ation of all matters appertaining to its criminal jurisdiction, must be held, at such times and places in their respective cities as the common council thereof may by ordinance prescribe, and must be continued as long as the public interests require. The court is always open for the transaction of any other business. TITLE VI. OF THE POLICE COURTS. SECTION 55. Courts of special sessions abolished, and police courts substituted. 56, 57. Their jurisdiction. 58. When, and by whom held, in the city and county of New-York. 59. In the other counties. The police courts are substituted in place of the present courts of special sessions, with the jurisdiction formerly possessed by those courts. The name of "police courts" is given to them, by reason of the fact already referred to, that the contra-distinction between courts of general and special sessions, as known before the constitution, is removed by the designation of the former in that instrument as courts of sessions." The term " police courts" also conveys more clearly the character of their jurisdiction. The organization of these courts remains unchanged, from that now belonging to the courts of special sessions, except in the city of New-York. In that city, they have heretofore been held on every Tuesday and Friday throughout the year, by the recorder and two aldermen. From the great accumulation of crime, especially of the smaller crimes, in that city, the prisons have become over-crowded, and the business of the court of general sessions has been greatly impeded by the vast number of cases to be disposed of by the special sessions. The latter court being required to be held during the term of the general sessions, as well as in vacation, it not unfrequently happens, that the business of the general sessions is interrupted during a great portion of the day, by the necessity imposed upon the same officers, in their character of a court of special sessions, to dispose of petty offences, solely cognizable in that court. To obviate the inconvenience of this interruption, a degree of haste is required, which is incompatible with a [CRIM. CODE.] 3 becoming administration of justice, even in the case of the lowest crime or the most abject criminal. For the purpose of removing these evils-of confining the judges of the courts of sessions to their more appropriate duties of enabling a more thorough investigation of the lower class of crimes—and of relieving the prisons from the great and unnecessary accumulation of prisoners-the Commissioners propose, that in the city of New-York, police courts be held at the several police offices, on Tuesday and Friday, of each week, by two of the police justices of that city, and by no other officer. (Sec. 58.) There will thus be held, three police courts on each of those days, at which the class of cases referred to can be conveniently as well as carefully disposed of. § 55. The courts of special sessions now existing, or which may be organized in pursuance of any statutory provision now in force, are abolished; and courts to be known as the police courts, as organized by this code, are substituted in their stead. § 56. The police courts have jurisdiction in the cases prescribed in the next section, of the following public offences committed in their respective counties: 1. Petit larceny, not charged as a second offence: 2. Assault and battery, not charged to have been committed riotously, or upon a public officer in the execution of his duties: 3. Poisoning, killing, maiming, wounding or cruelly beating an animal: 4. Racing animals, within one mile of the place where a court is held: 5. Committing a wilful trespass, or severing any produce or article from the freehold, not amounting to grand larceny: 6. Selling poisonous substances, not labelled as re quired by statute: 7. Maliciously removing, altering, defacing or cutting down monuments or marked trees: 8. Maliciously breaking, destroying or removing mile-stones, mile-boards or guide-boards, or altering an inscription thereon. The same in substance, as 2 R. S., 3d ed. 798, 799, sec. 1. § 57. The jurisdiction conferred upon the police courts, by the last section, can, however, be exercised only in the following cases: 1. When the party charged, upon his being brought before a magistrate, requests to be tried by a police court: or, 2. When, not having made such request, and after having been required by the magistrate to give bail for his appearance at the next court of sessions in the county, he omits to do so for twenty-four hours. Taken substantially from 2 R. S., 3d ed. 799, sec. 2,3. 58. In the city and county of New-York, these courts must be held at each of the police offices now of hereafter designated by the common council, on Tues day and Friday of each week, by two of the police justices of that city, and by no other officer. § 59. In the other counties, the police court must be he'd by the magistrate issuing the warrant of arrest, or before whom the defendant is brought to answer the charge. Substantially the same as 2 R. S., 3d ed. 801, sec. 23. ᏢᎪᎡᎢ II. OF THE PREVENTION OF PUBLIC OFFENCES. TITLE I. Of lawful resistance. II. Of the intervention of officers of justice. This part embraces a variety of practical rules, which have not heretofore been made the subject of statutory enactment. With the exception of provisions in former statutes, for holding parties to keep the peace, and for the suppression of riots by the power of the county, or of the executive authority of the state, the duties of both officers and citizens, in the prevention of offences, have been left entirely to the regulation of the common law. The consequence has been, that those, who, in a sudden emergency, are required to aid in the preservation of public order, have been left wholly uninformed as to their duty, unless as they may, (which has not often been the case,) have obtained it from the almost inaccessible sources to which they must resort. The hardship of the necessity, which is thus cast upon the citizen, of either neglecting the performance of a duty which he owes to society, or of doing so at the peril of a transgression of the law, of which he is wholly uninformed, is well expressed by Mr. Livingston, in his report of a Criminal Code for Louisiana, p. 201. "The first dictates of common sense," says he," inform an individual that he has a right to defend himself. The laws of society impose the obligation. upon him of defending others, and of enforcing the execution of the laws. Magistrates and executive officers are required by official duty, to prevent or arrest violence and depredation; and the military force is told that it must assist the civil power, when legally called on. All this, the general language of the law gives the citizen to understand. But in our state it has never deigned to make such a record of its will as may enable any one, desirous of obeying, to discover boundaries between legal acts and transgression, in the performance of this duty. A correct moral sense, a determination to injure no one, may, with respect to a man's own actions, render a knowledge of positive law less necessary; but no prudence can foresee or prevent the necessity of self-defence ; and every man may be called on in some capacity to protect others, or to defend the peace of the state; and yet, with every inclination to perform the duties of a good citizen on these occasions, he is continually arrested by the unavoidable doubts which must arise as to the propriety of personal exertion in the particular case, or the extent to which he may carry it." Fully concurring in these views, the Commissioners have felt called upon to propose, at least a land mark, by which the right and the duty referred to, are distinctly defined. In doing so, they have deemed it proper to declare the cases in which, according to the common law, lawful resistance to the commission of a public offence may be made, either by the party about to be injured, or by other parties, or by the inintervention of public officers; and have accordingly introduced into the code, a variety of provisions of a practical nature, embracing these important subjects. These provisions include, in additiou to the matters above enumerated, security to keep the peace, police in cities and villages, and their attendance at exposed places,—and the suppression of riots. TITLE I. OF LAWFUL RESISTANCE. CHAPTER I. General provisions. II. Resistance by the party about to be injured. CHAPTER I. GENERAL PROVISIONS, RESPECTING LAWFUL RESISTANCE. SECTION 60. Lawful resistance, by whom made. §60. Lawful resistance to the commission of a public offence may be made, |