CHIMIN-continued. filum viæ, may belong to some private person. (2.) A private way is that by which one or more persons have a right or liberty to pass through another person's ground. Cowel. See also title WAY. CHIROGRAPH. An instrument of gift or conveyance attested by the subscription and crosses of the witnesses, and which was in the Saxon times called Chirographum and which being somewhat changed in form and manner by the Normans, was by them styled charta. Anciently, when they made a chirograph or deed which required a counterpart, as we call it, they engrossed it twice upon one piece of parchment contrarywise, leaving a space between, in which they wrote in great letters the word chirograph, and then cut the parchment in two through the middle of the word, concluding the deed with " In cujus rei testinonium utraque pars mutuo scriptis presentibus fide media sigillum suum fecit apponi." This was afterwards called dividenda, because the parchment was so divided or cut. And the first use of these chirographs was in Henry III.'s time. Chirograph was also of old used for a fine. And this manner of engrossing the fine and cutting the parchment in two pieces continued to be observed until the abolition of fines by the stat. 3 & 4 Will, 4, c. 74. Cowel. See also next title. CHIROGRAPHER OF FINES. Chirographus finium et concordiarum (from the Greek χειρόγραφον, which is a compound of xelp, a hand, and ypápw, I write). It signified in the Law the officer of the Common Pleas who engrossed fines in that Court so as to be acknowledged into a perpetual record, after they had been acknowledged and fully passed by those officers by whom they were previously examined. Cowel. This CHIVALRY (servitium, militare). word comes from the French chevalier; and signifies that peculiar species of tenure by which lands were formerly held, called tenure by knights' service. It is of a martial and military nature, and obliges the tenant to perform some noble or military office unto his lord. CHLOROFORM. Administering this drug with intent to commit an indictable offence is, by the stat. 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 22, made a felony, punishable with penal servitude for life or five years, or with imprisonment for two years with or without hard labour. CHOSE (thing). This word is generally used in combination with others. The most common combinations in which it is found are the following:-(1.) Chose local; (2.) Chose transitory: and (3.) Chose in action. (1.) Chose local is such a thing as is annexed to a place; thus, a mill is a chose local. (2.) Chose transitory means anything of a movable or transitory nature, which may be taken or carried away from one place to another. (3.) Chose in action (the most ordinary combination) is a phrase which is sometimes used to signify a right of bringing an action, and at others the thing itself which forms the subject matter of that right, or with regard to which that right is exercised; but it more properly includes the idea both of the thing itself and of the right of action as annexed to it. Thus, when it is said that a debt is a chose in action, the phrase conveys the idea not only of the thing itself, i.e., the debt, but also of the right of action or of recovery possessed by the person to whom the debt is due. When it is said that a chose in action cannot be assigned, it means that a thing to which a right of action is annexed cannot be transferred to another together with such right. Thus if A. owes B. £10, it is obvious that the latter has a debt, and also a right of recovering such debt against A.; now if B. were to assign or transfer his debt, together with his right of recovery, to C., this would be assigning a chose in action, which the law would not allow for the reasons stated in Co. Litt. 214 a, 266 a; 2 Roll. 45; Moulsdale v. Birchall, Sid. 212. But more recently such assignments came to be allowed in Equity, and latterly crossed in some instances from Equity to Law, until eventually, by the Judicature Act, 1873, a chose in action has been made assignable in every case. CHRISTIANITY. To bring this religion into ridicule or contempt is an offence against the Common Law of England, and as such is indictable. Holt, Libel, 69, n. CHURCH. A place of worship, to be adjudged a church in law must have administration of the sacraments and sepulture annexed to it (Cowel). The fabric of the church consists of the nave or body of the church, with the aisles, the chancel, and the steeple. See also titles ADVOWSON; BURIAL; CHURCH-RATES. These were abolished as a compulsory assessment by the stat. 31 & 32 Vict. c. 109, and the payment of these or of any analogous assessment to be collected instead of them was made voluntary. The assessment while it existed was made in a vestry meeting; it fell generally upon all such property as was