perienced any severe seismic convulsion until July 10, 1894. On that day there was a violent shock lasting nearly twenty seconds. The damage wrought by it was chiefly in the quarters lying between the Mosque of Sultan Ahmed and the Adrianople Gate. All the damage has been repaired, and the ruined part of the grand Bazaar has been rebuilt on a much better plan.

Trade. The diminution of the trade of Constantinople caused by the territorial changes prescribed by the Congress of Berlin was heavily supplemented by that produced by the annexation of Eastern Rumelia to Bulgaria in 1885, as that province drew all its supplies of foreign merchandise from the capital from which a customs frontier now divides it. Of recent years, moreover, mainly owing to governmental interference with the passenger traffic between the capital and the Asiatic provinces, a large proportion of the provincial dealers now import for themselves by İsmid, Trebizond, Samsun, or Kerasund, instead of buying their supplies in Constantinople. About forty per cent. of the import trade of Constantinople is British; France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Italy share the balance, in proportions following the order in which they are mentioned. Constantinople produces nothing, and consequently exports nothing but waste products, but it receives much merchandise in transit. Latterly, however, a large proportion of it has been diverted-like the import trade, and for the same reasons-to the ports of the Black Sea and to Ismid, which latter as a shipping-port is much assisted in its competition with Constantinople by the Anatolian Railway. The transit trade of Constantinople included, until quite recent years, yellow-berries, gall-nuts, madder-roots, and other colouring matters; but these products have been superseded by the aniline dyes. In connexion with this decrease of trade it is noteworthy that several joint-stock banks have liquidated. Only the Imperial Ottoman Bank and a branch of the Crédit Lyonnais remain.

As far as can be ascertained, the average annual value of the goods passing through the port was, at the opening of the twentieth century, about £T11,000,000 (a Turkish lira = 18s.). It is, however, impossible to obtain exact figures, and it should be clearly understood that this is only an estimate, arrived at indirectly from a study of the custom receipts. The total given is made up as follows:

Imports.

:

Exports.

£T

Cereals

£T . 1,000,000

Mohair

&c.

3,500,000

Carpets

Haberdashery, iron

Silk and cocoons

mongery

700,000 Opium

Sugar

Petroleum

Flour

Coffee

Rice.

Cattle Various

500,000 Gum tragacanth

400,000 Wool

400,000 Hides

300,000 Various

250,000

100,000

850,000

Total. . 7,000,000

700,000

500,000

400,000 150,000 100,000 100,000 350,000

Total. . 4,100,000

Education.-In the department of Education the only important fact is that the Turkish School of Arts and Crafts has been rebuilt and reorganized. Otherwise the educational record of the years 1885 to 1900 is limited to the opening of a few schools of the more elementary sort. There are thirty-two foreign schools, one only of which is British. Two new charitable institutions, founded by the Sultan and supported by the Civil List, claim notice, namely, the Asylum for the Poor and the Hamidieh Hospital for Children. The Imperial Museum of Antiquities, opened in 1892, contains the celebrated Greek Sarcophagi, twenty-one in number, discovered at Saida, the ancient Sidon, in 1888.

Local Government.-Constantinople contains four districts or "divisions" (Belad-i-Selessi), namely, Stamboul, Pera-Galata, Beshiktash, and Scutari, of which the Government is in the hands of the Minister of Police, who is ex officio Governor of Stamboul. The other three districts have each their Governor (mutessarif), who is appointed by the Sultan, and is subordinate to the Minister of Police. All matters concerning public order and security are controlled by these four Governors, each of whom

is provided with a separate staff of police and gendarmery, each district having its own police court, of which the Governor is the presiding magistrate. The municipal government of the four metropolitan divisions is vested in the Prefect of Stamboul, who is appointed by the Sultan. He is the President of a Council of twenty-four members, who are appointed either by the Sultan, or by the Minister of the Interior in cases where there is no Palace candidate. The Prefecture has charge of all that concerns the streets, the markets, and the bazaars, including the street porters and the public weighers. It has also control over the public baths and the hospitals, of which latter there are three; and is charged with the collection of all city dues, including the Verghi (Property Tax). The Prefecture is divided into ten cercles, or wards, each of which has a president, vice-president, secretary, engineer, and physician, all of whom are appointed by the Council of the Prefecture. The Prefect is immediately subordinate to the Minister of the Interior. A military commandant, having under his orders a detachment of the garrison of Stamboul, is appointed to each of the four districts, the supreme military commander being the Dersaadet Merkez Commandani-i.e., Commandant de la Place -Commander of the Garrison of Constantinople.

