Despite the fact that the employment of deputies was mischievous in its immediate consequences, the rise of the custom marked a distinct stage in the development that resulted in the freedom from personal liability which, without prejudice to the police administration, we now enjoy; it began to be felt that the onerous and thankless position of constable deserved remuneration, and that it was more economical to delegate constabulary duties to experts, than that every man should be compelled to serve his turn in an office that interfered with his normal activity, and for which, perhaps, he had no special aptitude. England, as we have seen, was rapidly becoming a commercial country, and all were eager to take advantage of every chance of money-making that offered itself, and finding that the duties of citizenship absorbed more of their time than they were willing to spare, peace-officers were no sooner elected than they hastened to hire any proxies whom they could persuade to undertake the burden of office. This reluctance of busy men to devote their valuable time to an unpaid public service was reasonable enough, and the practice of employing substitutes was winked at by the authorities; yet centuries passed before a way was found to organize with intelligence, and officially recognize a system, that whilst freeing the mass of the people from an unnecessary conscription, should yet retain the essential principle that every man shares in, and cannot divest himself of, a definite responsibility for the maintenance of good order in the commonwealth.