Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/358

Rh 342 POLICE the board may order. The superintendent is the chief executive officer of the force, subject to the orders, rules, and regulations of the board, and it is his duty to enforce in the city all the laws of the State and ordinances of the city, and the rules and regulations uf the police board. The superintendent promulgates written or printed orders to the officers anil members of the police force not inconsistent with law or the rules and regulations of the board. It is the duty of the police force at all times of the day and night within the city and county of New York, and they are accordingly empowered, to especially preserve the public peace ; prevent crime ; detect and arrest offenders ; suppress riots and insurrections ; protect the rights of persons and of property ; guard the public health ; preserve order at every primary and pub lic election ; remove nuisances existing in public streets, roads, places, and highways ; repress and restrain disorderly houses and houses of ill-fame ; arrest all street beggars and mendicants ; pro vide a proper police attendance at every fire in order that the lire- men, fire-engines, and property exposed may be suitably assisted or protected ; assist, advise, and protect immigrants, strangers, and travellers in public streets, or at steamboat and ship landings or railroad stations ; enforce any law relating to the suppression and punishment of crime, or to the observance of Sunday, or regarding pawnbrokers, or mock auctions, or emigration, or elections, or gambling, or intemperance, or lotteries, or lottery policies, or vagrants, or disorderly persons, or the public health, or any ordi nance or resolution of common councils, within the said district, applicable to police, health, or criminal procedure. Special regulations are made on these and other kindred subjects, such as the regulation of traffic, preventing obstructions, the visita tion of places of amusement, public houses and drinking places, observation of servants in charge of houses, and of suspicious persons, lost children, processions, balls and parties, elections, &c. , and the attendance of an adequate number of police at every assembly of citixeus. The arrest of persons with or without process does not call for special notice as distinguished from the common law and statute law in England, and the practice as to the entry of charges and taking bail by the police is akin to the practice in the English metropolis, but the rules are somewhat stricter. A squad is organized for the sole purpose and duty of serving criminal process. Persons making complaint of a felony or misdemeanoxir may be required to make affirmation or oath which the police officers have power to administer. Charges against police, whether by members of the force or citizens, are made and dealt with under strict rules, and are tried upon written charges by one or more of the commis sioners in power, a committee dismissing charges or directing their trial. Evidence is taken upon oath, and if the case is heard by less than three commissioners no judgment can be acted on until the wit ness is brought before and examined by all the commissioners. The board draws, by its president, on the treasurer of the city for the cost of arrest and conviction of criminals and others endangering the safety of the community and procuring information the use of which may prevent crime and enable the department to perform its import ant duties more successfully and with greater satisfaction to the public. The sum so drawn is charged as a &quot;secret service fund.&quot; A place is provided in accordance with statute law for the detention of such witnesses as are unable to furnish security for their appear ance in criminal proceedings. The detective force, called the &quot;detective squad,&quot; consists of a captain and other members assigned by the board to detective duty. This portion of the force has an office, as other portions of the police force, and is under the direct orders of the superintendent, to whom reports are made, and who in turn reports to the boaril. There is also a &quot;special service squad&quot; under the officer command ing the detective force. There is a sanitary code, and a &quot; sanitary police company&quot; is set apart from the police force by the board of police, performing duties assigned by the board. The captain of the .sanitary company assigns policemen to act as school officers. There are harbour police, u police steamboat and steam-boiler inspection squad to enforce the statute law on the subject, an &quot;ordinance police squad&quot; to enforce ordinances of the corporation, and a &quot; property office. &quot; Members of the force are subject to rules; at the discretion of the board, on written application, they are permitted to receive rewards or presents for services rendered by them in the discharge of duties which are both &quot; meritorious and extraordinary,&quot; but for such only. Admission to the force, examination, instruction, drill, and dis cipline are provided for by special regulations. The right of every member of the police force to entertain political or partisan opinions, and to express the same freely when such expression shall not concern the immediate discharge of his official duties, as well as the right of the elective franchise, is deemed sacred and inviol able ; but no member of the force is permitted to be a delegate or representative to, or member of, or to take part in any political or partisan convention, whose purpose is the nomination of a candidate or candidates to any political office. Upon the days of election for public offices held under the