Mike Dwyer

Well, it's possible, I guess. The Republic of Texas was an independant country from 1836-1846 and it did have it's own army and navy. The "Lone Star" was their national symbol at that time, just as it is the state symbol today.

Stuart, the shako that is on the same shelf as the 1818 heavy dragoon helmet, is that an early hussar shako from the pre-busby days or a light dragoon shako, the predecessors of the hussars?

Yes, that's the one! It looks like it would be heavy. In all of the paintings and drawings I've seen of soldiers and officers wearing this model helmet they looked amazingly graceful, although a bit top heavy!

WOW! I love the Victorian style helmets, but I see you also have one of my older favorites. I don't know the proper name for it, but it's the one with the tremendous black fur crest on it.

Fantastic, Stuart! I love those cavalry helmets!

This is a bit and perhaps to you who have a closer connection to policing and the British Empire it may sound a bit silly, but there was a series on the PBS Mystery show here in the states about ten years ago called "Heat of the Sun" that I thouroughly enjoyed. It was about a Metropolitan Police detective supervisor (payed by Trevor Eve) in the 1950's or maybe later, who got into some kind of trouble, and is sent to Kenya as "punishment" and becomes an officer of the local police there. He is, of course, a bit of a wild one and has a ramrod straight, ultra-military, commanding officer (played by Michael Byrne) that is always after him about something. I have no idea how realistic it may have been, but I enjoyed it immensely and wish there had been more episodes than there were.

Gordon, The green uniforms are gone too. The Bundespolizei have switched to a blue uniform. All of the other police forces in Germany are in the process of switching to blue too. Below is the Bundespolizei uniform.

Thanks, Gordon, for sharing that. I don't believe I've ever seen one of those, even when I lived in Germany. I have to say the uniform is a bit "old fashioned" for the Bundesrepublik! Very 1930's looking in some respects. :rolleyes:

Sandro, I just don't know what to say! I've run out of complimentary words to say about your beautiful, awe-inspiring collection. Yes, even without the lable that left sleeve on the dragoner coat was a giveaway. :Cat-Scratch:

Mervyn, The current Royal House of Bulgaria is a branch of the German family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the same family as Prince Albert who married Princess, later Queen, Victoria. On 7 July 1887 Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1861-1948) was elected Prince of Bulgaria. He proclaimed himself Tsar on 5 October 1908 when Bulgaria declared it's independence from the Ottoman Empire. Burgaria was allied with Germany and Austria during WW1. To save the throne, Ferdinand abdicated on 3 October 1918 and his son became Boris III (1894-1943), and then his son Simeon II (1937-still living) occupied the throne from 1943 until 1946 when he was forced into exile.

Exceptional, Mervyn, one of my favorite helmets!

Very nice, Theodor, thank you for sharing! You should post this in the new Polce Forces of the World forum too.

I apologize, Mervyn, for getting your thread off track! I'm with you, I don't think your police work schedule was anything to be overly fond of. When I was a deputy sheriff we worked each shift, day, evening and midnight, for 3 months at a time. When I was a city police officer, prior to being a deputy sheriff, we also worked our shift for 3 months at a time, but our work days and hours were a bit different. Probably my favorite work hours was when I was a US Army Military Policeman at Fort Benning, Georgia. We worked a 10 day shift, the first 6 days were on patrol, either 8:00 a.m. to Midnight or Midnight to 8:00 a.m., then on the last 4 days we were in training all day. This meant every 2 weeks we always had Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. Rick, although Mervyn has already explained posse comitatus, in my criminal justice textbook that I use to teach my class from it explains it as "the power of the people." Somehow it got shortened to posse. About the only time you hear the full term today in the US is in military circles whenever military law enforcement officials get concerned about handling civilian offenders, because they become worried about violating 18 U.S. Code section 1385, commonly referred to as the Posse Comitatus Act. This act was enacted after the War Between the States in 1878 because of the horrible abuses that occured from using federal troops to enforce civilian law in the Southern states. Basically the Posse Comitatus Act forbids the US military from enforcing civlilian law. There are, of course, ways to get around some of this, as is often done. When I was an Army CID Agent, if we had a criminal suspect who was non-military we had to carefully document how his/her conduct was connected to the army, and we had to notify the FBI so they could assume jurisdiction, which they usually did declaring a "joint investigation." Which meant they let us continue to do most of the work and then they took everything at the end and wrote up their report.

