The Governments of Europe Part 14

*178. The County Courts.*--The county courts of the present day (p. 171) were established under provision of the County Court Act of 1846, and it is to be observed that they are in no manner connected with the historic courts of the s.h.i.+re or county. They are known as county courts, but in point of fact the area of their jurisdiction is a district which not only is smaller than the county but bears no relation to it. There are in England at present some five hundred of these districts, the object of the arrangement being to bring the agencies of justice close to the people and so to reduce the costs and delays incident to litigation.[243] The volume of business to be transacted in a district is insufficient to occupy a judge during any considerable portion of his working time, and the districts are grouped in some fifty circuits, to each of which is a.s.signed by the Lord Chancellor one judge who holds court in each district of his circuit approximately once a month. The judge sits almost invariably without a jury, although unless the amount involved is very small either party to a suit is privileged to request the employment of a jury of eight persons. The jurisdiction of the county courts has been enlarged a number of times, notably by a statute of 1905, but it is still not as extended as many people believe it should be. In a few matters, such as certain claims of workingmen for injuries, this jurisdiction is exclusive, but at most points it is concurrent with the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice, and Common Law, equity, bankruptcy, probate, and admiralty cases may be brought, at the discretion of the plaintiff, in either tribunal, subject to the restriction that the county court may not a.s.sume jurisdiction when the value in dispute exceeds a certain amount, commonly 100 in Common Law cases and 500 in cases of equity. On all points of law appeal lies to the High Court; but appeals are rare.[244]

[Footnote 243: Prior to 1846 justice in civil cases could be obtained only at Westminster, or, in any event, by means of an action inst.i.tuted at Westminster and tried on circuit.]

[Footnote 244: A few inferior civil courts of special character have survived from earlier days, but they are anomalous and do not call for comment.

It may be added that the judges of the county courts receive a salary of 1,500.]

*179. The Justices of the Peace.*--The county courts exist for the adjudication of civil cases exclusively. The corresponding local tribunals for the administration of criminal justice are the courts of the justices of the peace, and, in certain towns, other courts to which the powers of the justices have been transferred. The county is normally the area of the jurisdiction of the justices, and with a few exceptions every county has a separate "commission of the peace,"[245]

consisting of all the judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature, all members of the Privy Council, and such other persons as the crown, (p. 172) acting through the Lord Chancellor, may designate as justices on recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant or independently.[246] The Lord Lieutenant is chief of the justices and keeper of the county records.

In many counties the list of justices contains three or four hundred names (in Lancas.h.i.+re eight hundred), but it is to be observed that some of the appointees do not take the oaths required to qualify them for magisterial service and that the actual work is performed in each county by a comparatively small number of persons. The justices serve without pay, but the office carries much local distinction and appointments are widely coveted. Until 1906 a property qualification[247]

was required of all save certain cla.s.ses of appointees whose station was deemed a sufficient guarantee of fitness, but in the year mentioned the Liberals brought about its abolition. The justices are drawn still, in large part, from the cla.s.s of country gentlemen. They are removable by the crown, but tenure is almost invariably for life.

[Footnote 245: The three ridings of Yorks.h.i.+re and the three divisions of Lincolns.h.i.+re have separate commissions, and there are a few "liberties" or excepted jurisdictions.]

[Footnote 246: A royal commission created to consider the mode of appointment reported in 1910; but no important modification of the existing practice was suggested.]

[Footnote 247: Owners.h.i.+p of land, or occupation of a house, worth 100 a year.]

*180. Powers of the Justices.*--At one time the functions of the justices of the peace were administrative as well as judicial, but by the Local Government Act of 1888 functions of an administrative nature were transferred all but completely to the newly created county councils,[248] and the justices to-day are judicial officials almost exclusively. Their judicial labors may be performed under three conditions, namely, by justices acting singly, by two or more justices meeting in petty sessions, and by the whole body of justices of the county a.s.sembled in quarter sessions. The powers of a justice acting alone are those largely of the ordinary police magistrate. He may order the arrest of offenders; he conducts preliminary examinations and releases the accused or commits them for indictment by a grand jury; and he hears cases involving unimportant breaches of the law and imposes small penalties. The justices sitting by twos in petty sessions exercise an extensive summary jurisdiction over offenses specified minutely by the law.[249] They sit without a jury, but appeal can be carried, as a rule, to the justices at quarter sessions and even, on questions of law, to the High Court. Four times a year all of the justices of the county, or such of them as care to be present, meet in quarter sessions. The jurisdiction here exercised is in part appellate and in part original. The court tries, without a jury, all cases appealed from petty sessions, and it tries, with a (p. 173) jury, and after indictment by a grand jury, all cases involving offenses not of a minor nature, save that the most serious offenses, punishable in most instances with death or life imprisonment, are reserved for trial in the a.s.sizes, i.e., by judges from Westminster travelling on circuit. By means of the writs of _mandamus_ and _certiorari_ the actual proceedings of quarter sessions are controlled not infrequently by the superior courts.[250]

