Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/325

Rh as in France it was suppressed about a century after by an edict of Louis XIII., but from that office, says Lambard, this lower constableship was first drawn, and is, as it were, a very finger of that hand.&quot; The Statute of Winchester (13 Edw. I. st. 2, c. 6), ordain ing every citizen to have armour according to his condition to keep the peace, requires that in every hundred and fran chise two constables be chosen to make the view of armour twice a year, and that the said constables &quot; shall present before justices assigned such defaults as they do see in the county about armour, and of the suits, and of watches, and of highways ; and also shall present all such as do lodge strangers in uplandish towns, for whom they will not answer.&quot; These are the officers known as high constables ; who are especially charged with the peace of the hundred, just as the petty constables are charged with the peace of the parish or township. They were appointed at the court of the hundred, or in default thereof by justices at special sessions (7 and 8 Viet. c. 33, 8). By a recent Act, 32 and 33 Viet. c. 47, they are practically abolished, as the justices of each county are required to consider and deter mine whether it is necessary that the office of high con stable of each hundred, or other like district, should be continued. The petty or parish constable unites two offices the ancient one of head-borough or tithing man, and the modern one, instituted about the reign of Edward III., of assistant to the high constable. Considering what manner of men were for the most part appointed to these offices, Blackstone thought it was well that they should be kept in ignorance of the extent of their powers. Besides their general duties in the preservation of the peace they are charged with the execution of warrants and the service of summonses. No action can be brought against a constable for any act done in the execution of his office unless within six months from the time of its being committed. By 24 Geo. II. c. 44, the justice who signed the warrant must be made a co- defendant in any action against the constable, and on the production of such warrant at the trial the jury must find for the constable, notwithstanding any want of jurisdiction in the magistrate. Petty constables were formerly elected at the court leet or, in default thereof, by two justices. Bat by 5 and 6 Viet. c. 109, it is .ordered that the justices shall annually issue their precept to the overseers of each parish in their county, requiring them to return a list of persons in such parish qualified and liable to serve as constables, and that the justices on special petty sessions shall revise the list, and select therefrom such number of constables as they may deem necessary. Every able-bodied man resident within the parish, between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-five, rated to the relief of the poor or to the county rate, on any tenements of the net yearly value of 4 and upwards, is qualified and liable to serve as constable for that parish. But large classes of persons are specially exempted from the liability to serve, including peers an! members of Parliament, judges, justices, clergymen and ministers, lawyers, physicans, officers of the army and navy, public servants, &amp;lt;fcc. Licensed victuallers and beer-sellers, game-keepers, and convicts are disqualified. Every person so chosen must serve; but those who have served already shall not b3 liable to serve again until every other person liable shall have served. Boroughs under the Municipal Corporation Act do not come within this sta tute. In consequence of the establishment of a county con stabulary it is now enacted, by 35 and 36 Viet. c. 92, that no such constable shall be appointed unless for parishes in regard to which the magistrates for the county shall at their general or quarter sessions determine that it js necessary that such appointment shall be made.

Special Constables are appointed to act on occasional emergencies when the ordinary police lorce ia thought to be deficient. In the absence of volunteers the office is compulsory, on the appointment of two justices. The lord-lieutenant may also appoint special constables, and the statutory exemptions may be disregarded.

1em  CONSTABLE, (1774-1827), the well- known Edinburgh publisher, was born in the parish of Carnbee, Fifeshire, on the 24th February 1774. Having been educated at the parish school, he was, at his own request, apprenticed to a bookseller in Edinburgh, named Peter Hill. From the first he took a great interest in books; and he obtained permission from his master to attend book sales, and purchase rare works, of which he drew up carefully executed catalogues. When not yet twenty-one years of. age he had married and commenced business on his own account. He took special interest in Scottish literature; the rare works in that depart ment which he offered for sale soon brought him into notice, and from this and from his genial disposition and his unprecedented liberality towards authors, his business grew rapidly. In 1801 he became proprietor of the Farmers Magazine and the Scots Magazine, and on the 10th October 1802 he published the first number of the Edinburgh Revieiv. Constable was for many years on the most intimate and friendly relations with Sir Walter Scott. In January 1802 he had a share in the publication of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and afterwards published a large proportion of Scott s poems and novels. Besides these, he published the Annual Register, and the works of Dugald Stewart, Brown, Playfair, and Leslie. In 1812 he purchased the copyright of the Encyclopa-dia Britannica, to which he added the supplement to the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions (1815-1 824), extending to six volumes, and containing the celebrated dissertations by Stewart, Playfair, and Brande. Not the least important of his undertakings was Constable s Miscellany, projected in 1825, consisting of a series of original works, and standard works republished in a cheap form, the earliest and one of the most famous of the attempts to popularize wholesome literature. In 1826 pecuniary difficulties in which the firm of Constable and Co. became involved (its liabilities exceeding 250,000) obliged it to stop payment. From this time Constable s health gave way, and he died on 21st July 1827, having, by his generous dealings with authors, his literary enthusiasm, and his efforts to promote the diffusion of standard literature, gained for himself one of the most distinguished names among British publishers. See Archibald Constable and His Literary Correspondents, by his son, Thomas Constable (1873).  CONSTABLE,, one of the most considerable of the Elizabethan sonneteers, was born about 1556, in York shire, as it is supposed, and certainly of a Roman Catholic family. He was sent to St John s College, Cambridge, where in 1579 he took his decree of B.A. In the same 