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Before
the coming of paid police forces, the main agents of local law enforcement
were the parish constables, who were local tradesmen or farmers chosen
annually by the inhabitants of each parish or township. People of
no fixed abode and visible means of support (or in the blunter contemporary
language “rogues and vagabonds”) were always a bugbear
to the authorities, and the constables were expected to adopt a “zero
tolerance” policy against them.
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