Quoted By:
11 XI: JUSTICE
Silas Chillingwurth
Commissioner of The New Lanthorn Yard Constabulary
New Lanthorn Yard was founded from the old tradition of thief-takers and catchpoles, that arose after the lawlessness following the War and Old Armistice. Some remember that the thief-takers were little better than thieves themselves, as they frequently acted as intermediaries negotiating the transfer of sums between the desperate and distraught victims of theft, and those in possession of the missing and then mysteriously recovered goods, with the extortion of a generous fee for the thief-takers themselves in concluding the transaction. Should the thieves not return the goods as promised, they would then be betrayed by the thief-takers to the justice of the regiment or militias; but it was not uncommon for the thief-takers themselves to take a fee from the victims or dispossessed, and then disappear with no trace or progress in solving the crime.
Whilst Silas Chillingwurth has sought to reform and modernise the Constabulary, his authority is not widely recognised or even accepted throughout the City, and the discipline of his officers is somewhat uneven. The brutality of the Constabulary has made them particularly hated and despised in the slum districts of the Rookeries, where it is not uncommon to see two uniformed constables truncheoning and wrestling with each other in the gutters, over a drunken conflict of jurisdiction.
