81 



ACTS OF SEDERUNT. 



ACUPUNCTURE. 



82 



his debtor before the mayor of London, York, or Bristol, or before the 

 mayor and a clerk appointed by the king to acknowledge the debt, and 

 fix a time for payment. If the debtor neglected to pay his debt at the 

 time appointed, the mayor ordered his chattels and devisable burgages 

 to be sold, to the amount of the debt, by the appraisement of honest 

 men ; the moveablea being to be delivered to the creditor if no buyer 

 came forward. The most minute directions are given as to the mode 

 of making and recording the acknowledgment, and levying the debt, if 

 unpaid, by execution. If the debtor had no effects, he was to be im- 

 prisoned until he or his friends had come to some agreement with the 

 creditor ; and the creditor was bound to provide him with bread and 

 water, if he were so poor as to be unable to support himself : but the 

 cost of his maintenance was added to the original debt, and was 

 required to be repaid before the debtor could obtain his release. The 

 creditor might accept sureties or mainpernora, who by this act placed 

 themselves precisely in the same situation as the debtor; but they 

 were not liable till the goods of the principal had been sold and found 

 insufficient. 



The Statute of Acton Burnel was further explained, and new pro- 

 visions added by 13 Edw. I., st. 3, passed in 1285, and called the 

 ' Statutum Mercatoruni.' If the debtor failed to make good his 

 payment at the time, he wai, if a layman, to be placed at once in 

 prison. If he could not be found, the merchant might have writs to 

 all the sheriffs in whose jurisdiction the debtor had lands ; and as a 

 last resource the merchant might hare a writ to take the debtor's body. 

 The keeper of the prison became answerable for the debt if he refused 

 to take custody of the debtor. Within a quarter of a year, the chattels 

 and lands were to be delivered to the creditor for sale in payment of 

 his debt. If within the second quarter he did not make terms, all his 

 goods and lands were to be delivered, the latter as if a gift of freehold, 

 to the creditor, to hold until the debt was paid ; the debtor being 

 maintained on bread and water by the merchant. Precautions were 

 taken against the debtor fraudulently making over his property. Lands 

 givi-n away by feoffment subsequently to the recognisances were to 

 return to the feoffer. The death of the debtor did not bar the debt; 

 for though the body of the heir could not be taken, his lands were 

 answerable as much as during the lifetime of the debtor. Jews were 

 excluded from the benefits of the statute. (' Stat. of Realm.' i. 98.) 



Reeves (' Hist, of the English Law," ii. 162) observes that the above 

 titute may be " considered as contributing to extend the power of 

 alienating land." Any common creditor by judgment was empowered 

 by the Statute of West. 2, to take half the debtor's land in execution, 

 " but a merchant who had resorted to this security might have the 

 whole." He adds that "a recognisance acknowledged with the for- 

 malities [here] described was in after times called a statute merchant ; " 

 and " a person who held lands in execution for payment of his debt, as 

 hereby directed, wan called tenant by statute merchant." Harrington 

 (' Obs. on the more Ancient Statutes,' p. 119), states that in 1536 an 

 ordinance of Francis I. was issued, which very much resembled the 

 .statute* merchant, and shows, he says, " the more early attention paid 

 iinerce in this country." 



It need scarcely be added that the Statute of Acton Burnel has long 

 been practically obsolete. 



ACTS OF SEDEKUN'T, in the law of Scotland, are rules made by 

 the Lords of Council and Session, the Judges of the Court of Session, by 

 virtue of Acts of Parliament for regulating the procedure and forms of 

 administering justice. These are called Act* of Sederunt because they 

 are made by the Lords of Session tittiny in judgment. 



ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. The authenticity of this book has 

 not been doubted ; it constitutes the second part of the Gospel accord- 

 ing to St. Luke, which he dedicated to Theophilus (Luke i. 1 ; Acts 

 i. 1). The Acts belong to the Homulogrmmena, or those canonical 

 books which were by all parties recognised as genuine (Euseb., ' Hist. 

 Ecclesiartica.' iii. 25). The Severians (Euseb., ' Hist. Eccleu.,' iv. 29) 

 and the Mauichxana (Augustin. ' Epist.' 23) acknowledged the authen- 

 ticity of the Acts, although they rejected, for doctrinal reasons, their 

 authority. Although the authenticity of the Acts was well established, 

 they were less read among the lower classes ; and accordingly C'hrysos- 

 tomus, at the end of the 4th century, wrote at the commencement of 

 his ' Commentary to the Acts,' " Many do not know even the existence 

 of this little book, nor him who wrote and composed it." 



The time at which St. Luke wrote tire Acta may be gathered from the 

 following circumstances : The arrival of St. Paul in Koine took place in 

 the spring of about the year A.D. 63. St. Paul, in his Epistles to the Colos- 

 *uns<iv. 14), to Timothy (2nd ep. iv. 11), Philemon (ver. 24), testifies 

 to St. Luke being with him in Rome ; and as this arrival is mentioned in 

 the Acts, they must Jiave been written after the year 63 ; and since the 

 death of St. Paul, about the year 68 or 69, is not mentioned by 

 St. Luke, the Acte were probably composed and circulated before this 

 date. Theophilus, to whom the Acts were dedicated, may be considered 

 as the representative of the inquiring heathen ; consequently, it was 

 proper that the Act* should be written, as they are, in the Greek 

 language ; and the style, like that of the Gospel of St. Luke, is much 

 purer than most of the other writers in the New Testament, the few 

 Hebraisms generally occurring in the reproduced opeechcs of some of 

 his introduced personages. 



