498 
legality of his proceedings; and Sheriffs 
have not unfrequently been arrested for 
the oversight or ignorance of those to 
whom they have been constrained to 
commit the regulation and order of 
their official proceedings. An instance 
of this occurred a few years ago, in an 
inland county; where the High-Sheriff 
was arrested at the suit of another, 
through some trifling irregularity in the 
law on his part: and had it happened a 
year or twosooner, when so much public 
disaffection pervaded many of the lower 
and middle classes of society, the chief 
conservator of the peace of the country 
would have been confined in prison in 
default of bail, at the very time that his 
presence would have been most wanted 
to preserve the tranquillity of the coun- 
try. This isa strange anomaly. The 
law never could have anticipated or in- 
tended, that an officer, holding a charge 
of such serious consequence, should be 
liable to be seized and placed in custody, 
at the suit, perhaps, of an obscure indi- 
vidual.* Not that the law should not 
be open to every one, low as well as 
high; but the office, being legally of 
such importance, should not be so 
lightly set at nought, its functions sus- 
pended, the community deprived of the 
benefit of the king’s officer, and he, 
both in person and estate, be sacrificed 
to the interest of an individual. 
The manner of putting a Sheriff on 
the list, as generally practised, is per- 
fectly irregular ; and the persons so put 
on are very often the most unfit that 
could have been chosen. At the sum- 
mer assizes the Judge receives this list, 
but how it is made out is a subject 
which requires diligent inquiry. In 
counties where most regularity is sup- 
posed to prevail, the list is made out 
by the Grand Jury :—those being put 
* A phrase was made use of here which 
our correspondent will thank us for not 
inserting. We have no objection to the 
admission of arguments with which we do 
not accord—for they are open to reply ; but 
we expect an equal urbanity of language 
to the humblest and to the most exalted 
classes of society ; and believe there can be 
no worse policy on the part of our gentry 
than to familarize themselves to contemp- 
tuous and stigmatic epithets, applied to the 
indigent members of the community. Am 
not I a man anda brother? isa question 
which the most abject and unaccommo- 
dated of our fellow beings has a right to 
put. Why should he be provoked to put 
it angrily ?—Enpir, 
On the Office of Sheriff: 
(July 1, 
on who are considered the most proper 
persons to serve the office. And this is 
the list the judge receives; and the 
Grand Jury are certainly the best judges 
of who is most fit for the situation. If 
this plan could be strictly adhered to, 
nene better could be adopted. But, 
unfortunately, it is only in some coun- 
ties that this custom prevails : and even 
there it may be evaded. But where it does 
not prevail, undue influence is often em- 
ployed to get him into office, whose in- 
terest can be most useful to a particular 
party. It is a well-known fact, that 
the office is often served for years to- 
gether, without the least deviation, by 
clients of the same attorney. It is not 
legal that attorneys should hold the 
office of Under-Sheriff ; but the law, in 
this point, is so openly evaded, that 
none but attorneys are appointed to it. 
Perhaps it is not strictly just, that the 
Grand Jury should have the privilege 
of appointing the Sheriff—because so 
many serve upon it, who are thein- 
selves not eligible to the shrievalty,+ 
and therefore ought not to vote with 
those who are. Yet, still, it is a prac- 
tice which has prevailed, and is perhaps 
less objectionable than any other which 
can be devised. But instances have 
been frequently known, where, the 
Judge having received three different 
lists, the Sheriff has been so selected, 
that the intentions of the Grand Jury 
have been frustrated ; especially where 
it was particularly desirable to get the 
election of Sheriffs out of the power of 
a particular set of lawyers, in whose 
hands, during many years, the office 
had suffered the greatest abuse. It is 
highly improbable that the Judge could 
have been aware of the substitution of 
one list for another; and, had he re- 
ceived his list directly from the foreman 
of the Grand Jury, no such mistake 
could have occurred. * 
+ At this rate, no one should haye a 
vote at elections, but such as are qualified 
themselves to be elected as members. 
There are those, no doubt, who would like 
such a system of reform ; but we, of course, 
are not to be understood as patronizing it.. 
—EpIt. 
+ Mr. Peel’s very excellent bill for the 
consolidation of the Jury laws will, if his 
plan be carried into effect, prevent, what is 
now possible, the packing of a Jury for a 
particular purpose. Generally speaking, 
the Grand Juries could not be formed of- 
better materials than they are at present ; 
vin, 