The outlying parts of the city are divided into six districts (Cazas), namely, Princes' Islands, Guebzeh, Beicos, Kartal, Kutchuk-Tchekmedjé, and Shilé-each of which has its Governor (kaimakam), who is usually chosen by the Palace. These districts are dependencies of the Ministry of the Interior, and their municipal affairs are directed by agents of the Prefecture.

Population. The city population, according to official estimate, numbers 880,000; the aggregate population of the six suburban districts is officially estimated at 320,000; giving a grand total of 1,200,000, which is the official estimate of the entire population of the city of Constantinople and its faubourgs. The Armenian element of the population was appreciably reduced by the events of 1895-96; but no trustworthy figures in connexion with this diminution are obtainable.

In the four central districts of the city the first-class thoroughfares and a considerable proportion of those of the second and third order are now fairly well lighted with gas.

Water Supply.-From the time of the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks up to the year 1882 one method of obtaining water for the city was followed to the exclusion of all others. This method was to trap the rain in the natural hollows of the forest of Belgrade (about 18 miles north-east of Constantinople), together with the water of the rivulets which trickle through some of them. It was effected by throwing a dam across the lowest end of each depression, thus stopping the outflow of water, and forming a reservoir called Bend in Turkish. There are nine of these "Bends." The water from the "Bends" is conveyed to its destination in earthenware pipes set in cement, and laid underground except in places where depressions of the soil necessitate In several cases where that occurs the remains an aqueduct. of the ancient aqueducts are utilized. The pipes convey the water to the public fountains, from which the poorer classes take it as they require, and it is distributed by the corporation of watercarriers (sakka) to those who can afford to pay the cost of delivery. This was the only water system of Constantinople up to the year 1885. The radical defects of this system suggested to Kiamil Bey, Grand Master of Ceremonies at the Court of the Sultan, in conjunction with a foreigner residing in Constantinople, to apply for a concession to bring water from Lake Derkos, which is about 28 miles west of the Black Sea mouth of the Bosphorus, and about 3 miles from the Black Sea shore. The application was finally granted in 1881 to the associate of Kiamil Bey, who had himself died in the meanwhile. A French company was formed, with a capital of twenty million francs, to carry out the undertaking; the works were begun in 1882, and on 1st July 1885 the new water supply was inaugurated. Lake Derkos has a total length of 8 miles, and a mean breadth of 2 miles. It is abundantly supplied by the river Karaman and its tributaries flowing down from the Strandja Dagh. The water, when taken from the lake, is first filtered, and then raised by a steam elevator (600 h.p.) to a height of 365 feet, where it enters the main conduit, 29 miles long, and is thence distributed by the deliverypipes, of which the total length at the present time is 165 miles. The quality of the Derkos water is excellent, and the service is thoroughly well conducted. Until the year 1893 the Asiatic suburbs had no water supply but such as individual families obtained by cisterns, wells, &c. In 1888 a German firm obtained a concession for establishing water-works at the Sweet Waters of Asia-a lake lying between the villages of Kandili and AnatoliHissar, which is fed by mountain streams from the Kaïsh-Dagh and Alem-Dagh. A company called the Compagnie des Eaux de Scutari-Kadikeui was formed in 1890, with a share capital of £144,000 and a debenture capital of £160,000. The works were commenced in January 1891, and the supply service began in October 1893.

