The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1913. SPECIAL CONSTABLES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 84, 9 December 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1913. SPECIAL CONSTABLES.

rile Christchurch “Press” hazards the opinion that possibly there are alive to-day in Xeiv Zealand, watching the work of the special constables, with an j interest made keener by their own experiences, survivors of the army of Londoners who enrolled as special constables in 1848. In that year the jCliaHist movement came to a head, and great uneasiness prevailed in various parts of the country. The great-1 est demonstration was planned ini London, where 200,000 were to meet and march to the House of Commons j to present a petition for reform. The! Government, assisted by the Duke of j \\ ellington as Commander-in-Chief, i took prompt steps to protect the City.! The procession was forbidden, and soldiers were stationed at important' points. Detween 150,000 and 200,0001 citizens were enrolled as special con-1 stables, among them Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon 111., who, as Mr} Herbert Paul says, volunteered to up-i hold the law which he was so signally to flout later on in his own country. I The demonstration proved a failure. |

Only 20,000 people gathered, and the loaders shrank from a conflict with the police. Special constables were again enrolled of 18(17, after the Fenian outrage at Clerkenwell prison, hut their services were not required. “Punch” of those days has 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 of the most dangerous quarters of the slums. Special constables were again 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 18th.

It is interesting to note that as tar back as 18-18 the strikers’ boycott oi to-day was anticipated, for we tied a Chartist leader proposing that Chartists boycott tradesmen supplying special constables with goods. 1 lie choice term now so otten on strikers bps (not, however, when the police are about) is apparently ot much later origin.