Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/495

Rh M A N M A N 471 lated brick wall 26 feet high and 3 feet thick; the twelve gates (three on each side) are surmounted with wooden watch-towers. A deep wet moat, 100 feet broad, with its escarp 60 feet from the walls, extends along all four sides ; it is crossed by five bridges. The palace of the king occupies the central space of the city ; the walls of its en closure are laid symmetrically with those of the city, and each face is about 370 yards in length. The outer fence consists of a stockade of teak-wood posts 20 feet high, and within it are three successive enclosures, bounded by brick walls. The palace is built within the inner enclosure ; and its front, which faces the east, contains the great hall of audience, 260 feet long, composed of teak timber, elabo rately carved and gilded, erected on a terrace of brickwork 10 feet high. It is in the form of a colonnade, the central part running back, forming a nave with two side aisles. At the extremity of this nave is a space like a chancel (said to be the exact centre of the city) where stands the throne, over which rises a graceful gilded spire, visible from all parts of the city and surrounding country. Another feature of the complex palace buildings is the lofty campanile. Around the palace walls a wide space has been laid out as an esplanade, on the further margin of which are situated most of the houses of the princes, ministers of state, and court officials. The city may be said to consist of two parts, intramural and extramural ; the streets in the former run parallel with the walls, dividing the building sites into rect angular blocks. The majority of the houses are constructed of bamboos and bamboo matting, slightly raised from the ground on posts, with here and there a few brick and wooden buildings. The streets inside the city are very wide, the principal ones being lined with tamarind trees. In the suburbs the roads are laid out with something of the same regularity as in the city, but are of less width, with the exception of the principal road, the Kuladan or foreign quarter, inhabited chiefly by Armenians, Mughals, and the few European residents. The number of houses in the city and suburbs is said to be, in round numbers, 12,000; and the population is roughly estimated at Co.,000. Monasteries and pagodas are dotted about in open spaces, both within and without the walls. Silk- weaving is the principal manufacture. See Fytclic, Burma Past and Present, 1878. MANDAMUS, WRIT OF, in English law, is usually described as a high prerogative writ, containing a command in the name of the king, and issuing from the King s Bench, directed to persons, corporations, and inferior courts, ordering them to do a specific act within the duty of their office. Direct orders from the sovereign to subjects com manding the performance of particular acts were common in early times, and to this class of orders mandamus originally belonged. It became customary for the Court of King s Bench, in cases where a legal duty was established but no sufficient means existed for enforcing it, to order performance by this writ. At all times, accordingly, mandamus has been regarded as of the nature of an equitable interference supplementing the deficiencies of the common law. When the object sought could be equally well obtained by other means, as by an action, or by any other form of proceedings, then mandamus would not lie. A further condition of mandamus at common law was that it lay only for the performance of acts of a public or official character. The enforcement of merely private obligations, such as those arising from contracts, was not within its scope. Further, the interference of the court could only be obtained when there was no doubt of the existence of the duty, or when performance had been demanded and refused. Nor would the writ be issued when performance had become impossible. By the Common Law Procedure Act, 1854, the plaintiff in any action other than replevin and ejectment was entitled to claim a writ of mandamus to compel the defendant to discharge any duty in which the plaintiff might show that he was personally interested, or from the non-performance of which he might sustain damage. The duties so enforceable must, however, be of a public character. By the Judicature Act, 1873, a mandamus may be granted by an interlocutory order of the court in all cases in which it shall appear to the court to be just and convenient, and subject to such terms and conditions, if any, as the court shall think just. Under this section it has been held that the court (which now includes what was formerly the Court of Chancery) has power to issue a writ of mandamus in any cause or matter pending before it, but when the cause is at an end the power is gone. And it lias also been held that, when the circumstances are such as would form ground for an application for the old prerogative writ of mandamus, the application must be made to the Queen s Bench division, which has taken the place of the Court of Queen s Bench on the old system. The jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery to compel specific performance of con tracts has some resemblance to mandamus in the domain of semi-public law. For a collection of the cases in which the prerogative writ of mandamus will or will not lie, reference may be made to Tapping On Mandamus, and to Selwyn s Nisi Priiis, art. &quot;Mandamus.&quot; The writ has passed into the law of the United States. There is in the federal judiciary an employment of the writ substantially as the old prerogative writ in the King s Bench practice, also as a mode of exercising appellate jurisdiction, also as a proceeding ancillary to a judgment previously rendered, in exercise of original jurisdiction, as when a circuit court having rendered a judgment against a county issues a mandamus requiring its officers to levy a tax to provide for the payment of the judgment.&quot; And in the various States mandamus is used under varying regulations, man date being in some cases substituted as the name of the proceeding. See Abbott s Law Dictionary. MANDATE (MANDATUM). The contract of mandatum, in Roman law was constituted by one person (the mandatarius) promising to do something gratuitously at the request of another (the mandator), who undertakes to indemnify him against loss. The jurist distinguished the different cases of mandatum according as the object of the contract was the benefit of the mandator or a third person singly, or the mandator and a third person, the mandator and the mandatarius, or the mandatarius and a third person together. When the benefit was that of the rnandatarius alone, the obligations of the contract were held not to arise, although the form of the contract might exist, the commission being held to be merely advice tendered to the mandatarius, and acted on by him at his own risk. Mandatum was classified as one of the contracts established by consent of the parties alone ; but, as there was really no obligation of any kind until the mandatarius had acted on the mandate, it has with more propriety been referred to the contracts created by the supply of some fact (re). The obligations of the mandatarius under the contract were, briefly, to do what he had promised according to his instructions, observing ordinary diligence in taking care of any property entrusted to him, and handing over to his principal the results of his action, including the right to sue in his name. On the other hand, the principal was bound to recoup him his expenses and indemnify him against loss through obligations he might have incurred. The essentials and the terminology of the contract are preserved in most modern systems of law. But in English law mandate, under that name, can hardly be said to exist as a separate form of contract. To some extent the law of mandatum corresponds partly to our law of principal and agent, partly to that of principal and surety. Story, disputing the assertion that &quot;in the laws of England the contract of mandatum is of no use,&quot; points out that &quot;the common law does not indeed comprehend under that appella tion all the contracts of mandate according to the civil law, such,