OBSERVATIONS,

&c.

LET me not be thought to disparage the efforts of those who are advancing the civilisation and knowledge of man; but if, from the variegated condition of society, the instruction in question must be thus limited, are we to rely upon education alone, as the charm by which crime is to be dissipated? The BIBLE, it may be said, is the safeguard against temptation; that nothing more is wanting, and that it affords a comprehensive answer to such reasoning. Granting, however, that the contents of that sacred volume were retained in the memory, and its spirit, for a time, felt in the mind, still, from the very nature of man, we must remember that it is not only necessary that good principles be given, but that they must be preserved; and such is the collision of human intercourse, that in a population offering every species of seduction, it is an indispensable duty (as well as necessary security) to create some more positive check against the contingencies of vicious association, than the declining influences of education and religion can in such a state afford. In short, I fear, after all, that restraint from doing wrong will be more powerful than the admonition to do right. It is, therefore, to this restraint that we must look; and if I am correct in the view which I have just taken, its moral influence will be unquestionable; it will force back the criminal, it will obstruct his progress in the road which he has chosen, and drive him to the selection of another, which will carry him to a happier and a better end. It is to the rising generation, as the objects of our peculiar commiseration, that our care should be most earnestly directed; for it is upon the more apt and better educated that temptation now operates. A dull listless youth is no

33] Observations on the present State of the Police. 213

fit subject for the experienced thieves of this town; but if he be adroit, active, and daring, he is soon discovered, he is quickly and easily trained, and thus he, who might have become an useful, is made a most pernicious member of society. - It will be obvious that these latter observations apply exclusively to the laborious classes of the community in this metropolis; to those who are devoted to the handicraft or mechanical operations of life, whose time, if at work, must necessarily be absorbed; or who, if not at work, must be subject to all the evils which idleness produces; who must also be exposed to the temptations, and invited by the facilities, which a wealthy metropolis opens to the commission of crime; a metropolis, where the frequency of offences, and the number of offenders, soon weaken the impressions with which the young may have embarked in life, and finally lead them on, without fear or shame, to acts from which they might originally have shrunk with horror. For such persons, so circumstanced, there must be a more decided counterpoise against these mischiefs, than the sort of education which we have been considering.

If I could now indulge a hope that I had satisfactorily proved the necessity and shown the means and the result of an efficient police, I should here conclude, in the expectation of better prospects than I have hitherto drawn: but the public has been so long directing their attention to secondary rather than to primary causes; or, to speak more properly, applying correctives to consequences, rather than attempting to remove the grievances which have occasioned them, that our visible and sensible mischiefs have become almost the only sources of our solicitude.

These consequences, therefore, cannot be neglected, when we find them acting with so powerful an effect upon society, and will, more than all that has been hitherto said, irresistibly prove the necessity and efficacy of original prevention. The class in nearest affinity to the higher description of offenders, namely, the receivers of stolen goods, strikingly exemplifies this view: we are told, that if there were no receivers, there would be no thieves; but (granting incidental exceptions) I maintain, with reference to prior causes, that the converse is the true proposition, and that we have been brought into the fallacy of so unreasonable a notion, by tolerating the causes which have produced these receivers, instead of having endeavoured to destroy the means, without which they never could have had existence.

The persons in question, though a criminal, must be originally considered as a mere commercial, body; for there must have been some pre-existing circumstances to have excited

their illicit avarice. Before any number of receivers or buyers appeared, there must have been an adequate number of sellers, with whose commodities purchasers might expect to carry on a profitable trade; therefore it is absurd to transpose these two classes, and to substitute effects for causes; and if, notwithstanding the powerful secondary influence which the receivers now have, it can be made manifest that it is entirely secondary; by removing the sources of their existence, we destroy their influence, and necessarily cause them to disappear.

We shall probably best understand the necessity of thus reaching these obnoxious persons, by considering whether any of the measures hitherto attempted against them have been, or are likely to be, effectual; and thence we shall obviously discover the policy of those at which we are aiming.

I regret the want of information which would enable me to produce a correct estimate of the known receivers in London; but I have availed myself of the best practical means to obtain their number and residences in the two districts where local opportunities and advantages have facilitated my inquiry upon the subject. From authorities, upon which I can fully rely, I find that there are within, or closely bordering upon, the district of Worship-street, twenty-five, and in that of Marlboroughstreet one hundred and eighty-six, receivers of stolen goods.' Now, the very soul and being of their traffic are secresy, confidence, and every wicked contrivance which the most subtle and refined craft can produce. How otherwise does it occur, that of the hundreds and thousands of the common thieves, and as common traffickers with the receivers, of the former there are so many, and of the latter so few, who suffer? -The nature of their commerce, and the character of their almost exclusive customers, will afford the solution of this difficulty. Detection under our present system can rarely be accomplished but through those immediately dealing with them, or cognizant of their transactions. And is it probable that by their means the receivers will be discovered?-Will the spoliator annihilate the only mart for his spoils ?-Is it his interest to destroy the means of his own criminal existence ?-Before the plunderer is apprehended, it cannot, therefore, be expected that he will conduct us to the receptacle of his plunder. But it may be thought, that when apprehended, tried, or convicted, he may unfold this system of iniquity: in a few isolated cases it may so happen; but such is the stratagem

