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either murderers or other criminals. | ment, and until the death of the highBut various buildings and precincts in and near London continued for a long time after this to afford shelter to debtors. At length, in 1697, all such sanctuaries, or pretended sanctuaries, were finally suppressed by the Act 8 & 9 Will. III.

c. 26.

In Scotland, the precincts of the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh still remain a sanctuary for debtors. The boundaries of this privileged place are somewhat extensive, comprehending the whole of what is called "the King's Park," in which is the remarkable hill called "Arthur's Seat." The debtors find lodgings in a short street, the privileged part of which is divided from the remainder by a kennel running across it. Holyrood retains its privilege of sanctuary as being a royal palace; but it is singular as being now the only palace in this country any part of the precincts of which is the property, or at least in the occupation, of private individuals, and therefore open to the public generally.

In England, a legal asylum, or privileged place, is called a sanctuary; and this use of the word sanctuary appears to be peculiar to the English language. Both in this country and in America, the name of asylum is commonly given to benevolent institutions intended to afford shelter neither to criminals nor to debtors, but to some particular description of the merely unfortunate or destitute.

The Jewish Cities of Refuge, established by Moses and Joshua, are the most remarkable instance on record of a system of asylum founded and protected by the state itself for the shelter of persons who had violated the law. These cities, as we are informed in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Joshua, were six in number, three on each side of the Jordan. They only however protected the person who had killed another unwitingly. With regard to such a person the command was, "If the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall ut deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime. And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judg

priest that shall be in those days; then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house; unto the city from whence he fled." (Joshua, xx. 5, 6.) This institution may be regarded as an ingenious device for protecting, on the one hand, the guiltless author of the homicide from the popular resentment which his unfortunate act would have been likely to have drawn upon him; and cherishing, on the other, in the public mind, that natural horror at the shedding of human blood, which, in such a state of society, it would have been so dangerous to suffer to be weakened. We see the same principle in the penalty of the deodand imposed by the English law in the case of the accidental destruction of life by any inanimate object.

One of the most curious instances of the privilege of the sanctuary is that long enjoyed in Scotland by the descendants of the celebrated Macduff, Thane of Fife, the dethroner of the usurper Macbeth. It is said to have been granted at the request of the thane by Malcolm III. (Canmore), on his recovery of the crown of his ancestors, soon after the middle of the eleventh century. By this grant it was declared that any person, being related to the chief of the clan Macduff within the ninth degree, who should have committed homicide without premeditation, should have his punishment remitted for a fine, on flying to Macduff's Cross, which stood near Lindores in Fifeshire. Although this, however, is the account of the old Scottish historians, it is probable that the privilege only conferred upon the offender a right of being exempted from all other courts of jurisdiction except that of the Earl of Fife. Sir Walter Scott, in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, has printed a Latin document of the date of A.D. 1291, in which the privilege to this latter extent is pleaded in favour of an Alexander de Moravia. The original deed is still in existence. Of Macduff's Cross only the pedestal now remains, the cross itself having been destroyed at the Reformation. It bore a metrical inscription, in a strange halfLatin jargon, the varying copies of which, still preserved, have given much occupa

tion to the antiquaries. (Sibbald's History of Fife, particularly the second edition, 8vo. Cupar-Fife, 1802; Cunninghame's Essay upon Macduff's Cross; and Camden's Britannia, by Gough.) [SANCTUARY.]

ATHELING, or ÆTHELING. The indications, in the Saxon period of our history, of anything like the hereditary nobility of the times after the Conquest are exceedingly few: certainly, the system which gives to particular families particular names of distinction and particular social privileges, which are to descend in the families as long as the families endure, we owe entirely to the Normans. The Saxons had among them earls, but that word was used to designate, not as in these times only a rank of nobility, to which certain privileges are attached, but a substantial office bringing with it important duties; he was the superintendent indeed, under the king, of one of the counties or shires, and the sheriff, gerefa, in Latin vice-comes, was his inferior, his delegate or deputy. These earls, who were nominated by the king, held their offices as it seems for life, and were usually selected from the most opulent families. Even the kingship among the successors of Egbert seems not to have descended uniformly according to our modern principles of hereditary succession.

