“II. Another branch of summary proceedings is that before _justices of the peace_, in order to inflict divers petty pecuniary mulcts and corporal penalties denounced by Act of Parliament for many disorderly offences, such as common swearing, drunkenness, vagrancy, idleness, and a vast variety of others, for which I must refer the student to the justice-books formerly cited, and which used to be formerly punished by the verdict of a jury in the court-leet. This change in the administration of justice hath however had some mischievous effects, as—_1st_, The almost entire disuse and contempt of the court-leet and sheriff’s tourn, the King’s antient courts of common law, formerly much revered and respected. _2nd_, The burthensome increase of the business of a justice of the peace, which discourages so many gentlemen of rank and character from acting in the commission, from an apprehension that the duty of their office would take up too much of that time which they are unwilling to spare from the necessary concerns of their families, the improvement of their understandings, and their engagements in other services of the public; though, if _all_ gentlemen of fortune had it both in their power and inclinations to act in this capacity, the business of a justice of the peace would be more divided, and fall the less heavy upon individuals, which would remove what in the present scarcity of magistrates is really an objection so formidable that the country is greatly obliged to any gentleman of figure who will undertake to perform that duty, which in consequence of his rank in life he owes more peculiarly to his country. However, this backwardness to act as magistrates arising greatly from this increase of summary jurisdiction is productive of, _3rd_, a third mischief, which is, that this trust, when slighted by gentlemen, falls of course into the hands of those who are not so, but the mere tools of office. And then the extensive power of a justice of the peace, which even in the hands of men of honour is highly formidable, will be prostituted to mean and scandalous purposes, to the low ends of selfish ambition, avarice, or personal resentment. And from these ill consequences we may collect the prudent foresight of our antient lawgivers, who suffered neither the property nor the punishment of the subject to be determined by the opinion of any one or two men; and we may also observe the necessity of not deviating any farther from our antient constitution by ordaining new penalties to be inflicted upon summary convictions.”