"NOTHING NEW."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 4 (Supplement)

"NOTHING NEW."

POUCEWOMEN OKA ' - CENTURY AGO. \

a hundred years ago something happened *in a. small Cheshire village which wa?.; thought -worthy of mention in >a. Manchester newspaper,' and of quotation, from, that paper 'in our; own columns," Bays the London "Times." "The' authorities of Minshull' Vernon appointed' for the year a female edrir stable, a female ; oyersger,-and a female; supervisor.. No wonder was published jin ,• Manchester.: and ; snapped up for readers in. -In those dark ages a single village.h'ad been en-: lightened- enough to entrust;'.to women important public offices,- two of ■ which needed courage and physical strength, besides what the. common law- demanded —^honesty;"knowledge,"and ability. The supervisor, .or surveyor of highways; had-not 'much , to fear. But the "overseer of the. poor (and this within two years of the outbreak of 1830) must count on obloquy* if not on violence.

And the constable, with her duties of watch,and. ward,-, of- keeping the peace, of separating 'quarrellers,. of arresting scoundrels, of prying into "offences against health and.: morals—the " constable should: be-.;Amazonian indeed, to fill efficiently her dangerous office. -And we ofrto-day consider. ourselves feminists,- and believe that we invented.-; the policewoman! • How many of those who pluine themselves upon this 'recent' advance.towards ' civilisation realise that a hundred years ago there were women constables? For the truth is that, she of, JVlinshull, Vernon was. not unique. MinshulT- Vernon' did nothing new in appointing a woman constable/ -Women constables came ..by rote, as a. matter of course. ..'The Courts of law,' growled Lord Sheffield ten years before,.!"haye thought.'proper :to- decide. '■ that women are eligible for .as churchwardens, overseers,, constables, and. the like. And office -yras" wont to fall vin rotation to the. occupiers, of certain! lands. • .;The woman constable of Minshull Vejnon was probably appointed 'becausei the turn, had come to her house'; and Minr shull • Vernon got into the'papers, not because it y had appointed a female -officer, but because it had appointed' three in one year. -''We. may imagine that the overseer was not .among > those upon whom fell, two years' later, the wrath of the-mo t bi and the'constable is pretty sure to"'have acted without knowing.it, on the opinion of Bacon,, who wrote that the use of ;.the office; 'is; rather for. preventing or staying of mischief .than for 1 the punishment* of offences , .' -That is a principle which, police ■.officers,'of either sex, in; Hyde-Park or-:outside it; do well ip bear in mind. But while ■. we pride ourselves' upon our modern" policewomen, while we glow-.jvith.righteous- feminism and give votes : td those once voteless, let us not forget little Minshull Vernon in 1828. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnon?, There;* is nothing; new und»r the ;sunv'; : ";'-V(:'" : -.':'--