When the word Atheling has been found following a name by which a Saxon was designated, it has been supposed by some persons to be of the nature of a surname; and especially in the instance in which it is found united with Edgar, in him who was the last male in that illustrious family. Polydore Virgil, an Italian, who in the middle of the sixteenth century wrote a history of England in elegant Latin, falls into this error; for which he is rebuked by Selden, the author of the admirable work on the various titles of honour which have been in use in the countries of modern Europe. He shows that Edgar Atheling is the same as Edgar the Atheling, or the noble, and that while some of our earlier chroniclers, as Henry of Huntingdon and Matthew Paris, so designate him, others, as Hoveden and Florence, call him Edgarus Clyto. Clyto is the Greek term answer

ing to eminent, illustrious. It is rather a remarkable fact concerning the Saxon kings of England and their families, that they affected titles and denominations of Greek origin, as Clyto, Basileus (king), and adelphe (sister); the last appears on the seal of the royal abbess of Wilton.

Nothing is known of any peculiar privileges belonging to the Athelings. But those who in modern times have had occasion to speak of the term and the circumstances under which it was used, such as Lingard and Turner in their histories of the Saxon period, speak of lands being usually given to the Atheling while still in his minority. And hence it is that this word Atheling has descended to our times in the local nomenclature of England.

ATTACHMENT, FOREIGN. This is a judicial proceeding, by means of which a creditor may obtain the security of the goods or other personal property of his debtor, in the hands of a third person, for the purpose, in the first instance, of enforcing the appearance of the debtor to answer to an action; and afterwards, upon his continued default, of obtaining the goods or property in satisfaction of the demand. The process in England is founded entirely upon local customs, and is an exception to the general law. It exists in London, Bristol, Exeter, Lancaster, and some other towns in England; and a mode of securing the payment of a debt by a proceeding against the debtor's goods in the hands of third persons, strongly resembling the process of foreign attachment, with some modifications, and under different names, forms a part of the law of Scotland, Holland, and most European countries in which the civil law prevails. In Scotland this proceeding is called ARRESTMENT. Many remarks upon the Scotch practice of attaching property, called arrestment, will be found in the examination of Mr. William Bell, in Appendix D to the Fourth Report of the Common Law Commissioners. In France a process of this kind exists under the name of saisie-arrêt ; the regulations respecting it are in the Code de Procédure Civile, Partie I. livre 5. tit. 7, 557-582.

The custom of foreign attachment in

from the same custom in other parts of England; it is, however, much more commonly resorted to in the lord-mayor's and the sheriff's courts of London, than in any other local courts. It is not so much in use at the present day as formerly; of 389 actions tried in the lordmayor's court in London in seven years, from 1826 to 1832, 201 were cases of attachment; and in many instances very large sums have been recovered in this manner. In the sheriff's court the cases of attachment have not been so numerous. The form of procedure is this:

London differs in no material respect | him. The attachment is then effected by a notice or warning served by the officer of the court upon the third party, who is called the garnishee, from an old French word garnier, or garniser (to warn), from whence garnise, or vulgarly garnishee (the person warned), informing him that the goods, money, and effects of the defendant in his hands are attached to answer the plaintiff's action, and that the garnishee is not to part with them without the leave of the court. After this warn ing, the effect of which is to secure the property in the hands of the garnishee, the process again returns, or ought to return, to the defendant, who must be publicly called and make default on four successive court-days, before any further proceedings can be taken against his goods. In practice, however, no process is served upon the defendant either at this or any other stage of the proceeding; nor is he ever in fact called,-notice of the action or the attachment being, according to the present practice, never actually given to him. After the four court-days have elapsed, the garnishee may be summoned to show cause why judgment should not be given againt him for the goods or debt formerly attached in his hands. He then either appears and pleads, or he makes default; if he makes default, and the subject of the attachment is money, or a debt ascertained, the judgment of the court is final in the first instance, and execution may be issued at once for the sum demanded. But where the subject of the attachment is goods, a formal appraisement is made, under a precept from the court in which the action is pending, by two freemen, who are sworn for the purpose; and judgment is then given for the goods so appraised. sometimes happens that the garnishee has removed the goods before appraisement; in which case the officer returns the fact to the court, and a jury is empannelled to inquire and assess the value of the goods removed; and thereupon judgment and execution follow for the sum so assessed. But before execution can in any case issue against the garnishee, the plaintiff is required to enter into a recognizance with two sureties, obliging himself to return the money or goods taken under the

