mittee, after a searching inquiry into the merits of each case on the Pension List, recommended the immediate suspension of several pensions, to be regranted on "the responsibility of the government, should the circumstances of the parties render it necessary; others they con'sidered should determine at an earlier period than specified in the original grant; and for several pensions, they considered it unadvisable to make any future provision, that is, that they should be no longer paid. In their Report, dated July, 1838, the committee recommended that in the case of all future Civil List pensions, the reasons and motives of the grant should be set forth in the warrant of appointment; that in pensions granted for services to others than the individual by whom the services were rendered, care should be taken, if these pensions are granted for younger lives, that is, to the sons or daughters of the individual entitled to the pension, that no undue increase of charge should be made; and that such grants should be avoided, except under very peculiar circumstances: they recommended also that pensions for the relief of distress should be granted only on the condition of their ceasing when the circumstances of the parties no longer require their continuance; that all pensions should be held liable to deduction or

'suspension in the event of the parties being appointed to office in the public service; that under no circumstances should the mere combination of poverty with the hereditary rank of the peerage be considered as a justification of a grant of a pension. The committee also recommended that, in order to avoid any possible doubt or misconception hereafter, enactments should be made with respect to the Irish and Scotch revenue, analogous to those of the English act of 1 Anne.

It appears from the Report of the Committee on Pensions that the charge of pensions has been reduced as follow:England. Ireland. Scot- 44 per Total. • land. Cents. £ £

£ £ £ 4782 85,000 80,000 13,300 16,700 195,000 1820 74,200 67,300 37,100 34,300 212,900 130 74,200 53,900 33,200 24,100 185,400 7838 The lists consolidated. 140,900

72,656

1849 59,258 13,398
1854 30,792
18,255 49,047
1858 13,161 21,716 34,877

committee with the ages of 866 persons Mr. Finlayson was furnished by the in the receipt of pensions; and in 828 of these cases the date of the grant was ascertained. The mean age at which pensions were granted to males he found to be 32, and to females 36; and out of every 1000l. payable, 2571. was paid to males and 7431. to females. Mr. Finlayson complains that "the females have understated their ages very considerably, and sometimes with a contempt of all probability, more than one lady having set down her age at 39, forgetting that she has been forty-five years in receipt of the pension, and this from an aversion to own the age of 40."

The following is an account of the total amount of pensions granted in each year, ending the 20th day of June, from 1829 to 1837 inclusive; soon after which period the act 1 Vict. c. 2, came into operation, and the power of granting pensions was restricted. [CIVIL LIST.]

1829 £1830 1834 £2878

officers of land-forces; and to officers in each of the civil departments of the government large sums are annually paid in pensions and superannuation allow ances. The half-pay to retired officers of the navy and army may also be considered in the light of a pension. In 1832 the charge on the public for pensions, superannuations, and half-pay amounted to 6,152,7021. (Financial Reform, p. 203, 4th edit.) The operation of the superannuation, the grant of retired allowances, the naval and military pensions granted for good services, the pensions granted by the 57 George III. c. 65, for persons who have occupied high political offices, and the pensions for diplomatic and consular services, have to a great extent superseded one of the original purposes of the Pension List. These acts have also substituted a strictly defined and regulated system of reward, for a system which depended on the arbitrary selection of the crown or the recommendation of the existing government, exposed to the bias of party or personal considerations." (Report on Pensions, No. 218, Sess. 1838.) Sir Henry Parnell, in chapter xii. of his Financial Reform,' shows that there are many abuses to be remedied in reference especially to superannuations. "Nothing (he says) can be more extravagant and inconsistent with a proper guardianship of the public purse than the system of salaries and superannuations now in operation. The salaries are so much higher than they ought to be, that every officer and clerk has sufficient means of making a provision for infirmity and old age. But notwithstanding this fact, as to the sufficiency of salary, in the true spirit of profusion, a great superannuation allowance has been added." In 1830 there were nearly one thousand officers in the public service, with salaries of 1000l. a year and upwards, enjoying amongst them 2,066,5741.; and of these there were 216 persons whose salaries averaged 44291.; and yet from the passing of the Superannuation Act in 1810 till 1830, the charge for civil superannuation was increased from 94,550l. to 480,0817. It was stated in the Third Report of the Finance Committee (Sess. 1828), that in not a few cases persons

obtained superannuations, as unfit for the public service, who enjoyed health and strength long afterwards, and discharged the active duties of life in private business. In 1831 the treasury established some very important restrictions relative to superannuation allowances, which are given in a Parliamentary Paper (No. 190, 2nd Session, 1831).

