inches, the ale and beer gallon of 282 inches, the old corn gallon of 268.8, the old Scots pint or Stirling jug, with all other local measures of capacity of every description were abolished. The imperial standard gallon is 277 274 cubic inches, and the proportion it bears to the old wine gallon is nearly as 6 to 5, to the ale gallon as 59 to 60; to the corn gallon as 33 to 32; to the Stirling pint as 59 to 22. The legal stone is fixed at 14 lbs. avoirdupois, and the use of all others abolished. All articles sold by weight must be sold by avoirdupois weight, except gold, silver, platina, precious stones, and drugs in retail, which are to be sold by troy weight. Local and customary measures are abolished; also heaped measures; but articles heretofore sold by heap measure may either be sold by the bushel filled to the brim, or some aliquot part thereof, or by weight. Coals must be sold by weight only. Weights made of lead or pewter are rot to be stamped or used. The privileges of leet juries and of local bodies in the metropolis were not infringed.

By 22 & 23 V. c. 56, s. 2, if any person knowingly make or sell any false or unjust beam, scale, or balance, or any light or unjust weight or measure, he shall forfeit any sum not above £10, as adjudged by magistrate or sheriff. Power given to examine weights and measures in possession of persons offering goods for sale in any public street or open ground, and if found fraudulent or if any fraud be committed in the use of them, they may be seized, and the offender subjected to any penalty not exceeding £5. By s. 4, municipal corporations are empowered to appoint inspectors and examiners of weights and measures, and to provide copies of the imperial standard. Inspectors and examiners so appointed may exercise the same powers of entering shops, stores, warehouses, manufactories, stalls, yards, and places within the borough, and of examining and comparing, trying and seizing, weights or measures, as heretofore exercised by the inspector and examiner appointed by county justices at quarter sessions. For the convenience of seller and buyer, the inspectors are authorized to stamp measures if made partly of copper or other metal and partly of glass or other transparent medium.

In 1866, by 29 & 30 V. c. 82, a transfer of authority over weights and measures and the standard trial-pieces of the coin of the realm was made, and the custody of the imperial standards of length and weight, and of all secondary standards, and of all balances, apparatus, documents, and things used in the exchequer at Westminister, or in the care of the comptroller-general, became vested in the Board of Trade, with all power and duties relative thereto, or imposed in the Treasury. By s. 2, the Board of Trade once in every ten years to cause the three parliamentary copies of the imperial standards of length and of weight deposited at the Mint, with the Royal Society of London, and in the Observatory of Greenwich, to be compared with the imperial standards of length

and of weight and with each other. By s. 3, working secondary standards to be called the Board of Trade standards. Every five years the Board to cause the standards in use to be compared with the imperial standards of length and weight and with each other, and to be adjusted or renewed, if requisite. Definition to be given by order in council of the amount of error to be tolerated and authorization of further secondary standards. By s. 9, from the passing of the act an indenture of verification of any standard, or any indorsement on any such indenture, not to be liable to stamp duty, nor any fee payable on the verification or re-verification. The Board of Trade to constitute a department of their office, to be called the standard weights and measures department, and to appoint a warden of the standards, with so many clerks and officers, and salaries as the Treasury shall approve. By s. 11, provision made for comparison of standards in aid of scientific researches. By s. 13, the custody of the standard trial pieces of gold and silver used for determining the justness of the gold and silver coins of the realm issued from the Mint, and of all books, documents, and things used in connection therewith deposited in the exchequer to be transferred to the Treasury. (See Metric.)

WELSH MORTGAGE. A mortgage in which no day is fixed for the repayment of the mortgage-money, but the mortgagee enjoyed the profits of the land until the debt was paid, the mortgagor having a perpetual right of redemption.

WERE. Under the Anglo-Saxon laws the were was the legal value of a man's life, which varied according to his rank; and if human life was made to vary in value, it is no wonder that personal estimation should vary in the same way; thus the oath of a twelvehynd man was equal to the oath of six ceorls. Besides the were, there was a security afforded to the safety and peace of the house called the mund, and this like the were, varied in amount with the rank of the party. Neither the mildness of the AngloSaxon laws, nor the principle of the were, seem to have extended to the case of theft; from the time of Athelstan, larceny to the value of twelve pence was capital, and very severe punishments were inflicted still earlier for smaller offences.

WHARF, a convenient place for the landing, warehousing, and shipping of goods. Natural ground on the banks of a canal, though used for the purpose of a wharf, is not a wharf; neither is the sea beach, Rex v. Regent's Canal Company. The term in its ordinary and legal import means a place built or constructed for the purpose of loading and unloading goods, and for the use of which wharfage or compensation is paid to the owner. Sufferance wharfs are certain privileged places, on which goods are permitted to be landed in the custody of the custom-house till such time as the duties are paid or the goods bonded.

WHITE MEATS are milk, butter, cheese, eggs, and any com. positions of them, which formerly were forbid in Lent, as well as

flesh, until Henry VIII., by proclamation, A.D. 1543, allowed the eating of white meats.