AUTHORITIES.-P. DE TCHIHATCHEF. Bosphore et Constantin

Considerable attention has been devoted in recent years to the archæology of Constantinople, and although the study is seriously hampered by the impossibility of making excavations, a real advance has been made in this department of knowledge. Many mistakes have been corrected, important facts have been discovered, and problems remaining to be solved have been more clearly recognized and more precisely stated than heretofore. The city of Byzantium, out of which Constantinople sprang, and from which it inherited characteristic features, occupied, when it reached its greatest extent, most of the territory comprised by the two hills nearest the apex of the promontory and by the level ground at their base. The western wall of the city started from a point near the Stamboul Custom House and reached the ridge of the Second Hill, a short distance to the east of the column popularly named Tchemberli Tash and the Burnt Column. There stood the principal gateway of the city, opening upon the Egnatian Road. From that point the wall ran southwards for some distance towards the Sea of Marmora, and then turned eastwards until it reached that sea in the neighbourhood of the present Seraglio Lighthouse. The Acropolis was situated on the summit of the First Hill, where the courts of the Old Palace of the Sultans are found; and within the citadel stood, as was customary, the chief temples of the city-the Temples of Artemis, Aphrodite, Apollo, Zeus, Poseidon, and Demeter. The harbours of the city were upon the Golden Horn-one, the Portus Prosforianus, in the bay indenting the shore in front of the station of the Chemins de Fer Orientaux ; the other, the Neorium, in the bay before the Stamboul Custom House. On the level tract behind the former was the Strategion, the Champs de Mars of the city; while another public square, known as the Tetrastoon, because surrounded by four porticos, is represented by the open space between S. Sophia and the Hippodrome. There stood the Baths of Zeuxippus. theatres were built against the steep eastern side of the Acropolis Hill, and a Stadium stood on the level ground at the foot of the Acropolis beside the Golden Horn. A large portion of the Hippodrome, so famous in the history of Constantinople, was constructed by Septimius Severus for the benefit of the citizens of Byzantium, when he rebuilt the city in A.D. 196. The graceful granite column which stands on the high ground near the apex of the promontory is a monument erected by Byzantium in honour of the victory of Claudius Gothicus over the Goths. It still bears most of the original inscription

REDUCI FORTUNÆ OB DEVICTOS GOTHOS.

Two

According to the measurements given by Zosimus and the Notitia, it would appear that the walls of Constantinople, as built by the founder of the city in 328, ran across the promontory from the neighbourhood of Daoud Pasha Kapoussi (Porta S. Aemiliani) on the Sea of Marmora to Oun-Kapan Kapoussi (Porta Plataea) on the Golden Horn, near the Stamboul head of the inner bridge, traversing in their course the seventh, fourth, and fifth hills of the promontory. By extending the old seaward walls of Byzantium to the extremities of the new western fortifications, the capital was placed within strong bulwarks. The only vestige of the western walls is found in the name Isa Kapoussi (Gate of Jesus), attached to a locality on the heights above the quarter of Psamathia. An ancient city gate which stood there as late as 1508, when it was overthrown by an earthquake, marked a point in the Constantinian line of fortifications, exactly as Temple Bar indicated a point in the old walls of London long after they had otherwise disappeared. Possibly a portion of the seaward walls bounding the old harbour, which is now converted into the vegetable gardens of Vlanga Bostan, may date from the time of Constantine. Two suburbs outside the walls were considered as parts of the city-the suburb of Sycae (Galata), and the suburb of Blachernae, now the quarters of Aivan Seraj and Egri Kapou. The latter suburb stood within fortifications of its own. For municipal purposes the city was divided into fourteen Regions, on the model of Rome. But ere a century had passed, the growth of the new metropolis on the one hand, and military considerations in view of the threatening attitude of the Barbarians on the other, demanded the enlargement of the city's bounds and the erection of stronger defences. Accordingly, in 413, in the reign of Theodosius II., under the direction of Anthemius, Praetorian Prefect of the East and Regent during the emperor's minority, the landward fortifications were carried farther west, to the line of the inner wall in the crumbling but picturesque ramparts which extend from the Sea of Marmora, a short distance south of the Seven Towers (Yedi Koulé), to the old Byzantine Palace (Tekfour Serai), above the quarter of Egri Kapou. Authorities differ on the

question how the city was then defended from the last-named point to the Golden Horn; some maintaining that the Theodosian Walls turned north-eastwards and reached the Golden Horn near Balat Kapoussi, others being of the opinion that the new walls joined the old fortifications which protected the suburb of Blachernae. On the whole, the latter view seems the more probable. The seaward walls required by this enlargement of the city were built in 439, during the administration of the Prefect Cyrus.

