6o George E. Howai'd, 



and execute their decrees ; ^ while the new county constabu- 

 lary, which has at length superseded the ancient police organ- 

 ization, was placed directly under their control.^ Even the 

 coroner, the right to elect whom so long attested the vitality 

 and surviving dignity of the shiremoot, was made accountable 

 to the same body.^ The county treasurer was their nominee ; 

 and the custos rotulornin, who ranks as civil head of the shire, 

 is himself the principal justice named in the commission. By 

 him the clerk of the peace was appointed. And since the 

 office of custos has usually been combined with that of lord- 

 lieutenant, it happened that the military chief of the shire, 

 the representative of the Saxon ealdorman — the sometime 

 sovereign of an independent state — became a de facto min- 

 ister of the ever encroaching authority of the magistrates.* 



3. — In another and very important cajDacity the quarter 

 sessions gradually took the place of the county court. They 

 became the real centre of local life, the efficient organ of 

 local government. In the language of Parliament, they were 

 made emphatically the "county authority." Before the estab- 

 lishment of county councils in 1889, the number of executive 

 and administrative duties imposed upon them was indeed 

 formidable.^ Thus they were constituted the fiscal board of 

 the shire. They were authorized to levy, assess, and super- 

 intend the disbursement of the county rate.^ The treasurer 

 was appointed by them and to them he rendered his account. 

 This fiscal authority of the justices is unique in English his- 



1 Lambard, Eirenarcha, 394 ff.; Gneist, II, 362. 



2 Maitland, Justice and Police, 107, ill. 



^ hamhard, £irenarc/ia, ^g^; Gneist, II, 362. The coroner is also ex officio 

 justice of the peace : Chalmers, Local Government, 97. The coroner is now 

 appointed by the county council : Hobhouse and Fanshawe, Cotinty Councillor' s 

 Guide, 15. 



* In 1 87 1 the lord-lieutenant was deprived of his military powers which were 

 revested in the crown : Chalmers, Local Government, 93. 



^ See the excellent summary of Gneist, II, 376 ff. 



6 " County expenditure is thus classified: (i) police, (2) prosecutions, (3) 

 reformatories, (4) lunatic asylums, (5) shire halls and judges' lodgings, (6) militia 

 storehouses, (7) county bridges, (8) contributions for main roads, (9) register of 

 electors, (10) salaries of county officers": Maitland, Justice and Police, 87, note. 



294 