rateable CHURCH RATES-continued. to the poor-rate; it went to support the temporal necessities of the church. CHURCHWARDENS. These, although laymen, are a species of ecclesiastical officers, being sworn in by the archdeacon or bishop of the diocese. They are entrusted generally with seeing to the repairs, management, and good order of the church, and to decency of conduct therein. They are a body corporate, and may as such be sued for the goods of the church, and are answerable to their successors in office. Usually, the parishioners elect one, and the parson the other churchwarden, the customary number being two. In virtue of their appointment, churchwardens are overseers of the poor. CHURLE. Among the Anglo-Saxons a tenant at will of free condition, who held land from the thanes on condition of rent or services. They were of two sorts; (1.), one who hired the lord's outland or tenementary land, as our farmers do now; (2), the other, who tilled and manured the inland or demesnes, (yielding work and not rent), and were thence called his sockmen or ploughmen. Spelman on Feuds; Cowel. CINQUE PORTS (quinque portus). Five important havens, formerly esteemed the most important in the kingdom. They were Dover, Sandwich, Romney, Hastings, and Hythe; Winchelsea and Rye have since been added to the number. They have similar franchises in many respects with the counties Palatine, and particularly an exclusive jurisdiction (before the mayor jurats of the ports), in which the king's ordinary writ did not run. These ports have a governor called the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, who has the authority of an admiral amongst them, and used to send out writs in his own name. But the king's writ now runs to, and is executed in, these ports in like manner as in other parts of the kingdom. See C. L. P. Act, 1852, s. 122. CIRCUITS. These are the routes taken by the several judges in holding the assizes. The stat. 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 71, regulates the appointment of convenient places for holding the assizes; and the stat. 26 & 27 Vict. c. 122, enables the Queen in Council to alter the circuits. As at present constituted, there are eight circuits in England and Wales, viz., Home, Norfolk, Midland, Northern, Oxford, Western, South Wales, and North Wales, but a new arrangement is imminent. CIRCUITY OF ACTION. Is where a party to an action, by an indirect and circuitous course of legal proceeding, makes CIRCUITY OF ACTION-continued. two or more actions necessary, in order to obtain that justice between all the parties concerned in the transaction, which by a more direct course might have been gained in a single action. As in an action on a contract, in which the defendant, instead of giving in evidence a breach of the warranty in mitigation of damages, allows the plaintiff to recover the full amount of the contract in the first action, and then subsequently commences against him a cross action to regain the amount to which the consideration had failed. (See title CROSS ACTION.) Formerly indeed, he was compelled to bring a cross action, and had no other remedy, but more recently "the cases have established that the breach of the warranty may be given in evidence in mitigation of damages, on the principle it should seem, of avoiding circuity of action." Per Tenterden, C.J., 2 B. & Aď. 462. CIRCULAR NOTES. These are similar instruments to Letters of Credit. (See that title.) They are drawn by bankers in this country upon their foreign correspondents in favour of persons travelling abroad. The correspondents must be satisfied of the identity of the applicant before payment; and the requisite proof of such identity is usually furnished, upon the applicant's producing a letter with his signature, by a comparison of the signatures. CIRCUMSPECTE AGATIS. The title of the statute 13 Edward 1, regulating the jurisdiction of the temporal and ecclesiastical Courts. The date usually assigned to this statute is 1285; but there seems to be reason to believe that it was not in existence at that period. It was, however, cited as early as 19 Edward 3. It originally was not a statute, but a writ supposed to have been issued in pursuance of the statute called Articuli Cleri (see that title), of which, in the form in which it is printed both in the authentic and ordinary edition of the statutes, it is a repetition and abridgement. It was probably a writ of mandate, framed for the purpose of being issued by the king to his judges in behalf of the Spiritual Courts, in or after 1315, and embodying what were then supposed to be the legitimate objects of the jurisdiction of those latter Courts. Its authority as a statute, is, however, no longer questioned. 12 Ad. & El. 315. