ASSAULT. 



ASSAYING. 



CIS 



to another.' Thus, presenting a gun at a person within the distance to 

 which it will carry, throwing a stone or other missile at him, drawing 

 a sword and waving it, or even holding up a cane or a fist in a 

 threatening manner, are given as instances of assault. An assault does 

 not necessarily imply any corporal injury done to the party assaulted ; 

 pointing or snapping a loaded gun at a person behind his back, so that 

 he is not aware of his danger, would be an assault, though no actual 

 injury ia sustained. But it has long been settled law, that no words, 

 however insolent and provoking, unaccompanied by an act of violence, 

 can amount to an assault. 



A battery, which is said to imply an assault, consists of any kind of 

 corporal injury, however small, designedly done to another by an actual 

 contact with his person. Thus, throwing water on another is a 

 battery. The injury need not be done by the immediate hand of the 

 party ; nor is it material whether the act is wilful or not, provided it 

 proceeds from a mischievous design. Thus, where a lighted squib was 

 thrown into a market-place, which was tossed about from hand to hand 

 and at last struck a man in the face and put out his eye, it was held to 

 be an assault and battery by the first thrower. 



A person who commits an assault or battery is liable to an action 

 by the party injured, and also to a criminal prosecution for a mis- 

 demeanor and breach of the peace ; but the proceeding by indictment 

 and action for the same assault is always discouraged in practice ; and 

 where a defendant is found guilty upon an indictment, and the court is 

 informed that an action has been brought for the same injury, a 

 nominal sentence is usually passed, unless the prosecutor will consent 

 to discontinue bis action. 



It is not uncommon to permit the prosecutor of an indictment for a 

 common assault to compound the offence with the defendant even after 

 he has been convicted ; and upon the declaration of the former that he 

 is satisfied, a nominal punishment only is imposed. This practice, 

 which is called s[>eakin;i with the jirosecutur, has been introduced for the 

 purpose of reimbursing the person really injured the expenses of the 

 prosecution, and of compelling the offender to make him some compen- 

 sation, without the circuity of a civil action. Though sanctioned by 

 long ttsage, it is a relaxation of the strict rules of the criminal law, and 

 is liable to much objection in principle, as enabling an individual to 

 assume the character of a public prosecutor for the purpose of redressing 

 a private wrong. This objection to the practice has been strongly 

 animadverted upon by Sir William Blackstone, and it is now much less 

 frequent than formerly. (' Commentaries,' Mr. Kerr's ed. vol. iv. p. 430.) 

 The punishment of persons convicted of common assaults is fine and 

 imprisonment at the discretion of the court, exercised upon the cir- 

 cumstances of each particular case. By a variety of statutes, assaults 

 aggravated with respect to the place where, or the persons on whom, 

 they were committed, were formerly punishable with great severity. 

 (' Blackst. Comm.,' vol. iv. chap. 15.) Most of these statutes were, 

 however, repealed by stat. 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, which authorised an 

 increased punishment upon certain specified cases of aggravated assaults. 

 This last statute has, however, been in its turn repealed, and the 

 enormity of offences against the person made to depend in a great 

 measure on the intent of the offender ; see 7 Will. IV., and 1 Viet, 

 c. 85. Some offences not contemplated by this statute are provided 

 for by statutes 9 & 10 Viet. c. 25 ; 14 & 15 Viet. c. 19 ; and 16 & 17 

 Viet. c. 30. Other statutes apply to particular cases, as assaults on 

 officers of a workhouse, on apprentices, &c. See ' Blackst. Comm.' 

 Air. KBIT'S ed. vol. iv. c. 15. 



The statute of 33 Henry VIII. c. 12, which punishes assaults in the 

 king's palaces with the loss of the right hand and perpetual imprison- 

 ment, was repealed by the 9 Geo. IV. c. 31 ; but it seems that the 

 penalty of the loss of the right hand attached by the common law to 

 assaults committed in the actual presence of the king, or in his con- 

 structive presence in the superior courts of law, still remains. This 

 subject was much discussed in a case which occurred in 1799, when 

 the Earl of Thanet, and several other persons, were convicted of a 

 riotous assault and rescue in a court of Oyer and Tenniner and Gaol 

 Delivery at Maidstone. Upon their being brought up for judgment, 

 the court of King's Bench entertained doubts whether it was not 

 imperative ujKin them to pass the specific sentence of amputation ; but 

 the attorney-general entered a Ndi prosequi as to those parts of the 

 charge upon which the doubts had arisen. (Howell's ' State Trials,' 

 vol. xxvii., p. 822.) 



Actions for trivial assaults were formerly among the most frequent 

 subjects of litigation in our courts of justice. An attempt was made 

 to discourage them by 22 4 23 Car. II. c. 9, which has to some extent 

 been re-enacted by stat. 3 & 4 Viet. c. 24, providing that the plaintiff, in 

 case the jury shall find the damages to be under 40s., shall recover no 

 costs unless the judge certify that the grievance was wilful and 

 malicious. 



Persons guilty of common assaults may be convicted summarily by 

 two magistrates, who are empowered to impose a fine not exceeding 

 St., with the costs; and in case of non-payment, to commit offenders tc 

 pri.ion for two nioiith.4. A certificate that the complaint was dismissed 

 ns trivial, or that the assault complained of was justified, or payment 

 of the fine adjudged, or completion of the term of imprisonment for 

 non-payment thereof, i a bar to all further proceedings, criminal or 

 civil, for the same caxise. 

