WOMEN POLICE FORCE.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17124, 20 April 1921, Page 2

WOMEN POLICE FORCE.

A VARIETY OF TYPES.

"NO FADDIST NEED APPLY."

(ynoii ora own correspondent.) LONDON, March S. When tli-e House of Commons Committee were considering the advisablencss of continuing the force of" women police, forty-eight witnesses gave evidence, and their views have just seen the light of day as a Bluo Paper. Sir N. Macready was then head of the Metropolitan Police' Fon;e, and he declared himself as being in favour of having all iorts in the force. His wants were many and varied, for, ho announced: "t want to have the woman I can put into an evening dress, with, some diamonds or whatever she wears. | and send to a place to mix v. ith people, and also I want women at the other end of the scale. We have a certain num-; her of constables' wives, who I fancy, are about the domestic H-.rvant class, and we have a number of 'Lus conductresses, but I want a certain proportion who are, to use the word in an unprovocative sense, ladies. fliQy are useful. Then somo nurses are excellent. It is very good to have women with nursing experience." The more different tiho classes, the better. They had all'sorts, including a good many of '"our ol'ii friends the AV.A.A.C.'s, of whom I did not get so many as I hoped I should In nearly every ease it has been that | the sex does not always at first vuito j understand the necessity for discipline. ! That has been the case with nearly every one of them. I made no bones about it. If a woman did not suit' us, ! she went. I did not give iier a second, chance." Remarking that one had to be very careful of the type of women obtained, Sir Nevil said: "You do not wont an excitable woman or a neurotic woman, but a woman wtoo has got the human element very largely developed, and who is not a faddist." He considered that t.htf women should have power of. arrest, but that that power should bo limited by regulation to eases of people under lfi and females over that age. Sir Nevil was opposed to making marriage a bar to enrolment or retention in the service, but —"We have made a strict rule that we will not tnko any woman who has got young children dependent on her and who cannot iinvo them looked after. We are not go in?; to have it thrown at us that we are employing women who ought to be in their own homes." But marriage ought not to constitute a bar to enrolment in the service. In ce/tain cases a married woman was more suitable. If they made 25 years or 30 years the age of enrolment, a certain pensionable rate ought to be created for them. Probably after 4o a woman would hare done her best. ' Sir Nevil also referred to another organisation, and said that when ho started the Metropolitan women police be had some interviews with these people, who were -anxious that he should tako advantage of their services. He added: "I did not do so for a very good Reason. On enquiry I heard thiA the moving spirits were what in days gone by were called 'militant suffragettes,' and a certain _ mimber of them had got into trouble in the past, when militant suffragettes did get into trouble." The ordinary policeman was a very conservative person,, and the starting of the women police was not by any means received with acclamation by the force. They were now very friendly, and were working excellently with the women. London had 110 police women, and they were paid 42a, per. week. ' , Miss M. Dainer-Dawfion, who was commandant of the Women' Police Service, explained how she got. the idea of starting the force. In August, 1914, she was meeting Belgian girl and women refugees and taking them to lodgings in London. "One night," she said, "I lost two girls under' . suspicious circumstances. I had done work on the Continent in previous years with regard to the white slavo traffic. I came across a woman who changed her dress three- times in the same nighty and the colour of her hair. I had seen her on the station, and I caught her trying to take from me two I realised that rt was very difficult to do that kind of work,-if there -were attempts at white slave traffic, without having a body of uniformed and trained women, and I think that gave me the first idea of having women police." Giving evidence as. to the origin of women's service in the Police Foice, Miss Damer-I>awson referred to the Zeppelin raids in Hull, and said that, although the boinl/s wore falling, the women were out in the streets and at their posts within seven "liinutea of the call. When Sir iTrancis Blake remarked, "I suppose the women do not do any night work;" M-iss Damer-Dawson replied, "Yes, they do. In London they guarded all the magazines in the silent hours, especially in the Royal gunpowder factories." She thought : the State should take over the movement. Mrs Stanley, Superintendent, Metro- j politau Police Women Patrol's, th6ught 25 was the- earliest age at which women ccfild be employed -on police duty. Much pf their work, she said, had been in connexion with the girl who was rather a product of the, war—the "flapper" type, who took- to the street for amusement, and was liable to drirL into prostitution. These girls often asked the women patrols for advice and help. "The majority of our patrols, said Patrol-Sergeant Lilian Wyles, Metropolitan Police Women Patrols, "are single and \vidows." Miss Olga Nethersole, the hon. organiser of the People's League of Health, thought women could properly perform police funptions. During tho war there was not sufficient police protection at certain places, such as Hamputead Heath. She had been insulted,

although she was in her nurse's uniform. The Chairman (Sir John Baird): Would you not have been equally insulted if you had been a policewoman? —I do not think so. 4 , Is not a nurse's uniform more respected than a policewoman's uniform? —No, I do not think so. I wore the uniform for two years and eight months in London. Asked if there were not duties involving physical risk, Miss Nethersolo replied, "A woman has a very great power within herself that is npt "there." tA.ll that it means £o be a policewoman dealing with social evils was described by Patrol Sergeant Lilian Vvyles (Metropolitan Police), who. has sixteen women police in her patrol, and covers the areas of Vine street, Marlborough street. Bow street, and Tottenham Court road. "There is a good deal of trafficking in young girls,** sho said. "A woman getting passee will probably get hold of girlß of sixteen and younger and ruin them. They have a tremendouß influence over them, and it ib a great difficulty to win them away from the women. As a preventive measure it is sometimes well to get the two girls—there fire generally two—run into prison, or else to get the woman imprisoned. When we know there i* anything going on like that we generally take the girls, if a constable will arrest them, and have them put in for insulting behaviour, which, as you know, leaves no stigma behind it at all. They aro demanded for five or six days, ana wb get after that, and they generally go straight, l'ou can bring no charge against the woman, because you can never bring any evidence to prove what she is doing, though you know all the time. It is one of the things we do want the power of arrest for." How the personality of a policewoman wonld count in the prevention of misconduct was emphasised hr> Mrs It Young (Bristol Training Schools for Policewomen), who ndded: "There aro innumerable jobs for us." And now the policewomen go quietly and efficiently about their duties without attracting undue notice. And perhaps in time they will be endowed-with the power of arrest—this is still a question. '