Review: Index to Police Forces
| Date | 01 October 1931 |
| Published date | 01 October 1931 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400424 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
636
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL
ROAD TRAFFIC
LAW.
By
F.
LLEWELLYN
JONES, M.P.
21s.
net. (Sweet
&
Maxwell.) DIGEST OF THE LAW ON THE REGULATION
OF
TRAFFIC. By
INSPECTOR
H.
PEARSON. (Police Review Pub-
lishing Co.)
3s.
od.
THE
Traffic Act of
1930
has vitally affected highway law, and it is, moreover,
a statute whose provisions concern many different sections of the public.
Road
Traflc
Law
will be of use not only to lawyers and to the police, but
also to local authorities. Mr. Llewellyn Jones was a member of the House
of Commons Standing Committee to whom this Bill was referred. Besides
the text of the Act and the regulations made by the Minister of Transport, a
useful summary, a schedule of offences and punishments, and tables of cases
and statutes referred to, to which reference is made, are included.
Inspector Pearson, who is also Chief Clerk
of
Blackpool, has compiled
a useful
‘
Digest
’
of the same Act. The information is
so
skilfully arranged
that almost any legal question which arises can be instantly looked up, the
subject-matter itself being compiled in alphabetical order.
INDEX TO POLICE FORCES. Compiled by
F.
J.
KIRCHNER in collabora-
tion with A.
J.
ABRAMS.
(Police Review Publishing Co.)
10s.
6d.
THIS
invaluable volume has now been revised up to 31st May.
It
contains
an Index not only to the Police Forces of the British Empire, but to those
of
the United States, and of foreign countries. A Motor Car Index,
i.e.
an
alphabetical list of index marks, is not the least useful feature.
The new edition has been brought fully up to date. But, as alterations
are alwa
s
occurring, such
as
the merging of small forces, blank pages are
provide
br
for notes.
(I) TRIAL OF CAPTAIN KIDD.
(2) TRIAL
OF
DR. SMETHURST.
(3)
TRIAL OF HAROLD GREENWOOD. Edited by
WINIFRED
DUKE.
CAPT. KIDD, once
the
pirate
par
excellence,
has lately been portrayed as a
victim of persecution. Mr. Graham Brooks, in his excellent Introduction,
admits the inequity of Kidd’s contract, the pressing of his men, his difficulties
and the scandal of withholding the French passes, but maintains that he was
not only guilty of murder and piracy, but that according to the standard of
the times he was fairly tried. Will the reader agree
?
Kidd, after suffering
two years’ imprisonment owing to the Jacobite attack on Somers, was first
tried for murder, because a gunner had died after a blow from a bucket.
Surely this offence was comparatively unimportant, and could hardly, as is
argued, have influenced materially Kidd’s subsequent conduct, and yet the
jury were expressly charged against a verdict of manslaughter. The French
passes might not ultimately have benefited Kidd, but why were they not
called for? Why was the evidence of the
two
chief Crown witnesses,
pardoned subordinates of Kidd, accepted unquestioned
?
Were the judges
uninfluenced by the great personages anxious for Kidd’s death
?
Kidd, faced
with an impossible situation, probably did turn pirate with the design of
buying
his
pardon with a portion
of
his
spoils, but that he was fairly tried
seems more than questionable.
English justice in
1859
!
Ten medical witnesses testified that Dr.
Smethurst had poisoned his bigamously-married wife, seven that she had died
from natural causes. Sanctimonious summing-up, missing the chief issue and
more appropriate
to
the pulpit than the bench. Verdict guilty. Followed
Edited by GRAHAM BROOKS.
Edited by
LEONARD
A. PARRY.
(William Hodge
&
Co.) 10s. 6d. each.
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