laws of the State, he must do all within his power to preserve the peace, protect the integrity of the ballot box, enforce the rights of lawful voters, and prevent illegal and fraudulent voting. The estimated salaries for the police of New York for 1884, com prising upwards of 2816 members of the force of all ranks, amounted to $3,328,333, besides the salaries of the clerical force. The ap propriations for the maintenance of the city government (including the police) are made by the board of estimate and apportionment, composed of the mayor, comptroller, president of the board of aldermen, and president of the department of taxes and assessments. Some police statistics are given in the article NEW YORK (q.v. ). Looked at from a general point of view, the police in France France, maybe regarded as divided into two great branches administrative police (la police administrative) and judicial police (la police judi- ciairc), the former having for ifs object the maintenance of order, and the latter charged with tracing out offenders, collecting the proofs, and delivering the presumed offenders to the tribunals charged by law with their trial and punishment. Police duties are exercised under the minister of the interior, in the departments and municipalities by the prefects and sub-prefects, appointed by the president of the republic, and mayors, having as auxiliaries the commissaries of police and other officers (appointed by the president, but under the orders of the prefects). One of the chief prerogatives of the administrative police is to make rules to ensure public order. Of these rules some embrace general interests of the state, these being regulations of high or grand police ; others have no other object than the ruling of the particular district and its inhabitants, and are simply termed police regulations. Accord ing as it deals with the general interests of the state or only with those of a municipality, the administrative police is said to be general or municipal ; and each of these branches admits of other divisions according to the subject. The police gtnerale, besides more obvious matters, includes all matters relating to public health, the regulation of prostitution, the inspection of food, the carrying on of trades and manufactures ; and in relation to the welfare of the state it embraces public meetings, banquets, societies and clubs, cafes and public places, and the enforcement of laws relating to the pub lication and distribution of printed or written matter, the sale of journals, the surveillance of strangers or fugitives, the system of passports, the sale of gunpowder and firearms, designs against the state, and a variety of such matters. In this way the police who look after the safety of the state is closely allied with political matters (la police politique). Under a government really represent ing the popular will the duties of tQ jmlice politique are trifling, or at least innocuous, but under a despotic government they become of the highest importance. It is matter of history which cannot be treated of here that under Louis XIV. and in succeeding times the most unpopular and unjustifiable use was made of police as a secret instrument for thepurposes of despoticgovernment. Napoleon availed himself largely of police instruments, especially through his minister Fouehe. On the restoration of constitutional government under Louis Philippe police action was less dangerous, but the danger revived under the second empire. The ministry of police created by the act of the Directory in 1796 was in 1818 suppressed as an independent office, and in 1852 it was united with the ministry of the interior. The detection and punishment of crime is theoretically as well as practically regarded by the French as essentially a matter of public concern, and to be provided for by public officials appointed for that purpose, and on the other hand in every French criminal proceeding, from the most trifling to the most important, every person injured by the offence may make himself partie civile. It follows that in many features the French police is organized in a different manner from the British, and has some very different duties (Stephen). An observation has been already cited, that neither in England nor in America is there a system of espionage by which private matters can be made the subject of police investigation or interference. On the other hand the English system is open to the observation that the police, in practice at least, are powerless to pro tect from annoyance in many matters essential to perfect rule. Short of absolute indecency or obscenity, printed matter of a scurri lous and offensive kind is openly sold in the streets without police interference ; and, owing apparently to the much -abused maxim that an Englishman s house is his castle, the quiet and freedom from annoyance in the performance and fulfilling of the daily duties and engagements of life are not secured. The annoyance to which Carlyle was subject is only an illustration of the almost daily com plaints that arise in the English metropolis. Although the noise of a bell may be the subject of indictment or injunction, the officers of police do not complain of or even remonstrate with an inconsiderate or selfish neighbour in such a matter, or even in still greater annoy ances, such as those arising from animals kept in a state of confine ment (not affecting public health), because the source of aimoynuce is within private territory, or because there is no summary rnodo of dealing with it. It is unreasonable that complainants should be told, as they are every day, and correctly, by magistrates, that the annoyances which render the enjoyment of life impracticable