Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/739

Rh W R I W R I 697 Jon- The principal writs of a non-judicial nature relate to parliament ttdicial or some of its constituent elements. Parliament is summoned by mis. the king s writ issued out of Chancery by advice of the privy coun cil. The period of forty days once necessary between the writ and the assembling is now by 15 and 16 Viet. c. 23 reduced to thirty- five days. Writs of summons are issued to the lords spiritual and temporal before every new parliament. Those to Irish represen tative peers are regulated by the Act of Union, those to archbishops and bishops by 10 and 11 Viet. c. 108. New peerages are no longer created by writ, but the eldest son of a peer is occasionally summoned to the House of Lords in the name of a barony of his father s. Earl Percy, the eldest son of the duke of Northumber land, was so summoned in 1887, and sits as Baron Lovaine (see PEERAGE). With respect to election of members of the House of Commons, the procedure differs as the election takes place after a dissolution or on a casual vacancy. After a dissolution the writ is issued, as already stated, by order of the crown in council. For a single election the warrant for a new writ is issued during the session by the speaker after an order of the house made upon motion ; during the recess by the speaker s authority alone, under the powers given by 24 Geo. III. sess. 2, c. 26, 21 and 22 Viet, c. 110, and 26 Viet. c. 20. The warrant is addressed to the clerk of the crown in Chancery for Great Britain, to the clerk of the crown and hanaper of Ireland. A supersedcas to a writ has some times been ordered where the writ was improvidently issued. The time allowed to elapse between the receipt of the writ and the elec tion is fixed by the Ballot Act, 1872, sched. 1, at nine days for a county or a district borough, four days for any other borough. The writ is to be returned by the returning officer to the clerk of the crown with the name of the member elected endorsed on the writ. Sched. 2 gives a form of the writ, which is tested, like the writ of error, by the queen herself. The returning officer is the sheriff in counties and counties of cities (such as Chester), generally the mayor in cities and boroughs, and the vice-chancellor in univer sities (see PARLIAMENT). Other writs for election are those for CONVOCATION (q.v.), which is by 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19 summoned by the archbi-hop of the province on receipt of the king s writ, and for election of coroners, verderers of royal forests, and some other officers whose office is of great antiquity. The writ de coronatore eligendo, addressed to the sheriff, is specially preserved by the Coroners Act, 1887. Offences relating to writs are dealt with by the Criminal Law Con solidation Acts of 1861; larceny by 24 and 25 Viet. c. 96, s. 30; forgery by 24 and 25 Viet. c. 98, s. 27. The maximum penalty is seven years penal servitude. Scotland. Scotland. Writ is a more extensive term than in England. Writs are either judicial or extrajudicial, the latter including deeds and other instruments, as, for instance, in 42 and 43 Viet. c. 44, and in the common use of the phrase &quot; oath or writ &quot; as a means of proof. In the narrower English sense both &quot;writ&quot; and &quot;brieve&quot; are used. The brieve was as indispensable a part of the old procedure as it was in England, and many forms are given in Regiain Majestatem and Quoniam AttacJiiamcnta. It was a com mand issued in the king s name, addressed to a judge, and ordering trial of a question stated therein. Its conclusion was the will of the summons (see WILL, SUMMONS). In some cases proceedings which were by writ in England took another form in Scotland. For instance, the writ of attaint was not known in Scotland, but a similar end was reached by trial of the jury for wilful error. 1 The English writ of ne exeat regno is represented by the incditatio fugie warrant. Most proceedings by brieve, being addressed to the sheriff, became obsolete after the institution of the Court of Session, when the sheriffs lost much of that judicial power which they had enjoyed to a greater extent than the English sheriff (see SHERIFF). The executive functions of the English sheriff are performed by the messengers-at-arms. An English writ of execution is represented in Scotland by diligence, chiefly by means by warrants to messen gers-at-arms under the authority of signet letters in the name of the king. The brieve, however, has not wholly disappeared, Brieves of tutory, terce, and division are still competent, but not in use. Other kinds of brieve have been superseded by simpler procedure, e.g., the brieve of service of heirs by 10 and 11 Viet. c. 47, for which a petition to the sheriff was substituted by that Act and 31 and 32 Viet. c. 101. The brieve of cognition of insane persons is now the only one of practical importance. The old brievcs of furiosity and idiotcy were abolished, and this new form was introduced by the Act last named. Writs eo nomine have been the subject of much recent legislation. The writs of capias, habeas, ccrtiorari, and extent were replaced by other proceedings by 19 and 20 Viet. c. 56. The writ of dare constat was introduced by 21 and 22 Viet. c. 76. It and the writs of resignation and confirmation (whether granted by the crown or a subject superior) were regulated by 31 and 32 Viet. c. 101. By the