THE IRISH POLICE. THE unsatisfactory state of Ireland brings into relief the machinery for the prevention and detection of crime in that country. When we find a great increase of a kind of crime always present to a greater or lesser degree, we are likely to be driven to the conclusion that the Irish police system is bad; or that the members of the force are not faithfully discharging their duty; or that the causes of crime lie so deep that it cannot effectually be reached by any police system based on lines of British freedom. 6 The origin of the English constable dates back probably five hundred years before the Norman Conquest. Constable' is a compound name of comparatively modern date, but the borseholder, or boroughelder,' has preserved his title unchanged from the early Saxon times; the Saxon word borge, borrow, or borhoe signifying a pledge, and ealder the chief or head man of the pledges. This Teutonic police system of guild or tithing is so well known that it requires but a passing mention. The male inhabitants were joined in sections of ten men, who became mutually security for the good conduct of each other. The section, or tithing,' elected one of their number to answer for them, and probably invested him with a certain amount of authority over them in arranging the proportion to be paid, by each, of the amercements that might be imposed upon the tithing for murder or robbery committed by one of their number. This man so elected was called the borrow-elder, or, in other words, the chief of the pledge. Each group of ten tithings then became a hundred which was in a lesser degree responsible in so far that a fine too large to be paid by a tithing was chargeable to the hundred. Any man not enrolled as a member of a tithing became an outlaw, and for his murder no fine could be exacted by his relatives. The system of Peace-Pledge is admirably traced by Pike in his History of Crime in England. It is evident that if offences against the peace could have been tried by tribunals independent of the hundred, the system would offer the most ample safeguards. But its benefits were obliterated by the form of trial. If the fellow tithing men of the accused swore that they believed him innocent he escaped punishment, and they averted the imposition of a fine, of which each one of them must have paid a portion. This trial by compurgation was not trial by jury. The compurgators were simply witnesses to character before the lord in whose court the offender was tried, but the effect of their unanimous declaration of belief in his innocence was precisely that of a verdict of 'not guilty' by a jury. Down to the middle of the fourteenth century, the establishment of these courts was entirely at the discretion of the lord of the soil, the borrow-elder being a deputy from the tithing, and an executive officer of the law as declared by the lord or his steward. But about that time the increased power of the towns enabled them to resist the claims of any lord to interfere in their affairs; they established their own police, and public opinion set in strongly against private justice. When parishes were formed for the more regular collection of tithes and distribution to the poor, the borrow-elder became in most places the parish constable, and continues to this day, elected by the parishioners or church wardens to assist the county constabulary instituted under a new system. The English parish constable thus represents the principle of minute local government carried down from days long anterior to the Norman Conquest. The police system of Ireland has not so grown with the growth of the people. The first mention of constables. that I can find is in the 10 Hen. VII., when it was enacted that every subject must have an English bow and a sheaf of arrows, or a jack fallet, and that the men in daily service of lords, knights, and esquires must be supplied with those weapons. Two wardens of the peace were to be appointed to every barony, and in every parish 'constables of able persons, inhabitants within said parish,' who were to have a pair of butts erected, and to see that on holidays every man was to shoot two or three games or pay a fine of three pence. This enactment of 1495 evidently extended only to the portions of Ireland inhabited by Englishmen, and in 1495 large territories were still unconquered. 6 This is shown by the statutes of 1566. The 3 & 4 Ph. and My., an Act prohibiting the unlicensed distillation of whisky, began thus: Forasmuch as aqua vitæ, a drink nothing profitable to be daily drunken and used, is now universally throughout the realm of Ireland made, and especially in the borders of the Irishry, &c.;' and the last struggle of Hugh O'Neill was not over until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The extension of baronies and parishes then continued until the whole country was so divided. It is probable that during the seventeenth century the parish constable, like the parish clergyman, was changed with changing reigns, reforming with Henry and Elizabeth; becoming Catholic with Mary; Protestant with Cromwell; again oscillating between James and William. The struggle of 1690 settled the religion of the parish constables for a century, and the 27th Geo. III. chap. 40, authoris ing the grand jury to appoint sixteen petty constables for each barony or half barony, ordained that these constables must be Protestants. Thus far we find that the system of police in Ireland has been a purely English institution, introduced at first for the benefit of the English settlers within the Pale. At this time the penal laws against Roman Catholicism were in force, and it is improbable that these constables, exclusively Protestants, would have been regarded by the Catholic people otherwise than as the instruments of persecution. As preservers of the peace they were useless. They did not even satisfactorily execute criminal warrants, which were frequently executed by private persons with the aid of the troops or yeomanry. They became practically hangers-on to different magistrates, who used them more often as workmen or messengers than as constables, and to whom they brought from time to time scraps of information gathered from the conversation of the people, by whom they were as distrusted as they were disliked. Their uselessness as preservers of the peace was quickly demonstrated, but it was not until 1814 that a peace preservation force was formed in parts of Ireland. This force had no cohesion. Under the Peace Preservation Act the Lord Lieutenant could proclaim any county or city to be in a state of disturbance. These parts of the country were divided into districts, each placed for police purposes under the control of a chief magistrate. A number of the peace preservation force were placed under the orders of the chief magistrate, who made what changes he pleased in their drill, discipline, and uniform. The following description of a turn-out of the peace preservation force is from the History of the Irish Constabulary, by Mr. Curtis, an old constabulary officer. A brother officer told him as follows: I was standing at assize time in the street of Maryborough (a town only fifty miles from Dublin) near the