a practice of very remote antiquity, which belongs to the oldest regulations of police. So Night-watching was the time of Solomon we find mention made of it, and likewise in the Psalms of David*. Sentinels were stationed in different places in Athens and other cities of Greece, and they were kept to their duty by the visitations of the Theophtheter. There were also triumviri nocturni in the city of Rome, as appears from the commentaries of Heubach on the police of the Romans. It appears, however, that the design of these institutions was rather the prevention of fires, than the guarding against alarms or dangers by night; although attention was likewise paid to these in process of time. The apprehension of fires was the pretext of Augustus, when he wished to strengthen the night-watch for suppressing nocturnal commotions.

It does not appear that calling out the hours became an established practice before the erection of city gates, and probably had its rise in Germany; yet it would have been attended with advantages in ancient Rome, where there were no public clocks, nor any thing in private houses to indicate the hours. The periods for foldiers to mount guard were determined by water-clocks; at the end of each hour they blew a horn, and by means of this signal each individual might ascertain the hour of the night. It seems evident, however, that these regulations were only attended to in time of war.

In the city of Paris, night-watching was established, as at Rome, in the very commencement of its monarchy; and De la Mare quotes the ordinances of Clothaire II. upon this subject, in the year 595. The citizens at first kept watch in rotation; but this practice was afterwards set aside, and, by the payment of a certain sum of money, a permanent watch was established. In the opinion of the learned and indefatigable Beckmann, the establishment of single watchmen, to call out the hours through the streets, is peculiar to Germany, and only copied by surrounding nations in more modern times. The elector, John George, in 1588, appointed watchmen at Berlin; and Mabillon describes it as a practice peculiar to that country. Horns are made use of by watchmen in some places, and rattles in others, the former being most proper for villages, and the latter for cities.

The Chinese, so early as the ninth century, had watchmen posted on their towers, who announced the hours both by day and night, by striking forcibly on a suspended board, which in that country is said to be in use to the present period; and at Peterburgh, in Russia, the watchmen employ a suspended plate of iron for a similar purpose. In this manner also Christians are assembled together in the Levant, for the purpose of attending divine service; and monks were thus awakened in monasteries at the most early periods, to attend to the proper hours of prayer.

We find mention made of steeple-watchmen in Germany in the 14th century. In the year 1563, a church-steeple was erected in Leinfli, and an apartment built in it for a permanent watchman, who was obliged to proclaim the hours every time the clock struck.* Permanent watchmen were kept in many of the steeple at Ulm in the 15th century. The same thing was practised at Frankfort on the Mayne, at Oettingen, and many other places; and Montaigne was astonished at finding a man on the steeple of Constance, who kept watch watch upon it continually, and who on no pretext whatever was permitted to come down. Beckmann's Hist. of Inventions, iii. 425.