If people living by stealing cargo from trains lurked beside the railways, then naturally there would also be police patrolling along the tracks.
After a train passed, thick smoke would billow out, and these people would emerge from it like ghosts.
But they were still human. Perhaps not long ago, they had been like the many people standing outside factory gates, waiting to be chosen for a job that could keep them fed. After Robert Peel's reforms, the police began to become professionalized and stable. It became a steady job with decent benefits and allowances, even apartments to live in.
Patrolling the tracks had to be exhausting. They did not object to accepting hot tea and cakes offered by well-meaning citizens. Police officers on duty in the countryside would even receive little gifts, such as a few eggs.
And so, they became "selectively" blind to certain things.
Pomona sat at the staff table, irritably picking at the food on her plate. This position always reminded her of a stage. Every meal felt like a "performance," except the "audience" below had no interest in the teachers at all.
In the Muggle world, civil servants and members of parliament were not the same profession, even though they worked in the same building.
There were plenty of "sheriffs" in American Westerns. They seemed able to do whatever they pleased in a small town. A passing cowboy might offend the mayor or something, and then the sheriff would be sent to arrest him, leading to a duel between the two in the streets.
Drawing quickly was useless if one could not shoot straight. Such sheriffs were somewhat like British justices of the peace, except that British justices were usually local gentry, often bearing titles such as knight or baron.
During the Civil War, Cromwell