The justices of peace have a criminal jurisdiction in riots, breaches of the peace, poaching, &c. Their chief duty is securing offenders, and taking precog nitions to be reported to the crown officers.
The lawyers of the Crown are the Lord .4dvocate and Solicitor General. The first, besides most impor tant ministerial powers and functions which consti tute him virtually the minister of the Crown for Scot land, is the public prosecutor of all crimes coming before the Court of Justiciary and Admiralty Court, and in all revenue offences tried before the Court of Exchequer. He and the Solicitor General are advo cates practising at the Scottish bar. The latter officer is virtually the Lord Advocate's coadjutor and substitute for the whole of Scotland. His lord ship has, besides, three deputies, called Adovcates Depute, each of whom goes one of the circuits as public prosecutor, with the full powers of his prin cipal.
The Scottish bar is called the Faculty of .qdvocates. They have exclusive right to practise in the supreme courts and are under no disqualification to plead in any court, down to the most inferior.
The Writers to the are the first order of at torneys in Scotland. They keep and have the sole right to use the king's signet, as applied to writs in the king's name. They were anciently clerks to the secretaries of state, but are now general conveyancers and practitioners before the courts of law.
A certain class of agents practise in the supreme courts, who are not writers to the signet, called Soli citors before the Supreme Courts, and lately incorpo rated, by royal charter, as such.
The inferior courts have their own Procurators, or solicitors, who are admitted by the different inferior courts.
}Votaries Public are now admitted by the Court of Session. Almost all the writers to the signet and solicitors both of supreme and inferior courts are notaries.
All the supreme courts have Seals proper to them selves, with which their writs and warrants are seal ed. All the Courts of Session writs are stamped with the king's signet, and signed by a writer to the signet.
There is no part or accessory of the judicial esta blishments of Scotland more perfect than its system of Registration. There is hence much more security and confidence in legal transactions than exist in any other country of Europe. Besides the particular re cord of each court, there are the records of chancery for patents, services of heirs, &c.; the record for all rights affecting lands for the information of creditors, called the register of sasines; (Stat. 1617, c. 16.) the record for interdictions, inhibition, hornings ; the record of bonds, bills, and other obligations to found personal diligence. This last registration has the form of a judicial proceeding, by fiction of law, for no judge is present; and the books of record for that purpose are those of The stat.
the regist– 1696, c. 26, established for probative writings in which a clause ,,gistration has been omitted. The record of entails is also a very impor tant record. It is the essential character of the is tish registration, where the safety of creditors s the end, that the writings are null and void if registra tion is omitted.
An account of our judicial establish ments is given in its place in the following chapter.
What was the religious system observed by the an cient Caledonians before the invasion of the Romans, it is now impossible to determine. On the arrival of Caesar, the south of Britain could boast of the Druids, a class of men comparatively enlightened: but there is no proof that they were ever known in Scotland. From the classic writers, to whom we owe all we know on the subject, we learn that Druidism was established in France, in the south of England, and in Wales; and the opinion sometimes entertained and insisted on, that it was extended 16 the northern parts of the island, is founded solely on conjecture. It has indeed been argued that Druidism was the religion of the Celtic nations, and that, as Scotland was inhabited by the Celts, that system must have obtained there. Cesar, however, affirms that it had its origin in the south of Britain, and was thence translated to Gaul; a circumstance which proves it to have been local, and not the religion of the whole Celtic people. 44 Since," to use the words of a celebrated writer, " it must have begun to exist after the Celts left their ori ginal settlements, it must be considered as British not Celtic; and it would be as absurd to extend it to all the Celts, because it originated among them, as it would be to expect to find the institutions of secret tribunals in the thirteenth century among the Swedes as well as among the Germans, merely because they were both Gothic nations." In addition to this argu ment, Tacitus, it may be mentioned, is totally silent on this subject. He relates that Suetonius, after having vanquished the Britons in Mona, cut down and de stroyed the consecrated groves of the Druids: but, in writing the history of the campaign of Agricola in Scotland, he never once alludes to this order of men; and as the Druidical institution was so singular and so deserving of attention both in a religious and po litical point of view, it would be impossible to account for the silence of Tacitus respecting it, if it had really been known in the country which he describes. Ne gative evidence is nearly all we can obtain on the sub ject, and we hold the preceding as an irrefragable argument in our favour. Nor is the existence of the well-known circle of stones any better proof than the preceding that Druidism existed in Scotland. "For Druidic antiquities," says Dr. Irving, " it would be in vain to search; instead of temples and other edi fices they consecrated the misletoe and the oak on which it grew." Nihil habent Druidie visco et arbore in qua gignatur, si modo sit robi', sacratius. (Plinii Nat. Hist. xvi. 95.) Besides, the greater number of these stone monuments, if not the whole, were po litical and not religious structures, being used as courts of election and of police. It is a matter of even recent Highland tradition that the chiefs were elected and invested in these circles, as was formerly the custom of Norway, where their erection for those express purposes is historically recorded.