Much of what was accounted in the nineteenth century as illegitimate and unwarranted popular punishment had its antecedents in the orthodox modes of chastisement observable in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; a time when, if communities did not own their justice systems, they nevertheless remained very interested shareholders. Given the rather vestigial nature of the government, some rough accommodation with general opinion was a necessity. William Paley warned in 1785:

Nowhere, of course, was the need to reconcile general opinion to the operation of the legal system greater than in the area of criminal law, where the community had always played an important role in the identification and prosecution of offences. A reward system was in operation, but thief-taking and approving went into general decline following the disreputable career and final fall of Jonathan Wild in 1725. The system at the end of the eighteenth century was almost entirely dependent on the inclination of private prosecutors, the activities of private prosecution societies, or the vigour of the constables and their assistants in spying out and hauling malefactors before the magistrates.