The creditor, who is the plaintiff in the action, makes, in the first instance, an affidavit of his debt, which should be actually due, as it is doubtful whether an attachment can be made upon a contract to pay money at a future day. But it is not necessary that the debt should have been contracted within the jurisdiction. (5 Taunt. 232; 1 Brod. & Bing. 491.) The affidavit of debt having been made, an action is commenced in the usual manner; the only parties named in the first instance being the creditor as plaintiff, and the debtor as defendant. A warrant then issues, or is supposed to issue, to the officer of the court, requiring him to summon the defendant; upon this warrant the officer returns that the defendant "has nothing within the city whereby he can be summoned, nor is to be found within the same," and then the attachment may be made. This return of non est inventus to the process against the defendant is of the very essence of the custom, and without it all the subsequent proceedings on the attachment would be invalid; in point of fact, however, where an attachment is intended, the officer never attempts to summon the defendant, or gives him any notice of the action, but merely makes his return to the warrant as a matter of course. After this return, a suggestion is made, or supposed to be made, by the plaintiff to the court, that some third person within the city has goods of the defendant in his possession, or owes him debts, by which goods, or debts, the plaintiff requires that the defendant may be attached, until he appears to answer to the action brought against

It

attachment, if the defendant appears in court within a year and a day, and disproves or avoids the debt.

The above is the course of proceeding in the case of a judgment by default. Instead of following this course, however, the garnishee, who is commonly the banker, factor, or agent of the defendant, usually appears and pleads. As matter of defence, he may deny that any debt is due from himself to the defendant, or that he possesses any goods or money of his; he may also show that he has a lien upon the defendant's goods in his own right. The question thus raised between the plaintiff and the garnishee is then tried by a jury, and judgment is given upon their verdict, with or without appraisement, according to the nature of the property attached. According to the custom, the goods can never be actually seized in execution under the attachment; if the garnishee refuse to deliver them, the only remedy of the plaintiff is to arrest him. The practice in the matter of Foreign Attachment has been here stated generally; in practice many questions of law may arise.

A difference of opinion prevails amongst mercantile men with respect to the utility of this proceeding. On the one side, it is said to be important, in a commercial community, to be readily able to apply the property of an absent debtor, wherever it may be found, to the payment of his creditor; and this, it is contended, Is particularly advantageous in a city much frequented by foreigners for the purpose of trade, who may contract debts during their abode in England, and then remove themselves to foreign parts, beyond the reach of personal process: on the other hand, it is supposed to embarrass commercial operations, in consequence of the enormous power which it places in the hands of creditors-a creditor for 201. being entitled, if he pleases, to attach property to the amount of 20,000l., or any larger sum, which cannot be applied in discharge of any commercial engagements which the debtor may have formed, until the attachment is disposed of. The apprehension of this process is said to deter foreign merchants from consigning cargoes to London. It does not, however,

appear to be likely that the existence of this custom should, under ordinary circumstances, have the effect of deterring the fair merchant from sending his goods to London; though it may well happen that a trader, who has contracted debts in London which he does not intend to pay, or who suspects that claims will be set up which he does not wish to afford the claimants any facilities in litigating, would hesitate to send a cargo to a port where, by means of this process, his creditors in that place might instantly seize it. Nor can much practical inconvenience arise from the power of attaching a large property for a small debt; for the garnishee, who is almost in all cases the agent of the defendant in some shape or other, may at any time dissolve the attachment, by appearing for the defendant and putting in bail to the action; or, if satisfied with the truth of the debt upon which the attachment issues, he may pay the plaintiff's demand, and take credit for the amount in his account with the defendant: for a payment under an attachment would be so far an answer to any demand against the garnishee by the defendant. The alleged objections do not, therefore, appear to be so formidable as has been represented; but the advantage of a speedy and safe mode of recovering debts is obvious.

