CITY 



CITY OF REFUGE 



269 



that of the Greek term polia, which, origin. -illy 

 denoting merely a town or collection of households, 

 Mine afterwards to \M frequently u>c<l ,i> *ynony- 

 limns with politeia, a state or free community. 

 I't-i liiips the nearcHt example in the present day to 

 the city in thu aliove sense is to be found in Mua of 

 the cantons of Switzerland as consUt chielly of a 

 i'i\\n an<l its surroundings, for example, Geneva. 

 It is diilirult to find any precise meaning attached 

 to the word city in medieval times. In his glossary 

 of medieval Latin terms Ducange defines civittu as 

 wr&s cjiixi-tijmtm, that is, a town in which there 

 exists an episcopal see ; but this restricted use of 

 the word, though commonly accepted, rests on no 

 sufficient ground (see CATHEDRAL). It would 

 seem in fact that from a very early period in 

 English history towns have been denominated 

 either civitas, villa, or /Ji/n/mn, and the inhabitants 

 thereof eives, homines, and bnrgenses, indifferently. 

 Thus in Domesday Book we lind mention of the 

 city ( civitas ) of Norwich, of Exeter, and of Coventry, 

 but town of Ipswich, of Bedford, and of Shrews- 

 bury ; while Gloucester and Leicester are styled 

 both city and borough (burgum). 



In its modern sense the term city, as used in the 

 United Kingdom, is generally applied to all towns 

 which are incorporated, and which either are or 

 have been sees of bishops. See BOROUGH. 



In the United States, a city is an incorporated 

 town, invested with the highest municipal privi- 

 leges and duties. In some states, 10,000 inhab- 

 itants are requisite to the formation of a city 

 government, while in the new states a less number 

 is required. A city has power to legislate upon 

 local matters pertaining to it in accordance with 

 the provisions of its charter, granted by the 

 sovereign power of the people through the legis- 

 lature of a state. In several of the Western States 

 cities are organised under a general law, all having 

 over 15,000 inhabitants being designated cities of 

 the first class ; under 15,000 and over 2000, cities of 

 the second class ; and all villages with less than 

 2000, cities of the third class. 



In the case of towns which have grown greatly 

 beyond their original dimensions it is not unusual 

 to give the name of city to the space which they 

 originally occupied thus, we speak of the City of 

 London, in contradistinction to the metropolis, 

 la Cit6 of Paris, and similarly of other places. 



A citizen (Fr. citoyen, Lat. civis) is defined by 

 Aristotle to be one to whom belongs the right of 

 taking part both in the deliberative, or legislative, 

 and in the judicial proceedings of the community 

 of which he is a member (Politics, iii. 1). A 

 citi/en, therefore, can exist only in a free state. 

 Between a citizen and a subject there is this dis- 

 tinction, that whilst the latter merely is governed, 

 the former also governs ; and thus, though every 

 citizen is a subject, many subjects are not citizens. 

 At first the rights of citizenship in Athens and 

 other Greek communities were readily attained by 

 those who were not born to them ; but at a later 

 period, when the organisation of Greek civic life 

 had reached a high degree of perfection, admission 

 to the roll of citizens was procured with great 

 difficulty. In Rome, under the early law, there 

 were perfect and less perfect citizens ; that which 

 peculiarly distinguished the higher class was the 

 right to vote in a tribe, and the capacity of 

 enjoying magistracy. All the private rights of 

 citizenship (the jus connubii and jus commercii) 

 belonged to the citizens of the lower class. Under 

 these two classes, again, there were two others, 

 originally aliens the Latin i and the Peregrini. 



Roman citizenship was acquired most commonly 

 by birth, but for this it was requisite that both 

 father and mother should be citizens. If a citizen 

 married a Latina or a Peregrina, even believing 



her to \te a citizen, the children tagotten of the 

 marriage followed the status of the mother. In 

 the earlier days of the republic, citizenship could 

 l>e conferred on a stranger only by ni-;ui of a lex 

 i.e. by a vote of the people assembled either in one 

 or other of the < 'omitia. When the imperial power 

 was established, however, the public right* which 

 formed i lie chief characteristic of the full Koman 

 citizenship l>ecame little more than empty name* ; 

 and the only value which thenceforth attached to 

 it consisted in the private rights which it conferred. 

 St Paul was ' free-born ' Le. born a citizen. Such 

 as it was, the constitution of Caracalla extended 

 it to the free inhabitants of the whole Roman 

 empire, and under Justinian the only divisions of 

 subjects henceforth was into citizens and slaves. 



In France, during the Revolution, the word 

 citizen was adopted by the republicans as the most 

 appropriate term to exprexs the grand principle of 

 liberty, egalite, et fraternite. It took the place 

 of Monsieur. Every Frenchman became Citoyen in 

 relation to other Frenchmen, the highest in official 

 station being so addressed by the lowest. The 

 usage gradually died out after the assumption of 

 imperial power by Napoleon. In its modern use, 

 the term citizen is applied in Britain and elsewhere 

 either specifically to a dweller in a town, or to 

 any one who is either born in the country or has 

 become legally naturalised in it. 



In the United States, the words 'citizens' and 

 ' people ' are synonymous terms. From the point of 

 view of American constitutional law, a citizen l>eing 

 a member of the political community to which he 

 belongs, every person lx>rn in the United States and 

 subject to its jurisdiction falls within the definition. 

 An alien may become a citizen by being natural- 

 ised under the Acts of Congress. Again, a citizen 

 of the United States residing in any state of the 

 union is a citizen of that state. There being a 

 government in each of the several states, as well as 

 a government of the United States, a person may 

 be at the same time a citizen of both, but his rights 

 as a citizen under one of these governments differ 

 from those under the other. Tims, although the 

 government of the United States is supreme and 

 paramount to the states, it cannot secure to the 

 citizen rights or privileges which are not placed 

 under its jurisdiction by the constitution. On the 

 other hand, a person may be a citizen of the United 

 States and not be a citizen of any particular state, 

 having his residence in one of the territories, or 

 not having a fixed residence in any state. 



Citizens of each state are entitled to all privileges 

 and immunities of citizens in the several states, 

 and citizens of all other states have the right to go 

 into any state and carry on business, to hold pro- 

 perty and be protected like the citizens of that 

 state in their rights. It may further be observed 

 that under the existing constitutional law, children 

 horn of Chinese parents are citizens of the United 

 States, but Chinese aliens are incapable of becoming 

 citizens. See NATURALISATION, ALIEN, BOROUGH ; 

 and Fustel de Coulanges, La t'itt antique (1864). 



City of Refuge. By the Jewish law with 

 regard to unintentional manslaughter, indicated 

 in Exod. xxi. 13, and fully set forth in Num. 

 xxxv., Deut. xix., and Josh, xx., the parts of 

 Palestine to the west and east of the Jordan were 

 each divided into three districts, and in each 

 district was a city in which the manslayer should 

 at once with all speed seek refuge. If the elders 

 of the city of refuge recognised the manslayer s 

 claim to the right of asylum, he was provision- 

 ally secure from the goel or avenger. He was 

 then set before the community (represented by 

 its elders) in the midst of which the deed was 

 done, that they might decide judicially whether 

 the right of asylum should be further extended 



