The "Court" consisted of no less than six dozen judges, or,
as the Act styled them, "Commissioners," from whose decisions there was
no appeal whatever. These Commissioners were at first chosen from the
ratepayers in a haphazard style, no mental or property qualification
whatever being required, though afterwards it was made incumbent that
they should be possessed of an income from real estate to value of L50
per year, or be worth L1,000 personalty. From the writings of William
Hutton, himself one of the Commissioners, and other sources, we gather
that justice, or what was supposed to be equivalent thereto, was
administered in a rough-and-ready fashion of the rudest kind, the cases
being frequently disposed of at the rate of thirty to forty per hour,
and when we consider that imprisonment resulted at an average of one
case in ten the troubles attendant upon impecuniosity in those days may
be better imagined then described. The Court House, which is now
occupied by sundry tradesmen, lay a little back from High-street, nearly
opposite New-street, and in itself was no mean structure, having been
(it is said), erected about the year 1650, as the town house of John
Jennens, or Jennings, one of the wealthy family, the claims to whose
estates have been unending, as well as unprofitable, barring, of course,
to the long-robed and bewigged fraternity.
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