A. This letter is frequently used as an abbreviation or as a mark of reference, for the purpose of identification. It was inscribed upon a ballot, and stood for antiquo,' I vote against. It was used by the Romans who voted against a proposed law or candidate for office. See U. R.

A ballot or waxen tablet, similarly inscribed, was also used in their Courts of Judicature, being the initial letter of absolvo,' I acquit (not guilty). Cicero calls A, literam salutarem, a comfortable letter, because it denoted Acquittal (absolvo); but C, literam tristem, a sorrowful letter, because it denoted Condemnation (condemno). See Taylor's Civil Law, 191; Juv. Sat. xiii. 3.

A 1. An expression signifying a first-class vessel excellently built.-Shipping term.

Ab [fr. abba, Syr., father], the eleventh month of the Jewish civil year, and the fifth of the sacred.

Ab, at the beginning of English-Saxon names of places, is generally a contraction of Abbot or Abbey; whence it is inferred that those places once had an abbey, or belonged to one elsewhere, as Abingdon in Berkshire. Blount's Law Gloss.

Abacist, or Abacista, a caster of accounts, an arithmetician.-Blount; Cowel's Interp. Abacot, the name of the ancient cap of state worn by the kings of England. It was made in the shape of two crowns.-Chron. Angl. 1463; Spelm.

Abactor [fr. abigo, Lat.], a stealer and driver away of cattle or beasts by herds or in great numbers at once, as distinguished from fur, a person who steals a single beast only. Encyc. Lond.

Abacus [fr. aßag, Gr., a board], arithmetic, from the Abacus, an ancient instrument for facilitating calculations by means of counters. Its form is various, but that chiefly used in Europe is made by drawing parallel lines distant from each other at least twice the diameter of a counter, which, placed on the lowest line, signifies 1; on the second, 10; on the third, 100; on the fourth, 1000; and so on. In the intermediate spaces, the same

counters are estimated at one half of the value of the line immediately superior.-Dyche's Dict.; Encyc. Lond.

Abalienate (V.A.), to make over to another. -Civil Law.

Abalienation [fr. abalieno, Lat.], a making over of realty, goods, or chattels, to another, by due course of Law.-Ib.

Aballaba, the ancient name of Appleby in Westmoreland.

Abandonee, one to whom anything is relinquished.

Abandonment [fr. Abandonner, Fr.], the relinquishment of an interest or claim.

(2) The relinquishment by an assured person to the assurers of his right to what is saved out of a wreck, when the thing insured has, by some of the usual perils of the sea, become practically valueless. Upon abandonment, the assured is entitled to call upon the assurers to pay the full amount of the insurance, as in the case of a total loss. The loss is in such case called a constructive total loss.-See Maude and Poll. on Shipping.

Also the surrender of his property by a debtor for the benefit of his creditors.

The Civil Law permitted a master who was sued for his slave's tort, or the owner of an animal who was sued for an injury done by it, to abandon the slave or animal to the person injured, and thus relieve himself from further liability.

Abandonment of Railways. See 13 & 14 Vict. c. 83, 30 & 31 Vict. c. 127, ss. 31-35, and 32 & 33 Vict. c. 114, by which enactments railways authorized by special act passed before the session of 1867 may be abandoned under warrant of the Board of Trade, and the companies wound up under the Companies Acts 1862 and 1867.

Abandun, or Abandum, anything sequestered, proscribed, or abandoned. Abandon, i.e., in bannum res missa, a thing banned or denounced as forfeited or lost, whence to abandon, desert, or forsake, as lost and gone. Cowel. Pasquier thinks it a coalition of á ban donner, to give up to a proscription, in which sense it signifies the ban of the empire.

Ban, in the old dialect, signifies a curse; and to abandon, if considered as compounded of French and Saxon, is exactly equivalent to diris devovere.

Ab antiquo, of an ancient date.

Abarnare [fr. abarian, Ang.-Sax., denudo, detego, Lat.], to lay bare, discover, detect. Hence abere theof, a detected or convicted thief; æbere morth, a detected homicide. Also to detect and discover any secret crime to a magistrate. Ancient Laws and Institutes of England; Leg. Canuti, c. 104.

Ab assuetis non fit injuria. Jenk. Cent. Rep. (From things to which we are accustomed, no legal wrong results).

