Under these circumstances, an attempt was made in 1842 to infuse new life into the decrepit parochial system by an Act[209] of Parliament, which ordered Justices of the Peace to hold special sessions for appointing proper persons to act as parish constables, and which authorized the employment of new functionaries called Superintending Constables to have the management of Lock-up Houses, and also the supervision of all the parish-constables within the Petty Sessional Division of the county for which they might be appointed--such superintending constables to receive a fixed salary out of the County Rates. The Superintending Constable system was given a fair trial; most of the counties in England and Wales which refused to adopt the Permissive Act employing trained stipendiaries to look after their unpaid and amateurish parochial constables. That the compromise proved a comparative failure must be attributed not to the shortcomings of the officers selected, but to the impossibility of the task they were required to perform. Individually, superintending constables were often meritorious officers, and they proved so far useful that a substantial improvement was soon apparent in the police of nearly every county which employed them; but their exertions, however great, were doomed to failure because the very unpromising material they had to manipulate was proof in the long run against the limited powers they were allowed to exercise. Without asserting that parish constables were altogether hopeless, it may be said without fear of contradiction that only the strictest discipline could have sufficed to render them efficient; but the sole punishment a superintending constable could inflict on a refractory subordinate was the very mild one of reporting him to the Justices, who, in their turn, were powerless to administer anything like adequate correction. To expect a parochial constabulary to learn efficiency voluntarily from a superintending constable living in their midst, was as unreasonable as it would be to look for knowledge in a schoolroom where a scholar without authority is the teacher.