Kiiig-'s Peace and Englisli Peace-Magistracy. 63 



of the extent and character of these encroachments of arbi- 

 trary power, or so good an understanding of the mode of pro- 

 cedure employed, as from the records of the quarter sessions. ^ 

 The organization, whose extraordinary growth has now been 

 sketched in bare outHne, remained until a few months since 

 the chief authority in the shire, although with the rise of the 

 guardians of the poor law unions in 1834 its relative impor- 

 tance was considerably diminished.^ Moreover, the rule of the 

 quarter sessions has been, on the whole, as popular as it has 

 been persistent. And it seems very strange, at first glance, 

 that the body upon which such vast and such heterogeneous 

 powers have been conferred — many of them so at vari- 

 ance with the original object of its creation — should not be 

 dependent upon the suffrage of the community which it gov- 

 erns. In theory, the magistrates are simply royal commis- 

 sioners — agents of the central authority. What, then, is the 

 secret of their success, of the long abeyance of the form 

 of local self-government .'' It cannot be found in the mere 

 inertia of established institutions, nor in the merely selfish 

 monopolization of authority by a landed aristocracy. On the 

 contrary, it can largely be explained by considerations much 

 more creditable to the justices. Thus the latter have usually 

 been the real, if not the formal, representatives of local senti- 

 ment, while, as a rule, they have been unhampered by the 

 crown in their action. Again, as a fiscal board, they have 

 themselves been most deeply concerned in the rates which 

 they levied ; for land is the only incident of English local 

 taxation.^ And, finally, they have administered justice hon- 

 estly and with tolerable efficiency. " One class of the royal 

 inissi,'' says Freeman, writing in 1876, "the Justices of the 



^ On these abuses, for the reign of EHzabeth as well as for those of James and 

 Charles, see Hamilton, Quarter Sessions, 6-7, 9, 20 ft., 35-51, 52-56, 65, no, etc. 



2 Brodrick, Local Government in England, 20, 22. On the borough quarter 

 sessions and paid magistrates, omitted here as not essential to our inquiry, see 

 Maitland, Justice and Police, 94 ff.; Stephen, Hist, of Crim. Laiv, I, 116 ff.; 

 Brodrick, Zt)f a/ Govt', in Eng., 2,1 ff.; V>\\v^ce., Municipal Boroughs and Urban 

 Districts, 279 ft".; Gneist, II, 551-58. 



3 Phillips, Local Taxation in England and Wales, 502. 



297 



