Category: C

In old English law. A court-baron. Fleta, lib. 2, c. 53.

A curious [overnice or subtle) and captious interpretation is reprobated in law. 1 Bulst. 6.

Clerks in the chancery office, whose duties consisted in drawing up those writs which were of course, dc cursu, whence their name. They were abolished by St. 5 & 6 Wm. IV.

In English law. A grant from the crown under the exchequer seal, by which the custody of lands, etc., seised in the king’s hands, is demised or committed to some person as

The guardian of morals. The court of queen’s bench has been so styled. 4 Steph. Comm. 377.

A mulct anciently paid by one who killed another, to the kindred of the deceased. Spelman.

Dig. 34, 5, 24. Where an ambiguous, or even an erroneous, expression occurs in a will, it should be construed liberally, and in accordance with the testator’s probable meaning. Broom,Max. 568.

In ecclesiastical law. Properly, an incumbent who has the cure of souls, but now generally restricted to signify the spiritual assistant of a rector or vicar in his cure. An officiating temporary

The ecclesiastical court.

In old English law. A measure containing four bushels or half a quarter of corn. Cowell; Blount

In old records. A ridge. Cur- sones tcncc, ridges of laud. Cowell.

The care and keeping of anything; as when an article is said to be “in the custody of the court.” People v. Burr, 41 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 296; Emerson v. State,

In old English law. Keeper of the pleas of the crown. Bract fol. 146. Cowell supposes this office to have been the same with the custos rotulorum. But it seems rather to

That kind of punishment used by the ancients, and still used by the Chinese, called by Staunton the “wooden collar,” by which the neck of the malefactor Is bent or weighed down.

Children born under a legitimate marriage follow the condition of the father.

In French law. A person charged with supervising the administration of the affairs of an emancipated minor, of giving him advice, and assisting him in the important acts of such administration. Du-

The county court, (q. v.)

Coined money and such bank-notes or other paper money as are authorized by law aud do in fact circulate from hand to hand as the medium of exchange. Griswold v. Hepburn, 2

An inferior officer of the papal court.

A usage or practice of the people, which, by common adoption and acquiescence. and by long and unvarying habit, has become compulsory, and has acquired the force of a law with respect