The wall of Anthemius was, however, terribly injured by a severe earthquake which shook the city in 447, while Theodosius II. was still upon the throne. The disaster was the more serious because Attila and his Huns were then carrying everything before them in the Balkan Peninsula; but the desperateness of the situation roused the energies of the Roman Government to the highest pitch, and in less than two months, if we may trust inscriptions to that effect, the city was again fully armed, and even more secure than before the catastrophe. The Praetorian Prefect Constantine, whom some authorities identify with the Prefect Cyrus named above, not only repaired the wall of Anthemius, but placed another wall in front of it, and protected this double line of fortifications by a moat, with a battlement along its inner margin. Each wall was flanked by ninety-six towers, while the terrace between the two walls, and the terrace between the outer wall and the moat, allowed room for the action of large bodies of troops, in addition to the troops upon the walls themselves. Comparatively slight changes were made in the boundaries of the city after the reign of Theodosius II. The lower portion of the suburb of Blachernae, namely, the plain to the north of the Sixth Hill, was enclosed within fortifications in 627, after the siege of the city by the Avars in the reign of Heraclius; in 813 Leo the Armenian strengthened the wall of Heraclius by constructing a wall and a moat in front of it, thus to withstand better an expected assault by the Bulgarians under Crum; lastly, in the reign of Manuel Comnenus the fine wall extending from the north-western corner of the court of Tekfour Serai to the square tower below Egri Kapou was erected to defend more effectively the Palace of Blachernae, on the Sixth Hill, which had become the favourite residence of the Byzantine emperors. Of course all these fortifications were frequently repaired (e.g., the seaward walls by the Emperor Theophilus), and to them Constantinople owed her long life and her ability to repel, for more than a thousand years, the assaults of barbarism upon the civilization of Christendom. They present to the archeologist a splendid specimen of medieval fortifications constructed under the strong influence of old Roman military traditions, and they afford endless interest to the student of history on account of the events associated with them.

The most noteworthy points in the circuit of the walls are: the Golden Gate, in the form of a triumphal arch with three archways, erected (before the Theodosian Walls were built) in honour of the victory of Theodosius the Great over the usurper Maximus; the Gate of S. Romanus (Top Kapoussi), memorable as the gate near which Constantine Dragases fell, and through which Sultan Mahomet II. rode into the captured capital in 1453; the great breach in the valley of the Lycus, through which the Turks entered the city; Tekfour Serai, long erroneously identified with the Palace of the Hebdomon, the finest specimen of Byzantine civil architecture left in the city; the two Towers commonly known respectively as the Towers of Anemas and Isaac Angelus, with the chambers in the body of the wall to the north; the wall of Leo the Armenian, the point at which the army of the Fourth Crusade, which had its camp on the hill opposite, delivered the chief attack in 1203; the wall protecting the quarters of Phanar and Petri Kapou, where the fleet and troops of the Fourth Crusade assaulted and carried the city in 1204, to found the Latin Empire of Constantinople; Yali Kiosk Kapoussi, the point to which the northern end of the chain drawn across the harbour in time of siege was attached; the ruins of the Palace of Hormisdas, once the residence of Justinian the Great and Theodora, known in later times as the Bucoleon, near Tchatlady Kapou; the sites of the old harbours between that gate and Daoud Pasha Kapoussi; the fine Marble Tower near the junction of the Land Walls with the walls along the Sea of Marmora.

The interior arrangements of the city were largely determined by the configuration of its site, which falls naturally into three divisions: the level ground and the slopes towards the Sea of Marmora, the range of hills running through the midland portion of the promontory, the slopes and level ground towards the Golden Horn. In each of these divisions a great street ran from one end of the city to the other, generally lined with arcades on one side, but sometimes, when passing through the busier and the finer parts of the city, on both sides. The street on the ridge of the hills formed the principal thoroughfare, and owing to its central position was known as the Mesé. It connected the principal Fora of the city the Augustaion (to the south of S. Sophia); the Forum of Constantine (on the summit of the Second Hill); the Forum of Theodosius the Great, or of Taurus (on the summit of the Third Hill, beside the present War Office): the Forum of the Amastrianon

