42 George E. Hoivard, 



crimes, with a view to further proceedings, though it had been 

 given to coroners and in practice had probably always been 

 exercised by justices of the peace, was not conferred upon 

 the latter by statute until 1554.-^ In like manner, their well- 

 known power to issue warrants of arrest or summons to appear 

 before them for examination, was not conveyed by any of 

 the early laws. The latter gave them " no other authority 

 for the apprehension of offenders than was by the common 

 law inherent in every constable and indeed in every private 

 person." ^ Only in comparatively recent times has the mat- 

 ter been definitely regulated by statute.-^ 



By the act of 1360, the total number of justices that might 

 be included in the commission was left indefinite ; and this 

 led, it would seem, to an abuse. " Ambition," says Lam- 

 bard, " so multiplied the number of ye Justices, that it was 

 afterward high time to make a contrary Law, to diminish 

 them."^ This was effected in 1388 by the statute of 12 

 Richard II, which reduced the number to six, besides the 

 justices of assize, who were always included in the commis- 

 sion ; and provided further that no new justices should be 

 added to the commission after it was first issued.^ 



From reign to reign the enactments extending or defining 

 the jurisdiction of justices of the peace constantly increased 

 in number, so that already in the last quarter of the sixteenth 

 century the burden laid upon the magistrate was fast becom- 



1 By I and 2 Philip and Mary, c. 13 : Statutes at Large, VI, 58. Cf. Stephen, 

 Hist, of Crim. Law, I, 216-20, 497; Jeaffreson, JSLiddlesex Comity Records, I, pp. 

 xxiii-iv. 



2 Stephen, Llist. of Crim. Law, I, 190-91. See the opposing views of Coke 

 {Fourth Ltist., 176, 177) and Hale discussed in Stephen, I, 191-93. According 

 to the latter writer warrants are an evolution from or a substitute for the ancient 

 right of local peace-magistrates to start the hue and cry. In the seventeenth cen- 

 tury to "grant a hue and cry" was in common use for granting a warrant. Hist, 

 of the Crim. Law, I, 190. 



3 By 9 Geo. I, 13 and 44 Geo. II., and 11 and 12 Victoria, 1848: Stephen, 

 Hist, of Crim. Law, I, 190-91. 



* Lambard, Eirenarcha, 33. 



^ Lambard, Eirenarcha, 33; Statutes at Large, II, 303-4; Stephen, Hist, of 

 Critn. Law, I, 113; Reeves, Hist, of Eng. Law, III, 405. 



276. 



