WCP5369

[1]¹

The Hamilton, Thursday

Dear Mrs. Hooker²

I return your paper on[?] Police. It is very excellent and original, so far as it goes; & I suppose you intended it to be limited strictly to "police" & not to treatment of criminals or prevention of vagrancy. But under the present state of society the effect of such kind and considerate treatment of vagrants would be to increase the numbers of them enormously — at least that has been found to be the case when any measures of kind relief have been tried in England — and when the tramp left your hands he would be no more able to obtain employment than [2] before, and would soon drift ^to another police station, and so spend a very pleasant & attractive life! What I must earnestly approve of & have myself suggested often in conversation, is the placing [of] the fire department under the police to be called out in case of riot. I believe a fire-engine flaying[?] on a riot would utterly rout and disperse it, and send it every member of it home covered with ridicule, & so stop rioting far more effectively than a regiment of soldiers. No body of men in the world could stand against the powerful drenching of a steam fire Engine! & they could not escape it! Why is this nowhere used instead of fire-arms, which always kill or maim innocent people? With best wishes and many thanks for your kindness to [3] me[.]

Believe me Dear Mrs. Hooker | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace — [signature]