the most violent and savage assaults on the
members of our London police force. As we read the
details of such brutality, we get at last to wonder
that men can be found to do the duty of policemen
at all. What a life theirs is! The things
which most men carefully avoid, it is their business
to put themselves in the way of. To walk
along lonely roads by night, to pass through
notoriously low neighbourhoods, to frequent
the haunts of well-known bad characters—all
these are proceedings from which most men
shrink, even when it is necessary to engage in
them once in a way. The policeman encounters
them habitually, day after day, and, which is
worse, night after night. With most of us it
is a study to avoid all intercourse with thieves
and garotters, and, above all things, and at any
cost, to keep out of "rows." The policeman
is habitually brought in contact with those bad
characters just alluded to, while to get into
rows, instead of keeping out of them, is the
very essence of his duty. And then there is
nothing glorious or picturesque, or externally
attractive, about the achievements of the policeman.
The battles which he engages in are
squalid, ignoble brawls. No poet chooses one
of them as a theme on which his muse may
exercise herself, nor does any "own correspondent"
chronicle their details. The policeman
does not march into action with trumpets
sounding and colours flying, and with troops of
comrades round about him in all directions.
Single-handed, and with no stimulating
influences to urge him on—unless a stout heart
and a sense of duty may be so regarded—he
dashes in among a crowd of foul-mouthed,
violent ruffians, and fastens on his man.
"Acting on information I had received "—so
runs the tale which is told so often that we take
it as a thing of course—" I went to a house in
Slaughter's-court, Whitechapel, and took the
prisoner into custody." How often do we read
those words, or others like them, and bearing
the same purport; but do we fully understand
and realise what we read?

When "acting upon information that he had
received," Policeman A 1 starts on an
expedition into what is called a low neighbourhood,
in search of somebody who is "wanted," he
goes deliberately, and knowing what he is about,
among the members of a hostile tribe, all of
whom hate him with a deadly hatred, and are
prepared to thwart him at every turn, and to
take every opportunity of hindering him in the
performance of the duty which he has got to
do. He goes among a set of ruffians who have
all, as they suppose, plenty of wrongs sustained
at his hands, or those of his comrades, for
which they long to take vengeance, and who
are restrained by no human feeling from the
commission of the cruelest and most dastardly
acts. There is surely evidence of more real
courage given by a readiness to encounter such
perils as these than by many a showy act of
daring which has the promise of winning
renown and glory for its prospective reward.

Almost daily we are made acquainted with
the details of fresh outrages committed on the
members of this ill-used force. We have almost
got used to them. It is without surprise,
though still with undiminished disgust, that
we read the accounts of those acts of brutality
which are now of every-day occurrence. We
read, to take an instance, indignantly, indeed,
but still regarding it too much as a matter of
course, such a case as that recently recorded
of William Cannon, well known for violent
assaults on the police, and who is charged with
assaulting Police-constable Chapple, and breaking
his leg in two places. Police-constable
Chapple tells admirably well the simple story of
how it all happened, and it deserves, as indeed
does the whole report of the case, to be put on
record, as symptomatic of the exact state of our
civilisation in 1867.

"About twelve o'clock on the night of the 7th
of September," says John Chapple, "I was in
Frederick-street, St. John's Wood, when I saw
a crowd come out of the Prince George of
Cumberland public-house. The prisoner was there,
and knocked another man down. He wanted
to fight, and the man gave him into custody for
the assault. He had been drinking, but knew
what he was about. I took him into custody.
He swore he would not go, and I told him he
had better go quietly. He struck me on the
side of my head, and we fell. I was on the top.
I rose up, and pulled him up. He made use of
frightful language, and said he would not go.
He struck at me again, and we fell a second
time. Then he tried to kick me, and called
upon his companions to come and get him away.
A man caught hold of my great-coat and pulled
me up. The prisoner got up and kicked me
violently just above my left ankle. The blow
broke my leg in two places, and I fell. The
other man is well known, and there is a warrant
against him, but he has absconded."

Here the evidence of this, the unfortunate
principal in the affair, comes to an end.
Other witnesses appear, and finish the story
among them. It comes out that there was
a man named Cooley present, who, when
the policeman lay on the ground with his leg
broken, said: " Let me jump upon the——
and finish him." He was prevented from doing
so by his wife. Indeed the women present on
this occasion seem to have been possessed of
some human qualities. One of them tried to
get at the policeman's rattle, that she might
spring it and bring assistance. Another—
Sophia Green—by all means let her name
survive—came battling through the crowd, and,
seeing the ruffian, Cannon, battering the
unfortunate policeman as he lay helpless on the
ground, caught the brute by the coat-tail, and
tried to pull him off; and the coat-tail coming
away in her hands, got presently a firmer hold
upon some other part of his dress, and did really
succeed in tearing him away from his victim.
A good woman this, in her way, surely! "The
crowd gave no assistance," she said, in
concluding her evidence, " but stood looking on, as
if it, were a play."

This is a story deserving of much and serious
consideration. The position of that policeman,