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. That evidence which may be afforded by particular circumstances. It is called circumstantial evidence in contradistinction to that species of evidence which is of a more positive and unequivocal nature. Whence the latter is sometimes called direct evidence, and in that case circumstantial is CITATION. The process used in the Ecclesiastical Courts and Court of Probate and Divorce, to call the party-defendant or respondent, before them. It is the first step which is taken in the case, and is somewhat analogous to the writ of summons at Common Law. CIVIL DEATH. If a man entered into a monastery, or abjured the realm, he was formerly, and if he is attainted of treason or felony he still is, dead in law, and therefore if an estate be granted to any one for his life generally, it would determine by such civil death. For which reason in conveyances the grant is usually made" for the term of a man's natural life," which can only determine by his natural death. 3 Inst. 213; 3 P. Wms. 37, n. (B); 2 Rep. 48 b. CIVILITER (civilly.) In a man's civil character or position, or by civil, in opposition to criminal, process; as "sheriffs who execute process at their peril are answerable civiliter for what they do upon it," or a man may, without his own fault, be possessed of a horse which has been stolen, but nevertheless he is answerable civiliter to the true owner of it." 1 B. & P. 409, per Rooke, J. 66 CIVIL LIST, SETTLEMENT OF-contd. of the Crown (see title TAXATION), Without imposing any limitation upon his personal expenditure. These revenues were estimated in times of peace to be sufficient for the support of his majesty's person and household, and for the maintenance of his civil and military government; for all extraordinary occasions, such as times of war, grants of extraordinary supplies were made to him. In the reign of Charles II. the principle of appropriating the supplies to the specific services had been formally established, and such appropriation was in fact made the condition, or one of the conditions, upon which the same were granted; but notwithstanding that such was the recognised principle or condition of the grant, it is certain that Charles II. misapplied towards his own private pleasures a large amount of these supplies. Accordingly, upon the accession of William and Mary, Parliament provided separately for the king's civil list a sum of £700,000, derived in part from the hereditary revenues of the Crown, and partly from the excise duties, and voted in addition the sum of £500,000 for the other expenses of government not included in the civil list. At this period the civil list embraced not only the support of the king's person and dignity, but also the salaries of civil officers and pensions. In this condition the civil list remained during the reigns of Anne, George I., and George II; but on the accession of George III. that king gave up the hereditary revenues of the Crown in England altogether, in consideration of a civil list of £800,000 a year. He still retained, however, the hereditary revenues of the Crown in Scotland, the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, the Irish civil list, and various other sources of revenue, amounting not unfrequently to the annual sum of £4,700,000 odd. But notwithstanding this vast income, George III. was always in debt, through the great multiplication of pensions and sinecure places, these being the means which that prince adopted with a view to increasing the influence of the Crown In view of these abuses, Mr. Burke in 1780 proposed his scheme of "economic reform;" and in 1782, the Rockingham Civil List Act was passed, in virtue of which many useless offices were abolished, the pension list was diminished, and the civil list expenditure was divided under eight heads. But the civil list was still suffered to comprise (in addition to the support of the king's person and dignity) the expenses of the civil government; viz. the salaries of judges, &c., annuities to members of the royal family, salaries in the CIVIL LIST, SETTLEMENT OF-contd. diplomatic service, and numerous public pensions. During the reigns of George III. and George IV. various of these latter items of expenditure ceased to be chargeable on the civil list; and, upon the accession of William IV., the civil list was still further relieved, and in particular, from judicial salaries, pensions, and diplomatic service salaries, and at the same time that king surrendered all the hereditary revenues of the Crown. Upon the accession of Queen Victoria, the Crown was finally restricted to a definite annuity of £385,000 for the support of the person and dignity of the sovereign, and Her Majesty was empowered to grant pensions annually to the extent of £1200. The Crown still retains the revenues of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, those of the latter being the property of the reigning sovereign, and