Chancing to turn at this moment to the New York World of March 14,
1861, the writer finds that on the day before Officer McWatters
"immersed" himself in the North River, plunging in to rescue a
six-years-old boy, who had fallen off the dock. In the Sunday Mercury
of April 7, five weeks after the occurrence last mentioned, we find
Officer McWatters aiding in the rescue of another boy from a watery
grave; and in the Daily Tribune of March 11, 1861, appears the
statement of still another rescue from drowning by Officer McWatters,
this time of a man, one Captain William Vanname. We might extend,
indefinitely, the list of kindred good deeds by Officer McWatters, as
gathered from the public journals; but these will serve to show the
fact that he was always to be found in the line of his duty. He was
frequently saving life, or performing other noble acts.--But we do not
intend to dwell in detail upon the professional life of Officer
McWatters in his connection with the Metropolitan Police. It is enough,
perhaps, to say in general terms, that he fulfilled his duties nobly
well; that from Superintendent Kennedy, under whom, for the most part,
he served, his official career received the very warmest praise, and
that the public press made frequent complimentary mention of him all
along the period of about twelve years during which he was a member of
the Metropolitan Police force.
We might also refer for further evidence of Officer McWatters'
honorable performance of his official duties and high standing in the
force to the expressed opinion of the late Superintendent Jourdan. This
gentleman's judgment of the merit of an officer's services was, of
course, to a great degree worthy of respect. But though the Latin maxim
is, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" (say only good of the dead), we are
constrained to feel, that although Superintendent Jourdan's praise had
a certain professional merit, yet his moral character was so
questionable, that his commendation of Officer McWatters could hardly
add to the merit of the latter, while his taste as a gentleman, and his
reverence for the honest and the true, would probably induce him to
prefer the non-production here of the former's testimony.