Among the Romans an hereditas, of | dom for ever, and not to return without which the heres was not yet ascertained, the king's licence. Upon making his was said 'jacere;' and this is a case confession and taking this oath, he bewhich corresponds to the abeyance of the came attainted of the felony; he had forty English law. When the heres was ascer- days from the day of his appearance before tained, his rights as heres were considered the coroner to prepare for his departure, to commence from the time of the death and the coroner assigned him such port of the testator or the intestate. During as he chose for his embarkation, to which the interval between the death and the he was bound to repair immediately with ascertainment of the heres, the hereditas a cross in his hand, and to embark with was sometimes spoken of as a person; and all convenient speed. If he did not go sometimes it was viewed as representing immediately out of the kingdom, or if he the defunct. These two modes of view- afterwards returned into England withing the hereditas in this intermediate time out licence, he was condemned to be express the same thing, the legal capacity hanged, unless he happened to be a clerk, of the defunct. The reason for this fiction in which case he was allowed the benefit was peculiar to the Roman law, and it had of clergy. This practice, which has obno other object than to facilitate certain vious marks of a religious origin, was, by acquisitions of property by means of several regulations in the reign of Henry slaves who were a part of the hereditas. VIII., in a great measure discontinued, A slave could in many cases acquire for and at length by the statute 21 James I. his master; but in the case of an hereditas c. 28, all privilege of sanctuary and abjacens, the slave could only acquire for juration consequent upon it were entirely the benefit of the hereditas by virtue of a abolished. In the reign of Queen Elizafiction that he had still an owner of pro- beth, however, amongst other severities per legal capacity. The fiction accord- then enacted against Roman Catholics and ingly made the acquisition of the slave Protestant Dissenters convicted of having valid by reference to the legal capacity of refused to attend the divine service of the his defunct owner, which was known, and Church of England, they were by statute not to the condition of the unascertained (35 Eliz. c. 1) required to abjure the heres, who might not have the necessary realm in open court, and if they refused legal capacity. Thus, if a Roman, who to swear, or returned to England without had a legal capacity to make a will, licence after their departure, they were to died intestate, and one of the intestate's be adjudged felons, and to suffer death slaves was appointed his heres by anwithout benefit of clergy. Thus the other person, the slave could take as punishment of abjuration inflicted by this heres for the benefit of the hereditas Act of Parliament was far more severe to which he belonged, by virtue of the than abjuration for felony at the common fiction which gave to this hereditas the law: in the latter case, the felon had the legal capacity of the defunct intestate. benefit of clergy; in the former, it was Savigny, System des heutigen Römischen expressly taken away. Protestant DisRechts, ii. 363.) senters are expressly exempted from this severe enactment by the Toleration Act; but Popish recusants convict were liable to be called upon to abjure the realm for their recusancy, until a statute, passed in the 31 Geo. III. (1791), relieved them from that and many other penal restrictions upon their taking the oaths of allegiance and abjuration. ABILITY; CAPACITY, LEGAL. [AGE; WIFE.] ABJURATION (of the Realm) signifes a sworn banishment, or the taking of an oath to renounce and depart from the realm for ever. By the ancient common law of England, if a person guilty of any felony, excepting sacrilege, fled to a parish church or churchyard for sanctuary, he might, within forty days afterwards, go clothed in sackcloth before the coroner, confess the full particulars of his guilt, and take an oath to abjure the king ABJURATION (Oath of). This is an oath asserting the title of the present royal family to the crown of England. It is imposed by 13 Will. III. c. 6; 1 Geo. I. c. 13; and 6 Geo. III. c. 53. By this oath the juror recognises the right of the king under the Act of Settlement, engages to support him to the utmost of the juror's power, promises to disclose all traitorous conspiracies against him, and expressly disclaims any right to the crown of England by the descendants of the Pretender. The juror next declares that he rejects the opinion that princes excommunicated by the Pope may be deposed or murdered; that he does not believe that the Pope of Rome or any other foreign prince, prelate, or person has or ought to have jurisdiction directly or indirectly within the realm. The form of oath taken by Roman Catholics who sit in either House of Parliament is given in 10 Geo. IV. c. 7 (the Roman Catholic Relief Act). The first part of the oath is similar in substance to the form required under 6 Geo. III. c. 53. The following part of the oath is new:-"I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment as settled by law