BANIANS. 



BANK; BANKER; BANKING 



country, when) every individual U interested in supporting 

 the supremacy of the Uw. Wherever such bands exist, we may be 

 certain that the government, and probably the Uwt, are harsh, 

 oppressive, and unjust They are immisUkeable proof* of want of 

 true emulation. 



BANl.VNS. The word Banian U a corruption of the Sanscrit 4ay, 

 or 4am*, a merchant, a trader, 1 and U the term by which Hindoo* 

 ruiUng foreign countries for mercantile purposes are generally desig- 

 nated. We find Hindoo merchant* noticed at an early period during 

 the Middle Age* in several of the mo*t distinguished trading towns of 

 the East. Marco Polo mentions Hindoo* among the foreign traders 

 who visited the fair of Tabriz ; and in speaking of Aden, he describes 

 it as " an excellent port, frequented by ships arriving from India with 

 pices and drugs." He was acquainted with the mode in which theso 

 commodities were transported from Aden to Lower Egypt, namely, 

 first on Arabian vessels up the Red Sea, to an Egyptian sea-port 

 (Kumeir) ; thence by camels to a place on the Nile (Kus ; afterward* 

 to Kene) ; and from thence, on boaU, down the river to Cairo, and 

 finally to Alexandria, Indian merchants appear also to have settled, 

 during the Middle Ages, on the eastern coast of Africa; Vasoo de 

 Gama, on his first voyage, met with several Indian trading-vessels in 

 the port of Melinde (De Barros, ' Asia,' Dec. I. liv. ir. c. 5) ; and it is 

 not improbable that the information which they afforded may have 

 been of material utility to the early Portuguese navigators in disco- 

 vering the passage by sea to India. In some of the principal towns of 

 Persia and Arabia, the Banians appear to have sometimes formed a 

 considerable class in society, and to have possessed much politie.il 

 influence. It is said that the Portuguese were driven from their 

 possessions at Muscat through the treachery of a Banian, who thus 

 resented an insult offered to his family. (Niebuhr, ' Beschreibung von 

 Arabien,' p. 297.) In 1765 there were no more than twenty Hindoo 

 merchants settled at Shiraz ; but a new caravanserai was at that time 

 built on purpose to be appropriated to their accommodation, in order 

 to induce them to visit Shiraz in greater numbers. Some Hindoos are 

 settled as far to the north and west as Astrakhan. (Niebuhr 'a ' Reiae- 

 beschreibung,' to. voL ii. p. 270.) The Banians do not at the present 

 day form a distinct class or caste in India, nor ore they accounted as 

 such in the ancient Hindoo law-codes. Some travellers, for example, 

 Tavemier ('Voyages des IndesY liv. iii. c. 3), have used the name 

 Banian as synonymous with Vaisya, the designation of the whole caste 

 of merchant*, husbandmen, and mechanics; but this seems unsup- 

 ported by Oriental authority. They, however, form a class, adopt a 

 peculiar and picturesque costume, and ore remarkably strict in ob- 

 serving the fasts prescribed by their religion, even on their sea- 

 voyages altogether refusing to eat flesh, whence the English sailors 

 have derived ' Banyan-days/ f r those when meat U not served out. 

 They also have now a character for great integrity in their commercial 

 transactions, which they have extended from Bombay to Cashmir. 



BANISHMENT, expulsion from any country or place by the judg- 

 ment of some court or other competent authority. 



The term has its root in the word ban, a word of frequent use in the 

 middle ages, having the various significations of a public edict or inter- 

 dict, a proclamation, a jurisdiction and the district within it, and a 

 judicial punishment. Hence a person excluded from any territory by 

 public authority was said to be banished bannitu*. In bannum nuttut. 

 (Ducange, roc. ' Baiuiire, Bannum;' Pasquier, ' Rechcrches,' pp. 127, 

 782.) 



As a punishment for crimes, compulsory banishment is unknown to 

 the ancient law of England, although voluntary exile, in order to 

 escape other punishment, was sometimes permitted. [ABJURATION.' 

 The crown has always exercised, in certain emergencies, the prerogative 

 of restraining a subject from leaving the realm ; but it is a known maxim 

 of the common Uw, that no subject, however criminal, shall be sent 

 out of it without his own consent, or by authority of parliament. It 

 is accordingly declared by the Great Charter, " that no freeman 

 hall be exiled unless by the judgment of his peers or the law ol 

 the land." 



There are, however, not wanting instances in our history of an 

 irregular exercise of the power of banishing an obnoxious subject by 

 the mere authority of the crown; and in the case of parli.ii 

 impeachment for a misdemeanor, perpetual exile has been made pan 

 of the sentence of the House of Lords with the assent of the king 

 (Sir Giles MompeMon'a case, ttmp. James 1., reported by Rush worth 

 and Selden ; Comyn's ' Digest,' title ' Parliament, 1 1. 44.) It may be 

 noticed also, that aliens and Jews (formerly regarded as aliens) have 

 in many instances, been banished by royal proclamation. 



Banishment U said to have been first introduced as a punishment 

 f-.r crime by a statute in the thirty-ninth year of Elizabeth, by which 

 it was enacted, that " such rogues as were dangerous to the inferior 

 people should be banished the realm ;" but an instance occurs in 

 an early statute of uncertain date (usually printed immediately aftci 

 one of the eighteenth of Edward II.), by which butchers who sole. 

 unsound meat might be compelled to abjure the village or town in 

 which the offence was committed. At a much later period the punish 

 ment called transportation was sanctioned by the legislature, and 

 in many cases made the condition on which the crown has consented 

 to pardon a capital offence. [TIUICDPOBTATIOX.] 

