nal matters, he also arrests and imprisons, he
returns the jury, he has the custody of the delinquent, and he
executes the sentence of the court, though it extend to death itself.

AS the king's bailiff, it is his business to preserve the rights of
the king within his bailiwick; for so his county is frequently called
in the writs: a word introduced by the princes of the Norman line; in
imitation of the French, whose territory is divided into bailiwicks,
as that of England into counties[w]. He must seise to the king's use
all lands devolved to the crown by attainder or escheat; must levy all
fines and forfeitures; must seise and keep all waifs, wrecks, estrays,
and the like, unless they be granted to some subject; and must also
collect the king's rents within his bailiwick, if commanded by process
from the exchequer[x].

[Footnote w: Fortesc. _de L.L._ c. 24.]

[Footnote x: Dalt. c. 9.]

TO execute these various offices, the sheriff has under him many
inferior officers; an under-sheriff, bailiffs, and gaolers; who must
neither buy, sell, nor farm their offices, on forfeiture of 500_l._[y]

[Footnote y: Stat. 3 Geo. I. c. 15.]

THE under-sheriff usually performs all the duties of the office; a
very few only excepted, where the personal presence of the
high-sheriff is necessary. But no under-sheriff shall abide in his
office above one year[z]; and if he does, by statute 23 Hen. VI. c. 8.
he forfeits 200_l._ a very large penalty in those early days. And no
under-sheriff or sheriff's officer shall practice as an attorney,
during the time he continues in such office[a]: for this would be a
great inlet to partiality and oppression. But these salutary
regulations are shamefully evaded, by practising in the names of other
attorneys, and putting in sham deputies by way of nominal
under-sheriffs: by reason of which, says Dalton[b], the under-sheriffs
and bailiffs do grow so cunning in their several places, that they are
able to deceive, and it may be well feared that many of them do
deceive, both the king, the high-sheriff, and the county.

[Footnote z: Stat. 42 Edw. III. c. 9.]

[Footnote a: Stat. 1 Hen. V. c. 4.]

[Footnote b: of sheriffs, c. 115.]

BAILIFFS, or sheriff's officers, are either bailiffs of hundreds, or
special bailiffs. Bailiffs of hundreds are officers appointed over
those respective districts by the sheriffs, to collect fines therein;
to summon juries; to attend the judges and justices at the assises