His presence meant that we should "stiffen up"; his disappearance was the signal for us to "let loose." So long as one was not caught, it did not matter.

I heard mothers tell their little children that if they did not behave themselves, the policeman would put them into a bag and carry them off, or cut their ears off.

Of course, the policeman became to them an object of terror; the law he represented, a cruel thing that stood for punishment.

Not a note of respect did I ever hear for the law in my boyhood days.

A law was something to be broken, to be evaded, to call down upon others as a source of punishment, but never to be regarded in the light of a safeguard.
And as I grew into manhood, the newspapers rang on every side with disrespect for those in authority.