Bailiff

“ Bailiff. What, even here! Miserable birds, how dare you!
[Gander and Drake hiss and squawk.
Countess. You forget yourself, Bailiff. This is not your house. I beg that you will apologise at once for your rudeness to us all. Down on your knees at once and pray for forgiveness.
Bailiff. I am willing to apologise to you, madam, but not to the Gander, and I will not go on my knees, even to your ladyship.
Countess. Do you hear that, Gander? There stands an old man——
Bailiff. Old man, madam?
Countess. Yes, old, compared to the Gander—who will [Pg 26] not say his prayers. ”

“ The bailiff provides spoons for the stewards, the tenant of the warren, and himself. The steward first pays respect to the furmety, by taking a large spoonful, the bailiff has the next honour, the tenant of the warren next, then the shepherd of Hutton Conyers, and afterwards the other shepherds by regular turns; then each person is served with a glass of ale, (paid for by the sixteen pence brought by the Hewick shepherd,) and the health of the lord of the manor is drank ”

“ In the United States the word bailiff has no special significance. It is sometimes applied to the officer who takes charge of juries and waits upon the court. The officer who corresponds to the English sheriff’s bailiff is termed a deputy or under-sheriff.
Bailie.—In Scotland the word bailiff has taken the form of “bailie,” signifying a superior officer or magistrate of a municipal corporation. Bailies, by virtue of their office, are invested with certain judicial and administrative powers within the burgh for which they are appointed. ”

“ One of my servants, my bailiff, I believe, wrote to me at Clifton, to inform me of the state of the politics of the parish, which was, that the men were willing enough, but they did not like their officers, and that they wished me as an officer. My bailiff added, that if I would come to the meeting, on the following Sunday, which was the last intended to be held, and give in my name as their captain, the number, which was to be sixty, would be volunteered in an hour. ”

“ Mag. (1790, vol. lx. p. 1191) , is a singular custom. On the election of a bailiff the inhabitants assemble in the principal streets and throw cabbage-stalks at each other. The town-house bell gives signal for the affray. This is called “lawless hour.” This done (for it lasts an hour) , the bailiff elect and corporation, in their robes, preceded by drums and fifes (for they have no waits) , visit the old and new bailiff, constables, &c., attended by a mob. In the meantime the most respectable families in the neighbourhood are invited to meet and fling apples at them on their entrance. ”

“ If you can’t show any common sense for yourself, other folks must show some for you—that’s all. The brokers in the house! I never heard of such work!”
And indeed, to a respected and successful tradesman, the entrance of the bailiffs into a house did really seem to be the very depth of disaster and shame for the people of that house. Edwin could not remember that he had ever before seen a bailiff. To him a bailiff was like a bug—something heard of, something known to exist, but something not likely to enter the field of vision of an honest and circumspect man. ”

“ These drank the bailiff's best port and champagne, and had nothing better than a frown or haughty look for us, when we passed them at the landing. Whence the piper was paid I knew not, and the bailiff cared not. But the bulk of the poor gentlemen were a merry crew withal, and had their wit and their wine at table, and knew each other's histories (and soon enough ours) by heart. They betted away the week at billiards or whist or picquet or loo, and sometimes measured swords for diversion, tho' this pastime the bailiff was greatly set against; as calculated to deprive him of a lodger. ”

“ The doctor immediately acknowledged his name. Indeed, the bailiff had seen it to a bail-bond before. “Why then, sir,” said the bailiff, “there is a man above in a dying condition that desires the favour of speaking to you; I believe he wants you to pray by him.”
The bailiff himself was not more ready to execute his office on all occasions for his fee than the doctor was to execute his for nothing. Without making any further enquiry therefore into the condition of the man, he immediately went up-stairs. ”

“ Else the Young Lovell, coming again, might have it all of them a second time, and that, being poor men, they could not well abide.
Then the bailiff went back to the Castle—he was not the old bailiff of the Lord Lovell who had been cast out of his dwelling in the King's Tower and had gone to live at Beal—but it was a new bailiff that Sir Walter Vesey had brought from Haltwhistle, where he had been a surveyor's clerk. ”

