Coke's Second, Third, and Fourth Parts of the Glossary of Heraldry (Oxford). Institutes. Code of Commerce of France. Collyer on Partnership. Colquhoun's Roman Civil Law. Comyn's Digest. Cowel's Interpeter. Cooper's Equity Pleading. Coote's Landlord and Tenant. Coote's Mortgages. Godson on Patents. [Gould on Pleading.] Gow on Partnership. Graves on the Pentateuch. Guy's Forensic Medicine. Hale's History of the Common Law. Hale's Pleas of the Crown. Halifax's Analysis of the Civil Law (Geldart). [Cord on the Legal and Equitable Rights of Hallam's Constitutional History. Married Women.] Coryton on Patents. Cruise's Digest. Cumin's Manual of Civil Law. Cunningham's Dictionary. Daniell's Practice in Chancery (Headlam). East's Pleas of the Crown. Eden on Injunctions. Elliot's Asiatic Researches. Elmer's Lunacy Practice. Encyclopædia Americana. Encyclopædia Londinensis. Fearne's Contingent Remainders. Fearne's Reading on the Statute of Enrolments. Finch's Law, or a Discourse thereof. Fleta. F. N. B., i. e. Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium. Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Angliæ. Hallam's Literary History of Europe. Hallam's Middle Ages. [Hammond on Nisi Prius.] Hare on Discovery. [Hare & Wallace's American Leading Cases.] Hargrave on Accumulation. Harrison's Digest. Hawkin's Pleas of the Crown. Haye's Introduction to Conveyancing. Hody's Treatise on Convocations. Hume's History of England. Impey on the Writ of Mandamus. Irving's Introduction to the Study of the Civil Jahn's Biblical Antiquities (Upham). Jarman on Wills. Jeremy's Law of Carriers. Jeremy's Equity Jurisdiction. Kames's Law Tracts. Kendall's Argument on Trial by Battel. Kennett's Parochial Antiquities. Kelly's Cambist. Kemble's Cod. Diplom. Kent's Commentaries, Koch's History of Europe. Law French Dictionary. Ray's Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity. Rastall's Antiquities. [Rawle on Covenants for Title.] Reeves on English Law. Robert's Indian Glossary. Maddock's Principles and Practice in Chancery. Roberts on Fraudulent Conveyances. Manwood's Forest Laws. Robinson on Gavelkind. Rogers on Elections. Roper's Husband and Wife. Matthæi Westmonastereinsis Flores Historia- Roper on Legacies. XV Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Anti quities. Smith's Handbook of Chancery Practice. Smith's Leading Cases [with Notes by Hare & Wallace]. Smith's Mercantile Law. [Smith on Contracts, with Notes by Mr. Rawle.] Smith's Wealth of Nations. xvi Spelman's Glossary. LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED. Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence. Spence on the Equity Jurisdiction of Chancery. Vieusseau's Napoleon. Spencer's State of Ireland. Squire on the Anglo-Saxon Government. Stamp's Index to the Statutes. Viner's Abridgment. Vom. Beruf. (Code). Starkie on Evidence. Starkie on Slander. Staundford's Prerogative. Story on Bills of Exchange. Story on Equity Jurisprudence. Story on Partnership. Story on Promissory Notes. Stow's Annals. Sugden (Lord St. Leonards) on Powers. [Walker's Introduction to American Law.] Watkins on Conveyancing. Watkins on Copyholds. Watson on Arbitration. Watson on Partnership. [Wharton & Stillé's Medical Jurisprudence.] Whately's Lectures on Political Economy. Whately's Rhetoric. Welford on Equity Pleading. Wentworth's Executors. Wheatley on the Common Prayer. Wheaton's Elements of International Law. Sugden (Lord St. Leonards) on Vendors and White and Tudor's Leading Cases in Equity Purchasers. [with Notes by Hare & Wallace.] Wigram on Discovery. Wilkinson's Law of the Public Funds. Williams on Executors. [Williams on Real Property, with Notes by Mr. [Williams on Personal Property, with Notes by Wood's Institutes. Woodfall's Landlord and Tenant (Horn). Wordsworth's Law of Elections. Wordsworth's Law of Joint-stock Companies THE LAW LEXICON, OR DICTIONARY OF JURISPRUDENCE. AB A. This letter is frequently used as an abbreviation or as a mark of reference, for the purpose of identification. It was inscribed upon a ballot, and stood for " antiquo," I vote against. It was used by the Romans who voted against a candidate for office. See U. R. A ballot or waxen tablet, similarly inscribed, was also used in their Courts of Judicature, being the initial letter of "absolvo," I acquit (not guilty). Cicero calls A, literam salutarem, a comfortable letter, because it was a note of Absolution; but C, literam tristem, a sorrowful letter, because it denoted Condemnation. See C. and N. L. Taylor's Civil Law, 191; Juv. Sat. xiii. 3. A. 1. An expression signifying a first class vessel excellently built.