If a person neglect to insist on his right, he is deemed to have abandoned it. A Court of equity,' said Lord Camden, which is never active in relief against conscience or public convenience, has always refused its aid to stale demands, where a party has slept upon his right, and acquiesced for a great length of time.-Smith v. Clay, Ambl. 645; 3 Bro. C.C. 639. Compare the maxim 'Vigilantibus, non dormientibus jura subveniunt.'

Abatamentum, Abatement, an entry by interposition.-1 Inst. 277.

Abate [fr. abbattre, Fr.], to prostrate, break down, remove, or destroy; also, to let down or cheapen the price in buying or selling.Encyc. Lond. See ABATEMENT.

Abatement, a making less, used in seven

senses:

(1) Abatement of Freehold. This takes place where a person dies seised of an inheritance, and, before the heir or devisee enters, a stranger, having no right, makes a wrongful entry, and gets possession of it. Such an entry is technically called an abatement, and the stranger an abater. It is, in fact, a figurative expression, denoting that the rightful possession or freehold of the heir or devisee is overthrown by the unlawful intervention of a stranger. Abatement differs from intrusion, in that it is always to the prejudice of the heir or immediate devisee, whereas the latter is to the prejudice of the reversioner or remainder-man and disseisin differs from them both, for to disseise, is to put forcibly or fraudulently a person seised of the freehold out of possession.--1 Inst. 277 a; 3 Bl. Com. 166. See OUSTER.

:

(2) Abatement or removal of Nuisances.A remedy allowed by law to the party injured by a nuisance to abate, destroy, remove, or put an end to the same by his own act. Nuisances are either public or private. Public nuisances may be abated, that is, taken away or removed, by urban sanitary authorities and other public bodies under various public acts (see e.g., Public Health Act, 1875, s. 98),

and also by private individuals, where the abatement does not involve a breach of the peace. Private nuisances may also be abated by the individuals aggrieved. The law allows this, because injuries of this kind require an immediate remedy, and cannot wait for the slow progress of the ordinary forms of justice.

(3) Plea in abatement.-A defence by which a defendant showed cause to the Court why he should not be sued, or, if sued, not in the form adopted by the plantiff, and praying that the action might abate, i.e., cease.

A plea in abatement at Common Law (which by 4 Anne c. 16, s. 11, had to be substantiated by affidavit) was one which stated some fact which gave a reason for quashing or abating the original writ in a real, or the declaration in a personal, action, on account of an informality, or offered an exception to the personal competency of the parties suing or sued; e.g., that the plaintiff was an alien enemy, or that the defendant was a married woman. But now, by the Judicature Act, 1875, Ord. XIX., Rule 13, it is provided that no plea or defence shall be pleaded in abatement.' See STATEMENT OF DEFENCE.

In equity declinatory pleas to the jurisdiction and dilatory to the persons were (prior to the Judicature Act) sometimes, by analogy to common law, termed pleas in abatement.

In Criminal proceedings, a plea in abatement might have been given in writing by a prisoner or defendant on account of misnomer, wrongful or no addition, annexing thereto an affidavit of its truth. But this plea is now obsolete, since, by 7 Geo. IV. c. 64, s. 19, in case of misnomer the judge may amend the indictment or information, and call upon the prisoner or defendant to plead in bar to the merits; and by 14 & 15 Vict. c. 100, s. 1, no indictment or information is to be held insufficient for want of or imperfection in the addition of any defendant.

(4) Abatement of Debts and Legacies.-In Equity, when equitable assets are insufficient to satisfy fully all the creditors, their debts must abate in proportion, and they must be content with a dividend; for æquitas est quasi æqualitas.

So in the case of legacies, upon a deficiency of assets after payment of the debts they abate proportionably, unless a priority is specially given to any particular legacy. A testator is always presumed to intend that the legacies shall be equally paid, unless he express in his will a contrary intention. But a widow's legacy in lieu of dower has the priority, and very properly so, since she gives up a legal right for it.

When there are specific and pecuniary

legacies, and the assets are not sufficient to pay both, the specific have the preference, and only abate proportionately amongst themselves, unless one of them is payable out of a particular fund, and others out of other funds, for then each must bear the loss arising from any deficiency of the particular fund.

