WAR ON BURGLARS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 April 1934, Page 2

WAR ON BURGLARS

LORD TRENCHARD’S PLAN A new scheme devised by Lord Trenchaid, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has for its object the greater protection from burglars of the outer suburbs of London, says the “Daily Mail.” If it proves successful it will mean a revolutionary change in the method of patrolling lonely districts and the abolition of long-distance “beats” for constables on foot.

The scheduled pace for the patrolling of “beats” is 2J miles per hour, and at this leisurely gait hundreds of policemen cover each day distances of about twenty miles. The widespread use of wireless' and motor-cars both by day and night has already proved an effective check to the law breaker. But in the fight with the motorist-criminal who travels at breakneck speed the pedestrian policeman has played an almost negligible part. The bandit gangs know his movements so well that they are often able to carry out their projects unmolested. All the men released from lonely patrols will be available, when not actually patrolling in motor-cars or oft duty, at accessible places, and telephone or wireless messages will letch them quickly to any given point. It is the hope of many police experts that in the fight against crime the pedestrian constable will soon give way almost entirely to the man who travels on wheels, and suburban policemen who daily trudge many miles are looking forward to an experiment that is to carry them round their “beats’ at fast speeds. Telephone boxes—both public and police—are now so plentifully studded throughout Greater London that police stations can be speedily communicated with, and it is because Londoners have become so telephone-minded that Lord' Trenchard considers that the replacement of foot policemen by mobile officers will prove a. great success. The “beats” now traversed once in about eight hours will be covered scores of times in the same period if necessary. Danger lies ahead for gangs who scheme suburban robberies.

One of the most interesting features of the population statistics of the Commonwealth issued from time to time is the gradual decrease in the excess of males over females. It is natural in countries passing through the pioneering phase (says the Melbourne Age) for males to be in the majority, and the steadily growing change in the balance of sexes in Australia in recent years has indicated that settled conditions are producing a more equal proportion. Immediately after the war there was an excess of male births, but in the last few. years the position has been reversed. In Victoria, in fact, females now outnumber males by over 14,000, compared with an excess of over 36,000 males in New South Wales, 46,000 in Queensland, 745 in South | Australia, 29,000 in Western Aus-! tralia, 2000 in Tasmania, 2000 in the [ Nortlnern Territory, and 700 in Can-i berra. On December 31, 1932,'there was an excess of 197,767 males over ' females in the Commonwealth, but a 1 year later this excess had fallen to 102,052, a rate of decline which, if continued, will extinguish the differ-. 1 ence in approximately 20 years. j