Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/683

 POLICE health concerning the cleanliness and sanitary needs of the city. Officers of this company are detailed to visit the public schools and ascertain the names and residences of habitual truants, with a view to their commitment to the juvenile asylum or elsewhere. During the quarter ending March 31, 1875, 1,826 such visits were made by six officers to day schools, and 324 to evening schools. The steam-boiler inspection squad is also a part of the sanitary company. It is their duty to inspect all sta- tionary steam boilers used for motive power in the city ; and the examining engineers are required to examine applicants for the neces- sary certificates of qualification as engineers. The mounted squad was established in 1871, to patrol on horseback the avenues leading to Central park, where the presence of mounted police is necessary to prevent fast and reckless driving. There is also a mounted patrol in four rural precincts, where police of this kind has been found more economical and efficient than the ordinary patrolmen, one of the former being equal to three of the latter. The harbor police, by means of a steamboat and row boats, patrol the waters of the harbor adjacent to the city. The ordinance squad, not exceeding 20 men, is under the direction of the mayor, for enforcing city ordinances. There are also the Broadway squad, on duty during the day in that thoroughfare to aid pedestrians in cross- ing; the detective squad, 13 in number; court squads, special service squads, &c. The police are required to assist, advise, and protect emi- grants, strangers, and others in public streets, steamboats, ship landings, and railroad depots, and to take charge of all lost children and foundlings found in the streets. They also have general supervision over all carts, hacks, omnibuses, and other public vehicles, pawn- brokers, venders, second-hand dealers, junk shops, intelligence offices, and auctions. The recovery and restoration to the owner of lost or stolen property is a prominent duty. Two important functions, not strictly of a police nature, which have been imposed upon the New York police, relate to street cleaning and elections. In 1872 it was made the duty of the board of police to see that all public thor- oughfares, places, &c., are kept in a clean, healthful, unobstructed condition; the imme- diate supervision of this department is vested by the board in the bureau of street cleaning. All elections held in the city are under the direction of the board of police, who appoint inspectors and other election officers, and to whom the returns are transmitted. The police telegraph is an essential feature of the organ- ization, without which an increased force of nearly 50 per cent, would be necessary. The central office is connected with all station houses and some public institutions. The public parks of the city are guarded by a sep- arate force under the control of the park com- missioners. The total number of arrests made by the police of New York during the quarter POLITICAL ECONOMY 663 ending March 31, 1875, was 18,679, including 7,533 native, 7,608 Irish, and 1,916 German persons. The value of property delivered to owners was $298,613; 448 lost children were recovered, of whom 414 were restored to pa- rents or guardians and 34 sent to the commis- sioners of charities and correction; lodgings were furnished in the station houses to 79,105 indigent and unfortunate persons ; 1,267 stores, dwellings, and buildings were found open; 1,503 complaints of nuisances were reported to the health department; 907 examinations for engineers were held, and 555 steam boilers were inspected. The total expenditures of the department of police amounted to $985,088, of which $796,581 were for police purposes, $187,256 for street cleaning, and $1,249 for elections. Other statistics of the New York police are given in the article on that city, vol. xii., p. 393. POLIGNAC, Jules Angnste Armand Marie, prince de, a French statesman, born in Versailles, May 14, 1780. died in Paris, March 2, 1847^ He was a son of the duchess de Polignac, the favorite of Marie Antoinette. In 1804 he and his brother Armand (1771-1847) were im- prisoned as conspirators against Napoleon. Having escaped shortly before the fall of the empire, he was under Louis XVIII. for some time minister in Rome, and the pope made him a Roman prince in 1 820. He was ambassador in London from 1823 to 1829, when he became minister of foreign affairs, and replaced Mar- tignac as president of the council. Notwith- standing the military glory acquired under his administration by the conquest of Algiers, his unpopularity and ultra-royalism proved fatal to Charles X. In the revolution of July, 1830, incited by the arbitrary ordinances which he had signed, he barely escaped being mobbed. He was arrested while fleeing in disguise, tried by the court of peers, and sentenced to im- prisonment for life. He was detained at Ham till the amnesty of 1836, when he retired to London. Prince CAMILLE AKMAND JULES MA- RIE (born Feb. 6, 1832), a relative of the prece- ding, served in the confederate army during the American civil war, and in 1870-'71 in the Franco-German war. Subsequently he was engaged in journalism. POLITIANUS, An^elns. See POLIZIANO. POLITICAL ECONOMY, properly, an exposition of the measures necessary for directing the movements of society so that man may act in harmony with those natural laws which control his efforts to improve his condition. Social science treats of the laws themselves. Prof. Robert E. Thompson would substitute for the name political economy that of national econo- my. Great confusion exists not only in regard to the definition of political economy itself, but as to the meaning of the various expres- sions used in treating of the subject, and even as to a general understanding of its pcope. Some writers have treated it as a science, oth- ers as an art, and Sir James Steuart speaks of