SATURDAY, APRIL 2O, 1901. WHERE ARE THE POLICE ? Excess of Zeal at the Wrong End.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 42, 20 April 1901, Page 8

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1901. WHERE ARE THE POLICE ? Excess of Zeal at the Wrong End.

THE principal function of the police is supposed to be the protection of life and property. In the light of some recent events that duty seeing to be made subordinate to working up cases against reputable citizens for technical breaches of th c law. A few cases in point will suffice to explain our meaning. Quite a batch of small pettifogging cases representing a great amount of police and detective activity, ingenuity and super-abundant zeal have been before the Court within the la&t week or so. • # • A man was prosecuted and fined £1 with 7/- costs for giving an unstamped receipt for £2 10s. He explained that he gave the leceipt in Newtown Park and had no stamps on him at the time ; ako that the man he gave the receipt to promised to stamp it. No matter. The State had been done out of a penny stamp and the weighty hand of the law tell upon him. A wretched peddler dared to travel from house to house vending at a shilling a tm some stuff for cleaning cloth. The tins bore a label falsely alleging the stuff to be made in New York. The eagle eye of the Police Commissioner was upon him, and the culprit was brought to book and fined £5 with 245. costs. • * # This is not all. Two jobbing printers, both citizens of excellent character, have been haled to Court, at the instance of the police, and charged with the heinous offence of executing orders for printing "Final Notice" forms for local tradesmen without attaching their imprint to the printed sheets In this instance, it required the joint services of a plain-clothes man and a detective to work up the case The plain-clothes man called, in the guise of a customer, and asked to be provided with some ot the foims, and both printers, unsuspicious of trouble, went to the trouble of hunting up some stray cojMes for him One of them alleges that those he supplied were the balance of an order he executed as far back as 1897 Both say they erred m ignorance of the law, which, by the

way, is contained in an Act of 1868 that badly needs radical amendment • • • This is one side of the picture it shows the kind of duty upon which police zeal appears to be concentrated Now, just look at the other side Withm the past month or so Wellington seems to have been invaded by a gang of spielers and burglars, who have been carrying on operations m a rather lively fashion Three burglaries have followed hard upon the heels of each other. In two cases the perpetrators are still at large In the third case, a night-watchman chanced, by accident, upon a clue, and summoned the police, who effected a couple of aricsts. • • • But the first case, m which Messrs Townsend and Paul's premises were successfully burgled, the safe broken open by explosives, and £27 carried off, presents the strangest features of all In the first place, let it be stated that the safe stands only fifteen feet from the footpath of Harris-street, and can be seen from the office window, upon which the street lamp sheds its light At five minutes after three one morning, a man employed at the electric works, fifty yards away, heard the noise of an explosion He reported the affair to the policeman on the beat five minutes later, and told him the sound came from the block m which Townsend and Paul's premises are situated. The policeman was hard to convince, and, while the two men were still discussing the alleged phenomenon, the mght>watchman came up, saying he had, in passing the Opera House, heard the noise of a distant explosion • • * The policeman never troubled to report the matter. He merely tried the door-handles of various premises, and, finding they were secure, resumed his beat with a contented mind. Burglars, of course, only enter warehouses by the front way, and always leave the door ajar, to make it easy for the long arm of the law to reach them. Next morning, the burglary was discovered, and also evidences that the operators took things particularly easy, and made a prolonged stay. • « • Experts have given their opinion that it must have taken the burglars quite two and a half hours after bursting open the safe by explosion to force open the drawers from which they abstracted the £27. During that time they made themselves quite at home. They went out to the fruit mart, returned with a case of apples, and the apple cores, with which the floor was liberally strewn, showed that they made a regular feast of it And, when they were quite sated, they seem to have coolly unlocked the front door, and departs ed that way. ■m • • The conclusion seems, therefore, to be that valuable property is left to the care of green policemen, while the veterans and the smart detectives have their hands full in working up prosecutions for technical breaches of the law. We have heard of another strange case. A Chinese fruiterer m Wellington, m locking up one night recently, discovered a man secreted among some cases in his store. He locked the fellow m, and sent for the police A constable came and was told the circumstances of the case Instead of taking the man into custody, and allowing the Court to deal with him, he told the intruder to clear, and returned to his beat, leaving the Celestial to marvel There seems to be room and urgent need for a change hi police methods Let not all the zeal, and energy, and acumen of the force be applied to working up cases for small and technical breaches of statutes For goodness sake, leservc some of it for outwitting the enterprising burglar.