The jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports collectively extends along the coast, continuously, from Birchington, which is west of Margate, to Seaford in Sussex. But several of the corporate members are quite inland. Tenterden, in the centre of a rich agricultural district, has not even a river near it. Many of the unincorporate members are not only inland, but situated at great distances from their respective ports, some as far as forty to fifty miles. All the unincorporated members being exclusively under the jurisdiction of their own ports, each of those members was obliged to have recourse to the justices and coroner of its own port. This inconvenience was partially removed by 51 Geo. III. c. 36, entitled 'An Act to facilitate the Execution of Justice within the Cinque Ports.'

The Parliamentary Reform Act of 1832 worked a considerable revolution in the political relations of the Cinque Ports, and the Municipal Reform Act has operated yet more decidedly to break up the ancient organization of the ports, and assimilate their internal arrangements to those of the improved English municipalities at large.

Anciently there were several courts, exercising a general jurisdiction over all the ports and members. The Court of Shepway was the supreme court of the Cinque Ports. The lord warden presided in it, assisted by the mayors and bailiffs and a certain number of jurats summoned from each corporate town. Two other ancient courts are still occasionally held, the Court of Brotherhood and the Court of Guestling. The Court of Brotherhood is composed of the mayors of the five ports and two ancients towns and a certain number of jurats from each of them. The Court of Guestling consists of the same persons, with the addition of the mayors and bailiffs of all the corporate members, and a certain number of jurats from each of them. It is thought that the bodies forming this addition may originally have been merely invited by the Court of Brotherhood to give their assistance, and that hence the assembly may have received the name

hood the arrangements and regulations were made as to the apportioning of the service of ships to the crown. The ne cessity for proceedings of this kind no longer exists; and although these courts have been occasionally held of late years, such holding seems to have been mere matter of form, excepting only the Courts of Brotherhood and Guestling, held before each coronation, at which the arrangements have been made respecting the privilege of the barons of the ports to hold the canopy over the king's head on that occasion; another mark of the preeminence among the municipalities of England given to these towns by the princes of the Norman line.

It remains to notice more particularly the nature of the lord warden's jurisdiction as now exercised. All writs out of the superior courts are directed to the constable of Dover Castle, who is always the lord warden; upon which his warrant is made out, directed to and executed by an officer called the bodar. This officer, by a curious anomaly, has also the execution of writs out of the distant civil court at Hastings; and the necessity of having recourse to him has been a source of inconvenience and dissatisfaction to the latter town. The clerk of Dover Castle acts as under-sheriff. The constable's gaol for debtors is within Dover Castle; and by act 54 Geo III. c. 97, their maintenance was provided for by an annual contribution of 300l., to be levied on the ports and members in proportions fixed by the act.

The Admiralty jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports, attached to the office of lord warden, is expressly reserved in the Municipal Reform Act. A branch of this jurisdiction appears in the court of Lodemanage, so call from the old English word lodeman, a lead-man or steerer, which is held for the licensing and regulating of pilots, by the lord warden and a number of commissioners, of whom the mayors of Dover and Sandwich are officially two. The lord warden seems anciently to have held a court of chancery in one of the churches at Dover, but it has long been obsolete. (Jeake's Charters of the Cinque Ports, &c.)

assizes at Kingston, and the Summer assizes at Croydon and Guildford alternately.

The Commissioners of Insolvent Debtors make circuits thrice a year throughout England and Wales, for the purpose of discharging insolvent debtors. There are four circuits, corresponding with the number of commissioners. The Home Circuit comprises five towns, the Midland twenty-six, the Northern twentytwo, and the Southern twenty-six,-in all seventy-six towns.

