The Early Watch. though, indeed, it must be allowed that such a regulation would have been very useful in ancient Rome, where there were no clocks, and where people had nothing in their houses to announce the hours in the night time. During the day people could know the hours after water-clocks had been constructed at the public expense, and placed in open buildings erected in various parts of the city. The case seems to have been the same in Greece; and rich families kept particular servants, both male and female, whose business it was to announce to their masters and mistresses certain periods of the day, as pointed out by the city clocks. These servants, consisted prin cipally of boys and young girls, the latter be ing destined to attend on the ladies. It ap pears, however, that in the course of time water-clocks were kept also in the palaces of the great; at any rate, Trimalchio, the celebrated voluptuary mentioned in Petronius, had one in his dining-room, and a ser vant stationed near it to proclaim the pro gress oi the hours, that his master might know how much of his lifetime was spent; for he did not wish to lose a single moment without enjoying pleasure. There were no clocks among the ancients which struck the hours, as has been already said; and as water-clocks were both scarce and expensive, they could not be procured by laboring people, to whom it was of most importance to be acquainted with the pro gress of time. It would, therefore, have been a useful and necessary regulation to cause the watchmen in the streets to pro claim the hours, which they could have known from the public water-clocks, by biowing a horn, or by calling out. It appears, however, that people must have been soon led to such an institution, because the above methods had been long practised in war. The periods for mounting guard were determined by water-clocks; at each watch a horn was blown, and every one
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could by this signal know the hour of the night; but there is no proof that these regu lations were established in cities during the time of peace. Cicero, comparing the life of a civil with that of a military officer, says: "The former is awakened by the crowing of the cock, and the latter by the sound of the trumpet." The former, therefore, had no other means of knowing the hours of the night but by attending to the noise made by that animal. With the exception of Paris, the police establishment in cities is more modern than one might suppose. It appears that nightwatching was established in the above-men tioned city, as at Rome, in the commence ment of its monarchy. De la Mare quotes the ordinances on this subject of Clothaire II., in the year 595; of Charlemagne, and of the following periods. At first the citizens were obliged to keep watch in turns, under the command of a miles queti, who was called also chevalier. The French writers remark on this circumstance that the term qitet, which occurs in the earliest ordinances, was formed from the German words wache, wacht, the guard or watch; and in like man ner several other ancient German military terms, such as bivouac, landsquenet, etc., have been retained in the French language. (Bivouac, from the German bmvacht, is an additional night-guard during a siege, or when an army is encamped near the enemy. Landsquenets were German soldiers added by Charles VIII. of France to his infantry, who were continued in the French army until Francis I. introduced his legions). In the course of time, when general tranquil lity prevailed, a custom was gradually intro duced of avoiding the duty of watching by paying a certain sum of money, until at length permanent compagnies de quet were established in Paris, Lyons, Orleans, and afterwards in other cities. The establishment of single watchmen, who went through the streets and called out
