Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/1015

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980
POLICE


suppressed cases are very great. As regards the rural police of India every village headman and the village watchman as well as the village police office are required by the code to communicate to the nearest magistrate or the officer in charge of the nearest police station, whichever is nearest, any information respecting offenders. On the whole the system is very efficient. The police, which has numerous duties over and above those of the prevention and detection of crime, greatl ' aids a government so paternal as that of India in keeping touch with the widely extended masses of the population.

France.-It is a matter of history that under Louis XIV., who created the police of Paris, and in succeeding times, the most unpopular and unjustifiable use was made of police as a secret instrument for the purposes of despotic government. Napoleon availed himself largely of police instruments, especially through his minister Fouché On the restoration of constitutional government under Louis Phili pe, police action was less dangerous. but the danger revived untiier the second empire. The ministry of police, created by the act of the Directory in 1796, was in 1818 suppressed as an inde ndent office and in 1852 it was united with the ministry of th); interior. The regular police organization, which preserves order, checks evil-doing, and " runs in ” malefactors, falls naturally and broadly into two grand divisions, the administrative and the active, the police “ in the office ” and the police "out of doors.” The first attends to the clerical business, voluminous and incessant. An army of clerks in the numerous bureaus, hundreds of patient government employés, the ronds de cuir, as they are contemptuously called, because they sit for choice on round leather cushions, are engaged constantly writing and filling in forms for hours and hours, day after day. The active army of police out of doors, which constitutes the second half of the whole machine, is divided into two classes: that in uniform and that in plain clothes. Every visitor to Paris is familiar with the rather theatrical-looking policeman, in his short frock-coat or cape, smart képz cocked on one side of his head, and with a sword by his side. T e first is known by the title of agent, sergent de ville, gardzen de la pam, and is a very useful public servant. He is almost invariably an old soldier, a sergent who has left the army with a first-class character, honesty and sobriety being indispensable qualifications.

These uniformed police are not all employed in the streets and arrondissements, but there is a large reserve composed of the six central brigades, as they are called, a very smart body of old soldiers, well drilled, well dressed and fully equipped; armed, moreover, with rifles, with which they mount guard when employed as sentries at the doors or entrance of the prefecture. In Paris argot the men of these six central brigades are nicknamed " varsseaux " (vessels), because they carry on their collars the badge of the city of Paris-an ancient ship-while the sergeants in the town districts wear only numbers, their own individual number, and that of the quarter in which they serve. These vazsseaux claim to be the élzte of the force; they come in daily contact with the Gardes de Paris, horse and foot, a fine corps of city gendarmerie, and, as competing with them, take a particular pride in themselves. Their comrades in the quarters resent this pretension and declare that when in contact with the people the vazsseaux make bad blood by their arrogance and want of tact. The principal business of four at least o these central brigades is to be on call when required to reinforce the out-of-door police at special times. Of the two remaining central brigades one controls public carriages, the other the Halles, the great central market by which Paris is provided with a large part of its food. Eve cab-stand is under the charge of its own policeman, who knows the men, notes their arrival and departure, and marks their general behaviour. Other poliapie officers of the central brigades superintend the street tra c.

So much for the police in uniformi That in plain clothes, en bourgeois, as the French call it, is not so numerous, but fulfils a higher, or at least a more confidential mission. lts members are styled ins ctors, not agents, and their functions fall under four principal iliizads. There is, first of all, the service of the SGretéin other words, of public safety-the detective department, employed entirely in the pursuit and capture of criminals; next comes the police. now amalgamated with the Stirete that watches ove r

the morals of the capital and possesses arbitrary powers under, the existing laws of France; then there is the bngade de garnis, the police charged with the supervision of all lodging-houses, from the commonest “sleep-sellers' ' shop, as it is called, to *he grandest hotels Last of all there is the brigade for enquiries, whose business it is to act as the eyes and ears of the prefecture. The pay of the gardzens de la pazx is from 1400 to 1700 francs; brigadiers get 2000 francs; sous-bngadzers 1800 francs; 0 czers de pazx 3000 to 6000 francs. The proportion of police to in abitants is one in 352.

