THE POLICE OF NEW YORK.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1140, 7 March 1884, Page 3

THE POLICE OF NEW YORK.

Probably no city of the size and pretensions of New York was curs d with a more inefficient, or not to nut it too mildly, a worse police system. The correspondent of the Argus states that the police, are under the control of a commiss on, which is in form non-partisan, i.e , one-half its members are from each political party. Thn result is that the appointments are divided he’ween the partisans of ench party, the men are subjected to the influence of politicians for whom they are duly '‘assessed” every election, and discipline is of the loosest. As a journalist compelled to pass through the street" in the early hours before the dawn, I have had frequent opportunities to see the police watched. It is no uncommon thing to find them on street corners or in doorways talking with lewd women, and using obscene and profane language in a tone audible to any passer-by. I have seen them club drunken tramps who were helpless to resist them, while standing on the steps of liquor “saloons,” open at illegal hours with traffic going on befo r e their eyes. A police Justice on'y recently stated from the Bench that he believed that in several precincts the captains took money from keepers of gambling hells, thieves’ resoits. and houses of ill fame, and gav* them protection in return—m statement which is, of course, denied by the police authorities, but which they have taken no pains to investigate. Two weeks since a drunken man, being taken to the station by an officer, who hod some trouble

in keeping him on his feet, was killed by * blow from the club. Tin night before the lust election an officer in uniform entered a large liquor saloon, where a meeting of politicians was being held, and after diallenj'iiig a person present to light him, shot at a bystander and wounded him severely. He then seized hia vict m by the in ck, threw him down,and litter.illy stamped him to death. The officer is now on tria; for murder, ami pleans drunken frenzy 111 defence. Hardly a week passes that policemen are not suspended from (he force for diunkenness, though the discipline of the force leaves many such otfanoes unpunished. There are necessarily many good men in the force, and the whole body is noted for a certain savage courage in dealing with disorders of any magnitude. A serious riot wovl l probab'y be very promptly put down in this city, but in the qualities essential to the ordinaly dm n s of a policeman—coolness, promptness, vigilance, and self control the greater part of the force is wholly deficient. The secret of the evil is the secret of the nearly all tbit is had in the public service—viz, the treatment of the minor offices as the spoils of politics. It can only be broken up by the dest notion of this system, and for that public sentiment is rapidly preparing.