Prior to the establishment of the Police-force the care of the town was entrusted to a few Watchmen of the antique school, by night, and a Beadle in cocked-hat and general suit of his order, by day, assisted by the Town Crier of similar mien and garb. The Watchmen had succeeded the Patrol, a species of self-guardianship which the inhabitants imposed upon themselves in rotation, under the supervision of the High Constable and his Headboroughs. During the Winter months it was also customary for a bell-man to perambulate nightly most of the old streets of the town, and hourly proclaim the time and weather. The stocks in the Market place, and the parish pound at the back of the Old Church were then in vogue. A portion of the principal room on the basement, to form the County Court, is temporarily taken off by means of a partition, in two sections which swing back on hinges to the side walls. The Court is held every alternate Friday, William Furner, Esq., being the Judge. The only residents of the building are Friend Paine—the Hall-Keeper,—and his wife. Paine, at one time, was in himself the fire brigade of Brighton. Eight men, whose peculiarity of costume for the office consisted in wearing white hats, had previously been engaged to work the engines in the event of any fires; but none occurring, the white-hatted force was dispensed with, and eventually such an arrangement was made by the Town Council with the Brighton, Hove, and Preston Constant Service Water Company, that the fire-hose being fitted to plugs and standards in connexion with the water-mains, the service of the fire-engines was dispensed with, the position of the reservoir of the Company, on the Race Hill, giving a pressure sufficiently strong to force the water over the highest edifices in the town. In 1825, a Sussex County and General Fire and Life Assurance Company was projected, with Mr. Barnard Gregory as Managing Director. The office of this Company was on the premises in North Street now well known as Folthorp’s Royal Library, where, in front of the house, a fire-engine, fire-escape, and other appropriate apparatus, were prominently displayed. Firemen, bedight in the antique fittings of their order in London, with silver-plated badge on their arms, bearing the Brighton Arms,—two dolphins,—surmounted with SVX, and encircled with “BRIGHTHELMSTON IN SIGILVM,” and “SUSSEX COUNTY AND GENERAL FIRE AND LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY,” perpetually showed themselves about the premises which had been previously used as the Mess House of the officers of regiments from time to time stationed at the Infantry Barracks, Church Street. The career of the Company was very brief, and the exploits of the firemen were confined to one fire only, namely, that at Major Russell’s mansion, Portland Place, September 12th, 1825, known in Brighton,—where the great rage for building had then just set in,—as the year of the panic. Kemp Town at that period, and for some few years