 Banishment, in come form, has been prevalent in the criminal law 



f most nation*, ancient as well as modern. Ammv I!K ' Creeks two 

 kinds were in use : 1. Perpetual exile (*y)|), attended with confis- 

 cation of property, and employed as a punishment for crimes; 

 . Ostracism, as it was called at Athens, or Petalism, the term in use 

 t Syracuse, a temporary expulsion, unaccompanied by loss of pro- 

 perty, and inflicted sometimes upon persons whose influence, .-= 

 either from great wealth or eminent merit, made them the objects 

 f popular suspicion or jealousy. 



Among the Romans there were three forms of banishment: 1. 

 Idryatio*, which was the mildest form, obliged the offender to reside 

 in some assigned place abroad, either for a fixed time or for lit.-. but 

 ubjected him to no other civil disability or loss. Of this nature was 

 he banishment to which we owe the plaintive poetry of Ovid. 2. 

 r the ' interdiction of fire and water,' prescribed no particular place 

 of abode, nor did it directly or expressly sentence the culprit 

 wtriation ; but by depriving him of every possible means of living in 

 us own country, it indirectly compelled him to seek another, and 

 eventually stripped him of the rights of citizenship. 3. The Uwt kiml 

 of banishment, Dtportation, was introduced in place of the intei I 

 in<l liy it the criminal incurred all the civil forfeitures of exile, and 

 was usually conveyed to some remote island (Tacit. ' Hist.' i. ~;. in 

 hich his life was rendered painful by fetters, by forced labour, or by 

 .he natural effect* of the climate. Deportation therefore differed little 

 rom the punishment known among us as transportation, except as far 

 as regards the healthiness of the spot selected ; and it was further 

 attended by the some consequences of civil death during the con- 

 .inuance of the term of punishment. Hence it wan that the day of 

 he exile's return was called his second birth-day. (Heinecc., ' Aiitiq. 

 Rom. Syntagma,' lib.i. tit. 16 ; ' Digest,' lib. xlviii. tit. ^J I 



BANISTER is a corrupt term for baluster [BALUSTER]. It is used 

 to express the wooden railings inclosing the stairs of a house, 



BANK, in barbarous Latin bancut, literally signifies a bench or high 

 seat; but as a legal term it denotes a seat of judgment, or t-rilniiul fr 

 lie administration of justice. In a rude state of society, justice is 

 usually administered in the open air, and the judges are placed in on 

 elevated situation both for convenience and dignity. Thus it appears 

 ;hat the ancient Britons were accustomed to construct mound- r 

 Denches of turf for the accommodation of their superior judges. 

 Spelman, ml rrr&iioi.) It is clear, however, that in very early tunes in 

 this country there was a distinction between those superior judicial 

 officers who, for the sake of eminence, sat upon a bench or tribunal, 

 and the judges of inferior courts, such as hundred courts and courts 

 boron, the latter being analogous to the judicet pedanci of the Roman 

 law a kind of inferior judges, whose duties ore not very clearly 

 denned, but who ore expressly stated to have derived their denomina- 

 tion a pedibut, quod peat piano juilicarcnt non pro tribunal*. (Calvin's 

 ' Lexicon Juridicum,' roc. ' Pedanei. 1 ) 



In consequence of this distinction, the judges, who were immediately 

 appointed by the crown to administer justice in the superior courts of 

 common law, were in process of time called justices ol the bench, r, 

 as they are always styled in records, justiclarli de banco. This term, in 

 former times, denoted the judges of a peculiar court held at West- 

 minster, which is mentioned in records of the reign of Richard I., and 

 must therefore have made its appearance, under the name of '.- 

 or bench, not long after the Conquest. This court probably derived 

 its name from its stationary character, being permanently held at 

 Westminster, whereas the curia or an/a regit followed the person of tliu 

 sovereign (Maddox's ' History of the Exchequer,' p. 539), and may 

 have been the origin of the modern Court of Common Pleas, the 

 judges of which court retain the technical title of ' Justices of the 

 Bench at Westminster ' to the present day. The formal title of the 

 Queen's Bench judges is " the Justices assigned to hold pleas in the 

 court of the Queen before the Queen herself." For many centuries, 

 however, the judges of both courts have been described in Acts of 

 Parliament and records in general terms as "the judges of 

 bench " (jiidict* utriiuquc band) ; but the barons of the Court of 

 Exchequer have never been denominated judges of the bench, tho't^li. 

 in popular language, a new baron, on his creation, is like the other 

 judges, said to be raised to the bench. 



The phrase of sitting in banco, or in bank, merely denotes the *i . 

 of the court during the law terms, when the judges sit t->. 

 their several benches. In this sense it is used by Glanrill, who wroto 

 in the reign of Henry II., and who enumerates certain acts to ! 

 by justices in banco tedentibm. Sittings" '! '> 



virtue of statutes authorising the courts to appoint such sittings, 

 in bank, or Return dayt, are days particularly appointed win -u jHirties 

 served with writs ore to make their appearance in full court, on the 

 return of the writ in real actions. The day in bank is so called in 

 opposition to the day at -Vm Prim, when a trial by a jury takes place 

 according to the ] >f the statute of Nisi Prius. [AsstZE.] 



BANK ; BANKER ; BANKING. These three subjects are so inti- 

 mately connected, that it would hardly be possible to give any clear 

 description of them separately. By the term "lank" is understood 

 the establishment for carrying on the business to be described ; tho 

 " banker " is the person by whom the business is conducted ; and the 

 expression " banking " is commonly used to denote the system upon 

 which that business is managed, and the principles by which it should 

 be governed or regulated. 



