The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, December 11, 1913. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1183, 11 December 1913, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, December 11, 1913. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The Christchurch Press Hazards the opinion that possibly there are alive to-day-in New Zealand, watching the work of the special constables, with an interest made keener by their own experiences, survivors of the army of Londoners who enrolled as special constables in IS4B. In that year the Chartist movement came to a head, and great uneasiness prevailed in various parts ot the country. The greatest demonstration was planned in Loudon, where 200,000 were to meet and march to the House of Commons to present a petition for reform. The Government, assisted by the Duke of Wellington as Com-mander-in-Chief, took prompt steps to protect the City. The procession was forbidden, and soldiers were stationed at important points. Between 150,000 and 200,000 citizens were enrolled as special constables, among them Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon 111., who, as Mr Herbert Paul says, volunteered to uphold the law which he was so signally to flout later on in bis own country. The demonstration proved a failure. Only 20,000 people gathered, and the leaders shrank from a conflict with the police. Special constables were again enrolled of 1867, after the Fenian outrage at Clerkenwell prison, but their services were not required. Punch of those days had some interesting references to special constables. One picture shows a middle-aged and stout gentleman aroused in the early hours of a dark, cold morning, to be told that it is his turn for duty in one o( the most dangerous quarters of the slums. Special constables were agaiu used after the most serious of the historic Trafalgar square riots of 1887. Fifteen hundred held Trafalgar square on Sunday, November 17th, and the volunteers served until January ißth. It is interesting to note that as lar back as 1848 the strikers’ boycott of to day was anticipated, for we find a Chartist leader proposing that Chardsts boycott tradesmen supplying special constables with goods. The choice term now so often on strikers’ lips (not, however, when the police are about) is apparently of much later origin.