dreds were developed out of the tribal districts and the local organizations of the kindred or mægth. The laws developed so as to be better adapted to the increasing population and the new areas which were becoming gradually occupied. The courts by which they were administered grew in importance, and the general laws and customs of the areas that afterwards formed the later shires became more fully recognised. The collective responsibility of the kindred passed into the collective responsibility of the hundred, and changes in the territorial jurisdiction were probably in many cases made. Yet, with all these and other changes, there survived one great underlying principle which was a characteristic of the Anglo-Saxons in their tribal state—the principle of local self-government. This can be traced to the German and Scandian fatherlands of the settlers, and was brought to English soil by our earliest tribal ancestors. The Anglo~Saxon people were of two classes—viz., those who were freemen, and took part in the government of their districts, and those who were not freemen, for whom their lords were answerable. As regards the freemen, the principle of local government appears in its origin to have been closely connected with the organization of people of the same kin. In early Anglo-Saxon institutions prominence is given to the kindred or mægth. People within the recognised degree of kinship were necessarily bound together as an organized body by their collective responsibility, that they all should be law-abiding. This kindred organization is the most natural to any people in a tribal state. It was certainly brought into England by the tribal Anglo-Saxons, but it was no doubt here previously among the Britons, since it survived among the Welsh in a special form for many centuries. The tribal people at the time of their settlement were organized locally, so that the kindred as a body were liable for the good behaviour of every member of that body, and, on the other hand,
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