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The largest administrative unit is that of the county, but the areas of counties may be adapted to meet various public or political requirements. They may be altered (or the purposes of the registrar general, and for police purposes part of the area of one county may be brought into the area of another for parliamentary purposes some counties have been united, as Clackmannan and Kinross, Elgin and Nairn, Orkney and Shetland, and Peebles and Selkirk, and other divided, as Aberdeen, Ayr, Lanark, Perth and Renfrew, while others retain in certain respects their old subdivision, Lanarkshire for assessment purposes being still partitioned into the upper, middle and lower wards. Originally the counties were synonymous either with sheriffdoms or stewarrries. Stewartries ceased with the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions in 1748, though Kirkcudbrightshire still bears the designation. The counties are thirty-three in number, Ross and Cromarty constituting one, while Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee are each a county of a city. The highest county dignitary is the lord-lieutenant, the office dating from 1782. Nominated by the crown, he holds office aut vitam aut culpam, represents the crown in military matters, recommends for commissions of the peace, holds the position of high sheriff, and is a member of the standing joint committee. The office, however, is little more than honorary. In olden times there were three classes of burgh. those created by charter directly from the crown were styled royal burghs: they number seventy in all, of which no fewer than seventeen belong to Fifeshire. Those holding their charters from a feudal superior and not from the crown were called burghs of regality, their magistrates and council being usually appointed by the overlord or his representative. Being small and ' unimportant, these burghs were not affected by the act of 1833, but in 1892 were required to adopt the constitution of police burghs. Towns that received their charters from bishops were burghs of barony, their magistrates and council being appointed by the superior. When the bishop's jurisdiction was abolished, the burghs as a rule assumed the position of royal burghs. Police burghs are wholly modern, dating from the middle of the 19th century. They were called into existence by the rapid growth of certain districts caused by the development of the coal and iron fields. The principle on which they are established may be briefly stated thus: towns with a minimum population of 800 can, on a poll demanded by the ratepayers showing a majority in favour of it, acquire the status of a police burgh subject to representations from neighbouring burghs, a proviso devised to check the growth of "parasitic" burghs in the immediate vicinity of a great centre of population and industry, enjoying all the public improvements incited by their powerful neighbour and yet contributing nothing towards the cost and upkeep of them. It should be noted that according to Scottish usage, "police" includes drainage the suppression of nuisances, paving, lighting, and cleansing, in addition to the provision of a constabulary force, and that in point of fact, paradoxical as it appears, the bulk of the police burghs do not manage their police. Royal burghs derive part of their income from ancient corporate property known as "the Common Good" and consisting mostly of land and houses. It is devoted to objects for which the rates are not applicable. Glasgow for example, might found a chair in the University from the Common Good but not from the rates, and Edinburgh maintains from the same source the city observatory and defrays part of the cost of the time-gun. Only Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Greenock, Aberdeen and Paisley have private and local acts, conferring powers exceeding the general law, to deal with, e.g. overcrowding, the obnoxious display of advertisements, the compulsory acquisition of land for gas, water or electric-power enterprises, all the other burghs being governed by Public General Acts. This is in marked contrast with the practice in England, where almost every large borough has its own private act. The corporation of the burghs consists of the provost (or lord provost, in the cases of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee), bailies and councillors, with certain permanent officials, of whom the town clerk is the most important. The course of reform may now be concisely summarised. In 1833 Scottish burghs were for the first time entitled to be Governed by directly-elected bodies, and at various times since that date fuller powers of legal self-government were granted in different directions. In 1845 parochial boards were created for relief of the poor, their powers being afterwards extended to deal with the statutes concerning burial-grounds, the registration of births. deaths and marriages, vaccination, public health, public libraries and other manners.
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