ailed for service on Broadway.
One of their principal duties is to keep the street free from
obstructions, no slight task when one considers the usual jam in the
great thoroughfare. It is a common habit to denounce the "Broadway
Squad" as more ornamental than useful, but the habitues of that street
can testify to the arduous labor performed by the "giants," and the
amount of protection afforded by them to the merchants and promenaders.
Scarcely a day passes that they do not prevent robberies and cut short
the operations of pickpockets.

The number of arrests made by the force is fair evidence of their
efficiency. Since 1862 the annual number has been as follows:

Total arrests in New York
1862 82,072
1863 61,888
1864 54,751
1865 68,873
1866 75,630
1867 80,532
1868 78,451
1869 72,984

During the year 1869, the arrests were divided as follows:

Males 51,446
Females 21,538

The principal causes for which these arrests were made were as follows:

Males Females

Assault and Battery 5,638 1,161
Disorderly conduct 9,376 5,559
Intoxication 15,918 8,105
Intoxication and 5,232 3,466
disorderly conduct
Petty larceny 3,700 1,209
Grand larceny 1,623 499
Malicious mischief 1,081 32
Vagrancy 1,065 701

During the past nine years over 73,000 lost children have been restored
to their parents by the police. More than 40,000 houses have been found
open at night, owing to the carelessness of the inmates, who have been
warned of their danger by the police in time to prevent robbery. There
is scarcely a fire but is marked by the individual heroism of some member
of the force, and the daily papers abound in instances of rescues from
drowning by the policemen stationed along the docks. In times of riot
and other public danger, the police force have never been found lacking,
and they have fairly won the "flag of honor" which the citizens of New
York are about to present to them