accused of doing. The prisoner had been got up, since I last had
the pleasure of seeing her, with a great effect of white apron and
straw bonnet. She reminded me of an elder sister of Red Riding
Hood, and I seemed to remind the sympathising Chimney Sweep by whom
she was attended, of the Wolf.
The Magistrate was doubtful, Mr. Uncommercial Traveller, whether
this charge could be entertained. It was not known. Mr.
Uncommercial Traveller replied that he wished it were better known,
and that, if he could afford the leisure, he would use his
endeavours to make it so. There was no question about it, however,
he contended. Here was the clause.
The clause was handed in, and more conference resulted. After
which I was asked the extraordinary question: ‘Mr. Uncommercial,
do you really wish this girl to be sent to prison?’ To which I
grimly answered, staring: ‘If I didn’t, why should I take the
trouble to come here?’ Finally, I was sworn, and gave my agreeable
evidence in detail, and White Riding Hood was fined ten shillings,
under the clause, or sent to prison for so many days. ‘Why, Lord
bless you, sir,’ said the Police-officer, who showed me out, with a
great enjoyment of the jest of her having been got up so
effectively, and caused so much hesitation: ‘if she goes to
prison, that will be nothing new to HER. She comes from Charles
Street, Drury Lane!’
The Police, all things considered, are an excellent force, and I
have borne my small testimony to their merits. Constabular
contemplation is the result of a bad system; a system which is
administered, not invented, by the man in constable’s uniform,
employed at twenty shillings a week. He has his orders, and would
be marked for discouragement if he overstepped them. That the
system is bad, there needs no lengthened argument to prove, because
the fact is self-evident. If it were anything else, the results
that have attended it could not possibly have come to pass. Who
will say that under a good system, our streets could have got into
their present state?
The objection to the whole Police system, as concerning the
Ruffian, may be stated, and its failure exemplified, as follows.
It is well known that on all great occasions, when they come
together in numbers, the mass of the English people are their own
trustworthy Police. It is well known that wheresoever there is
collected together any fair general representation of the people, a
respect for law and order, and a determination to discountenance
lawlessness and disorder, may be relied upon. As to one another,
the people are a very good Police, and yet are quite willing in
their good-nature that the stipendiary Police should have the
credit of the people’s moderation. But we are all of us powerless
against the Ruffian, because we submit to the law, and it is his
only trade, by superior force and by violence, to defy it.
Moreover, we are constantly admonished from high places (like so
many Sunday-school children out for a holiday of buns and milk-andwater)
that we are not to take the law into our own hands, but are
to hand our defence over to it. It is clear that the common enemy
to be punished and exterminated first of all is the Ruffian. It is
clear that he is, of all others, THE offender for whose repressal
we maintain a costly system of Police. Him, therefore, we
expressly present to the Police to deal with, conscious that, on
the whole, we can, and do, deal reasonably well with one another.
Him the Police deal with so inefficiently and absurdly that he
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
flourishes, and multiplies, and, with all his evil deeds upon his
head as notoriously as his hat is, pervades the streets with no
more let or hindrance than ourselves.
CHAPTER XXXI – ABOARD SHIP
My journeys as Uncommercial Traveller for the firm of Human-
Interest Brothers have not slackened since I last reported of them,
but have kept me continually on the move. I remain in the same
idle employment. I never solicit an order, I never get any