For an account of pensions under the French monarchy the reader may refer to the Encyclopédie Méthodique (section Finances').

PERJURY (from the Latin perjurium), by the common law of England, is the offence of falsely swearing to facts in a judicial proceeding. To constitute this offence the party must have been lawfully sworn to speak the truth by some court, judge, or officer having competent authority to administer an oath; and, under the oath so administered, he must wilfully assert a falsehood in a judicial proceeding respecting some fact which is material to the subject of inquiry in that proceeding. In a legal sense, therefore, the term has a much narrower import than it has in its popular acceptation. A person may commit perjury by swearing that he believes a fact to be true which he knows to be false. It is immaterial whether the false statement has received credit or not, or whether any injury has been sustained by an individual in consequence of it. The offence of perjury is a Misdemeanor.

The history of this offence in the common law is entirely dependent upon the history of the trial by jury. Where perjury is mentioned by Bracton and Fleta, they exclusively allude to the offence of jurors in giving a wilfully false verdict; and as the jury appear to have been originally merely witnesses, speaking from their personal knowledge of the facts, and sworn to speak the truth, their misconduct in giving a false decision might be justly treated as perjury. [JURY.] There is no trace in the statutes or in the reported proceedings of the courts, of any penal law against perjury in witnesses, as distinguished from that of jurors, earlier than the reign of Henry VIII.; the date of the introduction of the witness's oath to speak the truth, in

use at the present day, is unknown, and | no form of process for securing the attendance of witnesses (except where they were added to the jury) seems to have existed before the reign of Elizabeth. [JURY.] These facts tend to show that the offence of perjury has received its present definite character by the corresponding change in the functions of the jury. This change was complete in the time of Sir Edward Coke, as he defines perjury nearly in the same terms in which it is described in more modern text-books. (3 Inst., 163.)

A defendant in equity is guilty of perjury by false swearing in his answer to a plaintiff's bill. The defendant is in fact also a witness, for he is bound to answer on oath to the matter contained in the bill, and the plaintiff may read the whole or any integral portion of the defendant's answer as evidence against such defendant. In the case of an answer in equity, the offence of false swearing falls exactly within the definition given at the head of this article.

The punishments of perjury by the common law were, discretionary fine and imprisonment; the pillory, which punishment was abolished (by 1 Vict. c. 23) in 1837; and a perpetual incapacity to give evidence in courts of justice. As to the penalties for Perjury, see LAW, CRIMINAL, p. 205. There are many statutes by which oaths are required as a sanction to statements of facts under a variety of circumstances, and otherwise than in judicial proceedings; and these statutes frequently declare that false swearing in such cases shall amount to perjury, and be punishable as such. The Commissioners on Criminal Law have pointed out the objections to provisions of this kind, and have suggested a mode of rendering the law upon the subject more precise by drawing a line of distinction between false testimony in courts of justice and false swearing to facts on other occasions. See Fifth Report, pp. 25 and 50.

By the 5 & 6 William IV. c. 62, declarations may now be substituted for oaths in many extrajudicial proceedings. [OATH.]

PERPETUATION OF TESTI

MONY. A party who has an interest in property, but not such an interest as enables him immediately to prosecute his claim, or a party who is in possession of property and fears that his right may at some future time be disputed, is entitled to examine witnesses in order to preserve that testimony, which may be lost by the death of such witnesses before he can prosecute his claim, or before he is called on to defend his right. This is effected by such party filing a bill in equity against such persons as are interested in disputing his claim, in which bill he prays that the testimony of his witnesses may be perpetuated. This is the only relief that the bill prays. If the prayer of the bill is granted, a commission issues to examine the witnesses, whose depositions are taken in the usual way in suits in equity. The depositions, when taken, are sealed up and retained in the custody of the court which grants the commission. When they are required to be used as evidence, they can be so used, by permission of the court, by the party who has filed his bill or those who claim under him, and they can be read by the direction of the court as evidence on a trial at law, if it is then proved that the witnesses are dead, or from any sufficient cause cannot attend. If the witnesses are living when the trial takes place, and can attend, they must be produced. A defendant to such a bill may join in the commission, and may examine witnesses under the commission, and he is entitled to use their depositions as evidence in his favour at a future trial. (1 Mer., 434.)

