The subjects of such transfer include (i.) the making, assessing and
levying of county, police, hundred and all rates, and the application
and expenditure thereof, and the making of orders for the payment of
sums payable out of any such rate, or out of the county stock or
county fund, and the preparation and revision of the basis or standard
for the county rate. With regard to the county rate, a few words of
description may be sufficient here. The council appoint a committee
called a county rate committee, who from time to time prepare a basis
or standard for county rate, that is to say, they fix the amount at
which each parish in the county shall contribute its quota to the
county rate. As a general rule the poor-law valuations are followed,
but this is not universally the case, some county councils adopting
the assessment to income tax, schedule A, and others forming an
independent valuation of their own. The overseers of any parish
aggrieved by the basis may appeal against it to quarter sessions, and
it is to be noticed that this appeal is not interfered with, the
transfer of the duties of justices relating only to administrative and
not to judicial business. When a contribution is required from county
rate, the county council assess the amount payable by each parish
according to the basis previously made, and send their precept to the
guardians of the unions comprising the several parishes in the county,
the guardians in their turn requiring the overseers of each parish to
provide the necessary quota of that parish out of the poor rate, and
the sum thus raised goes into the county fund. The police rate is made
for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the county police. It is
made on the same basis as the county rate, and is levied with it. The
hundred rate is seldom made, though in some counties it may be made
for purposes of main roads and bridges chargeable to the hundred as
distinguished from the county at large; (ii.) the borrowing of money;
(iii.) the passing of the accounts of, and the discharge of the county
treasurer; (iv.) shire halls, county halls, assize courts, the judges'
lodgings, lock-up houses, court houses, justices' rooms, police
stations and county buildings, works and property; (v.) the licensing
under any general act of houses and other places for music or for
dancing, and the granting of licences under the Racecourses Licensing
Act 1879; (vi.) the provision, enlargement, maintenance and management
and visitation of, and other dealing with, asylums for pauper
lunatics; (vii.) the establishment and maintenance of, and the
contribution to, reformatory and industrial schools; (viii.) bridges
and roads repairable with bridges, and any powers vested by the
Highways and Locomotives Amendment Act 1878 in the county authority.
It may be observed that bridges have always been at common law
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