ABSTRACT
Police courts, and the manner in which laws were administered in them, represented the social, political and conceptual conflicts of the new urban world that was developing at this time. They were a product of, and had to adapt to, new concerns, crimes and raised expectations of comfort and security that stemmed from conglomeration in cities. The manner in which the law was administered, though, was steeped in tradition and the governing principles of Scottish civil society. 1 In 1875, the Dundee Courier captured the degree of autonomy enjoyed by Scotland’s civic justices:
