Trial. How far the An indictment against several persons for conspiring together, "by indirect means," to prevent one H. B. from exercising the trade of a tailor, was held good, without stating the mode. The illegal combination is the gist of the offence, and it is enough to state the conspiracy and the object. R. v. Eccles and others, 1 Leach, 274. 13 East, 230. (n.) So also in a recent case, an indictment charging that the defendants conspired by divers false pretences, and subtle means and devices, to obtain from P. D. and G. D. divers large sums of money, and to cheat and defraud them thereof, was held sufficient; for the gist of the offence being the conspiracy, if that fact and its object be stated, the particular means and devices need not be set out. R. v. Gill and Henry. 2 B. & A. 204. But an indictment will not lie for conspiring to commit a civil trespass. R. v. Turner and others, 13 East, 228. In which case, Ld. Ellenborough C. J. said, that the case of R. v. Eccles was considered as a conspiracy in restraint of trade, and so far a conspiracy to do an unlawful act affecting the public. In an indictment against the defendants for a conspiracy to cause themselves to be reputed persons of considerable property, and in opulent circumstances, for the purpose of defrauding tradesmen, the prosecutor may prove various instances of their giving a false representation of their circumstances, as overt acts of the conspiracy. R. v. Roberts and others, 1 Campb. 399. And wherever a sufficient foundation is laid by evidence to go to a jury, of several persons having met for the purpose of a conspiracy, the declarations of any of the parties made at any time, or place, relating to the object of the conspiracy, is evidence as against all. R. v. Salter and others, Kingston Lent Ass. 1804. cor. Hotham B. 5 Esp. 125. But see 1 Phill. Ev. 89. Upon the trial of A. B. & C. for a conspiracy, where, after the case on the part of the prosecution is closed, C. only calls witnesses and examines as to a conversation between himself and A., the counsel for the crown may cross-examine such witnesses as to any other conversation between A. & C., although the evidence tend chiefly to criminate A. R. v. Kroehl, 2 Stark. N. P. C. 343. An indictment will not lie for a conspiracy to cheat and defraud a man by selling him an unsound horse. R. v. Pywell and others, 1 Stark. N. P. C. 402. An indictment against workmen for conspiracy against their employers, to prevent them from taking any apprentice, was held to be sufficiently proved, by evidence of their having turned out from their employment with intent to compel their masters to dismiss any one apprentice. R. v. Ferguson and Edge, Lancaster Spring Ass. 1819. cor. Wood B. 2 Stark. N. P. 489. — N. B. In Easter term following, the defendants received sentence of fine and imprisonment. II. Trial and Punishment. A conspiracy being a trespass, and tending to a breach of the peace, is cognizable by the general quarter sessions. R. v. Rispal, 3 Burr. 1321. 1 Black. Rep. 368. Where several persons are proved to have combined together acts or words of for the same illegal purpose, any act done by one of the party, in others. pursuance of the original concerted plan, and with reference to one conspirator the common object, is in the contemplation of law the act of the are evidence whole party; and, therefore, the proof of such act would be evi- against the dence against any of the others who were engaged in the same conspiracy; and, further, any declarations, made by one of the party at the time of doing such illegal act, seem not only to be evidence against himself, as tending to determine the quality of the act, but to be evidence also against the rest of the party, who are as much responsible as if they had themselves done the act. But what one of the party may have been heard to say at some other time, as to the share which some of the others had in the execution of the common design, or as to the object of the conspiracy, cannot, it is conceived, be admitted as evidence to affect them on their trial, for the same offence. 1 Phill. Ev. 88. 2 Russ. 1823. On a prosecution for a crime to be proved by conspiracy, general evidence of an existing conspiracy may in the first instance be received, as a preliminary step to the more particular evidence, by which it is to be shown that the individual defendants were guilty participators in such conspiracy. In such cases the general nature of the whole evidence should be opened to the court, and if, upon such opening, it should appear that there was no particular proof sufficient to affect the individual defendants, it would be the duty of the judge to stop the case in limine, and not to allow the general evidence to be received. The Queen's case, 2 Brod. & Bing. 310. So, assuming that an alleged conspiracy to suborn witnesses against the accused party is a legitimate ground of defence, general evidence of an existing conspiracy is admissible, with this qualification, viz. that the proposed evidence should be previously opened to the court, as in the former case, in order to enable the judge to form an opinion of the probability of bringing the evidence home, so as to affect some person whose acts are material and relevant to the issue of the indictment then under trial. Queen's case, 2 Brod. & Bing. 311. The All the defendants convicted upon an indictment for a conspiracy must be present in court when a motion for a new trial is made on behalf of any of them. R. v. Teal and others, 11 East, 307. R. v. Askew, 3 M. & S. 9. R. v. Lord Cochrane, 3 M. & S. 10. (n.) So also on a motion in arrest of judgment, the defendants must be personally present in court. R. v. Spragg et al., 2 Burr. 936. It is clear that those who are convicted of conspiracy at the suit Punishment. of the party shall have judgment of fine and imprisonment, and to On action. render the plaintiff his damages. 