Not to steal your thunder, Mervyn, but are you speaking of the Shire Reeve? I talk about him when I teach my college class "Introduction to Criminal Justice" and speak about the British origins of the American policing system. My duties as a deputy sheriff in Muscogee County, Georgia consisted primarily of serving court papers, writs, subpoenas, and warrants. As a fully commissioned law enforcement officer I had full police powers, but enforcing the law was more of a secondary duty than a primary one, as the city police patrolled the entire county since we had a consolidated city-county government. At that time, and we're talking many years ago here, 1974-1977 and 1980-1985 (I was in the army for my first tour 1977-1980) there were three shifts, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m. to Midnight, and Midnight to 8:00 a.m. The day and evening shifts only worked Monday through Friday. We had the weekends off, except for when our weekend duty team was up on the duty roster. There were five weekend duty teams, that covered the day and evening on the weekends, so it worked out that you only had to work every fifth weekend. The midnight shift worked six days on and three off, if I recall correctly. Your first three nights on the midnight shift you were the radio operator back at the office, and the last three nights you were out on patrol. The midnight shift only consisted of 1 sergeant, 1 deputy on the radio, and 1 on patrol. There was another deputy, not on the same schedule who worked courthouse security and patrolled the courthouse, a 14 story building, with a parking garage and two 2-story wings attached. Day and evening patrol would hit the streets with a stack of civil papers (such as divorce petitions, lawsuits, etc.) witness subpoenas and jury duty summonses. On the evening shift we would sometimes pull out old arrest warrants that had been filed unserved because the warrant squad detectives couldn't locate the offender. This was eventually stopped because we were embarassing the detectives by arresting nearly all of the offenders right where they were looked for before! If someone committed a traffic offense or violated the law in front of us, we could take action, if we wished, but there was no real pressure to do so. The sheriff did not want us knocking on people's doors after 9:00 p.m. so we'd mostly look for drunk drivers from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. I made a fair number of DUI arrest on the evening and midnight shifts. I also wrote traffic tickets fairly regularly for speeding, running red lights, etc., but not nearly as often as I did as a city policeman. On the day shift we had to assist the jail and court staff with prisoner transport when the prisoners had to be brought to the courthouse, which was almost a mile from the jail. On Fridays there were arraignments and guilty pleas so we would bring prisoners up to the courthouse by bus, escorted by several patrol cars. We would have to help inside the courtrooms with prisoner control since there weren't enough bailiffs to do so. Another duty we performed was the transportation of mental patients who had been committed to a state mental hospital by order of a judge or a doctor. We usually picked them up at the hospital, but sometimes we had to go to their homes, which was always an interesting experience to say the least. On the midnight shift we would do home checks for people who were out of town on vacation and look for DUIs. We also would periodically drive around the outside perimeter of the jail too. We could listen to the city police radio traffic, so we also often backed up city officers if we were in the vicinity of their call. At that time we were armed with a Smith & Wesson Model 27 revolver, which is a very large, heavy .357 magnum revolver built on a .44 magnum frame. Each car also contained a Remington Model 870 12 guage pump shotgun. I usually wore a small snub-nose .38 special revolver in an ankle holster as a back-up weapon. I was lucky enough to never need it. When I was promoted to sergeant in the administration division where I was the desk sergeant in the office, I wore a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 magnum revolver with a 2.5 inch barrel because it was a lot less bulk to cart around in the office. Hope I didn't bore you too much with all this. I probably left some things out. If I think of them, I'll post them later. Oh yeah, you asked about having 1 man per car. You are correct, of course, manpower is the issue. You can field twice the officers if you only put one per car. I read a study several years ago concerning that issue. The study found that officers in two-officer cars tended to take riskier chances that a lone officer wouldn't take, and thus got injured more often than single officers because they misjudged their level of power and invincibility. I, personally, never had a problem with being alone and was very careful about what I got into without calling for backup. :speechless1:

This can vary from state to state. You must remember that in the US, while we are a federal system, each of the 50 states has their own laws and way of doing things. In most states, jails are detention centers for the holding of prisoners until trial. In fact in some more "progressive" places jails are now called Adult Detention Centers. In the county in Georgia where I worked the jail housed both the accused awaiting trial and some minor offenders who were serving short sentences, usually 30-60 days, but some up to 1 year. Anything over 1 year was considered state prison time. To make it a bit more confusing, we did have a county correctional institution, operated by the county but considered part of the state department of corrections, that housed convicted misdemeanor inmates serving up to 1 year. Those inmates were the ones you normally saw cutting grass out on the highways being watched by correctional officers with shotguns! If they were really good inmates, and worked their way up to trusty status they could work on the back of the county garbage trucks Here where I live now in Florida, the sheriff in my county runs the jail, but in a neighboring county the board of county commissioners created a county department of corrections and took the jail away from the sheriff and it is operated by the new county department of corrections instead. For years the jail here where I live was run by a private corporation, Corrections Corporation of America, under contract with the county. Problems developed with CCA and the sheriff took the jail over again back in October. CCA still operates a state prison here in my county.

Yes, Rick, you're pretty much on the money. I'm not a New Yorker (thank goodness), but county police in just about any state that has them, perform all of the law enforcement functions within the county. I'm originally from Georgia and some of the more metropolitan counties have county police forces. The sheriff runs the jail, provides security for the courts, and serves court papers and warrants, but the county police patrol the roads and perform all the law enforcement duties. The sheriff still has the power and authority to do that, it's just not their "primary" duty any more. I worked for a sheriff's office in Georgia where the city and county had consolidated into one government. The "former" city police patrol the entire county and the sheriff performs the court and jail functions mentioned above. A lot of folks thought that was all we were allowed to do, but some who ran red lights, were speeding, or driving drunk in my presence found out differently.

Very, very nice Gordon. I notice they have the old spiked helmet they used to wear under the A-H Empire embroidered on their patch. :jumping:

I belive that badge if for the police department of Nassau County, New York.

Ah, yes! That makes sense. Thank you. :Cat-Scratch:

Rick, I'm ignorant and confused here! On post #2, what are the RAO items that look like breast stars, but have suspension rings on them? Were they worn from ribbons???? :unsure:

But he's wearing hussar boots, not regular infantry officer's boots. Oops, never mind, I see several other people already said that!

Yes, I showed my wife this posting because I was so impressed by the photos and she made a comment about Major Kimmerle's waistline! :rolleyes:

Robert, I can't read the writing very well, but I think I may have found him. In the 1914 Rangliste, under the section for Reserve officers of the Kgl. Bayer. 4. Chevaulegers-Regt. K?nig there is a Oberleutnant Otto Freiherr von Tautphoeus listed. That last name kind of fits the writing on the photo.

Absolutely wonderful photos, Robert! Excellent details and poses. :jumping:

Perhaps we're just hoping the Empire comes back! :rolleyes: