and the collector of the tax; and that it is in a great measure upon his personal agency and co-operation that the receipt of the revenue arising from it must depend, is a circumstance which seems unavoidable, but which forms a decided objection to the principle of this duty." (Twelfth Report of Commissioners of Excise Inquiry.) If an auctioneer declines or omits at the time of sale to disclose the name of his employer, he makes himself responsible toward the buyers for all matters in regard to which the responsibility would otherwise lie with the owner of the property sold. He is also responsible to his employer for any loss or damage that may be sustained through his carelessness or want of attention to the instructions given; and if by his gross negligence the sale becomes nugatory, he can recover no remuneration for his services from his employer. If he receives money as a deposit on the sale of an estate, and, knowing that there is a defect in the title, pays that deposit over to his employer, he is answerable for the amount to the purchaser; and if he pay over the produce of a sale to his employer after receiving notice that the goods belong to another, the real owner may recover the value from the auctioneer. The number of auctioneers' licences issued in England in 1840 was 3101; in Scotland, 394; and in Ireland, 303: total 3828; which cost 20,080l. 15s. A uniform payment of 10l. would be more productive, but it would press hardly on auctioneers in many parts of the country. The word Auctioneer is the English form of the Latin "auctionarius," which signified anything pertaining to an auction: the "atria auctionaria" were the rooms in which auctions took place. The "tabulæ auctionaria" contained the particulars of sale. Roman sales of public property were conducted by the magistrates, as the censors, ædiles, quæstors, according to circumstances. Private auctions, such as sales of a man's property, either in his lifetime or on his decease, were conducted by bankers (argentarii), or by a person who was called "magister auctionis." Notice of the sale and other particulars were given by notices (tabulæ, album) or by a crier (præco). The præco or crier seems to have acted the part of the modern auctioneer so far as calling out the biddings and other matters that required bawling. The argentarius or magister entered the sales in a book. On the whole, a Roman auction was very like an English auction. AUDITOR is the Latin word Audítor, which simply means "a hearer." The use of the word to signify one who examines into the accounts and evidences of expenditure has probably not been long established. The word "audit," as in the phrase to "audit accounts," and the "audit," in the sense of the examining of accounts and settlement of them, are also new. The Auditors of the Imprest were ancient officers of the Exchequer, abolished in 1785, when "commissioners for auditing the public accounts" were appointed by 25 Geo. III. c. 52. Ten of these commissioners were appointed by 46 Geo. III. c. 141: the number is now six. Two of them are empowered by 1 & 2 Geo. IV. c. 121, § 17, to examine persons on oath. and to do all acts concerning the audit of public accounts. The Audit-Office, at Somerset-House, where this business is transacted, is immediately under the control of the Lords of the Treasury, who make such orders and regulations for conducting the business as they think fit. The office of auditor, under the PoorLaw Amendment Act (4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 75), if properly constituted, would be one of much higher importance than it has hitherto been. "The qualifications required in an auditor, beyond those of independence and impartiality, are of such a nature as to render it impossible to procure many efficient officers of the description required. A mere knowledge of accounts is only a small part of the requisite accomplishments. It is necessary that he should have a complete knowledge of the statutes and authorities by which the expenditure of the poorrates is regulated, and of the Poor-Law Commissioners' rules, orders, and regulations, and be able to make sound and legal inferences from these authorities, so as to determine their effect in special cases. Some acquaintance with the law of contracts is necessary, and, above all, a large experience of the nature of the pecuniary transactions of the guardians, overseers, and other accountable officers, without which it is impossible for him to exercise his important function of ascertaining, as he is bound to do in every case, the reasonableness of every item." (Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners on the Continuance of the Commission, p. 82.) The appointment of auditor is vested in the Board of Guardians, a rule inconsistent with sound principle, as the operations of the auditor are intended as a check