The Romans used to divide their Provinces into districts, and to appoint certain places, at which the people within the several districts used to assemble at stated times

for the purpose of having their disputes settled by legal process. These places were called Conventus, "meetings," a word which properly signified "the act of meeting," and the assembly or people who met; and the term "Conventus" was also used to express the jurisdiction exercised by the governor at such district courts, and also the districts themselves. The practice was for the governor to make a circuit through the province and hold his courts at each Conventus at stated times, as we see from various passages in Cicero's works and Caesar's Gallic War.' (Cicero Against Verres, vii. c. 11; Caesar, Gallic War, i. 6, v. 2.) During his Gallic War Caesar used to go his Circuits in the winter after the campaign for the year was over. Some towns in the Roman Provinces obtained the privileges of having magistrates of their own (Jus Italicum), but as the governor (proconsul, or practor) had the supreme authority, there was probably an appeal to him from the decision of such magistrates. Pliny (iii. 1. 3; iv. 22) states that in his time Hispania Citerior, which lay between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, was divided into seven Conventus, or judicial districts, and Hispania Baetica, which was comprised between the Ebro and the Guadiana, was divided into four judicial districts. The Province of Lusitania, which corresponded pretty nearly with modern Portugal, was divided into four judicial circuits. Strabo (xiii. p. 629) has some remarks on the judicial districts in the west part of Asia Minor. The business |

done at the Conventus was not confined to the settlement of legal disputes; but other matters were also transacted there which required certain forms in order to have a legal effect, such as the manumis sion of slaves by those who were under thirty years of age (Gaius i. 20).

CITATION, a process in the com mencement of a suit by which the parties are commanded to appear before the Con sistorial Courts. In the Prerogative Court it is called a Decree.

CITIZEN, from the French word Citoyen, which remotely comes from the Latin Civis. Aristotle commences the Third Book of his Politik' with an investigation of the question, What is a citizen (Toxirns)? He defines him to be one who participates in the ju dicial and legislative power in a State. but he observes, that his definitiv strictly applies ouly to a democratical form of government. The Roman word Civis, in its full sense, also meant one whe had some share in the sovereign power in the State. The word citizen then, if we take it in its historical sense, cannot apply to those who are the subjects of a monarch, or, in other words, of one who has the complete sovereign power. It is consistent with ancient usage and moder usage, and it is also convenient to apply the word citizen only to the members of republican governments, which term, as here understood, comprehends [RPUBLIC] constitutitional monarchies. The term constitutional monarchy is not exact, but its meaning is understood: r is a form of republican government the head of which is a king, or pers with some equivalent title, whose pow * and dignity are hereditary. Consti" tional monarchies approach near to as lute monarchies when the constitut gives very little power to the people, this little power is rendered ineffectu▼ the contrivance of the prince and h's visers. Constitutional monarchies are an aristocratical character when m political power is vested in the hands a minority which is small when cut pared with the majority; or they may approach to a democracy, and differ fi it only in having an elective instead of a hereditary head. Citizenship therefor

is here understood as only applying to those States in which the constitution, whether written or unwritten, gives to those who are members of such States, or to some considerable number of them, some share of the sovereign power.

The usual form in which citizenship is acquired is by birth; by being born of citizens. In the old Greek states, and generally in those states of antiquity where citizenship existed, this was the only mode in which as a general rule it could be acquired. A person obtained no rights of citizenship by the mere eircumstance of being born in a country or living there. Citizenship could only be conferred by a public act either on an individual or on all the members of other communities. Difference of religion was one of the causes of these communities excluding strangers from their political body. The Roman system was at first a close community, but the practice of admitting aliens (peregrini) to the citizenship was early introduced. They were even admitted by the old burgers (the Patricians) in considerable numbers, but only by a vote of the collective body of Patricians. The admission of aliens to the citizenship, either partial or complete, became a regular part of the Roman polity to which Rome owed the extension of her name, her language, and her power. It is true that the process of admission went on slowly, and for a long time the Romans, unwisely, and with danger to their state, resisted the claims of their Italian allies, or subject people, who demanded the Roman citizenship; but this claim was finally settled in favour of the Italians by the Social or Marsic War (B.C. 90), and by the concessions that followed that war. Sometimes the States of Italy declined admission into the Roman political body; they preferred their own constitution to the rights and duties of Roman citizens.

The Roman system did not allow a man to claim the citizenship by birth, unless he was born of such a marriage as the state recognised to be a legal marriage. If a Roman married a woman who belonged to a people with whom the Roman state recognised no interinarriage (connubium), the child was not a Roman

citizen; for he was not the child of his father, and it was only as the child of a Roman father that he could claim Roman citizenship.

