invest them in the purchase of lands, during the lives of his sons, grandsons, and the issue of sons and grandsons, either living or in the womb (in ventre sa mere), at the time of his death, and the lives of the survivors and the survivor of them; and after this period to be conveyed to the lineal descendants of his sons in tail male. According to the provisions of this will, the proceeds of the property were not to be enjoyed, but to be accumulated and laid out in land during the lives of all his sons and grandsons, and the issue of sons or grandsons living, or unborn, at his death, provided such issue was then in the womb. After long litigation, it was finally decided by the House of Lords that the trusts for accumulation were legal (Thellusson v. Wordford, 11 Ves. 112); but the act which was passed shortly after has prevented such accumulation for a longer period than during the minority of persons living or in ventre sa mere at the time of the death of the person who so disposes of his property. The act, as it will be observed, mentious various periods, any one of which may be selected by the person who directs the accumulation of his property. There were nine lives in being at the time of Thellusson's death, and the enjoyment of the property was consequently deferred till they had all died.

The general rule of law in this country is, that a man may dispose of his property as he pleases; he may give it to whom he likes to be enjoyed; or he may give it to trustees to apply to such purposes as he pleases. But various restraints have been imposed by statutes on this general power, and the restraint upon accumulation is one of them. The Statute of Mortmain, as it is commonly called [MORTMAIN], is another instance in which the legislature has interfered with a man's general power of disposing of his property. In the case of accumulation, which a man directs to be made after his death, the limits of time now allowed seem amply sufficient for any reasonable purpose. We may conceive various good reasons against allowing a man an unlimited power of directing the accumulation of property after his death; and it is not easy to see that any mischief

is likely to arise from limiting this power, as is done by this act. Another instance of this legal limitation of a man's disposition of his property is noticed under PERPETUITY.

ACHEAN CONFEDERATION.The Achæans, who formed that federal union which is commonly called the Achæan League, inhabited the tract which lies along the southern coast of the Corinthian gulf (Gulf of Lepanto). They formed twelve small independent states. The history of the Achæans is an inconsiderable part of the general history of Greece till about B.C. 251. During the invasion of Greece by the Persians, they took no share in the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platea; nor, during the long war of twenty-seven years, did they take anything more than a kind of forced part in this protracted struggle between Athens and Sparta. At the commencement of this war (B.C. 431), they were, with the exception of Pellene, neutral but afterwards favoured the Lacedæmonian interest, in compliance with the general feeling in the peninsula. The cause of their taking no part in the general affairs of Greece may probably have been the want of union among the twelve little states; for though they acknowledged a common origin, and had a kind of connexion, they seem not to have had any complete federal system. Yet they probably attained, at an early period, a considerable degree of prosperity and internal good policy, for the Achæans founded several flourishing colonies in Southern Italy; and the political institutions were considered preferable to those of most states, and were often imitated as a model.

During the struggles of the Southern Greeks against the successors of Alexander, the Achæans wished to remain neutral; but they ultimately became the prey of the Macedonians. Some cities were compelled to receive the garrisons of Demetrius and Cassander; and afterwards those of Antigonus Gonatas, or to submit to tyrants. There would be little in the history of the Achæan states to attract attention, were it not for the more complete federal union which arose out of these discordant elements.

Four of the western states of Achæa,

Each state had an equal political rank, retained its internal regulations, and its coins, weights, and measures, though the general government also had its coins, weights, and measures, which were uniform. The ordinary general assemblies were held twice a year at Ægium (afterwards at Corinth), and they deliberated for three days. Extraordinary assemblies might meet at other places, as, for instance, at Sicyon. The general assemblies decided upon all matters which affected the general interest, on war and peace, and made all such regulations as were required for the preservation of the union. At the Spring meeting, about the time of the vernal equinox, the public functionaries were chosen; the strategos, or general of the confederation, was there chosen, with the hipparchus, or master of the horse, who held the next rank, and ten functionaries called demiurgi: there was also a chief priest chosen to superintend the religious affairs of the confederation. This was the time of election, during the life of Aratus at least. In the earlier times of the league they had two strategi and a secretary, as the Romans had two consuls; but, in B.C. 256, after twenty-five years' experience, it was found that one head was better than two. The strategos was elected for a single year, and appears not to have been reeligible till he had been one year out of office. But Aratus filled the office of strategos seventeen times in twenty-nine years, and Philopomen was elected eight times in twenty-four years; Marcus of Ceryneia was the first sole strategos. If the strategos died in office, his predecessor assumed the functions till the legal meeting of the congress. The functions of the ten demiurgi are not clearly ascertained; they probably possessed the right to summon and preside in the ordinary meetings; and certainly they must have prepared the business which was to be so summarily despatched in three days. It seems that they had the power, within some limits, of referring matters to the public body or not, according to a majority of votes in their own body: they were, in fact, a committee, having a kind of initiatory (Liv. xxxii. 22). They probably also formed a kind of adminis

