In many places--the vast majority, indeed--there is no longer any Court Leet held, because the manorial rights have become faint and indistinct with the passage of time; the manor has been sold, split up into two or three estates, the entail cut off; or the manor as a manor has totally disappeared under the changes of ownership, and the various deeds and liabilities which have arisen. But this merely general gathering of the farmers of the village--where Court Leets are still held, all farmers are invited, irrespective of their supposed allegiance to the lord of the manor or not--this pleasant dinner and sherry party, which meets to go through obsolete customs, and exercise minute and barely legal rights, contains nevertheless many of the elements of a desirable local authority. It is composed of gentlemen of all shades of opinion; no politics are introduced. It meets in the village itself, and under the direct sanction of the landowner. Its powers are confined to strictly local matters, and its members are thoroughly acquainted with those matters. The affairs of the village are discussed without acrimony, and a certain amount of understanding arrived at. It regulates disputes and grievances arising between the inhabitants of cottage property, and can see that that property is habitable. It acts more by custom, habit, more by acquiescence of the parties than by any imperious, hard-and-fast law laid down at a distance from the scene. But any hope of the resuscitation of Court Leets must not be entertained, because in so many places the manor is now merely 'reputed,' and has no proper existence; because, too, the lord of the manor may be living at a distance, and possess scarcely any property in the parish, except his 'rights.' The idea, however, of the agriculturists and principal residents in a village meeting in a friendly manner together, under the direct leadership of the largest landowner, to discuss village matters, is one that may be revived with some prospect of success. At present, who, pray, has the power of so much as convening a meeting of the parishioners, or of taking the sense of the village? It may be done by the churchwardens convening a Vestry, but a Vestry is extremely limited in authority, unpopular, and without any cohesion. Under the new Education Acts the signatures of a certain number of ratepayers to a requisition compels the officer appointed by law to call a meeting, but only for objects connected with the school. Upon consideration it appears that there really is no village authority at all; no recognized place or time at which the principal inhabitants can meet together and discuss the affairs of the parish with a prospect of immediate action resulting. The meetings of the magistrates at petty sessions, quarter sessions, and at various other times are purposely omitted from this argument, because there is rarely more than one magistrate resident in a village, or at most two, and the assemblies of these gentlemen