this office, i.e. they need not serve unless they choose; but all licensed victuallers and persons licensed to deal in any exciseable liquor or to sell beer by retail, all gamekeepers, and all persons who have been convicted of any treason, felony, or any infamous crime are disqualified from serving the office, i.e. they cannot

serve it.

Within the first seven days of February in each year the justices of the division in which each parish is situated issue a precept to the overseers in that parish directing them to make out a list of all persons therein qualified to serve as parish constables, and return the same to the justices before the 24th of March. The overseers, within fourteen days after they have received the precept, call a vestry meeting, who make out a list of the persons in the parish qualified and liable to serve, and they may annex to this the names of any number of persons willing to serve the office of constable, and whom they recommend to be appointed, although they may not have the requisite qualifications. The overseers present this list (verifying it on oath, and attending to answer any question touching the same) to a special sessions of the justices of the peace of the division holden for the purpose on some day between the 24th of March and the 9th of April in each year. And from this list the justices select the names of such number of persons as they deem necessary to act as constables within the parish. Provided always, that where any person has been chosen to serve, and has served the office of constable, either in person or by substitute, he is not liable to be again chosen until every other person in the parish liable

and qualified to serve has also served the office of constable either in person or by substitute. The persons thus nominated serve for a year, or until their successors are appointed, unless previously removed from office by the justices for misconduct or some other good cause. Every person duly appointed must serve as a parish constable, unless he submits, and the justices accept, another person to act as his substitute.

Lists of the parish constables must, within fourteen days after their appointment, be affixed by the overseers to the doors of the parish church; and provision is made (by section 16) for the filling up of any vacancies which may occur in the course of a year by the death, disqualification, or discharge of any constable during his year of office. Moreover, under the Act 35 & 36 Vict. c. 92, ss. 4 & 5, the vestry of any parish not included wholly or in part within a borough, may, after due notice, at any time resolve that one or more parish constables shall be appointed for their parish, with a salary payable out of the poor rate; and on a copy of such resolution being delivered to the justices for the petty sessional division in which such parish is situate, such justices may appoint constables for such parish; or two or more parishes may unite for the appointment of a constable by the justices.

The parish constables are subject to the authority of the chief constable of the county constabulary for the county, or the superintendent of the district in which they are situated. These officers cannot, however, call upon them to serve beyond the boundaries of their own parishes.

In addition to the ordinary constables appointed as

we have described, special constables may also be appointed under the 1 & 2 Wm. IV. c. 41. By the first section of that act, when it is made to appear to two justices of any county or town, on oath, that any tumult, riot, or felony has taken place, or may be apprehended, in any parish, &c., for which they act, and they think the ordinary peace officers insufficient for the protection of persons and property, they may appoint, by precept under their hands, as many householders or other persons (not legally exempt from serving the office of constable) residing in such place or in the neighbourhood, as they think fit, to act as special constables. Such special constables are to take an oath. The secretary of state may order persons who are exempt from service as constables to be sworn in. While acting, such constables have all the powers of common constables. And any special constable convicted before two justices of refusing to take the oath, or of neglecting to appear at the proper time and place for taking it, or of neglecting to serve when called upon, or to obey lawful orders, is liable to a penalty of £5. The justices in whom the appointment of special constables is vested may determine their service; when they must deliver up the staves and other articles provided for them, on penalty of a sum not exceeding £5. The justices, at a special sessions to be held for the purpose, may order reasonable allowances and expenses to be paid to, or on account of, the special constables. And by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 50, s. 196) the justices in a municipal borough are empowered to call out special constables within its limits.

Such are the main provisions of the acts which regulate the appointment of parish and special constables. The active police of the county are, we need hardly say, the police of the various municipal boroughs and the county constabulary, who are appointed under statutes which do not fall within the scope of the present work.

It only remains for us to state-and it must necessarily be very briefly and generally—the powers, duties, and privileges of all classes of constables, whether parish, special, or police.

A constable cannot take into custody, without a warrant from the justices, persons who are insulting each other, or have struck each other, unless they actually strike or offer to strike each other in his presence. Then he may take them into

custody.

If persons are committing an affray in a house, or if there be a noise, or disorderly drinking therein at an unreasonable time of the night, or if persons having committed felony, or made an affray, fly to the house and are immediaiely pursued, a constable, after declaring the cause of his coming, and having previously demanded admission in vain, may break open the doors to arrest the offender or suppress the affray." constable (indeed this is also true of any private person) may, or rather is bound to, apprehend any offender in the act of committing a felony. Any person whatever, and of course constables, are authorized by the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 19, s. 11, to apprehend persons found

2 Hale, P. C. 117. Steer's Parish Law, by Hodgson.

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committing any indictable offence in the night, i.e. from 9 P.M. to 6 A.M.

A constable, having reasonable cause to suspect that a person has committed a felony, may, and indeed should, apprehend, and detain him until he can be brought before a justice to have his conduct investigated.

Constables refusing or neglecting, on due notice or on their own view, to assist in carrying before a justice of the peace hawkers and pedlars trading without a licence, or refusing to produce their licence, or in executing the warrants of justices against such offenders, are to forfeit £10. Constables also incur penalties for neglecting to apprehend vagrants. And they are further required to assist a landlord in the day-time in breaking open any house, barn, &c., where the goods of a tenant are clandestinely removed, or fraudulently concealed, for the purpose of levying a distress; but in case the place where they are suspected to be concealed is a dwelling-house, oath must first have been made before a justice of a reasonable ground of suspicion.

A constable is bound to execute the warrant of a justice of the peace within his own precinct (i.e. the district for which he is appointed, which in the case of a parish constable is the parish), whether the warrant be directed to him by name or generally to the constable or peace officer of that precinct. And in order to execute a warrant, a constable is in general justified in breaking open outer doors or other parts of a house after but not before he has declared his business, demanded admission, and allowed a reasonable time for opening