upon the administration of the guardians. In 1837 a Select Committee of the House of Commons agreed to a resolution recommending that the Commissioners should have power to appoint district auditors, on the ground that the existing system was open to great abuse. The Commissioners had authority to combine unions for the appointment of auditors under § 46 of the Amendment Act; but though this gave a chance of persons being appointed less subject to local influence, it was difficult to ensure the combination of different Boards of Guardians. Assistant Poor-Law Commissioners also acted in some cases as auditors, but without salary. Under the act passed in 1844 for the further amendment of the poor law, the Poor-Law Commissioners are empowered to combine parishes and unions into districts for the audit of accounts. (7 & 8 Vict. § 32.) The district auditor is to be elected by the chairman and vice-chairman of the different boards of the district, and his salary and duties are to be regulated by the Poor-Law Commissioners. By § 37 the powers of justices of the peace are to cease in the district for which an auditor is appointed. Auditors are annually elected by the burgesses, under the Municipal Corporations Act (5 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 76, § 37), two for each borough. They audit the borough accounts half-yearly, and must not be members of the council. The mayor appoints a councillor to act with the auditors. AUGMENTATION, COURT OF. This was a court established by 27 Hen. VIII. c. 27, for managing the revenues and possessions of all monasteries under 2001. a year, which by an act of the same session had been given to the king, and for determining suits relating thereto. The court was to be called "the Court of the Augmentations of the Revenues of the King's Crown," and was to be a court of record with one great seal and one privy seal. The officers of the court were, a chancellor, who had the great seal, a treasurer, a king's attorney and a king's solicitor, ten auditors, seventeen receivers, with clerk, usher, &c. The oaths of the different officers are given in § 4 of the act. All the dissolved monasteries under the above value, except those preserved incorporately, were in survey of the court, and the chancellor of the court was directed to make a yearly report of their revenues to the king. The annual revenue of 376 monasteries under 200l. a year, which were suppressed. was 32,000l., and the value of their goods, chattels, plate, &c. was estimated at 100,000l. The records of the Court of Augmentation are now at the Augmentation-Office in Palace-Yard, Westminster, and may be searched on payment of a fee. AULIC COUNCIL was instituted by the Emperor Maximilian I., in 1500. Towards the close of the 15th century, the progress of the Turks alarmed the princes of Germany, and led them to feel more strongly than ever the necessity of sacrificing their petty quarrels, and of uniting in order to resist the common enemy. Accordingly, when the emperor assembled the Diet of Worms in 1495, and proposed a levy against the Turks, he was answered, that it was first requisite to restore internal concord, and that the establishment of a high court of justice for the settlement of all differences was the first step towards such union. The Imperial Chamber was accordingly instituted in 1496, as the high court of justice of the empire, the right of private war being at the same time abolished. It was to consist of one judge of princely rank, and of sixteen assessors, holding their office independent of any power. This tribunal was first fixed at Frankfort, then at Worms, at Nürnberg, and lastly at Spires: it was modified after the peace of Westphalia, and the number of judges was greatly increased, one half being Protestants. Not contented with thus organizing a federal judicature, the German princes, who then aimed at establishing constitutional rights, demanded of Maximilian a permanent council or senate, composed partly of members of the diet, who should govern the empire during the frequent absence of the emperor. Maximilian answered indirectly, that he had no objection to appoint a Hofrath, or court council, consisting of such noble and prudent men as he should select, who should perform the duties alluded to by the diet. The latter assembly, nevertheless, persisted, and succeeded for the time in their plan, carrying the point of having a federal senate, called the Regiment, or Reichs Regiment. Maximilian, on his part, founded what he had promised-a hofrath, at Vienna in 1500. By degrees this purely Austrian institution rose on the ruins both of the Imperial Chamber and the Regiment, till it almost superseded the former, and altogether the latter. The Hofrath is the Aulic Council. Its rise at the time that the federal institution declined or perished, marks the simultaneous