d in consequence there is no need of administrative courts. Public
officials, from the ministers downwards, are amenable to the processes
of the ordinary tribunals precisely as are all other classes of
people. Simpler, therefore, at this point than the continental systems
of courts, the English system is none the less one of the most
elaborate and complicated in the world. There are features of it which
in origin are mediaeval, others which owe their existence to the
reforming enterprises of the earlier nineteenth century, and still
others which have a history covering hardly more than a generation.
Reduced to its simplest aspect, the system comprises, at the bottom,
three principal varieties of tribunals--the county courts for civil
cases and the courts of the justices of the peace and the borough
criminal courts for criminal cases--and, at the top, a Supreme Court
of Judicature in two branches, i.e., the High Court of Justice and
the Court of Appeal, in addition to the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council, the House of Lords, and a number of other occasional or
special central tribunals.[242]

[Footnote 242: It should be noted that the judicial
system herein to be described is that of England
alone. The systems existing in Scotland and Ireland
are at many points unlike it. In Scotland the
distinction between law and equity is virtually
unknown and the Common Law of England does not
prevail. In Ireland, on the other hand, the Common
Law is operative and judicial organization and
procedure are roughly similar to the English.]

*178. The County Courts.*--The county courts of the present day (p. 171)
were established under provision of the County Court Act of 1846, and
it is to be observed that they are in no manner connected with the
historic courts of the shire or county. They are known as county
courts, but in point of fact the area of their jurisdiction is a
district which not only is smaller than the county but bears no
relation to it. There are in England at present some five hundred of
these districts, the object of the arrangement being to bring the
agencies of justice close to the people and so to reduce the costs and
delays incident to litigation.[243] The volume of business to be
transacted in a district is insufficient to occupy a judg