The watchmen appointed by parishes were useless, inadequate, inefficient and untrustworthy, acting often as accessories in aiding and abetting crime.
They are Nature's watchmen--links which connect the days of animated life.
Each city would appoint watchmen who would work in shifts, so that the people were continually under guard.
Up until this time, the towns had merely employed a few watchmen to patrol the streets and call out the time and weather.
The watch committee resolved that all the men should become watchmen under the control of an inspector with the day policing divided among them.