Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/665

BAST. more than three or four layers of bast; while in willows with a thick, rough bark, three or four concentric zones may be formed in a single year.

When the bast cells are first formed, they are like the cambium cells from which they are de- rived, and they do not change so rapidly as the wood cells. Hence there is not such a sharp line between cambium and bast as between cambium and wood. The bast region or phloem contains both sieve tubes and bast fibres, the sieve tubes being the more important in the economy of the plant. for they serve to carry proteids from parts in which these substances are stored or are being formed to parts where they are to be used. In the true flowering plants, each sieve tube is ac- companied by what is called a 'companion cell,' the two cells having arisen from the division of a common parent cell. The ordinary conifers and ferns differ from the true flowering plants in having no companion cells. The duty of the companion cell seems to be to help in the distri- bution of the proteid substances contained in the sieve tubes.

The principal bast fibres in commercial use are those derived from the flax, hemp, jute, ramie, or china-grass, sunn hemp, and Cuba bast, or related species of Hibiscus. See and the names just mentioned.

BAS'TABLE, (1855—). An Irish political economist, born at Charleville, Cork. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1882 was appointed professor of political economy in Dublin University. In 1888-93 and 1897 he was an examiner for the University of London. Besides contributions to technical journals and articles for encyclopædias, he has published An Examination of Some Objections to the Study of Political Economy (1884); The Theory of International Trade (1897); The Commerce of Nations (1892); and Public Finance (1895).

BAS'TARD (OF. bastard, Fr. bâtard, probably from LLat. bastum, OF. bast, Fr. bât, pack-saddle; equivalent to OF. fils-de-bast, son of a pack-saddle, bastard, referring to the use of pack-saddles as beds in taverns, by muleteers). An illegitimate child, one neither begotten nor born in lawful wedlock; specifically, one born of a spinster, of a widow whose husband has been dead such a length of time as to make it impossible for him to be the father, or of a married woman when proof positive is produced that the paternity is other than of the husband. Where the mother is married, the presumption of the law is exceedingly strong in favor of the husband's being the father; the old English law went so far as to make the presumption conclusive in case the husband was, at the presumed time of conception, 'within the four seas surrounding Great Britain.' But proof to the contrary may now be adduced without such a limit. Under the Roman or civil law, a child born before the marriage of its parents was legitimated by their subsequent marriage. This principle is followed by the law of those countries which were grounded in the Roman rather than the English common law; namely, Scotland, and the nations of the Continent of Europe; and, in America, Louisiana, the Province of Quebec, and the States of Central and South America. In many States of the United States, the civil-law rule has been adopted by statute. The common law recognized no such principle, the nearest approach to it being the case of a bastard eigné (Old Law French), where a son born before marriage succeeded without opposition to the father's estate, although the latter had a legitimate heir; if the possession of the so-called bastard eigné was undisputed during his lifetime, and his legal heir claimed the estate, it was no bar to that claim to prove the bastardy of the father.

An illegitimate child is, in the old law phrase, filius nullius, the son of no one. His rights from his parents are those of support only. He has, at least under the common law, no legal name until by reputation he acquires one, and he has no right of inheritance as an heir. Further- more, his own heirs at law can be only those of direct descent from him; it he die intestate, leaving no children or grandchildren, his prop- erty will not by law become that of father or mother, brother or sister, or uncle or aunt, but will escheat to the State; and in the United States may be claimed by the public administra- tor. But several of the States have by statute allowed an illegitimate child to inherit from his mother, and in some cases his mother to inherit from him as heir or next of kin. The mainte- nance of an illegitimate child devolves by com- mon law in the first instance upon his mother; but in order that the child may not be a burden on the public, statutes in England and similar enactments in all of the States in this country allow proceedings to be taken to compel the father to aid in supporting the child. This pro- cedure is based, not on the theory that the child has a right to his support, but solely to prevent the burden of support from falling upon the parish or county. The usual practice in such a proceeding is for the alleged paternity to be established by direct evidence (the affidavit of the mother being admitted as of strong, though not necessarily conclusive, weight) after which the putative father is called on to give bond to the magistrate or overseers of the poor to con- tribute a fixed sum for an agreed time to the support of the child. (See .) The custody of the child belongs primarily to the mother, but the court may determine the time during which such custody may last. In all civil and criminal rights not connected with the law of inheritance, or of support from parents, the status of the bastard is the same as that of any other person. He may hold and dispose of real and personal property, may sue and be sued, may devise by will, and may claim the protection of the State in all respects as though he were legitimate. In questions of settlement arising under poor-laws, it has been held that his legal domicile is that of the mother, not, as with legit- imate children, of the father, until he attains a settlement of his own. It has also been held that the ordinary right of a father to appoint by will or deed a guardian for his minor child does not exist in the ease of a bastard.

The term has not always been one of contempt and humiliation. William the Conqueror was not ashamed to sign himself 'Guillaume Bastard'; and the title has been borne without reproach by many other characters famous in history, as Don John of Austria, and Dunois, 'the Bastard of Orleans.' Consult: The Commentaries of Kent and Blackstone; also, Schouler, Treatise on the Law of the Domestic Relations (5th ed., Boston, 1895).