-Shipping term. AB (fr. Abba, Syr., Father). The eleventh month of the Jewish civil year, and the fifth of the sacred. It answers to the moon that begins in July, and consists of thirty days. On the 24th is observed a feast in memory of the abolishment of the Sadducean law, which required sons and daughters to be equal heirs and heiresses of their parents' estate.-Brown's Dict. of Bible, Jahn's Bib. Antiq. AB, at the beginning of English-Saxon names of places, is generally a contraction of Abbot or Abbey; whence it is inferred that those places once had an abbey there, or belonged to one elsewhere, as Abingdon in Berkshire.-Blount's Law Gloss. ABACINARE, a punishment which blinded a criminal by holding red-hot irons before his eyes, described by historians of the middle ages. -Encyc. Lond. ABACIST, or ABACISTA, a caster of accounts, an arithmetician.--Blount, Cowel's Interp. ABACOT, the royal cap of state formerly worn by the Sovereigns of England, wrought into the shape of two crowns.—Chron. Angl. 1643. ABACTION, a carrying away by violence. ABACTOR (fr. abigo, Lat.), a stealer and driver away of cattle or beasts by herds or in great numbers at once, as distinguished from a person who steals a single beast only.-Encyc. Lond. ABACUS (fr. aßaž, Gr., a buffet), arithmetic, from the Abacus, an ancient instrument for facilitating calculations by means of counters. Its ABA form is various, but that chiefly used in Europe is made by drawing parallel lines distant from each other at least twice the diameter of a counter, which, placed on the lowest line, signifies 1; on the second, 10; on the third, 100; on the fourth 1000, and so on. In the intermediate spaces, the same counters are estimated at onehalf of the value of the line immediately superior. There were also other inventions similarly denominated, viz: Abacus Pythagoricus, a multiplication table invented by Pythagoras; Abacus Logisticus, a rectangled triangle, whose sides forming the right angle, contain all the numbers from 1 to 60, and its area the products of each two of the opposite numbers; it is also called a canon of sexagesimals; and the Abacus, or table strewed with dust, upon which the ancient mathematicians drew their schemes.Dyche's Dict., Encyc. Lond. ABALLABA, the ancient name of Appleby in Westmoreland. ABALIENATE, to make over to another.— Civ. Law. ABALIENATION (fr. abalieno, Lat.), a making over of realty, goods, or chattels, to another, by due course of law.-Ib. ABANDONEE, one to whom anything is relinquished. ABANDONER, one who relinquishes any thing. ABANDONMENT, the relinquishment of an interest or claim, the desertion of a husband or wife; also the exercise of a right, which an assured person has to call upon the underwriters or assurers to accept of what is saved out of a wreck, and to pay the full amount of the assurance, as if a total loss had happened, where the matter assured has, by some of the usual perils of the seas, become of little value.-2 Selw. N. P. 976. The damage to a cargo must exceed half its value, to entitle the assured to abandon, and recover as for a total loss, and to justify the abandonment of a ship, the particular injuries must be such that any repairs could not have rendered her seaworthy for the remainder of the voyage. The assured must give notice of his intention to abandon and claim as for a total loss to the underwriters, or their agents, within a reasonable time after he has received intelligence of the casualty, otherwise it will be taken that he intends to claim for a partial loss only. (1.) Abatement of Freehold.-Where a person Abandonment very frequently takes place in dies seised of an inheritance, and before the heir cases of capture: the loss is then total, and no or devisee enters, a stranger, having no right, question can arise in respect to it. Where, how- makes a wrongful entry and gets possession of ever, a ship and cargo are recaptured within it. Such an entry is technically called an abatesuch a time that the object of the voyage is not ment, and the stranger, an abator. It is, in fact, lost, the assured is not entitled to abandon. The a figurative expression, denoting that the rightmere stranding of a ship is not deemed of itself ful possession or freehold of the heir or devisee such a loss as will justify an abandonment. If is overthrown by the unlawful intervention of a by some fortunate accident, by the exertions of stranger. Abatement differs from intrusion, in the crew, or by any borrowed assistance, the that it is always to the prejudice of the heir or ship be got off and rendered capable of continu- immediate devisee, whereas the latter is to the ing her voyage, it is not a total loss, and the as-prejudice of the reversioner or remainder-man; surers are only liable for the expenses occasioned and a disseisin differs from them both, for to disby the stranding. It is only where the stranding is followed by shipwreck, or the ship is in any other way rendered incapable of prosecuting her voyage, that the assured can abandon.Consult Marshall or Park on Insurance. [Phillips on Insurance; Kent's Com.] Also, the surrender of his property by a debtor for the benefit of his creditors. ABANDUN or ABANDUM, anything sequestered, proscribed, or abandoned. Abandon, i. e., in bannum res missa, a thing banned or denounced as forfeited or lost, whence to abandon, desert, or forsake, as lost and gone.