The practical difference between the working of the parochial system and that of the rural police could find no better illustration than that afforded by a comparison of the extent of vagrancy respectively existing under the two systems. Formerly parish-constables served at a loss unless crime was plentiful, and their interest therefore lay towards the encouragement rather than in the prevention of offences. It is not suggested that parish constables, as a class, were in the habit of deliberately manufacturing crime, but instances not infrequently came to light which proved that such practices were not so exceptional as they ought to have been. We have it on the authority of the Vagrancy Commission, that a regular system of fraudulent collusion between constables and tramps was common as recently as the year 1820.[213] It appears that at this time parish constables were entitled to ten shillings for apprehending a vagrant, upon proof being shown that the latter had either solicited or received money, and the fraud consisted in a compact between the two by which the constable first gave the vagrant a penny, and having arrested him as a beggar, claimed the reward, which was ultimately divided between the conspirators. Under the rural police system such a state of affairs was impossible. Constables were paid a regular salary, and had no interest in crime except to prevent it by every means in their power: prevalence of crime in any district meant extra work and less chance of promotion for every policeman concerned. Of the many excellent arrangements introduced by Captain M'Hardy, with a view to reducing the expense of the Essex constabulary, none was so successful as the plan of employing constables as assistant relieving officers for casuals. The resulting advantage was twofold. The prospect of having to interview a policeman acted as a moral check upon vagrancy, and the constable acquired in this way an extensive and first-hand acquaintance with the members of a fraternity professionally interesting to him. The success of this experiment, with which was associated the supervision of low lodging-houses, astonished even its strongest adherents; a comparison of the vagrancy returns for 1848 and 1849 (the year of the initiation of this policy) shewing a decrease amounting to ninety per cent. in the number of indoor, and to seventy-seven per cent. in the number of outdoor vagrants, the gross figures being 24,882 for 1848, and 2977 for the following year--this result was achieved, moreover, without relief being refused, as far as could be discovered, to a single pauper who was really destitute.[214]