(near the Mosque Shah Zadé); the Forum of the Bous (at Ak Serai); the Forum of Arcadius, or of Theodosius II. (on the summit of the Seventh Hill, at Avret Bazaar). A branch of the Mesé led to the Church of the Holy Apostles, on the summit of the Fourth Hill, and to the Gate of Adrianople (Gate of Charisius) in the city walls. Of the edifices and monuments which adorned the Fora just mentioned, it must here suffice to say that the Augustaion (so named in honour of Augusta Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great) was the heart of the city's political and ecclesiastical life. The great cathedral of Eastern Christendom rose on the north side of the square; the splendid gateway of the Chalcé, leading to the Imperial Palace, the Baths of Zeuxippus, with the Hippodrome behind them, stood on the south; the Senate House was on the east; while to the west, at a short distance off the Mesé, which issued from the square, were the Law Courts. In the area of the square stood the Milion, whence distances from Constantinople were measured; the equestrian statue of Justinian the Great, on a lofty column; the statue of the Empress Eudoxia, famous in the history of Chrysostom, and the inscribed pedestal of which remains. With the Forum of Constantine the Great the commercial activity of the city was closely associated, the most remarkable monument in the forum being the porphyry column which still stands there, and which carried aloft the statue of that emperor. In the Forum of Theodosius I. rose a column in his honour, constructed on the model of the hollow column of Trajan at Rome; there also stood the Anemodoulion, a beautiful structure surmounted by a vane to indicate the direction of the wind; and close to the Forum, if not within its precints, was the Capitol, in which the University of Constantinople was established. The most conspicuous object in the Forum of the Bous was an ancient bronze figure of an ox, which gave name to the Forum, and beside which criminals were sometimes burned to death. Another hollow column, the pedestal of which still remains, rose in the Forum of Arcadius in honour of that emperor. The city possessed also a column in honour of the Emperor Marcian, which still stands in the valley of the Lycus, below the Mosque of Sultan Mahomet II. In the decoration of the Fora and streets of the city there was a strange mingling of works belonging to good periods of Greek and Roman Art, with works made when Art had fallen on evil days.

An immense number of churches, enriched by the reputed relics of saints, prophets, and martyrs, made Constantinople a holy city, attracting to its shrines devout pilgrims from every part of the empire. Only some twenty of these sanctuaries survive, and most of them are now used as mosques for Moslem worship, exhibiting few traces of the beauty created by the combination of dome and arch, of marble revetment and mosaics. But S. Sophia still impresses the mind as one of the grandest buildings ever reared by human hands, while the Churches of S. Irene, SS. Sergius and Bacchus (Kutchuk Aya Sofia), S. Mary Diaconissa (Kalender Djamissi), S. Saviour of the Chora (Kahriyeh Djamissi), and S. Saviour Pantocrator (Klissé Djamissi) are interesting monuments of Byzantine art. The Church of the Holy Apostles, to which the Imperial Cemetery was attached, on the summit of the Fourth Hill, has been replaced by the Mosque of Sultan Mahomet II., the conqueror of the city.

Of the imperial palaces in and around the city we can mention only the Great Palace, a group of detached edifices scattered over the ground descending to the Sea of Marmora from the Hippodrome and the eastern side of the Augustaion; the Palace of Hormisdas, or of the Bucoleon, near Tchatlady Kapou; the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, Tekfour Serai; the Palace of Blachernae, in the quarters of Egri Kapou and Aivas Effendi; the suburban Palace of Pegé, at Balukli; the Palace of the Hebdomon, at Makrikeui. The last has generally been identified with Tekfour Serai, but the fact that the suburb and palace at the Hebdomon stood at Makrikeui, beside the Sea of Marmora, at the seventh milestone from the Milion, is one of the surest results of recent archæological investigations. The fortress of the Cyclobion was in the same vicinity.

The Hippodrome, which entered so much into the life of the city, is represented by the large open space to the west of the Mosque of Sultan Achmet. An Egyptian obelisk on a pedestal covered with sculptured work portraying Theodosius I., sometimes accompanied by his empress and his sons, presiding at scenes in the Hippodrome; the Serpent Column, which stood originally at Delphi, in commemoration of the battle of Plataea; and a lofty pile of masonry in the form of an obelisk, once covered with gilded plates of bronze, indicate the line of the Spina; while under the prison and offices along the western side of the area arches are visible, against which seats for the spectators were built.

Water was brought to the city from the country to the west and north-west by aqueducts, sometimes above and sometimes under ground, and was stored within the city in large open reservoirs (now changed into vegetable gardens) and in cisterns covered with vaulted roofs supported on columns. They are important specimens of Byzantine architecture, as the works of Andréossy (Constantinople et le Bosphore), of Forchheimer and Strzygowski (Die

Byzantinischen Wasserbehälter von Konstantinopel), and of Choisy (L'Art de Bâtir chez les Byzantins) testify. The Aqueduct of Valens spans the valley between the Fourth Hill and the Third Hill of the city, and still carries on its beneficent work. The Cistern of Bin-Bir-Derek (Cistern of Illus) and the Cistern of Yeri-Batan-Serai (Cisterna Basilica) are noteworthy. Much of the water introduced into the city was used in the public baths and fountains, which formed as characteristic a feature of Byzantine Constantinople as similar erections do of Stamboul.