-Cowel. Pasquier thinks it a coalition of à ban donner, to give up to a proscription, in which sense it signified the ban of the empire. Ban, in the old dialect, signifies a curse; and to abandon, if considered as compounded of French and Saxon, is exactly equivalent to diris devovere. ABANNITION, a banishment of one or two years for manslaughter.-Obsolete. ABARNARE (fr. Abarian, Ang.-Sax.; denudo, detego, Lat.). to lay bare, discover, detect. Hence abere theof, a detected or convicted thief; abere morth, a detected homicide. Also, to detect and discover any secret crime to a magistrate.-Ancient Laws and Institutes of England; Leg. Canuti, c. 104. ABARSTICK (fr. a priv and Berstan, Sax.; disrumpo, Lat.), insatiable.-Cowel. Ab assuetis non fit injuria. Jenk. Cent. Rep. (From things to which we are accustomed, no injury results.) If a person neglect to insist on his right, he is deemed to have abandoned it. "A Court of Equity," said Lord Camden, "which is never active in relief against conscience or public convenience, has always refused its aid to stale demands, where a party has slept upon his right, and acquiesced for a great length of time. Nothing can call forth this court into activity but conscience, good faith, and reasonable diligence; where these are wanting, the court is passive and does nothing. Laches and neglect are always discouraged; and, therefore, from the beginning of this jurisdiction, there was always a limitation to suits in this court."-Smith v. Clay, Ambl. 645; 3 Bro. C. C. 639. ABATAMENTUM, an entry by interposition. -1 Inst. 277. ABATE (fr. abattre, Fr.), to prostrate, break down, remove, or destroy; also, to let down or cheapen the price in buying or selling.-Encyc. Lond. ABATEMENT, a making less, used in seven senses: seise, is to put forcibly or fraudulently a person seised of the freehold out of possession.-Finch L. 125; 3 Bl. Com. 167. See OUSTER. (2.) Abatement or removal of Nuisances.-A remedy allowed by law to the party injured by a nuisance to abate, destroy, remove, or put an end to the same by his own act. Whatever unlawfully annoys or damages another is a nuisance, which may be abated, i. e., taken away or removed by the aggrieved party, so that he commit no riot in the doing of it. This seems to be the primitive sense of the term abatement. The reason why the law allows this summary method of doing one's self justice, is because injuries of this kind require an immediate remedy and cannot wait for the slow progress of the ordinary forms of justice. It is also used in a privative sense, in Statute, Westm. 1, 3, Edw. I. c. 17, where mention is made of abating a castle or fortress, clearly signifying to pull it down and level it even with the ground. (3.) Plea in abatement.-A defence by which a defendant shows cause to the court why he should not be impleaded or sued, or, if impleaded or sued, not in the manner and form in which he then is, and praying that the action or suit may abate, i. e., cease. A plea in abatement at Common Law is a species of the class dilatory, and states some fact for quashing or abating the original writ in a real, or the declaration in a personal action, on account of an informality, or offers an exception to the personal competency of the parties suing or sued. This plea must be delivered to the plaintiff in four days after receiving the declaration, and cannot be resorted to afterwards. It must be accompanied with an affidavit of its truth, unless the mistake is plainly apparent on the record, otherwise the plaintiff may treat the plea as a nullity, and sign judgment by default.— 4 Anne, c. 16, s. 11. A defendant may plead in abatement to part of a declaration and upon the merits as to the residue. When this defence succeeds on the trial, the particular action is defeated, but the right of action subsists, since the plea does not involve the merits by denying the cause of action itself, but only impeaches the technical frame of the proceedings. Therefore, upon amending the tenor of the proceedings and removing the disability, a new action can be maintained for the same right. With a view to this privilege, the plea must correct the mistake so as to enable the plaintiff to avoid the same objection in framing his new action. |