WIDOW'S CHAMBER. A widow's apparel and the furniture of her bedroom is so called, and to which, by the custom of London, she entitled on the death of her husband.

WIFE. The abduction, or taking a man's wife, either by fraud and persuasion or open violence, is an offence for which a remedy may be had, either by writ of ravishment or action of trespass. The husband is also entitled to recover damages in an action on the case against such as persuade or entice his wife to live separate from him without sufficient cause. The old law was so strict on this point, that if a man's wife missed her way on the road it was not lawful for another man to take her into his house, unless she were benighted, and in danger of being lost or drowned; but a stranger might carry her behind him on horseback to market, or to a justice of peace for a warrant against her husband.

WILLS have been already treated of, but it may here be added as a matter of history in the law of property, that prior to the 32 H. 8, c. 7, there was no general testamentary power over freehold lands in England; but the power of willing personal property seems to have existed from the earliest period. Yet this power did not originally extend to the whole of a man's personal effects, but a man's goods, after paying his debts and funeral expenses, were divisible into three equal parts, one of which went to his children, another to his wife, and the third was at his own disposal. In Scotland, the right of bequest still continues restricted to personal property, not extending to inheritable or real property, which comprehends lands, tenements, fixtures, and what are termed "heirship movables." The Wills Act in England, 1 V. c. 26, has made all property devisable, real and personal, and the jurisdiction pertaining thereto has been since transferred from the ecclesiastical courts to the Court of Probate.

WITENA-GEMOT, a convention or assembly of great men, in the Anglo-Saxon age, to advise and assist the king, and answerable to our parliament.

WOUNDING. To constitute a wound, there must be a separation of the whole skin; a separation of the cuticle only is not sufficient, Reg. v. M'Loughlin, 8 C. & P. 635.

WRIT, in general, is the queen's precept in writing, issuing out of some court to the sheriff, or other person, and commanding something to be done touching a suit or action, or giving commission to have it done.

WRIT OF RIGHT (now abolished) ajudicial process to establish a claim to property against a possessory title, in which the defendant must allege some seisin of the lands and tenements to himself, or else in some person under whom he claims; and then derive the right from the person so seised to himself. Except the case of Toit v. Bagwell, in 1826, there are few examples in the

last century for prosecuting any real action for land by writ of right, or otherwise than by action of trespass or ejectment, which are the usual modes of settling the title of lands.

Y.

YARD, the British standard measure of length. The length of the imperial yard, as fixed by statute in 1824, is, compared with that of a pendulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of London, at 62° Fahrenheit, in a vacuum at the sea-level, in the proportion of 36 inches to 39 1393 inches.

YEAR is a well known period of time, consisting of 365 days: for though in bissextile, or leap-year, it consists of 366, yet, by 21 H. 3, the additional day in the leap-year, together with the preceding day, shall be accounted for one day only. With few exceptions, all Christian nations commence the year on the 1st of January; but as recently as 1752, even in England, the year did not legally commence till the 25th of March. In Scotland, at that period, the year began on the 1st of January. This difference caused great practical inconvenience; and January, February, and parts of March often bore two dates, as is frequently found in old records, as 1711-12. These inconsistencies, however, are removed by 24 G. 2, c. 23, which discontinues the Julian calendar, and introduces the New Style, by enacting that the 1st of January shall be reckoned the first day of the year, throwing out eleven days in that year, from the 2nd of September to the 13th, with a saving of ancient customs. Both half-years and quarters are usually divided according to certain feasts and holidays, rather than a precise division of days; as Lady Day, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas Day, and Christmas Day. In these cases, such divisions of the year by the parties are regarded by the law, and therefore, though a halfyear's notice to quit is necessary to determine a tenancy from year to year, yet a notice served on the 29th of September, to quit on the 25th of March, being half a year's notice according to the above division, is good, though it contains less than one hundred and eighty-two, namely, one hundred and seventy-eight, days.

YEAR AND A DAY. A term that anciently determined a right, or worked a prescription in many legal cases.

YEW is derived from a Greek word "to hurt," and before the invention of guns, our ancestors made bows with this wood, for the annoyance of their enemies; and, therefore, took care to plant the trees in churchyards, whereby they might be better seen and preserved by the people.-Blount. But a more probable use for the churchyard yew is that it furnished green branches in imitation of palms, to be borne on Palm Sunday.

YORK, custom of, by which the widow of an intestate claimed one-third part of the effects of her deceased husband, after the payment of his debts.

YULE, in Scotland and the North of England, the term used by country people for Christmas. The author remembers the observance of the custom in Yorkshire, of laying a large log, called a yule log, on the fire on Christmas-eve, to burn through the night.

Z.

ZEALAND, NEW. A group of islands, consisting principally of two separated by Cook's Strait, and lying in the Pacific Ocean, 1,200 miles S.E. from Australia. They have been made a British colony; and in 1852 a representative constitution was granted under the 15 & 16 V. c. 72, by which the colony is divided into the six provinces of Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago, each having a provincial council, elected by £50 freeholders.

ZYTHUM. A drink made of corn, used by the ancient Gauls; so called from the seething or boiling it, whence cider had its name. Cowel.