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242 HIGH COURT OF ERRORS AND APPEALS.
Monet v. Jones.
ercise of judicial authority, and is employed in reference to courts, and not to designate the exercise of legislative or executive authority. 2d. Because the board of police are placed under the head of the judiciary in the constitution, and constitute a branch of the judicial power of the government; and, like other departments, created by the constitution, are restricted to the sphere to which they belong, by the second section second article, unless a special exception is found in the constitution. There is one special exception, and only one, and that is the power to order elections for county officers. The words “ full jurisdiction in all matters of county police,” are too comprehensive to be construed into a special exception, within the meaning of the constitution. The location of the place where the courts are to be holden is not necessarily a matter of county police, and certainly bears no resemblance to a judicial proceeding. It does not come within the definition of a judicial proceeding; there are no parties; there is no judgment about any matter in controversy, and by which right is determined.
6. The location of seats of justice is purely legislative, and has been so treated ever since the adoption of the present constitution. Language, however consistent and uniform, furnishes but a feeble argument in favor of a violation of the constitution, in cases where that violation is open and palpable; but in cases of doubt, where the meaning of the constitution depends on the construction of language, and the meaning of particular phrases, long usage and uniform acquiescence in a particular interpretation, furnishes the safest rule of construction. Ever since the adoption of the present constitution, from the very first legislature which sat under it, down to the Iasi, complete control over the subject of court houses and their location has been assumed and exercised by the legislature; and so far as the boards of police have had any connection with the matter, it has been where the legislature pointed them out as bodies of men ; not the tribunal itself, to carry out the details of laws passed on the subject.
6. Counties are municipal bodies, forming subordinate branches of a general system of government. A distinction has been properly drawn between municipal corporations and private cor