The legislation establishing the Nova Scotia County Courts was passed in 1874, although the courts did not come into operation until the Act was proclaimed in August 1876. The Act divided the province into judicial districts, each presided over by a federally appointed judge. Colchester County and Hants County were combined to form District Four. The new Nova Scotia County Courts divested the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia of some of its original civil jurisdiction, which it had exclusively exercised since the statutory abolition, in 1841, of the Inferior Courts of Common Pleas (county/district/township). The County Courts heard actions for debt not exceeding $400, tort actions for damages not exceeding $200, and appeals from the summary judgments of magistrates. In 1889, pursuant to the federal Speedy Trials Act, the Nova Scotia government also conferred a limited criminal jurisdiction on County Court judges with an act establishing County Judges' Criminal Courts (later County Court Judges' Criminal Courts), subject to a right of appeal to the Supreme Court.