termed ever since the conquest; and Lancaster was created a county palatine by Henry III., in favour of Edward Plantagenet, first earl and duke of Lancaster. Pembroke and Hexham also, were anciently counties palatine; Hexham belonged to the archbishop of York, but was stripped of its privileges in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth's reign, and reduced to be part of the county of Northumberland. The power of Pembroke as a county palatine was abolished in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII.

SHERIFFS.-The Sheriff is an officer of very great antiquity, and performs all the king's business in the counties; and although he be still called vice-comes, yet he is entirely independent of, and not subject to the earl; the king, by his letters patent, committing custodiam comitatus to the sheriff, and him alone.

Sheriffs were formerly chosen by the inhabitants of the several counties. In confirmation of which, it was ordained, by statute 28, Edward I., that the people should elect their sheriffs in every shire, except where the shrievalty was hereditary in any family. In some counties the sheriffs were hereditary, as they still continue to be in the county of Westmoreland. In Scotland the sheriffs were hereditary, till the crown resumed that office after the attempt of prince Charles Edward to win the crown of his ancestors, and there the crown appoints deputies, who again appoint substitutes to act for them. The city of London has the inheritance of the shrievalty of Middlesex vested in their corporation by charter. But these popular elections growing tumultuous, they were put an end to by the statute 9 Edward II., which enacted that the sheriffs should from thenceforth be assigned by the chancellor, treasurer, and the judges, as being persons to whom the same trust might with confidence be reposed. And it is now customary, that all the judges, together with the other great officers and privy councillors, meet in the exchequer on the morrow of St Martin, and then and there the judges propose three persons to be reported to the king, who afterwards appoints one of them to be sheriff.

Sheriffs, by virtue of several old statutes, are to continue in their office only one year in England, and yet it is said that a sheriff may be appointed during the king's pleasure, and such is the form of the king's writ. No man who has served the office of sheriff for one year, can be compelled to serve the same again within three years after.

It is of the utmost importance to have the sheriff appointed according to law, when his power and duty is considered. These are either as a judge, as the keeper of the king's peace, as a ministerial officer of the superior courts of justice, or as the king's bailiff.

In his judicial capacity he is to hear and determine all causes of forty shillings value and under in his county court, and he has also a judicial power in divers other civil cases. He is likewise to decide the elections of knights of the shire, (subject to the control of the house of commons,) of

coroners, and of verderors; to judge of the qualification of voters, and return such as he shall determine to be duly elected.

As the keeper of the king's peace, both by common law and special commission, he is the first man in the county, and superior in rank to any nobleman therein during his office. He may apprehend, and commit to prison, all persons who break or attempt to break the peace; and may bind any one in recognizance to keep the king's peace. He not only may, but he is bound, ex officio, to pursue and take all traitors, murderers, felons, and other misdoers, and commit them to jail for safe custody. He is also to defend his county against any of the king's enemies when they come into the land; and for this purpose, as well as for keeping the peace and pursuing felons, he may command all the people of his county to attend him; which is called the posse comitatus, or power of the county and this summons, every person above fifteen years old, and under the degree of a peer, is bound to attend upon warning, under pain of fine and imprisonment.

In his ministerial capacity, the sheriff is bound to execute all processes issuing from the king's courts of justice. In the commencement of civil causes, he is to serve the writ, to arrest and to take bail; when the cause comes to trial, he must summon and return the jury; when it is determined, he must see the judgment of the court carried into execution. In criminal cases, he also arrests and imprisons, he returns the jury, he has the custody of the delinquent, and he executes the sentence of the court, though it extends to death itself.

As the king's bailiff, it is his business to preserve the king's rights within his bailiwick; for so his county is frequently called in the writs. He must seize to the king's use all lands devolved to the crown by attainder or escheat; must levy all fines and forfeitures; must seize and keep all waifs, wrecks, estrays, and the like, unless they be granted to some subject; and must also collect the king's rents within his bailiwick, if commanded by process from the Exchequer.

