Police discipline has been described by Sir Howard Vincent as "the obedience and respect to lawful authority which distinguishes an organized body from a rabble"[270] and Sir Henry Hawkins (Lord Brampton) has insisted upon the necessity of absolute obedience being rendered by constables to all in authority over them, "Such obedience and observance," he said, "I regard as essential to the existence of a police force."[271] All who have had any experience of dealing with large bodies of men will endorse every word of these pronouncements. First obey orders and, if necessary, complain afterwards, is a rule upon the application of which depends the life and well-being of every properly-disciplined body; at the same time it should not be forgotten that the too-strict enforcement of a rigid type of discipline neither conduces to the value of a police force nor to the advantage of the public. Periodically since 1829 alarmists have repeated the formula that "the era of dragooning has dawned"; on every occasion hitherto the cry has proved as groundless as that of the proverbial shepherd-boy, but, in order to make quite sure that the fable shall for us have no actual counterpart, it is politic to remember that a watchdog which is not kept under proper control may become as dangerous as any wolf. In Continental Europe this danger has not, as we think, been sufficiently guarded against: the police functionary is there entrusted with powers that render him to some extent independent of the ordinary law of the land, for he cannot be prosecuted for malfeasance unless special permission has first been obtained from the Government, and this permission is only granted under very exceptional circumstances.