At no time of our history have the duties of the Justice and the tasks of the constable been more varied and onerous than they were at the period we are considering. The jurisdiction and control of these officers reached to the furthest corners of the social edifice; they had to see that the labourers rose betimes and did not take too long over their meals, nor might the country parson marry without "the advice and allowance"[110] of two Justices of the shire. All these multifarious duties they performed for the most part without pecuniary reward, the only fee to which they were entitled being the sum of five shillings for each day they sat in the execution of the Statute of Labourers. On the whole it must be allowed that they carried out the duties entrusted to them both with credit to themselves, and to the public advantage; for whilst Sheriffs, Under-Sheriffs, and Bailiffs were for ever giving cause for complaint on account of their "misdemeanour and evil behaviour," it was a rare occurrence for a Justice to be accused of extortion or injustice, and crime was far less common at this time than it afterwards became. Contemporary writers, however, criticise the county magistracy with some severity. Freak, the Bishop of Worcester, for example, writes to the Lord Treasurer in 1587, giving his opinion of the Justices of the Peace: "I do observe some weakness in that number: divers of them being but superficial, either for advice or for execution of any weighty affaires of the county," whilst Shakespeare is very hard upon all police functionaries as he knew them. Mr Justice Shallow, representing the Bench, Dogberry and Verges of the Watch, as well as Elbow and Dull of the Constabulary, are all treated with good-humoured contempt. The dramatist's account of the interview between Escalus and Elbow is of particular interest because it illustrates the evils of the system of deputy which clung to the office of parish-constable until forty or fifty years ago.[111]