Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/46

* DEBTOR. 34 During the feudal period the person in general was not attachable for debt, imprisonment being inconsistent with the duties of warlike service, to which every man was bound; and it was for the encouragement of commerce and in considera- tion of the merchant liaving to deal with stran- gers and foreigners that it was first introduced by the mercantile conmiunities of Europe. By the Statute of ilerchants it was enacted by the English Parliament, in 1282, that in lending money a merchant might bring the borrower be- fore the Lord Mayor of Loudon, or the chief warden of another good town, and cause him to acknowledge liis debt and day of payment. A recognizance (q.v.) was then enrolled, and an obligation written by the clerk and sealed with the King's seal and the debtor's. Failing pay- ment, the creditor was entitled to produce this obligation, and to demand a warrant to seize the person of his debtor and to commit him to the Tower. This barbarous practice of punishing misfortune as a crime flourished in England for six hundred years, until the humanitarian senti- ment of our own time, stirred into action by the efforts of Samuel Romilly and other reformers, forced the abandonment of the practice. An impression of the extent of the hardship which it involved may be gained from the statistics. Par- liamentary returns show that in the eighteen months subsequent to the commercial panic of 1825, 101,000 writs for debt were issued from the English courts. In the year ending Janu- ary 5, IS.'JO, there were 7114 debtors sent to prison in London, and on tiiat day 1545 of these were still in confinement. In general it may be said that, up to the time of the reform legisla- tion referred to, the prisons of England were crowded with debtors. The first statute afltord- ing partial relief to these unfortunates was passed in 1838, but it was not until 1868 that the svstem was abolished (Statutes 32 and 33 Viet.,"c. 62). The practice of imprisonment for debt has also prevailed, though to a much more limited ex- tent, in the United States. It was abolished in New York in 1831, and shortly after that date by the other States in which it had been per- mitted. In many of the States it has never been recognized. Both in England and the Unit- ed States, however, a limited right of coercing a dishonest debtor by arrest in civil process is permitted by statute. It is generally allowed in actions for injury to the person or character, or for injurs' to or the wrongful taking of property, embczzlenient by public officers or persons acting in a private fiduciary capacity as trustees; for misconduct in office, or in any professional em- plopnent ; in actions to recover possession of personal property, where it is concealed or kept out of the reach of the sheriff: and where the defendant has been iruilty of fraud in contracting the debt or in avoiding payment. Women are generally exempt from arrest in all cases except actions for willful injury to person, character, or property. As to the manner in which the position of the debtor has been mitigated by the general adoption of the principle of the bankruptcy and insolvency laws, see those titles. See also Deut. and the titles there referred to. For the remedies avail- able asrainst absconding debtors, sec .AnscoNDiNO. DEBUT, d'l'bii' (Ft.). A word which signifies generally a 'beginning' or 'entrance,' but especially DECADENTS. applied to the first appearance of an actor or actress on the stage, or to a first appearance in a particular theatre. In these circimistances the actor is called a debutant ; the actress, a debutante. DECA (C!k. Sina, deka, ten). A common preti. or combining form meaning ten, as in decupolis, a union of ten cities; deeulogue. the Ten Commandments; dccamiirc, a measure of ten meters, etc. From deea is formed : Decade, a collection or group of ten. In its most common application it signifies a period of ten years. The word was used in the calendar of the French Republic to designate the week of ten days. Each month of thirty days was divided into three decades. The days of each decade were named primidi, duodi, tridi, quarlidi, (juintidi, sextidi. seiitidi, octidi, nonidi, and de- eadi. The tenth, or dceadi, was the day of rest, and, as the Republic acknowledged no definite religion, was ilevoted to the practice of and ex- hortation to virtue. The Republican year num- bered 36 decades. The remaining five (in leap- years, six) days were set apart as holida}'s at the end of the year without being numbered. DECACHORD (Gk. dc/id^optSof, dekachordos, ten-stringed, from dina, deka, Lat, decern, Engl, ten -r ;vop(5;/, chorde, string, chord ). A kind of guitar with ten strings, similar to the common guitar, but larger in the body, and provided with a broader finger-board. The lower strings have no frets, being used only as open notes. DECADENCE (Fr. decadence, through JEL. decadentia, from de. from + eadere, to fall). A term used with reference to works of art belong- ing to a school which had passed the period of its highest excellence before they were produced. In Greece, art in all its forms reached its acme in e.450-323 B.C.; and though there are many ex- quisite works which were produced at a later period, they all belong, more or less conspicuous- ly, to the decadence of Greek art. In Rome, both art and literature culminated in the time of Augustus, and from that time we have a de- cadence which soon becomes very obvious and rapid. The art of the Italian Renaissance at- tained its highest development in the early six- teenth century, in the persons of such arti.sts as ilichelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, Titian. Correg- gio, after whom came its decadence, to which even such artists as the Carracci and Tiepolo belong. DECADENTS, da'ka'daN' (It., Sp., Port, de- eadcntc. from Lat. dc, from + cadcre, to fall). The name of a class or group of young writers (particularly poets) and artists in France dur- ing the close of the nineteenth century. The term began to be derisively applied about 1882; it was used interchangeably with that of 'Sym- bolists'; became associated in a way with the rise of Impressionism in painting (see Painting, sec- tion Modern Painting) ; and has now been prac- tically supplanted by the word 'Symbolists' (q.v.)", which represents all that proved to be durable in deeadismc. The term dce<tdcnt, how- ever, is still used, loosely, to designate by way of ridicule all modern writers, like Ibsen and Annunzio, whose themes at times have been atavistic, their characters 'degenerate,' and their theories of art more or less subversive. The dfcadent poets in France merit distinctive notice for the role which they played in connec- tion with the development of the Symbolist school or movement. Their literature may be said to