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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
Holt could do in a far more benighted age , might be done again were similar men sought for . I know nothing of Colonel Rowan personally , but it is just possible that he may have belonged to the Irish police force . If so , he is not likely to be the best kind of man to deal with an English crowd . That his proceedings are far too summary , and that he is not inclined to take any personal
risk for the sake of a more humane execution of the law , has been shown in the disgraceful instance which has just occurred . While such men are employed , the English law anjd its administrators will continue to be regarded with fear and abhorrence by the mass of the population . When wise and efficient men shall be employed , the well-disposed will only find in the law an instrument of protection , and they will respect it accordingly .
The Times , with its usual insidiousness , says , * The jury could not , either on the evidence or on their own declared admissions , justify the slaughter of the unhappy policeman ; and even had the meeting been lawful , it would not have authorized the carrying about the person of concealed weapons . ' This is an
assumption for the purpose of giving an assassin-like character to those who attended the meeting . It is of a piece with the attempt of Major De Roos to swear that a wooden staff was a lance , because it might be made into a lance . In the first place , there is as yet no proof what weapon the policeman was killed with . Some said it was a dagger , and some a butcher ' s steel . The
greatest probability , in the absence of evidence , is , that it was a sword-cane . This the Times would call a concealed weapon . * Did the editor himself never use such a ' concealed weapon ? ' Do not large numbers of ' respectable * people walk along the streets at noon-day with such 6 concealed weapons ? ' Are they not publicly exposed in numerous shops , and sold by Jews in the streets ?
But perhaps the editor thinks the crime to consist in the fact of a mechanic , one of the c mob /* going to a meeting with one . What is good for the parson is not good for the parish . The squire may carry his gun , but the peasant must be debarred from it . The ' gentleman' may carry his sword-stick , but the base mechanic cannot be intrusted with it , for fear he should make use of it
when the bludgeon of the policeman is about to beat his brains out . This logic may suit the Whigs , but verily it will not pass current with the mechanics , whose heads begin to be as hard as their hands . The fact cannot be disguised , that a meeting of unarmed and peaceable men has been dispersed with brutal and
unnecessary ferocity , that a scene of Irish police ruffianism has been enacted , and the probability is , that when ignorant men attend future meetin gs , it will be with weapons in their hands . For the sake of the community , let the Whigs beware how they countenance further irritation . The fire that consumed Rome was originally but a spark . The Whigs have earned contempt , let them not fan it into hatred . The hearts of good men shudder
Untitled Article
436 On the Conduct of the Police *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 436, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/76/
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