[Footnote 248: See p. 183.]

[Footnote 249: Chiefly by the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879.]

[Footnote 250: Medley, Manual of English Const.i.tutional History, 392-400. An excellent monograph is C. A. Beard, The Office of Justice of the Peace in England, in _Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law_, XX., No. 1. (New York, 1904).]

*181. Special Borough Arrangements.*--The smaller boroughs, having no separate commissions of the peace, are for purposes of criminal justice merely portions of the counties in which they lie. In many of the larger ones, however, there have been set up judicial arrangements in consequence of which the borough is withdrawn from the county jurisdiction. Some have a commission of the peace but no quarter sessions. In them the justices can exercise, in addition to the usual functions of police magistrate, only a summary jurisdiction. Others have a court of quarter sessions; though it is to be observed that where this tribunal exists its work is performed actually by the recorder, a barrister appointed by the crown and paid by the borough.

III. THE HIGHER COURTS

*182. Supreme Court of Judicature: the High Court.*--The higher tribunals within the judicial system were once numerous and extremely complex. As reconst.i.tuted, however, by the great Judicature Act of 1873, which, together with an Amending Act, took effect near the close of 1875, they have acquired a considerable degree of orderliness and even of simplicity. The measure of 1873 abolished the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, but the Amending Act three years later rescinded this modification, and, as has been explained elsewhere, the House of Lords is still a court of very great importance.[251] Aside from the Lords, however, the higher courts of the realm--the Chancery, the three great Common Law courts, the Admiralty, Probate, and Divorce courts, and the intermediate courts of appeal from these tribunals of first instance--were consolidated by the legislation of 1873-1875 to form one grand organization, the Supreme Court of Judicature, which was thereupon cut into two branches, the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal. The High Court of Justice was a.s.signed a general jurisdiction, civil and criminal, as a court of first instance and also as a court of (p. 174) appeal from inferior courts. Its jurisdiction represents essentially the aggregate of jurisdictions of the tribunals which it superseded, and the various divisions into which it falls perpetuate in a measure the names and functions of those tribunals. There were originally five of these divisions. To-day there are three: Chancery, King's Bench (with which the Common Pleas and Exchequer divisions were united by order in council of December 16, 1880), and Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty. Any High Court judge may sit in a tribunal belonging to any one of these divisions. The Lord Chancellor presides over the Chancery division, the Chief Justice over the King's Bench. The number of judges is variable. The Chancery division contains at present six, the King's Bench fifteen, and the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty division but two. All save the Chancellor (who is a cabinet official, owing his position to selection by the premier) are appointed by the crown upon advice of the Chancellor, and all hold office during good behavior but may be dismissed on addresses of the two houses of Parliament. The judges of the High Court sit both singly and in groups. The ordinary trial of cases is conducted, under a variety of stipulated conditions, by a single judge, either at Westminster or on circuit. The judges who go on circuit are taken as a rule from the King's Bench division, and when both civil and criminal cases are to be adjudicated they travel ordinarily in pairs, one attending to the civil and the other to the criminal business. Judges sit also, without juries, in divisional courts, composed of two or more members, to hear appeals from inferior tribunals, motions for new trials, and applications for writs. The High Court never sits as a single body, nor does even the Chancery or the King's Bench division.

[Footnote 251: See p. 130.]

