58 George E. Hoivard, 



troublesome, and they were denounced by a proclamation of 

 the justices in 1662. "The practice of regrating, &c., that is, 

 buying market produce to sell again at a profit — to our 

 notions a perfectly legitimate proceeding — was, up to com- 

 paratively recent times, a criminal offence and regarded with 

 indignation by society.^ But, in spite of the indignation of 

 society and the proclamation of the Surrey magistrates, the 

 irrepressible badger continued to forestall, regrate, and en- 

 gross ; and though a few years afterward . . . the court of 

 quarter sessions made a fresh effort to put down the evil by 

 requiring each ' badger,' before he obtained his license, to 

 produce a certificate of ' having regularly attended divine ser- 

 vice and taken the sacrament according to the practice of the 

 Church of England,' it was of no avail. By degrees — but 

 only by degrees — more sensible views prevailed ; it was 

 found in practice that persecuting the badger, instead of 

 diminishing, enhanced the price of food, and accordingly in 

 1782 all statutes interfering with badgers were repealed. But 

 the badger was not yet free. Local magistrates found a way 

 of punishing him for regrating as a common-law offence. At 

 length, by an act passed in 1844, all penalties against badg- 

 ers, whether statutory or common-law, were abolished forever 

 and free trade was established in the market." ^ 



The quarter sessions have also an original civil jurisdiction 

 in a limited number of cases, such as contentions between 

 master and apprentice.^ And it is worthy of remark that in 

 the sixteenth century they exercised authority in civil suits 

 practically co-ordinate with that of the assizes. They could 



or Wares" being carried to a market or fair, or to a city, port, or haven; or who 

 in any other way attempts to enhance the price of such produce, or to prevent its 

 being brought to the market to be sold. i See the Tatler, No. ii8. 



2 Thornton, Two Centuries of Magisirales' Work in Surrey : Fort. Rev., May, 

 1889, p. 699. "Badger" a corruption of the Fr. bladier ; comp. "sodger" a 

 vulgarism for " soldier "; bladier, again, is from Low Latin bladarius, from bladuvi 

 an abbreviation of ablatum = carried corn. " Regrating," from Fr. regratter, to 

 bargain : lb., p. 699, notes. See also Jeaffreson, Middlesex County Records, II, 

 187, 228; I, 24, 84, 108, 165, for examples of indictment for these offences. 



8 Fonblanque, Hoio We Are Governed, 184; Gneist, II, 374-5. 



292 



