Thus it will be seen that policeman X, who figures so often in the pages of Punch,' is a myth of our facetious contemporary. Each division is separated into subdivisions, the subdivisions into sections, and, last of all, the sections into beats. Of the main divisions, A, although one of the smallest in area, is by far the most important; it is the seat of the central authority located at Scotland Yard. Its police are much finer men (taller on the average than the Guards), and their duties are more responsible than those of any other division. They attend upon the Sovereign, the Parliament, the theatres, the parks, and all other places of public resort, such as Epsom and Ascot races, the flower shows, Crystal Palace, &c. The A division is, in fact, to the general body of Metropolitan Police what the Guards are to the army. To enable it to perform these extra duties, it has a reserve force of 250 men, drafted off on ordinary occasions in companies of fifty each to the B, C, D, G, and M divisions; upon this reserved force it draws when necessary. The other divisions are pretty much alike in the nature of their duties, which are simply those of watching. Certain modifications, however, arise from the character of their districts; thus a constable on duty at Whitechapel, if suddenly removed to Westminster or Mary-le-bone, would find himself considerably at fault, inasmuch as a familiarity with fights in courts, disputes with tramps, and the coarse language of low lodging-houses, is not a good school for the amenities required among a more fashionable population. In all the divisions exactly the same organization is maintained and the same amount of arduous work is performed. Two-thirds of the entire force is on duty from nine or ten in the evening till five or six in the morning. Not long since the nightpolice were condemned to patrol the streets for nine hours, without sitting down or even leaning their weary limbs against any support. This severe labour was found incompatible with the maintenance of due vigilance towards the end of the watch; the men are, therefore, now kept on duty only eight hours. Day work is divided into reliefs, and extends from six A.M. to nine P.M. Notwithstanding its greater severity, there are men who prefer men who prefer the stolid unimpeded walk in the night, in which they go through their work like machines, to the more bustling and exciting day-patrol. The serjeants or inspectors make the round of the districts to see that the constables are duly parading their beats, years If a door or window is discovered in an unsafe condition, its insecurity is immediately made known to the inmates; and if the constable fails to detect the circumstance during his tour, and it is afterwards observed by his serjeant or the succeeding constable, he is reported and fined for his neglect. Continued inattention is visited by dismissal. Offences of every kind are severely punished, as appears from the fact that, between the 1850 and 1856, 1276 policemen were turned out of the force. Of these 68 were criminally convicted. Thus the men are kept up to their work, and collusions with thieves are rendered exceedingly difficult. Every morning a sheet of 'Occurrences' is forwarded to the Chief Commissioner at Scotland Yard, which contains the full particulars of all matters worthy of notice which have taken place during the night throughout the metropolis, and a record of all property lost or stolen, from a gold pin to a chest of plate, is kept in the same central establishment. In case any affair of unusual importance occurs, a murder or a great robbery, the intelligence is conveyed by the constable who first becomes cognizant of it to the central station of his division; from this point the news is radiated by policemen, carrying what are termed route-papers, or papers of particulars of the offence, on the backs of which are marked the hour at which they were received at the different divisions through which they passed. In this manner information can be circulated in two hours to all the stations, excepting those belonging to the exterior or suburban districts. In these reports are given the names of the constables who were on the beats in which the offences took place, the serjeants in charge of the sections, and the names of the constables whose particular business it was to trace the offenders as far as possible. We understand, however, that the electric telegraph is now shooting its nerve-like threads to all the divisional stations in the metropolis, and, when the new agent is brought to bear, the communication will be almost instantaneous. Thus, in case of robbery, every constable will be made acquainted with the particulars without a moment's delay, and the police-net will be thrown at one cast over the entire metropolis. Thieves will no longer be able to get away with their plunder, ere a hue and cry has been raised after the property. Had the telegraph been in existence, in all probability Her Majesty's plate-chest would have been intercepted before it reached reached the field where it was ransacked in Shoreditch. In cases of riot of a formidable nature, the telegraph will be able to concentrate 5000 men in a couple of hours upon any spot within five miles of Charing Cross. Towards the outskirts of the metropolis, in the exterior or suburban districts, the widely-scattered constables chiefly perform the duties of a rural police. The great distances they have to traverse necessitates the use of horses; here, accordingly, we find the mounted police, the successors of the old horse-patrol established in 1805. The strength of this force, men and officers included, is only 120; they are furnished with powerful nags, and are armed with swords and pistols. Indeed the foot-police, whose beats lie in unfrequented rural districts, are allowed sidearms-a precaution which the fate of the policeman, who was brutally murdered in a field at Dagenham, in Essex, some years since, proved to be by no means unnecessary. In the middle of the Metropolitan police district, is the City police, under the management of the Corporation. The area of this peculiar, to borrow an ecclesiastical term, is only one square mile and a quarter, but forming as it does the very centre of business, it is by far the richest part of London-for while it contains only one-twentieth portion of its inhabitants, it possesses a fourteenth part of its wealth. This small space is in fact the great heart not only of the metropolis, but of the commercial world. Through its principal thoroughfares a vaster flood of traffic is poured for several hours than is to be found in any other streets in the world. In the year 1850, it was ascertained that no