within this realm; and I do solemnly swear that I will never exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the United Kingdom; and I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever." Before the passing of this Act (10 Geo. IV. c. 7), the oath and declaration required to be taken and made as qualification for sitting and voting in Parliament were the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, and the declarations commonly called the declarations against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass. | ingham, having embraced the Roman Catholic religion, took and subscribed the oath required to be taken and subscribed by Roman Catholics." The word Abjuratio does not occur in classical Latin writers, and the verb Abjurare, which often occurs, signifies to deny a thing falsely upon oath. ABORIGINES, a term by which we denote the primitive inhabitants of a country. Thus, to take one of the most striking instances, when the continent and islands of America were discovered, they were found to be inhabited by various races of people, of whose immigration into those regions we have no historical accounts. All the tribes, then, of North America may, for the present, be considered as aborigines. We can, indeed, since the discovery of America, trace the movements of various tribes from one part of the continent to another; and, in this point of view, when we compare the tribes one with another, we cannot call a tribe which has changed its place of abode, aboriginal, with reference to the new country which it has occupied. The North American tribes that have moved from the east side of the Mississippi to the west of that river are not aborigines in their new territories. But the whole mass of American Indians must, for the present, be considered as aboriginal with respect to the rest of the world. The English, French, Germans, and others, who have settled in America, are, of course, not aborigines with reference to that continent, but settlers, or colonists. If there is no reason to suppose that we can discover traces of any people who inhabited England prior to and different from those whom Julius Cæsar found here, then the Britons of Cæsar's time are the aborigines of this island. The term aborigines first occurs in the Greek and Roman writers who treated of The case of a member of the House of the earlier periods of Roman history, and, Commons becoming converted to the Ro- though interpreted by Dionysius of Haliman Catholic faith after he had taken his carnassus (who writes it, in common with seat, occurred for the first time since the other Greek authors, 'Aßwpiyives, or 'Aßopassing of 10 Geo. IV. c. 7, in the session pryîves, or 'Aßwpiyîvoi) to mean ancestors, of 1844, and is thus noticed in the Votes it is more probable that it corresponds to and Proceedings of the House, dated May the Greek word autochthones. This latter 13:"Charles Robert Scott Murray, designation, indeed, expresses the most esquire, member for the county of Buck-remote possible origin of a nation, for it signifies "people coeval with the land which they inhabit." The word aborigines, though perhaps not derived, as some suppose, from the Latin words ab and origo, still has the appearance of being a general term analogous to autochthones, and not the name of any people really known to history. The Aborigines of the ancient legends, interwoven with the history of Rome, were, according to Cato, the inhabitants of part of the country south of the Tiber, called by the Romans Latium, and now the Maremma of the Campagna di Roma. (Niebuhr, Roman History.) man, who covets the possession of land. will follow up his victory till he has occupied every portion of the continent which he finds suitable for cultivation. The red man must become a cultivator, or he must retire to places where the white man does not think it worth his while to follow him. The savage aborigines do not pass from what we call barbarism to what we call civilization without being subjected to the force of external circumstances, that is, the presence among them of settlers or conquerors. There is no more reason for supposing that huntsmen will change their mode of life, such The word aborigines has of late come as it is, without being compelled, than that into general use to express the natives of agricultural people will change theirs. various parts of the world in which Eu- Aborigines, then, as we now understand ropeans have settled; but it seems to be them, will remain what they are until limited or to be nearly limited to such they are affected by foreign intercourse; natives as are barbarous, and do not cul- and this intercourse will either destroy tivate the ground, and have no settled ha- them in the end, a result which is conbitations. Some of the later Roman firmed by most of our experience, or it writers, as Sallust, describe the Italian will change their habits to those of their aborigines as a race of savages, not living conquerors or the settlers among them, in a regular society; a description which, and so preserve them, not as a distinct as Niebuhr remarks, is probably nothing nation, for that is impossible, but by inelse than an ancient speculation about the corporating them among the foreigners. progress of mankind from