QUARTER-Session, a general court held quarterly by the justices of peace of each county. This court is appointed by ſtat. 2 Hen. V. c. 4. to be in the firſt week after Michaelmas-day; the firſt week after the Epiphany; the firſt week after the cloſe of Eaſter; and in the week after the tranſlation of Saint Thomas a Becket, or the 7th of July. This court is held before two or more justices of the peace, one of whom muſt be of the quorum. The jurisdiction of this court by 34 Ed. III. c. 1. extends to the trying and determining of all felonies and trepaſſes whatſoever, though they ſeldom, if ever, try any greater offence than ſmall fe-
lonies within the benefit of clergy, their commiſſion providing, that if any caſe of difficulty ariſes, they ſhall not proceed to judgment, but in the preſence of one of the justices of the courts of king's bench or common pleas, or one of the judges of aſſiſe. And therefore murderers and other capital felons are uſually remitted for a more ſolemn trial to the aſſiſes. They cannot alſo try any new-created offence, without expreſs power given them by the ſtatute which creates it. But there are many offences, and particular matters, which by particular ſtatutes belong properly to this jurisdiction, and ought to be prosecuted in this court; as, the ſmaller miſdeameans againſt the public or commonwealth, not amounting to felony, and eſpecially offences relating to the game, highways, alehouſes, baſtard children, the ſettlement and proviſion for the poor, vagrants, ſervants wages, apprentices, and poſſiſh recusants. Some of theſe are proceeded upon by indictment, and others in a ſummary way by motion and order thereupon; which order may, for the moſt part, unleſs guarded againſt by particular ſtatutes, be removed into the court of king's bench, by writ of certiorari faciari, and be there either quaiſhed or confirmed. The records or rolls of the ſeſſions are committed to the cuſtody of a ſpecial officer, denominated the cuſtos rotulorum. In moſt corporation towns there are quarter-ſeſſions kept before justices of their own, within their reſpective limits, which have exactly the ſame authority as the general quarter-ſeſſions of the county, except in very few inſtances: one of the moſt conſiderable of which is the matter of appeals from orders of removal of the poor, which, though they be from the orders of corporation justices, muſt be to the ſeſſions of the county, by 8 and 9 Will. III. c. 35. In both corporations and counties at large, there is ſometimes kept a ſpecial or petty ſeſſion, by a few justices, for diſpatching ſmaller buſineſs in the neighbourhood between the times of the general ſeſſions, as for licenſing alehouſes, paſſing the accounts of pariſh-officers, and the like.