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OTHER See also:COUNT Rms.—See also:British See also:India is divided into See also:police districts, the See also:general arrangements of the See also:system of the See also:regular police, which See also:dates from the disappearance of the See also:East India See also:Company, resembling in most respects those of the See also:English police, but differing in details in the different presidencies. All are in See also:uniform, trained to the use of firearms and drilled, and may be called upon to perform military duties. The See also:superior See also:officers are nearly all Europeans and many of them are military officers. The See also:rest are natives, in Bombay chiefly Mahommedans. The organization of the police was not dealt with by the criminal See also:code which came into force in 1883, but the code is full of provisions tending to make the force efficient. By that code as well as by the former code the police have a legal See also:sanction for doing what by practice they do in See also:England; they take See also:evidence for their own See also:information and guidance In the investigation of cases and are clothed with the See also:power to compel the attendance of witnesses and question them. The smallness of the number of See also:European magistrates, and other circumstances, make the police more important and relatively far more powerful in India than in England (See also:Stephen). The difficulties in the way of ascertaining the truth and investigating false statements and
suppressed cases are very See also:great. As regards the rural police of India every See also:village headman and the village watchman as well as the village police See also:office are required by the code to communicate to the nearest See also:magistrate or the officer in See also:charge of the nearest police station, whichever is nearest, any information respecting offenders. On the whole the system is very efficient. The police, which has numerous duties over and above those of the prevention and detection of See also:crime, greatly See also:aids a See also:government so paternal as that of India in keeping See also:touch with the widely extended masses of the See also:population.
See also:France.—It is a See also:matter of See also:history that under See also: See also:Napoleon availed himself largely of police See also:instruments, especially through his See also:minister See also:Fouche. On the restoration of constitutional government under Louis Philippe, police See also:action was less dangerous, but the danger revived under the second See also:empire. The See also:ministry of police, created by the See also:act of the See also:Directory in 1796, was in 1818 suppressed as an See also:independent office, and in 1852 it was See also:united with the ministry of the interior. The regular police organization, which preserves See also:order, checks evil-doing, and " runs in " malefactors, falls naturally and broadly into two See also:grand divisions, the administrative and the active, the police " in the office " and the police "out of doors." The first attends to the clerical business, voluminous and incessant. An See also:army of clerks in the numerous bureaus, hundreds of patient government employes, the rands de cuir, as they are contemptuously called, because they sit for choice on See also:round See also:leather cushions, are engaged constantly See also:writing and filling in forms for See also:hours and hours, See also:day after day. The active army of police out of doors, which constitutes the second See also:half of the whole See also:machine, is divided into two classes: that in uniform and that in See also:plain clothes. Every visitor to Paris is See also:familiar with the rather theatrical-looking policeman, in his See also:short See also:frock-coat or cape, See also:smart kepi cocked on one See also:side of his See also:head, and with a See also:sword by his side. The first is known by the See also:title of See also:agent, sergent de ville, gardien de la paix, and is a very useful public servant. He is almost invariably an old soldier, a sergent who has See also:left the army with a first-class See also:character, honesty and sobriety being indispensable qualifications. These uniformed police are not all employed in the streets and arrondissements, but there is a large reserve composed of the six central brigades, as they are called, a very smart See also:body of old soldiers, well drilled, well dressed and fully equipped; armed, more-over, with rifles, with which they See also:mount guard when employed as sentries at the doors or entrance of the prefecture. In Paris argot the men of these six central brigades are nicknamed " vaisseaux " (vessels), because they carry on their collars the badge of the See also:city of Paris—an See also:ancient See also:ship—while the sergeants in the See also:town districts See also:wear only See also:numbers, their own individual number, and that of the See also:quarter in which they serve. These vaisseaux claim to be the elite of the force; they come in daily contact with the Gardes de Paris, See also:horse and See also:foot, a See also:fine See also:corps of city See also:gendarmerie, and, as competing with them, take a particular See also:pride in themselves. Their comrades in the quarters resent this pretension and declare that when in contact with the See also:people the vaisseaux make See also:bad See also:blood by their arrogance and want of tact. The See also:principal business of four at least of these central brigades is to be on See also:call when required to reinforce the out-of-See also:door police at See also:special times. Of the two remaining central brigades one controls public carriages, the other the Halles, the great central See also:market by which Paris is provided with a large See also:part of its See also:food. Every See also:cab-stand is under the charge of its own policeman, who knows the men, notes their arrival and departure, and marks their general behaviour. Other police officers of the central brigades superintend the See also:street See also:traffic. So much for the police in uniform: That in plain clothes, en See also:bourgeois, as the See also:French call it, is not so numerous, but fulfils a higher, or at least a more confidential See also:mission. Its members are styled inspectors, not agents, and their functions fall under four principal heads. There is, first of all, the service of the Sflrete--in other words, of public safety—the detective See also:department, employed entirely in the pursuit and See also:capture of criminals; next comes the police, now amalgamated with the Sflrete, that watches over the morals of the See also:capital and possesses arbitrary See also:powers under the existing See also:laws of France; then there is the See also:brigade de garnis, the police charged with the supervision of all lodging-houses, from the commonest " See also:sleep-sellers' See also:shop, as it is called, to the grandest hotels. Last of all there is the brigade for enquiries, whose business it is to act as the eyes and ears of the prefecture. The pay of the gardiens de la paix is from 1400 to 1700 francs; brigadiers get 2000 francs; sous-brigadiers 1800 francs; officiers de paix 3000 to 6000 francs. The proportion of police to inhabitants is one in 352. See also:Germany.