Vickipedia

POUND, in English -Law, means an enclosure, or which then was generally one in every parish, or at least every manor, ii Which stray cattle were put and detained until the damage done by them was paid for. Whenever a stranger’s or neighbor’s cattle trespass on another’s lands, the latter can seize them, am take them to the pound, or impound them, as it is called, damage feasant, and can keep them there till the expenses are repaid There was a distinction between pound overt, or common. pound, and pound covert, or close pound; in the former case, the owner of the beasts could go and feed and water his cattle while impounded, and it was his duty to do so; but not in the latter case. Now, it is compulsory for the impounder, in all cases, to supply the cattle with food, otherwise he incurs a penalty; and if impounded cattle are not sufficiently fed, a stranger who feeds them may not only trespass on lands to do so, but can recover the costs from the owner of the beasts, This was formerly an important head of law, and it is not obsolete, for the power to impound stray cattle still exists, though common pounds are disappearing-, for, in point of law, they art not necessary, since the impounder can put the cattle in his own stable or field.

SOCAGE, or SOCCAGE (originally hlaford-socn, seeking a lord; whence we have also soc, a right, of holding a court), a tenure of lands in England, of which the characteristic feature is, that the service is fixed and determinate in quality, thereby differing both from knight-service and from villeinage. It was originally peculiar to the Anglo-Danish districts of England. At the time when the allodial tenure was converted into immediate dependence on the crown, this tenure seems to have arisen out of the necessity for commendation or seeking a lord. In Domesday, socmen are often mentioned as bound ‘ to seek a lord,’ or free to go with their land where they pleased. The socmen of Stamford are said to be free to seek a lord, being only liable to the king for the toll attached to them as inhabitants of a borough. The obligation of socage in its origin has been compared to the mutual bonds of allegiance of later times so common in the Highlands of Scotland, and known as Bonds of Manrent (see manrent). Three kinds of socage have been enumerated as existing at a later period—viz., free and common socage, socage in ancient tenure, and socage in base tenure. The second and third kind are equivalent to tenure in ancient demesne and copyhold tenure (see DEMESNE, ANCIENT, and copyhold), and the first is what has generally and more properly been denominated socage, where the services were both certain and honorable. Besides fealty, which the socager was bound to do when required, he was obliged to give attendance at the court baron of his lord, if he held one, either for a manor or for a seigniory in gross.

By an act passed during the Commonwealth, and confirmed after the Restoration by 12 Car. II. c. 24, tenure by knight-service was abolished, and all lands except church-lands held in free-alms, were directed to be held in free and common socage, which is now (with that exception) the universal tenure of real property in England and Ireland.

Socage tenures are unknown in Scotland, where, unless at a very early period, they never existed.

PAINS AND PENALTIES. When a person has committed some crime of peculiar enormity, and for which no adequate punishment is provided by the ordinary law, the mode of proceeding is by introducing a bill of pains and penalties, the object of which, therefore, is to inflict a punishment of an extraordinary and anomalous kind. These bills are now seldom resorted to, and the last instance of an attempt to revive such a form of punishment was by the ministers of George IV. against Queen Caroline, an attempt which was signally defeated. When a bill of this kind is resolved upon, it is introduced, and passes through all the stages like any other bill in parliament, except that the party proceeded against is allowed to defend himself or herself by counsel and witnesses. The proceeding is substantially an indictment, though in form a bill.

REBE’LLION (Lat. rebellio, from bellum, war, a revolt by nations subdued in war), an openly avowed renunciation of the authority of the government to which one owes allegiance, or a levying of war to resist the authority of the government. Unlike insurrection, which may be merely an opposition to a particular law, rebellion involves a design to renounce all subjection to the state. A commission of rebellion is a commission awarded against a person who treats the sovereign’s authority with contempt, by not obeying his proclamation according to his allegiance, and refusing to attend his sovereign when required. It consists of four commissioners, who are ordered to attack the rebel wherever found. In Scotland, by legal fiction, a debtor disobeying a charge on letters of horning to pay or perform in terms of his obligation, was accounted a rebel, as being disobedient to the sovereign’s command contained in the writ. This disobedience was called civil rebellion, and the penal consequences of actual rebellion followed it, until they were abolished by 20 Geo. II. c. 50. By the old form of diligence (which is still competent), it has therefore been said that debtors were imprisoned not for debt but for rebellion. The fiction was discarded in the provisions of the statute 1 and 2 Vict. c. 114, simplifying the form of diligence and the steps by which imprisonment for debt is effected.

The expression ‘The Great Rebellion,’ is generally applied in England to the revolt of the Long Parliament against the authority of Charles I. It began with the votes of the two Houses regarding the militia in 1642, by which they endeavored to seize the military power of the country, and the departure of the king for York, which was immediately followed by the breaking out of hostilities. The civil war was, properly speaking, terminated by the submission of Charles to the Scots, in April 1646; but the period of the rebellion is usually held to include the Commonwealth or Protectorate, and to extend to the restoration of Charles II. in May 1660. The revolts in behalf of the House of Stuart in 1715 and 1745 ire often, particularly in Scotland, spoken of emphatically as ‘The Rebellion.’ The former rising in favor of the Chevalier de St. George, son of James II. of England, called the Old Pretender, was headed by the Earl of Mar, and put down in 1716: the latter was led by Prince Charles Edward, known as the Young Pretender, who, landing in the Hebrides, was joined by the Highland chieftains and numerous followers, and after taking possession of Edinburgh, and marching to Derby, retreated into Scotland, and was defeated with great slaughter by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden, on the 16th of April 1746.

AMBA’SSADOR is a title by which the highest order of diplomatic ministers is distinguished, and the person holding such a high commission may be defined to be an officer sent by one sovereign power to another to treat on affairs of state. In a less restricted sense, writers on public law employ the term to denote every kind of diplomatic minister or agent. The credentials, or letters of credence, of an A. are addressed directly by his own sovereign to the sovereign to whom he is sent, and with whom he has the privilege of personal communication. In the performance of all his diplomatic duties, an A. is understood to represent, not only the affairs, but the dignity and the power of his master; and by the law of nations, he has many important rights and privileges, the chief of which is exemption from the control of the municipal laws of the nation wherein he is to exercise his functions, an exemption that is not confined to the A. himself, but is extended to all his suite, including not only the persons employed by him in diplomatic services, but his wife, chaplain, and household generally. But there is a dispute among legal writers whether this exemption extends to all crimes, or whether it is limited to such offences as are mala prohibita, as coining, and not to those that are mala in se, as murder. The law of England appears to have formerly allowed the exemption in the restricted sense only; and in the year 1654, during the Protectorate of Cromwell, the Portuguese A. was tried, convicted, and executed, for an atrocious murder. But, now, according to the general practice of this country, as well as that of the rest of Europe, it is considered that the security of an A. in conducting the intercourse of nations, is of more importance than the punishment of a particular crime, and therefore few examples have happened in modern times where an A. has been punished for any offence. In regard to civil suits, it was at one time held and laid down by Sir Edward Coke that an A. to the English court was answerable for any contract which was good according to the law of nations. The full exemption of an A. from legal process in civil cases was first recognized by 7 Anne, c. 12, a statute whose history is thus related by Blackstone. ‘ In the reign of Queen Anne, an A. from Peter the Great, Czar of Muscovy, was actually arrested, and taken out of his coach in London, for a debt of £50, which he had there contracted. Instead of applying to be discharged upon his privilege, he gave bail to the action, and the next day complained to the queen. The persons who were concerned in the arrest were examined before the privy council (of which the Lord Chief-justice Holt was at the same time sworn a member), and seventeen were committed to prison, most of whom were prosecuted by information in the Court of Queen’s Bench, at the suit of the Attorney-general; and at their trial before the Lord Chief-justice, were convicted of the facts by the jury; reserving the question of law, how far those facts were criminal, to be afterwards argued before the judges; which question was never determined. In the meantime, the Czar resented this affront very highly, and demanded that the sheriff of Middlesex, and all others concerned in the arrest, should be punished with instant death. But the queen (to the amazement of that despotic court) directed her secretary to inform him, that she could inflict no punishment upon any the meanest, of Her subjects, unless warranted by the law of the land; and therefore was persuaded that he would not insist upon impossibilities.