elevation of the house of Austria over the old and independent spirit of the German confederation. The judicial functions reserved for the Aulic Council were:-1. All feudal causes; 2. All cases of privilege or reserve in which the emperor was personally concerned; 3. All Italian causes. The merely civil and German cases were referred to the Imperial Chamber. But the Austrian princes made use of the Aulic Council in other than judicial functions. It was with them not only a court of appeal, but a political council, which was called upon to give the monarch advice in weighty matters, more especially of legislation. It thus corresponded with the French Grand Conseil, or Conseil d'Etat. Charles V. modified considerably the Aulic Council, extended its jurisdiction to Italy and the Netherlands, filled it with foreign members, and altered its forms of procedure. But Ferdinand, his successor, hearkening to the complaints of his subjects against these innovations, rendered the court once more purely German, expelled foreign judges, and restored the ancient forms. It was finally regulated by Ferdinand III. in an edict, issued in 1654, subsequent to the treaty of Westphalia and the admission of Protestants to share in all the privileges and functions of the empire. At the extinction of the German empire by the renunciation of Francis II. in 1806, and the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine under the protection of the Emperor Napoleon, the Aulic Council ceased to exist. There is, however, an Aulic Council at Vienna for the affairs of the war department of the Austrian empire; it is called Hofkriegsrath, and consists of twenty-five councillors. The members also of the various boards or chancellories of state for the affairs of Bohemia, Hungary, and Transylvania, Italy, and Gallicia, are styled Aulic Councillors, but are inferior in rank to the councillors of state, of which latter two sit at the head of each board. (Austria as it is, London, 1827.) AUXILIA. [AIDS.] AVERAGE is a quantity intermediate to a number of other quantities, so that the sum total of its excesses above those which are less, is equal to the sum total of its defects from those which are greater. Or, the average is the quantity which will remain in each of a number of lots, if we take from one and add to another till all have the same; it being supposed that there is no fund to increase any one lot, except what comes from the reduction of others. Thus, 7 is the average of 2, 3, 4, 6, 13, and 14; for the sum of the excesses of 7 above 2, 3, 4, and 6-that is, the sum of 5, 4, 3, and 1-is 13; and the sum of the defects of 7 from 13 and that is, the sum of 6 and 7-is also Similarly, the average of 6 and 7 is To find the average of any number of quantities, add them all together, an divide by the number of quantities. Thus, in the preceding question, add together 2, 3, 4, 6, 13, and 14, which gives 42; divide by the number of them, or 6, which gives 7, the average. 14 13. 63. It must be remembered that the average of a set of averages is not the average of the whole, unless there are equal numbers of quantities in each set averaged. This will be seen by taking the average of the whole, without having recourse to the partial averages. For instance, if 10 men have on the average 100l., and 50 other men have on the average 300l., the average sum possessed by each individual is not the average of 100l. and 300l.; for the 10 men have among them 1000l., and the 50 men have among them 15,000l., being 16,000l. in all. This, divided into 60 parts, gives 266l. 13s. 4d. to each. A neglect of this remark might lead to erroneous estimates; as, for instance, if a harvest were called good because an average bushel of its corn was better than that of another, without taking into account the number of bushels of the two. The average quantity is a valuable common-sense test of the goodness or badness of any particular lot, but only when there is a perfect similarity of circumstances in the things compared. For instance, no one would think of calling a tree well grown because it gave more timber than the average of all trees; but if any particular tree, say an oak, yielded more timber than the average of all oaks of the same age, it would be called good, because if every oak gave the same, the quantity of oak timber would be greater than it is. It must also be remembered that the value of the average, in the information which it gives, diminishes as the quantities averaged vary more from each other. | Rem Nauticam pertinentes ""). In order to constitute such a loss as is the subject of average, it must be incurred by design: the masts must be cut away, or the goods thrown overboard; and this must be done for the sake of saving the rest, as in the case of throwing goods overboard to keep the vessel from sinking or striking on a rock, or to lighten