Miscellancous Statutory Rates to 1640 31
towns power and authority to call before them the
constables, or else “two of the most honest inhabi-
tants,” of every town or parish within the area charge-
able, and with their assent “to tax and set every
inhabitant in any such city, town, or parish within
the limits of their commissions and authorities to
such reasonable aid and sum of money as they shall
think by their discretions convenient and sufficient
for the repairing, rectifying, and amendment of such
bridges.” -After this taxation has been settled, the
justices are to “cause the names and sums of every
particular person so by them taxed to be written in a
roll indented.” The act is extremely minute on many
points of detail which seem unimportant to us, but it
does not tell us who the “inhabitants” were, nor on
what principle the justices were to proceed in appor-
tioning the tax among them. Coke, in his Institutes,
says that the word “inhabitant” does not include
servants and such-like persons who have nothing upon
which distraint could be levied, and that it does in-
clude a non-resident who has lands or tenements in
his own possession and manurance within the area of
liability. Such a non-resident, he adds, “is an in-
habitant both where his person dwelleth and where
he hath lands or tenements in his own possession
within the statute.” His opinion as to the ratability
of non-resident occupiers is founded on Jeffrey’s case,
not on anything in the act itself, nor on any legal
decision under it. He also remarks that the taxation
cannot be set on the hundreds, parishes, and towns in
lump sums, but must be assessed on individual in-
habitants. This is doubtless the true meaning of the
1 Institutes, ii. p. 702.