those of the former the property of the Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall; and the Crown possesses the capacity to acquire and also to dispose of other private property, under the Act of 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 88, and has acquired further facilities for these purposes by the Crown Private Estates Act, 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 61). CIVIL SIDE. The legal business of the assizes is arranged according to the natural division of such cases as are merely civil, in which the disputes of subjects (citizens) as to property are decided, and those of a criminal nature, when men are charged with offences against the welfare of society at large. In the county hall, or court in which the trials take place, it is very usual for one side or portion of the building to be appropriated to the hearing of cases of the former character, and the other side or portion to the hearing of those of the latter character. And hence the phrase has become common that the judge is either sitting on the civil side" or "on the criminal side," meaning thereby that he is either presiding at Nisi Prius or trying a prisoner, as the case may be. It is now customary for two judges to attend circuit together, and then one of them sits on the "civil" the other on the "criminal side." 66 CLAIM, CONTINUAL. When a man was entitled to enter into any lands or tenements of which another was seised in fee or in tail, and he who was so entitled made continual claim to the lands or tenements before he who was so seised, died seised thereof; then even in the event of such person dying seised of the same, and the lands or tenements descending to his heir, might he who made such continual claim, or his heir, have entered into the lands or CLAIM, CONTINUAL-continued. tenements so descended by virtue of his having made such continual claim. So if a man were disseised, and the disseisee made continual claim to the tenements in the life of the disseisor, and the disseisor died seised in fee, and the land descended to his heir, yet notwithstanding its having so descended, the disseisce might have entered upon the possession of the heir, by virtue of such continual claim. Such a claim must always have been made within a year and a day before the death of the person holding the land, and as the claimant could not know when such death would take place, he was therefore obliged continually to be making such claim: i. e., at the expiration of every year and a day, in order that he might be sure of his claim being made within a year and a day of the tenant's death, and hence it was termed continual claim (Litt. 414). But no such continual claim is of any utility at the present day to preserve a right of entry, or distress, or action, 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 27, s. 11. CLARENDON, CONSTITUTIONS OF. In the reign of Henry II., A.D. 1164, Blackstone states that there are four things which peculiarly merit the attention of the legal antiquarian, one of which is the constitutions of the parliament at Clarendon, whereby the king checked the power of the pope and his clergy, and narrowed the exemptions they claimed from the secular jurisdiction. These Constitutions enacted in substance that the king's Courts should try all contested rights of advowson and presentation; ecclesiastics should obey the king's summons; appeals from the archbishop should be to the king aloue; all disputes regarding lands between ecclesiastics and laymen should be tried by the king's justices; all pleas of debt, notwithstanding the same may be affected with a trust, should be determined in the king's Courts, with other provisions of a similar character. CLAUSUM FREGIT (he broke the close). Every unwarrantable entry on another's soil the law entitles a trespass by breaking his close. The words of the writ of trespass command the defendant to shew cause, quare clausum querentis fregit. See title TRESPASS. CLERGY, BENEFIT OF, or privilege of clergy, formerly signified certain privileges which the clergy alone enjoyed. It had its origin from the pious regard paid by Christian princes to the church in its infant state; and the ill use which was soon made of that pious regard. The exemptions which were granted to the church were principally of two kinds :-(1.) Ex CLERGY, BENEFIT OF-continued. emption of places consecrated to religious duties from criminal arrests, which was the foundation of sanctuaries; (2.) Exemption of the persons of clergymen from criminal process before the secular judge in a few particular cases, which was the true original meaning of the phrase "benefit of clergy." In England, however, although the usurpations of the pope were very many and grievous, till Henry VIII. entirely exterminated his supremacy, yet a total exemption of the clergy