For the execution of these various offices, the sheriff has many inferior officers under him as under sheriff, bailiff, and jailers: who must neither buy, sell, nor farm their offices, under forfeiture of £500.

The under sheriff usually performs all the duties of the office, a very few only excepted, where the personal presence of the high sheriff is necessary. But no under sheriff shall continue in his office more than one year, and if he does he forfeits £200. And no under sheriff shall practise as an attorney during the time he holds the office, for this would be a great inlet to partiality and oppression.

Bailiff's or sheriff's officers, are either bailiffs of hundreds or special bailiffs. Bailiffs of hundreds are officers appointed over those respective districts by the sheriff's, to collect fines therein; to summon juries, to attend the judges and justices of the assizes and quarter sessions, and also to

execute writs and processes in the several hundreds. But as they are generally plain men, and not thoroughly skilled in this latter part of their office, that of serving writs, and making arrests and executions, it is now usual to join special bailiffs with them. The sheriff being answerable for their misdemeanours, the bailiffs are usually bound in an obligation with sureties for the due execution of their office, and thence are called bound bailiffs, which has been corrupted to the more homely appellation of bumbailiffs.

Jailers are also the sheriff's servants, and he is responsible for their conduct. Their business is to keep all such persons in safety as are committed to them by lawful warrant; and if they suffer any such to escape, the sheriff shall answer to the king, if it be a criminal matter, or in a civil case, to the party injured. And to this end the sheriff must have lands sufficient within the county to answer to the king and his people. The abuses of jailers and sheriff's officers, towards the unfortunate persons in their custody, are well regulated and guarded against by various statutes. Jailers are not to suffer tippling or gaming, or the sale of any liquors in a prison under the penalty of £10.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.-The next species of subordinate magistrates, are justices of the peace, the principal of whom is the custos rotulorum, or keeper of the records of the county.

The king's majesty is by his office and dignity royal, the principal conservator of the peace within all his dominions, and may give authority to others to see the peace kept, and to punish such as break it: hence it is usually called the king's peace. The lord chancellor or keeper, the lord treasurer, the lord high steward of England, the lord mareschal, and lord high constable of England, (when any such officers are in being,) and all the justices of the king's bench, (by virtue of their offices,) and the master of the rolls, (by prescription,) are general conservators of the peace throughout the whole kingdom, and may commit all who break it, or bind them in recognizances to keep it; the other judges are only so in their own courts. The coroner is also a conservator of the peace within his own county, as is also the sheriff, and both of them may take a recognizance. Constables, tithing-men, and the like, are also conservators of the peace within their own jurisdictions, and may apprehend all breakers of the peace, and commit them till they find sureties for their keeping it.

These justices are appointed by the king's special commission under the great seal, the form of which was settled by all the judges A. D. 1590. This appoints them all, jointly and severally, to keep the peace, and any two or more of them to inquire of and determine felonies and other misdemeanours; in which number some particular justices, or one of them, are directed to be always included, and no business to be done without their presence. When any justice intends to act under this commission, he sues

out a writ of dedimus potestatem, from the clerk of the crown in chancery, empowering certain persons therein named to administer the usual oaths to him, which done, he is at liberty to act.

It is now enacted that every justice, with some exceptions, shall have £100 per annum, clear of all deductions, and if he act without such qualification, he shall forfeit £100. And it is also provided, that no practising attorney, solicitor, or proctor, shall be capable of acting as a justice of the peace.

The office of these justices subsists only during the king's pleasure, and is determinable, 1. By the demise of the crown, that is, in six months after ; but if the same justice is put in commission by the successor, he is not obliged to sue out a new dedimus, or to swear again to his qualification ; nor by reason of any new commission, to take the oaths more than once during the same reign. 2. By express writ under the great seal, discharging any particular person from being any longer a justice. 3. By superseding the commission by writ of supersedeas, which suspends the power of all the justices, but does not totally destroy it; in as much as it may be revived again by another writ, called a procedendo. 4. By a new commission, which virtually, though silently, discharges all the former justices, that are not included therein; for two commissions cannot subsist at once. 5. By accession to the office of sheriff or coroner.