*183. Supreme Court of Judicature: the Court of Appeals.*--The second branch of the Supreme Court of Judicature is the Court of Appeal. This tribunal is composed of the Master of the Rolls and five Lords Justices of Appeal, all appointed by the crown upon the advice of the Lord Chancellor. The presidents of the three divisions of the High Court are also members, but they rarely partic.i.p.ate in the work of the court; and since 1891 men who have occupied the office of Chancellor are _ex-officio_ members, although they sit only if they choose to comply with a request of the Chancellor that they do so. The court performs its functions regularly in two sections of three members each, although for some matters the presence of but two judges is required. Sittings are held only in London. The jurisdiction of the court is exclusively appellate, and its business consists very largely in the hearing of appeals in civil cases carried from the High Court.

Prior to 1907 there was no general right of appeal in criminal cases.

By the Criminal Appeal Act of that year, however, there was (p. 175) established a Court of Criminal Appeal to which any person convicted may appeal on a question of law and, under stipulated conditions, on a question of fact also. This tribunal is composed of the Lord Chief Justice and eight judges of the King's Bench appointed by him with the a.s.sent of the Lord Chancellor. It, therefore, has no immediate connection with the Court of Appeal.

*184. The House of Lords and the Judicial Committee.*--Of superior tribunals there are two others of large importance, the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The functions of the House of Lords as a court of last resort have been described elsewhere.[252] By the act of 1876 the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords, withdrawn by the act of 1873, was restored and provision was made for the strengthening of the legal element in the chamber by the creation of life peers to be known as Lords of Appeal in Ordinary.

Under existing law appeal lies to the Lords from any order or judgment of the Court of Appeal in England and of all Scottish and Irish courts from which appeals might, prior to 1876, be carried. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was const.i.tuted in 1833 to a.s.sume jurisdiction over a variety of cases formerly heard and decided nominally by the Council as a whole. The composition of the body has been changed a number of times. The members at present comprise the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, such members of the Privy Council as hold or have held high judicial office, two other Privy Councillors designated at pleasure by the crown, and, as a rule, one or two paid members who have held judicial office in India or the colonies. The members.h.i.+p is thus large, but only four members need be present at the hearing of a case, and it may be pointed out that the working members of the Committee are predominantly the four "law lords" who comprise also the working judicial element in the House of Lords. It is the business of the Judicial Committee to consider and determine any matter that may be referred to it by the crown, but, in the main, to hear final appeals from the ecclesiastical courts, from courts in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, from the courts of the colonies and dependencies, and from English courts established by treaty in foreign countries. Its decisions are tendered under the guise of "advice to the crown" and, unlike the decisions of the Lords, they must bear the appearance, at least of unanimity.[253]

[Footnote 252: See p. 130.]

[Footnote 253: For brief descriptions of the English judicial system see Lowell, Government of England, II., Chaps. 59-60; Anson, Law and Custom of the Const.i.tution, II., Pt. 1., Chap. 10; Marriott, English Political Inst.i.tutions, Chap. 14; and Macy, The English Const.i.tution, Chap. 7. As is stated elsewhere (p. 169), the first volume of Holdsworth's History of English Law contains an excellent history of the English courts. A useful handbook, though much in need of revision, is F. W.

Maitland, Justice and Police (London, 1885).

Perhaps the best brief account of the development of the English judicial system is A. T. Carter, History of English Legal Inst.i.tutions (4th ed., London, 1910). Mention may be made of Maitland, Const.i.tutional History of England, 462-484, and Medley, Manual of English Const.i.tutional History, 318-383. Two valuable works by foreign writers are C. de Franqueville, Le systeme judiciaire de la Grande-Bretagne (Paris, 1898), and H. B. Gerland, Die englische Gerichtsverfa.s.sung; eine systematische Darstellung, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1910).

On the Judicature Acts of 1873-1876 see Holdsworth, I., 402-417.]

