It is also provided by the same statute "that in case the day of the month on which any term, according to the Act of 1 Will. IV. c. 70, is to end, shall fall to be on a Sunday, then the Monday next after such day shall be deemed and taken to be the last day of the term; and that in case any of the days between the Thursday before and the Wednesday next after Easter shall fall within Easter Term, then such days shall be deemed and taken to be part of such Term, although there shall be no sittings in banco on any of such intervening days."

Test Act. This Act is the statute 25 Car. II. c. 2, which directs all officers, civil and military, to take the oaths, and make the declaration against transubstantiation, in the Court of King's Bench or Chancery, the next Term, or at the next Quarter Sessions, or (by subsequent statutes) within six months after their admission; and also within the same time to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the usage of the Church of England, in some public church, immediately after divine service or sermon, and to deliver into Court a certificate thereof, signed by the minister and churchwarden, and also to prove the same by two credible witnesses, upon forfeiture of £500 and disability to hold the said office. By 1 Geo. I. c. 13, it is enacted that no member shall vote or sit in either House of Parliament till he has in the presence of the House subscribed and repeated the declaration against transubstantiation, the invocation of Saints, and the sacrifice of the Mass. The Test Act was repealed by 9 Geo. II. c. 26, which also repealed the Corporation Act (which see).

Appointing

This Day Six or Three Months. this day six or three months for the next stage of a Bill, is one of the means adopted by the Houses of Lords and Commons to reject Bills of which they disapprove. A Bill rejected in this manner cannot be re-introduced in the same session.

Threatening Letters.-The senders of letters threatening murder are guilty of felony punishable by penal servi

tude for ten or three years, or by imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years; senders of letters demanding property, &c., with menaces (without any reasonable cause), by penal servitude for life or for three years; or by imprisonment for not more than two years; and senders of letters threatening to accuse any one of any crime punishable by death or penal servitude in order to extort money, by penal servitude for life, or for three years, or by imprisonment for not more than

two years.

Tithes are the tenth part of the increase arising from the produce of lands, payable to the rector, vicar, or perpetual curate, by endowment or prescription. They are said to be predial, mixed, and personal. Predial are such as are derived immediately from the earth by culture or tillage, as corn, grass, wood, fruit, &c. Mixed tithes arise from the product of nature, improved by the care of man, as the young of cattle, wool, milk, cheese, eggs. Personal tithes are payable in respect of the profit arising from labour, confined to fish, and corn mills, not in existence before 1315. The sovereign, rectors, and vicars, are exempt, by personal privilege, from paying tithes. Tithes are now commuted into a rent-charge, the amount of which is annually adjusted according to the average price of corn. All persons may claim an exemption, either partial or total, from tithes, by a real composition, or by custom, or by long usage. In some cases lands may obtain an exemption under the Commutation Acts from all liability either to tithe or rent-charge. For to the extent of twenty acres in the same parish, land is allowed to be given to the tithe owner as an equivalent; and any person seized in possession of an estate in fee-simple, or fee-tail, of any tithe or rent-charge, may dispose of the same so that it shall be merged in the inheritance of the land charged.

Toleration Act, for the relief from certain penalties, of dissenters from the Church of England, except papists and persons denying the Trinity, was passed May 24, 1689, and

confirmed by 10 Anne, c. 2 (1711). The clause excepting persons denying the Trinity was repealed by 53 Geo. III. c. 160, July 21, 1813, and the Roman Catholics were relieved by 10 Geo. IV. c. 7, passed April 13, 1829.