(5) Abatement of Litigation. By the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1875, Ord. L., it is provided that an action shall not become abated by reason of the marriage, death, or bankruptcy of any of the parties, if the cause of action survive or continue, and shall not become defective by the assignment, creation, or devolution of any estate or title pendente lite (r. 1). Further rules of the same order provide for making the husband, or other successor in interest, party to the action by order of the Court.

The order is modelled upon the former rules with regard to abatement of litigation at common law; see C. L. P. Act, 1852, ss. .135-142, 161-3, 164-7, 190-9.

As to the former rules in equity, see Daniell's Chanc. Prac., 5th ed., 1390 et seq.

Bankruptcy proceedings abate altogether where the bankrupt dies before adjudication. By the Bankruptcy Act, 1869, s. 80, when a debtor who has been adjudicated a bankrupt dies, the Court may order that the proceedings in the matter be continued as if he were alive. As to abatements of informations in the Exchequer, see 28 & 29 Vict. c. 104, s. 23.

(6) Abatement or rebate in commerce, an allowance or discount made for prompt payment. Lex. Merc. It is sometimes used to express the deduction that is occasionally made at the Custom-House from the duties chargeable upon such goods as are damaged, and for a loss in warehouses.

(7) A badge in coat-armour, indicating dishonour of some kind. It is called also rebatement.

Abator, or Abater, one who abates a nuisance or enters into a house or land vacant by the death of the former possessor, and not yet taken possession of by his heir or devisee.Cowel.

Also an agent or cause by which an abatement is procured.

Abatuda, or Abatudé, anything diminished. Moneta abatuda is money clipped or diminished in value.-Du Fresne's Glos. Used in old records.

Abavia, a great grandmother's mother. Abavus [fr. avusavus, avavus, Lat.], a great grandfather's father.

Abbacy [fr. abbatia, or abbathia, Lat.], the government of a religious house and the revenues thereof, subject to an abbot, as a bishopric is to a bishop.--Cowel. The rights and privileges of an abbot.

Abbandunum, Abbedoma, Abbendonia, Abingdon in Berkshire, which took its present name soon after Cissa, King of the West Saxons, had founded the abbey there; also, as some say, called Sewsham and Cloveshoe. Abbas [fr. astuarium, Lat.], Humber in Yorkshire.

Abbatis, an

avener or steward of the stables, an ostler.--Spelm.

Abbe, the old Norman-French word for Abbot.--Vide Bro. Abr. ‘Abbe.'

Abbey, or Abby [fr. abbatia, Lat.], a place or house for religious retirement, governed by an abbess where nuns are, and by an abbot where monks reside. Formerly in England great privileges were granted to them, such as being exempted from the bishop's visitation, and as a sanctuary for persons escaping from the penalties of an infringed law, even although they were murderers. No less than 190 abbeys were dissolved by Henry VIII., the yearly revenue of which amounted to 2,853,000l. per annum (an almost incredible sum, considering the value of money in those days), a great part of which went to Rome, the governors and governesses of several of the richest among them being foreigners resident in Italy. Certain abbots and priors in England, in right of their monasteries, held lands of the crown, for which they owed military service, and on that account obtained the title of Lords, and were summoned as barons to parliament. For a like reason the bishops of the present day have the same honour, and are denominated spiritual peers.1 Hall. Const. Hist. c. ii., p. 74; and see 27 Hen. VIII. c. 28, and other acts for the suppression of religious houses collected in the Supplement to the Revised Statutes, vol. 15.

An

Abbot, or Abbat [fr. abbas, Lat.; abbé Fr.; abbud, Sax.: others derive it from abba, Syr., father], a spiritual lord or governor, who had the rule of a religious house. abbot, with the monks of the same house, were called the convent, and made a corporation. Termes de la Ley. Henry VIII. dissolved the monasteries (see ABBEY). See Du Cange, and Carpenter's Supp.

Abbreviatio Placitorum, is an abstract of ancient pleadings prior to the year-books. See Stephen on Pleading, 7th ed., 410.

Abbreviate of Adjudication, an abstract of the decree of adjudication, and of the lands adjudged, with the amount of the debt. Adjudication is that diligence (execution) of the law by which the real estate of a debtor is adjudged to belong to his creditor in payment of a debt; and the abbreviate must be recorded in the register of adjudications.--Scotch Law; see Belb's Dictionary.

Abbreviation, an abridging or contraction.