COUNTY RATE, a local tax collected in England for purposes of local administration. It is of unknown origin, and came into force by custom and prescriptive usage. Originally consisting of several rates applicable to the different purposes, these were consolidated by statute in 1739. In a report on The Local Taxes of the United Kingdom, prepared by the Poor-Law Commissioners of England in 1846, there are enumerated seventeen different purposes to which the county rate is applicable. They may be grouped under the administration of justice, internal transit, and protective police; and practically they include the support of prisons, the removal of prisoners, the prosecution of vagrants and other classes of offenders, allowances to constables, the custody of the insane, the holding of coroners' inquests, the support of bridges, with many miscellaneous expenses connected with such musters as the militia, the census, the salaries of public officers, and the like. In
1844 (7th and 8th Vict., cap. 33) the old machinery for collecting the rate was abolished, and that which had been established ten years earlier under the English Poor-Law Act was substituted for it. The property liable to be assessed for county rate is the same as that which is liable for the relief of the poor. In Scotland, the tax most nearly resembling the county rate is called the rogue money. County edifices are generally supported under local acts, and there is a separate tax under distinct administration for the support of prisons. In Ireland, the county rate of England is more exactly represented by the grand jury cess.