less than 67,510 foot-passengers, and 13,796 vehicles, containing no fewer than 52,092 persons, passed Bow Church, Cheapside, in one day. By another channel of communication, Aldgate, near the Minories, 58,430 foot-passengers and 9332 vehicles, containing 20,804 persons, passed in the same time; and it is estimated that altogether no less than 400,000 persons are poured into this one square mile and a quarter in the course of the twelve hours. The congregation in so confined a space of so vast a number of people, many of whom are forced to carry about with them considerable sums of money, must prove a great source of attraction to thieves of all kinds, and demands the constant vigilance of a comparatively large body of police. It was not until ten years after the successful experiment of the Metropolitan Police, however, that the Corporation of London wedded to its old system of ward-beadles, street-keepers, and imbecile constables, could be brought to adopt the new system; but it must be admitted that the present force, consisting of 1 superintendent, 13 inspectors, 12 stationserjeants, serjeants, 47 serjeants, and 492 policemen-making a total of 565, do the duty well; and the City, with all its stored wealth, is now as safe as the rest of the metropolis. At all the banks plain clothes men are constantly in attendance to keep out the swell mob who buzz about such places, as wasps do about a peach wall; and in the great thoroughfares, such as Cheapside, six or seven policemen are always to be found. The peculiarities of the City, which produce its characteristic robberies, are the number of its uninhabited warehouses, the perfect labyrinth of lanes which traverse and intersect its streets in all directions, and the vast number of carts and vans always standing full of valuable goods at the warehouse doors. The greatest precautions are taken to mark the fastenings on the warehouse doors, so as to betray any attempt to force them, and these devices are generally successful. The reticulation of lanes will always prove a trouble to the police, and a security to pickpockets. Not many years ago a bank clerk was attacked at mid-day in one of these passages in the very heart of the City, but luckily he retained hold of his case which held most valuable property, and it is now the custom to chain these billcases to the person, just as they used to chain books in the olden time to the library shelves. It is also customary for bank clerks to tear the corners off all Bank of England notes, so as to render them unnegotiable, unless to persons who can produce the corresponding piece-a contrivance which no doubt put a stop to audacious attacks upon these money-carriers in the middle of the day. The most common robberies are those from vehicles loading or discharging valuable silk and other goods at the warehouse doors. For the protection of such property a small dog is the best policeman, and carts are rarely seen in the City without one of these nimble guardians. The old restriction which prevented the Metropolitan Police from entering the City, and the City force from entering the Metropolitan districts, is now abandoned. Nevertheless the fact of their being under a distinct jurisdiction, prevents that unity of action which ought to prevail. Not long since a City policeman patrolling one of the streets which extended into the Metropolitan department, was informed by a passer by that they were killing a constable at the top of the street, to which the policeman replied, that it was out of his beat, and. he could not interfere! When next the Sibyl presents her leaves to the City Corporation, in all probability the present isolated system of police will not be found inscribed on any one of them. Scotland Yard, as we have said, is the brain or central ganglion which directs the system of Metropolitan police. Here the Commissioners sit daily, and are ready to receive the complaints or other other communications of the public. Its rooms are full of clerks, but all in the uniform of the police; in one office may be seen the constables wielding the pen instead of the truncheon, preparing daily returns and reports; in another, reading the morning and country papers, to learn what is doing that may require their presence, and to know what thieves have turned up in the police courts; in a third room an inspector is reading to the clerks from the different divisions any particulars it may be advisable to communicate to the entire force; in a fourth we see the secret chamber of the Detective Police—those human moles who work without casting up the earth lest their course should be discovered. In an office apart from the rest are the foreign detectives, who watch over mauvais sujets from abroad. The entire floating foreign population in the metropolis is well known to the police, and no plots against allied governments could well be hatched in London without their cognizance. All articles lost in public conveyances are here taken charge of. The 'Lost Property Office' contains piles of umbrellas, parasols, and walkingsticks, together with a curious assemblage of articles of jewellery and wearing apparel, brought by honest cabmen. On one occasion a parcel with cash to the amount of 16007. was deposited; and on another a thousand pound-note. Valuable property is always claimed immediately, but sticks, parasols, and umbrellas accumulate in a manner which proves that their loss is due to the carelessness of their owners and not to the loose morality of others. The offices for the inspectors of dangerous structures and for licensing common lodging-houses and the drivers and conductors of public conveyances, all of which departments are managed by the police, are close at hand. In the drilling-ground of the force-an open space surrounded by a hoarding close to the State Paper Office-there are generally from thirty to forty men in course of training, to fill up the gaps caused by dismissals, resignations, &c. On the occasion of our visit the yard was occupied by two bodies-the raw material in the shape of some twenty individuals dressed in every variety of costume, and another batch of the finished article, buttoned up in blue and resplendent with plated buttons. The eye had only to run along the gammut of men,' if we may so term the fresh recruits drawn up before us, in order to see from how many ranks of society the police brigade is reinforced; smock-frocks, shooting-coats, frock-coats, tail-coats, some seedy and worn, some still good and fresh, denoted the condition in life of their owners, and the necessities to which some of them were reduced. Young men flushed with hope come from the provinces to push their fortunes, after a brief struggle |