Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/328

Rh 310 R E C R E C persons appointed to positions of trust, such as guardians or receivers. In criminal practice they affect either suspected or accused persons, or witnesses. As early as 1360 the Act of 34 Edw. III. c. 1 empowered justices to take of all them that were not of good fame sufficient surety and mainprize of their good behaviour. The wide terms of this provision are not acted upon at the present day. The only recognizances of this kind practically enforced are those entered into as security for keeping the peace. Such recognizances are forfeited by any act tending to a breach of the peace. The Criminal Law Consolidation Acts of 1861 provide that any court may on the conviction of a person for an offence under any of the Acts require him in addition to or in lieu of other punishment to enter into his own recognizances for keeping the peace and being of good behaviour. The power to bind witnesses by recog- nizance was originally conferred by an Act of 1554, 1 Ph. and M. c. 13. Recognizances are now the usual means by which a court of summary jurisdiction or a coroner binds over a prosecutor and his witnesses or an accused person and his witnesses to appear at the trial. The pro- cedure principally depends upon 7 Geo. IV. c. 64, 11 and 12 Viet. c. 42 (one of Jervis's Acts), 30 and 31 Viet. c. 35 (Russell Gurney's Act), 42 and 43 Viet. c. 49, s. 31 (the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879). In proceedings in error and in appeals from courts of summary jurisdiction to quarter sessions the prosecution of the appeal by the appellant is secured by recognizance. In certain cases police authorities have by recent statutes a limited authority to take the recognizance of accused persons. Failure to comply with the conditions of recognizances leads to their forfeiture. Additional facilities for the enforcing of re- cognizances were given by the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879 (see QUARTER SESSIONS). When recognizances are forfeited they are estreated (i.e., extracted) from the records of the court to be enforced against the defaulter. An appeal against an order of a court of summary jurisdic- tion forfeiting recognizances lies to quarter sessions (3 Geo. IV. c. 46). By 28 and 29 Viet. c. 104 a recognizance does not bind the land in the hands of a bona fide purchaser for valuable consideration or a mortgagee unless actual execu- tion has issued and been registered in the name of the debtor at the central office of the Supreme Court of Judi- cature. Registered recognizances are among the encum- brances for which search is made on a purchase of land. By 45 and 46 Viet. c. 39 an official negative of the exist- ence of registered recognizances may be given by the proper officer on application. A discharge in bankruptcy does not release the debtor from a debt on a recognizance unless the Treasury certify in writing their consent to his discharge (46 and 47 Viet. c. 52, s. 30). Forgery of recog- nizances is a felony punishable by five years' penal servi- tude (24 and 25 Viet. c. 98, s. 32). In Scotland the place of recognizances is filled by cautions ; a caution in law-burrows corresponds very nearly to a recognizance to keep the peace. In the United States recognizances are used for much the same purposes as in England. RECORDE, ROBERT (c. 1500-1558), a physician and eminent mathematician, was descended from a respectable family at Tenby in Wales and was born about 1500. He was entered of the university of Oxford about 1525, and was elected fellow of All Souls College in 1531. As he made physic his profession, he went to Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1545. He afterwards re- turned to Oxford, where he publicly taught arithmetic and mathematics, as he had done prior to his going to Cam- bridge. It appears that he afterwards went to London, and acted as physician to Edward VI. and to Queen Mary, to whom some of his books are dedicated. He died in the King's Bench prison, Southwark, where he was confined for debt, in 1558. Recorde published several works upon mathematical subjects, chii'ily in the form of dialogue between master and scholar, viz. : T)ie Grounds of Artcs, tcachingc the Jt'orke and Practise of Arith- metickc, both in whole numbers and fractions, 1540, 8vo ; The Path- way to Knowledge, containing the First Principles of Geometry . . . bothe for the use of Instrumentes Geomctricall and Astronomicall, and also for Projection of Plattes, London, 1551, 4to ; The Castle of Knowledge, containing the Explication of the Sphere both Celestieul and Material!, &c., London, 1556, folio; The Whetstone of ll'ittc, whidi is tJie second part of Arithmetike, containing tlie Extraction of Rootes, the Cossike Practice, with the Rules of Equation, and the Woorkes of Surde Numbers, London, 1557, 4to. This was the first English book on algebra. He wrote also a medical work, The Urinal of Physic, 1548, frequently reprinted. Sherburne states that Recorde also published Cosmographise Isagogc, and that he wrote a book De Artc facicndi Horologium and another De Usu Globorum ct de Statu Tcmporum. Recorde's chief contributions to the progress of algebra were in the way of systematizing its notation. He is said to have been the first to use the sign of equality ( = ) having the two parallel lines, as he says himself, because no two things could be more equal. The adaptation of the rule for extracting the square root of an integral number to the extrac- tion of the square root of an integral algebraical function is also said to be due to him. RECORDER. See COURT and QUARTER SESSIONS. RECORDS, PUBLIC. According to the definition of the Record Commissioners appointed at the commencement of this century to report upon the nature of the archives, the national muniments of England constitute four great classes. The first class consists of independent documents relating to various subjects, persons, and places, but making altogether one whole, such as, for instance, Domesday Book, or the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry VIII. The second class consists of the series of enrolments, including within one roll great varieties of distinct and separate entries classed according to their formal character, as, for instance, the close rolls and patent rolls, or classed according to their subject-matter, as are the Liberate and the Norman rolls. The third class embraces those records which contain entries of judicial proceedings and those where each subject has a distinct roll ; whilst the last class comprises all separate documents, such as letters, inquisitions, privy seals, com- missions, and other various descriptions of formal instru- ments. Sir Edward Coke has given in his signification of the term "record" a briefer and less involved definition; but according to his rendering many important documents would have to be excluded from the list of the national archives. Hence it was decreed, on the passing of the Public Records Act (1 and 2 Viet. c. 94), which created the master of the rolls the keeper of the archives, that the word "records" should be taken to mean "all rolls, records, writs, books, proceedings, decrees, bills, warrants, accounts, papers, and documents whatsoever, of a public nature belonging to Her Majesty." The documents of the once styled Courts of Chancery, Queen's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas contain the very essence of England's antiquarian wealth : they constitute most of its bulk, much of its legal importance, and nearly all its historical interest. "The custom of recording documents on rolls of parchment," writes Sir Thomas Hardy, the late deputy-keeper of the public records, " though of very ancient date, commenced nevertheless at a period subsequent to the Conquest ; for no vestige can be traced of such a system during the Anglo-Saxon dynasty. ' Apud Anglo-Saxones,' says Hickes, 'etiam mos erat leges regum latas in codicibus monasteriorum tanquam in tabulas publicas referendi.' It may be assumed that, had such a plan been then in operation, the same would have been adopted by the Conqueror to perpetuate the survey of the kingdom which he caused to be made, and for the preserva- tion of which he evinced so much zeal and anxiety." As to the precise time when the use of rolls for the entry of