Untitled

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4984, 14 March 1877, Page 2

Policemen should be “ lambs ’’ —milder than lambs, indeed, to meet the views of a great many persona as to the manner in which they should conduct themselves under the trying circumstances in which they are frequently placed. They may suffer at the hands of blackguards, and they receive no sympathy at the hands of a large class of the public, who benefit by the existence of the force, as we all do. They may be bruised or maimed in the ordinary course of their duties, but as such trifling afflictions are of course incidental to the position of the constable, he must be calm, must forbear to let his angry passions rise, must, like poor Tattyooram, count twenty, though it may be after receiving a kick; and be everlastingly playing a game of “ keep your temper.” These remarks are suggested by a case that occurred the other day when a constable found it necessary to strike a prisoner, rather severely no doubt, when he found that he was being overcome by the superior strength of the man he was endeavoring to arrest, and after that man had repeatedly struckhim'. In regard to that case Mr. Crawford remarked that constables should be more careful,' that' pblicertien had ho right to strike a man so. What recompense does a constable receive, may be asked, when he suffers ? He may have his leg broken by a blackguard, as was the case recently in a town in this colony ; but does he obtain any satisfaction. in the knowledge that the man who has injured him has been committed to prison 1 Very little. Let those maudlin sentimentalists who cry out against the under-paid “ guardians of the public peace” be subjected to some of the terrors of larrikinism and blackguardism which in some places have of late assumed such large and almost ungovernable proportions, and then per- • haps' their sickly whimperings will be changed to a note of a different sound. It is a matter upon which Wellington may congratulate itself that it bears the reputation of being on the whole an orderly city.