POLICE CENTENARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 123, 27 May 1929, Page 19

POLICE CENTENARY.

LAST OF THE "PEELERS." DAYS OF THE RATTLE, TALL HAT AND TAIL COATS. SURVIVOR'S REMINISCENCES. Established on its present basis by the great reforms of Sir Robert Peel in 1529, the Metropolitan Police l'orcc celebrated its centenary last week. How the lot of the policemen has altered since the early days of Sir Robert's "Peelers" was described to a representative of the "Daily Chronicle" in March last by their oldest surviving member, a remarkable old man, living with his memories in a cottage 011 the Merlon Road, Wandsworth. IJe is Mr. William Henry Skinner, now in his 94th year, who joined the police force in 1800, and retired after 2-1 years' service. In his day there was neither the telephone, the telegraph, nor the highpowered motor car to aid the criminal investigator in his work. Kensington was market gardens—the Cromwell Road a lonely lane, bordered by hedges, the haunt of the cut-throat and the footpad. When "Rattled." It was along these isolated paths that policemen of Mr. Skinner's time patrolled, a stall' and a pair of lists their only protection against lawlessness. They carried then, in addition to the stall', a rattle with which to summon help from a colleague or passer-by. London was then an area of scattered townships and villages linked up by badly-lighted streets or "country lanes," given over to hard work on low pay during the day and to drunkenness and petty crime and misdemeanour at night. Its police force was recruited from men who could light. To use Mr. Skinner's own words, "if you couldn't scrap and hit back hard you weren't of much use in the force."

18/ a Week. For this work the "Peeler'' of midVictorian days, whom Mr. Skinner described as a "better lighter than scholar," received IS/ a week and a week's holiday in the year. He was recruited mainly from agricultural stock. He wore a tail-coat, in the tails of which he tucked away his staff when it was not in use, and a tall hat, which was only to frequently the target of the well-aimed brickbat and the rotten egg. He was initiated into cutlass drill, and served out with firearms "in ease of emergency." He was out 111 all weathers, and when lu; got wet he just had to dry himself where and when lie could. j lc knew nothing of traffic control, and played little of any game other tlian boxing, while of social life he had his own (generally large) family'circle, and nothing else. The police canteen, the cinema, organised sporting and other social activities were unthought of. "The lot of a policeman of to-day is far happier," said Mr. Skinner, "and I am glad I have lived long enough to see better conditions in force." His own personal experiences were confined to four years' patrol work and 20 years as a driver of one of the old horse-drawn "Black Marias." His daily round included trips with remand prisoners from the old remand prison at Horsemonger Lane, near Newington Butts, to Wandsworth. Lambeth and Southwark police courts, and to Wandsworth prison. Snowbound in the blizzard of 1881, he had on one occasion to abandon his vehicle and wait with his load of prisoners until the arrival of warders from the prison. The prisoners were then handcuffed to the warders, and taken over the snow on foot. He remembers, too, how, in the event of an outbreak of fire in his district, mounted police runners had to be dispatched to the nearest lire brigade, at Southwark Bridge, in order to warn the brigade.