdivisions into sections, and, last of all the sections into beats. Of the main divisions, A, although one of the smallest in area, is by far the most important; it is the seat of the central authority located at Scotland Yard. Its police are much finer men (taller on the average than the Guards), and their duties are more responsible than those of any other division. They attend upon the Sovereign, the Parliament, the theatres, the parks, and all other places of public resort, such as Epsom and Ascot races, the flower shows, Crystal Palace, &c. The A division is, in fact, to the general body of Metropolitan Police what the Guards are to the army. To enable it to perform these extra duties, it has a reserve force of 250 men, drafted off on ordinary occasions in companies of fifty each to the B, C, D, G, and M divisions; upon this reserve force it draws when necessary.
The other divisions are pretty much alike in the nature of their duties, which are simply those of watching. Certain modifications, however, arise from the character of their districts; thus a constable on duty at Whitechapel, if suddenly removed to Westminster or Mary-le-bone, would find himselfconsiderably at fault, inasmuch as a familiarity with fights in courts, disputes with tramps, and the coarse language of low lodging-houses, is not a good school for the amenities required among a more fashionable population. In all the divisions exactly the same organization is maintained, and the same amount of arduous work is performed. Two-thirds of the entire force is on duty from nine or ten in the evening till five or six in the morning. Not long since the night-police were condemned to patrol the streets for nine hours, without sitting down, or even leaning their weary limbs against any support. This severe labour was found incompatible with the maintenance of due vigilance towards the end of the watch; the men are, therefore, now kept on duty only eight hours. Day work is divided into reliefs, and extends from six a.m. to nine p.m. Notwithstanding its greater severity, there are men who prefer the stolid unimpeded walk in the night, in which they go through their work like machines, to the more bustling and exciting day-patrol. The sergeants or inspectors make the round of the districts to see that the constables are duly parading their beats.
If a door or window is discovered in an unsafe condition, its insecurity is immediately made known to the inmates; and if the constable fails to detect the circumstance during his tour, and it is afterwards observed by his sergeant or the succeeding constable, he is reported, and fined for his neglect. Continued inattention is visited by dismissal. Offences of every kind are severely punished, as appears from the fact that, between the years 1850 and 1856, 1,276 policemen were turned out of the force. Of these, sixty-eight were criminally convicted. Thus the men are kept up to their work, and collusions with thieves are rendered exceedingly difficult. Every morning a sheet of “Occurrences” is forwarded to the Chief Commissioner at Scotland Yard, which contains the full particulars of all matters worthy of notice which have taken place during the night throughout the metropolis, and a record of all property lost or stolen, from a gold pin to a chest of plate, is kept at the same central establishment.
In case any affair of unusual importance occurs, a murder or a great robbery, the intelligence is conveyed by the constable who first becomes cognizant of it, to the central station of his division; from this point the news is radiated by policemen carrying what are termed route-papers, or papers of particulars of the offence, on the backs of which are marked the hour at which they were received at the different divisions through which they passed. In this manner information can be circulated in two hours to all the stations, excepting those belonging to the exterior or suburban districts. In these reports are given the names of the constables who were on the beats in which the offence took place, the sergeants in charge of the sections, and the names of the constables whose particular business it was to trace the offenders as far as possible. We understand, however, that the electric telegraph is now shooting its nerve-like threads to all the divisional stations in the metropolis, and, when the new agent is brought to bear, the communication will be almost instantaneous. Thus, in case of robbery, every constable will be made acquainted with the particulars without a moment’s delay, and the police-net will be thrown at one cast over the entire metropolis. Thieves will no longer be able to get away with their plunder, ere a hue and cry has been raised after the property. Had the telegraph been in existence, in all probability Her Majesty’s plate-chest would have been intercepted before it reached the field where it was ransacked in Shoreditch. In cases of riot of a formidable nature, the telegraph will be able to concentrate 5,000 men in a couple of hours upon any spot within five miles of Charing Cross.
Towards the outskirts of the metropolis, in the exterior or suburban districts, the widely-scattered constables chiefly perform the duties of a rural police. The great distances they have to traverse necessitates the use of horses; here, accordingly, we find the mounted police, the successors of the old horse-patrol established in 1805. The strength of this force, men and officers included, is only 120; they are furnished with powerful nags, and are armed with swords andpistols. Indeed the foot-police, whose beats lie in unfrequented rural districts, are allowed side-arms—a precaution which the fate of the policeman, who was brutally murdered in a field at Dagenham, in Essex, some years since, proved to be by no means unnecessary.
