Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/262

 And it is difficult to induce men to take much interest in punishing acts their own consciences do not condemn. This, with the situation at its best; at its worst, knowing that, despite all the enactments of legislatures, people will continue in their hardened ways, they are apt to abuse their power. For they know, too, that the statutes prohibiting the merely venial of those acts oftentimes run counter to the urban custom and that the community regards it as of no great consequence if they are not enforced. Thus a wide discretion is permitted the police by the public conscience in the discharge of their duties, and this discretion is one which quite humanly they proceed to abuse. If they choose, they may enforce the sumptuary laws against certain persons or refrain from doing so, and the opportunity for corruption is presented. The opportunity widens, opens into a larger field, and not only does the corruption spread, but it is not long before the police are employing extra legal methods in other directions, and at last in many instances establish an actual tyranny that would not be tolerated in a monarchy. The result is that we read every day of arbitrary interferences by policemen with most of the constitutional rights, such as free speech, the right of assembly and petition, etc. They even set up a censorship and condemn paintings, or prohibit the performance of plays, or assume to banish women from the streets because they are dressed in a style which the police do not consider comme il faut.

And while the corruption is deplored and everywhere causes indignation and despair, this tyranny