The only point of similarity between the Metropolitan and the Cheshire Constabularies was that they were both stipendiary bodies; the county was divided into nine police districts, six of which were identical with existing Hundreds; each district was under the supervision of a High-Constable, assisted by from six to eight petty constables. The whole scheme, therefore, was conceived on a paltry scale; the petty constables were not selected with sufficient care, they were not graded, and they wore no uniform; responsibility was not vested in the hands of any one man, and internal jealousies rendered impossible that co-operation, which is so necessary to the efficiency of the whole.[211] One of the reasons why Cheshire was selected as a trial ground, was because rural crime was more prevalent in that county than elsewhere; but although some lessons of value were acquired for future application, as a result of this experiment, it must be confessed that the Cheshire Constabulary were hardly more successful in preventing crime than the parish constables had been. Among those counties which were wise enough to take immediate advantage of the Permissive Act, the lead was quickly taken by Essex, which had the good fortune to entrust the control of its rural police to a really brilliant chief-constable in the person of Captain M'Hardy, a retired naval officer, who had already done good work for the Coast-guard service. Taking "efficiency with economy" for his motto, Captain M'Hardy was able to achieve results which proved that a really well-managed force could be made self-supporting, or in other words that an efficient constabulary saves and earns as much as it costs. The strength of the rural police in Essex averaged about one constable to every fifteen hundred of the population, and the gross expenses, which included the erection and maintenance of suitable station-houses, were from the first considerable; yet the chief-constable claimed that the net annual cost of the whole establishment was only £80, 6s. 3d. This sum is surprisingly small, but not so incredible as, at first sight, it may appear. The figures (which are printed at length in an Appendix to the 2nd Report of the Select Committee appointed in 1853) were arrived at by placing on the debit side of the account the gross amount expended for all police services, and on the credit side, the total savings and earnings effected by their agency. The largest credit taken was an item of five thousand pounds odd on account of the decrease of vagrancy, and the second largest, one of nearly four thousand pounds on account of the estimated increase in the value of land, calculated at the rate of only one penny per acre.[212]