7/24/2023 0 Comments Hue and cry london![]() ![]() ![]() Together, the two pioneers and reformers created London’s police force and brought law and order where chaos and corruption had prevailed- thereby gave the citizens of London a freedom they had long lacked. He is still known by his sobriquet, The Blind Beak, though John himself made little of his blindness. John was committed as Henry to ending an openly corrupt system that victimized the poor. Henry was aided in his courageous crusade by his half-brother John Fielding. Fielding was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1748 and, from the inside, battled against the prevailing dishonesty in his profession. He entered the Middle Temple and, in 1740, was called to the bar. Henry Fielding (1707-1754) the popular dramatist and great novelist, was an improvident man about town who, on finding himself happily married, sought income and a more stable career. Almost alone in his age he realized that an Englishman’s liberty did not depend on slavish worship of the English Constitution, but could be lost in that way. This edition shows how Fielding introduced the English to the idea of what Pringle calls a “preventative police” and also showed “that it was possible for a state to have an efficient police force without becoming a police state. “For over a hundred years the people of London endangered (and in many cases lost) their property and their lives by refusing to establish a police force,” writes Pringle. Londoners, not trusting their government, seemed to prefer criminals to gendarmes. Robbery, rape and even murder occurred with astonishing frequency and casualness. London was a lawless city in the mid-eighteenth century. Hue and Cry is the Story of Henry and John Fielding and their Bow Street Runners. It’s another #WisdomWednesday! Today’s book is HUE AND CRY by Patrick Pringle. ![]()
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