Law Behind a Finger.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2070, 25 January 1898, Page 2

Law Behind a Finger.

Miss Lilian Bell, who is narrating her impressions of the Old World and its people for the Ladies’ Home Journal, of New York, writes from London, in the November issue of that magazine:

—“ I have seen the Houses of Parliament and the Tower and Westminster Abbey, and the World’s Fair, but the most impressive sight I ever beheld is the upraised hand of a London policeman. I never heard one of them speak except when spoken to. But let one little blue-coated mail raise his finger and every vehicle on wheels stops, and stops instantly ; stops in obedience to law and order ; stops without swearing or gesticulating or abuse ; stops wi h no underhanded trying to drive out of line and get by on the other side j just stops, that is the end of it. And why 1 Because the Queen of England is behind that raised finger. Why, a London policeman has more power than our President. Even the Queen's coachmen obey that forefinger Understanding how to obey, that is what makes liberty. lam the most flamboyant of Americans, the most hopelessly addicted to my own country, but I must admit that I had my first real taste of liberty in England. I will tell you why. In America nobody obeys anybody. We make our laws, and then most industriously set about studying out a plan by which we may evade them. America is suffering, as all republics must of necessity suffer, from liberty in the hands of the multitude. The multitude are ignorant, and liberty in the hands of the ignorant is always license.”