FEMALE POLICEMEN.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 925, 3 October 1896, Page 6

FEMALE POLICEMEN.

The New Woman's Aspirations,

The political woman is getting on very well. She ia not content with being made inspectors and little things of that sort She wants to be a policeman now, and if the Government doesn't give her her way there will be a row, and something will break. She is going along like her sister on the bike, and can't tell where she'll stop; which is all very well for the New Woman, bat how about the old man? His last refuge will be gone when the wild women, with peelers' clnbs, are let loose on the streets to chase him home to his miserably

virtuous couch. No longer may he wander round on the gentle razzle-dazzle and see barmaids and stars and such like things. Nor may we tnrn an eye on the things that should not be. The stern | female policeman, with handcuffs and i bloomers, will roust him along to his home or the lock np, and alas for the Old Man when the New Woman enters the force ! Those women who are termed ' advanced,' or a considerable section of them, anyway? are evidently not content with the promise of Premier Seddon to throw open the doora of the Legislative Council to them. The Upper House is a very tame affair, anyhow, and the idea of sitting alongside a crowd of antiquated, back-dated mummies in what a contemporary calls a ' political museum ' does not satisfy her soaring ambition. She wants something higher and more powerful, something that will enable her to display her innate energy and force of character — so she wants to get into the police force 1 Caesar may have been ambitious, but the New Woman's desire to wear the shako and swing the club of the man in blue is a height to which the Imperial Cic3ar did not aspire. It reminds one | about the stock joke of the Irish peasant woman, the height of whose ambition lay in raising ' sixf oine big sons, all polaicemen.' The New Woman believes she can manage everything else, and yet wanta to retain her delicacy and so forth if she is only made a policeman. Fair lady, thou art a conundrum ! Several of the women's political organisations in the colony desire the creation of female police and inspectors, if the new Bill for the Suppression of Juvenile Depravity is to become law. They consider that many of the provisions of the Bill would best be carried out by petticoated policemen (especially the clause giving practically unlimited power to apprehend young girls) , They don't specify whether the lady constable is also no lend a hand in arresting drunks and vagrants and Bpielers, but we presume she would like the cha.uce of jumping on inebrietes and of wrestling with the festive hoodlums. To say nothing of the increase of crime which might result from the influx of young and buxom bobbies into the force, and the consequent creation of a desire to be ' run in ' amongst hitherto respectable citizens, the probabilities are that the feminine policeman would find her sex considerably in the way when ' effecting an arrest.' How would she act when her back hair came down as she was struggling to get a common drunk down and bang his head on the tram-raiis, prior to handcuffing him? Would she let the offender get away while she clewed up her wayward tresses and hauled her skirts into position again, or would she be false to feminine traditions and let her personal fixings go while she secured the criminal ? The odds are that her backhair would have the day, and the drunk would safely retire while the disorganised policewoman shook herself. Then, what about the inevitable mouse? And mice haunt police statione so ! On the whole, unless a bloomer costume and short hair are insisted on for the female policeman, we fear she mast not tackle ordinary poiice duty yet awhile. As for the position of inspectors undar the Juvenile Depraviiy law, we consider some of the duties could be carried out more satisfactorily by women than by men. A woman such as Mrs Hutchiuson of the Salvation Army is the type we want as inspectors and constables under a law of this sort. She would be far better able and fitted to deal with juvenile offenders than a rough and too youthful policeman; she will have that womanish sympathy with girlish waywardness and folly which men, and especially police officers, are not usually credited with. Morality, moreover, would be better served by the selection of discreet women to act as inspectors and police in this department of state interference with the subject for his or her own good, and this coarse, if adopted, would undoubtedly send many little girls off the streets of our cities. Judicious women inspectors may be de. pended on for honestly endeavouring to perform their duty in this delicate question. We don't think we could say the same of the male police as a whole.