'I have not now the opportunity of procuring the same detailed account from the Worship-street district as from Marlborough-street. The former applies to the larger and more opulent dealers, the nature of whose traffic will be hereafter described.

of receivers, and the celerity with which they act, that upon most occasions, unless discovery and apprehension immediately follow the information against them, all future advantage from it is generally lost. Their eyes are every where, and they instantly know every movement in the criminal community, long before it is seen by the public. But, if it were not for such causes, they have but an imperfect knowledge of the characters of experienced London offenders, who calculate upon any material diminution of the receivers through their means. Daily observation proves to us, that as their hearts become more hardened, their minds become more firm, or rather obstinate in their resolutions; and hence it is that we see victim after victim determined to ascend the scaffold to be launched into eternity, rather than consign to a similar or even a lesser sacrifice a more guilty confederate.

But conceding for a moment that the moral obstacles to the apprehension of these dealers might be in some degree overcome, still we shall find, that the legal difficulties of ultimate conviction must always be such, as to frustrate very materially the operation of any enactment of which they might be the peculiar objects.

Were the confederates of receivers more frequently their accusers than we have hitherto found them, their testimony must be generally too questionable to rely upon as the means of conviction. The merciful principle of our laws requires in circumstantial evidence such close unequivocal demonstration, as to bring but comparatively few dealings between thieves and receivers to a tangible legal proof; implied morally-convincing proof will exist in numberless cases, which will amount to nothing more; and unless in those where the first process of attack and of robbery be watched, and the progress of the plunderers kept in view to the destined place of deposit, and that too at a time, and at a season, and under circumstances when the receiver could (legally speaking) have no other than a guilty knowledge of his visitors, and of their dealings; I say, that in few, but in such cases, will the violenta presumptio be admissible, which is to constitute that essence of this traffic on the part of the receivers, which is the knowing (in its legal acceptation) the goods to be stolen.

There is also, in the free spirit and necessarily unrestrained course of our commerce, that which must prevent too minute and rigorous an investigation of its operations, and consequently embarrass and impede inquiry into the transactions of those who are even criminally engaged in them.

It must therefore appear that this traffic is so covert, upon general principles so impervious to detection, and so peculiarly

calculated to frustrate ultimate conviction, that it would be vain to expect its extirpation by any laws which have been, or may be enacted to destroy it.

But what we have been adverting to, constitutes by no means all that we have to meet in our conflicts with the offenders in question. This system has become a science in itself. It has opened such prospects, and has been productive of so much wealth to its professors, as to call forth ingenuity and foresight to a degree which is rarely exhibited in the most artfully contrived schemes of commercial avarice. I shall best explain the refinements of these adepts, by a reference to the detail which has furnished me with the knowledge of their operations. It should be observed, that exclusive of the notorious receivers of this town, most of whose receptacles are as well known to our police, as the fair tradesman with his calling upon his door, there is a description of them who combine an unity of different characters in the same person, who are at once thieves and receivers, and who so contrive their machinations, as to exclude from observation any point of reachable or vulnerable contact.

"Thieves, as well as receivers, have various houses where information is received of any important robbery, which is termed a 'put-up job.' When the stolen goods are purchased by the receiver, they are immediately removed from his known dwelling-house to another, termed the 'plant,' which is, in fact, his secret warehouse, and to which the goods capable of being identified, as well as most others, are conveyed as soon as purchased. Sometimes one house is used for this purpose by two or more receivers; though both are probably connected, one is generally ignorant of the other's deposit, each having separate locks to their own doors.

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This place is generally kept, or inhabited, by a person with some ostensible occupation, who is cognizant of the purposes for which the receptacle is taken, but who is not concerned in the dealings of those who have placed him there. When a robbery has excited much public attention, the plunder is usually kept in this plant till the general sensation has subsided-then, as opportunities occur, the property is disposed of it is conveyed to and from the plant, by means best calculated to prevent observation and detection-in hackney-coaches, little carts, by porters, upon jack-asses, or by any ordinary means of carrying goods. The great dealers have their own furnaces to melt plate instantly: valuable watches, and other goods capable of identity, are commonly sent abroad: watches, if kept at home are, as they call it, 'new christened,' (the gold cases exchanged for silver or common