HI 



BARRATRY. 



BARREL. 



Great improvements have at various times been made in the comfort 

 and accommodation of barracks, but more especially when the late 

 Duke of Wellington became Master-General of the Ordnance. AVhen 

 the barrack departments were transferred to the Ordnance, the men 

 were placed in wooden sloping berths ranged in two tiers, two men 

 slept in the same bed, and the subaltern officers were placed two in a 

 room. The first improvement was substituting single iron bedsteads 

 for the wooden berths, and then allotting a certain number of cubical 

 feet for each man in a room 450 to 500 feet in a temperate climate, 

 and 600 to 700 feet for hospitals ; 480 to 600 feet in a tropical climate, 

 and 700 to 900 feet for hospitals ; and the construction of cooking 

 and ablution rooms, with an ample supply of water for the men to 

 cook in barracks. The second improvement was the establishment 

 of a sergeants' mess, appropriating quarters to staff sergeants, &c., 

 and the construction of ball courts for recreation. These were carried 

 out at considerable expense, though, some of the barracks being old, 

 very imperfectly. In all new barracks that were built, much more 

 attention was paid to the comfort of the soldier. There was still, 

 however, great room for improvement, and in 1857, a Royal Commis- 

 sion, of which the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert was chairman, having 

 recommended many alterations, and obtained grants of money for 

 experiments in ventilation, &e., they are being carried out at the pre- 

 sent time. In the new cavalry barracks at Aldershot, each man has 

 1000 cubic feet of room. Great attention is being paid to the ventila- 

 tion of barracks the improvement of cooking apparatus ablution and 

 bath rooms with hot and cold water the establishment of libraries 

 and reading rooms, and all that can tend to the health and comfort of the 

 soldier. According to the present regulation field officers are allowed 

 two rooms and a kitchen each ; captains and subalterns one room 

 each ; regimental staff, according to their relative ranks ; staff-sergeants 

 and married sergeants one room each ; unmarried sergeants one room 

 between two. Two rooms are allowed for the officers' mess, and one 

 room for sergeants'. Separate quarters are being built for married 

 men; and rooms set apart as reading rooms and libraries. A War 

 Office circular of 1858 lays down 600 cubic feet as the minimum 

 barrack space, and 1200 as the minimum hospital space for each man ; 

 also that day rooms for meals are very desirable, and to be provided in 

 future. 24 or 12 men, as forming sections or half sections of a com- 

 pany, are allotted to each room. 



The total expenditure in Great Britain and the islands of Guernsey, 

 Jersey, and Alderney, on buildings for the purposes of barracks from 

 1793 to November 10th, 1804, was 4,115,383?. 6*. Ifrf. The total 

 expenditure in Great Britain and Ireland, on buildings for the same 

 purposes (including the artillery), from llth November, 1804, to 24th 

 December, 1819, was 3,220,857?. 17*. 5d. Expenditure from 1793 to 

 1819, in buildings in Great Britain for the purposes of barracks for 

 the artillery, 735,842?. 3s. 3d. The estimates for barrack building and 

 repairs were, in 1858-59, 588,370?. at home, and 76,9592. abroad. 

 The grant to the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission in 

 the same year was 57,000?., and 100?. for each barrack in the kingdom. 

 The estimates for 1859-60 were 726,841?. for barracks at home, and 

 70,281?. for barracks abroad. The above, it must be remembered, are 

 the estimates only, large sums of which are often not expended, but 

 revoted or not the next year according to circumstances. 



(Reports of Commissioners of Military Inquiry into Management of the 

 Military Departments (Fortification and Jiarracks), session 1811 (122), 

 xlii. ; Report of Select Committee to consider the subject of Barracks, 

 session 54 55 (Lords), 314, 314a, xxvi.) 



BARRATRY, BARATRY, or BARRETRY. The original derivation 

 of this word is extremely uncertain : in English law it has a twofold 

 signification, which it is difficult to trace from any account yet given of 

 its etymology. First, barratry is a misdemeanor at common law, and 

 consists in frequently exciting and stirring up disputes and quarrels by 

 litigation ; and secondly, it denotes a fraud committed by the master 

 or mariners of a ship with relation to the ship or cargo, by which the 

 owners or freighters may be injured. The Italian word barratrare, 

 from which the term barratry in this latter sense is immediately 

 derived, means to cheat generally ; but in English law it is entirely a 

 technical expression, and is only used to denote that particiJar descrip- 

 tion of knavery above described. 



I. As to the misdemeanor of barratry at common law. 



This offence is so indefinite in its nature, and has been so little 

 noticed in modern times, that it would probably be found difficult at 

 the present day to prosecute a barrator to conviction. Sir Edward 

 Coke and other authorities state that it is not necessary, in order to 

 constitute the offence, that the suits promoted by the barrator should 

 be commenced in courts of record ; the offence may be committed by 

 Htirring up litigation in hundred or county courts, or other inferior 

 jurisdictions. It is also said not to be a material part of the offence 

 that the suits or quarrels commenced should relate to a disputed title 

 to the possession of lands, but that all kinds of disturbances of the 

 peace and the dispersion of false rumours and calumnies which may 

 promote discord among neighbours will amount to barratry. A single 

 act cannot amount to barratry, as the essence of the crime consists in 

 the frequent repetition of acts tending to stir up quarrels ; nor is it 

 necessary that an indictment for this offence should specify any 

 particular transactions in which the person accused has promoted 

 contention or litigation, it is said to be sufficient to state generally in 



the indictment that he is a common barrator, thus leaving the whole 

 matter to the jury. This anomaly i,n criminal law, from which it 

 would follow that a defendant might be called upon at the trial to 

 justify fifty distinct and complicated transactions without the slightest 

 previous notice, necessarily led to another, namely, that the prosecutor 

 is bound to deliver to the defendant before trial a notice of the par- 

 ticular acts on which he means to insist, and it is, of course, a rule that 

 none can be given in evidence but such as are stated. The punish- 

 ment for this offence is fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the 

