66 Before the Bobbiesof the Powers and Authorities to him [the constable] given, in the legal
Execution of his Office'.^50 The challenge for local authorities was how to
gain direct authority over constables, both to improve efficiency and the
quality of men in office. Some watch committees solved this by swearing in
those already employed in the watch. A watch committee or vestry could
discipline its own officers and would not have to take each case before a
magistrate. An early example was in the Clink Uberty, Southwark. Because
the Clink was not a parish, it did not have its own constables but after 1786 it
did have a night watch. In one of their initial orders, the commissioners
directed the two beadles and the watchhouse keeper 'to attend at the Rota-
tion Office on Friday next to be sworn in the office of Constable'.^51
By the 1780s, the key problem was the quality of constables. Many argued
that constables, like magistrates, should be those able to spare the time away
from their livelihoods; otherwise they would be tempted to neglect their
duties or accept bribes. Joseph Ritson, the author of a 1791 pamphlet on
the rights and duties of a constable, lamented that 'men who have little
money, leisure, or capacity' were 'unfortunately, too often met with in the
composition of a modem constable .. .'. Ritson regretted that gentlemen
were no longer willing to take on the office. Constables should not, he states,
be chosen from 'the meaner sort' because 'they are either ignorant what to
do [sic], or dare not do what they should, or are not able to spare the time
to execute the office .. .'.^52
While Ritson believed the better-off members of the community made
better constables, they were also the ones best able to buy their way out of
office. They could either pay a fine set by the parish to be excused or they
could hire a substitute, or sometimes both. In Spitalfields, the scale of fines
to avoid parochial office ranged from £5 for headborough to £18 for church-
warden. To escape being a constable cost £7. There were also package deals:
for £28 a parishioner would be excused from the offices of churchwarden,
sidesman, overseer of the poor, constable and headborouff. In addition, if
you paid the fine in 1807, you were excused until 1810.^3 Given the pre-
valence of such arrangements, vestries sought the right to approve anyone
offered as a deputy constable. The vestry would thus have the opportunity to
see what kind of men were being sworn in to office and have a veto power.
For example, the St John, Clerkenwell, vestry wrote in 1789 to the annual
inhabitants' meeting (which made nominations for constables), requesting
that the court leet 'name Respectable Inhabitants' as constables. The vestry
offered:
should eny [sic] of the Gentlemen that you Nominate wish to appoint a
Deputy, the Committee appointed by the Vestry will, with his or their
Concurrence provide a proper Substitute at the expense of the Parish-
ioners.54