IV. LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO THE MUNIc.i.p.aL CORPORATIONS ACT, 1835 (p. 176)

*185. Periods in Local Governmental History.*--No description of a governmental system can be adequate which does not take into account the agencies and modes by which the powers of government are brought close to the people, as well as those by which the people in greater or lesser measure regulate locally their own public affairs. More especially is this true in the instance of a government such as the English in which local self-control is a fundamental rather than an incidental fact. The history of local inst.i.tutions in England covers an enormous stretch of time, as well as a remarkable breadth of public organization and activity, and by no means its least important phases are those which have appeared in most recent times. Speaking broadly, it may be said to fall into four very unequal periods. The first, extending from the settlement of the Saxons to the Norman Conquest, was marked by the establishment of the distinctive English units of administration--s.h.i.+re, hundred, and towns.h.i.+p--and by the planting of the principle of broadly popular local control. The second, extending from the Conquest to the fourteenth century, was characterized by a general increase of centralization and a corresponding decrease of local autonomy. The third, extending from the fourteenth century to the adoption of the Local Government Act of 1888, was pre-eminently a period of aristocratic control of local affairs, of government by the same squirearchy which prior to 1832, if not 1867, was accustomed to dominate Parliament. The last period, that from 1888 to the present time, has been notable in a special degree for the democratization and systematization of local governing arrangements which has taken place within it.

*186. County and Parish before 1832.*--The transformation by which the inst.i.tutions of local government have been brought to their present status paralleled, and in a large measure sprang from, the revolutionizing of Parliament during the course of the nineteenth century. Two periods of change are especially noteworthy, the one following closely the Reform Act of 1832 and culminating in the adoption of the Munic.i.p.al Corporations Act of 1835, the other following similarly the Representation of the People Act of 1884 and (p. 177) attaining fruition in the Local Government Act of 1888 and the District and Parish Councils Act of 1894. At the opening of the century rural administration was carried on princ.i.p.ally in the s.h.i.+re or county and the civil or "poor law" parish; urban administration in the corporate towns, or munic.i.p.al boroughs. The counties were fifty-two in number. Most of them were of Saxon origin, although some were the product of absorptions or delimitations which took place in later centuries. The last to be added were those of Wales. Altered often in respect to their precise functions, the counties retained from first to last a large measure of importance, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century they were still the princ.i.p.al areas of local governing activity. From Saxon times to the fourteenth century the dominating figure in county administration was the sheriff, but in the reign of Edward III. justices of the peace were created into whose hands during the ensuing five hundred years substantially all administrative and judicial affairs of the county were drawn. These dignitaries were appointed by the crown, chiefly from the ranks of the smaller landowners and rural clergy, and as a rule they comprised in practice a petty oligarchy whose conduct of public business was inspired by aristocratic, far more than by democratic, ideals.

The princ.i.p.al division of the county was the civil parish, usually but not always identical with the ecclesiastical parish. The governing bodies of the parish were two--the vestry (either open to all rate-payers or composed of elected representatives), which administered general affairs, and the overseers of the poor who under the Elizabethan statute of 1601 were empowered to find employment for the able-bodied poor, to provide other forms of relief as should be required, and to levy a local rate to meet the costs of their work.

Since the pa.s.sage of Gilbert's Act of 1782 the parishes had been arranged in groups for poor-law purposes, and boards of guardians appointed by the justices of the peace had come to be the real authorities in the administration of poor relief, as well as in most other matters. The abuses arising from poor-law administration were not infrequently appalling.

*187. The Borough before 1832.*--The corporate towns in England and Wales numbered, in 1832, 246. They comprised population centers which, on the basis of charters granted by the crown, had become distinct areas of local government. They did not, however, stand entirely apart from the county and parish organization. On the contrary, except in so far as they were exempted specifically by the terms of their charters, they were subject to the authority of the justices of the peace and of the governing agencies of the parishes within whose jurisdiction they were situated. Their style of government was determined largely (p. 178) by the provisions of their charters, and since these instruments exhibited a marked degree of variety, uniformity of organization was entirely lacking. As a rule, however, the borough was a close corporation, and the burgesses, or "freemen," in whom were vested peculiar trading and fiscal rights and an absolute monopoly of the powers of government, comprised but a small fraction of the general body of citizens. The governing authority of the borough was the town council, whose members were either elected by the freemen or recruited by co-optation. Government was regularly oligarchical and irresponsible; sometimes it was inefficient and corrupt.

*188. The New Poor Law (1834) and the Munic.i.p.al Corporations Act (1835).*--The reforms accomplished since 1832 within the domain of parliamentary organization and procedure have been hardly more remarkable than those wrought during the same period within the field of local government. It must suffice to mention but the princ.i.p.al steps by which the local governing system has been brought to its present high degree of democracy and effectiveness. Among the subjects to which the first reformed parliament addressed its attention was the direful condition into which had fallen the relief of the poor, and the initial stage of local government regeneration was marked by the adoption of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, abolis.h.i.+ng outdoor relief for the able-bodied, providing for the regrouping of parishes in "poor-law unions," and establis.h.i.+ng a national Poor Law Commission.

