The risks that a constable has to face, the long night work and the constant exposure to all weathers that are his lot, and which eventually impair even the strongest constitutions, make it especially incumbent on his employers to provide adequately for him when he is worn out. Quite apart, however, from this moral obligation (which cannot honourably be evaded) the existence of a well-conceived and well-administered superannuation scheme has a most important bearing on the stability of any police force--deferred salary contingently due to his employées being a most valuable hostage, for the satisfactory completion of the contract undertaken by them, in the hands of the paymaster. Moreover if a man has in prospect a respectable pension on retirement, he is not tempted improperly to devote himself to the acquisition of a sum of money for his future maintenance, nor, of course, has he any inducement to stay on in the service, blocking the promotion of those below him, after he is past his work. At first the percentage of resignations amongst young constables was extremely high: men of some few years' service, wearying of a life of discipline, or finding the duties they had to perform more irksome than they had anticipated, resigned without hesitation a position which they had no particular inducement to retain. This constant leakage was considerably reduced by the creation of a superannuation fund by Act of Parliament[256] in 1839, and since that year, policemen, whatever their grade, have contributed some two and a half per cent. of their salaries[257] towards their retiring pensions. The money raised for this purpose was so lavishly spent that by 1849 the fund was insolvent, and seven years later it was bankrupt. This necessitated further legislation, and by a Statute passed in 1856[258] authority was obtained to make good the deficiency out of the rates. Thenceforward the administration of the fund was the reverse of generous; and in 1862 it was promulgated that pensions on the higher scale, for service of more than fifteen and less than twenty years, were not to be granted under any circumstances whatever, and that in order to qualify for the maximum pension policemen had to serve a full term of twenty-eight years, notwithstanding the fact that expert opinion had unanimously declared that twenty-five years spent in outdoor police work incapacitates the ordinary man. Irritation at the financial legerdemain which obscured the true position of the superannuation fund, and dissatisfaction with the current rates of pay, caused widespread discontent that culminated in 1872 in an outbreak of insubordination amongst the Metropolitan police, many of whom refused to go on duty until their grievances were redressed. The ringleaders of what was very nearly a mutiny were prosecuted, and others less guilty were dismissed the force; but investigation shewed that the hardships complained of were none the less real because certain ill-advised malcontents had