The freeholders of the
county court are the real judges in this court, and the sheriff
is the ministerial ofhcer. * * In modern times, as proceedings
are removable from hence into the king's superior courts, by writ
of pone or recordari, in the same manner as from hundred courts
and courts-baron, and as the same writ of false judgment may be
had in nature of a writ of error, this has occasioned the same
disuse of bringing actions therein." 3 Blackstone, 36, 37.
"Upon the whole, we cannot but admire the wise economy and
admirable provision of our ancestors in settling the distribution
of justice in a method so well calculated for cheapness,
expedition, and ease. By the constitution which they established,
all trivial debts, and injuries of small consequence, were to be
recovered or redressed in every man's own county, hundred, or
perhaps parish." 3 Blackstone, 59.
[22] It would be wholly erroneous, I think, to infer from this
statement of Stuart, that either the "priests, princes, earls, or
eorldormen" exercised any authority over the jury in the trial of
causes, in the way of dictating the law to them.
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