In boroughs where the council shall signify their desire to that effect by peti tion, setting forth the grounds of their application. the state of the gaol, and the salary which they are willing to pay, the Crown may appoint a Recorder for any one such borough, or for any two or more boroughs conjointly. The Recorder must be a barrister of not less than five years' standing. He is, by virtue of his office, a justice of the peace of the borough, and is to have precedence within the borough next after the mayor. Such boroughs will have separate courts of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, which is to be a court of record having cognizance of all crimes, offences, and other matters cog nizable by any court of quarter-sessions ftir counties, the recorder being enabled to do all things necessary for exercising such jurisdiction, notwithstanding his being the sole judge.
The council appoint the clerk of the peace, when a separate court of quarter sessions is granted.
Towns which are not incorporated may obtain a charter of incorporation by peti tion to the Privy Council. (1 Vict. c. 78, § 49.) Manchester, Birmingham, Shef field, and Bolton have been incorporated under this regulation.
By § 139 all advowsons, rights of pre sentation or nomination to any benefice or ecclesiastical preferment in the gift of the corporate body were required to be sold under the direction of thAcclesiastical Commissioners ; the proceeds to be vested in government securities and the annual interest carried to the account of the borough fund.
The management of charitable trust funds was taken from municipal bodies by § 71: the administration of such funds is now placed in the hands of trustees who are appointed by the Lord Chan cellor.
borough system of Ire land may be described in general as an immediate branch from that of England, and the mode of incorporation adopted by tcrown in erecting the modern borouTM, presents little more than a parallel to the course it was pursuing in England. The completion of the terri torial conquest, while it relieved the ancient boroughs from the danger of ex teenal attack from the unsubdned native Irish population, rendered their internal freedom more liable to attack from the English crown. Since the permanent establishment of the Church of England reformation, there has been the difference not of races, but of creeds. James I. sent presidents or military governors through the Irish provinces for the immediate enforcement of the statutes relating to the crown's supremacy and to the uniformity of common prayer, especially in the corporate towns. On arriving at these
towns they called before them the mayors and other principal corporate officers, and, after some further proceedings, de posed them, imprisoned them during his majesty's pleasure, imposed on them heavy pecuniary penalties, and for pay ment of these had their goods sold in the public streets. The leading municipal officers being thus ejected, others, of known pliancy, were substituted in their places ; and these persons readily resigned the rights and liberties of their towns into the king's hands, and took out new charters of incorporation. And here it was that the leading object of the crown was accomplished. To the several an cient boroughs new charters were soon issued, so framed as to leave but a very small share of municipal power to the great body of the inhabitants. In these charters individuals were expressly nomi nated to fill the offices of mayor, sheriff, recorder, he. : the members of the govern ing council of the corporations were in most instances nominated in like manner, with exclusive power to appoint their successors ; so that the inhabitants at large were almost wholly deprived of that share in their local government, which, under the original constitutions of these boroughs, they had enjoyed for upwards of four centuries.
The spirit of absolute exclusion pre vailing in the Irish municipalities was mitigated in some degree by the Act of Explanation, which empowered the Lord Lieutenant and Council, within seven years, to make rules, orders, and direc tions, for the better regulation of all cities, walled towns, and corporations. By virtue of this power, the Lord Lieu tenant and Council, in 1672, issued what are called the " New Rules." That part of these New Rules which tended to re store the ancient basis of the municipal franchise, was a provision that all resi dent "foreigners, strangers, and aliens, being merchants, or skilled in any mys tery, craft, or trade," were entitled to their freedom. Thus, in spite of the exclusive system then in operation, every resident trader in the corporate towns of Ireland was enabled to become a free man ; though still, except by special dis pensation, he could not fill the higher municipal offices, unless by taking the oath of supremacy and giving the other tests then required. But after the Revo lution of 1688 the spirit and intention of this portion of these rules were wholly disregarded.