NIGHT, that part of the natural day during which the sun is underneath the horizon; or that time when it is dark or dusky. Night was originally divided by the Hebrews and other eastern nations into three parts or watches. But the Romans, and after them the Jews, divided the night into four parts or watches; the first of which began at sunset, and lasted till nine at night, according to our way of reckoning; the second lasted till midnight; the third extended to three in the morning; and the fourth ended at sunrise. The ancient Gauls and Germans divided their time, not by days, but by nights; the Anglo-Saxons followed the same method of reckoning; and the people of Iceland and the Arabs do the same at this day. The length and shortness of the night or of darkness is according to the season of the year and position of the place; and the causes of this variation are now well known. See Astronomy. Night-Watching, a practice of very remote antiquity, and which belongs to the oldest regulations of police. As early as 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 in other cities of Greece, and they were kept to their duty by the visitations[7:16:224] of the thesmothetae. There were also triumviri nocturni in the city of Rome, as we learn from the commen-tai ies of Henback 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 in process of time attention was likewise paid to these objects. 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 the practice of calling out the hours became established before the erection of city gates. It most probably had its rise in Germany; yet it would have been attended with advantage in ancient Rome, where there were no public clocks, nor any thing in private houses to indicate the hours. The various periods for soldiers to mount guard were determined by water-clocks; at the end of each hour they blew a horn, and by means of this signal every individual was apprised of 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, as at Rome, night-watching was established at the very commencement of the French monarchy; and De Lamare 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, was peculiar to Germany, and has only been copied by surrounding nations in more modern times. The elector John George, in 1588, appointed watchmen in Berlin; and Mabillon describes it as a practice peculiar to that country. Horns were 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, as early as the ninth century, had watchmen posted upon their towers, who announced the hours both by day and by night, striking forcibly on a suspended board, which in that country is said to be in use to the present period; and at St Petersburg 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 at an early period monks were thus awakened in monasteries to attend to the proper hours of prayer.

We find mention made of steeple-watchmen in Germany in the fourteenth century. In the year 1563, a churchsteeple was erected in Leisnig, and an apartment built in it for a permanent watchman, who was obliged to proclaim the hours every time the clock struck. In the fifteenth century permanent watchmen were kept in many of the steeples at Ulm. The same thing was practised at Frankfort on the Mayne, at Oettingen, and in many other places; and Montaigne records his astonishment at finding a man on the steeple of Constance, who kept watch upon it continually, and who upon no pretext whatever was permitted to descend.