her that she may escape from an enemy, or of cutting away a mast or a cable to escape the perils of the storm. The necessary consequences of these acts are also the subjects of average; as where, in order to throw some goods overboard, others or some parts of the ship are damaged; or where it becomes necessary, in order to avoid the danger or repair the injuries caused by a storm or the enemy, to take goods out of the ship, and they are in consequence lost. The expenses also incurred in these operations are equally the subject of average. But the injuries incurred by a ship during an engagement with the enemy, or from the elements in consequence of measures taken to escape from an enemy, are not of such a nature as to fall within the definition. If goods are laden on deck, no average is recoverable in respect of the loss occasioned by throwing them overboard, unless by the usage of trade such goods are usually so laden. If a ship is voluntarily stranded for the purpose of saving her and the goods, and afterwards gets off safely, the expenses incurred by the stranding are the subject of general contribution; but if the ship be wrecked in consequence of the voluntary stranding, the wrecking, not being voluntary, is therefore not such a loss as calls for a general contribution. If, in consequence of such an injury done to a ship as would be the subject of average, she is compelled to go into port to repair, the necessary expenses incurred in refitting her, so as to enable her to prosecute her voyage, and the amount of wages, port-dues, and provisions expended to accomplish that object, are also the subject of average; The principle of average is recognised and if the master is unable to obtain the in the maritime law of all nations. It money necessary by any other means was introduced into the civil law from than by the sale of a part of the cargo, the law of Rhodes (Dig. 14, tit. 2, "Lex the loss caused to the merchant upon such Rhodia de Jactu;" and the Commentary sale is also the subject of average. If, in of Peckius, In tit. Dig. et Cod. " Ad consequence of the sacrifice made, the AVERAGE, in Marine Insurance. If any part of the ship or furniture, or of the goods, is sacrificed for the sake of saving the rest, all parties interested must contribute towards the loss. This contribution is properly called "Average." It is sometimes called general average, in opposition to special or particular average, which is the contribution towards any kind of partial damage or loss, or gross average, in opposition to petty average, which is the contribution mentioned in the bill of lading towards the sums paid for beaconage, towage, &c. ship escape the danger which immediately threatens her, but is afterwards wrecked or captured, and the remaining goods, or part of them, are saved or recaptured, these are bound to contribute average towards the loss in the first instance incurred, in proportion to their net value in the hands of the merchant after all expenses of salvage, &c. have been paid. The things upon which average is payable are, the ship, boats, furniture, &c., but not provisions or ammunition; also all merchandise, to whomsoever belonging, which is on board for the purposes of traffic, but not the covering, apparel, jewels, &c. of parties on board The freight for their own private use. due at the end of the voyage is also subject to average. The goods are to be valued at the price for which they would have sold at their place of destination. If the ship, by reason of what happened when the average was incurred, return to her port of lading, and the average is there settled, the goods are to be valued at the invoice price. The losses incurred by the ship and furniture, &c. are calculated at two-thirds of the price of the new articles rendered necessary to be purchased. The usages of other countries as to all matters connected with average differ in some respects both from those of each other and those of this country. Where the average has been adjusted according to the established law and usage of the country in which the adjustment was made, it is binding upon all the parties to it, unless there be some special contract between them which provides otherwise. [ADJUSTMENT.] AVOCAT, a French word, derived from the Latin advocatus, and corresponding to the English counsellor at law.' [ADVOCATE.] From the middle of the fourteenth century the avocats were distinguished into 'avocats plaidans,' who answer to our barristers, and avocats consultans,' called also juris-consultes,' a kind of chamber-counsel, who do not plead in court, but give their opinion on intricate points of law. Previous to the Revolution the advocates of Dijon, Grenoble, the Lyonnais, Ferez, and Beaujolais were entitled to rank as nobles; in some places the order was freed from the de mands of the farmers of the king's taxes. In |