No establishment would be necessary for the Dock-yards, and Public Arsenal, at Deptford and Woolwich, as the great civil force, and the number of boats attached to the Marine Police Office at Wapping, when strengthened, extended, and improved in the manner which is proposed, would be competent to carry into effect the Laws now in being, and such as may hereafter be enacted, for the prevention and detection of offences in every part of the River Thames, from London Bridge to the Hope Point.
The Magistrate proposed to be established at Chatham, could occasionally administer justice at Sheerness, while the Boat Officers belonging to the Institution, might be employed advantageously in traversing the River Medway, and in keeping a watchful eye on the various Receivers of stolen goods, who reside in the vicinity of that River, between the two Dock-yards.
At Portsmouth and Plymouth there would be regular employment for the respective Magistrates, and the Boat and other Officers on these establishments.
These three Institutions may be conducted at an expence not exceeding one thousand pounds a year each, viz:--
£. _s._ _d._ To the responsible resident Magistrate 300 0 0 To his Clerk 100 0 0 To the Constables, 6 in number, 50_l._ each 300 0 0 To House Rent, Coal, Candles, Stationary, tear and wear of Boats, and Rewards for meritorious Services 300 0 0 ------------- Total 1000 0 0
Towards defraying this expence, the fees which would be received, and the penalties inflicted for minor offences, under the Legislative regulations hereafter to be proposed, would go a certain length in reducing the expences of the three Police Institutions. But considering the advantages likely to result from those Establishments, were the expence to be incurred even _fifty times_ the amount of what is estimated, it would in all probability be much more than compensated by the savings to the Public, which will result from the preservation of the Public property, independent of the advantages which must arise from an improvement in the morals of a numerous class of delinquents, who have long been in a course of criminal turpitude.
A Police System thus organized under the direction of a Magistrate in each situation, whose attention would be solely confined _to this one object_, could not fail to be productive of the greatest good, especially when aided by officers, well selected and encouraged to be _vigilant_ and _pure_ in their conduct, from the advantages they would derive from a moiety of the pecuniary penalties, when offenders were convicted, in addition to their salaries, thereby rendering their situations comfortable and desirable, and fortifying them against seduction and connivance with Receivers and Thieves, as too often has been discovered to take place, with respect to parochial Constables resident near the Dock-yards, by which Public Justice has been frequently defeated. The terror which such a System would excite, and the extensive evils a Boat Police are likely to prevent, can only be conceived by those who have witnessed the effect of the Marine Police on the River Thames.