Between 1840 and 1856 the history of rural police divides into two branches: in the counties which adopted the Permissive Act, the record is one of almost constant progress towards efficiency; in the counties which preferred to prolong the defective régime of the parish-constable, the story is largely one of stagnation, unnecessary friction, and weak-kneed experiment. Although these tendencies are so diverse, the migratory habit of criminals makes it impossible to follow the history of either to the exclusion of the other. No police system can rightly be considered without constant reference to neighbouring systems, because every improvement in the police of one district immediately increases the difficulties of every adjacent district. The result of the Permissive Act was precisely what might have been expected, and the situation may be summed up in the single phrase--crime follows impunity. The influences of pride and local jealousies proved powerful enough to prevent a complete recantation by those counties which had pinned their faith to the _status quo ante_, but they were not sufficiently potent to produce insensibility or indifference when the day of reckoning came. County magistrates, who in 1840 had refused to set their houses in order, were ready to embrace almost any expedient by the end of 1842. By this time they were only too glad to accept the services of police officers, trained in London or elsewhere, and to entrust them with the task of supervising the local constables. One of the chief reasons why parochial constables had become so useless, was because there was no one to keep them up to their work. The office of High-Constable (finally abolished in 1869) had long been purely nominal, and Justices of the Peace could hardly be expected to devote much time or trouble to the unpleasant task of extracting service out of unwilling agents. In country towns where watchmen were employed, it was usually the constable's duty to oversee the watchman, but it was found by experience that the business was so indifferently performed that a plan, known as the "clock system" had, in many places, been introduced. This method of supervision consisted of a mechanical contrivance, in the shape of a clock with a revolving face: the watchmen were instructed to pull the chain attached to the clock every time they passed any of the machines during the night. In the morning, the constable would visit the clocks, and note the hours at which the chains had been pulled; but as a matter of fact the check on the watchmen was valueless, because subsequent inquiry showed that one man could easily attend to three or four clocks. In the more remote country districts watchmen were seldom or never employed, and no responsible person conceived it to be his particular business to supervise the comings or goings of the parish-constables.