Pricking the Sheriffs. ary income could in these days support such a household. In the time of Elizabeth, doubtless, servants were much cheaper, yet we are assured that the necessity of main taining such a number of retainers was found irksome, and economy was practiced in many and doubtless illegitimate ways. " No wise man will conclude them to be the less loyal subjects for beingthe more provident fathers," says Fuller of the cheese-paring function aries; and no wise man, it maybe added, will quarrel with that cautious judgment. Who can wonder, after what has been said, that few gentlemen of the county, of fair income, are delighted at the prospect of serving their country in the capacity of high sheriff. Year after year arc excuses prof fered, and nearly always nominees beg off on account of want of means. That is the best pretext of all, but there are others which have prevailed. Unless there are no other fit men (an unlikely accident), no one hav
429
ing served his yearly term can be called again to fill the office within three years. It used not, again, to be the custom to call upon the same family twice in the same generation. Practising barristers cannot be forced into sheriffdom; and there is known and recorded one instance at least of a counsel, long retired from active practice, who nevertheless kept his name on the books of his circuit till he was sixty years of age, that he might escape the invidious distinction. After sixty, it is believed, one is safe. If a sheriff, after appointment, re fuses to serve, he may be proceeded against by indictment — to the terrible consequences of which one at least has dared to be care less; for in 1874, the sheriff elect of Bed fordshire refused to serve his term, and returned the warrant unopened to the Privycouncil office. Nor does it seem that his conduct was visited with anything but a genial toleration. — Chamber's Journal.