To satisfy, however the clamors of the foreign ministers, who made it a common cause, as well as to appease the wrath of Peter, a bill was brought into parliament, and afterwards passed into a law (the 7th Anne c. 12), to prevent and punish such outrageous insolence for the future; and with a copy of this act elegantly engrossed and illuminated, accompanied by a letter from the queen, an A. extraordinary was commissioned to appear at Moscow, who declared, that though her majesty could not inflict such a punishment as was required, because of the defect in that particular of the former established constitutions of her kingdom, yet, with the unanimous consent of the parliament, she had caused a new act to be passed, to serve as a law for the future. This humiliating step, says Blackstone, ‘ was accepted as a full satisfaction by the Czar; and the offenders, at his request, were discharged from all further prosecution.’

But although an A. is not amenable to any tribunal of the country he resides in, he cannot misconduct himself with impunity. He must respect the laws and customs of the country in which he is officially resident; and if he violates or offends these laws and customs, he may be complained of to the court or government which he represents; or if the offence is of a very serious nature, his recall may be demanded, or the sovereign to whom he has given such offence may dismiss him peremptorily, and further require that he be brought to trial in his own country. It hardly need be added, that if an A. is guilty of an offence which threatens the safety of the state, he ceases to enjoy the privileges of the exemption in question.

There are some other and inferior privileges which are very generally allowed to ambassadors: they are, for instance, permitted the free exercise of their religion; they are, in general, exempted from direct taxation, they have special letter-bags, and they are usually allowed to import their goods without paying any customhouse duties—a privilege, however, which, being liable to abuse, has sometimes been limited.

Ambassadors are of two kinds—first, those who reside regularly at the court to which they are accredited; and, secondly, those who are sent on special occasions, when they receive the designation of ambassadors extraordinary. The employment of permanent ambassadors originated in modern times. Her Majesty’s diplomatic corps includes only five ambassadors in the more restricted sense of the word, who are accredited to the courts of Vienna, Paris, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, and Berlin respectively. Inferior diplomatic agents receive the title of charge d’affaires, minister plenipotentiary, or envoy (q. v.).

ANATOMY (in Law). While the study and practice of A., or the art of dissecting the human body, were necessary to the pursuit of surgical knowledge, there were, until the year 1832, no sufficient legal means in Britain of procuring dead bodies for anatomical purposes; and the consequence was, the evasion, and sometimes even the open violation of the law by persons interested in supplying the surgical profession with subjects for dissection. The high prices, indeed, given for these subjects, may almost be said to have created a lucrative and tempting trade, which led to the most atrocious crimes; and murders, with no other object than the possession of the victim’s body for the surgeon’s knife, were frequently committed. The notorious case of Burke, tried and convicted before the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, in 1828, is a horrible illustration of the state of the law at that time, and of the position in which it placed surgical practitioners. It was believed that Burke and his associate Hare had been the murderers of sixteen persons, whose bodies they sold to the anatomists. It was their practice to inveigle poor people, generally strangers, into their houses, make them drunk and then smother them. Burke, informed against by Hare, was condemned for thus disposing of an old woman, and suffered the last penalty of the law, bequeathing a new verb, to burke, to the English language. To remedy this state of things, an act of parliament was passed on the 1st of August 1832, 2d and 3d William IV. c. 75, the preamble of which, sufficiently disclosing its necessity, is as follows: ‘Whereas a knowledge of the causes and nature of sundry disuses which affect the body, and of the best methods of treating and curing such diseases, and of healing and repairing divers wounds and injuries to which the human frame is liable, cannot lie acquired without the aid of anatomical examination; and whereas the legal supply of human bodies for such anatomical examination is insufficient fully to provide the means of such knowledge: and whereas, in order further to supply human bodies for such purposes, divers great and grievous crimes have been committed, and, lately, murder, for the single object of selling for such purposes the bodies of the persons so murdered: and whereas, therefore, it is highly expedient to give protection, under certain regulations, to the study and practice of A., and to prevent, as far as may be, such great and grievous crimes and murder as afore-said ‘—It is therefore enacted, that the Secretary of State for the Home Department in Great Britain, and the Chief Secretary in Ireland, may grant a license to practice A. to any fellow or member of any college of physicians or surgeons, or to any graduate or licentiate in medicine, or to any person lawfully qualified to practise medicine in any part of the United Kingdom, or to any professor or teacher of A., medicine, or surgery, or to any student attending any school of A., on the application of such party for such purpose, countersigned by two justices of the peace acting for the county, city, borough, or place where such party resides, certifying that, to their knowledge or belief, such party so applying is about to carry on the practice of A.

The act provides for the appointment of inspectors of schools of A., and directs them to make a quarterly return to the Secretary of State, or the Chief Secretary, as the case may be, of subjects removed for anatomical examination to every place in the inspector’s district where A. is carried on, distinguishing the sex, and, as far as is known at the time, the name and age of each person whose body was so removed. The inspectors are further required to visit and inspect places within their respective districts where A. is practised; and for the performance of all these duties, the inspectors are each to have an annual salary not exceeding £100, with a further reasonable sum for their official expenses. By section 7, it is enacted that it shall be lawful for any executor or other party having lawful possession of the body of any deceased person, and not being an undertaker or other party intrusted with the body, for the purpose only of interment, to permit the body of such deceased person to undergo anatomical examination, unless, to the knowledge of such executor or other party, such person shall have expressed his desire, either in writing, at any time during his life, or verbally, in the presence of two or more witnesses, during the illness whereof he died, that his body, after death, might not undergo such examination; or unless the surviving husband or wife, or any known relative of the deceased person, shall require the body to be interred without such examination: while, by section 8, it is declared that the wishes of persons who had expressed a desire that their bodies should be subjected to anatomical examination shall be respected, unless the deceased person’s surviving husband or wife, or nearest known relative, or any one or more of such person’s nearest known relatives being of kin in the same degree, shall require the body to be interred without such examination. Bodies are not to be removed for examination until forty-eight hours after death, and without a certificate by the medical attendant, stating, according to the best of his knowledge or belief, the manner or cause of death. The act contains a number of provisions intended to secure its sufficient administration; but by section 15, it is provided that it shall not extend to or prohibit any post-mortem examination of any human body required or directed to be made by any competent legal authority; and it repeals an enactment in a previous statute, 9 George IV. c. 31, which directed the bodies of murderers after execution to be dissected.

