RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32531, 15 February 1971, Page 19

RANDOM REMINDER

WRONG ARM OF THE LAW

Policemen in other days always used to be caricatured as very well-fed chaps with red faces. Today, this certainly does not apply, although there I s . u> at ', east °ne constable who conforms to tjpe by having a red face. « a u. called t 0 break Pa fight in a suburban w^h e ’ “.h Went there Tk? • a l° ther constable. thl e ln eb n ated cause of the trouble resisted arrest, and he withstood the earnest attention of ,the policemen sufficiently long for them to perform

a very slow and quite undignified waltz right through the house, until they reached the washhouse. This is never easy to do, without music, and the only background they had was stertorous breathing and an odd recrimination or so. When the trio came to the impasse of the washhouse wall, one of the constables felt it an opportune time to produce a pair of handcuffs. Doing his share of restraining the culprit with one arm, while fishing out the handcuffs with the

other, was not easy, but he managed, and in the prescribed fashion put one of the bracelets on his own arm. The sight of metal appeared to induce a fresh attack of violence in the man being arrested, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that the second handcuff was applied. And little wonder that the particular arm chosen for this indignity had seemed to struggle with particular ferocity. For our hero discovered that he had handcuffed himself to the other constable.