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 à Becket, or the 7th of July. The 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 trespasses whatsoever, though they seldom, if ever, try any greater offence than small felonies 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 assize. And therefore murderers and other capital felons are usually remitted for a more solemn trial to the assizes. 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 misdemeanors 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 попish 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 facias, and be there either quashed or confirmed. The records or rolls of the sessions are committed to the custody of a special officer, denominated the cyflos 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. 30. In both corporations rations and countries 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.

**Quarter-Staff**, a long staff borne by foresters, park-keeper, &c., as a badge of their office, and occasionally used as a weapon.

**Quarters**, a name given at sea to the several stations where the officers and crew of a ship of war are posted in action. See War, Part II.

The number of men appointed to manage the artillery is always in proportion to the nature of the guns, and the number and condition of the ship's crew. They are, in general, as follow, when the ship is well manned, so as to fight both sides at once occasionally:

| Pounder | No. of men | Pounder | No. of men | |---------|------------|---------|------------| | To a 42 | - | To a 9 | - | | 32 | - | 6 | - | | 24 | - | 11 | - | | 18 | - | 9 | - | | 12 | - | 7 | - |

This number, to which is often added a boy to bring powder to every gun, may be occasionally reduced, and the guns nevertheless well managed. The number of men appointed to the small arms, on board his Majesty's ships and sloops of war, by order of the admiralty, are,

| Rate of the ship | No. of men to the small arms | |-----------------|-----------------------------| | 1st | 150 | | 2d | 120 | | 3d of 80 guns | 100 | | — of 70 guns | 80 | | 4th of 60 guns | 70 | | 4th of 50 guns | 60 | | 5th | 50 | | 6th | 40 | | Sloops of war | 30 |

The lieutenants are usually stationed to command the different batteries, and direct their efforts against the enemy. The master superintends the movements of the ship, and whatever relates to the sails. The boatswain, and a sufficient number of men, are stationed to repair the damaged rigging; and the gunner and carpenter, wherever necessary, according to their respective offices.

The marines are generally quartered on the poop and forecastle, or gang-way, under the direction of their officers; although, on some occasions, they assist at the great guns, particularly in distant cannonading.

**Quarters**, at a siege, the encampment upon one of the principal pallages round a place besieged, to prevent relief and convoys.

**Head Quarters of an Army**, the place where the commander in chief has his quarters. The quarters of generals of horse are, if possible, in villages behind the right and left wings, and the generals of foot are often in the same place; but the commander in chief should be near the centre of the army.

**Quarters of Refreshment**, the place or places where troops that have been much harassed are put to recover themselves during some part of the campaign.

**Intrenched Quarters**, a place fortified with a ditch and parapet to secure a body of troops.

**Winter Quarters**, sometimes means the space of time included between leaving the camp and taking the field; but more properly the places where the troops are quartered during the winter.

The first business, after the army is in winter-quarters, is to form the chain of troops to cover the quarters well; which is done either behind a river, under cover of a range of strong posts, or under the protection of fortified towns. Hussars are very useful on this service.

It should be observed, as an invariable maxim, in winter-quarters, that your regiments be disposed in brigades, to be always under the eye of a general officer; and, if possible, let the regiments be so distributed, as to be each under the command of its own chief.

**Quartile**, an aspect of the planets when they are at the distance of 90° from each other, and it is denoted by the character □.

**Quartering**, in Heraldry, is dividing a coat into four or more quarters, or quarterings, by parting, couping, &c., that is, by perpendicular and horizontal lines, &c.

**Quarto-decimans**, an ancient feet in the Christian church, who taught that Easter should always be celebrated according to the custom of the Jews, on the fourteenth day of the moon in the month of March, whosoever that day fell out. And hence they derived their name quarto-decimani, q. d. Fourteenthers. The Asiatics were mightily attached to this opinion, pretending that it was built on the authority of St John, who was their apostle; and Pope Victor could never bring them to obedience in this article, though he was upon the point of excommunicating them; but it is more probable he contented himself with menaces. See Easter.

**Quartz**, a mineral composed chiefly of siliceous earths. See Mineralogy Index.

**Quashing**, in Law, the overthrowing and annulling a thing.

**Quasi-contract**, in the civil law, an act without the strict form of a contract, but yet having the force thereof. In a contract there must be the mutual consent of both parties, but in a quasi-contract one party may be bound or obligated to the other, without having given his consent to the act whereby he is obliged. For example: I have done your business, in your absence, without your procuration, and it has succeeded to your advantage. I have then an action against you for the recovery of what I have disbursed, and you an action against me to make me give an account of my administration, which amounts to a quasi-contract.

**Quasi-Crime**, or Quasi-delict, in the civil law, the action of a person who does damage, or evil, involuntarily. The reparation of quasi-crimes consists in making good the damages, with interest.

**Quass**, a fermented liquor drunk in Russia. See Peasant.

**Quassia**, a genus of plants, belonging to the decidua class; and in the natural method ranking under the 14th order, Gruinales. See Botany Index.