In the year 1829, the late Sir Robert Peel, after having consolidated the Criminal Law of England, instituted in the metropolis the new jolice force, which more than any other external means has con solidated peace and protected life and property, to the undoing of invective such as met its introduction, and to the disappointment of all the alarm that was excited by it for the liberty of the subject. This was effected by the 10 Geo. I V., c. 44; and that Act was followed by the 2 & 3 Viet. c. 47, making further improvements in the force, extending the metropolitan police district to a radius of fifteen miles from Charing Cross, and giving police-jurisdiction over the river Thames, and the quays and docks existing thereon. The city of London, that bad been exempted from the operation of these statutes, was by the 2 & 3 Viet e. xeiv., provided with a similar force under a special conuniesioner, cutirely under the control of the city authorities. And other cities and boroughs from this time forward successively acquired by private Act of Parliament the necessary powers to enable them to institute and maintain police on the model of the metropolitan force. By the 5 & 6 Viet. e. 109 ; 7 & S Viet. e. 52, and 13 & 14 Viet. c. 20, petty constables for preserving the peace in parishes or townships maintaining their own poor, and in extra-paroehial places, are to be chosen annually by the justices of the peace for the district or division, from a list made by the overseers, comprising every able bodied man between 25 and 55 years resident in the parish, and rated to the poor rate or county rate, or holding at the yearly rent of 41., subject, however, to sundry exceptions expressly mentioned in the Act. This was a resuscitation of the ancient constabulary for the protection of life and property, and maintenance of the queen's peace, in places and districts not incorporated, the inhabitants themselves, in the true spirit of old English institutions,being thereby mutually engaged under oath, without remuneration, to the performance of this important public duty.
The 2 & 3 Viet. c. 93, and the 3 & 4 Viet. c. 88, had in ithe meantime provided for the appointment of county constabulary, clothed, paid and accoutred, and formed in accordance with rules prescribed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. But as these Acts left the initiative in the discretion of the county magis trates, very many of the English and Welsh counties continued to be without protection, save such as was afforded by the parish constable, until the 19 & 20 Viet. e. 69 (20 Viet. e. 2) made it compulsory on
the magistrates of every county where no police had yet been con stituted, to proceed therein forthwith. l'owers for the consolidation of independent bodies of police already existing, or for tho joint appointment and superintendence of police for adjoining districts and boroughs, were given by the same statute, and provision was made for imposing one-fourth of the expense of the force, whenever it was efficient, on the Consolidated Fund. Similar provision had already been made by the 3 & 4 W. IV., c. 89, for advancing a sum of 60,0001. a year out of the Consolidated Fund towards defraying the expense of the metropolitan police. In this way the whole of the country, by successive steps, and in virtue of a series of statutes, beginning with the Act of (Sir Robert l'ecl in the tenth year of George IV., has at length been placed under the protection of a well-devised and very tfficiont system of police, whose surveillance of the country is continued throughout the whole of the four-and-twenty hours. In Scotland the larger towns have many of them separate police statutes, placing the management and control of the system in the hand, of elected com missioners; but the 3 & 4 Wm. IV. c. 40, a general police Act, the provisions of which, or a portion of them, might have been adopted by any royal burgh, burgh of regality, or burgh of barony, at a meeting of a specified number of ten-pound householders, has been adopted In several places. That Act was amended by the 10 & 11 Viet. c. 39, and further by the 13 & 14 Vict. e. 33, and, thus amended, is still in full free and operation. The 20 & 21 Viet. c. 72, however, has since been passed for improving the police system of Scotland, and providing facilities for the establishment of police whore none at the time existed. As In the general Act for England, the institution of county con stabularies is by this Act compulsory on the eommisitioners of supply for each county ; provision is also made for the consolidation of Independent bodies of police, and for the establishment of pollee for neighbouring districts and burghs jointly. The former statute, the 2 & 3 Viet. c. 65, which left it discretionary in the commissioners of supply to provide constables for the counties, is repealed ; and provision is made for charging oue-fuurth of the expense of any burgh or county constabulary, reported to be efficient for the year in numbers and discipline, on the Consolidated Fund.