streets. This included a large number of issues: the control of crowds, not only
those demonstrating against the government or in favour of some cause or
other, but crowds of all kinds, especially those that might turn violent—crowds
gathered, for example, at moments of celebration, or at sites of public punish-
ments, particularly executions and the pillory. There was a potential public
order issue on all occasions and at all places where crowds might gather, for not
only was there a danger that such crowds might get out of control; they always
provided pickpockets with opportunities to steal. Crowds required watching, a
requirement that seems to have grown in the course of the eighteenth century,
perhaps merely because the population of the capital increased strongly, more
likely because with that increase came an even greater anxiety among the prop-
ertied that order be maintained in public places.^17 Public order also required
other forms of control in the streets, most especially over traffic.
In the second place, policing was required to maintain moral order—to pre-
vent vice and encourage right behaviour, including but not limited to the obser-
vance of the sabbath as a day of rest, the prevention of vice and immorality
(prostitution, gambling, drunkenness), the prevention of vagrancy and begging,
the control of dangerous and unlawful games, and the policing of places at
which immoral behaviour was likely to be encouraged, including (in London)
the annual St Bartholomew’s Fair.
In the third place, policing was meant to prevent crime, most directly by sur-
veillance—mounting a guard, or setting a watch, to intercept those who might
otherwise steal or rob or do something else unlawful. Surveillance, particularly
at night when the inhabitants of the city were at their most vulnerable, was
widely understood as the first defence against crime. Such measures having
failed, however, it became increasingly clear in this period—and well before
Beccaria wrote—that crime could only be prevented if those who committed of-
fences were caught and convicted and properly punished. Discovering the iden-
tity of an offender was not in 1660 thought to be within the purview of
peace-keeping forces. The ancient institution of the hue and cry was still ap-
pealed to from time to time as a possible mechanism for the pursuit and arrest
of robbers. But in the case of most ordinary offences, this did not apply, even if it
had remained a vital institution, which it manifestly had not. Nor was there an
alternative within the official structure. Neither the central state nor the local
authorities accepted a duty to find and arrest offenders. Detection as an aspect
of crime control did, however, develop in the course of this period. As we will
see, it formed on the margins of the official world, blending private and public
interests, and developing as a fourth element in policing in the eighteenth cen-
tury that shaped the way police and policing came to be regarded.
82 City Magistrates and the Process of Prosecution
(^17) Allan Silver, ‘The Demand for Order in Civil Society: A Review of Some Themes in the History of
Urban Crime, Police, and Riot’, in David J. Bordua (ed.), The Police: Six Sociological Essays(New York,
1967 ), 1 – 24.