ON THE BEAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 26

ON THE BEAT.

,' " (By BAXTER O'NEILL.) i ■ I wonder wlint policemen think, Or if they think at all, As, wandering on cushioned foot, Their forms perambulate the street, Monotonously on the heat Beneath the midnight pall. As silent as a shadow steals, Mysterlotis cast, A form looms, up—is here—is gone, Like, spectre Secret task upon, And then we realise, that John Has slowly sauntered past. ' Through all the.creepy hours till dawn Shall put the stars to rout. Without a pal for company Ile walks the beat. It puzzles me How he dispels monotony And what he thinks about. He doesn't croon himself a song, You do not hear him talk— Does some profound philosophy Assuage and sooth his mind as he Pursues his task so quietly?— Or does ?he merely walk? Haven't you often wondered that about the bobby? No matter what hour of the night you take yourself home there he is mooching up and down the pavement at the same old regulation two miles per. He tries a door —nobody home. He rattles another. Still nothing doing. It's a black and empty and dead world, except for you, and such as you who prowl about at all hours trying to manufacture plausible stories against your home coming.

I once knew a policeman who used to recite to himself —yards and yards of Shakespeare. You could try him out, bu{ you couldn't trip him. I used to dig sentences out of the oliice Shakespeare and fire them at him. On he went from where I stopped, and, as far as I know lie was always right. Perhaps he was an exceptional policeman. There was another who didn't know any Shakespeare —or anything else. He didn't recite and he didn't think. When the night had tucked itself -away cosily to bed he just went to sleep among the rubbish cans in the recessed doorway of a tailor's shop. It was my job —purely honorary—as I went home later even than the cabaret revellers to wake him against ,tlie coming of the sergeant about 4 a.m. One night I missed, and I saw him no more. (

Which just shows that it's not all beer and skittles being a policeman. But, if you must be a policeman, I will give you a little advice. This, I will dedicate (without their consent) to all the policemen who plod the city beats.

| If you harbour n notion of getting promotion And saying good-bye to the street, With its constant devotion to staid locomotion TTp and down a monotonous beat, Allow no diversion to lead to desertion From where you are likely to meet The sergeant in person whose nightly excursion Means much to the man on the beat. Give due adulation to each regulation, Be wakeful and brisk I entreat, For such aberration as noctambulation Is very had form on the beat. s If a druiik is infesting the beat or Is questing For home on extravagant feet, Remember arresting means enfly attesting . Next day for the man tin the beat. Far better protected the sleep you've expected , If action you take that's .discreet, And the drunk so directed arrest is effected By the man on a"neighbouring beat. If thus you are guided then proftpt and decided Will be the promotion you meet, ■ For the constable's chided whom tact has derided As principal rule of the beat. •Don't, bustle and hector; as tactful protector A kindlier fate you will meet, And you'll be inspector, the boss, the , director . Of other lads out on the beat.