“The custom of choosing three churchwardens annually is still exercised, though the cause of it has ceased to exist for more than half a century past. But the customary existence of twelve assistants and advisers to the constable has ceased, though the occasion for which they were first instituted still remains, nay, increases commensurately with the population of the town. The ancient society of the twelve shall therefore be revived. That such a society did once exist, by custom, cannot be denied: and the mere neglect of a custom for ever so many years is no deseasance of the right to exercise it at any subsequent period. But its revival shall not be for the creation or benefit of a party. Political equality is the birth-right of every Briton; and no civil power can be lawful which emanated not originally from the assent of society, and is invariably exercised for the public good. The Twelve therefore shall be chosen by ballot at a public meeting of all the inhabitants, and every future vacancy in that body filled by public election in the same manner. The gentleman who presides at present at the court leet of the town, there is every reason to suppose, would cheerfully ratify so respectable an election; and the police of so populous a parish would, in future, be managed with signal vigilance, under the inspection of twelve chosen guardians of the public peace and prosperity. “It was the discontinuance of the ancient society of the Twelve, that made it necessary to appoint commissioners by act of Parliament, in the year 1772, for lighting and cleaning the streets, lanes, and other places within the town of Brighthelmston; as also for removing and preventing nuisances, holding and regulating a daily market there, and building and repairing groynes, in order to render the coast more safe and commodious for vessels to unload and land sea-coal, culm, and other coal, for the use of the town: and in order to enable the said commissioners to accomplish these public and serviceable ends, they are allowed by the act, a duty of sixpence on every chaldron of coal or culm so landed. As it is not unlikely a question may hereafter arise concerning the precincts of the commissioners’ power, it may not here be unseasonable to consider how far it extends. As the letter of the act seems to confine it to the limits of the town, the sagacity of litigation may discover that the buildings erected since the year 1772, in the then common fields and environs of Brighthelmston, could not have been in contemplation of the framers of the act, inasmuch as those buildings were not then _in esse_. But as there never were any fixed boundaries to the town, as far as continuous buildings and population reach within the parish, so far, I conceive, shall the town, and consequently the power of the commissioners, be admitted always to extend. Otherwise, indeed, the act would be abortive and absurd. These commissioners were originally