Excerpt from Pictures and Problems From London Police Courts
I am also exceedingly glad to have an Opportunity of express ing publicly the debt of gratitude I owe to many for surely no one has received greater kindness than myself. First, to the various magistrates under whom I have been privileged to work I tender my sincere and warmest thanks for the con sideration and kindness which they, without exception, have Shown to me. To the chief clerks and police-court officials also my thanks are due for their unvarying courtesy and kindness. To the police generally I owe many thanks for the confidence they have so liberally accorded me.
To the representatives of the Press in the North London Police Court I owe much for the publicity they have freely given to the many cases in which I have been interested, and with which I Should have been unable to deal without their aid.
To the unknown friends at home and abroad who have cheered me with kind letters, and sometimes with liberal assistance, I tender also my grateful thanks. But to one lady - Mrs. Perry Herrick - more than thanks are due. With out her kind help much that I have done I could not have done, and much that I have learned I could not have learned. For a long period of years She has supported me in my work, and in her the poor and the unfortunate, the demented and the outcast, have had a sympathizing and liberal friend.
To Mrs. Perry Herrick, then, I beg respectfully to dedicate this imperfect account of my work among the poor and the outcasts of London.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Thomas Holmes (1846-1918) was a police-court missionary, criminologist and philanthropist, secretary to the Howard Association for the reform of prisons and criminal law.
Fun read about pre-diversity London's criminal system and courts.
Should be read in conjunction with Henry Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor' and/or Charles Booth's 'Life and Labour of the People in London' as they fill in the extra detail/support for Holmes' points about the conditions in London and the criminality he saw. It also helps the fill in the lacunae in many people's understanding of the development of the political left in Europe (and the United States) during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in that they were responding to very real problems and issues in a radically dog-eat-dog 'classically liberal' society.