A COLONIAL POLICE.f TITS Australian Mounted Police certainly deserve such
a sub- stantial record as this careful and most interesting history.
• Pod Liminium: Essays and Critical Papers. By Lionel Johnson. Edited by Thomas Whittemore. London : Elkin Matthews. Lee. net.1 t The Trooper Police of Australia. By A. L. Baydon. London: Andrew Melrose. [10s. 6d. net.]
The first police we hear of were enrolled in 1825, and the different colcnies had as they came into being their own forces. It was not till 1862 that the police of New South Wales were put on an organized footing, and the various guards, patrols, gold escorts, and town constables welded into one force. From the very first it must have been obvious that the criminal section of the community were out of all proportion to the population, and included the most dangerous and reckless characters to be found anywhere, and yet the then Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, was content with a total of fifteen I In 1838 there were nearly 170. They could only make a semblance of patrolling the roads, and when an unusual disturbance occurred, the military had to be summoned. For practically half a century the colony was terrorized by escaped convicts and outlaws who had taken to the bush. The authorities appear to have been extraordinarily supine and tender with " bushrangers " ; time and again notorious characters broke prison, and there seems to have been remarkable reluctance to inflict the death penalty. Brady, the Tasmanian bushranger, who in the zenith of his power had actually offered a reward of twenty gallons of rum for the person of the Governor, was the darling of the women. It was counted in his favour that he behaved well to them. He was hanged after great efforts had been made to get him reprieved. The most famous of these Australian outlaws flourished in the 'sixties. It must be confessed that the bare recital of some of their adventures is interesting, and the man on horseback is ever more attrac- tive than the footpad. The early full dress of the police was much like that of the 13th Light Dragoons, but their working kit was quite a sensible dress, and would compare favourably with the early-service dress of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police. The same must be said about their pay, which from the very first was suitable to their arduous work, whereas to this day the pay of their Canadian colleagues can only be described as extraordinarily mean for a service almost Imperial in its range and responsibility. It may be also noted that in their early days the Australian police carried inferior weapons to most of the community which they had to keep in order 1 Mr. Haydon's most interesting and really valuable book brings us down to Coolgardie days, about which he has many interesting things to tell us. The subject has its difficulties, owing to the existence of separate services for the six States, but the author has done justice, we think, to these and kept his history unentangled. The actual historical interest of the work is considerable, notably so in the first chapters, and we may term it worthy in every way of the great traditions of the Australian police.
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