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In antient times, accordingly, this office was frequently executed by the nobility, and by persons of the highest rank in the kingdom, and not infrequently by bishops; though it is now committed, in general, to commoners, and exclusively to laymen (b).

The powers and duties of the sheriff are various, and are chiefly as follows:

1. He is charged with the duties already sufficiently expounded in regard to parliamentary elections (c); and he is bound to hold a sheriff's county court, whenever the holding of such court is required for the purpose of an election or for any other specific purpose, but not otherwise (d). To the sheriff also, writs for the trial of disputed facts arising in certain classes of actions might, formerly, have been directed, under the Civil Procedure Act, 1833; but by the County Courts Act, 1867, s. 6, he was relieved from this burthen, though he still remains charged with the assessment of damages under writs of inquiry or interlocutory judgments, and also with the assessment of compensation in certain cases of compulsory purchase under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845.

2. [In his character as keeper of the king's peace, both by common law and special commission, he is, during his office, the first man in the county, and superior in rank to any nobleman therein (e). He may apprehend and commit to prison all persons who break the peace, or attempt to break it; he may bind any one in a recognizance to keep the peace; and he is bound, ea officio, to pursue and take all traitors, murderers, and other misdoers, and to commit them to gaol for safe custody. He is also to defend his county against any of the king's enemies when they come into the land; and for this purpose, as well as for keeping the peace and pursuing offenders, he may command all the people of his county (or posse comitatús) to attend

(b) Spelm. Gloss. Vice-com.

(c) Vide sup. bk. IV. pt. 1. ch. 1. (d) Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 18;

R. v. Diplock (1869), L. R. 4 Q. B. 549.

(e) 1 Roll. Rep. 237.

[him (ƒ); which summons every person above fifteen years old, and under the degree of a peer, is bound upon due warning to attend (g), under pain of fine and imprisonment (h).]

3. The sheriff is also bound to execute all process issuing from the High Court of Justice, and is required to attend on the judges, when they come into the county at the assizes, on which occasions he attends with javelin men to keep order; but by the County and Borough Police Act, 1859, the magistrates of the county may, if they think fit, direct order to be kept at the assizes by the county police instead, and this provision is continued by the Sheriffs Act, 1887 (). In civil causes, supposing the case to be such that an order issues for the arrest and imprisonment of the defendant under the provisions of the Debtors Act, 1869, in order to prevent his quitting England and so prejudicing the plaintiff in the prosecution of his action, the sheriff is required to effect the arrest and to take the prescribed security that the defendant will not quit England without leave of the court (k). In any action, when the cause comes to trial, he must summon and return the jury, when a jury is required; and when the trial is ended, he must see the judgment of the court carried into execution (1). In all these matters, the sheriff, like other ministerial officers, is liable, at the suit of the party grieved, to an action for the negligent or improper discharge of his duty, e.g., for an escape (m).

(f) Dalt. ch. 95; Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 8.

(g) Lamb. Eiren, 315.

(h) 2 Hen. 5 (1414), st. 1, c. 8; Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 8.

(i) Sect. 9.

(k) See the Debtors Act, 1869, s. 6. (1) As to fees and poundage payable to the sheriff on the execution of civil process, see Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 20, and Maybery v. Mansfield (1846), 9 Q. B. 754; Miles v.

Harris (1862), 12 C. B. (N.s.) 550; Shoppee v. Nathan d Co., [1892] 1 Q. B. 245.

(m) Formerly he was liable for the escape of prisoners (Barrack v. Newton (1841), 1 Q. B. 525; Gordon v. Laurie (1846), 9 Q. B. 60); but this is now otherwise as regards prisoners confined in any prison subject to the Prison Act, 1877. See Sheriffs Act, 1887, ss. 16, 29 (1) (c).

[In criminal matters, also, he returns the jury; and he is responsible for the due execution of the sentence of the court, whether it consists in the imposition of a fine, or when it extends to the infliction of death (n). But the sheriff is, by the express directions of the Great Charter (o), forbidden to hold any pleas of the Crown, i.e., to try any criminal charge; and the Sheriffs Act, 1887, in continuance of that provision, expressly enacts that he shall not hold pleas of the crown, and his tourn (ie., his half-yearly tour through the hundreds of the county as royal commissioner, to hold a court in each) (p) is abolished. Neither may the sheriff act as an ordinary justice of the peace during the time of his office (9); for that would be equally inconsistent, the sheriff being in many respects the servant of the justices.]

