Page:The statutes of Wales (1908).djvu/73

Rh agreement between prosecutors and felons was to be made without the consent of the Justices of Great Sessions. No sale of stolen property in any fair or market was to prevent the true owner from seizing or recovering the same. The custom of tracking stolen property was recognized as legal, and the sale of any manner of beasts out of market was forbidden except upon credible testimony. By the 68th section two coroners were to be elected in and for every shire, as was done in England. The appointment was made by the freeholders of the shire, but since 1888 it has passed into the hands of the County Councils.

Errors of judgment before the Great Sessions in real actions or mixed actions (i.e., actions partaking of the nature of both real and personal actions) were to be redressed by writ of error in the English Chancery; errors in personal actions were to be redressed before the President and Council of, and urgent or weighty causes were to be directed into by special command of the Lord Chancellor or the King's Council in England. There are many matters of minor importance dealt with in this Act, such as scales of fees and charges, tallages (taxes), aulnages (customs duties on cloths), regulations as to sealing of cloths and forbidding cloths made at home from being put to sale, subsidies and charges for knights of the shire, and retention of franchises and customs.

The town of Haverfordwest was made a county, with the right of returning one burgess to Parliament, and was placed under the jurisdiction of the King's High Justice of Pembrokeshire.

By this statute the system of land tenure and partition on death was finally abolished, and the 91st, 92nd, 93rd, 101st, and 128th sections are worthy of attention. The leading principle contained in these sections was that all lands in were to be held subject to English tenure and not to be partible among heirs male after the custom of gavelkind, but should descend to the heirs according to the