In the middle of the metropolitan police district is the City police, under the management of the corporation. The area of this peculiar, to borrow an ecclesiastical term, is only one square mile and a quarter; but forming as it does the very centre of business, it is by far the richest part of London, for, while it contains only one-twentieth portion of its inhabitants, it possesses a fourteenth part of its wealth. This small space is, in fact, the great heart not only of the metropolis, but of the commercial world. Through its principal thoroughfares a vaster flood of traffic is poured for several hours than is to be found in any other streets in the world. In the year 1850 it was ascertained that no less than 67,510 foot-passengers, and 13,796 vehicles, containing no fewer than 52,092 persons, passed Bow Church, Cheapside, in one day. By another channel of communication, Aldgate, near the Minories, 58,430 foot-passengers, and 9,332 vehicles, containing 20,804 persons, passed in the same time; and it is estimated that altogether no less than 400,000 persons are poured into this one square mile and a quarter in the course of the twelve hours. The congregation in so confined a space of so vast a number of people, many of whom are forced to carry about with them considerable sums of money, must prove a great source of attraction to thieves of all kinds, and demands the constant vigilance of a comparatively large body of police. It was not until ten years after the successful experiment of the metropolitan police, however, that the corporation of London, wedded to its old system of ward-beadles, street-keepers, and imbecile constables, could be brought to adopt the new system; but it must be admitted that the present force, consisting of 1 superintendent, 13 inspectors, 12 station-sergeants, 47 sergeants, and 492 policemen, making a total of 565, do the duty well; and the City, with all its stored wealth, is now as safe as the rest of the metropolis. Atall the banks plain-clothes men are constantly in attendance to keep out the swell-mob, who buzz about such places as wasps do about a peach wall; and in the great thoroughfares, such as Cheapside, six or seven policemen are always to be found.
The peculiarities of the City, which produce its characteristic robberies, are the number of its uninhabited warehouses, the perfect labyrinth of lanes which traverse and intersect its streets in all directions, and the vast number of carts and vans always standing full of valuable goods at the warehouse doors. The greatest precautions are taken to mark the fastenings on the warehouse doors, so as to betray any attempt to force them; and these devices are generally successful. The reticulation of lanes will always prove a trouble to the police and a security to pickpockets. Not many years ago a bank clerk was attacked at mid-day in one of these passages in the very heart of the City, but luckily he retained hold of his case, which held most valuable property, and it is now the custom to chain these bill-cases to the person, just as they used to chain books in the olden time to the library shelves. It is also customary for bank clerks to tear the corners off all Bank of England notes, so as to render them unnegotiable, unless to persons who can produce the corresponding piece,—a contrivance which, no doubt, put a stop to audacious attacks upon these money-carriers in the middle of the day. The most common robberies are those from vehicles loading and discharging valuable silk and other goods at the warehouse doors. For the protection of such goods a small dog is the best policeman; and carts are rarely seen in the City without one of these nimble guardians. The old restriction which prevented the metropolitan police from entering the City, and the City force from entering the metropolitan districts, is now abandoned. Nevertheless, the fact of their being under a distinct jurisdiction prevents that unity of action which ought to prevail. Not long since, a City policeman patrolling one of the streets which extended into the metropolitan department, was informed by a passer-by that they were killing a constable at the top of the street, to which the policeman replied that it was out of his beat and he could not interfere! When nextthe Sibyl presents her leaves to the city corporation, in all probability the present isolated system of police will not be found inscribed on any one of them.
Scotland Yard, as we have said, is the brain or central ganglion which directs the system of metropolitan police. Here the commissioners sit daily, and are ready to receive the complaints or other communications of the public. Its rooms are full of clerks, but all in the uniform of the police; in one office may be seen the constables wielding the pen instead of the truncheon, preparing daily returns and reports; in another, reading the morning and country papers, to learn what is doing that may require their presence, and to know what thieves have turned up in the police courts; in a third room an inspector is reading to the clerks from the different divisions any particulars it may be advisable to communicate to the entire force; in a fourth we see the secret chamber of the detective police—those human moles who work without casting up the earth lest their course should be discovered. In an office apart from the rest are the foreign detectives, who watch overmauvais sujetsfrom abroad. The entire floating foreign population in the metropolis is well known to the police, and no plots against allied governments could well be hatched in London without their cognizance. All articles lost in public conveyances are here taken charge of. The “Lost Property Office” contains piles of umbrellas, parasols, and walking-sticks, together with a curious assemblage of articles of jewellery and wearing apparel, brought by honest cabmen. On one occasion a parcel with cash to the amount of 1,600l.was deposited; and on another a thousand-pound note. Valuable property is always claimed immediately; but sticks, parasols, and umbrellas accumulate in a manner which proves that their loss is due to the carelessness of their owners and not to the loose morality of others. The offices for the inspectors of dangerous structures and for licensing common lodging-houses and the drivers and conductors of public conveyances, all of which departments are managed by the police, are close at hand.