A bill to perpetuate testimony may be filed by any person who has a vested interest, however small, in that thing to which he lays claim. The parties, defendants to such bill, are those who have some adverse interest to the plaintiff.

PERSONALTY AND PERSONAL PROPERTY. [CHATTELS.]

PETITION OF RIGHT. In the first parliament of Charles I., which met in 1626, the Commons refused to grant supplies until certain rights and privileges of the subject, which they alleged had been violated, should have been solemnly recognised by a legislative enactment. With this view they framed a petition to

the king, in which, after reciting various statutes by which their rights and privileges were recognised, they pray the king "that no man be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such-like charge, without common consent by act of parliament,-that none be called upon to make answer for refusal so to do, that freemen be imprisoned or detained only by the law of the land, or by due process of law, and not by the king's special command, without any charge, that persons be not compelled to receive soldiers and mariners into their houses against the laws and customs of the realm, that commissions for proceeding by martial law be revoked: all which they pray as their rights and liberties according to the laws and statutes of the realm."

To this petition the king at first sent an evasive answer: "The king willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm, and that the statutes be put in due execution, that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrongs or oppressions contrary to their just rights and liberties, to the preservation whereof he holds himself in conscience obliged as of his own prerogative." This answer being rejected as unsatisfactory, the king at last pronounced the formal words of unqualified assent, "Let right be done as it is desired." (1 Car. I. c. 1.) Notwithstanding this, however, the ministers of the crown caused the petition to be printed and circulated with the first insufficient answer.

PETIT SERJEANTY. [SERJEANT.] PEW. The word pew seldom occurs in writers upon ecclesiastical law, who almost invariably use the expression church seat."

There were no pews in churches until about the period of the Reformation, prior to which the seats were moveable, such as chairs and benches, as we see at this time in the Roman Catholic churches on the Continent. Before that time no cases are to be found of claims to pews, although in the common-law books two or three claims are mentioned to seats in a church, or particular parts of a seat, which were probably moveable benches or forms.

"By the general law and of common

right," Sir John Nicholl observed (in Fuller v. Lane, 2 Add. Eccl. Rep., 425), "all the pews in a parish church are the common property of the parish; they are for the use in common of the parishioners, who are all entitled to be seated orderly and conveniently so as best to provide for the accommodation of all." The right of appointing what persons shall sit in each seat belongs to the ordinary (3 Inst., 202); and the churchwardens, who are the officers of the ordinary, are to place the parishioners according to their rank and station; but they are subject to his control if any complaint should be made against them." (Pettman v. Bridger, 1 Phill., 323.) A parishioner has a right to a seat in the church without any payment for it, and if he has cause of complaint in this respect against the churchwardens, he may cite them in the ecclesiastical court to show cause why they have not seated him properly; and if there be persons occupying pews who are not inhabitants of the parish, they ought to be displaced in order to make room for him. This general right however of the churchwardens as the officers of the ordinary is subject to certain exceptions, for private rights to pews may be sustained upon the ground of a faculty, or of prescription, which presumes a faculty.

The right by faculty arises where the ordinary or his predecessor has granted a licence or faculty appropriating certain pews to individuals. Faculties have varied in their form; sometimes the ap-. propriation has been to a person and his family "so long as they continue inhabitants of a certain house in the parish:" the more modern form is to a man and his family" so long as they continue inhabitants of the parish" generally. The first of these is perhaps the least exceptionable form. (Sir J. Nicholl, 2 Add., 426.)

Where a faculty exists, the ordinary cannot again interfere: it has however been laid down in the ecclesiastical court that where a party claiming by faculty ceases to be a parishioner, his right is determined. Sir John Nicholl states, Whenever the occupant of a pew in the body of the church ceases to be a pa

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