animal rude- A nation of agriculturists, though conness to civilization. Such a speculationquered, may and does endure, and may was very much to Sallust's taste, and we find it also in Lucretius and Horace. Probably the modern sense of this word and the sense in which Sallust uses it agree more nearly than appears at first. The aborigines of Australasia and Van Diemen's Land (if there are any left in Van Diemen's Land) are so called as being savages, though the name may be applied with equal propriety to cultivators of the ground. Some benevolent people suppose that aborigines, who are not cultivators of the ground, may become civilized like Europeans. But it has not yet been proved satisfactorily that this change can be effected in any large numbers; and if it can be effected, it is an essential condition that the aborigines must give up their present mode of life and adopt that the settlers. But such a change is not easy: even in the United States of North America it has been only partially effected. The wide expanse of country between the Mississippi and the Atlantic is now nearly cleared of the aborigines, and the white preserve its distinctive character; a nation of savages can only endure as such by keeping free from all intercourse with an agricultural and commercial people. ABORTION. [HOMICIDE.] ABROGATION. [LAW.] ABSENTEE. This is a term applied, generally by way of reproach, to that class of capitalists who derive their income from one country, and reside in another country, in which they expend their income. We here propose to state some of the more material points in the controverted question, whether the consumption of absentees is an evil to the particular country from which they derive their revenues. There is a decided. tendency in the progress of social inter- · course to loosen the ties which formerly bound an individual or a family to one particular spot. From the improvement of roads, and the rapidity and certainty of steam navigation, Dublin is now as near, in point of time, to London, as Bath was half a century ago; and the distance between England and every part of the Continent is in the same way daily dimi. nishing. The inducements to absenteeism, whether from Ireland to England, or from England to the Continent, are constantly increasing; and it is worth while considering whether the evils of absenteeism are so great as some suppose, or whether, according to a theory that was much in vogue some years ago, absenteeism is an evil at all. The expenditure of a landed proprietor resident upon his estate calls into action the industry of a number of labourers, domestics, artisans, and tradesmen. If the landlord remove to another part of the same country, the labourers remain; the domestic servants probably remove with him; but the artisans and tradesmen whom he formerly employed lose that profit which they once derived by the exchange of their skill or commodities for a portion of the landlord's capital. It never occurs to those who observe and perhaps deplore these changes, that the landlord ought to be prevented from spending his money in what part of his own country he pleases. They conclude that there is only a fresh distribution of the landlord's revenues, and that new tradesmen and mechanics have obtained the custom which the old ones have lost. But if the same landlord go to reside in a foreign country-if the Englishman go to France or Italy, or the Irishman to England-it is sometimes asserted that the amount of revenue which he spends in the foreign country is so much clear loss to the country from which he derives his property, and so much encouragement withdrawn from its industry; and that he ought, therefore, to be compelled to stay at home, instead of draining his native land for the support of foreign rivals. Some economists maintain that this is a popular delusion, and that, in point of fact, the revenue spent by the landlord in a foreign country has precisely the same effect upon the industry of his own country as if his consumption took place at home, for that, in either case, it is unproductive consumption. We will endeavour to state their arguments as briefly as we can. We will suppose a landowner to derive an income of 1000l. a year from an estate in one of our agricultural counties. We leave out of the consideration whether he resides or not upon his estate, and endeavours, by his moral influence, to improve the condition of his poorer neighbours, or lets his land to a tenant. The landowner may reside in London, or Brighton, or Cheltenham. With his rents he probably purchases many articles of foreign production, which have been exchanged for the productions of our own country. There are few people now who do not understand that if we did not take from foreigners the goods which they can produce cheaper and better than we can, we should not send to foreigners the goods which we can produce cheaper and better than they can. If we did not take wines from the continental nations, for instance, should not send to the continental nations our cottons and hardware; and the same principle applies to all the countries of the earth with which we have commercial intercourse. we ex The landlord, therefore, by consuming the foreign wines encourages our own manufactures of