From the time when Rural Constabulary forces were instituted in 1839, until the date of the creation of County Councils fifty years later, the police authority throughout rural England had been the County Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions, to which body alone, in the several counties, was each Chief-Constable answerable, provided that he conformed to the general regulations laid down by the Secretary of State. During this period various changes, in addition to those of a more important nature already mentioned, were brought about, having for their object the better management of the police, or the more convenient administration of justice. In 1846 County Courts for the hearing of civil suits involving minor issues were established in the different shires; and, by the gradual enlargement of the jurisdiction exercised by these tribunals, the higher courts have, to a corresponding extent, been relieved of much petty business to the advantage of larger interests. In 1869 the office of High-Constable was formally abolished, any powers that he had anciently exercised having long since dwindled almost to the vanishing point. At first the Treasury contribution towards the expenses of the rural police had been strictly limited and quite inadequate in amount; but in 1875 the old limitation was suspended, first for one year, then for another, and finally indefinitely, until it became the rule for the public Treasury to provide half the cost for pay and clothing of all provincial police forces that, at the end of each year, are returned as efficient by the Home Office on the recommendation of the Government Inspector of Constabulary. Following upon the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835,[263] some fifty Acts of Parliament, relating wholly or in part to municipal government, received the royal assent, and this at the rate of more than one a year; in August 1882 the mass of legislative amendments that resulted was consolidated and reduced to one Statute.[264] Amongst other police enactments, the formation of a separate constabulary, distinct from the county force, in any borough containing less than twenty thousand inhabitants, was hereby prohibited; but the control of local police forces already established was for the present confirmed to the existing Watch Committees, whatever might be the population of the borough concerned, and at the same time authority to enforce certain sanitary laws (_e.g._ The Public Health Acts of 1873 and 1875) was conferred on the Town Councils.