county were to hold a court four times in the year. The powers of this
court, which came to be known as the Quarter Sessions, were from time
to time increased by act of parliament, until it quite supplanted the
old county court. In modern times the Quarter Sessions has become
an administrative body quite as much as a court. The justices, who
receive no salary, hold office for life, or during good behaviour.
They appoint the chief constable of the county, who appoints the
police. They also take part in the supervision of highways and
bridges, asylums and prisons. Since the reign of Henry VIII., the
English county has had an officer known as the lord-lieutenant, who
was once leader of the county militia, but whose functions to-day are
those of keeper of the records and principal justice of the peace.

[Footnote 5: Longman's _Life and Times of Edward III._, vol. i.
p. 301.]

[Sidenote: Beginnings of Massachusetts counties.]
During the past five hundred years the English county has gradually
sunk from a self-governing community into an administrative district;
and in recent times its boundaries have been so crossed and
crisscrossed with those of other administrative areas, such as those
of school-boards, sanitary boards, etc., that very little of the old
county is left in recognizable shape. Most of this change has been
effected since the Tudor period. The first English settlers in America
were familiar with the county as a district for the administration of
justice, and they brought with them coroners, sheriffs, and quarter
sessions. In 1635 the General Court of Massachusetts appointed four
towns--Boston, Cambridge, Salem, and Ipswich--as places where courts
should be held quarterly. In 1643 the colony, which then included
as much of New Hampshire as was settled, was divided into four