cotton and hardware, as much as if, drinking no foreign wine at all, he applied the money so saved to the direct purchases of cotton and hardware at home. But he even bestows a greater encouragement upon native industry, by consuming wine which has been changed for cotton and hardware, than if he abstained from drinking the wine; for he uses as much cotton and hardware as he wants, as well as the wine; and by using the wine he enables other people in Europe to use the cotton and hardware, who would otherwise have gone without it. For all that he consumes of foreign produce, some English produce has been sent in exchange. Whatever may be the difference between the government accounts of exports and imports (than which nothing can be more fallacious), there is a real balance between the goods we send away and the goods we receive; and thus the intrinsic value of all foreign trade is this.-that it opens a larger store of commodities to the consumers, whilst it develops a wider field of industry for the producers. There used to be a notion, which for many years affected our legislation, that unless we sent away to foreigners a great many more goods than we received from them, or, in other words, unless our exports were much greater in value than our imports, the balance of trade was against us. [BALANCE OF TRADE.] This notion was founded upon the belief that if we sent away a greater amount of goods than those we received in exchange, we should be paid the difference in bullion; and that the nation would be rich, not in the proportion in which it was industrious at home, and in which its industry obtained foreign products in exchange for native products, but as it got a surplus of gold, year by year, through its foreign trade. Now, in point of fact, no such surplus ever did accrue, or ever could have accrued; for the commercial transactions between one country and another are in fact a series of exchanges or barter, and gold is only the standard by which those exchanges are regulated. We shall see how these considerations bear upon the relations of the English landlord to his native country when he becomes an absentee. When the landlord, whose case we have supposed, resided upon his estate, he probably received his rental direct | from his tenants. That rental was the landlord's share of as many quarters of corn, as many head of oxen and sheep, as many fleeces of wool, as many fowls, as many pounds of butter, and so forth, as the estate produced. Three or four centuries ago the landlord's share was paid in kind: for the convenience of all parties it is now paid in money, or, in other words, the tenant sells the landlord's share, as well as his own share, and pays over the amount of his share to the landlord, in a money-rent, instead of in produce. When the landlord removes to a distant part of the country, this arrangement of modern times becomes doubly convenient. The rental is collected by a steward, and is remitted, usually through a banker, to the landlord. By this process, the produce of the land may be most advantageously sold; and the landlord receives the amount of his share at his own door, without even the risk of sending money from one part of the kingdom to another. If the landlord becomes an absentee, the process of remitting his rental assumes a more complicated shape. We will suppose that he settles in the Netherlands. His means of living there depend upon the punctual transmission of the value of his share of the corn, cattle, and other produce which grow upon his estate in England. To make the remittance in bullion would not only be expensive, but unsafe; and, indeed, remittances in bullion can never be made to any considerable extent (such as the demands of absentees would require) from one country to another; for these large remittances would produce a scarcity of money at home, and then the bullion being raised in value, its remittance would consequently cease. Although the expenses of our armies in the Peninsula, in 1812-13, amounted to nearly 32,000,000l., the remittances in coin were little more than 3,000,000l. Nearly all foreign remittances are carried on by bills of exchange. The operation of a bill of exchange, in connection with the absentee landlord, would be this:-He is a consumer now, in great part, of foreign produce; he may require many articles of English produce, through the effect of habit; but whether or no, there must be an export of English goods to some country, to the amount of the foreign goods which he consumes, otherwise his remittances could not be made to him. draws a bill upon England, which he pays, through a banker, to a merchant at Antwerp. This bill represents his share of the corn and cattle upon his farm; but the merchant at Antwerp, who does not want corn and cattle, transmits it to a merchant at London, in payment for cotton goods and hardware, which he does want. Or there may be another process. The agent, in England, of the absentee landlord, may procure a bill upon the merchant at Antwerp, which he transmits to the English landlord; and the merchant at Antwerp, recognising in that bill the representation of a debt which he has incurred to England, hands over the proceeds to the bearer of the bill. In either case the bill represents the value He |