Chief Constable for each hundred, through whom he was in touch with the
Quarter Sessions. Unlike the Parish Constable, {48} however, the Chief
Constableship of the hundred was a life appointment. When the police
force came into existence the gentlemen holding the office of Chief
Constable of the hundreds were pensioned off, and, in support of the
popular notion of the longevity of pensioners, it may be of interest to
add that some of these old superannuated Chief Constables' pensions
were still running in Cambridgeshire until recent years; indeed, I am
not sure that the payments have all ended even yet. In this county,
too, the old Parish Constables are still appointed annually; but their
glory has long since departed.

The Parish Constable was essentially an emergency man, and the manner
in which he "rose to the occasion," forms a curious and interesting
chapter of parochial history. If occasionally, like his prototype in
"_Much ado about Nothing_," he, on the clerical side of his office,
made a slip, and committed an offender to "everlasting redemption," and
put down "flat burglary" for perjury, still he did manage to acquit
himself of his task in a practical sort of way, though always with a
tender regard for his own comfort when on duty.

The office of the old Parish Constable was not quite adapted to the
modern idea of police work. Until a crime was committed the old
constable had no reason to bestir himself, and when a crime was
committed he was hampered in many ways. With a drunkard and a brawler
he had the stocks ready to hand, but when a great crime was committed
such as sheep-stealing--fearfully common, notwithstanding the dread
penalty of the law, in the last and also the present century--the
constable had no convenient telegraph office from which to warn his
brother officers round the whole country side. He had therefore to
resort to the homely process of carrying the intelligence himself, and
such items as

L s. d.
for carrying a hue and cry to Anstey . . . . 0 0 4

represented the highest point of Dogberry's intelligence department.
From one Parish Constable to another the news was carried, like the
fiery cross over the Border, until the whole country round was aware of
what had occurred, and, as one might expect, the criminal himself had
often got fairly away.

Those parishes lying near the coach roads sometimes had a good share of
this car