GERMAN POLICE AND LAW.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XII, 20 March 1897, Page 361

GERMAN POLICE AND LAW.

The late secret police exposures in Berlin have called attention to the constitution of the police force in general throughout the German empire, says a Dresden correspondent of the New York Post. In the large cities this strong arm of the law is recruited from the list of army veterans, and army service is the sine qua non of appointment. The strict discipline acquired in the regiments serves to keep the men at a high level of efficiency, and the service is considered equally honorable and in many cases a rise in authority for the man in command of a street or district. No law, upon however small or trivial a matter, is allowed to become a dead letter. And one might say that in Germany there is no matter so small or trivial that it has not its laws and ordinances. To the mind of the German police officer these, and all of these, are as important as the decalogue. A young Englishman riding early one morning in a certain public park, and, seeing a bench near by and no one in sight, he jumped his hone over it, when, to his amazement, a man appeared and told him he had broken such and such a law, and then fined him a mark. In Germany the policman is first a constable, next the witness for the prosecution, then the jury and last the Judge who pro-

□ounce, sentence, all in one breath. ‘You must pay a fine of 1 mark for jumping your home o»« that bench,’ he Mid. The rider claimed that no harm had been done, and that both the bench and the park were empty at the time. But the official Mid : ‘No, you have broken the law.' So the law-breaker put his hand in bi. pocket and handed the officer a two-mark piece. ‘But,’ Mid the policman, *1 cannot change thia. * ‘Oh, that makes no difference,' replied our young’ horseman. ‘l’ll just take another jump,’ which he did without waiting for further instruction in the law of the land.