Germany -Taking the Berlin force as illustrative of the police system in the German Empire, police duties are as various as in France; the systeni includes a political police, controlling all matters relating to the press, societies, clubs and public and social amusements. Police duties are carried out under the direction of the royal police presidency. the executive police force comprising a police colonel, with, besides commissaries of criminal investigations, 5

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captains, lieutenants, acting-lieutenants, sergeant-majors and a large body of constables (schutzmanner).

It is computed that the proportion of population to police in Berlin is between 350 and 400 to each officer. The pay of the police is principally provided from fiscal sources and varies in an ascending scale from 1125 marks and lodging allowance for the lowest class of constable.

Austrza.-Taking Vienna in the same way as illustrative of the Austrian police, it is to be observed that there are three branches: (1) administration; (2) public safety and judicial police; and (3) the government police. At the head of the police service in Vienna there is a president of police and at the head of each of the three branches there is an Oberpolzzemzth or chief commissary. The head of the government branch sometimes fills the office of president. Each o the branches is subdivided into departments, at the head of which are Poltzezrathe. Passing over the subdivisions of the administrative branch, the public safet and judicial branch includes the following departments: the ol¥ce for public safety, the central inquiry office and the record or Emdenzbureau. The government police branch comprises three departments: the government police office, the press office, and the Veremsbureau or office for the registration of societies. The proportion of p0lice constables to the inhabitants is one to 436.

Belgzum.-In Belgian municipalities the burgomasters are the heads of the force, which is under their control. The administrator of public safety is, however, specially under the minister of justice, who sees that the laws and regulations affecting the police are properly carried out, and he can call on all public functionaries to act in furtherance of that ob'ect. The administrator of public safety is specially charged with the administration of the law in regard to aliens, and this law is applied to persons stirring up sedition. The duty of the gendarmerie, who constitute the horse and foot police, is generally to maintain internal order and peace. In Brussels as elsewhere the burgomaster is the head, but for executive purposes there is a chief commissary (subject, however, to the orders of the burgomaster), with assistant commissaries, and commissaries of divisions and other officers and central and other bureaus, with a body of agents (police constables) in each. There are two main classes of police functions recognized by law, the administrative and the judicial police, the former engaged in the daily maintenance of peace and order and so preventing offences, the latter in the investigation of crinie and tracing offenders, but the duties are necessarily erformed to a great extent by the same agents. The two other functions of the judicial police are, however, limited to the same classes of officers, and they perform the same duties as in Paris-the law in practice there being expressly adopted in Brussels.

In Swzlzerland, which is sometimes classed with Belgium as among the least-policed states of Europe, the laws of the cantons vary. In some respects they are stricter than in Belgium or even in France. Thus a permzs de séjour is sometimes required where none is in practice necessary in Paris or Brussels. Russia was till lately the most police-ridden country in the world; not even in France in the worst days of the monarchy were the people so much in the hands of the police. To give some idea of the wide reaching functions of the police the power assumed in matters momentous and quite insignificant, we may quote from the list of circulars issued by the minister of the interior to the governors of the various provinces during four recent years. The governors were directed to regulate religious instruction in secular schools, to prevent horse-stealing, to control subscriptions collected for the holy places in Palestine, to regulate the advertisements of mediclnes and the printing on cigarette papers, to examine the quality of quinine soap and overlook the cosmetics and other toilet articles such as soap, starch, brilliantine, tooth-brushes and insect- owder -provided by chemists. They were to issue regulations For the proper construction of houses and villages, to exercise an active censorship over published price-lists and printed notes of invitation and visiting cards, as well as seals and rubber stamps. All private meetings and public gatherings, with the expressions of opinion anitl the class of subjects discussed, were to be controlled by the o ice.

P The political or state lice was the invention of Nicholas I. Alexander I. had createdpca ministry of the interior, but it was Nicholas who devised the second branch, which he designed for his own protection and the security of the state. After the insurrection of 1865, he created a special bulwark for his defence, and invented that secret police which grew into the notorious “Third Section” of the emperor's own chancery, and while it lasted, was the most dreaded power in the empire. It was practically supreme in the state, a ministry independent of all other ministries, laced quite above them and responsible only to the tsar himselii

Umted States.—The organization of police forces in the United States differs more or less in the different states of the Union. As a rule the force in cities is under municipal control, but to this rule there are numerous exceptions. In Boston, for instance, the three commissioners at the head of the force are appointed by the governor of Massachusetts. The force in New York City, alike from the standpoint of numbers and of the size and character