The English law gives the citizenship to all persons who are born any where of a British citizen or of one whose father or father's father was a citizen of Great Britain. The English law also gives the citizenship to every person born in the British dominions; which rule originated in the king claiming such persons as his subjects who were born within his dominions. [ALLEGIANCE.] In the earliest periods of English history, those were properly called subjects who may now properly be designated citizens; though citizenship in England must be divided into two kinds, as it was in Rome. Some native citizens do not enjoy the suffrage, nor are they eligible to certain offices, such for instance as a membership of the House of Conimons. But these are not permanent and personal disabilities: they are temporary incapacities arising from not having a certain amount of property, and therefore the complete citizenship may be acquired by every man who can acquire the requisite property qualifica tion. It follows from what has been said that those who happen to be under this disability are not full citizens, but have a capacity to become such. Those who have not the suffrage are in the situation of subjects to that sovereign body, of which those who possess the suffrage form a part. The terms on which foreigners are admitted to the citizenship are different in different countries. A recent act of parliament (7 & 8 Vict. c. 76) has rendered the acquisition of partial citizenship in England much easier and less expensive than it was under the former process of a special act of parliament. [NATURALIZATION.]

The United States of North America have had various rules as to the admission of aliens to citizenship; but at present they require a period of five years' residence as a preliminary to obtaining the citizenship. [ALIEN.] Some persons in that country would extend the period of probation to twenty-one years.

This

nowever would be a very impolitic measure, for if foreigners will throng to a country such as the United States, with the view of settling there, the best thing is to make them citizens as soon as they wish to become such ; and there would be manifest danger to the United States if the large number of foreigners who settle there should be considered as aliens for a period which would extend to the whole term of the natural life of many of the new settlers. Indeed there seems to be no objection to giving to aliens in republican governments, as soon as they choose to ask for them, all the rights and consequent duties of citizens, if they are ever to have them. It may be prudent to exclude aliens by birth from some of the high offices in a state, which is done in England and in the United States of North America. [ALIEN.]

In ancient Rome, aliens were not always admitted to the full rights of Roman citizens; and indeed in the early history of the state, even the Plebeians formed an order who were without many of the privileges which the Patricians enjoyed. A person might receive the Roman citizenship so far as to enjoy every advantage except a vote at the public elections and access to the honours of the state. This however was not citizenship as understood by Aristotle, nor is it citizenship as understood by the free states of modern times. The acquisition of complete citizenship implies the acquisition of a share of the sovereign power: the acquisition of all the rights of a citizen, except the suffrage and access to the honours of the state, is a limited citizenship; and it is no more than may be acquired in those states where there is no representa tive body, and in which a man by such acquisition gets not citizenship, but the state gets a subject.

The great facilities for a man changing his residence which now exist, and the increased motives to such change in a desire to better his condition by permanently settling in another country, lead to emigration from one country to another, and more particularly from Europe to America. The advantage which any country receives from the emigration of those who possess capital or peculiar arts

is so great, that, under the present circumstances of the world, it is not easy to discover any good reason for Republican governments refusing to give the citizenship to any person who comes to another country with the view of settling there. A difficulty will arise in case of war, when a man owes a divided allegiance, for it is a principle of English law that a man cannot divest himself of his allegiance to the king of England; and probably an American citizen cannot divest himself of his allegiance to the United States. [ALIEN.] And yet the two countries which maintain this legal principle, allow the citizens of any other country to become citizens of their several communities. The Roman principle under the Republic was, that as soon as a Roman was admitted a citizen o another State, he ceased to be a Roman citizen, because a man could not belong to two States at once; wherein we have one among many examples of the precision of Roman political principles. The same principle must certainly be adopted some time into the international law of modern States.

The nations of Europe and the States of the two Americas have all a co'nmon religion, which however contains a great number of sects. A person of any religion in the United States of North America may become a citizen, and his opinions are no obstacle to his enjoying any of the honours of the country. But this is not so in England. No man for instance, though an English citizen, can be a member of the House of Commons unless he is, or is willing to profess that he is, a Christian.

CITY (in French Cité, ultimately from the Latin Ciritas). Certain large and ancient towns both in England and in other countries are called cities, and they are supposed to rank before other towns. On what the distinction is founded is not well ascertained. The word seems to be one of common use, or at most to be used in the letters and charters of kings as a complimentary or honorary name, rather than as betokening the possession of any social privileges which may not and in fact do not belong to other ancient and incorpo