Wiltshire Quarter' Sessions. 



325 



In the appendix, too, is exhibited a list of some place-names 

 mentioned in the minutes between the year 1574 and the end of 

 the reign. 



III. — Badgers. 



If the scope of an enquiry into the nature of the transactions 

 ' which occupied the attention of Her Majesty's justices in quarter 

 i sessions assembled were limited to the first score or so of pages of 

 1 the earliest extant minute book, the single word " Badgers " would 

 I suffice for an answer. 



These dealers in victuals have not lacked recognition in the pages 

 I of this Magazine — they have been described by Mr. Carrington, 1 

 Canon Jackson, 2 and Mr, Rave nh ill/ the last-named of whom has 

 t transcribed at length a petition from the inhabitants of Bath for 

 I the grant to two persons therein named of licences to act as badgers. 



Although the offences of " forestalling regrating, and ingrossing " 

 \ do not present themselves to the general reader as attractive subjects 

 ; for study and discussion, yet it may be useful to recall the definition 

 j of a badger, given in old law dictionaries. " Badger/'' says the 

 \ English version of Les Termes de la Ley, <f is used with us for one 

 that is licensed to buy corn or other victuals in one place and carry 

 them to another — and such a one is exempted in the statute made 

 in the fifth and sixth of Edward VI., c. 14, from the punishment of 

 an Ingrosser within the statute/'' 



Under this Act of King Edward VI. it was within the com- 

 petence of any three justices of the peace to licence a badger — 

 but to all appearance this latitude was considered too large, for by 

 the Act, 5 Elizabeth, cap. 12, the power of licensing was restricted 

 | to the court of quarter sessions alone. 



No applicant was eligible for a licence unless he were thirty years 

 of age, a householder, and married : the penalty for trading without 

 a licence was five pounds, a limit which seems practically to have 

 set the measure of the bail (entered indifferently as Wand c«?) which 



1 Vol. vii., pp. 13, 14 



a Vol. xiv., p. 215. 

 3 Vol. xviii., pp. 150-7. 