Byzantine Constantinople was a great emporium of trade, and a striking evidence of its commercial activity is seen in the number of harbours with which the city was provided. In addition to the Golden Horn and its bays, several artificial harbours, traces of which remain, were constructed on the shore of the city beside the Sea of Marmora. First (beginning from the east) came the Harbour of the Bucoleon, attached to the palace of that name, for the service of the Imperial Court. Then, at a short distance to the west of Tchatlady Kapou, came the Harbour of the Emperor Julian (Kadriga Limani), or of Sophia, as it was called after its reconstruction by the empress of Justin II.; the Harbour of Condoscalion (Koum Kapou) followed; next came (a little to the east of Yeni Kapou) the Harbour of Kaisarius, or the Heptascalon; then, the Harbour of Theodosius I., or of Eleutherius (Vlanga Bostan); and lastly, the Harbour of the Golden Gate, on the shore south of that entrance.

Besides the works mentioned above, the following will assist the student of the archæology of the city:-PETRUS GYLLIUS. De Topographia Constantinopoleos et de illius Antiquitatibus.—Dv CANGE. Constantinopolis Christiana. - PASPATES. Βυζαντιναί Meλéral.-SALZENBERG. Altchristliche Baudenkmale von Konstantinopel-LETHABY and SWAINSON. The Church of Sancta Sophia.-PULGHER. Les Anciennes Églises Byzantines de Constantinople.-LABARTE. Le Palais Impérial de Constantinople et ses Abords.-MORDTMANN. Esquisse Topographique de Constantinople. (A. VAN M.)

Contract. The purpose of this article is not to give technical details and authorities for professional use, but to exhibit the characteristic features of English law in connexion with their historical and rational grounds. Enforcement of good faith in matters of bargain and promise is among the most important functions of legal justice in modern civilized countries. It might not be too much to say that, next after keeping the peace and securing property against violence and fraud so that business may be possible, it is the most important. Yet we shall find that the importance of contract is developed comparatively late in the history of law. The commonwealth needs elaborate rules about contracts only when it is advanced enough in civilization and trade to have an elaborate system of credit. The Roman law of the empire dealt with contract, indeed, in a fairly adequate manner, though it never had a complete or uniform theory; and the Roman law, as settled by Justinian, appears to have satisfied the Eastern empire long after the Western nations had begun to recast their institutions, and the traders of the Mediterranean had struck out a cosmopolitan body of rules, known as the Law Merchant, which claimed acceptance in the name neither of Justinian nor of the Church, but of universal reason. It was amply proved afterwards that the foundations of the Roman system were strong enough to carry the fabric of modern legislation. But the collapse of the Roman power in western Christendom threw society back into chaos, and reduced men's ideas of ordered justice and law to a condition compared with which the earliest Roman law known to us is modern.

In this condition of legal ideas, which it would be absurd to call jurisprudence, the general duty of keeping faith is not recognized except as a matter of religious or social observance. Those who desire to be assured of anything that lies in promise must exact an oath, or a pledge, or personal sureties; and even then the court of their people-in England the Hundred Court in the first instance will do nothing for them in the first case, and not much in the two latter. It is more a question of acquiring a good title to help one's self than of becoming entitled to active assistance from any person in authority. S. III. 28

has now been introduced in many jurisdictions, have been of much use at a time when only a minority even of wellto-do laymen could write with any facility.

There was no principle and no form of action in English law which recognized any general duty of keeping promises. But could not breach of faith by which a party had suffered be treated as some kind of legal wrong? There was a known action of trespass and a known action of deceit, this last of a special kind, mostly for what would now be called abuse of the process of the court; but in the later Middle Ages it was an admitted remedy for giving a false warranty on a sale of goods. Also there was room for actions "on the case," on facts analogous to those covered by the old writs, though not precisely within their terms. If the king's judges were to capture this important branch of business from the clerical hands which threatened to engross it, the only way was to devise some new form of action on the case. There were signs, moreover, that the Court of Chancery would not neglect so promising a field if the Common Law judges left it open.