1 Haw. c. 72. § 9. Also it is certain that he who is convicted at the suit of the king On indictment of a conspiracy to accuse another of a matter which may touch or information. his life, shall have judgment that he shall lose the freedom and franchise of the law (whereby he is disabled as a juror and discredited as a witness.) 1 Haw. c. 72. § 9. And this is commonly called villanous judgment, which is given by the common law, and not by any statute. But it now is the better opinion, that the villanous judgment is by long disuse become obsolete, there being no instance of its having been pronounced since the reign of Edward the Third; but instead thereof the delinquents are usually sentenced to fine, imprisonment, and surety for good behaviour. 4 Blac. Com. 136, 137. 2 Burr. 996. 1027. 1 Haw. c. 72. § 9. 7th edit. Previously to the stat. 56 G. 3. c. 138. in very aggravated cases, the offenders were generally also sentenced to stand in the pillory. See the trial of Lord Cochrane and others, by Gurney, 1814. See also stat. 3 G. 4. c. 114. tit. Judgment, Vol. III. Antiquity of constables in general. Constable. THE office of a constable in executing warrants, is treated of under the titles Arrest and Marrant; and, in like manner, the other particulars of his duty may be found under the respective titles throughout the book; this title treating only of the office of a constable in general. I. Of the Antiquity and Origin of Constables. [13 Ed. 1. st. 2. c.6.— 55 G. 3. c. 51.] II. Who shall be a Constable. [5 H. 8. c.6. 32 H. 8. c. 40. 1 W. c. 18.- 6 & 7 W. c. 4. 10 & 11 W. c. 23. - 18 G. 2. c. 15.- 31 G. 3. c. 32. — 42 G. 3. c. 90. 52 G. 3. c. 155. c.44.] III. How chosen and sworn. 57 G. 3. [13 & 14 C. 2. c. 12.1 G. st. 2. c. 13.3 G. 4. c. 40.] IV. His Power as Conservator of the Peace. V. His Duty as a Subordinate Officer to Justices of the [27 G. 2. c. 20. 33 G. 3. c. 55. 5 G. 4. c. 18. c. 83.] - [3 J. c. 10.27 G. 2. c. 3. — 27 G. 2. c. 20. — 18 G. 3. c. 19.-41 G. 3. U. K. c. 78. — 1 G. 4. c. 37.] VIII. Concerning his Account and Removal from his Office. [12 G. 2. c. 29. — 13 & 14 C. 2. c. 12.] 1. Df the Antiquity and Drigin of Constables. (a) The sundry names of high constables, or constables of lathes, rapes, wapenstakes, hundreds, and franchises, and the divers names also of petty constables, tythingmen, borsholders, borowheads, headborows, chiefpledges, and such other (if there be any) that bear office in towns, parishes, hamlets, tythings, or borowes, are (a) See stat. 1 G. 4. c.37. post, § VII., by which justices are empowered to appoint special constables in certain cases. all in effect but two, that is to say, constables and borsholders. Lamb. Const. 4. The word constable is evidently a compound; but it seems to Constable. be uncertain from whence it has been originally derived. Borsholders (which is the other general name, and doth contain Borsholders. within it the meaning of tythingmen, borowheads, headborows, thirdborows, and chiefpledges,) is a word compounded of the Saxon borge, borrow, or borhoe, a pledge, and ealder, the elder, chief, or head; and borshealder in one word doth mean the chief or head of the sureties or pledges. For the understanding whereof it is to be remembered, that by the ancient laws of this realm (before the coming of King William the conqueror) it was ordained for the more sure keeping of the peace, and for the better repressing of thieves and robbers, that all freeborn men should cast themselves into several companies, by ten in each company; and that every of those ten men of the company should be surety and pledge for the forthcoming of his fellows; so that if any harm were done by any of these ten against the peace, then the rest of the ten should be amerced, if he or their company that did the harm should fly, and were not forthcoming to answer to that wherewith he should be charged. And for this cause, the companies are yet, in some places of England, called boroes, of the said word borge, borrow, or borhoe, signifying a pledge or surety; and in other places they are called tythings, because they contain (as hath been said) the number of ten men with their families. And even Origin of hunas ten times ten do make an hundred, so because it was then also dreds. appointed that ten of these companies should at certain times meet together for their matters of greater weight, therefore that general