This act of parliament is understood to have met the evil it was designed to obviate; and under it the supply of bodies of persons dying friendless, in poor houses, hospitals, and elsewhere, is stated to have proved sufficient for the wants of the profession.

PATENT OFFICE LIBRARY, and MUSEUM. The present organization of these establishments arose mainly out of the act relating to Patents (q. v.) passed in 1852. Rooms were rented in Southampton Buildings, London, for the office as reorganized; a superintendent of specifications was appointed; and a plan was adopted for making the system as useful to the public as possible.

The Office.—All the specifications of patents from the earliest date were examined, and minutely classified according to their contents. The patents from 1711 to 1852 were found to amount to the large number of 12.977; and the specifications of the whole of these were printed between 1853 and 1858. There were a few of earlier date, between 1617 and 1711, but none in so complete a form as to render them worth printing. The whole fill many hundred quarto volumes, with the lithographed illustrations bound in separate folio volumes. The expense of the whole undertaking—for paper, printing, and lithographing—was £92.000; the number of copies printed was small; but any single specification can be reprinted if a demand for it should arise. The next work was to utilize this immense collection by a thorough system of indexing. Three indexes were prepared— Chronological, Alphabetical (according to the names of the inventors), and Subject-matter. Arrangements were at the same time made for printing and indexing the specifications of all patents obtained under the new law (1852); and this has been done year by year. (The total number of patents from 1617 to 1878 exceeded 100,000.) These specifications are sold to the public at the price of paper and print, varying from 1-Jd, to about 4s., averaging about 8d. each. The printing and publishing are completed within three weeks of the time when each final specification reaches the hands of the superintendent. Any copy of any of these, if stamped and certified, is received in any court of law or equity in the kingdom, in evidence of the patent to which it relates, without the necessity of producing the original document itself.

There are generally over 4000 petitions for new patents every year; about 800 of the petitioners usually fail to give notice of their intention to proceed, and 200 more fall away before the actual sealing of the patent; so that, roughly speaking, about 3000 specifications of patents are added to the list every year. Of this number, not more than 500 to 600 over-live three years. In 1878, 5343 applications for patents were made; but 1905 of these lapsed during the year, for various reasons. The old and new specifications from 1711 to 1878, amounting to 110,334, have all been printed and published. These works are acquiring ever-increasing value as standards of reference for intending patentees. To render the new specifications equally available with those of older date, three indexes are prepared for each year’s collection, of the kinds already described. There has also been prepared a reference index to the whole series. In 1871, a new plan was adopted, of publishing weekly abridgments of the specifications of new patents : dispensing with any further alphabetical and subject-matter indexes. Besides this, abridgments have been drawn up of most of the specifications, and will be eventually of all: setting forth, in a few words, the general nature of the invention. These abridgments are collected into 12mo volumes, one or more to each class of subjects; and the volumes are sold at 6d. to 10s. each, according to their bulk. At the end of 1878, there were 115 volumes of these useful works, relating to no less than 94 groups or classes of abridgments. By reference to one of these handy volumes, or to the Subject-matter index, an inventor can see whether any person lias preceded him in the particular subject for which he desires a patent.

The Library and Reading-room.—Special arrangements are made to render the specifications, and all that relates to them, as avail-able as possible to the public. Complete sets of the printed specifications, indexes, &c., have been presented to universities, government offices, provincial towns, colonies, and foreign governments; and partial sets to 300 mechanics’ institutes and scientific and literary societies. A complete set comprised in 1880 above 3600 volumes, from folio to 12mo, and cost no less than £3500 for paper, printing, and lithographing; about 160 of these complete sets have been presented. At the head office in Southampton Buildings, a Reading-room has been provided, open to such of the public as may wish to consult the specifications at their leisure. But besides this, the commissioners have gradually become possessed of a large and valuable collection of scientific and technical books and periodicals, to which additions are every year made by purchase. A new Library and Reading-room, occupying the upper part of the old building, has been constructed at a cost of £15,000, and was finished and opened in 1867. All the scientific and technical works of the Library of 80,000 volumes, as well as the specifications of the patents, may here be consulted.

The Museum.—The commissioners having come into possession, by gift and otherwise, of several models illustrating patented inventions, had no place of their own to deposit them for preservation and exhibition. But an arrangement was made with the authorities at South Kensington for the reception of these models; and. greatly augmented by specimens, drawings, diagrams, and portraits, the Patent Museum now occupies a site adjacent to the South Kensington Museum.

The commissioners have for many years sought permission to erect a large and handsome building to accommodate the whole of their departments—offices, Library, Reading-room, and Museum. They possess the pecuniary means, but lack the authority. Their receipts exceed £100,000 a year, in the form of fees from patentees; and after a very liberal expenditure for salaries, superannuation allowances, editing, compiling, printing, purchase of books and periodicals, &c., there is a considerable surplus. A clause in the act of 1852 prevents them from buying land and erecting buildings without the consent of the Treasury. One suggestion made by the commissioners is for permission to build a new street to be formed from the Horse Guards to the Thames Embankment; and another is, that the new building should be on the Embankment itself, a still more prominent site.

PATENT LAWS. Since the introduction of the amended Patent Law in 1852 (see PATENTS), many manufacturers have boldly advocated the abolition of the patent system altogether; on the plea, that the good results, whatever they may be, are overbalanced by the bad. The great majority of advisers, however, call for further reform, not abolition. The Economic Section of the British Association has discussed this matter during a long series of years. The Society of Arts, also, have had many discussions on the subject; and the arguments pro and eon. will be found at length in the Transactions of these bodies. The various Chambers of Commerce throughout the kingdom have likewise debated the subject at length. The actual operation of the system may be briefly illustrated. Mr. Bennett Woodcroft, in 1864, examined 100 patents out of those which had been applied for in 1855. Of the 100, he found 96 frivolous in character, of little or no value as to the merit of the inventions; 4 of moderate value; and not one of striking promise. Out of the 100 applications, 70 patents were granted, of which one became void at the end of six months, 51 more at the end of three years, and 15 more at the end of seven years—because the patentees declined to pay the successive instalments of fees. There were therefore, in 1863, only 3 patents left out of the 100 which had been applied for in 1855. Mr. Woodcroft finds that about the same ratio is exhibited in the whole of the 3000 or so applied for every year. In 100 of the average applications in 1858, he pronounced that there was not one invention of much value, 3 of some, and 97 of little or no value. In 1862, he found 1 of much, 1 of some, and 98 of little or no value. As to statistics of actual numbers, see patent office, library and museum.