The administration of relief within the unions was intrusted all but exclusively to newly created boards of guardians, composed in part of the justices of the peace sitting _ex-officio_ and in part of members specially elected by the rate-payers. The arrangements set up by the act proved very successful and they survive almost intact at the present day. The second notable change was that effected by the Munic.i.p.al Corporations Act of 1835. The enfranchising of large numbers of the townspeople in 1832 led inevitably to demand for the democratization of the aristocratic borough governments, and within three years the demand was met in a statute so sweeping as to justify the a.s.sertion that with its enactment the modern history of the English town begins.[254] Sixty-nine of the old corporate towns, by reason of their unimportance, were now deprived of the character of boroughs. The city of London was not touched, but elsewhere all munic.i.p.al corporations were broadened so as to personify legally the entire population of the borough. The time-honored munic.i.p.al oligarchy was broken down by the giving of the franchise to all rate-payers, the town councils were made wholly elective, trading monopolies and privileges were swept away, and a variety of other reforms were (p. 179) introduced. With the adoption of this important measure, however, the work of reform came for a time to a halt, and the widely a.s.sailed system of county government through nominated magistrates in quarter sessions survived until 1888.[255]

[Footnote 254: Lowell, Government of England, II., 144.]

[Footnote 255: The history of the local inst.i.tutions of England prior to 1835 is related in detail in two comprehensive works: H. A. Merewether and A. J. Stephens, History of the Boroughs and Munic.i.p.al Corporations of the United Kingdom, 3 vols. (London, 1835) and S. and B. Webb, English Local Government from the Revolution to the Munic.i.p.al Corporations Act, 3 vols. (London and New York, 1904-1908). The first of these was written to promote the cause of munic.i.p.al reform, but is temperate and reliable. The second is especially exhaustive, volume 3 containing probably the best existing treatment of the history of borough government. For a brief sketch see May and Holland, Const.i.tutional History of England, II., Chap. 15.]

V. LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM, 1835-1912

*189. Mid-Century Confusion of Areas and Jurisdictions.*--Throughout the earlier and middle portions of the Victorian period legislation respecting local government was abundant, but it was special rather than general. It pertained princ.i.p.ally to the care of highways and burial grounds, the laying out and organization of districts for the promotion of sanitation, the establishment of "improvement act"

districts, and, notably, the erection and administration of school districts under the Elementary Education Act of 1870. With each successive measure the confusion of jurisdictions and agencies was increased. The prevailing policy was to provide for each fresh need as it arose a special machinery designed to meet that particular need, and arrangements effected were seldom or never uniform throughout the country, nor did they bear any logical relation to arrangements already existing for other purposes. By 1871 the country, as Lowell puts it, was divided into counties, unions, and parishes, and spotted over with boroughs and with highway, burial, sanitary, improvement act, school, and other districts, and of these areas none save the parishes and unions bore any necessary relation to any of the rest.[256] In the effort to adapt the framework of the administrative system to the fast changing conditions of a rapidly growing population Parliament piled act upon act, the result being a sheer jungle of interlacing jurisdictions alike baffling to the student and subversive of orderly and economical administration. It is computed that in 1883 there were in England and Wales no fewer than 27,069 independent local authorities,[257] and that the rate-payer was taxed by eighteen different kinds of rates.

[Footnote 256: Government of England, II., 135.]

[Footnote 257: These included the 52 counties, the 239 munic.i.p.al boroughs, the 70 improvement act districts, the 1,006 urban sanitary districts, the 577 rural sanitary districts, the 2,051 school board districts, the 424 highway districts, the 853 burial board districts, the 649 poor-law unions, the 14,946 poor-law parishes, the 5,064 highway parishes not included in urban or highway districts, and the 1,300 ecclesiastical parishes.

For the situation in 1888 see G. L. Gomme, Lectures on the Principles of Local Government (London, 1897), 12-13.]