assembly, or court, was and yet is called a hundred. Furthermore, it was then also ordained that if any man were of so evil credit, that he could not get himself to be received into one of these tythings or borows, then he should be shut up in prison, as a man unworthy to live at liberty amongst men abroad. Now whereas every of these tythings or borows did use to make choice of one man amongst themselves to speak and to do in the name of them all, he was therefore in some places called the tythingman, in other places the boroes elder (whom we now call borsholder), in other places the borohead or headborow, and in some other places the chiefpledge, which last name doth plainly expound the other three that are next before it; for head or elder of the boroes and chief of the pledges are all one; and in some shires, where every third borough hath a constable, there the officers of the other two are called thirdborowes. And in these tythings or boroes sundry good orders were observed: and amongst others, first, that every man of the age of 21 years should be sworn to the king. Then, that no man should be suffered to dwell in any town or place, unless he were also received into some such suretyship and pledge as is aforesaid. Thirdly, that if any of these pledges were imprisoned for his offence, then he ought not to be delivered without the assent of the rest of his pledges. Again, that no man might remove out of one tything or boroe to dwell in another, without lawful warrant in that behalf. Lastly, that every of these pledges should yearly be presented and brought forth by their chiefpledge at a general assembly for that purpose, which we yet in remembrance thereof do call the view of frankpledge, or the leet court. Lamb. Const. 6, 7. Their duty. 55 G. 3. c. 51. High constables to give security. To be an inhabitant. In some places at this day there is both a tythingman and con. stable, where the tythingman is as it were a deputy to execute the office in the constable's absence; but there are some things which a constable hath power to do, that tythingmen cannot intermeddle with for the constable may do whatever the tythingman may do, but not, e converso, the tythingman not having an equal power with the constable. But in places where there is no constable, the office and authority of tythingman seems to be all one under a different name. 1 Blac. Com. 357. From hence Lord Coke and others will have it, that high con. stables are no ancienter than this statute. But Mr. Hawkins (agreeably with Lambard, Dalton, and other authorities,) says, that it seems to be the better opinion that both constables of hundreds, which are commonly called high constables, and also constables of tythings, which are at this day commonly called petty constables or tythingmen, were by the common law, and not first ordained by the said statute of Winchester; for that statute doth not say that there shall be such officers constituted, but clearly seems to suppose that there were such before the making of it. 2 Haw. c. 10. § 33. In short, the truth of the matter seems to be this: the far greatest part of the business of high constables at this day is not at all appropriated to them as high constables; but only as officers to execute the precepts of the justices of the peace, which any other person may do as well as they. The original and proper authority of an high constable, as such, seems to be the very same, and no other, within his hundred, as that of the petty constable within his vill; and therein, most probably, he is coeval with the petty constable. He has the superintendence and direction of all petty constables within his district; and he is in a manner respon sible for their conduct, since he is bound to notice and to present their defaults, for his neglect of which duty he is representable himself. The other usual branches of this office, such as the surveying of bridges, the issuing of precepts concerning the appointing of overseers of the poor, surveyors of the highways, assessors, and collectors of the land-tax and window-duties, and in like manner the viewing of armour by the above-mentioned statute, are in him, not of necessity, but as matter of convenience, and it is discretionary in the justices whom they will appoint to be their officers in these cases; others have been superadded to their office, for the like reason of convenience, by sundry acts of parliament, such as the issuing of precepts for the licensing of alehouses, for the levying of county rates, and for returning lists of jurors; since one person can do all much easier and cheaper than so many different persons. And by stat. 55 G. 3. c.51. § 19. Justices are empowered to demand and take, whenever they think fit, good and sufficient security, from the high constables employed in the collecting and levying the county rates. See post, tit. County Rate. II. Who shall be a Constable. No person is qualified to be a constable who is not an inhabitant of the place for which he is to serve. Field. Pen. Stat. 331. Α person is not liable to serve the office unless he be resiant in the parish, and therefore a person occupying a house and paying |