CONSTABLES AND CIVILIANS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 73, 29 March 1910, Page 2

CONSTABLES AND CIVILIANS.

TO THE EDITOB. I Sir,— .\s a respectable law-abiding taxpayer and an honouiablc member of the .Southern Democracy, I would like to know per medium of your columns and on bohulf of oilier respectable citizene ; What are the qualification* for admission to the police force of the Dominion? Also the functions of the police when on duty. Am I right in assuming that candidates for the ioice are s>uppo>>ed to have at least ordinary intelligence? Am 1 right in assuming that one of the functions of the polite is to preserve, or at least to endeavour to. prevent a breach of the peace? I do not think the action of on« constable last Saturday lends colour to either assumption. About a quarter past eleven on. Saturday morning, three thoroughly respectable mon, ou their way home from their place of work, were conversing quietly on the outer edgo of the footpath at the foot Of Upper Willis -street. They had not been there loßg when, from the other side of the street, strode a policeman, who, with the- air of one who is, or imagines he is, born to command, peremptorily ordered them off the street. Whether the contrast between the workingmen's attire and his own new blue ■uit was too much for his aesthetic een&e, 1 may not say, and who would dare to ask him? He would brook no discussion, I for when it was meekly pointed out to | him that as there was little or no trafcc at that part of tho etreet, there was no obstruction, he menacingly repeated his "get out of it." When civilly asked if they were allowed to speak in the street and finish what they had to bay, he replied: "\'<er not allowed to speak anywhere; get out of it or I'll call a tub and: shilt you," and seemed about to suit the action to the word. His manifest eagerness to call a cab would almost lead one to infer that he was improving the chining hour by acting on | commission for some cab proprietor. The ! other inference is that the men were in- \ toxicated ; too drunk to walk quietly to the police station. 1 do not think the iir*t inference is correct, and 1 «m *ure the second in not, for the men were quite sober, and I know that one, if not two, of the company does not touch intoxicating drink. Had any of the men been under the influence of drink there would pot&ibly, nay probably, have been a breach of the peaco, caused by one who is paid to prevent such breach, and to protect, not to insult, decent citizens. It is only fair to s«iy thoie arc men in the force who are a credit to it; men 'who do their duty and know how to do it, and whose native intelligence knows when a request should preteilc a command. Let us gi\« censure where earned, and honour where due. Hut, alas, thero are others who should be put through a course of moral and mental culture before letting them loose on the- street* of our citien, and to whom, if they con road, the perusal of a penny pamphlet on the principles of politeness would be a chenp and nece.<+ary education. — I nm, etc., P. BROWNE. Koro Koto. 28th March, .1910. Thr> blood, the kidneys, -and tho liver should bo washed as regularly and a<t thoroughly as tho exterior of the body, '■ay« a noted authority, and no table I water hitherto discovered is, to capable of performing tlioso internal ablutions ai | "\Vni-ron(?oa" Natural Mineral Water. It win awarded another gold inedul recently nt tho Imperial International Exhibition, London, againit ail-oomttl. T. I and \Y. Young, igenU.— Adyt.