In 1862, a royal commission was appointed to consider the whole subject of the patent laws, and to suggest alterations which might be useful. The commission collected evidence in that and the two following years, and made its Report in 1864. Other commissions and committees have made later inquiries, and offered suggestions founded on the evidence collected; but the opinions expressed, on almost every point, are most conflicting. The divided opinion of practical men has hitherto discouraged any attempt to legislate on their recommendations; and the act of 1852 remains still in force.

PATENT is an exclusive right granted by the crown (in letters patent or open, whence the name) to an individual to manufacture and sell a chattel or article of commerce of his own invention. The policy of the present law of patents has latterly been much canvassed, and it has been suggested that, instead of the present monopoly, with the drawback of litigation to which it uniformly gives rise, the use of all inventions should be dedicated to the public at once, and the inventor rewarded by a pension from the state, according to the merits and utility of the invention. The present law allows the inventor to have a monopoly of his invention for fourteen years, with a further privilege at the end of that time, provided he has not been sufficiently remunerated, to have the patent renewed for a further term of fourteen years. That some mode of rewarding the individual whose perseverance and ingenuity have enabled him to discover a new invention should be established, is universally admitted, but whether it should be at the expense of that part of the public who are purchasers, and therefore benefited by his discovery, or by the public at large in the shape of a pension, is a matter still undecided. The evils of the present law are that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the mode of ascertaining what is a new invention. Hence, when a patent has been granted, if it is of such a nature as to lead to competition, infringements are almost matters of course, and the only mode of discovering and checking the infringement is so tedious, costly, and ineffective, that inventors generally pass their lives in constant litigation, fighting in detail a succession of imitators who often have nothing to lose by defeat, and therefore entail all the greater burden on the legitimate manufacturer.

It has been said that not more than three patents per cent. are remunerative. A royal commission has latterly been engaged in inquiries as to the best mode of remunerating inventors, and improving the law in reference to infringements; but it is doubtful how far the subject is capable of being put on a better footing, so many difficulties being inherent in it. The crown seems always to have enjoyed the prerogative right to grant monopolies, and this had been so greatly perverted in the time of Elizabeth, that the popular clamor led to a statute in the following reign, having for its object to prevent the crown in future making any grants of that kind which should be prejudicial to the interests of trade. By that act an exception was expressly made in favor of new inventions. At first the judges construed grants of monopoly to inventors very strictly; but afterwards it was seen that they were for the benefit of trade, and were dealt with more liberally. An important modification of the law was introduced by a statute of Queen Anne, which required every inventor to describe in detail the nature of the invention in an instrument called a specification. Another statute of 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 83, further altered the law by allowing parties who had a difficulty in separating what was new from what was old in their invention to enter an express disclaimer of that part which was not new. But the most important alteration was made in 1852, by the statute of 15 and 16 Vict. c. 83, which reduced the fees, and otherwise improved the practice attending the obtaining of patents for the United Kingdom. Before stating shortly the substance of this act, it may be observed that there lias always been a difficulty in defining what is an invention that is patentable—a difficulty which no act of parliament can get rid of, for it is inherent in the subject-matter. It lias been held that a patent must be not merely a discovery of a new substance or article of food, but it must be a combination of processes producing some new result, or an old result by different means. It is of the essence of the patent that it be entirely new, that is, that it should not have been described in a published book, or well known in the business of the world, nor publicly used before. The specification must give a full disclosure of the secret, and describe it so that an intelligent person could from the description make the article itself.

There is a patent office in London, in Edinburgh, and in Dublin, but the Scotch and Irish offices have long been used only as places for inspecting copies of patents, specifications. and documents. From 1852 till the new Act of 1883 came into force, the commissioners of patents were the Lord Chancellor, Master of the Rolls, Attorney and Solicitor General of England and Ireland, and the Lord Advocate and Solicitor-General of Scotland. The inventor first presented a petition for a grant of letters-patent, accompanied by a statement in writing of the specification, a copy of which was left at the patent-office. The application was referred, as a matter of course, to one of the law officers of the crown, who might call to his aid a scientific person to be paid by the applicant. A provisional patent might be applied for in the first instance, and the complete patent deferred for six months— the patent dating from the first application. After a patent was granted, and had been in existence for three years, a fee of £50 fell to be paid; and, at the end of the seven years, a fee of £100. The letters-patent extend to the whole of the United Kingdom. The practice with reference to patents, especially as to the drawing of the specification, was too minute to justify an inventor to attempt to take out a patent without professional aid; and a class of persons called patent agents (a business for which no qualifications were required by any constituted authority) devoted themselves to this branch of business—their charges (often exorbitant) being generally ascertained by estimate beforehand. The fees payable to the law officers were as follows : On leaving petition for grant of letters-patent, £5; on notice of intention to proceed with application, £5; on warrant of law officer for letters-patent, £5; on sealing of letters-patent, £5; on filing specifications, £5; at or before expiration of third year, £50; at or before expiration of seventh year, £100. Besides these fees, if opposition was entered to the grant, additional fees were incurred, both by the party applying and the party opposing.

At the date of the passing of the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act of 1883, there were nine acts on patents more or less fully in force; and six others on copyright of designs. Now the management of this branch of the public service is put under the Science and Art Department, and the new responsible official, called the Comptroller of "Patents, is an officer of the Board of Trade—from whose decisions, however, there is in certain cases an appeal to a court comprising some of the chief law officers of the crown. There is a paid examiner of patents, to whom applications are first submitted. Heretofore, seven different applications were necessary; now one suffices, and that may be sent through the post. The formulas are simplified, with the hope of enabling the patentee to dispense with the services of patent agents. In contrast with the scale of fees given above, the charges under the new law are : £1 paid down at once, when the provisional specification is lodged at the Patent Office; £3 more after nine months, when the final specification is passed by the Comptroller, and sealed; £50 after the fourth year ; and £100 after the ninth. The latter two payments may be made in annual instalments. (The Board of Trade has power hereafter to reduce the fees, on obtaining the consent of the Treasury.) A register of patents is to he kept, and an Illustrated Journal of Patents officially published. Patents, as formerly, hold for 14 years, and extend to the whole of the United Kingdom.

A patent obtained in this country does not extend to the colonies, but several of the colonies have machinery for granting patents for a like period. In the United States, patents are granted for a term of 17 years. In France, the term is 5, 10. or 15 years, at the option of the applicant; in Prussia, for 15 years; in Russia, for 3, 5, or 10 years; in Spain, for 5, 10, or 15 years; in Belgium, for 20 years; in Holland, for 5, 10, or 15 years; in Austria, not more than 15 years; in Sardinia, 15 years. In all cases, fees are exigible from the patentee. See patent laws and patent office.