hotel, when I heard the sound of horsemen rapidly approaching, and suddenly a body of forty men came sweeping round the corner at a sharp trot, scarcely giving me time to get out of their way. They drew up opposite the hotel, under the command of a Major Nicholson, who was commandant of so much of the peace preservation force as were in the province of Leinster. This officer wore a dark blue jacket, closely braided in front with round black silk cord, and small buttons; red cuffs and collar, red and gold lace girdle, and tall beaver cap and feathers, with crescent Turkish-shaped scimitar. Of the men, ten wore scarlet cloaks over their uniform, reaching down over their horses' tails, brass helmets and plumes, 'Waterloo' on the helmets; ten were in hussar uniforms, with loose jackets slung over the shoulder, hussar saddles with sheepskins, &c. Ten others were in a uniform which I cannot now describe, but sitting behind them on pads were voltigeurs with short rifles resting on the thigh. These voltigeurs were made to dismount and remount occasionally by their eccentric commander. The inconvenience of this system was apparent. The force only existed in proclaimed districts, and it was the interest of magistrates and men that the crime and outrage should not be entirely suppressed. A member of the force transferred from one proclaimed district to another found himself under different conditions of drill and work, and each transfer necessitated fresh instruction. However, during the serious troubles of 1816, 1817, and 1818, the peace preservation force so completely failed that in 1822 an Act was passed authorising the formation of a constabulary force of 5,000 men. The Lord Lieutenant appointed an inspector-general for each of the four provinces; the appointment of officers was also in his hands. The power to appoint the constables was given to the magistrates, and for the first time since the battle of the Boyne Catholics were enrolled as constables for the preservation of the peace. In this form the force continued for thirteen years, during which it performed efficient service. Faction fights were then of frequent occurrence, as many as a thousand people on each side being sometimes engaged. In May 1831 a number of police under the command of my father, then chief constable in Westmeath, interfered to stop a faction fight at Castlepollard. Both sides attacked the police, who were at last obliged to fire upon them, killing thirteen and wounding a great number. In June, the same year, seventeen people were killed and many wounded by yeomanry, who turned out in support of the police at Newtownbarry, where the people attempted to rescue cattle seized for tithes. Again in December at Carrickshock an attack was made upon thirty constabulary who refused to deliver up a process server whom they were protecting. Here the people were successful. A volley was fired by the constabulary, by which two of their assailants were killed; before they could reload the people were upon them; fourteen men with their officer were killed, and eight badly wounded. The evils resulting from a difference of system in the four provinces led to the ultimate amalgamation of the force, and in 1836 the constabulary was reorganised under the provisions of the 6 & 7 Wm. IV. chap. 13. The provincial inspectors-general were done away with, and the entire force amalgamated. The Irish constabulary now consisted of an inspector-general, a deputy, and two assistant inspectors-general, who formed the head-quarter staff; 35 county inspectors, 217 sub-inspectors, and, in round numbers, 10,000 constables and men; and, fluctuating between that number and 12,000 men, it has continued practically without change for forty-four years. By this Act the constabulary ceased to be a local force. The appointment of constables no longer rested with the magistrates; but no candidate was accepted who was not recommended by a magistrate, or an officer of the force. A certain number of constables were allocated to each county, half the expense of which force was to be borne by the county, half by the consolidated fund. If the magistrates of any county required additional men over the complement, the county was to be charged with the entire expense of such addi tional force. A reserve force of 200 men was formed at the central depôt in Dublin and paid for out of the consolidated fund; and it may be stated at once that, a few years later on, the entire cost of the Irish constabulary was made an Imperial charge, save for the extra number required for counties in a disturbed state, thus relieving the Irish taxpayers of the payment of over 1,100,000l. sterling per annum. I have so far endeavoured to point out the difference in the growth of police systems in England and in Ireland. A police force is theoretically the internal executive power established by a civil society of free men, united together for mutual protection, and acknowledging mutual rights and duties. Such a power, so established, must of necessity be supported by the majority of the community, on whose active assistance in the execution of legislative decrees the constable can count. This describes accurately the position of the constable in England. Now let us imagine such a civil society conquered and annexed by another community whose legislative decrees are different, and whose opinions on matters of internal rights of person or property are divergent. Let us further suppose a portion of the conquering community settled among the conquered. At first their settlement is a purely military matter, leaving out of account the society that has been annexed. numbers follow, and the conquerors are firmly established, they adopt the legislative views and the police power they left at home. Little by little they absorb the lands of the conquered society; a large number even adopt its views. But the regulations for the internal conduct of the weak society are formed upon the public opinion of the strong; so far as its members are concerned the executive power is not of their making, and does not represent the outcome of their mutual agreement for protection. Then as This represents pretty fairly the establishment of police in Ireland. The laws regulating its internal affairs and dealing with the security of person and property are laws that satisfy the English conscience. For centuries the Irish people doggedly refused to be bound by English laws, however beneficial; and of all the seven hundred years since the landing of Strongbow not sixty have elapsed since the Celtic Irishman was first admitted to the office of petty constable. It is not, then, surprising that before 1822 the constable was regarded with great disfavour. The executive power was practically in the hands of the yeomanry-a body, if tradition be true, whose cruelties in 1797 were only equalled by their weakness in 1798-and the constables were regarded as their jackals. The establishment of the Irish constabulary secured a force strong enough to overcome. any opposition from a society however lawless; with a thorough knowledge of the people, from whom they were drawn; and animated by a sympathy that demanded their friendship, while faithfully and |