THE JUSTICES OF LABOURERS 



53 



It is probable that there had been complaints that at the 

 present moment the evil was peculiarly pressing. A 

 study of the lists of sherififs ' shows, that, leaving out of 

 consideration magnates like the earls of Arundell and of 

 Warwick, who held the office for life or for long terms, 

 and who were also acting on innumerable commissions, 

 there are during this decade between thirty and forty 

 occasions when a sheriff or a subsheriff is actually serv- 

 ing as justice of labourers, and that, at the very time that 

 this parliament was in session, five sherififs were thus 

 doing double duty.'' Two days before the end of the 

 session, Laundels, justice of labourers in Oxfordshire, 

 was made sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire ; his 

 prompt removaP from the commission of labourers may 

 have been the result of the parliamentary agitation of the 

 question ; but the practice was not checked, since, of the 

 cases referred to above, about half occur after this date. 

 The anomaly of this special combination of duties is ap- 

 parent; a justice would issue writs to him.self as sheriff 

 to summon jurors and attach delinquents, and would then 

 as sheriff report to himself as justice that the writs had 

 been executed. A case to the point occurs in Bucking- 

 hamshire ; Hamden as sheriff is ordered by the exchequer 

 to levy from himself as justice of labourers a sum due to 

 the crown.'' A very large proportion of men who had 



cers; " the objection on practical grounds seems to me sufficient ex- 

 planation. 



* No. ix, in Lists and Indexes. 



'Harewedon, justice in Northants. and sheriff of Cambridge and 

 Hunts.; Laundels referred to in my text; Northo, justice in Sussex and 

 sheriff of Surrey and Sussex; Paries, justice and sheriff in Northants.; 

 Threlkeld, justice and sheriff in Cumberland. 



'• Appointed sheriff on 28 Nov. and removed from his commission for 

 labourers on 2 Dec. 



*App., D, 3. 