POOR, GENERAL laws as to. The fundamental rule as to the relief of the poor was, that each parish in England and Wales is bound to maintain its own poor. For the purpose of providing the requisite machinery, overseers are required to be appointed in each parish every year on the 25th March, or within a fortnight following; and these, along with the churchwardens, who are ex officio overseers, have the duty of providing the requisite funds. See overseers. This is done by means of a poor-rate, which the churchwardens and overseers may levy on all the occupiers of land in the parish, after such rate has been confirmed by the justices. The rate specifies a certain sum in the pound which is to be levied, and the annual value of the various lands is then specified, and the amount is thus easily computed. The rate is thus a local tax on the occupier of the land, and not on the owner, unless he himself is also occupier. In all cases, the duty of raising the funds attaches to the overseers; but the actual distribution and application of them are not always in their immediate control. Owing to the mischiefs arising from the officials of each parish distributing the funds at their discretion, without uniformity of plan, a central controlling power was created in 1834, in the shape of the Poor-law Board; and authority was given to combine various parishes into one poor-law union, for the purpose of greater uniformity as well as economy. When a union is formed, the control of the expenditure is chiefly vested in the guardians of this union, who are elected by each parish, and who supervise the management of the union workhouse. They order the overseers of each parish to raise their due proportion of funds, by a contribution order issued to such overseers, who are thereon bound to levy the amount by including it in the next poor-rate. The guardians are bound to contract for the provisions, clothing, fuel, &c., supplied to the workhouse, by means of sealed tenders, unless the quantity is less than a stated amount. All the controlling powers formerly vested in the Poor-law Board are now transferred to the Local Government Board.

The principle on which relief is administered to the poor is, that the condition of the pauper should not be so comfortable as that of the lowest independent laborer; otherwise, idleness and imposture would be encouraged to an indefinite extent. The guardians profess only to relieve destitution already existing, and not to enable persons to keep off impending destitution. Hence they only supply the bare necessaries of life. They cannot, for example, advance or lend money to set up a poor person in trade. Minute regulations are contained in the consolidated poor-law orders of the Board as to the classification of paupers in the workhouse, mode of admission, diet, discipline, and out-door relief. With regard to out-door relief and able-bodied paupers, it is provided, that every able-bodied person requiring relief from any parish, shall be relieved wholly in the workhouse, together with his wife and family, if any, and if not otherwise employed. But the relief may be given out of doors in cases of sudden and urgent necessity, of sickness, accident and a few other cases. In general, relief is confined to persons actually residing in some place within the union, except in case of casual destitution, or sickness and accident. Whenever out-door relief is given to an able-bodied person, half of it is to be in the form of articles of food or fuel. Relief is given only weekly, where the pauper is not required to be received into the workhouse. No relief is to be given to able-bodied persons while they are employed for wages or hire by any person; and every able-bodied male person, if relieved out of the workhouse, shall be set to work by the guardians, and kept so employed while he continues to receive such relief. The law with regard to the relief of the poor is so far qualified, that wherever a person applies for parochial relief, if he or she has a father or grandfather, mother or grandmother, or child, who is able to maintain such pauper, then the parish officers can obtain an order from justices to compel such relative to contribute a sum towards such maintenance. So husbands or fathers of paupers are bound to contribute to such maintenance. In all cases, the pauper is relieved either in the workhouse or out of the workhouse, according to the regulations of the poor-law orders.

In some cases, the guardians or overseers may employ the poor in public works; but this is seldom done, except on occasions like the Lancashire distress. The law as to the settlement of the poor is somewhat intricate, and gives rise to much ligitation. There are various grounds on which this settlement is acquired. Thus every person has, prima facie, a settlement in the parish where he was born, until, some other is proved; and there are so many other qualifications, that it is seldom a birth-settlement is resorted to. By marriage, a woman immediately acquires the settlement of her husband, if he has one, whether the husband be an Englishman or a foreigner. If the husband has no settlement, then the wife is thrown back on her maiden settlement. Formerly, a person acquired a settlement in a parish by hiring and service, and by residence for forty days under such hiring; but since 1834, no such settlement can be acquired. If any person shall be bound an apprentice by indenture, and reside forty days under such apprenticeship, he or she acquires a settlement thereby. So whoever shall rent a tenement in a parish, and actually occupy the same, and be rated to the poor for one whole year, the rent being not less than £10, and paid by the person so actually occupying the tenement, shall acquire a settlement. So a person acquires a settlement by acquiring an estate in land, however, small in value, and residing forty days in the parish. So. if a person buy an estate, and the consideration amount to £30 at least, he shall thereby acquire a settlement. Formerly, a settlement was acquired by serving a public annual office, such as that of constable, overseer, &c.; but no settlement is now acquired on that ground. Unless a pauper has acquired a settlement on one or other of the grounds before mentioned in the parish or union where he receives relief, he is liable to be removed compulsorily to the parish where he last acquired a settlement. Certain persons, however, cannot be removed, and these are called irremovable paupers. Such are those paupers who have resided for one whole year in the parish or union in which they became destitute.

The mode of computing this one year is, however, somewhat difficult in certain cases. The expense of maintaining the pool-generally is paid out of the common fund, and not by each parish in the union. When a pauper is sought to be removed, it is necessary to take him before two justices of the peace for examination; and on proper evidence of his settlement, the justices will make the order of removal, which is an authority to the overseers to take or send the pauper to the overseers of the parish of settlement. If, however, the pauper is too ill at the time to admit of removal without danger, the justices may suspend the order of removal till lie is recovered. Whenever a pauper is to be removed the removing union is bound to give notice to the union of settlement; and it is on these occasions that so many obstinate and costly litigations take place as to which is the union of settlement. Much litigation was avoided by substituting a union for a parish as the test. The union also may appeal to the Court of Quarter-sessions against the removal order; and the Quarter-sessions may state a case for the opinion of the Court of Queen’s Bench, if any nice point of law should arise, as frequently happens.

In Scotland, there was no systematic provision for the relief of the poor until 1845. when the statute of 8th and 9th Vict. c. 83 was passed. By this statute, a central board (called the Board of Supervision) was established, which controls the parochial board of each parish or union of parishes in a manner similar to the Poor-law Board in England. A settlement can be acquired in Scotland by residence of live years. Children follow the settlement of their parents, and wives that of their husbands; and if no other settlement be proved, then the settlement of birth is liable. In Scotland, the mode of assessment differs from that in England, where only the annual value of lands and tenements can be rated in the hands of the occupier.

The parochial board had the option of three modes of assessment: 1. One half to be paid by owners, and one half by the occupiers; 2. One half to be paid by owners of lands, and the other half to be paid by all the inhabitants, according to means and substance other than lands; 3. Assessing owners of lands and other inhabitants rateably according to their means and substance. But by a later act of 24th and 25th Vict. 37, the mode of assessing means and substance is abolished. It will thus be seen that in Scotland the poor-rate can never be imposed wholly on the occupier as it, always is in England.

In Ireland, a Poor-law Act was also, in 1838, passed, and numerous amending statutes have followed, the code of laws being substantially founded on the English acts.

There are special acts of parliament regulating the conditions on which paupers are removable between England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively.

