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 RESTRAINT (from “to restrain,” Lat. restringere, to hold back, prevent), in law, a restriction or limitation. The word is used particularly in three connexions: 1. Restraint on Anticipation. Although it is a principle of English law that there can be no restriction of the right of alienation of property vested in any person under an instrument, equity makes an exception in the case of a married woman, and has laid down the rule that property may be so settled to the separate use of a married woman that she cannot, during overture, alienate it or anticipate the income. Restraint on anticipation attaches only during overture and is therefore removed on widowhood, but it may attach again on remarriage. By the Conveyancing Act 1881, s. 39, a court may however, if it thinks fit, by judgment or order bind a married woman’s interest in her property, with her consent, if it appears to be for her benefit, notwithstanding that she is re stained from anticipating.

2. Restraint of Marriage.—A gift or bequest to a person may have a condition attached in restraint of marriage. This condition may be either general or partial. A condition in general restraint of marriage is void, as being contrary to public policy, although a condition in restraint of a second marriage is not void. A condition in partial restraint of marriage is valid, and may be either to restrain marriage with a particular class of persons, e.g. a papist, a domestic servant, or a Scotsman, or under a certain age.

3. Restraint of Trade.—A contract in general restraint of trade is void as being against public policy. In the leading case of Mitchell v. Reynolds, 1711, 1 Smith L.C., it was laid down that “it is the privilege of a trader in a free country, in all matters not contrary to law, to regulate his own mode of carrying it on according to his own discretion and choice. If the law has regulated or restrained his mode of doing this, the law must be obeyed. But no power short of the general law ought to restrain his free discretion.” It has been suggested that the rule dates from a time when a covenant by a man not to exercise his own trade meant a covenant not to exercise any trade at all—every man being obliged to confine himself to the trade to which he had been apprenticed. However, contracts which are only in partial restraint of trade are good. A contract not to carry on the business of an ironmonger would be bad; but a contract made by the seller of an ironmonger’s business not to compete with the buyer would be good. To make such a contract binding it must be founded on a valuable consideration and must not go beyond what is reasonably necessary for the protection of the other party. This is the tendency also of the law in the United States.

RESZKE, JEAN DE (1850–), operatic singer, was born at Warsaw on the 14th of January 1850. His parents were Poles; his father was a state official and his mother a capable amateur singer, their house being a recognized musical centre. After singing as a boy in the Cathedral of Warsaw, he studied law in the university there, but in a few years he abandoned this and went to Italy to study singing. He made his first public appearance, as a baritone, at Venice in January 1874, as Alfonso in La Favorita, and in the following April he sang for the first time in London, appearing at Drury Lane Theatre, and a little later in Paris. He was not entirely successful and retired for a further period of study, during which his voice gained remarkably in the upper register; so that when he made his first reappearance at Madrid in 1879 it was as a tenor, in the title-rôle of Robert le Diable. Jean de Reszke’s great fame as a singer dates from this time. For several seasons he sang regularly in Paris, and he reappeared at Drury Lane in 1887 as Radames. In the next year he was again in London, this time at Covent Garden as Vasco da Gama; this appearance was mainly responsible for the revival of the opera as a fashionable amusement in London. He appeared in London nearly every year from this date until 1900. In 1891 he visited America, and from 1893 to 1899 he was welcomed each year at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Jean de Reszke’s most successful parts were the title-rôle of Le Cid, which was written for him by Massenet, and those of Romeo, Lancelot in Elaine, and Lohengrin, Walther von Stolzing, Siegfried and Tristan in Wagner’s operas. In 1904 illness compelled him to retire from the stage, and he subsequently divided his time between teaching singing in Paris and breeding race-horses in Poland.

Jean de Reszke’s younger brother,, born at Warsaw on the 23rd of December 1855, is also famous as an operatic singer. He appeared for the first time in Paris in April 1896, and has since sung with his brother for many seasons both in London and in New York. His magnificent bass voice and admirable technique earned him fame in such parts as those of Mephistopheles in Faust, Charles V. in Marchetti’s Don Giovanni d’ Austria, Walter in Tell, the Count in Sonnambula, Prince Gudal in Demonio, and Hans Sachs, King Mark, Hunding and Hagen in Wagner’s operas.

RETABLE (Fr. rétable, a shortened form derived from Med. Lat. retrotabulum), a term of ecclesiastical art and architecture, applied in modern English usage to an altar-ledge or shelf, raised slightly above the back of the altar or communion table, on which are placed the cross, ceremonial candlesticks and other ornaments. Retables may be lawfully used in the church of England (Liddell & Beale, 1860, 14 P.C.).

Foreign usage of the term, as in French, is different, and where the word is kept with this foreign application, the distinction should be observed. The Med. Lat. retrotabulum (modernized retabulum) was applied to an architectural feature set up at the back of an altar, and generally taking the form of a screen framing a picture, carved or sculptured work in wood or stone, or mosaic, or of a movable feature such as the famous Pala d’ Oro in St Mark’s, Venice, of gold, jewels and enamels. The foreign “rétable” is, therefore, what should in English be called a “” (q.v.), though that is not in modern usage a movable feature.

RETAIL, the sale of goods or commodities in small quantities to the immediate consumer, opposed to a sale wholesale or in gross. The O. Fr. retaille, from which the word is taken, meant a piece cut off, from tailler, to cut, Med. Lat. taleare, Lat. talea, a rod, cutting for planting. The English meaning appears in Anglo-French and in the Italian retaglio, selling by the piece. The other meaning of “retail,” to repeat a story, is a transferred sense of an early meaning, “to sell at second hand.” The Latin source is also seen in the related Words “entail,” “tailor,” “detail” and “tally.”

RETAINER (from “retain,” Lat. retinere, to hold back, keep), properly the act of retaining or keeping for oneself, or a person or object which retains or keeps; historically, a follower of a house or family, and particularly used of armed followers attached to the barons of the middle ages. John Cowell, in The Interpreter (1607), defines “retainer” as a “servant not meniall nor familiar, that is, not continually dwelling in the house of his lord or master, but onely using or bearing his name or livery.”

Retainer of Counsel.—When it is considered desirable by a litigant that the services of any particular counsel (barrister) should be obtained for the conduct of his case, it is necessary to deposit with counsel a form of retainer together with the necessary fee in cash, from which time counsel is bound to give the party who has thus retained him the first call on his services in the matter in which he has been retained. Retainers are either general or special. A general retainer is one which retains counsel for all proceedings in which the person retaining is a party, and lasts for the joint lives of client and counsel. If any other person offers a special retainer or brief against the general retainer, counsel must give the general retainer notice of such offer—and if after a reasonable time the general retainer does not himself specially retain or brief counsel, the general retainer is forfeited. A special retainer is one which only applies to some particular cause or action. It can only be delivered after the action is begun, and gives the client a right to the services of counsel throughout the course of the action, and counsel is entitled to be briefed on all occasions to which the retainer applies. Retainer rules were drawn up in 1901 by the Bar Committee, read by the Bar Council and approved by the Attorney-General and the Council