Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/15

Rh possible to frame an intelligible code of law for an English-speaking community, inasmuch as many elementary questions were disposed of in one court upon precisely the opposite principles from those enforced by the other court. This difficulty being removed, however, it has been found as practicable to reduce the common law of England to the form of a code as the law of any other country. The civil code, defining the rights of individuals as between each other, is the one most interesting to the public at large. This code, as reported in New York and adopted in California and Dakota, consists of three principal divisions, viz., persons, property, and obligations, and a fourth or supplemental division containing general provisions applicable to more than one of the chief divisions already mentioned. Under the head of "Persons" are treated the subjects of personal rights and relations, including marriage, parentage, guardianship, &c., with the rights and duties growing out of them. Under the head of "Property" the rules, conditions, limitations, and incidents of ownership in both real and personal property are stated, including the modes of transfer by grant, will, inheritance, and otherwise. Under the head of "Obligations" the interpretation, transfer, and extinction of obligations are treated, together with the entire subject of contracts, under which special title are set forth the rules governing the creation, interpretation, and extinction of contracts, and the particular rules governing sale, exchange, deposit, loan, hiring of property, personal service, carriage or transportation, trusts or confidential relations, agency, partnership, insurance, indemnity, guaranty, liens (including pledge and mortgage), and negotiable instruments. Under the fourth division there are five titles: 1, relief, including the law of damages, injunctions, specific performance, &c.; 2, debtor and creditor, including fraudulent transactions, and assignments for the benefit of creditors; 3, nuisance; 4, maxims of jurisprudence; 5, definitions. The civil code of California has, in addition to the matter contained in the New York code, extensive and detailed provisons regulating the management of corporations, and the business of mining, which has in that state an exceptional importance. The subject of codification has for many years been under discussion in England and the United States, especially since the time of Jeremy Bentham; but the codes framed by the New York commissioners were the first in which any real attempt was made to embody the old law of any English-speaking community. Since their publication the expediency of codification has become a subject of renewed interest in England, and the adoption of a code has been urged not only by private individuals but by members of the present government (1873), with every prospect of ultimate success. A commission was some time since appointed in England to prepare a digest of the existing law as the basis for the construction of a code, and the result of its efforts is generally understood to be strong conviction in the minds of the leaders of the legal profession that a pomplete code rather than a mere digest must become an absolute necessity.

 CODEIA (Gr. Kbdeta, head of poppy), an alkaloid found in opium, in which it exists combined, like morphia, with meconic acid. It has the formula C 36 H 2 oN0 6. It is soluble in water, alcohol, and ether, but is insoluble in alkaline solutions. It combines with acids to form crystallizable salts. (See .)

 CODEX (Lat.), in Roman antiquity, originally the trunk of a tree, afterward applied to the wooden tablets smeared with wax which were used for writing. At a later period it became the name of all large manuscripts (codices manuscript^ as the works of the historians and poets; and under the emperors and subsequently, it designated collections of civil and ecclesiastical laws. Of the last, the oldest and most celebrated are the Codex Theodosianus, the Codex Justinianus, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiasticorum, belonging to the time of Pope Innocent I., and the Codex Canonum EcclesicB universes, revised by the monk Dionysius about 527. Its principal modern application is to the uncial manuscripts of the New Testament, as the codices Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Ephraemi, Bezcs or Cantabrigiewu, Claromontanus, &c., 41 in all, which are also designated by the Roman letters, as codices A, B, C, D, or by combinations, as F a, W b, or by the Greek letters, as A, 9. A codex rescriptus (Lat., a rewritten codex), now usually termed a palimpsest, is an ancient parchment on which the original writing has been defaced, and a different composition copied.

 CODICIL (Lat. codicillus, diminutive of codex), an addition or supplement to a will, requiring the same formalities of execution and the same testamentary capacity. The distinction between the two formerly was, that by a will an executor was appointed, and by a codicil not; but now an executor may be appointed by either or by neither, and the codicil is employed to meet changes of purpose on the part of the testator, and to provide for new circumstances. A will and codicil are to be construed together, and the latter, as the more recent expression of the testator's purpose, will modify and control the other wherever they are not in harmony; but in other particulars the will is to stand. There may be several codicils to a will, all of which must be probated with it; but any one may be rejected for want of the legal requisites, and the others will remain and have effect as if that had never been made.

 COD-LIVER OIL, the oil drained or expressed from the livers of the cod, and also of the pollock, hake, and haddock, largely used in medicine. Other fish oils are sometimes fraudulently substituted; the adulteration is to be detected by the taste and smell, the 