POLL-ACT, a sanguinary act, passed at Trim in Ireland, by the Junto of the Pale, in 1465, under the Earl of Desmond, deputy. It ordained ‘ that it shall be lawful to all manner of men that find any theeves robbing by day or night, or going or coming/fo rob or steal, or any persons going or coining, having no faithful man of good name and fame in their company in English apparel, that it shall be lawful to take and kill those, and to cut off their heads, without any impeachment, of our sovereign lord the king. And of any head so cut off in the county of Meath, that the cutter and his ayders there to him cause the saed head so cut off to be brought to the portreffe to put it upon a stake or spear, upon the Castle of Trim, and that the saed portreffe shall testify the bringing of the same to him. And that it shall be lawful for the saed bringer of the saed head to distrain and levy by his hand (as his reward) of every man having one ploughland in the barony, two pence; and of every man having half a ploughland, one penny ; and of every man having an house and goods, value forty shillings, one penny; and of every cottier having one house and smoak, one half-penny.’ Much slaughter is said to have been committed under this remarkable act.

POLI’CE (Lat. politia, Gr. politeia, civil government; from polis, a city), are constables or peace-officers appointed in all parts of town and country for the purpose of watching property and detecting crime, and arresting offenders and maintaining public order. Though the word policeman is now, especially in towns, a household word, the legal denomination is that of constable; but he is a paid constable, to distinguish him from unpaid constables and special constables. In each parish in England, the justices of the peace have power to appoint constables to act gratuitously and compulsorily; but the vestry has power to resolve that one or more paid constables shall be appointed, in which case the justices are to make the appointment, and these paid constables supersede the unpaid constables. The salary of these parish constables is paid out of the poor-rates of the parish by the overseers. The justices also appoint a superintendent constable for each petty sessional division, to settle the fees and allowances which are to be paid to the constables for the service of summonses, and for the execution of warrants incidental to the office of justices of the peace. In all boroughs in England, the corporation’ is empowered, by the Municipal Corporation Acts, to appoint a watch committee, who appoint a sufficient number of men to act as constables. The treasurer of the borough pays their salaries, wages and allowances, as well as extraordinary expenses incurred by them. By an act of parliament applicable to counties, the justices are empowered to establish a sufficient police force for each county, and a chief constable is appointed to govern the whole.

The duties of constables or police-officers are exceedingly multifarious, and they receive printed regulations to guide them in the proper discharge of such duties. They have important duties in reference to the apprehension of offenders, and their powers are necessarily larger than those of private individuals. Wherever a person is seen in the act of committing a felony, it is the duty of every one, not merely of constables, to apprehend him or her without any warrant, for no warrant is needed. Persons found offending in many misdemeanors may also be apprehended by anybody without a warrant; but in other cases, a constable only can make an arrest. In case of a riot, any body may arrest the rioter. Constables are bound to arrest hawkers trading without a license; and vagrants who are offending against the Vagrant Acts, such as telling fortunes, loitering about premises, &c. The powers of constables are much greater than those of individuals with reference to crimes after they are committed. Thus, where the constable has not seen the offence committed, but is merely told of the fact, and he has reason to believe it, he is entitled to arrest the party charged without any warrant; he must, however, in such cases act only on reasonable suspicion. He is not justified, for example, in apprehending a person as a receiver of stolen goods on the mere assertion of the principal felon; nor is a constable justified in taking a person into custody for a mere assault without a warrant, unless he himself was present at the time the assault was committed, or reasonably apprehends a renewal of it. If a constable have a reasonable suspicion that a man has committed a felony, he may apprehend him; and so a private individual may do so. The difference between the authority of the constable and the private person in this respect is, that the latter is justified only in case it turn out that a felony was in fact committed; but the constable may justify the arrest and detention whether a felony was committed or not.

It is the duty of a constable to raise a hue and cry in search of a felon, and all private individuals are bound to join in it, otherwise they may be indicted and fined. An arrest by a constable is usually made by laying hands on the party, and detaining him; but it is enough for the constable to touch him and say: ‘ I arrest you, in the Queen’s name.’ If the party arrested be in a house in hiding, the constable may demand admittance, and if he is refused, may then break open the doors; this is so in all cases where the party has committed treason or felony, or has dangerously wounded another. In cases where the constable is not authorized at common law or by some statute to arrest a party without a warrant, then he must produce a warrant signed by a justice of the peace, and show it to the party if it is demanded; and if the constable happens not to have the warrant in his pocket at the time, even though it is not asked for, it is an illegal arrest. When a party is arrested, it is the duty of the constable to take him without any unreasonable delay before a justice of the peace, and meanwhile lodge him in safe custody. The party arrested must not be treated with harshness beyond what is necessary for safe custody, and therefore it has been held that a constable has no right to handcuff a person whom he has apprehended on suspicion of felony, unless such person has attempted to escape, or it be necessary to prevent an escape. Nor has a constable in general a right to search a person apprehended, unless the latter conduct himself violently.

The conduct of constables in reference to public-houses is of some importance. It is an offence in publicans and beer-house keepers, and indeed the keepers of all places of public resort, to refuse to admit the constable into such house or place at any time. Thus, in the case of these places being open on Sundays at the times prohibited by statute, the constable, if he suspect that the act is being violated, may demand admittance, and thus satisfy himself as to the fact. It is owing also to this power of a constable to enter at all times, that he is enabled to detect other offences in public-houses, such as harboring prostitutes and disorderly characters. Constables, when suspecting that a betting-house is kept, must first get a warrant from a justice of the peace, which can be obtained without notice to the parties, and can then break into the house. So as to gaming-houses. While constables have summary power of entering public-houses, still this is not to be abused; and it is a distinct offence in the keepers of all public places where wine, spirits, beer, cider, or any fermented or distilled liquors are sold on the premises, to knowingly harbor, or entertain, or suffer to remain there such constables during the time they are on duty, except when quelling disturbances or restoring order. It is an offence punishable with more than usual severity to assault constables when in the execution of their duty. Though constables are paid in great part by each county and borough, and thus by the public at large, it is often requisite for individuals to require the services of extra constables, in which case such individuals must pay for them at their own expense, as is usual in theaters and large establishments. Of late years, considerable complaint had been made as to constables interfering in the protection of game-preserves and fisheries, it being considered that the owners of those properties ought to bear the extra charge, if required, of the constables’ giving more than the ordinary attention to poachers. But by the recent Act, extended powers of detecting poachers of game were given to constables, who are now entitled, whenever they suspect people on the highway of being engaged in poaching, to stop and search them, and then summon the poachers, if necessary, before justices. See poaching.

In 1880, the total police and constabulary in England and Wales amounted to 31,480 men. These are subdivided into chief constables of counties, 56; head constables of boroughs, 163; superintendents, 581; inspectors, 1311; sergeants, 3008; constables, 25,511; additional constables, 390; detectives, 520. The proportion of policemen to the population is about 1 to 811. In 1879-30. the total expenditure on the police force of England and Wales, including the city of London police, was £3,113,725, of which less than £600,000 was paid by Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Superannuation Fund, the major part coining from local sources. The public revenue pays nothing towards the city of London police; it pays all the cost of the dock-yard police; it pays nearly one-fifth of the other branches of the police. In 1881, the metropolitan police numbered 1 chief superintendent, 24 superintendents, 605 inspectors, 941 sergeants, and 9634 constables; the city police comprising 124 officers and 737 constables.