The mere fact of unfulfilled promise was not enough, in the eyes of medieval English lawyers, to give a handle to the law. But injury caused by reliance on Assumpsit. another man's undertaking was different. The special undertaking or "assumption" creates a duty which is broken by fraudulent or incompetent miscarriage in the performance. I profess to be a skilled farrier, and lame your horse. It is no trespass, because you trusted the horse to me; but it is something like a trespass, and very like a deceit. I profess to be a competent builder; you employ me to build a house, and I scamp the work so that the house is not fit to live in. An action on the case was allowed without much difficulty for such defaults. The next step, and a long one, was to provide for total failure to perform. The builder, instead of doing bad work, does nothing at all within the time agreed upon for completing the house. Can it be said that he has done a wrong? At first the judges felt bound to hold that this was going too far; but suitors anxious to have the benefit of the king's justice persevered, and in the course of the 15th century the new form of action, called assumpsit from the statement of the defendant's undertaking on which it was founded, was allowed as a remedy for non-performance as well as for faulty performance. Being an action for damages, and not for a certain amount, it escaped the strict rules of proof which applied to the old action of debt; being in form for a kind of trespass, and thus a privileged appeal to the king to do right for a breach of his peace, it escaped likewise the risk of the defendant clearing himself by oath according to the ancient popular procedure. Hence, as time went on, suitors were emboldened to use "assumpsit" as an alternative for debt, though it had been introduced only for cases where there was no other remedy. By the end of the 16th century they got their way; and it became a settled doctrine that the existence of a debt was enough for the court to presume an undertaking to pay it. The new form of action was made to cover the whole ground of informal contracts, and, by extremely ingenious devices of pleading, developed from the presumption or fiction that a man had promised pay what he ought, it was extended in time to a great variety of cases where there was in fact no contract at all. The new system gave no new force to gratuitous promises. For it was assumed, as the foundation of the

to

he had not committed himself to anything on the strength of the defendant's promise, he had suffered no damage and had no cause of action. Disappointment of expectations is unpleasant, but it is not of itself damnum in a legal sense. To sum up the effect of this in modern language, the plaintiff must have given value of some kind, more or less, for the defendant's undertaking. This something given by the promisee and accepted by the promisor in return for his undertaking is what we now call the consideration for the promise. In cases where debt would also lie, it coincides with the old requirement of value received (quid pro quo) as a condition of the action of debt being available. But the conception is far wider, for the consideration for a promise need not be anything capable of delivery or possession. It may be money or goods; but it may also be an act or series of acts; further (and this is of the first importance for our modern law), it may itself be a promise to pay money or deliver goods, or to do work, or otherwise to act or not to act in some specified way. Again, it need not be anything which is obviously for the promisor's benefit. His acceptance shows that he set some value on it; but in truth the promisee's burden, and not the promisor's benefit, is material. The last refinement of holding that, when mutual promises are exchanged between parties, each promise is a consideration for the other and makes it binding, was conclusively accepted only in the 17th century. The result was that promises of mere bounty could no more be enforced than before, but any kind of lawful bargain could; and there is no reason to doubt that this was in substance what most men wanted. Ancient popular usage and feeling show little more encouragement than ancient law itself to merely gratuitous alienation or obligations. Also (subject, till quite modern times, to the general rule of common-law procedure that parties could not be their own witnesses, and subject to various modern statutory requirements in various classes of cases) no particular kind of proof was necessary. The necessity of consideration for the validity of simple contracts was unfortunately confused by commentators, almost from the beginning of its history, with the perfectly different rules of the Roman law about nudum pactum, which very few English lawyers took the pains to understand. Hasty comparison of misunderstood Roman or canon law is answerable for a large proportion of the worst faults in our old-fashioned text-books. Doubtless many canonists, probably some common lawyers, and possibly some of the judges of the Renaissance time, supposed that ex nudo pacto non oritur actio was in some way a proposition of universal reason; but it is a long way from this to concluding that the Roman law had any substantial influence on the English.

The doctrine of consideration is in fact peculiar to those jurisdictions where the common law of England is in force, or is the foundation of the received law. Substantially similar results are obtained in other modern systems by professing to enforce all deliberate promises, but imposing stricter conditions of proof where the promise is gratuitous.

As obligations embodied in the solemn form of a deed were thereby made enforceable before the doctrine of consideration was known, so they still remain. Deeds. When a man has by deed declared himself bound, there is no need to look for any bargain, or even to ask whether the other party has assented. This rugged fragment of ancient law remains embedded in our elaborate modern structure. Nevertheless gratuitous promises, even by deed, get only their strict and bare rights. There may be an action upon them, but the powerful remedy of specific performance-often the only one worth having— is denied them. For this is derived from the extraordinary jurisdiction of the Chancellor, and the equity administered