The character of observing such a conduct is the most powerful
of all recommendations to new employments and increase of business.
I began now to turn my thoughts a little to public affairs,
beginning, however, with small matters. The city watch was
one of the first things that I conceiv'd to want regulation.
It was managed by the constables of the respective wards in turn;
the constable warned a number of housekeepers to attend him for
the night. Those who chose never to attend paid him six shillings
a year to be excus'd, which was suppos'd to be for hiring substitutes,
but was, in reality, much more than was necessary for that purpose,
and made the constableship a place of profit; and the constable,
for a little drink, often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch,
that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with.
Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights
spent in tippling. I thereupon wrote a paper, to be read in Junto,
representing these irregularities, but insisting more particularly
on the inequality of this six-shilling tax of the constables,
respecting the circumstances of those who paid it, since a poor
widow housekeeper, all whose property to be guarded by the watch
did not perhaps exceed the value of fifty pounds, paid as much as
the wealthiest merchant, who had thousands of pounds worth of goods
in his stores.
On the whole, I proposed as a more effectual watch, the hiring
of proper men to serve constantly in that business; and as a more
equitable way of supporting the charge the levying a tax that
should be proportion'd to the property.
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