The power, office, and duty of a justice of the peace depends on his commission, and on the several statutes which have created objects of his jurisdiction. His commission first empowers him singly to conserve the peace, and thereby gives him all the power of the ancient conservators at the common law, in suppressing riots and affrays, in taking securities for the peace, and in apprehending and committing felons and other inferior criminals. It also empowers any two or more to hear and determine all felonies and other offences, which is the ground of their jurisdiction at

sessions.

SURVEYORS OF HIGHWAYS.-Every parish is bound of common right to keep the high roads that go through it in good and sufficient repair, unless by reason of the tenure of lands, or otherwise, this care is consigned to some particular private person.

Their office and duty consists in putting in execution a variety of laws for the repairs of the public highways; that is, of ways leading from one town to another, all which are now reduced into one act, 13 Geo. III., which enacts, 1. That they may remove all annoyances in the highways, or give notice to the owner to remove them, who is liable to penalties for non-compliance. 2. They are to call together all the inhabitants and occupiers of lands, tenements, and hereditaments within the parish, six days in every year, to labour in fetching materials, or repairing the highways: all persons keeping draughts, (of three horses, &c.) or occupying lands,

being obliged to send a teem for every draught, and for every £50 a-year, which they keep or occupy; persons keeping less than a draught, or occupying less than £50 a-year, to contribute in a less proportion: and all other persons chargeable, between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five, to work or find a labourer, but they may compound with the surveyors, at certain easy rates established by the act. And every cartway leading to any market town, must be made twenty feet wide at the least, if the fences will permit, and may be increased by the authority of two justices, at the expense of the parish, to the breadth of thirty feet. 3. The surveyors may lay out their own money in purchasing materials for repairs, in erecting guide posts, and making drains, and shall be reimbursed by a rate, to be allowed at a special sessions. 4. In case the personal labour of the parish be not sufficient, the surveyors, with the consent of the quarter sessions, may levy a rate on the parish in aid of the personal duty, not exceeding in any one year, together with the other highway rates, the sum of 9d. in the pound; for the due application of which, they are accountable on oath. Turnpikes are now pretty generally introduced in aid of such rates, and the laws relating to them, depend principally on the particular powers granted in the several road acts, and upon some general provisions, which are extended to all turnpike roads in the kingdom by 13 Geo. III.

CORONERS.-Coroners were originally the principal conservators of the king's peace, and the name is derived from Corona, a crown, because by the common law they attended principally to the pleas of the crown. In virtue of his office, the lord chief justice of the king's bench is the chief coroner of England. Anciently the office of Coroner was held in such high estimation, that none under the degree of a knight could hold it. By the 14 Edward III., no coroner could be chosen unless he had in the same county sufficient land in fee to answer all manner of people.

The coroner is elected by the freeholders of the county in the county court, in pursuance of the king's writ issued from, and returnable to, the court of chancery. The demise of the king does not affect this officer; he still continues ad vitam aut culpam, without any new election. After his election and return, he is sworn by the sheriff to the due execution of his office.

When any person comes by a violent or unnatural death, or if there be suspicion of such, the township is to give notice to the coroner; and if this is neglected, and the body interred without due notification, or before the coroner's arrival, then the township is liable to be amerced. To bury any body which has met with a violent death before a coroner's inquest has sat upon it, is, according to chief justice Holt, indictable; and also if the township shall suffer the body to lie unburied till it putrifies, without sending notice to the coroner, it is liable to be amerced.

On receiving notice, the former issues a precept to the constables of the next four, five, or six townships, to return twelve good and lawful men to