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 China. It consists of seven judges and a commissary of the government. An appeal to the government in the Conseil d’État can be brought within three months. It is then decided by l’Assemblée du Conseil d’État.

Under the First Empire there were commissions des ports, commissions colonials and commissions consulaires, established mainly to collect materials for the Conseil des Prises, but sometimes, when the ship and cargo were clearly those of the enemy, proceeding to actual condemnation.

In Prussia Regulations of the 20th of June 1864 established a prize council consisting of a president and six associates with a law officer. An appeal was given to an upper prize council (v. Holtzendorff, Rechtslexikon, tit. “Prisengerichte”).

By a law of the German empire of the 3rd of May 1884 the legality of prizes made during war has to be decided by prize courts, and the imperial government is authorized to determine the particulars as to the seat of such courts, their members and their proceedings (Reichsgesetzblatt of 1884, p. 49). Prize courts were established under this law on the occasion of the East African blockade in 1889 (Reichsgesetzblatt of 1889, pp. 5 sqq.).

In Italy Art. 14 of the Merchant Shipping Code provides that prize matters shall be tried by a special commission established by royal decree. On the occasion of the war with Austria such a special commission was established by royal decree of the 20th of June 1866. For the war with Abyssinia a fresh commission was established by royal decree of the 16th of August 1896. The composition of this commission, which was slightly different in character from that established in 1866, was as follows: (a) a first president of a court of appeal or a retired one, or a president of a section of the council of state or of cassation; (b) two general officers of the navy; (c) a member of the “contentious part” of the diplomatic service; (d) two councillors of a court of appeal; (e) a captain of a port, with a commissary of the government and a secretary; five to be a quorum. There was no appeal; but the ordinary right to have recourse to the Court of Cassation at Rome, if the prize commission proceeded without jurisdiction or in excess of jurisdiction, was preserved.

By an ordinance of the 27th of March 1895 regulating the whole matter of prize in Russia, two sorts of prize tribunals of first instance were contemplated—port tribunals and fleet tribunals. The latter are for captures made by ships of the fleet, and are to be composed of some of the principal officers of the fleet. The former are to have presidents named by the emperor from among those “qui font partie de l’administration maritime judiciaire”; the other members are to be appointed by the ministers of the navy, justice and foreign affairs. The court of appeal is formed by the council of the admiralty with the addition of two members of the senate and a nominee of the minister of foreign affairs (Clunet, 1904, p. 271).

On the occasion of the Russo-Japanese war, port tribunals were established under the authority of this ordinance by the lord high admiral, the Grand Duke Alexis, on the 13th of March 1904, at Sebastopol—Port Alexander III., Port Arthur and Vladivostok (Clunet, 1904, p. 479; London Gazette, 22nd March 1904). Many cases were heard before these tribunals and on appeal.

The procedure in prize cases under the old law of Spain is described in Abreu (Felix Joseph de Abreu y Bertodano), Tratado juridico Politico sobre Presas de Mar (Cadiz, 1746). On the occasion of the war with the United States the Spanish government published a proclamation stating the circumstances in which captures were to be made and prizes taken; but information is lacking as to the particular constitution of the prize court or courts.

In Greece prize questions are apparently left to be tried by the ordinary tribunals. See decision of Civil Tribunal of Athens, 1898, No. 3385 (reported Clunet, 1900, p. 826).

Turkey during her war of 1877 with Russia established a prize court and a court of appeal. The ordinance establishing these courts is set out in the London Gazette of the 6th of July 1877.

Japan established, in the war (1904–5) with Russia, prize courts at Sasebo and Yokosco with a court of appeal at Tokyo. Advocates were heard before these courts, and the procedure seems generally to have been modelled upon European patterns.

ADMISSION, in law, a statement made out of the witness-box by a party to legal proceedings, whether civil or criminal, or by some person whose statements are binding on that party against the interest of that party. (See .)

ADO (d. 874), archbishop of Vienne in Lotharingia, belonged to a famous Frankish house, and spent much of his middle life in Italy. He held his archiepiscopal see from 859 till his death on the 16th of December 874. Several of his letters are extant and reveal their writer as an energetic man of wide sympathies and considerable influence. Ado’s principal works are a Martyrologium (printed inter al. in Migne, Patrolog. lat. cxxiii. pp. 181-420; append. pp. 419-436), and chronicle, Chronicon sive Breviarium chronicorum de sex mundi aetatibus de Adamo usque ad ann. 869 (in Migne, cxxiii. pp. 20-138, and Pertz Monumenta Germ. ii. pp. 315-323, &c.). Ado’s chronicle is based on that of Bede, with which he combines extracts from the ordinary sources, forming the whole into a consecutive narrative founded on the conception of the unity of the Roman empire, which he traces in the succession of the emperors, Charlemagne and his heirs following immediately after Constantine and Irene. “It is,” says Wattenbach, “history from the point of view of authority and preconceived opinion, which exclude any independent judgment of events.” Ado wrote also a book on the miracles (Miracula) of St Bernard, archbishop of Vienne (9th century), published in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum; a life or Martyrium of St Desiderius, bishop of Vienne (d. 608), written about 870 and published in Migne, cxxiii. pp. 435-442; and a life of St Theudericus, abbot of Vienne (563), published in Mabillon, Acta Sanct. i. pp. 678-681, Migne, cxxiii. pp. 443-450, and revised in Bollandist Acta Sanct. 29th Oct. xii. pp. 840-843.

ADOBE (pronounced a-dó-be; also corrupted to dobie; from the Span. adobar, to plaster, traceable through Arabic to an Egyptian hieroglyph meaning “brick”), a Spanish-American word for the sun-dried clay used by the Indians for building in some of the south-western states of the American Union, this method having been imported in the 16th century by Spaniards from Mexico, Peru, &c. A distinction is made between the smaller “adobes,” which are about the size of ordinary baked bricks, and the larger “adobines,” some of which are as much as from one to two yards long.

ADOLESCENCE (Lat. adolescentia, from adolescere, to grow up, past part. adultus, grown up, Eng. “adult”), the term now commonly adopted for the period between childhood and maturity, during which the characteristics—mental, physical and moral—that are to make or mar the individual disclose themselves, and then mature, in some cases by leaps and bounds, in others by more gradual evolution. The annual rate of growth, in height, weight and strength, increases to a marked extent and may even be doubled. The development in the man takes place in the direction of a greater strength, in the woman towards a fitter form for maternity. The sex sense develops, the love of nature and religion, and an overmastering curiosity both individual and general. This period of life, so fraught with its power for good and ill, is accordingly the most important and by far the most difficult for parents and educationists to deal with efficiently. The chief points for attention may be briefly indicated. Health depends mainly on two factors, heredity, or the sum total of physical and mental leanings of the individual, and environment. In an ideal system of training these two factors will be so fitted in and adapted to one another, that what is weak or unprovided for in the first will be amply compensated for in the second.