“ The bailiff of Godstow (1432) went about saying that there was no good woman in the nunnery [413] ; the bailiff of Legbourne (1440) persuaded the prioress to sell him a corrody in the house and yet he “is not reckoned profitable to the house in that office, for several of his kinsfolk are serving folk in the house, who look out for [Pg 149] themselves more than for the house” [414] ; the bailiff of Redlingfield (1427) was the prioress’s lover [415] .
Romsey Abbey seems at various times to have been peculiarly unfortunate in its administrative officials. ”

“ When he had walked for some time, he came to a small farm, and asked the bailiff if he did not require a head-servant. “Yes,” said the bailiff, “I can make use of one; you look a strong fellow who can do something, how much a year do you want as wages?” He again replied that he wanted no wages at all, but that every year he would give him three blows, which he must bear. Then the bailiff was satisfied, for he, too, was a covetous fellow. Next morning all the servants were to go into the wood, and the others were already up, but the head-servant was still in bed. ”

“ This must be understood of a hundred in fee with retorna brevium in the hands of a private person, of which there are several instances; every other bailiff of hundred being a mere servant to the sheriff. And note, that, where a man is bailiff of fee in a county (i. e. a bailiff itinerant, who hath the execution only of writs within the county or hundred in fee) the sheriff shall not write to him as to bailiff of franchise, and for his act non omittas shall not issue, nor shall he make mention of him in his return. ”

“ My lady got me put under the bailiff, and I did my best, and gave satisfaction, and got promotion accordingly. Some years later, on the Monday as it might be, my lady says, “Sir John, your bailiff is a stupid old man. Pension him liberally, and let Gabriel Betteredge have his place.” On the Tuesday as it might be, Sir John says, “My lady, the bailiff is pensioned liberally; and Gabriel Betteredge has got his place.” You hear more than enough of married people living together miserably. ”

“ CHAPTER XXI. On the subsequent morning Alf was standing in the king's anti-chamber awaiting his commands for the day. There came the high bailiff Krechting, a raging fanatic, a true second Johannes, with some soldiers who were dragging along two of the royal pages, bound. Alf perceived by their faces, which hunger and affliction had paled and emaciated, that they were the two whom he had rescued from the hands of Matthias, and compassionately asked the bailiff what crime the poor children had committed. ”

“ Four several bailiffs took part in the execution of a man hanged on the gallows of the prior of Spalding. The bailiff of Spalding brought the man to the gallows, the bailiff of Weston brought the ladder to the gallows, the bailiff of Pyncebecke found the rope, the rest was done by the bailiff of Multon. [21]
But hanging was one only out of numerous methods of carrying out a capital sentence: ingenuity seems to have exhausted itself in devising ways of putting a man to death. ”

“ But I am afraid that he won't come if he hears that Rasmus Berg is here,—there is no need of our letting him know that. We will write the bailiff, too; he is glad enough to come, for he likes our ale.
NILLE. It is very dangerous, husband, to treat the bailiff; a man like that mustn't find out how our affairs stand.
JEPPE. He is welcome to know. Every man here in the village is aware that we are well-to-do folks. As long as we pay our taxes and land rent, the bailiff can't touch a hair of our head.
NILLE. Oh, dear husband, I wonder if it is too late to let our Jacob get an education. ”

“ When they came to Gülzow, Friedrich said:--"Why, Bailiff, who is that coming hunting along over your field? What is he riding like that for? He cannot ride faster than the rain."
"Heavens!" said the Bailiff; "why that is Inspector Bräsig's brown mare, and the man on it is the Stemhagen Burmeister." ”

“ It took a great deal of time, and they did not move from the spot, and got all out of sorts. Then the bailiff said, for he had also been invited to the wedding at the castle, that a maiden lived out in the forest, and “if they could only get the loan of her poker, it would be sure to hold.” So they sent to the little house in the forest, and asked most politely whether the maiden would not loan them the poker of which the bailiff had spoken. And they got it, too, and then they had an axle that would not break.
But when they wanted to drive on, the bottom of the coach broke. ”