In Ireland, the first regular police force was established in 1814, which was improved in 1836 and 1839. Originally, the expense was defrayed partly out of the Consolidated Fund; but in 1846, the whole expense was borne by the Consolidated Fund, with trifling exceptions. In 1880, the total cost of the constabulary of Ireland amounted to £1,095,121. The number of constables in 1880 was 11,473, besides 1111 Dublin Metropolitan Police. In Ireland the police carry firearms.

In Scotland, the public police force was, in 1880, 3702 (1331 for counties, 2371 for burghs), including 84 detectives; and their cost for the year was £316,413. In addition to this number, the Tweed Commissioners pay for about 30 constables; 12 more are paid by other fishery commissioners, 20 employed by companies or private persons, and 160 by harbor boards.

POST-OFFICE, offences against. Owing to the conspicuous part which the post-office plays in modern civilization, a small code of laws belongs to it, the substance of which is as follows: Every person employed by the post-office who steals a post-letter, is guilty of felony; and if it contain money or a valuable chattel, the punishment is increased. So whenever letters are stolen by strangers out of the custody of the post-office or its officers. The moment a letter is put into the post-office or delivered to the postmaster, the protection of the statutes commences. Many nice questions have, however, arisen as to the application of the rule to special circumstances, and as to what constitutes an employment by the post-office. Whoever steals, secretes, or destroys printed papers or newspapers sent by post, commits a misdemeanor. So if a letter-carrier delay the delivery wilfully; or if an official messenger disclose or intercept a telegraphic message, or violate the rules on that point. Receivers of letters improperly taken or stolen from the post-office, are guilty of felony. By the 1st Vict. c. 33, s. 2, any person conveying otherwise than by post a letter not exempted from the exclusive privilege of the post-master-general, incurs a penalty of £5 for every letter. This exclusive privilege of carrying letters extends to letters only, and not to printed books or newspapers. There are also exceptions to the general rule, that letters can only be sent by the post-office. Thus, one may send a letter by a private Mend, and not by the post-office. So letters sent by messenger on purpose on the private affairs of the sender or receiver, commissions and legal writs, merchants’ letters sent by vessels or along with goods, are excepted. But no person is authorized to collect and send these excepted letters, though in the legal manner described, for this is doing the work of the post-office. Moreover, there are certain persons expressly prohibited from carrying letters even gratuitously, as common carriers, except the letters relate to goods in their carts or wagons; owners, masters, or commanders of ships, except such letters relate to goods on board; and passengers on board ships. Statutes and rules made thereunder secure the monopoly to the postmaster-general of sending telegraphic messages, and telegrams are put nearly on the footing of letters.

THEATERS, LAWS AS TO. In Great Britain all theaters must be licensed, either by virtue of letters patent from Her Majesty, or by license from the Lord Chamberlain for the time being, or from justices of the peace. The Lord Chamberlain grants licenses to all theaters (not being patent theaters) within the English metropolis, and within the places where Her Majesty occasionally resides, except New Windsor and Brighton. For every license of the Lord Chamberlain, a fee not exceeding 10s. per month is charged. In other parts of Great Britain, the justices of the peace I of the county, city, or borough must be applied to for a license; and after the usual notice, they hold a special session, for the purpose of granting licenses to theaters, the fee payable being a sum not exceeding 5s. per month. It is only to the actual and responsible manager of the theater that a license can be granted, and his name and place of abode must be printed on every play-bill. The manager must find sureties to observe the rules issued by the Lord Chamberlain and justices, which rules relate to the days and hours of keeping open, and the insuring of order and decency. A penalty of £10 is imposed, by statute 6 and 7 Vict. c. 68, on any actor or manager concerned in unlicensed places.

A copy of every new play, epilogue, or prologue, or alteration lot the same, intended to be produced at any theater in Great Britain, must be sent to the Lord Chamberlain, by the manager, seven days before such production; and for examination of such plays and alterations of plays, he may charge fees not exceeding ten guineas, according to a scale fixed by him. He may forbid the acting of any play, whenever he considers it to be fitting to the preservation of good manners, decorum, or the public peace, to do so. To act a play not allowed or disallowed, subjects each actor and manager to a penalty of £50. It has been decided by the courts, that a booth used as a temporary or portable theater requires a license, and that any dualogue or dramatic performance by two persons is a stage-play, and therefore subject to the license, Of late, the policy of placing the theaters so entirely under the control of the Lord Chamberlain and justices has been disputed, especially as the increasing practice of introducing theatrical performances at public supper-rooms has led to some vexatious prosecutions at the instance of the licensees of regular theaters.

PRIZE-COURT is a court which adjudicates the property in vessels captured at sea from a belligerent; and the rule is, that when a captor brings home a prize, the tribunal of his own country has jurisdiction to declare whether he is entitled to it, which decision is binding everywhere. A prize-court differs from other courts in this, that the property of foreigners is brought within its jurisdiction, not by consent, as is implied with regard to the ordinary municipal courts, but by force. By natural law, one would suppose that the tribunals of the captor’s country are no more the rightful exclusive judges of captures in war, made on the high seas, from under the neutral flag, than are the tribunals of the neutral country. Nevertheless, such is the rule of international law, which vests the jurisdiction in the prize-court. In Britain, the court is created by commission under the Great Seal, and the judge of the Admiralty Court is usually appointed. Lord Stowell was the judge during the French war, and, during the time he sat as judge, delivered many important judgments in this difficult branch of the law.

PRIZE, PRIZE-MONEY, terms having reference to property captured from an enemy, or to enemy’s property captured from a neutral in time of war. The circumstances under which such capture is justifiable are stated under capture, as regards naval operations; military prize and its distribution to the army are described under BOOTY. It remains only, therefore, to notice the procedure taken in respect to vessels and property captured by the navy. On a ship being taken, she must be sent to a port belonging to the capturing power, where the Court of Admiralty,on full evidence, adjudicates whether she be lawful prize or not. If the decision be affirmative, the prize is then sold; or if a ship-of-war, (a certain allowance per gun is granted by the state. The produce of the sale or grant is lodged in the hands of the Accountant-general of the Navy, for distribution to the officers and men who assisted at the capture. The net produce of the sale or grant is first divided rateably among any ships (if there be more than one) concerned in the capture. The share of each ship is then divided into eight equal parts. If she were employed under the orders of a flag-officer, he gets one-eighth, and the captain two-eighths; if not, the captain has three-eighths; one-eighth is divided among the lieutenants and officers of corresponding relative rank; one-eighth is shared by the junior commissioned officers and warrant officers; one-eighth goes to the midshipmen and petty officers; and the remaining two-eighths among the seamen, marines,and boys.

