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Page 1U IEKKACE BAY NEWS November 2, 1967 TOWN TOPICS - AND SPICE Prior to their departure for Kamfoops, Olive and : George Martin were entertained at several functions , ed Bill Smiley Mrs. T. Dorland held a coffee party Wednesday morning for friends and neighbours, and they pre- Give cops a break sented Olive with a cup and saucer. Her bridge club. made a presentation of a Buxton wallet. Mr. and Mrs. A. Chisholm arranged a bowling party for Olive and George and a stag was held for George when.members of the Technical Department and co- workers gathered to present him with a token of their esteem and farewell wishes . Mr. & Mrs. A. McKechnie had as their guests this past week-end Mr. & Mrs. Don Oram. Mr. Oram is bandmaster of the Fort William Sea Cadets. While here,.Mr. Oram instructed our local sea cadet band... LEGION LADIES AUXILIARY MEET The general meeting of the Legion Ladies Aux- iliary was held at the Legion Hall on October 29, D. Coupal presiding. The charter was draped for the late Mrs. L. Steen. A Poppy Day Sale will be directed by D. Coupal and a door to door canvass made Mrs. S. Benko is in charge of Poppy Day Tea ticket and will contact members to sell to the public. Mrs. P. Jones is in charge of the November II supper to be held at the Masonic Hall . have tickets for any auxiliary lady interested in go- ing to the supper with her husband. Mrs. E.Boyd will convene the supper. There will be a special meeting November 19 for nominations of which Mrs. P. Jones and Mrs. E. Woods are in charge. A discussion took place on sports activities and the Ladies Auxiliary have a team for entry in the Legion Bowling. Future sports were discussed and those interested are asked to register when tournaments begin. Events will be as follows: darts, curling, shuffleboard. Chairman for March of Dimes is Mrs. S. Dakin. This event is to be held in January. 'Members having labels are asked to turn them in to D. Coupal . _ The Pot of Gold was won by Mrs . S. Benko and the raffle by Mrs. L. Burns. President D. Coupal requested members to turn out for the November 11 parade commencing at 10.30 a.m. and to meet in, front_of th : ( see Page November 8. As Gilbert and Sullivan tunefully pointed out a good many years ago, "A_ police- man's lot is seldom a happy one." And it certainly --hasn't grownany happier in the inter- im, aS even a casual: glance through the newspapers - will tell you. Everywhere, police- men are unhappy. In the cities, they talk of strike action. In small towns, they resign right and left, usually in a cloud of recrimination. 'Why are they fed up? For a whole lot of reasons. It's only surprising so many of them stay at it. First of all, they are poorly paid. This fine, old tradition, probably dates back to the days when a cop was a "dumb flatfoot", lucky to get a job with some security involved. During The Depression, the town cop was envied because he got a pay check, be it ever so humble, every week. Secondly, they must cope with continued interference from elected officials, or local big shots. It might be the Chairman of the Police Com- mission, more concerned with paring his police budget than with the quality of the police- man. Or it might be the fellow who belongs to the same serv- ice club as the mayor, and expects special treatment, whether it's a parking ticket or drunk driving charge. This is hard to take. Another thing that bugs them, even those who like the work, is the hours: working holidays; special details; calls in the middle of the night. And, of course, there's the job itself. Much of it is rou- tine, even boring. Everything in triplicate. But a Saturday night can be a nightmare. How. would you like to cope with a drunken fight at a dance? Or a stolen car, driven by a kid at - 100 miles an hour? Or a cou- ple . of plastered prostitutes ~ belting you about the head and ears with their handbags, cheered on by the mob? Or a call from delighted neighbors, at 2 a.m., telling you that Joe Scheiss is beating the brains out of his wife? And that's on top of the ordina stuff:* pettv_ thefts: gang rumbles; car crashes; street beatings; jeering hood- lums. But I think all these- things are secondary. There's some- thing else that has turned the placid' policeman of: even 20 \ years ago into a mean cop. And that's the attitude of the- peo- ple. It's fairly new and very nasty. I «notice it, with dismby, among teen-agers. Even the de- cent ones sneer at "The Fuzz", as they term our. stalwart guardians of the law. I don't know where they got it -- per- haps from movies and televi- sion -- but they seem to think the policeman is some sort of brutalized Gestapo type look- ing for trouble. A few policemen, of course, foster this attitude. There @re - always a few bullies in uni- form who release their own psychological perversions. But they are a tiny minority, usual- ly curbed by their peers. Even more disturbing, per- haps, is the number: of adults who will stand around and watch a policeman being beat- en up, and enjoy it. There's always, of course, been war between the police and the populace. But it used to be a good-natured, fun-war. You tried to circumvent the law, whether it was swiping apples or beating the speed limit. If you were caught, you grumbled a bit, lied like a trooper, and probably got off with a warning. And everybody was happy. Now it's open and blatant battle. It's vicious and ugly. It is fanned by newsmen and tele- vision. They always seem to be there when the cops are man- handling some screaming punk, but are never present when some constable is being kicked into jelly. I've met a lot of cops in my day, some in the line of my duty, and, I hasten to add, some in the line of theirs. A few of them were real hoods, but the vast majority were de- cent, ordinary chaps who would go out of their way to be helpful. It's a rotten job, but remem- ber, men, somebody loves you.