“ You go straight on, across an open space, up half a dozen steps, under a lofty arch, which has some architectural pretensions, to a room on the left. The room is a sort of office. In it are two warders, a policeman and a man from whose wrists the policeman is removing a pair of handcuffs. The bailiff delivers his warrant to one of the warders. Certain entries are made in a book. The bailiff obtains a receipt for you--and goes. It is only when he has gone that you realise you are a prisoner. One of the warders favours you with his attention.
"What's in that bag?" ”

“ The sheriff presided as judge in the folkmote or leet of the county, the bailiff in that of the hundred or manor. The former sat as principal executive officer of the County Court; the bailiff, of the Court Baron; the freeholders or suitors being the judges in each to this day: and though both seem to have been {xiv} anciently considered as the Kings courts, yet offences were in one alledged to be contra pacem ballivi, and in the other contra pacem vicecomitis [10] . ”

“ If prisoner taken by a bailiff of a franchise escapes from the bailiff, the sheriff shall not have action upon the case against him, because he is not chargeable ouster, but the bailiff is only chargeable. ”

“ A capias ad respondendum was directed to the sheriff of Middlesex, who made a mandate to the high bailiff of Westminster, and defendant was charged in custody therewith, and afterwards escaped from the keeper of the Gatehouse, which is the prison for the liberty of Westminster, to which prison the high bailiff is obliged to carry his prisoners within 24 hours after arrest. The high bailiff being called upon for a return of the mandate, returned cepi corpus, and that Waldron remained in the custody of the keeper of the Gatehouse. ”

“ The bailiff’s books, wherein he entered his proper market charges, lay unopened on the small table at the top of the steps, and his two clerks moved among the Back o’ th’ Mooiners at the pieceboards. The square stone pillars were placarded with lists, broadsheets, handbills and public notices, and against the pillar immediately behind the bailiff’s table Matthew Moon, the merchant, leaned.
His fists were doubled deep in his breeches pockets, and his brow was closely contracted. He was forty, heavily built, with a square and solid head. ”

“ And, though the sheriff is not called bailiff, yet it was probable that was one of his names also, because the county is often called balliva; as in the return of a writ, where the person is not arrested, the sheriff saith, infra-nominatus, A. B. non est inventus in balliva mea, &c;.; (the within named A. B. is not found in my bailiwick, &c;.) And in the statute of Magna Carta, ch. 28, and 14 Ed. 8, ch. 9, the word bailiff seems to comprise as well sheriffs, as bailiffs of hundreds. ”

“ She always frankly said that she did not understand them. "If the squire recommends this young Mr. Trayton Harrod to you, it is because he knows him and thinks he would work with you, and not be at all like any common paid bailiff, I'm sure of that."
"Well, then, mother, all I can say is—it's nonsense—that is what it is. It is nonsense. If a man is a paid bailiff, the more like one he is the better. And I don't think it is at all likely I shall ever take a paid bailiff to help me to manage Knellestone." ”

“ O'Laugher most ill-naturedly put down his morning dram at three quarters of a pint, and asked the unhappy bailiff whether that quantity was not sufficient to make him see a crop of oats in an empty field. It was going badly with the landlord and bailiff, and well with the energetic, night-working, fraudulent tenant;—and would have gone well with him, had he not determined to make assurance doubly sure. ”

“ This being a falsehood and an attack upon his honour, he begged the bailiff, in whose hands the conduct of the affair had been specially placed, to order the nuns to be sequestered, apart from the rest of the sisterhood and from each other, and then to have each separately examined. Should there appear to be any evidence of possession, he hoped that the bailiff would be pleased to appoint clerics of well-known rank and upright character to perform whatever exorcisms were needful; such men having no bias against him would be more impartial than Mignon and his adherents. ”

“ These little defficulties startles gintlemen at first—you've not been used to arrest, I see, sir?”
“Never in my life did such a thing happen before,” said Tom. “I live generally, thank God, where a bailiff daren't show his face.”
“Ah, sir,” said the bailiff with a grin, “them rustic habits betrays the children o' nature often when they come to town; but we are so fisticated here in the metropolis, that we lay our hands on strangers aisy. But you'd better not stand in the street, sir, or people will understand it's an arrest, sir ”