always suggest the various safeguards and privileges which the
law accords to defendants thus arrested, but the writer is
free to confess that, save in exceptional cases, he believes
the rigors of the so-called third degree to be greatly
exaggerated. Frequently in dealing with rough men rough
methods are used, but considering the multitude of offenders,
and the thousands of police officers, none of whom have been
trained in a school of gentleness, it is surprising that
severer treatment is not generally met with on the part of
those who run afoul of the criminal law. The ordinary "cop"
tries to do his duty as effectively as he can. With the
average citizen gruffness and roughness go a long way in the
assertion of authority. In the task of policing a big city,
the rights of the individual must indubitably suffer to a
certain extent if the rights of the multitude are to be
properly protected. We can make too much of small injustices
and petty incivilities. Police business is not gentle
business. The officers are trying to prevent you and me from
being knocked on the head some dark night or from being
chloroformed in our beds. Ten thousand men are trying to do a
thirty-thousand-man job. The struggle to keep the peace and
put down crime is a hard one anywhere. It requires a strong
arm that cannot show too punctilious a regard for theoretical
rights when prompt decisions have to be made and equally
prompt action taken. The thieves and gun men have got to be
driven out. Suspicious characters have got to be locked up.
Somehow or other a record must be kept of professional
criminals and persons likely to be active in law-breaking.
These are necessities in every civilized country. They are
necessities here. Society employs the same methods of