BOOK II DESCRIPTIVE THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN THE ENGLISH SYSTEM OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT PART II THE STRUCTURE AND WORKING OF COUNTY COUNCILS COUNTY COUNCILS are administrative bodies on which are devolved by statute-first, a number of duties which they must perform; and, secondly, a number of powers which they may adopt. These duties and powers of government are strictly defined by law, and their exercise is restricted in each case to a particular and limited area, which does not coincide with the geographical county, and does not include either county boroughs or the old counties of cities and towns (which are also county boroughs), since both these classes of boroughs are areas for county as well as for municipal purposes. By the 1 Literature.-On the older form of County Government see Gneist, SelfGovernment, chaps. viii.-xviii., xxvi.-lxxxviii. ; on the modern form, Vauthier, pp. 1-162. Chalmers, p. 89, and Acland on County Boards in the Cobden Club Essays (1882) may be consulted for County Government in the early eighties, as also may the critical and descriptive account given by Pell, Montague, and Rathbone in their "Local Administration." For the law of the subject, see Macmorran and Dill's exhaustive commentary on The Local Government Act of 1888 (3rd edition, 1898), with all the statutes, orders, and case law relating to County Councils. Blake Odgers' Local Government provides a short summary (pp. 190-212); cf. also Wright and Hobhouse, pp. 27-34. For the functions of County Justices in Petty Sessions, cf. C. M. Atkinson's Magistrates' Annual Practice; and for their functions at Quarter Sessions, cf. Archbold's Quarter Sessions, and Appeals from Justices of the Peace, Scholefield and Hill (London, 1902). The County Council Times and similar periodicals, as well as the reports of County Council meetings in local newspapers, have been freely used. The bye-laws, standing orders, and annual reports of many County Councils have likewise been consulted. |