PREFACE.

ERTAIN offices of great importance, connected

CERTAIN

with the law, are, in general, executed without the aid of professional preparation. Yet some acquaintance with various branches of the law of Scotland is indispensible to the easy, secure, and satisfactory discharge, of the duties respectively attached to them. To supply such information is the design of this Treatise.

THE history, constitution, and nature, of the several offices, are explained in the First Book. Separate chapters are allotted to the office of Constable, of Commissioner of Supply, and Commissioner under the Comprehending Acts.

THE office of Justice of the Peace required more detail: The Office in general; the Sessions of the

Peace; their general Jurisdiction; their Civil Powers; the Duty of Justices under the Small Debt Acts; the Criminal Jurisdiction of the Sessions; the Rules of Evidence by which their Decisions ought to be regulated; the Form of Process, of Decrees, of Review,-are, therefore, explained at large in separate chapters.

THIS, however, is making the magistrate acquainted with his powers merely. In the three succeeding Books, therefore, the subjects are explained, with which, in the exercise of those powers, he is necessarily conversant; under each head, care being taken to mention, particularly, to what magistracy jurisdiction belongs; whether to Commissioners of Supply, or to Commissioners under Comprehending Acts, or to Constables, or to the Sessions of the Peace, or to individual Justices of Peace; and whether to one, two, or more Justices; and whether it belongs to these magistrates exclusively, or in common with others also ; particularly Judges Ordinary, that is, Sheriffs and Magistrates of boroughs, the native jurisdictions of our common law.

THE Public Peace, is the subject of the Second Book, which consists of three chapters: the first, concerning Breaches of the Peace; the second, concerning Preventive Justice, or, the precautions to be

taken by magistrates for preserving the peace; the third, concerning Vindictive and Remedial Justice, or, the measures employed for punishing and redressing the breach of the peace.

THE Third Book treats of the Public Police; or those regulations which have been made, for preventing Idleness and Vagrancy, for establishing standard Weights and Measures, and respecting those other multifarious particulars, attention to which is essential, if not to the existence, yet to the health and vigour of the body politic.

UNDER the head of Rural Polity, such subjects are arranged in the Fourth Book, as seem to be connected with landed property; and, of course, necessary and interesting to country gentlemen, whether in the commission of the peace or not.

RELATING to the Army, Navy, Militia, Revenue, various duties are incumbent on the above magistrates: Under the head of Public Polity, these are the subject of the Fifth Book; which concludes with two chapters, the one concerning the Customs, the other concerning the Laws of Excise.

I HAVE endeavoured to express myself in language perspicuous to every reader. But magistrates should

know the language of the law which they administer. Technical terms, therefore, could not, with propriety, be altogether excluded. Their meaning, however, is either explained in a note, or obvious from the context.

In quoting decisions from printed books, I generally mention my authority. Where, again, they have either been taken down by myself, or communicated to me by my professional friends, I have almost always had an opportunity of perusing the printed papers, and seldom omit giving the precise words of the decree. The only printed reports of the decisions of the criminal courts are, Mr. Maclaurin's (Lord Dreghorn) Criminal Cases, and the Collection of Trials by the late Hugo Arnot, Esq. advocate, both of which are limited in their plan. Excepting, therefore, some late decisions when I had an opportunity of being present in the Court of Justiciary myself, such as I have occasion to mention are taken either from the Books of Adjournal (Record of the Court of Justiciary), or from Mr. Hume's Commentaries on the Criminal Law of Scotland. On many occasions, indeed, which did not admit of particular acknowledgment, that esteemed performance has aided and facilitated my progress.n

THIS Treatise is divided into text and notes. In the former, the principles of law, are stated as concisely as