ABSTRACT
Whereas by an act passed in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of his present Majesty, it is among other things enacted, That within three days after any country or part of a country shall, as therein directed, be by the lord lieutenant or other chief governor of this kingdom, proclaimed to be in a state of disturbance, or in immediate danger of becoming so, or as soon after as may be, a petty session of the peace shall be held within such country, as therein directed, and that the justices of the peace assembled at such petty sessions, shall have power to adjourn from time to time, and place to place, as they shall find convenient, until the general sessions of the peace, or some adjournment thereof, shall be held next after the first meeting of such petty session, and the justices shall, at the first petty session to be held by virtue of the said act, order and direct a notification signed by them, to be made throughout the district so proclaimed, that such district has been so proclaimed, and commanding the inhabitants to keep within their dwellings at all unseasonable hours, between sunset and sunrise, and warning them of the penalties to which a contrary conduct will expose them, and the said justices shall cause such notification to be distributed throughout such proclaimed district, and to be fixed up in some conspicuous place in all towns and villages within such district, by the constables of the country, or such other persons as they may think fit to appoint for the purpose: And whereas in one or more county or counties which, or parts of which have been proclaimed to be in a state of disturbance, or in immediate danger of becoming so, the justices assembled at such first petty sessions, as aforesaid, have by order directed a notification to be made, as aforesaid, and such notifications have been made by 346the clerk of the / peace, and doubts are entertained whether such notification or notifications have been well made pursuant to the said act, from whence much inconvenience and litigation may arise, for remedy whereof, and to remove such doubts, be it enacted by the King’s most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons in this present parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, That all such notifications made or to be made in pursuance of the order of the justices, or majority of the justices assembled at such petty sessions, and in all other respects conformable to the said act of parliament, shall be deemed good and effectual to every purpose whatsoever, if the same have been or shall be made by the clerk of the peace, by any printed or written notice to which his name shall be affixed, printed, or written, though the same have not been or shall not be signed by any justice of the peace, and that no act or acts done or to be done in any county proclaimed, or to be proclaimed in pursuance of the said act, shall be void or voidable, merely because such notification had not been or shall not be signed by the justices of the peace at such petty sessions, provided the same was ordered by such justices at such sessions to be made, and was made by the clerk of the peace by their order.
