43G 



I'Kurt K.\TOK-FIS< ,\ I. 



PROFIT-SHARING 



Procurator-fiscal, a legal officer in Scotland 

 at who-e instance rriniiiiiil proceedings are taken 

 in tin! local and inferior courts. He 18 appointed 

 by the sheriff with tin- approval of one of tin- prin- 

 cipal secretaries of state, and is not 'removable 

 from ollice except for inability or misliehaviour, on 

 a report bv the Lord President and the I .on I Justice- 

 clerk. His business U to take the initiative in the 

 prosecution of crimes. There being no coroner's 

 inquest in Scotland, he does the work which that 

 functionary does in England by way of inquiry into 

 the cause of deaths occurring under circumstances 

 of suspicion. Whenever he has reason to believe a 

 crime has been committed his duty is to apply for 

 a warrant to arrest the alleged criminal, to summon 

 and precognoscc witnesses, and to bring the case to 

 trial. If the procurator-fiscal is informed of a crime 

 which he thinks was either not committed, or of 

 which there is no evidence satisfactory, he gives his 

 concurrence merely to the private party whosuggeste 

 it, hut does not himself initiate the proceeding. 

 \Vhi MI the procurator-fiscal takes the precognitions 

 of the witnesses, he sends a copy of them to the 

 (MOW n counsel, of whom the Lord Advocate is the 

 chief ; and if these counsel think the evidence is 

 strong enough, and warrants more than suspicion, 

 the prosecution is proceeded with to trial. 



Proryon. See RACCOON. 



Prodigy. See OMEN. 



Producer <ias. See GAS-LIGHTING, p. 104. 



Product. See KDUCT. 



Professional. See AMATEUR. 



Professor, an otlicer in a university, college, 

 or other seminary, whose duty it is to instruct 

 students, or read lectures on particular branches of 

 learning. In the early times of universities the 

 degrees conferred on students were licenses lo act as 

 public teachers; and the terms Master, Doctor, and 

 Professor were nearly identical in signification. As, 

 however, the body of graduates ceased in the course 

 of time to have any concern in public teaching, a 

 separate class of recognised teachers sprang up, paid 

 sometimes with salaries, in other instances by fees 

 from their hearers. These were called professors ; 

 ami in the (iermaii and Scottish universities they 

 be, MIMC the governing Ixidy, and sole recognised 

 functionaries for the purpose' of education. Ill the 

 universities in which collegiate foundations pre- 

 vailed, as Oxford and Cambridge, they l>ecame. on 

 the other hand, only secondaries or auxiliaries, 

 attendance on their 'lectures not being generally 

 deemed indispensable, and the necessary business 

 of instruction lining carried on by the functionaries 

 of the several colleges. See I'NIVKIIMTIKS, and 

 the articles on the several universities. 



The won! professor is occasionally used in a loose 

 way to denote generally the teacher of any science 

 or branch of learning, without any reference to a 

 university. It has be/en assumed as a designation 

 not only by instructors in music and dancing, but 

 by conjurors, athletes, and the like. 



Profit-sharing was defined in a resolution of 

 the Paris International Congress on Profit-sharing 

 in 1889 as 'a voluntary agreement under which the 

 employe receives a share, lived beforehand, in the 

 pmliis of a business.' It is argued and held to be 

 proved by those in favour of the system, that 

 profit-sharing advances the prosperity of an estab- 

 lishment by increasing the quantity of its product, 

 by improving its quality, by promoting greater 

 tare of implements and economy of material, and 

 lessen- the risk of strike-, labour disputes, ami the 

 Antagonism generally between capital and labour. 

 Upwards of fifty Britfab linns with 1 1,0(10 employes 

 had by 1890 adopted some method of profit sharing. 

 ( >vcr eighty -one industrial establishment* in France, 



Alsace, and Switzerland are working on a somewhat 

 similar principle. Upwards of twenty nine firms 

 in the I'nited States have also tried the experiment 

 In some of the native banks at Shanghai, cierx 

 employe down to the lowest coolie has n share in 

 the annual division of profits. Profit-sharing has 

 been tried by linns of painters and decorator : 

 pajier, cotton, and woollen factories, &c. ; ami the 

 famous Hun Murritf in Paris. The additional fund 

 thus coming to the workman may be paid to him 

 directly in cash, or it may Ixj put to bis credit with 

 a view of securing him a share in the capital of the 

 firm, or it may be a deferred lienetit for sickness 

 and old age. The management of the business, as 

 a rule, still remains in the hands of the capital > 



Tnrgot in 1775 recognised a principle of profit- 

 sharing, but Edme-Jean Leclaire (q.v.), asiicce-sful 

 Parisian painter and decorator, was the first to 

 carry it to a practical issue. He began by paying 

 extra wages to his work jx-ople, lionuses were then 

 given to a few, a provident society was established 

 which was succeeded by a distribution of profits. 

 Leclaire by wonderful energy and capacity had 

 risen to the front rank in his trade, and Ix-camc a 

 large employer of lalxmr. I'm the benelit of his 

 workmen he had established a mutual aid society 

 in 1838, which he found to l>e 'a powerful means of 

 nioralisation and a living course in public law.' 

 Having thus provided for the sick, as a master who 

 had himself been a workman he remembered their 

 hopeless condition when too old for work. He 

 read everything he could lay bis hands upon which 

 tended to help liim to improve the social condition 

 of his workmen. M. Fregier in 1835, when making 

 inquiries as to the condition of his workmen, sng- 

 gesied the participation of the workmen in the 

 profits of the master as an expedient for doing 

 away with the antagonism between capital and 

 lalxrar. There is evidence that M. Fregicr did not 

 afterwards believe in his own solution. Leclaire 

 himself at first rejected it, and it was much later, 

 he savs, ' through cudgelling my brains, that in 1842 

 the tiling appeared to me possible and one of the 

 simplest to put into practice.' He had endeavoured 

 gradually to educate his workmen up to the same 

 point, and in January 1842 he pledged himself to 

 this course. The men were still sceptical as to 

 Leclaire's intentions, until an object-lesson in the 

 shape of a bag containing 4!M) in coin was 

 thrown on a table before them in February IM.'i. 

 In the years 1842-47 an average of 750 was 

 annually divided amongst eighty persons. The 

 sum received was in proportion to animal earnings. 

 In 1809 a deed was drawn up which stipulated that 

 the net profits of the business should lie divided 

 into a certain fixed proportion between the manag- 

 ing partners, mutual aid society, and the regular 

 workmen. Hetwccn 1ST-' and 1872 the mutual aid 

 society and his workmen had received L'44,000 ; 

 down 'to 1882 the sum had reached 133,045. In 



758, the 



_ lielllg; 



on annual wages; in l*si! the sum of 9630 was 

 divided amongst 'HIS persons. In 1884 the numlx-r 

 was 824, the sum distributed being 9200, or about 

 21 per cent, on wages; in 1889 the amount was 

 9120. Five per cent, on the capital of 400,000 

 francs is, like the w :.-es. deducted from the gross 

 profits in order to find the net profits. Of the net 

 profits 50 per cent, goes to lalmur in cash, '-'."> per cent . 

 to management, and 25 per cent, to the provident 

 society, which has now become half owner of the 

 capital of the firm. The effect of all this on the 

 workmen has been to make them sober, thrifty, 

 and industrious. Other painters and decorators 

 in Paris followed suit. When called a philan- 

 thropist, the founder said : ' I am simply a 

 business man. I would rather gain 100,000 franca 



IS70 the iiumlicr who participated was 758 

 dividend to workmen lieing 24<i.">. or 14 i-r cent. 



