POLICE REGULATIONS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 274, 14 July 1932, Page 2

POLICE REGULATIONS

MASSIVE BOOK OF INSTRUCTION BEING REYISED BY SCOTLAND YARD. CALLED THE POLICE BIBLE. One of the most interesting and most voluminous books published in England is being revised by a special staff at New Scotland Yard. It is gen'erally known as "The Policeman's Bible." Officially, it is called "The General Orders and Regulations . of the Metropolitan Forces." There is no other volume like it in the world. Ilt consists of nearly 700 closely-printed pages, and it has been built up by its innumerable authors for more than a hundred years — ever since the Metrop'olitan Poliee Force came into existence. The volume has never been finished, and never will be. When the new revised hook is issued it will retain much of its immense bulk. , Nearly every day narrow printed strips with deletions, additions, and corrections will, as was always the case, be circulated and pasted into its pages to swell its necessary unwieldiness and add to the already encylopaedic knowledge which the London policeman must possess. Briefly, this massive tome tells the London police everything they may, or may not, do in every conceivable case in which they may be called upon to act. Murders, frauds, street disturbances, suicides, fires, drowning, street patrol, telephones, wireless, sheep scab, accidents, domestic squabbles, epileptic fits, the protection of littl'e children and the aged weak, burglars, jui-jitsu, swindlers, possession of firearms, local by-laws — th'ese and hundreds of other varied suhjects are dealt with lucidly and with careful regard to the strict letter of the law. Three years ago the Royal Commission on Police Powers rep'orted that "this hook has grown so bulky that it must be beyond the powers of most constables to master its eontents, and its simplification is desirable." The commission urged that there should be one standard "Instruction Boolc" issued to all police forces, and it announced that Sir Leonard Dunning, one of His Majestiy's Inspectors of Constabulary, was preparing such a hook, and that it would shortly be available for use.