Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/372

 356 contables are inferior officers in every town and parih, ubordinate to the high contable of the hundred, firt intituted about the reign of Edward III. Thee petty contables have two offices united in them; the one antient, the other modern. Their antient office is that of headborough, tithing-man, or borholder; of whom we formerly poke, and who are as antient as the time of king Alfred: their more modern office is that of contable merely; which was appointed (as was oberved) o lately as the reign of Edward III, in order to ait the high contable. And in general the antient headboroughs, tithing-men, and borholders, were made ue of to erve as petty contables; though not o generally, but that in many places they till continue ditinct officers from the contable. They are all choen by the jury at the court leet; or, if no court leet be held, are appointed by two jutices of the peace.

general duty of all contables, both high and petty, as well as of the other officers, is to keep the king's peace in their everal ditricts; and to that purpoe they are armed with very large powers, of arreting, and imprioning, of breaking open houes, and the like: of the extent of which powers, conidering what manner of men are for the mot part put upon thee offices, it is perhaps very well that they are generally kept in ignorance. One of their principal duties, ariing from the tatute of Wincheter, which appoints them, is to keep watch and ward in their repective juridictions. Ward, guard, or cutodia, is chiefly intended of the day time, in order to apprehend rioters, and robbers on the highways; the manner of doing which is left to the dicretion of the jutices of the peace and the contable, the hundred being however anwerable for all robberies committed therein, by day light, for having kept negligent guard. Watch is properly applicable to the night only, (being called among our Teutonic ancetors wacht or wacta ) and it begins at the time Rh