The explanations and commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles arc 

 UK fioin tlie times of the early father* and in foreign 



ARTS ANIJ SCI. Vl\: VOL. I. 



particularly the German. In England, all the commentators have 

 bestowed much attention on this portion of the New Testament ; and 

 Paley subjected it to a searching examination in his ' Horse Paulino;,' in 

 connection with Paul's Epistles, a labour which has been successfully 

 continued by the Rev. W. J. Conybeare, M.A., and the Rev. J. Howsou, 

 in the ' Life and Epistles of St. Paul,' of which a second edition was 

 published in 1856. For the dates of the recorded events there is a 

 variance of opinions. Those of Mr. Greswell (' Dissertations,' &c., 1837), 

 and Dr. Anger ('De Temporis in Actis App. Ratione,' Lips., 1833) are 

 probably as close an approximation to correctness as can be made ; the 

 two very nearly agree, and their difference with Usher, Pearson, 

 Hichaelis, and others is, that Mr. Greswell fixes the Ascension in the 

 year A.D. 30, while most of the others give the date as A.D. 33 ; that he 

 assigns the stoning of Stephen, the conversion of St. Paul, and the first 

 journey of St. Paul to Rome, to A.D. 27, 38, and 41 respectively, while 

 the others give A.D. 34, 35, and 38, the latter appearing to be more 

 consistent with the data afforded by St. Paul himself in Gal. ii. as com- 

 pared with Acts xi. 12. The other assigned dates are St. Paul's 

 second journey to Jerusalem, A.D. 44 ; the third journey (Acts xv.), 

 A.D. 48 ; his arrival at Corinth, A.D. 52 ; fourth journey to Jerusalem 

 (Acts xviii.), A.D. 54 ; his abode at Ephesus, A.D. 53 55 ; fifth journey 

 to Jerusalem (Acts xxi.), A.D. 56 ; arrival at Rome, A.D. 61. 



Messrs. Conybeare and Howson differ slightly from this, fixing the 

 conversion of St. Paul in A.D. 36, his first journey to Jerusalem in 

 A.D. 38, and the second in A.D. 45 ; but they all agree in fixing the visit 

 in the year of the famine. The date of the fifth journey to Jerusalem 

 also is given by these gentlemen as A.D. 58 instead of A.D. 56. 



It may be worth mentioning, that the title of the book is an arbi- 

 trarily and not happily imposed one; the Acts of the Apostles are 

 confined to those of Peter and of Paul, of the martyrdom of James, 

 with a slight mention of the writer. The book was probably inter- 

 rupted by the death of the writer, as it terminates abruptly, and records 

 the death of neither of the principal personages. 



ACTUARY, a word generally used to signify the manager of a joiut- 

 stock company under a board of directors, particularly of an insurance 

 company : whence it has come to stand generally for a person skille'd 

 in the doctrine of life annuities and insurances, and who is in the habit 

 of giving opinions upon cases of annuities, reversions, &c. Most of 

 those called actuaries combine both the public and private part of 

 the character. The actuaries now form by themselves a separate 

 profession. 



The name has acquired a legal character since it was recognised in 

 the Friendly Societies Act of 1819, which enacted that no tables were 

 to be adopted in any Friendly Society, unless the same should have 

 been approved by " two persons, at the least, known to be professional 

 actuaries, or persons skilled in calculation." The Committee on Friendly 

 Societies of 1825 reported that " petty schoolmasters or accountants, 

 whose opinion upon the probability of sickness and the duration of life 

 is not to be depended upon," had been consulted under this title, and 

 recommended that the actuary of the National Debt Office should be 

 the only recognised authority for the purposes above-mentioned, in 

 wlu'ch recommendation the Committee of 1827 joined. The 10 Geo. IV, 

 c. 56, made no alteration, but by the 9 & 10 Viet. c. 27, the power of 

 certifying tobies is confined to the actuary of the National Debt Office, 

 or an actuary of not less than five years' standing in some public 

 insurance company. 



The registrar of the Lower House of Convocation is called the 

 actuary. Bishop Gibson says that he is an officer of the archbishop, 

 the president of the convocation, and cites as follows, from the fees 

 established by Archbishop Whitgift (1583-1603) for the vicar-general's 

 office : " Feoda Actuario Domus Inferioris Convocationis solvenda." 

 (Gibson's Synodal Anylicana, 1702.) 



The word actuary is from the Roman actttnrius, whieh was used in 

 various senses, but its earlier and more common meaning was short> 

 band writer. 



ACUPUNCTURE, a term used to denote the insertion of a needle 

 into the skin or flesh. Acupuncture is an operation which has been 

 long in use in eastern countries, and which appears to have been 

 adopted there from the notion that several diseases attended with 

 severe pain arise from air or vapour pent up in the body, to which a 

 puncture with a needle affords an outlet, and thereby removes the 

 malady. Europeans travelling in those countries several times witnessed 

 the practice, and were struck with the results ; but either their reports 

 were not credited, or the operation appeared to the physicians and 

 surgeons of Europe so unpromising, that upwards of a century elapsed 

 ifter the knowledge of it was familiar to many European practitioners 

 before a single trial of it was made. As long back as the year 1679, a 

 medical officer in the East India Company's service states that a guard 

 of the Emperor of Japan, appointed to conduct the English to the 

 palace, was seized with violent pain of the abdomen, attended with 

 vomiting, in consequence of having drunk a quantity of iced water 

 when heated. After trying in vain to relieve his complaint by taking 

 wine and ginger, and conceiving that his suffering arose from air or 

 vapour pent up in the walls of the abdomen, to which vapour the 

 insertion of needles into the skin would afford an exit, he underwent 

 the operation of acupuncture in the presence of the narrator, which 

 was performed in the following manner : He laid himself upon his 

 back, placed the point of a needle upon his abdomen, struck its head 



