Never where they are wanted
THE POLICE OF WALTON-LE-DALE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESTON CHRONICLE.
SIR,-I respectfully claim a corner in your valuable journal in order to give an exposé to a grievance which has long existed in my neighbourhood, and which seems as far from being remedied as ever. It is a common question now-a-days “Where are the police?” and the answer “Never where they are wanted,” is as common as the interrogation. I have lived nearly the whole of my life in the same neighbourhood I now reside in, and I have always found each successive generation of children and youth as mischievous as their predecessors, and as fully possessed of a feeling to annoy their more quiet neighbours as much as possible. All children we know are fond of committing mischief, and mischief committed by children in petticoats and roundabout jackets may for a time be tolerated, but when those children begin to don jackets with laps to, and stick small black pipes in their mouths, and call each other “chaps,” they go in for doing mischief of a more extensive character, for insulting, annoying, and pestering everybody with whom they come in contact, and their conduct is sometimes carried to excess, without any means being taken to prevent its recurrence.
In Bamber Bridge the latter section of the rising generation congregate in large groups near the shop windows, often totally blocking up the footpaths, and putting pedestrians to the inconvenience of going into the middle of the highway, so as to proceed on their journey. If the youths are requested to move they immediately give you to understand that they feel inclined to please themselves, and however much they may annoy you, the police, if you complain to them, set themselves up as judges, and inform you that as the annoyance is caused on private property nothing can be done by them; you must summons them, and make them pay the piper! This may be all very grand in the eyes of the gentlemen in blue, who always feel inclined to trouble themselves as little as possible, and it may be good philosophy to touch a person’s pocket to find his sense, but one does not like to thrust himself within the doors of a court of justice, and waste both his time and money in litigation in endeavouring to discover whether he may be allowed to live quietly and be free from insult at the hands of a few upstarts, when he pays taxes to support the constabulary to protect him from that about which he complains. What I complain of exists to an alarming extent not only in Bamber Bridge but in Walton village, for you will invariably find at any time you may pass through the village large crowds of young men standing at corners of houses, shop-windows, &c., who block up the footpath, and not only do this, but generally heap abuse upon passers-by, and especially upon those of the softer sex. The attention of the police has been frequently called to this matter, but they seem to care as little about the nuisance as a toad does about a nightcap. If numbers of young men crowd together on your property to the annoyance of your tenants, and you complain of it to the police, they say it is private property, and they cannot interfere with it. They are pretty ready to interfere with a man who happens to get a “drop too much,” annoy him to any extent, get up his ire, and then lock him up for being drunk and disorderly. Is this public or private, I should like to know? Public-houses, I am glad to say, are well looked after, but when you want to be quiet in your own house, apparently you must not, because you are on private property. It is quite high time that Mr. Superintendent McNab, or his superior, Captain Elgee, made inquiries why the police in the town-ship of Walton-le-dale do as they list, and allow parties who are compelled to pay the rates to support them to be annoyed daily by crowds of idle and impudent youths congregating in the manner I have stated.
Thanking you for your valuable space,
I am, sir, yours obediently,
ONE WHO IS ANNOYED.
Bamber Bridge, March 8, 1866.
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CORRESPONDENCE.
Date: Saturday, Mar. 10, 1866
Publication: Preston Chronicle
Gale Primary Sources, British Library Newspapers:
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/Y3207467516/BNCN?u=lancs&sid=bookmark-BNCN&pg=6&xid=7034ac54