Scanty as was the protection afforded to the well-to-do, the chief sufferers under the parochial system were the very poor. Inability to pay for a substitute compelled a poor man, whatever his trade or employment, to serve in person, if chosen as constable; and it was seldom that the fees he could honestly earn in his office recouped him for the losses he was certain to sustain in his business. Again, if a labourer had anything stolen from his cottage, he had to put his hand in his pocket for half-a-crown, or more, before he could employ a parish-constable, and should there be no committal, all the expense of the investigation and subsequent proceedings fell on the man whose only offence had been that he had lost his property; and even when the offender was convicted it sometimes happened that the circumstances made it impossible for the magistrate to allow full expenses. The injustice of such a state of affairs is well illustrated by a case heard at Devizes in 1853, the details of which were as follows: a poor man had a pair of boots stolen from his barge, he followed the thief into Somersetshire, and after a long chase, caught him and handed him over to the nearest constable, who conducted the culprit back to Wiltshire, where at the ensuing Sessions he was convicted and sentenced. The constable's bill amounted to £4, 16s. 7d., made up as follows:—
but because the offender, a boy, was convicted under the Juvenile Offenders Act, which only authorized an allowance of forty shillings for expenses, there was a deficit of £2, 16s. 7d. to be made good by the man who had lost his boots.
The reluctance of the public to prosecute, which, as we have seen, was one of the many avenues of escape open to the criminal, was only to be expected, and was due rather to a defective system than to any lack of what is called public spirit. At a time when punishments were vindictive, men sympathized with the prisoner, and could with difficulty be induced to appear against him; this was especially the case when the community at large, and not any particular individual, had suffered injury. When the severity of the penal code was mitigated, it still remained unfashionable to prosecute, partly from force of habit, partly because the public which had no confidence in the police, would not willingly incur the trouble and danger of taking an active part in the administration of justice, but chiefly because the expense of putting the law in motion was prohibitive for all but the comparatively wealthy. Well aware of their impunity, tramps would enter cottages at an hour when the owners were at work in the fields, steal the supper from the cupboard, and perhaps take a coat from behind the door, confident that poor people could do nothing to further the ends of justice as long as the first question asked by the parish constable was sure to be "Who is going to pay me?"
Even when thieves were caught red-handed, and delivered over to the constable, the informant was frequently tempted to think better of it, and either let the matter go by default or compound with the prisoner. In 1837, within a space of seven months, 201 persons, taken into custody for felony, were discharged without trial, simply because the parties concerned refused to prosecute, and out of this total as many as 53 were well-known thieves.
Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that from all parts of England suggestions poured in, urging the necessity of provision being made for the appointment of a public prosecutor, suggestions which were emphatically echoed in the report of the 1839 Commission. In Scotland, it may be mentioned, such an official, called the Procurator Fiscal, had existed for some time, with the most beneficial results, whilst in London, the Metropolitan police undertook similar work in the public interest.
Amongst many contributing causes which were answerable for the breakdown of the parochial system of police, the chief was undoubtedly the incompetency of its agents. Frequently a pauper would be chosen constable, either with the idea of saving expense to the parish by keeping down the poor-rate, or from a misdirected impulse of charity, which prompted people to give the appointment to an old man who could earn his livelihood in no other way. Sometimes the parish constable would add the business of master of the village alehouse to that of policeman, a comfortable arrangement which, if not otherwise advantageous, at least produced perfect harmony between the representative of the law and the representative of the trade.
Justice, so called, was administered in a haphazard, and often in a ludicrous, manner. In one country town constables were instructed to arrest all vagrants, and after having their heads shaved at the local gaol, set them at liberty; in another district the magistrates ordered parish constables to tap with their staves the pockets of all labourers they might meet after dark, in order to break any pheasants' or partridges' eggs that might be concealed there; a Bedfordshire farmer who had given offence to a gang of poachers was shot in broad daylight on the public road, and in the view of several persons, but the assailant was not arrested, the constable excusing himself from acting on the plea that he did not think himself justified in apprehending anybody without a warrant. A return from the City of Lincoln, on the other hand, described how an over-officious parochial constable "brought two men in handcuffs to the police station at Lincoln for a trifling squabble and assault, which he did not witness, and without any previous information or warrant."
Complaints against constables, on the score of their neglect to pursue criminals, came from all parts of the country. A return from a Monmouthshire village reported the escape of a murderer which was solely due to the refusal of the constable of the tything of Colgive to get out of bed at midnight, though "repeatedly and urgently called upon" to do so; and in another country parish, the constable, when summoned to quell a disturbance, sent word to say that he regretted that he was unable to come himself "but that he sent his staff by bearer." At Welchpool the wife of a shopkeeper poisoned her husband, and the same night eloped with the shop-assistant. The Coroner's inquest returned a verdict of wilful murder against the guilty couple, but no pursuit was made for several days, and then only after the magistrates and others, scandalised at such a miscarriage of justice, had got up a public subscription to defray the expenses of the constable's journey.