Trade and Plantations, Board of.-See BOARD OF. Transportation derived its origin from banishment, which was first introduced by 39 Eliz. c. 4 (1596), and enacted that such rogues as were dangerous to the inferior people should be banished the realm. The first statute in which the word transportation is used is 13 & 14 Charles II. c. 23 (1662), by which justices were authorised to transport such rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars as should be duly convicted and adjudged incorrigible, to any of the English plantations beyond the seas. It was followed by 18 Charles II. c. 3 (1666), which gave a power to the judges, at their discretion, either to execute or transport to America for life the moss-troopers of Cumberland and Northumberland. Until after the passing of 4 Geo. I. c. 2 (1717), continued by 6 Geo. I. c. 23 (1719), this mode of punishment was not brought into common operation. By these statutes the courts were allowed a discretionary power to order felons to be transported to America. The system of transportation to the American colonies lasted from 1718 to the commencement of the war in 1775. The great accumulation of convicts in 1776 led to the establishment of the system of the hulks, by 16 Geo. III. c. 43. This was followed by 19 Geo. III. c. 74 (1778), ordering the erection of penitentiaries. Transportation was resumed, and George III., by two orders in council, dated Dec. 6, 1786, fixed upon the eastern coast of Australia and the adjacent islands. The first band of convicts left England in May, 1787, and in the succeeding year founded the colony of New South Wales. Return from transportation was punishable with death, until 4 & 5 Will. IV. (1834) reduced the penalty to transportation for life. The discontinuance of transportation to Australia was announced by Lord

X

John Russell in Parliament, as determined upon by Government, Feb. 10, 1853. By 16 & 17 Vict. c. 99 (Aug. 20, 1853), penal servitude was substituted for transportation, except for fourteen years or for life. By 20 & 21 Vict. c. 3 (June 26, 1857), persons under sentence of penal servitude may be transported.

Treason. An offence against the duty of allegiance, and the highest known crime, for it aims at the very destruction of the commonwealth itself. By 25 Ed. III. c. 2, treason is declared to be •

1. When a man doth compass or imagine the death of the king, his queen, or of their eldest son.

2. If a man do violate the king's wife, or his eldest daughter, or the wife of the king's eldest son.

3. If a man do levy war against the king in his realm,

4. If a man be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving them aid in the realm or elsewhere.

5. If a man slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the king's justices, being in their places doing their offices.

By 1 Anne c. 17, it is treason to attempt to deprive any one succeeding to the Crown, being next in succession according to the Act of Settlement. And by 6 Anne, c. 7, any person maintaining that any one has any right to the Crown otherwise than according to the Act of Settlement, or that the kings of this realm, with the authority of Parliament, are not able to make statutes and laws to bind the crown and the descent thereof, is guilty of treason.

The 3 & 4 Vict. c. 52, s. 4, provides (having reference to the contingency of any issue of her present Majesty ascending the throne while under the age of eighteen), that every person who shall aid or bring about any marriage, as well as any person so marrying, such issue under the age of eighteen, without the consent in writing of the Regent, and the assent of both

Houses of Parliament previously obtained, shall be guilty of treason. If any person within this realm or without, intend to deprive or depose the Queen from the Crown, or to levy war within this realm, in order by force to compel her to change her measures or counsels, or to intimidate either House of Parliament, or to excite an invasion of any of her Majesty's dominions, and shall express such intentions by publishing any printing or writing, or by open and advised speaking, or by any overt act, shall be guilty of felony. This was formerly a species of treason, pursuant to 36 Geo. III. c. 7, and 57 Geo. III. c. 6, which were repealed by 11 Vict. c. 12. The offence of treason must be prosecuted within three years from its commission, if committed within the realm, except in the case of a designed assassination of the sovereign. Information for open and advised speaking must be given within six days after its utterance, and a warrant for the apprehension of the offender must have been issued within ten days after and within two years from April 22, 1848. The punishment of a convicted traitor is-1st, that the offender be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution; 2nd, that he be hanged by the neck until he be dead; 3rd, that his head be severed from the body; 4th, that his body be divided into four quarters; 5th, that his head and quarters shall be at the disposal of the Crown. The sovereign may, however, change the whole sentence into beheading. The term high treason was used formerly to distinguish it from petty treason, which was the killing of a master by his servant, a husband by his wife, &c. ; but as every offence which formerly amounted to petty treason is by 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, deemed murder, the term high is now obsolete, there being no necessity for the distinction.

Treasury. The office of Lord High Treasurer was first put into commission in 1612. The Lords of the Treasury are five in number, including the First Lord and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. All these, as well as the two Parliamentary