The principle of making every man responsible for his own actions, and to some extent answerable for the doings of his neighbour, has much to commend it, and its application would produce an almost ideal state of social security if its practical employment was not marred by two inherent weaknesses; in the first place it can only be applied with success to an agricultural community that is content to live always in the same spot, or whose migratory instincts the authorities are prepared to suppress; and, in the second place, such a system puts a premium both on the concealment of crime, and on the commission of perjury, since a tything had every inducement to forswear itself in order to escape the infliction of a fine or to save one of its members from punishment. That the system above described was effectual in dealing with any crime that may have existed in England at the time cannot be doubted, and Gneist,[18] in his review of the period, says, "The insular position of the country, and the pre-eminently peaceable character of the later Anglo-Saxon times, developed the maintenance of the peace to such a perfection, that the chroniclers give an almost Arcadian picture of the peacefulness and security of the land in the time of Alfred the Great, and at some subsequent periods." Lord Coke[19] too declares that before the Conquest, whilst this ancient constitution remained entire, a man might ride through England with much money about him and run no risk of molestation, though armed with no other weapon than a white wand.[20] If it is allowable to estimate the efficiency of a police system by the measure of the security enjoyed by those under its protection (nor is it easy to conceive of a fairer or more comprehensive test), it may then be asserted with confidence that the Anglo-Saxon model, crude as it undoubtedly was in many respects, compares not unfavourably with the various preventive agencies which the wisdom of succeeding generations has been able to produce. This comparative superiority survived, as we shall see, until the advent of the admirable system of police, not yet a century old, under which we have the good fortune to live to-day. After the Conquest, the national police organisation was retained by the Normans, the headborough becoming the "præpositus," and the joint guarantee being known as "mutual security"; but the old forms which had weighed lightly on the people hitherto, were now harshly administered by the conquerors, whose officials, unaccustomed to the system, and indifferent to the susceptibilities of the native population, arbitrarily exacted the police fines, and did so in a manner that whilst proper investigation was rare, violence was common.