—Taking the See also:Berlin force as illustrative of the police system in the See also:German Empire, police duties are as various as in France; the system includes a See also:political police, controlling all matters See also:relating to the See also:press, See also:societies, clubs and public and social amusements. Police duties are carried out under the direction of the royal police See also:presidency, the executive police force comprising a police See also:colonel, with, besides commissaries of criminal investigations,captains, lieutenants, acting-lieutenants, sergeant-majors and a large body of constables (schutzmanner). It is computed that the proportion of population to police in Berlin is between 350 and 400 to each officer. The pay of the police is principally provided from fiscal See also:sources and varies in an ascending See also:scale from 1125 marks and lodging See also:allowance for the lowest class of See also:constable. See also:Austria.—Taking See also:Vienna in the same way as illustrative of the See also:Austrian police, it is to be observed that there are three branches: (I) See also:administration; (2) public safety and judicial police; and (3) the government police. At the head of the police service in Vienna there is a See also:president of police and at the head of each of the three branches there is an Oberpolizeirath or See also:chief See also:commissary. The head of the government See also:branch sometimes fills the office of president. Each of the branches is subdivided into departments, at the head of which are Polizeirathe. Passing over the subdivisions of the administrative branch, the public safety and judicial branch includes the following departments: the office for public safety, the central inquiry office and the See also:record or Evidenzburea.u. The government police branch comprises three departments: the government police office, the press office, and the Vereinsbureau or office for the See also:registration of societies. The proportion of police constables to the inhabitants is one to 436. See also:Belgium.—In Belgian municipalities the burgomasters are the heads of the force, which is under their See also:control. The See also:administrator of public safety is, however, specially under the minister of See also:justice, who See also:sees that the laws and regulations affecting the police are properly carried out, and he can call on all public functionaries to act in furtherance of that See also:object. The administrator of public safety is specially charged with the administration of the See also:law in regard to aliens, and this law is applied to persons stirring up See also:sedition. The See also:duty of the gendarmerie, who constitute the horse and foot police, is generally to maintain See also:internal order and See also:peace. In See also:Brussels as elsewhere the burgomaster is the head, but for executive purposes there is a chief commissary (subject, however, to the orders of the burgomaster), with assistant commissaries, and commissaries of divisions and other officers and central and other bureaus, with a body of agents (police constables) in each. There are two See also:main classes of police functions recognized by law, the administrative and the judicial police, the former engaged in the daily See also:maintenance of peace and order and so preventing offences, the latter in the investigation of crime and tracing offenders ; but the duties are necessarily performed to a great extent by the same agents. The two other functions of the judicial police are, however, limited to the same classes of officers, and they perform the same duties as in Paris—the law in practice there being expressly adopted in Brussels. In See also:Switzerland, which is sometimes classed with Belgium as among the least-policed states of See also:Europe, the laws of the cantons vary. In some respects they are stricter than in Belgium or even in France. Thus a permis de sejour is sometimes required where none is in practice necessary in Paris or Brussels. See also:Russia was till lately the most police-ridden See also:country in the See also:world; not even in France in the worst days of the See also:monarchy were the people so much in the hands of the police. To give some See also:idea of the wide-reaching functions of the police, the power assumed in matters momentous and quite insignificant, we may quote from the See also:list of circulars issued by the minister of the interior to the See also:governors of the various provinces during four See also:recent years. The governors were directed to regulate religious instruction in See also:secular See also:schools, to prevent horse-stealing, to control subscriptions collected for the See also:holy places in See also:Palestine, to regulate the advertisements of medicines and the See also:printing on cigarette papers, to examine the quality of See also:quinine See also:soap and overlook the cosmetics and other See also:toilet articles—such as soap, See also:starch, brillantine, tooth-brushes and See also:insect-See also:powder —provided by chemists. They were to issue regulations for the proper construction of houses and villages, to exercise an active censorship over published See also:price-lists and printed notes of invitation and visiting See also:cards, as well as See also:seals and See also:rubber stamps. All private meetings and public gatherings, with the expressions of See also:opinion and the class of subjects discussed, were to be controlled by the police.
The political or See also:state police was the invention of See also:Nicholas I. See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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