FINDER OF GOODS. The finder acquires a special property in goods, which is available to him against all the world except the true owner; but before appropriating them to his own use, he must use every reasonable means to discover the owner. It has been decided that if the property had not been designedly abandoned, and the finder knew who the owner was, or knew that he could have discovered him, he was guilty of larceny in keeping and appropriating the articles to his own use. R. v. Thurborn, 1 Denison c.c. 393; Merry v. Green, 7 M. and W. 623. In the latter case, in which a person purchased, at a public auction, a bureau, in which he afterwards discovered, in a secret drawer, a purse containing money, which he appropriated to his own use, Mr. Baron Parke thus laid down the law. ‘The old rule, that “if one lose his goods, and another find them, though he convert them animo furandi to his own use, it is no larceny,” has undergone in more recent times some limitations. One is, that if the finder knows who the owner of the lost chattel is, or if, from any mark upon it, or the circumstances under which it is found, the owner could be reasonably ascertained, then the fraudulent conversion, animo furandi, constitutes a larceny.’ This law, however, although in most cases clear, is, in others, extremely difficult in application, and judges and juries often go wrong. The question for the jury is not whether they think the finder could have discovered the owner, but whether he believed that he could; and if not satisfied as to this, they cannot convict him of larceny. It is a mistake to suppose that the finder is bound to advertise, or use extraordinary means to discover the owner; indeed he cannot claim such expenses from the real owner, if he appear.

PRI’VILEGE (Lat. privilegium, from privata lex, a private law), a special ordinance or regulation, in virtue of which an individual or a class enjoys certain immunities or rights from or beyond the common provisions of the general law of the community. It differs from a dispensation inasmuch as the latter merely relaxes the existing law for a particular case or cases, while the privilege is a permanent and general right. Of ancient and medieval legislation, the law of privilege formed an important branch; and, in truth, the condition of the so-called ‘ privileged classes ‘ was in all respects different, socially, civilly, and even religiously, from that of the non-privileged. In canon law, there were two privileges enjoyed by the clergy, which deserve especial notice from the frequency of the historical allusions to them�the ‘ privilege of the canon’ (privilegium canonis) and the ‘privilege of the forum,’ privilegium fori). By the former, the person of the clergyman, of whatever degree, was protected from violence by the penalty of excommunication against the offender; by the latter�known in England as ‘benefit of clergy’(q. v.)�the clergyman was exempted from the ordinary civil tribunals, and could only be tried in the ecclesiastical court. Most of the purely civil privileges are abolished throughout Europe by modern legislation.

BLA’SPHEMY is an offence against God and religion, by denying to the Almighty his being and providence; or by contumelious reproaches of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; also all profane scoffing at the Holy Scriptures, or exposing them to ridicule and contempt. Seditious words, moreover, in derogation of the established religion may be proved under a charge of blasphemy. These all are offences punishable at common law by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punishment; for Christianity is held to be part of the laws of England; and a blasphemous libel may be prosecuted as an offence at common law, and punished with fine and imprisonment. In Gathercole’s case, tried at York in 1838, where the defendant, a clergyman of the Church of England, was prosecuted for a libel on ‘a Roman Catholic nunnery, and in which he also made a violent attack on the tenets and the morality of the Roman Catholic Church, it was laid down by the judge who tried the case (the late Baron Alderson), that a person may, without being liable to prosecution for it, attack Judaism, or Mohammedanism, or even any sect of the Christian religion, save the established religion of the country; and the only reason why the latter is in a different situation from the others is, because it is the form established by law, and is therefore a part of the constitution of the country. But any general attack on Christianity is also the subject of criminal prosecution, because Christianity is the public religion of the country. Thus, as an offence against religion, B. may assume one of two forms : first, either as against the articles and creeds of the Established Church; or secondly, as against a dissenting community, in the libel against whom, a general attack on the Christian religion is involved. The B. must in some manner have been overtly and publicly declared, either by a speech on some public occasion, or by the act of publication in print.

The Scotch law regarding this offence is now very much the same. The old severe Scotch acts, one passed 1661, and in another in 1695, which provided capital punishment for offences of this description, were repealed by the 53 Geo. III. c. 160. The punishment is now arbitrary at common law; and by the 6 Geo. IV. c. 47, the punishment of B. is further restricted, and made the same as in England. It is also enacted by the second section of that act, that a person convicted of a second offence may be adjudged, at the discretion of the court, either to suffer the punishment of fine or imprisonment, or both, or to be banished the country; but the provision as to the punishment of banishment is repealed by the 7 Will. IV. c. 5. The latest and most remarkable illustration of the Scotch law regarding this offence, is a case that was tried before the High Court of Justiciary in 1843. The prisoner, who defended himself was accused, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen months, for publishing profane, impious, and blasphemous books, containing a denial of the truth and authority of the Holy Scriptures and of the Christian religion; and devised, contrived, and intended to ridicule and bring into contempt the same.

In the course of the trial, the prisoner endeavored to justify his conduct by quotations from the Bible, which, he maintained, warranted the language of the blasphemous works in question. But the court would not allow such a line of defence, and the Lord Justice-clerk (the late Right Honorable John Pope) in charging the jury, pointed out that the indictment charged, that the wicked mid felonious publication of such works is a crime, and that therefore the jury were not to consider themselves engaged in any theological discussion, but simply in trying whether a known and recognized offence against the law had been committed. His lordship proceeded further to expound the law as follows: ‘ Now, the law of Scotland, apart from all questions of church establishment or church government, has declared that the Holy Scriptures are of supreme authority. It gives every man the right of regulating his faith or not by the standard of the Holy Scriptures, and gives full scope to private judgment, regarding the doctrines contained therein; but it expressly provides, that all ‘blasphemies shall be suppressed,” and that they who publish opinions “contrary to the known principles of Christianity,” may be lawfully called to account, and proceeded against by the civil magistrate. This law does not impose upon individuals any obligations as to their belief. It leaves free and independent the right of private belief, but it carefully protects that which was established as part of the law, from being brought into contempt.’ The learned judge also observed : ‘ I think it also my duty to add�as a part of the [prisoner’s] address was directed against the policy and expediency of this prosecution�that I think it was a most proper and fit prosecution. I have no doubt of the effect that will result from this prosecution; because, though, in his advertisement and address, this individual declares that he addresses himself chiefly to the working-classes of Scotland, yet I am sure that he deceives himself if he imagines that that is a class which would easily part with their belief in those truths, which are perhaps more valuable to them in this life than to any other class in the community. There may, indeed, be a class of persons, like the prisoner at the bar, in situations above that of the working-classes, young men whose education is imperfect, and their reading misdirected; and it is to save them from the mischief of these opinions that it is necessary the law should take its course.’ See RELIGION, OFFENCES AGAINST.

AME’NDMENT is a term used both in judicial and parliamentary proceedings. In the former, it is a power of correction ( any errors in actions, suits, or prosecutions, which has been greatly extended of late, and which has largely improved and simplified the administration of the law, both in England and in Scotland. In parliament, the word A. is used when it is intended to oppose vary, or qualify a question or resolution; and in the case of bills, it is employed as a courteous method of dismissing the bill from any further consideration, by moving that instead of ‘now,’ it be read at the end of three months, six months, or any other term beyond the probable duration of the session. It is also competent to a member to move as an A. to the question a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to that of the bill, provided it is strictly relevant, as was done successfully, in 1859, by Lord John Russell, when he moved and carried, as an A. to the motion for the second reading of the Reform Bill of Lord Derby’s government, a resolution declaratory of a principle which the supporters of that measure considered to be subversive of it. See AMMENDMENT in AM. SUPP.