Extracts from (he Records. 323 



found sure asylum in civic chest or cloistered strong-room, the 

 muniments of a county were subject to change of domicile on every 

 api^ointment of a new clerk of the peace. In days, too, when piles 

 of old papers would have been regarded with little interest, the 

 retiring functionary, or the representatives of one deceased, might 

 possibly have considered that the exigencies of the occasion had 

 been amply satisfied when the incoming officer had received all 

 documents of immediate practical importance, and it is not difficult 

 to imagine that gradual ruin would overtake the remainder. 



Whether by mere accident or (as one prefers to believe) by the 

 considerate prudence of successive clerks of the peace, it is happily 

 the fact that the transactions of the Wiltshire Quarter Sessions are 

 still to be read in a fairly continuous series of documents, having 

 their commencement in the sixteenth year of the reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth. 



These records divide themselves into two chief classes — the minute 

 books, and the great rolls. 



The minute books, through a part of their currency, are sub- 

 divided into separate series of " Orders " and " Entries,'' between 

 which the rough distinction may be taken that the entries address 

 themselves to criminal and the orders to non-criminal business. 



The great rolls (of which, in the Elizabethan minutes, mention 

 occurs under the homely title of the " Sessions Bundles ") consist 

 of files of the several proceedings, the abridged notices of which 

 fill the minute books. The great rolls (one of which was made up 

 for each sessions) form the more interesting series of the two; for 

 the reason that while the minute book may content itself with a 

 somewhat curt entry of any given magisterial act, the great roll 

 will probably contain the full text of the order, with the autograph 

 of the acting magistrate, and the depositions or information upon 

 which it proceeded. It must be confessed that a narrative of tran- 

 sactions relating to an agricultural, inland, and sparsely populated 

 shire, such as our own, cannot pretend to emulate in interest the 

 more eventful histoi'ies of counties having a sea-board, surrounding 

 some military centre or place of learning, or situate in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the seat of government. 



