go to the county treasury. Projects for the transfer to elected boards of the more purely administrative functions of the justices are in the air, and undoubtedly for such projects there is much to be said, but whether they will not destroy the county magistracy must be a serious question. Of that magistracy we can still write with Sir Edward Coke, "It is such a form of subordinate government for the tranquillity and quiet of the realm, as no part of the Christian world hath the like, if the same be duly exercised." 1

1 Fourth Institute, p. 170.

CHAPTER IX.

BOROUGH JUSTICES AND PAID MAGISTRATES.

To be exempt from the shire organisation was long the ambition of the English town, and divers boroughs acquired by royal charter the privilege of having their own justices of the peace. Of these justices by charter, who were usually elected officers, there is no need to speak, for the country was practically purged of them by the Municipal Reform of 1835, and the last relics of the old state of things are at this moment being swept away.1 In 1835, all the most considerable of the then incorporated boroughs, to the number of 178, were reconstituted according to a uniform model, and since then a corporation of the same type has been created in many other towns. But about 106 places which claimed an organisation of a more or less municipal kind were not included in the reform; in some the corporation had ceased to exist, save as a name, while others were passed by as unimportant. These retained, and retain, in fact or theory, their old constitutions, and at this hour there are still some decayed towns which have unreformed corporations and elective magistrates endowed with a high criminal jurisdiction which they never exercise.

1 Statute, 1883, chap. 18.

But

their doom is sealed. At latest on Michaelmas Day, 1886, these corporations will perish, these towns will become mere bits of county, unless, in the meantime, they obtain royal charters, which will turn them into municipal boroughs of the now orthodox type. So (with a saving for the still unreformed city of London) we have only to speak of what may be called the newfashioned municipal boroughs, and we have only to consider them as units in a system of Justice and Police.1

These boroughs fall into three classes: (1) those which have no separate Commission of the Peace, (2) those which have such a Commission, but no Court of Quarter Sessions, (3) those which have the separate Commission, and also Quarter Sessions.2 To take the most exalted class ("quarter session boroughs") first: these have indeed a Court of Quarter Sessions, but this is a court in which there is but a single judge, namely, the Recorder of the borough, and he is no amateur justice. He is appointed by the Queen from among barristers of five years' standing, he holds office during good behaviour, and the borough pays him a salary which in practice is hardly more than nominal, for the office is honourable and not very burdensome, nor does it prevent its holder from practising as a barrister. He holds the Quarter Sessions four times a year, and his main business is that of trying with a jury those crimes committed within the borough, which are not of the class reserved for the higher courts.3 The jurors at the Quarter Sessions for

1 As to the constitution of the municipal borough, see Citizen Series, Chalmers, Local Government, chap. v.

2 The number of boroughs in each of the three classes is approximately (1) 46, (2) 100, (3) 105.

3 See above, p. 85.

these boroughs are burgesses, and the expense of prosecutions falls, in the first instance, on the borough. For purposes of local finance the distinction between these and other boroughs is of importance, but this does not concern us.

Then for every borough there are normally, at least two justices of the peace. The mayor, who is elected by the council, is justice by virtue of his office, and unless he becomes disqualified, he is justice for one year after he ceases to be mayor. But to most boroughs, except the smallest, the Queen has granted a separate commission of the peace. The number of names in the commission varies from the seventy or eighty justices of Liverpool and Manchester to the five or six of little towns. These justices, like the county justices, are appointed by the Queen (Lord Chancellor), are unpaid, and hold office during good pleasure. While acting, such a justice must reside in the borough or its outskirts, or have a house, warehouse, or the like in the borough, but no property qualification is required of him and he is not entrusted with any high criminal jurisdiction, for as already said, even if the borough has Quarter Sessions of its own, the professional recorder will be the one judge of that court. The borough justice has, however, for his borough many of the powers that a county justice has for his county; the summary jurisdiction, the preliminary examination of criminals, the issuing of warrants of arrest, the conservation of the peace, and so forth, are his. But in general the county justices also can exercise these same powers in and for the borough; the borough is but a part of the county which has some additional justices of its own. This is always the case if the borough has no Court of Quarter

Sessions. Among the "quarter sessions boroughs" we find a further distinction, for here the question whether the county justice is excluded depends on the question whether he was excluded on the 9th of September, 1835, and this, again, depends upon the charters the borough had before that date; some such charters did, while some did not, forbid the intermeddling of the county justices, and this distinction is still preserved.1

It must be understood, however, that in boroughs, no matter to what class they belong, a great deal of business of the governmental kind, which for the county outside borough boundaries is done by justices at Quarter Sessions or Petty Sessions, falls to the elected Town Council. Thus, in the administration of the acts which aim at preventing cattle disease, the Town Council for the borough is coordinated with the Quarter Sessions for the county, while to protect the townsfolk against dangerous dogs the Town Council has the powers which justices in Petty Sessions exercise for the benefit of their sessional division. Again a control over the borough constabulary resembling that which Quarter Sessions has over the county constabulary belongs not to the borough justices but, as will be seen hereafter,2 to a "watch committee" of the Council.

:

Unless within less than two years Parliament takes the city of London in hand, that city will possess the one municipal corporation that does not conform to the modern model. Of that corporation as a governing

1 A clause in a charter forbidding such meddling is generally called a "" "non-intromittant clause.' This classification of the quarter sessions boroughs turns rather on their past good fortune than on their present importance. Liverpool, I think, does not exclude the county justices, while Windsor does.

2 See below, p. 112.

H