 ASSAULT is in Scotland an offence usually prosecuted by the 



public prosecutors attached to the sheriffs' courts, to the police courts 

 established by statute, and to the justice of peace courts, and punish- 

 able by imprisonment. It is seldom brought before the supreme 

 criminal court, that is, the high court or the circuit courts (or lords 

 commissioners) of justiciary, unless it be of a highly criminal character ; 

 and it is then generally charged as assault with some specific aggra- 

 vation, as " assault aggravated by being to the effusion of blood," or as 

 " being to the danger of life," or " by being committed against a magis- 

 trate," or " by being perpetrated with a lethal weapon," an expression 

 applicable to a sword, hatchet, hammer, or any instrument more 

 formidable than an ordinary walking-stick. The punishment in such 

 cases is more severe, being generally a lengthened imprisonment or 

 >enal servitude. Criminal prosecutions for assault, at the instance of 

 irivate parties, are almost unknown. The party injured may sue for 

 lamages, but such actions are not frequent. There is no division, as 

 n England, into ' assault,' and ' assault and battery.' Many of the 

 statutes as to specific assaults, for instance, assaults in pursuance of a 

 combination to raise wages, extend to Scotland. 



ASSAYING, a chemical operation, which differs from analysis only 

 in degree. When an analysis is performed, the nature and proportions 

 of all the ingredients of a substance are determined ; but in assaying, 

 usually, the quantity of any particular metal -only which the ore or 

 mixture under examination may contain is ascertained, without refe- 

 rence to the substances with which it is mixed or alloyed. 



The operations of assaying are sometimes conducted entirely in what 

 is called the dry u-ay, or by heat ; at other times in the moist way, or 

 hy acids and other reagents;! and in some cases both methods are 

 necessarily resorted to in assaying the same ore or mixture of metals. 



The use of the term assaying is sometimes restricted to alloys or 

 mixtures of gold and silver ; but in the present article we shall point 

 out the methods of assaying the ores of the following metals also 

 copper, iron, lead, tin, and zinc. 



The assaying of silver and gold is effected by a process called cupel- 

 lation. Cupels are small flat crucibles, made by pressing bone ash, 

 moistened with water, into circular steel moulds, and they are dried 

 by exposure to the air. The principle upon which the operation de- 

 pends is, that all metals with which gold and silver are usually alloyed 

 are convertible into oxides by exposure to atmospheric air at a high 

 temperature, whereas the precious metals remain unacted upon: The 

 oxides are miscible with fused oxide of lead, and are absorbed with the 

 latter into the pores of the cupel. 



tiilrcr. To assay silver by cupellation, it is requisite to obtain lead 

 as free as possible from silver; when it is procured by reducing 

 litharge, it contains only about half a grain of silver in a pound ; and 

 this portion may be neglected. The silver to be assayed is flattened 

 and made quite clean ; about thirty-six grains are to be weighed and 

 wrapped up in the proper quantity of lead, which depends upon that 

 of the base metal in the alloy ; this, if coarse, is harder than standard 

 silver, of a brilliant glassy appearance, and is flattened with difficulty 

 on the' anvil ; if soft, easily flattened, and of a dead-white colour, a 

 nearer approach to purity is indicated. The quantity of lead must 

 then be apportioned according to the experience of the assayer, and 

 varies from three to fifteen times the weight of alloy to be operated 

 on. It is to be observed, that cupels do not absorb more than their 

 own weight of oxide of lead, and also that, if the quantity of this metal 

 be too large, some of the silver is carried with the oxide into the cupel, 

 and a loss of product is incurred. 



The alloy and lead are to be put into a cupel when made very hot in 

 a small earthen oven, called a mnjjle, which is placed in the assay 

 furnace ; the mixture soon fuses, is covered with a coat of oxide of 

 lead, becomes flattened, gives off fumes, and considerable motion 

 ensues on its surface. The lead thus gradually oxidises, and the oxide 

 fusing is absorbed by the cupel, and carries with it the baser metals, 

 also oxidised, with which the silver was alloyed. The alloy is at first 

 flat, but becomes gradually convex, and presents continually increasing 

 shining points ; when this happens, the cupel is to be brought forward 

 to the mouth of the muffle ; the shining points disappear, the silver 

 becomes brilliant, and the operation is complete. Care must be taken 

 to allow the assay to cool very gradually. Its weight will denote 

 the amount of fine silver contained in the quantity of alloy subjected 

 to examination. 



The assay of silver by the liumid or moist way is now more generally 

 adopted than the process of eupellation. Dr. Miller, in his ' Elements 

 of Chemistry ,' says, " The results of the process of the assay by cupel- 

 lation, even in experienced hands, may vary as much as two parts in 

 1000 ; this circumstance induced Gay Lussac to contrive a different 

 method, which is now adopted, not only in the French mint, but is 

 employed in the mints of Great Britain and the United States, as well 

 as in almost all the mints of Europe ; it admits of an accurate estimate 

 of the value of an alloy to within 0'5 in 1000. This process depends 

 upon the precipitation of the silver in the form of an insoluble chloride, 

 and the measurement of the amount of a standard solution of chloride 

 of sodium which is required to effect the complete precipitation of the 

 silver in a given weight of the alloy. Chloride of silver easily collects 

 into dense flocculi by agitation in a solution which is acidulated with 

 nitric acid, and which contains no excess of soluble chlorides ; so that 

 the exact point at which the precipitate ceases to be formed is readily 

 perceived. 