from secular jurisdiction could never be thoroughly effected, though often endeavoured by the clergy; and therefore, though the ancient benefit of clergy was in some capital cases, yet it was not universally, allowed. And in some particular cases the use was for the bishop or ordinary to demand the clerks to be remitted out of the king's Courts as soon as they were indicted; concerning the allowance of which demand there was for many years great uncertainty, till at length it was finally settled in the reign of Henry VI., that the prisoner should first be arraigned, and might then claim his benefit of clergy by way of declinatory plea; or after conviction by way of arresting judgment. But afterwards other persons were placed upon the same footing with the clergy with respect to this privilege. It was formerly required that those who claimed benefit of clergy should be able to read; but by 5 Ann. c. 6, it was enacted that the benefit of clergy should be granted to all those who were entitled to ask it, without requiring them to read by way of conditional merit, hence persons convicted of manslaughters, bigamies, and simple or grand larcenies, &c., were asked what they had to say why judgment of death should not be pronounced upon them; and they were then told to kneel down and pray the benefit of the statute. The abuses attending the privilege grew very many, and a better code of criminal law and procedure in later days tacitly supplanted the plea, which was ultimately abolished altogether by the stat. 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 28, s. 6. CLERGYMEN. These, who are otherwise called clerks in holy orders, enjoy certain privileges, and are subject to certain disabilities in law. Thus, on the one hand, they are exempt from serving on juries (6 Geo. 4, c. 50), and they are protected from all obstructions in the discharge of their duty (24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 36); while, on the other hand, they cannot be members of the House of Commons, and labour under a general disability as to trade; but they may be owners of shares in a company (Lewis v. Bright, 4 El. & Bl. 917.) Their professional and private conduct is more severely judged of than is that of private individuals in * CLERGYMEN-continued. general, the entire body of the Canon Law being binding upon them. CLERK OF THE ASSIZE. A clerk whose duty it was to record all things judicially done by the justices of assize in their circuits. Cromp. Juris. 227; Cunningham; abolished by 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. 30. CLERK OF THE COMMONS. An officer whose duty it is to attend to matters connected with the business of the House of Commons. He is assisted by two "clerks assistant," who sit at the table with him; he signs orders of the House, indorses bills, reads anything required to be read, and makes short minutes of the business transacted known as the "Votes and Proceedings." He holds his office for life under the Crown, and is appointed by letters patent. This is an CLERK OF THE CROWN. officer of the Court of Chancery, appointed under the Royal Sign Manual. He performs the duties of the Clerk of the Hauaper (see next title); his office is continued by the Great Seal (Offices) Act, 1874, (37 & 38 Vict. c. 81), which also regulates the fees to be taken in the office. His duties are not confined to the Court of Chancery, but follow the Lord Chancellor even to Parliament. Thus, upon the meeting of a new Parliament, the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery delivers to the Clerk of the House of Commons (see that title) a list of the names of members returned to serve in the Parliament, after which the Commons go up to the House of Lords, and the Lord Chancellor addresses them generally upon the object and purposes of their being summoned to Parliament. The Clerk of the Crown also certifies in like manner the election of representative peers for Scotland and Ireland. Moreover, all warrants to issue new writs are directed to him; and he reads all the titles of bills at the time the royal assent is signified to them by commission. See May's Parl. Prac., 7th ed., pp. 185, 187-8, 630, and 529. CLERK OF THE HANAPER, or HAMPER. An officer of the Court of Chancery, whose duty it was to receive all the money due to the king for the seals of charters, patents, commissions, and writs; and also fees due to the officers for enrolling and examining the same. Cowel. CLERK OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. An officer appointed by the Crown, whose duty it is to make a record of the proceedings of the House, which he or his deputies enter upon the journals, to receive and preserve the petitions presented to the House, and generally to assist the Speaker in the details of his very onerous duties. He is usually a barrister-at-law. Similar F |