In the drilling-ground of the force—an open space surroundedby a hoarding close to the State Paper Office—there are generally from thirty to forty men in course of training, to fill up the gaps caused by dismissals, resignations, &c. On the occasion of our visit the yard was occupied by two bodies—the raw material, in the shape of some twenty individuals dressed in every variety of costume; and another batch of the finished article, buttoned up in blue and resplendent with plated buttons. The eye had only to run along the “gammut of men,” if we may so term the fresh recruits drawn up before us, in order to see from how many ranks of society the police brigade is reinforced; smock-frocks, shooting-coats, frock-coats, tail-coats, some seedy and worn, some still good and fresh, denoted the condition in life of their owners, and the necessities to which some of them were reduced. Young men flushed with hope come from the provinces to push their fortunes, after a brief struggle find themselves stranded, and accept this, the most readily-obtained respectable service.
As every policeman must be able to read and write, have a good character, and be of sound body and mind, the mere overflowings of the labour-market are excluded from the force; moreover, persons can always leave the service by giving a month’s notice. For these reasons a much more intelligent class of men recruit the police than the army, and it is singular to note how this intelligence tells. The drill of constables and soldiers is nearly alike, yet the former learn all their movements in a fortnight, whilst the latter require at least two months. Intelligence of a certain kind, however, may be carried too far; your sharp Londoner makes a very bad policeman; he is too volatile and conceited to submit himself to discipline, and is oftener rejected than the persons from other parts, with whom eight-tenths of the force are recruited. The best constables come from the provincial cities and towns. They are both quicker and more “plucky” than the mere countryman fresh from the village—a singular fact, which proves that manly vigour, both physical and mental, is to be found in populations neither too aggregated nor entirely isolated.
The policemen, perfect in their material drill, next undergo a mental one. Drawn up in line, a sergeant or inspector questions them as to their duties. “Supposing you see two men fighting, what would you do?” or, “If you were to discover a house on fire, how would you act?” Sometimes the constable addressed answers the question, but more generally his interrogator does it for him. When drilled and catechized to the full pitch, he doffs his plain clothes for a uniform, and comes out in the full bloom of a policeman. But he is still a neophyte, and before he is intrusted with a beat he attends at a police-court in order to watch the manner in which trained constables comport themselves in the witness-box. Having learned to give evidence clearly and briefly, to listen to ludicrous scenes without smiling, and to bear bad language with imperturbable patience, he is marched off to the division in which he has elected to serve (the policeman is always if possible allowed this privilege), and with his armlet on his wrist, his staff in one pocket, and his rattle in the other, he patrols his beat.
Two especial injunctions are given to him—never to show his staff except to protect himself, and never to spring his rattle at night except in a case of great urgency. The care taken to hide his offensive weapon is one of the best points of our police arrangements. The officers sent over here to gain information, prior to the introduction of the English police system in Paris, were astonished at this forbearance: the Frenchmen could not understand why a man should carry a deadly weapon, unless to make a demonstration with it! In this little incident we see the essential difference between the French and English character. In six months’ time it is expected that the young hand will prove a steady officer; that a wild young fellow, who perhaps only a few months before knew no restraint, should become a machine, moving, thinking, and speaking only as his instruction-book directs; and so wonderful are the powers of organization that such an officer he generally becomes. We all know him, for we see him day by day as we promenade the streets. Stiff, calm, and inexorable, he seems to take no interest in any mortal thing; to have neither hopesnor fears. Amid the bustle of Piccadilly or the roar of Oxford Street, P. C. X 59 stalks along, aninstitutionrather than a man. We seem to have no more hold of his personality than we could possibly get of his coat, buttoned up to the throttling-point. Go, however, to the section-house, an establishment generally attached to the chief station of each division, in which the unmarried policemen are lodged, and enter the common hall or reading-room, and you no longer see policemen, but men; they have cast off their tight coats, as certain other unboiled lobsters, at fixed intervals, cast off their shells. They are absolutely laughing with each other! Some are writing, some are reading the morning papers, a group are grinning at the caricature of P. C. X 202 in “Punch;” some are deep in the horrors of a romance, extended at full length along a bench, with their trowsers tucked up; all are at their ease, taking rational amusement. In the common room of every section-house there is a library.[47]That in King Street, Westminster, contains 1,200 volumes, a well-selected medley of subjects, grave and gay. Some of the volumes, indeed, surprised us, as they seemed to indicate an erudite taste which we did not give police constables credit for possessing. We give a few of their titles as they came under our notice:—