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days, and, like paupers, they knew upon which side their bread was
buttered, and how to turn the prevailing system to the best account.
They were accommodated at the public houses, and the publicans sent in
their bills to the Overseers. If a tramp wished to take it easy and
stay a few days at a comfortable hostelry he did so, and it went down
in the publican's bill against the Overseer. Sometimes this sort of
thing was carried a little too far, as at Royston in 1829, when the
Vestry:--

"Ordered that W. Wilson's bill be paid and caution him, with others who
lodge vagrants, that in future their bills will not be allowed if they
suffer them [that is of course the vagrants and not the bills] to
remain more than one night without an order from the Overseer."

But to return to Dogberry and his blue-coated successor. There was a
good deal of opposition at first to the idea of a police force under
the management of a county body. The idea of disestablishing the
parish beadle and the constable was distasteful in itself, and the
notion that they could be improved upon was rather laughed at. For
years after the "men in blue" came upon the scene they were known as
"Peelers," and have hardly got rid of the "Bobby" part of Sir Robert
Peel's name even yet.

So divided was public opinion on the subject that the Hertfordshire
Quarter Sessions only adopted the new system by one vote--the vote, as
it turned out, of Mr. John George Fordham, of Royston, who had been but
recently appointed a magistrate, and, I think, went on this occasion
and voted for the first time in this division. No man knew better the
need of a change, or the general ineffectiveness of the parish
constable in the face of the disturbances which had for some years
previously been witnessed in many villages. What the first cost of the
"man in blue" was I am unable to say, but the first report of the
Constabulary Force Commissioners contained the following estimate for a
police force for Hertfordshire:--

1 Superintendent at L200 per annum
8 Sergeants at L1 2s. 6d. per week
80 Constables at 17s. 0d. " "
Clothing for 88 men at L5 16s. 5d. per annum
Total cost . . . . L5,132 4s. 8d. " "
1 man to 4,480 acres, and 1,610 persons.

It may be of interest here to make a comparison with to-day, and this
shows, I think, that in place of one superintendent there are seven,
besides a chief constable, that there are 7 inspectors, a rank unkno