|trative body for the direction of affairs between the times of the public meetings. It may be asked how was the general council composed, particularly after the league comprised within itself so many states? Did the states send deputies? Had they, in fact, a representative government? It is difficult to answer this question, though we are inclined to that think there was no strict system of representation. The short time for discussion, the two yearly meetings, the general character of Greek democracy, as well as most passages in which the congress is spoken of, lead us to infer that this deliberative body consisted of every qualified citizen of the confederate states who chose to attend. It appears that all the citizens of the several states, who were thirty years of age, and rich enough not to carry on any handicraft in order to get a living, might attend the yearly meetings, speak and vote. That this, however, could only be the case with the wealthier class, and that the poor could not attend to such business so far from home, must be selfevident. It is also certain that, on extraordinary occasions, a much larger number of men assembled than was usual when things were going in a more regular course. We read of one instance when the Roman commissioners were kicked out of the congress, then sitting at Corinth, with scorn (B.c. 147); and Polybius adds, by way of explanation, "for there was assembled a number of the working class, and of those who followed mechanical occupations, greater than on any former occasion." As Corinth, however, was one of the greatest manufacturing towns of Greece, and the working class occupied a higher station there than those in most places, it is possible that the regular meeting was disturbed by a body of intruders, as we sometimes have seen at our own elections. Another passage of Polybius tells us that Eumenes offered the congress, then sitting at Megalopolis, a large sum of money, that they might, with the interest of it, pay the expenses of those who attended the congress: this would perhaps imply that the number was in some way limited. The offer of Eumenes was rejected.

Some writers have attempted to show

that the demiurgi, or senate, as they have been called, was composed of representatives, one of whom was sent by each of the twelve states; and the number of twelve is made up by including among the senate the strategos, or general, and the secretary. But this conjecture is open to many objections, and supported by feeble evidence and little probability (art. Achaïscher Bund, in Rotteck and Welcker, Staats-Lexicon). But though we are so imperfectly acquainted with the federal constitution of the Achæans, and unable to reconstruct it completely from the scanty fragments which remain, we may safely conclude that it was no inefficient union which called forth from Polybius the following commendation: "Their union is so entire and perfect, that they are not only joined together in bonds of friendship and alliance, but even make use of the same laws, the same weights, coins, and measures, the same magistrates, counsellors, and judges: so that the inhabitants of this whole tract of Greece seem in all respects to form but one single city, except only that they are not enclosed within the circuit of the same walls. In every other point, both through the whole republic, and in every separate state, we find the most exact resemblance and conformity" (Polybius, ii. 37, Hampton's translation). It might be inferred from the first part of this passage that the union was effected by the formation of one state out of many; but this inference is obviated by the concluding sentence which contrasts the whole republic with the several states: and indeed the history of the league shows that it was a federal union of independent

states.

The chief authority for the history of the Achæan league is Polybius, book ii., &c.; the particular authorities are referred to in the article in Rotteck and Welcker, Staats- Lexicon, in Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer, and other modern works.

ACT. This word is a form of the Latin actum, from the verb agere, which is used generally to express the doing of any act. The Latin word Actio, from which our word Action is derived, had, among other significations, various legal

