=Justices of the Peace.=--The first of these bodies was constituted by Royal Grant in 1838, when the town was incorporated as a municipal borough. A Court of Quarter Sessions was then next established, for the trial of prisoners, and a Recorder was appointed. The Court of Petty Sessions for the borough was instituted at the same time, under special commission of the peace. The duties of the justices are to maintain peace and order in the borough, to administer justice at petty sessions, to appoint visitors to the prison, and to grant licences for public houses, theatres, and concert halls, and licences for music and dancing in houses kept for the sale of liquor. They are invested with powers of control over the police on occasions of actual or threatened disturbance of public order; and any two of them, sitting in petty sessions, are empowered to suspend or dismiss any police constable for sufficient cause. =The Town Council= has charge of the general administration of the affairs of the borough; watching; lighting; making, draining, and repairing streets and roads; the care of the public health, by the prevention and removal of nuisances, the enforcement of a system of house inspection, the collection and disposal of night soil and house refuse, and the maintenance of a Borough Hospital; the control of the Borough Cemetery, (for which it acts as a Burial Board;) the provision and management of Baths and Parks; of Free Libraries, Museums, and Schools of Art; and it also has control of the manufacture and sale of Gas, and the provision of Water. The powers of the Corporation, originally and to a limited extent conferred by Royal Charter in 1838, were by degrees enlarged by twenty special local Acts or Orders sanctioned by Parliament, for various purposes. The whole of these were, in 1883, consolidated in the Birmingham Corporation Consolidation Act, which, together with the Municipal Corporations Amendment Act of 1882, and the Public Health Act of 1875, constitute the Municipal Law under which the affairs of the Borough are administered.