which the Court of King's Bench exercised over all inferior courts, a control which has been inherited by the High Court. The scope of this control comprises all the inferior courts, the County Courts, for example; but it is of special importance in connection with the magistracy. This traditional power is quite distinct from any appellate jurisdiction that statutes may have given to the High Court. That court, for instance, has by statute power to hear appeals on points of law from the County Courts, and from the Courts of Summary Jurisdiction; but, apart from this, the High Court controls all inferior courts, ordering them (by writ of mandamus) to hear and determine cases which are within their competence, prohibiting them (by writ of prohibition) from meddling with matters which are beyond their competence, and taking to itself (by writ of certiorari) any case in which there has been or is like to be a failure of justice.

The nature of this control is perhaps best illustrated when the High Court enforces against some justice or judge of a lower court the rule that no one biassed by pecuniary interest should act as judge. Since the days when "the Mayor of Hereford was laid by the heels" for sitting as judge in his own cause, this rule has been applied with a rigour which, were the principle at stake not so important, might seem pedantic. Nor is it applied only to "inferior courts; the House of Lords has applied it to the decree of a Lord Chancellor,1 but it

1 On which occasion Lord Campbell said, "It is of the last importance that the maxim, that no man is to be a judge in his own cause should be held sacred. And that is not to be confined to a cause in which he is a party, but applies to a cause in which he has an interest. We have again and again set aside proceedings

is constantly applied to justices of the peace; they are summoned, in the Queen's name, to show cause why the proceedings taken before them should not be brought into the High Court and there quashed, i.e. made void. We have here no appeal by a defeated litigant who brings his adversary from a lower to a higher tribunal, but a matter between the Queen on the one side and some of her justices on the other. To secure a full and fair hearing of every case before magistrates who have no sinister interest and who are legally competent to decide the case, rather than to secure correct decisions of questions of fact or law, has been the object of the control which the High Court by means of royal writs exercises over the lower courts. Especially important has been the writ of certiorari for removing proceedings from the lower courts to the High Court in order that the latter may be certified thereof and do justice therein, and though in not a few cases statutes have in general terms "taken away the certiorari," i.e. have directed that certain proceedings shall not be removed, still it is considered that even then the writ can be issued if the lower tribunal plainly exceeds its powers or acts in a flagrantly irregular way.

in inferior tribunals, because an individual who had an interest in a cause took a part in the decision. And it will have a most salutary influence on these tribunals when it is known that this High Court of last resort, in a case in which the Lord Chancellor of England had an interest, considered that his decree was on that account not according to law, and should be set aside." (3 House of Lords Cases, 759-793.)

CHAPTER X.

THE CONSTABULARY.

It may seem to us a matter of course that there is a large body of policemen, highly organized on a military plan, paid to maintain order, detect crime and arrest offenders. But all this is very new; it has come into existence during the last sixty years; indeed, down to 1856 there was no law for the whole of England requiring that there should be paid policemen. The general law was that every township should have its constable. To serve his turn in that office was the duty of every man of the township, and to serve (certain lawful fees excepted) for nothing. In places where the old local courts survived the constable was elected by his neighbours; elsewhere he was appointed by the

1 The word police did not, I think, become common until late in the last century. Johnson just admits it, but only as a French word used in England; for him police is "the regulation and government of a city or country so far as regards the inhabitants." The group of words, police, policy, polity, politics, politic, political, politician, is a good example of delicate distinctions. I hardly dare venture a definition of police, but will suggest, "such part of social organization as is concerned immediately with the maintenance of good order, or the prevention or detection of offences." The Police as an equivalent for the police force, the body of police constables, is, very modern.

justices; the man chosen might provide a substitute. The constable had a good many small statutory duties to do, and a general duty of obeying the lawful orders of the justices, but his main "common law" duty was to arrest offenders, and for that purpose he had some powers which the private man had not. These are still important; it is mainly because he is a constable, an officer long known to the law, that he whom we call a policeman differs from other men.

The last century which did most of its legislation by means of local Acts, provided in this place and that divers more or less efficient supplements for this rude institution, paid watchmen for the towns and so forth, but these, though interesting, we must pass by as temporary expedients which have left few traces on our present law; we can pass from the constable of the common law to the constable of those yet recent statutes which have created the new police force.1

So late as 1842 a gallant effort was made to put new life into the old constabulary.2 The general principle was placed upon the statute book that in the country at large every able-bodied man resident within any parish between the ages of 25 and 55, rated to the poor rate or county rate at £4 or more, is liable to serve as constable for that parish, unless specially disqualified or exempted. But the list of exemptions was comprehensive; men of the professional class had no mind for constabulary duties. On the statute book that principle remains written; but it has become a dead letter. The machinery provided was briefly this: lists of persons liable to serve

1 By far the best history of the English constabulary known to me is in Gneist, Self-Government, § 77-82.

2 Statute, 1842, chap. 109.

for the parish are annually drawn up by the overseers of the poor; these are submitted to justices holding a special session for the division, who thereout choose and appoint for each parish so many constables as they think needful; substitutes are allowed; a man who has served in person or by substitute is exempt until every other parishioner liable to serve has taken his turn; within the county and all adjoining counties this constable has all the powers of a constable, but he is not bound to act outside his parish without the special warrant of a justice; he may earn certain fees, otherwise he is unpaid. Thirty years later, "the establishment of an efficient police in the counties of England and Wales has rendered the general appointment of parish constables unnecessary," so, for the future, no parish constable shall be appointed unless the justices at Quarter Sessions think this necessary.1 The Act of 1842 can still be enforced if need be; the able-bodied man, not specially exempted, is liable to be constable of his parish or to find a fit substitute; but this statute seems as obsolete as the laws of Ethelbert. We have been living very fast.

But though we have now a professional police force and the old parish constabulary has vanished, still under an Act of 18312 there is a machinery for compelling men to serve as special constables, and this we ought to notice, as it might on occasion be employed. On the oath of a credible witness that any riot or felony has taken place, or may be reasonably apprehended, two justices can appoint as special constables any persons resident in the neighbourhood who are not exempt from serving the office of parish constable. A Secretary of State can order that even the exempt shall 1 Statute, 1872, chap. 92. 2 Statute, 1831, chap. 41.