*190. Local Government Act of 1888 and District and Parish (p. 180) Councils Act of 1894.*--Soon after the pa.s.sage of the Elementary Education Act of 1870 reform began to be attempted in the direction both of concentration of local governing authority and the readjustment and simplification of local governing areas. In 1871 the Poor Law Board (which succeeded the Poor Law Commission in 1847) was converted into the Local Government Board, with the purpose of concentrating in a single department the supervision of the laws relating to public health, the relief of the poor, and local government; and when, in 1872, the entire country was divided into urban and rural sanitary districts, the work was done deliberately in such a fas.h.i.+on as to involve the least possible addition to the existing complexities of the administrative system.[258] The two measures, however, by which, in the main, order was brought out of confusion were the Local Government Act of 1888 and the District and Parish Councils Act of 1894. The first of these, referred to commonly as the County Councils Act, was the sequel of the Representation of the People Act of 1884 and was definitely intended to invest the newly enfranchised rural population with a larger control of county affairs.

The act created sixty-two administrative counties (some coterminous with pre-existing counties, others comprising subdivisions of them) and some three score "county boroughs," comprising towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants.[259] In each county and county borough there was set up a council, at least two-thirds of whose members were elective, and to this council was transferred the administrative functions of the justices of the peace, leaving to those dignitaries of the old regime little authority save of a judicial character. The democratization of rural government accomplished by the Conservative ministry of Lord Salisbury in 1888 was supplemented by the provisions of the District and Parish Councils Act, carried by a Liberal ministry in 1894.[260] This measure provided (1) that every county should be divided into districts, urban and rural, and every district into (p. 181) parishes, and (2) that in every district and in every rural parish with more than three hundred inhabitants there should be an elected council, while in the smallest parishes there should be a primary a.s.sembly of all persons whose names appear on the local government and parliamentary register. To the parish councils and a.s.semblies were transferred all of the civil functions of the vestries, leaving to those bodies the control of ecclesiastical matters only, while to the district councils, whether rural or urban, were committed control of sanitary affairs and highways.

[Footnote 258: The arrangements effected at this time were perpetuated in the great Public Health Act of 1875. Lowell, Government of England II., 137.]

[Footnote 259: The number of county boroughs had been increased by 1910 to seventy-four. See p.

188.]

[Footnote 260: It should be observed that the original intent in 1888 was to deal with district as well as county organization. In its final form the bill carried in that year had to do only, however, with the counties.]

The effect of the acts of 1888 and 1894 was two-fold. In the first place, they put the administrative affairs of the rural portions of the country in the hands almost exclusively of popularly elected bodies. In the second place, their adoption afforded opportunity for the immediate or gradual abolition of all local governing authorities except the county, munic.i.p.al, district, and parish councils, the boards of guardians, and the school boards, and thus they contributed vastly to that gradual simplification of the local governing system which is one of the most satisfactory developments of recent years.

The act of 1894 alone abolished some 8,000 authorities. Since 1894 the consolidation of authorities and the elimination of areas have been carried yet further, the most notable step being the abolition of the school boards by the Education Act of 1902 and the transfer of the functions of these bodies to the councils of the counties, boroughs, and districts. Both the majority and minority reports of the recent Poor Law Commission, submitted in 1909, recommend the abolition of the parish union area; but no action has been taken as yet by Parliament upon this subject.[261]

[Footnote 261: The history of local government changes since 1870 is well sketched in May and Holland, Const.i.tutional History of England, III., Chap. 5.]

VI. LOCAL AND CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

The system of local government as it operates at the present time is by no means free from anomalies, but it exhibits, none the less, an orderliness and a simplicity which were altogether lacking a generation ago. The variety of areas of administration has been lessened, the number of officials has been reduced and their relations have been simplified, the guiding hand of the central authorities in local affairs has been strengthened. Stated briefly, the situation is as follows: the entire kingdom is divided into counties and county boroughs; the counties are subdivided into districts, rural and urban, and boroughs; these are subdivided further into parishes, which are regrouped in poor-law unions; while the city of London is organized after a fas.h.i.+on peculiar to itself. In order to make clear the (p. 182) essentials of the system it will be necessary to allude but briefly to the connection which obtains between the local and central administrative agencies, and to point out the princ.i.p.al features of each of the governmental units named.

*191. The Five Central Departments.*--Throughout most periods of its history English local government has involved a smaller amount of interference and of direction on the part of the central authorities than have the local governments of the various continental nations.