New Means to Old Ends 73Second, reformers wanted closer surveillance to be kept on known and
potential criminals. Apprehension of petty offenders and the morally weak
could rescue them before they became hardened criminals. Hanway
expressed it well:
by such a regulation, the number of inhabitants might be compassed, and this
monster of a town so far reduced to 6 or 7000 people under the inspection of
a regular body of police. I mean this independent of the parishes, which
being near 150, the quality of the inhabitants may be easily traced out. ... It is
more than possible to know every inhabitant, and how he lives.^102Reformers urged stricter regulation of pubs, 'those destructive Places of
nightly Resort where every species of Debauchery first taints the Minds of
our unguarded Youth'.^103
1b insure a greater likelihood of detection, the information obtained by
increased surveillance was to be recorded and shared.^104 The key was to
make record keeping and communication more systematic and pervasive.
The most elaborate scheme of surveillance was proposed by George Barrett
in his An Essay Towards Establishing a System of Police. Barrett wanted the
country divided up into police districts, with an office in each staffed by a
police clerk responsible to the 15 Commissioners in London. Every house-
holder would be required to report their address to this office every year in
writing, along with the names, rank, professions and dates and places of birth
for every person living in their house. He saw this as a way to compile census
figures, track unemployment, and
it will be infinitely serviceable in averting most of the evils we daily
experience from the corruption of human nature, without the risk of
lessening the freedom and privileges we at present inherit, and which we
derive from our very excellent and unparalleled constitution.No one would be able to obtain lodging, a job, or move unless properly
registered with the police.^105
The close surveillance and regulation of the labouring poor by a central-
ized system of professional police was, of course, exactly what most English-
men described disparagingly as 'French'. 1b adopt these reforms would have
fundamentally altered the institutions of law enforcement in a way most
Englishmen found repugnant. This was made clear when William Pitfs
government in 1785 sponsored a bill that would have established a drastically
altered system of policing for London along these lines.
Late in the parliamentary session in June 1785, Solicitor General Sir Archi-
bald Macdonald introduced a Police Bill which proposed creating a