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Rh in order to make the year agree with the course of the sun.

Leap year, consisting of 366 days, and happening every fourth year, by the addition of a day in the month of February, which in that year consists of twenty-nine days.

Fictitious names applied to pieces of land, and used as examples in the old books.

The statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22, so called because it was occasioned by the outages committed by persons with their times blacked or otherwise disguised, who appeared in Epping Forest, near Waltham, in Essex, and destroyed the deer there, and committed other offenses. Repealed by 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 27.

Old Scotch statutes passed in the reigns of the Stuarts and down to the year 1586 or 1587, so called because printed in black letter. Bell.

In English law. An old record frequently referred to by Cowell and other early writers.

A book of the highest authority in admiralty matters, generally supposed to have been compiled during the reign of Edward III. with additions of a later date. It contains the laws of Oleron, a view of crimes and offenses cognizable in the admiralty, and many other matters. See DeLovio v. Bolt, 2 Gall. 404, Fed. Cas. No. 3,776.

The name of an ancient book kept in the English exchequer, containing a collection of treaties, conventions, charters, etc.

The head-dress worn by the judge in pronouncing the sentence of death. It is part of the judicial full dress, and is worn by the judges on occasions of especial state. Wharton.

A name given collectively to the body of laws, statutes, and rules in force in various southern states prior to 1865, which regulated the institution of slavery, and particularly those forbidding their reception at public inns and on public conveyances. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S 3, 3 Sup. Ct. 18, 27 L. Ed. 835.

In English law. Heath fowl, in contradistinction to red game, as grouse.

A list of persons marked out for special avoidance, antagonism, or enmity on the part of those who prepare the list or those among whom it is intended to circulate; as where a trades-union "black-lists" workmen who refuse to conform to its rules, or where a list of insolvent or untrustworthy persons is published by a commercial agency or mercantile association. Masters v. Lee, 39 Neb. 574, 58 N. W. 222; Mattison v. Railway Co., 2 Ohio N. P. 279.

1. In one of its original meanings, this term denoted a tribute paid by English dwellers along the Scottish border to influential chieftains of Scotland, as a condition of securing immunity from raids of marauders and border thieves.

2. It also designated rents payable in cattle, grain, work, and the like. Such rents were called "black-mail," (reditus nigri,) in distinction from white rents, (blanche firmes,) which were rents paid in silver.

3. The extortion of money by threats or overtures towards criminal prosecution or the destruction of a man's reputation or social standing.

A closed wagon or van in which prisoners are carried to and from the jail, or between the court and the jail.

In old English law. Rents reserved in work, grain, provisions, or baser money, in contradistinction to those which were reserved in white money or silver, which were termed "white rents," (reditus albi,) or blanch farms. Tomlins; Whishaw.

In England, the title of a chief officer of the king, deriving his name from the Black Rod of office, on the top of which reposes a golden lion, which he carries.

A subvassal, who held ward of the king's vassal.

A person who gets his living by frequenting race-courses and places where games of chance are played, getting the best odds, and giving the least he can, but not necessarily cheating. That is not indictable either by statute or at common law. Barnett v. Allen, 3 Hurl. & N. 379.