Though the sheriff's authority extends, in general, over the whole of his county, yet there formerly existed many liberties within counties which were exempt from the sheriff's jurisdiction therein. Thus, any town being a county of itself was also, in general, exempt from the jurisdiction of the county within which it was situate, and had a sheriff of its own; and this exemption was recognised by the Sheriffs Act, 1887 (r). These liberties were districts in regard to which grants were formerly made by the crown to individuals, conferring on them or their bailiffs the exclusive privilege, or franchise, of executing legal process therein (s); and when it became necessary to execute a writ within such a liberty, the course was to direct it to the sheriff of the county as in ordinary cases, but the execution of it belonged by law to

(n) Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 13. As to his jurisdiction and responsibility in respect of prisoners under sentence of death, see the Prison Acts, 1865 and 1877, s. 32; and as to his duties in respect of persons arrested on civil process, see the Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 14.

(0) Cap. 17.

(p) Pollock and Maitland, Hist. of Engl. Law, vol. i. pp. 530, 558.

(9) 1 Mar. (1554), sess. 2, c. 8, repealed and re-enacted by Sheriff's Act, 1887, s. 17.

(r) Sects. 34, 35, 36.

(*) 5 Geo. 2 (1732), c. 27, s. 3.

the bailiff of the liberty, unless (as was usually done) (t), the writ was framed with a clause of non omittas, as it was called, specially authorizing the sheriff to enter. And now, under the Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 34, while these liberties are recognised, it is provided that the lord of such liberty (in the Act called the bailiff of such franchise) shall either hold the office himself or appoint responsible bailiffs, for whom he shall be answerable, for the return and execution of writs; and the sheriff appoints a deputy at the lord's expense, the deputy residing in or near the franchise, and receiving and opening in the sheriff's name all writs the return or execution of which belongs to the bailiff of the franchise, and issuing to such bailiff the warrant required for the due execution of such writs. The bailiff of the franchise then becomes liable for the nonexecution, mis-execution, or insufficient return of the writs, and for all misconduct incident thereto; but in case of the non-return of any such writ, the sheriff, on returning that he has delivered the writ to the bailiff, may be ordered to execute the writ notwithstanding the franchise, and to cause the bailiff to attend before the High Court of Justice and to answer for his non-execution of the writ.

4. [It is the sheriff's duty also, as the king's bailiff, to preserve the rights of the Crown within his bailiwick, for so his county is frequently called in the writs (u); he therefore seizes to the king's use all lands devolving upon the crown by escheat for want of heirs ; levies all fines and forfeitures; and seizes and keeps all waifs, wrecks, estrays, and the like, unless they be granted to some subject (a). He was formerly charged also with collecting the king's rents within his bailiwick; but he has now been relieved of this latter duty (y).

(1) Cf. Rules of the Supreme Court, App. H., No. 7.

(u) Fortescue, De Leg. ch. 24. (2) Dalt. ch. 9. See the Fines Act, 1833, and the Sheriffs Act,

1887, ss. 21, 22, as to the regulations for auditing the sheriff's accounts, &c.

(y) Fines Act, 1833, s. 12.

[To execute these various offices, the sheriff has under him many inferior officers, viz., an under-sheriff, a deputy, and bailiffs. These must neither buy, sell, nor farm their offices, on forfeiture of 5001. ();] and the sheriff himself may not "let to ferm" his county, or any part thereof (a). By the Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 23, continuing a like provision in the Fines Act, 1833, it is provided, that every sheriff shall, within one calendar month next after the notification of his appointment in the Gazette, by writing under his hand, nominate some fit person to be his undersheriff, and transmit a duplicate thereof to the clerk of the peace of the county, to be by him filed among the records of his office. And by sect. 24 of the same Act, every sheriff is to appoint a sufficient deputy, having an office within a mile of the Inner Temple Hall, for the receipt of writs, granting warrants thereon, making returns thereto, and accepting all rules and orders made as to the execution of any process or writ directed to the sheriff. And the delivery of process to the deputy is, in law, delivery to the sheriff (b).

The under-sheriff usually performs all the duties of the office of sheriff (c), except the few in which the personal presence of the high sheriff is necessary; but the undersheriff is only to a certain extent recognised by the law. For the law holds the sheriff himself responsible, in general, for all acts done or omitted by his under-sheriff; and considers the latter, where the duty is improperly performed, as exempt from any action for negligence at the suit of the party grieved (d). It was enacted by the 42 Edw. III. (1368), c. 9, that no under-sheriff should abide in his office above one year; and if he did, then by the 23 Hen. VI. (1444) c. 7, he was made to forfeit 2007.,

() Estreats Act, 1716; Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 27.

(a) Sheriffs Act, 1887, s. 19.

(b) Woodland v. Fuller (1840),

11 A. & E. 859.

(c) Militia Act, 1882, s. 40. (d) Cameron v. Reynolds (1776), Cowp. 403.

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