KtJigs Peace and EnglisJi Pcace-JMagistracy. 49 



latter, as mere police or administrative agents, the power of 

 summary punishment.^ Gradually, however, the magistrate 

 assumed the character of a judge ; a regular procedure was 

 developed ; ^ and from century to century a vast number of 

 enactments appeared conferring increased authority, some- 

 times upon one, sometimes upon two or more justices acting 

 together.^ Recently these tribunals, whether of one or of 

 two magistrates, have received the name of " courts of sum- 

 mary jurisdiction."* And since 1879, ^"^Y the smallest 

 offences may be tried before a single justice. All cases 

 involving a maximum penalty of more than twenty shillings 

 or a fortnight's imprisonment must come before the petty 

 sessions.^ 



Besides his duties as a police or criminal judge, every mag- 

 istrate has been entrusted with the performance of other 

 important functions, partly executive and partly judicial ; and 

 the latter, though sometimes relating to civil causes, are for 

 the most part concerned with offences of a penal nature. 

 Thus the individual justice is employed in the execution of a 

 great variety of police regulations ; such as those relating to 

 defraudation of the excise, the customs, or the postal revenue ; 

 those for the suppression of riots and illegal assemblies ; the 

 punishment of rogues and vagabonds ; the regulation of trade, 

 manufacture, and commerce ; the control of theatres and 

 disorderly houses ; the suppression of drunkenness and unlaw- 

 ful games ; and those relating to alehouses, inns, lodging 

 houses, coaches, hackney carriages, highways, turnpikes, and 



i " Only in the present century have we begun to think of the summary juris- 

 diction as normal, and to regulate by general statutes the mode in which it must 

 be exercised " : Maitland, Justice and Police, 89. 



2 For a history of the procedure, see Stephen, Hist, of Crim. Law, I, 124-5; 

 Gneist, II, 208, gives a careful analysis of it. 



3 Even in Lambard's time the single justice had jurisdiction in a large number 

 of criminal and administrative matters: Eirenarcha, cap. VII, 189-205. For 

 -ecent times, see the enumeration of offences, in Gneist, II, 231-35. 



* Stephen, Hist, of Crim. Law, I, 125. 



5 Maitland, Justice and Police, 89; Brodrick, Local Government in England, 

 IS- 



283 



