MINDING LONDON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8436, 7 May 1907, Page 3

MINDING LONDON.

A writer in the London Magazine puts at the enormous figure of £2,000,000 the cost of the Metropolitan Police Force. There are 17,212 members Of this force, with salaries from £BOO (chief constables) to £66 10s 7d, the beginning salary of 1450 constables. Moreover, chief inspectors at Buckingham Palace and Marlborough Eouse get as much as £25 a year for clothing allowance, besides which there are boot allowances—B Jd a week for inspectors, and 6d a week for sergeants and conStables—and most liberal coal allowances. Special duty police get special allowances, from Is to 52s 6d a week} though this does not all come out of the taxpayer's pocket, but is paid the people employ'ng them. Two hundred and thirty pounds was paid last year, also, for funeral expenses of police officers. A great many more thousands go in the erection and maintenance of police stations, the upkeep of polite courts, and services of interpreters and doctors, who are often required to give technical evidence. Gaolers, ushers and clerks about the police courts cost £20,000 a year. The fine horses kept by the Metropolitan Police as mounts and for other purposes, and the police vans and carts, cost nearly another £20,000. For every four policemen patrolling 1 the streets by Hay there are six at night (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.). No wonder that police lanterns, and keeping them in order, cost nearly £5,000 a year. London, it must be clearly stated, in this case means,an'area of 699 square miles—the whole area supervised by the Metropolitan Police Force. The dockyards not only at Woolwich, but at Portsmouth, Devonport, and Chatham, are under their care. The ratepayer does not pay for the police who guard the big public buildings. To mind tht British Mus,eUm the Treasury pays nearly £4,000; for the Natural Museum over £2,000; for the of Parliament nearly £10,000; itr Hyde Park £7,455. On the other hj; rid, certain railway companies, banks, factories, etc., employ the Metropolitan .Police for'permanently minding, their premises, paying therefor £14,000 a year.