y, whose functions last seven years. *q He further designates
three individuals from amongst the whole body of justices who form in
each county what is called the Court of Sessions. The justices take a
personal share in public business; they are sometimes entrusted with
administrative functions in conjunction with elected officers, *r they
sometimes constitute a tribunal, before which the magistrates summarily
prosecute a refractory citizen, or the citizens inform against the
abuses of the magistrate. But it is in the Court of Sessions that they
exercise their most important functions. This court meets twice a year
in the county town; in Massachusetts it is empowered to enforce the
obedience of the greater number *s of public officers. *t It must be
observed, that in the State of Massachusetts the Court of Sessions is
at the same time an administrative body, properly so called, and a
political tribunal. It has been asserted that the county is a purely
administrative division. The Court of Sessions presides over that small
number of affairs which, as they concern several townships, or all the
townships of the county in common, cannot be entrusted to any one of
them in particular. *u In all that concerns county business the duties
of the Court of Sessions are purely administrative; and if in its
investigations it occasionally borrows the forms of judicial procedure,
it is only with a view to its own information, *v or as a guarantee to
the community over which it presides. But when the administration of the
township is brought before it, it always acts as a judicial body, and in
some few cases as an official assembly.

[Footnote p: We shall hereafter learn what a Governor is: I shall
content myself with remarking in this place that he represents the
executive power of the whole State.]

[Footnote q: See the Constitution of Massachusetts, chap. II. sect. 1.
Section 9; chap. III. Section 3.]

[Footnote r: Thus, for example, a stranger arrives in a township from
a country where a contagious disease prevails, and he falls ill. Two
justices of the peace can, with the assent of the selectmen, order the
sheriff of the county to remove and take care of him.--Act of June 22,
1797, vol. i. p. 540.

In general the justices interfere in all the important acts of the
administration, and give them a semi-judicial character.] [Footnote s: I
say the greater number, because certain administrative misdemeanors are
brought before ordina