There are, however, many imperfections in this form of proceeding. In the first place, no costs are recoverable on either side; and therefore when a small debt is contested, if the plaintiff succeeds against the garnishee, his costs may exceed the sum which he can recover; and if the garnishee succeeds in showing himself not to be liable to the attachment, he may incur a considerable expense without the possibility of reimbursement. Secondly, the efficiency of the custom is much im peded by the limited extent of its local jurisdiction. Thus, goods in a warehouse in Thames-street may be attached; but if lying in a lighter on the river Thames within a yard of the warehouse, they are exempt. If a merchant keep his cash with a banker in the city, it is liable to the process; but if his banker dwell a few yards beyond the limits of the city, no attachment can be made of his balance

unless indeed the plaintiff should prepare himself with process, and be fortunate enough to serve it upon one of the partners when accidentally within the jurisdiction; in which case, as he is supposed to carry with him all the debts and liabilities of the house to which he belongs, the balance of any customer of the firm might be attached. But the most serious objection to the proceeding, as universally practised in London at the present day, arises from the palpable opportunity which it affords for fraudulent collusion between the plaintiff and the garnishee, to the injury of the defendant. By the letter of the custom, as above stated, the defendant must be sought in the first instance by the officer of the court; and if not found in the city, and if he does not answer when openly called in court, the first process of attachment may issue against his goods. Still no step can be taken towards appropriating them until the defendant has been solemnly called at four several courts; and then, and not till then, the garnishee may be summoned. In ancient times, therefore, when the custom was strictly adhered to, every possible precaution was taken to give notice to the defendant of the intended proceeding against his property; and unless he was actually absent from the country (in which case he might, on his return within a year and a day, resort for his protection to the securities given by the plaintiff for restoring the goods), it was scarcely possible that he should not be informed of it. But the present practice is to give no notice of any kind to the defendant. The summons, the return of non est inventus, the four separate defaults on being called in court, are indeed entered formally upon the record; and unless they were so entered in every case, the judgment against the garnishee would be erroneous; for the custom would be contrary to law, if it sanctioned a proceeding against a man or his property without notice. But this principle is at present reduced to mere form, and there is in practice no protection whatever to the defendant against a fraudulent collusion between the garnishee and the plaintiff. It is quite within the range of possibility that a solvent defendant may reside next door to the gar

nishee with whom his goods are deposited; that the garnishee and plaintiff may agree to an attachment for a real or fictitious debt; that execution may issue; and even that the year and a day may expire, and consequently the property may be absolutely lost to the defendant before he has any notice of the transaction. This objection, however, applies not to the custom itself, which is in this respect just and reasonable, but to the abuse and corruption of it in modern practice.

ATTAINDER, from the Latin word attinctus, “attaint," "stained," is a consequence which the law of England has attached to the passing of sentence of death upon a criminal. Attainder does not follow upon mere conviction of a capital offence; because, after conviction, the judgment may still be arrested, and the conviction itself cancelled, or the prisoner may obtain a pardon : in either of which cases no attainder ensues. But as soon as sentence of death is passed, or a judgment of outlawry given, where the person accused flies from justice, which is equivalent to sentence of death, the prisoner becomes legally attaint, stained, or blackened in reputation. He cannot sue or be a witness in a court of justice; he loses all power over his property, and is rendered incapable of performing any of the duties, or enjoying any of the privileges, of freeman. The person of a man attainted is, however, not absolutely at the disposal of the crown. It is so for the ends of public justice, but for no other purpose. Until execution, his creditors have an interest in his person for securing their debts; and he himself, as long as he lives, is under the protection of the law. (Macdonald's case, vol. xviii. of Howell's State Trials, p. 862.)

We shall consider, first, the subject of attainder as it exists by the ordinary laws of the realm; and, secondly, give some account of those extraordinary enactments commonly known by the name of Bills of Attainder.

1. The principal consequences of attainder, according to the ordinary course of law, are forfeiture of the attainted person's real and personal estates, and what is technically called corruption of the blood of the offender. The forfeiture of

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