same Act crown writs are to be in the English language, and registered in the regis- 1 An example occurring in the reign of James VI. will be found in Pitcairn s Criminal Trials, vol. i. p. 216. ter of crown writs. They need not be sealed unless at the instance of the party against whom they are issued. Writs of progress (except crown writs, writs of dare constat, and writs of acknow ledgment) were abolished by 37 and 38 Viet. c. 94. The dare constat writ is one granted by the crown or a subject superior for the purpose of completing title of a vassal s heirs to lands held by the deceased vassal. Where the lands are leasehold the writ of acknowledgment under 20 and 21 Viet. c. 26 is used for the same purpose. By 40 and 41 Viet. c. 40 the form of warrant of execution on certain extracts of registered writs is amended. Extracts of registered writs are to be equivalent to the registered writs them selves. Writs registered in the register of sasines for preserva tion only may afterwards be registered for preservation and execution. By 22 Geo. II. c. 48, passed for the purpose of assimi lating the practice of outlawry for treason in Scotland to that in use in England, the court before which an indictment for treason or misprision of treason is found, is entitled on proper cause to issue writs of capias, proclamation, and exigent. Many writs are by the Stamp Act, 1870, chargeable with a duty of five shillings. In some respects the proceedings in parliamentary elections differ from those in use in England. Thus the writ in university elec tions is directed to the vice-chancellors of Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively, but not to those of St Andrews and Aberdeen, and there is an extension of the time for the return in elections for Orkney and Shetland, and for the Wick burghs. Representative peers of Scotland were by the Act of Union to be elected after writ issued to the privy council of Scotland. On the abolition of the privy council a proclamation under the great seal was substituted by 6 Anne, c. 23. United States. Writs in United States courts are by Act of United Congress to be tested in the name of the chief justice of the United States. States. By State laws writs are generally bound to be in the name of the people of the State, in the English language, and tested in the name of a judge. Writs of error have been the subject of much legislation by the United States and by the States. In New York writs of error and of ne exeat have been abolished. Writs as parts of real actions have been generally superseded, but in Massachu setts a writ of entry on disseisin is still a mode of trying title. Writs of dower and of estrepement are still in use in some States. By the law of some States, e.g., New Jersey, writs of election are issued to supply casually occurring vacancies in the legislature. Authorities. The importance of the writ in procedure led to the compilation of a great body of law and precedent at an early date. In addition to the Rpgistium Brevium there were, among other old works, the Natura Srevium, first published in 1525; Theloall, Le Digest des Brief es Originates (1579); Fitzherbert, Le Nouvel Natura Brecium (1588) ; Officina Brerium (1679). See too Coke upon Littleton, 158, 159, 2 Coke s institutes, 39. Many precedents will also be found in the collection of Parliamentary Writs and in Stubbs s Select Charters. Old books of practice, such as Tidd s Practice, Corner s Crown Practice, and Booth On Real Actions, contained much law on the subject. For the history Spence s Equitable Jurisdiction, vol. i. bk. ii. ch. viii., Forsyth s Hist, of Trial by Jury, Stephen On Pleading, and Bigelow s Hist, of Procedure, ch. iv. , may be consulted. There appears to be no book dealing with the writ in modern practice, but sufficient information is contained in the ordinary treatises on procedure. (J. Wf.) WRITING MACHINES. Machines and appliances of various kinds are in common use to facilitate the process of writing, and to produce copies of writings already made with the pen. Such facsimile writings are obtained by numerous devices, all of which, however, come under the heads (1) of manifolding, (2) of processes analogous in principle to lithography, and (3) of stencilling. The simplest form of manifold writing is by sheets of paper prepared with lamp-black being interleaved between the sheets of white paper on which the impressions are to be taken, and writing over the whole with a style or other sharp-pointed instrument. By this means a considerable number of copies can be made at one time, and the method is in general use among newspaper writers and tele graphists in the production of what is technically known as &quot; flimsy,&quot; where several copies of the same matter are required. Of processes analogous to lithography, the best known is the &quot;hektograph&quot; method, in which the writing is done in the first instance on paper with aniline ink, and then a transfer is made to a gelatine composition which gives off a considerable number of impressions. In principle the autocopyist is like the hektograph, but in this apparatus the writing is done with a special ink, which is transferred to a prepared and properly stretched sheet of parchment. From this parchment copies are obtained precisely as from a lithographic stone on which a transfer has been impressed. Of the apparatus worked in the stencil method, the cyclostyle has been most extensively XXIV. 88