A CHAT WITH POLICE-SERGEANT X.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 24, 17 June 1893, Page 567

A CHAT WITH POLICE-SERGEANT X.

A LON DON * BOBBY ’ INTERVIEWED. • A policeman's lot is not a happy one. 1 As I watched the policeman go down the dark, dreary street, listening to the ‘ tramp,’ • splash,* and • sogh,’ each time his heavy sodden boots came down, and noting the drip of the rain on the back of his legs—for he held out his cape in front with his hands torave his knees - Mr Gilbert’s line came into my mind. For the first time it struck me th«t policemen are men and brothers, and it seemed worth while to ask something about their lives. A friend of mine, who once had a policeman and his wife to keep house for him, said that he was just the man to tell me all about the force, so I wrote and asked Sergeant X. to call, and last evening he came. A tall, well-built man, clean and smart--1 K»king, clear in speech, without a trace of Cockney, but

rather a sound of Western country, decidedly a good, honest looking man of courage and strength. • SIT DOWN, SERGEANT X, AND HAVE SOME WHISKY AND A CIGAR.’ • Thank you, I’d sooner smoke a pipe.’ Perhaps he was a connoisseur ; anyhow he was right, the cigars weie bad, a present just received ‘from a grateful client.’ • What are my grievances, sir? Why, I don’t think I’ve anything to grumble about; it’s a bard life, and some things don’t seem quite light, but still I suppose it’s fair. The men in my division do grumble about one thing. I’m in the “ C” division—Mayfair, Piccadilly, Regent-street, etc., and the rents are very high. A man can’t live far away, and there aren’t decent lodgings to be had except between 6s 61 and half a guinea a week, and that’s a terrible deal for a man on 24s a week, with a wife and child to keep.’ • Is that what the constable starts on ?’ ‘ Yes, when they pass the doctor and their characters are all right, they BEGIN AT 245, AND CAN RISE 1S a year till they reach 32s a week. You see, we get drafted from division to division, and rents vary, but pay don’t. There’s divisions for all the letters of the alphabet, except “ O,” “Q,” and “ Isome of them light out in the country, where rents are nothing beside ours, and it don’t seem right the pay should be the same. We’ve lately had a sergeant moved in who used in his old division to pay 4* 6d a week for a cottage and little garden, and now he has to pay 16s for him and his wife and seven children.’ ‘WHAT’S SERGEANTS PAY?’ ‘34s, rising Is a year to two pound a week. One gets to be sergeant after eight or nine years’ work and passing a Civil Service examination if one has a good character. After that by seniority one may become an inspector at 565, rising to three guineas a week, then chief inspector, superintendent, and chief ; but of course one only hopes to be inspector, and there’s little chance of that for most. The rent’s our great trouble, and then there are the boots.’ ‘ The boots?’ ‘ Yes, sir. They give us two pair, but they’re no good ; bullocks in the morning made into boots b> night, with rough machine sewing. A man who’s walking eight-and-a-hall hours at a stretch in all weathers needs good boots. I can’t bear them, and they get wet through in an hour's rain. No, sir, those aren’t their boots. I sell my allowance, and get 5s or 6s a pair, no more, and buy good ones ; they cost ine about a pound. EIGHT HOURS AND A BIT WALKING, OR STANDING if it’s traffic directing, day work one week, night the next. Yes, it’s dangerous work at nights, but a man gets a good pen-don if maimed. It’s more interesting, perhaps, at night, trying the doors, studying unusual lights, and “maiking” doors, ladders, and walls of uninhabited places.’ ‘ What is “ maiking ?” ’ • Well, we’ve

A LOT OF TRICKS WITH PINS AND WH VLEBONES AND COTTONS. fixed up so as to show if doors or windows have been opened, or walls climbed over. But I can’t tell them, sir, for you to write, as them might read them who oughtn't to know. It's a hard life, and the walking and rain use up a man. I’ve been at it sixteen years. I'm thirty-seven years old, strong enough, except in my legs ; they’re going a bit. Still, I’m a steady chap, and hope to get full pension. Ten years more it'll take me, and then I shall get two-thirds of my pay, but most men don't reach it; they get worn out. There’s so much extra duty with piocessions and meetings, and we get no extra pay. Yes, it’s no wonder we don’t like them Socialists, seeing what extra work we have, and no overtime.’ ‘ There’s a popular idea that the police get promotion through making many successful charges ?’ ‘ No, sir. If a man keeps his beat in order, and does not

make many charges, he gets on all right. And it isn’t true there’s much false swearing in the force, though I think there used to be, nor bribes neither. I’ve NEVER HAD A BRIBE OFFERED, and I think I’ve run in over five hundred people, and some of them swells, too.’ ‘ The punishments?’ ‘ Oh, they’re very heavy. I’ve never been punished, but I’ve known a man reduced from 28s a week to 25 *—more than £7 a year—for first-time drunkenness. There’s FINES FOR GOSSIPING AND GOING INTO PUBS., and all sorts of things, and I think they’re too hard, though I’ve never suffered. The men are social enough, and there

are billiard-tables, and ebess, and draughts, and books at the stations ; and men box, and so on ; and tbeie’s various societies for music and things. Where do I live? Inoue of the Industrial Dwellings Company’s, Limited, blocks—--7s 61 a week for three small rooms. Lights on stairs out after eleven, so I have to climb up sixty steps in the dark. Of course it's very dear for the accommodation, but a man must be near his work, and they are the best we can get; there's a great demand for them. 1 wish some one would build barracks for each division, anil arrange the rents so that it wouldn’t be dearer to live in one division than another. That would be fair. They'd have good tenants and rents quite safe. •do we get any rewards?’ Yes, but not much—for killing mad dogs, stopping runaway horses, and making clever arrests. Of course, it don’t often happen. We get extras, too, sometimes for special work in theatres, and watching private houses, and the like.’ Whilst he was talking I noticed that be began to look a little sleepy, and remembered he’d been on duty the night before, from 9 45 p m. to 6 a.m., so 1 oiiered some more whisky, which was declined, and he rose, picked up a walking stick curiously carved by himself, begged me to write particularly about the rent and boots, implored me not to disclose his identity, and said * Good-night.’ As I listened to the heavy * tramp,’ * tramp,’ down the sixty steps I also possess, 1 began to doubt the truth of Mr Gilbert's line, for I think that the lot of Sergeant X (uo imaginary person) is one of, at least average, happiness.