 court ; but Mr. Serjeant Hawkins says, that " if the offender be of any 

 profession relating to the law, he ought to be disabled from practising 

 in future." (' Pleas of the Crown,' book i. c. 81.) At common law, it 

 appears that a person convicted of barratry might have been sentenced 

 to the pillory. In the case of the King against the Warden of the 

 Fleet (' Mod. Rep.' xii. 340), the record of the punishment of a barrator 

 by a fine being produced, Lord Holt said, " If he had had the handling 

 of him, he had not escaped the pillory ; and that he remembered 

 Serjeant Maynard used to say that it were better for the country to be 

 rid of one barrator than of twenty highwaymen." By stat. 12 Geo. I. 

 c. 29, (made perpetual by 21 Geo. II. c. 3), " if any person convicted of 

 common barratry shall practise as an attorney, solicitor, or agent in any 

 suit or action, the court shall, upon complaint or information, examine 

 the matter in a summary way ; and if it shall appear that the person 

 complained of has offended, shall cause the offender to be transported 

 for seven years." There is no recorded instance of proceedings having 

 ever been taken under this statute. Under this head may be men- 

 tioned another offence of equal magnitude, that of suing in the name 

 of a fictitious plaintiff. This offence is a high contempt of court ; and 

 punishable in the superior courts at their discretion. In inferior 

 courts the stat. 8 Eliz. c. 2, directs the punishment to be six months 

 imprisonment, and treble damages to. the party injured. 



II. Barratry by masters or mariners of ships. 



This offence is not an object of the criminal law of England ; and in 

 this country is only a subject of importance with reference to mari- 

 time insurances. From the earliest times, a loss by the barratry of the 

 master or mariners has formed a subject of indemnity by underwriters 

 in British policies of insurance. The absurdity and impolicy of insert- 

 ing this species of loss in marine policies have often been pointed out 

 by high authority. " It is somewhat extraordinary," says Lord Mans- 

 field in the case of Nutt v. Bourdein (' Term Rep.' i. 330), " that this 

 term should have crept into insurances, and still more that it should 

 have continued in them so long, for the underwriter insures the 

 conduct of the captain (whom he does not appoint, and cannot dismiss) 

 to the owner, who can do either." Lord Ellenborough makes the same 

 remark, and also points out the impolitic tendency of this kind of 

 insurance, as enabling the master and owners, by a fraudulent and 

 secret understanding, to throw upon the underwriters the failure of 

 an illegal adventure, of which the benefit, if successful, would have 

 belonged solely to themselves. (Earle v. Rowcroft, East's ' Rep.,' viii. 

 134.) Upon this it may, however, be observed, that merchants are 

 always desirous to limit the number of their risks as much as possible ; 

 and if they are willing to pay for their indemnity from the fraudulent 

 acts of their own servants, there seems to be nothing unreasonable in 

 such a contract ; while, on the other hand, it is the whole business of 

 underwriters to insure against risks, and it is quite indifferent to them 

 what the nature of that risk is, provided they clearly understand the 

 nature of it, and receive a proportionate premium. 



The legal meaning of the term barratry thus inserted in policies of 

 insurance has frequently become a subject of discussion in courts of 

 justice. Its original and verbal signification is framed in the most 

 general sense, and is defined in Dufresne's ' Glossary ' as " fraus, dolus, 

 qui fit in contractibus et venditionibus," without being limited to 

 marine contracts, or to any particular class of contracting parties. In 

 English law, however, it is certainly understood only in the limited 

 sense mentioned in the commencement of this article. It means 

 every species of fraud or knavery in the master or mariners of the 

 ship by which the freighters or owners are injured. Barratry may 

 therefore be committed either by a wilful deviation tending to 

 defraud the owner, by smuggling, by running away with the ship, by 

 sinking or deserting her, or by delaying the voyage by any means, 

 or for any length of time, with a fraudulent intent. It follows, 

 that in all cases where the underwriter has insured against bar- 

 ratry, the assured will be entitled to recover the amount of a loss 

 which he may have sustained in consequence of any of the acts above 

 enumerated. There must, however, be always a fraud or breach of 

 trust in order to constitute barratry ; and therefore a mere deviation 

 in consequence of the ignorance of the master will not amount to 

 barratry, though it would avoid the policy as being a variation from 

 the voyage insured. It must also be an act done tending to defraud 

 the owner, unless in itself criminal ; and therefore where the owner 

 consents to the acts done by the master, though they may amount to a 

 gross fraud upon the underwriter, they will not constitute the technical 

 offence of barratry ; and, for the same reason, where the master of a 

 ship is also the owner, there can be no barratry committed by him, 

 because he cannot defraud himself. (Amould, on ' Marine Insurance,' 

 2nd ed. vol. ii. p , 843.) 



BARREL. The word barrel, or something equivalent, is found in 

 several European languages, as denoting a large vessel for holding 