meanings. Of these meanings one of the most common was the proceeding by which a man pursued a claim in a court of justice, who was accordingly in such case called the Actor. In this sense we have in our language the expression Action at law. The word Act, a thing done, is sometimes used to express an act or proceeding of a public nature, of which sense the most signal instance among us is the term Act of Parliament, which means an act in which the three component parts of the sovereign power in this country, King, Lords, and Commons, unite, in other words, a Law properly so called. The word Act is also sometimes applied to denote the record of the Act; and by the expression Act of Parliament is now generally understood the record of an Act of the Parliament, or the written record of a Law. In the French language also, the word acte denotes a written record of a legal act, the original document, which is either private, acte sous seing privé, which requires the acknowledgment of the parties in order to be complete evidence, or a public authenticated act, acte authentique, which without such acknowledgment is considered genuine and true. This meaning of the word Act or Acts is derived from the Romans, among whom Acta signified the records of proceedings, and especially public registers and protocols in which the acts and decrees of the public bodies or functionaries were entered, as Acta Principum, Senatus, Magistratuum. The Acta Publica, or Diurna or Acta Urbis, was a kind of Roman newspaper, or a species of public jour nal for all Rome, as opposed to the private journal (diurna) which, according to the old Roman love of order, each family had to keep. Augustus had one kept in his house, in which were entered the employments and occupations of the younger members of his family. Julius Cæsar established the practice of drawing up and publishing the Acta both of the senate and the people. (Suetonius, Julius Caesar, 20.) Augustus subsequently forbade the publication, but not the drawing up of the Acta, and the practice of keeping such records continued, in some shape or other, even to the time

of the Emperor Julian. Only a few frag- | ments of them are extant. They are not unfrequently referred to as authorities by the Roman writers. These Acta were journals of the proceedings of the bodies to which they belonged, and of the chief events that took place in Rome. When Suetonius says (Augustus, 36) that Augustus forbade the publication of the Acta of the Senate, it must not be supposed, with some critics, that the Senatus Consulta are included in the Acta.

Under the Germanic Empire the term Acta Publica denoted the official transactions of the empire, decrees and the reports of the same, which were first collected under this title by Caspar Loedorpius, Frankfort, 1629, and his continuators.

The word Acta has been used in an analogous way in other instances in modern times. The Acta Sanctorum denote generally all the old stories of the martyrs of the church; and specially, that large work, begun in 1643, by the Jesuit Bolland, and continued by his successors to 1794, in fifty-three folio volumes, which contains such accounts. The Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensia was the title of the first learned and critical review that was published in Germany, after the model of the French Journal des Savans, and the Roman Giornale de' Litterati. It was established in 1680, by Otto Mencken, a professor of Leipzig, and written in Latin. Other journals of a like kind also adopted the name of Acta. The name of Transactions is now given in England to the Acts of most learned and scientific bodies: the Acts of the Courts of Justice, so far as they are made public, are called Reports, while the proceedings of the courts as registered are called Records. (Rotteck and Welcker, Staats-Lexicon, art. by W.) ACT OF PARLIAMENT. TUTE.]

ACTION. [ACT.]

[STA

ACTUARY, a word which, properly speaking, might mean any registrar of a public body, but which is generally used to signify the manager of a joint-stock company under a board of directors, particularly of an insurance company; whence it has come to stand generally

for a person skilled in the doctrine of life annuities and insurances, and who is in the habit of giving opinions upon cases of annuities, reversions, &c. Most of those called actuaries combine both the public and private part of the character.

An actuary combines with the duties of a secretary those of a scientific adviser to the board which gives him his office, in all matters involving calculation, on which it may be supposed that the members of the board are not generally competent to form opinions themselves.

The name has a legal character from its being recognised in the statute 59 Geo. III. c. 128 (or the Friendly Societies' Act of 1819), which enacts that no justice of the peace shall allow of any tables, &c. to be adopted in any Friendly Society, unless the same shall have been approved by "two persons, at the least, known to be professional actuaries, or persons skilled in calculation"-a definition much too vague to be any sufficient guide. The Committee on Friendly Societies of 1825 reported that "petty schoolmasters or accountants, whose opinion upon the probability of sickness and the duration of life is not to be depended upon," had been consulted under this title, and recommended that the actuary of the National Debt Office should be the only recognised authority for the purposes above mentioned; in which recommendation the Committee of 1827 joined. In the 10 Geo. IV. c. 56, however, no alteration was made in the law on this point. By the Act of 1819, no Friendly Society can be dissolved, or any division of money made otherwise than in the ordinary course, without the certificate of two actuaries, that the interests of all the members have been consulted in the proposed dissolution or payment. The 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 40, which amends the above Act, provides that no distribution of the funds of any Friendly Society shall take place without a certificate from the actuary of one of the Life Assurance Offices in London appointed by the Board.

The registrar of the Lower House of Convocation is called the actuary. Bishop Gibson says that he is an officer of the archbishop, the president of the convo