CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



expresses, as also by persons who, without any 

 public character as envoys, are intrusted by 

 their governments with the transaction of affairs 

 of importance, and requiring secrecy and de- 

 spatch ; but these are not allowed to assume the 

 state of a minister, and, in their relations to other 

 citizens, are regarded as private persons merely. 



Forces. 



Every government employs force in the execu- 

 tion of its orders, or in defence of its rights. This 

 force is divided into two departments, civil and 

 military. The civil force consists of constables 

 and other functionaries usually employed in the 

 execution of legal judgments, in the maintenance 

 of public peace, and in the enforcement of muni- 

 cipal regulations. Military force is quite a dif- 

 ferent thing : it is an organisation of men armed 

 with weapons capable of inflicting wounds and 

 death. In forces of this latter kind are included 

 an army and a navy (see MILITARY AND NAVAL 

 ORGANISATION). In the present day, with 

 all its enlightenment, every civilised community 

 less or more feels itself obliged to maintain an 

 army; although many look forward to a time 

 when international law and arbitration will super- 

 sede war. 



H E R A L D R Y R A N K S T I T L E S. 



No characteristic distinguishes so strongly a 

 civilised from a barbarous people as the preserva- 

 tion of historical memorials. Savages have no 

 history, and even their traditions lose all distinct- 

 ness when they extend beyond the generation 

 immediately preceding. And as historical nations 

 retrograde in civilisation, they forget their past, 

 even whilst they retain many traces of the culture 

 which they owe to it. The Kabyles, or Berbers 

 of the northern coast of Africa, whom their long 

 contact with Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and 

 Romans had raised to a high degree of culture, 

 and who had been the hearers of Augustine and 

 Tertullian in their day, have continued in some 

 parts of the country to produce a species of poetry 

 which it was supposed might throw light on their 

 own conceptions of their history. But when trans- 

 lated by the industry of European scholars, these 

 effusions were found to have reference almost ex- 

 clusively to quite recent events chiefly to the 

 French conquest of Algeria. It is the same with 

 families as with nations. Cultivated and progres- 

 sive families retain, ignorant and retrograde fami- 

 lies lose, the memory of the generations that have 

 passed away. It is as a means of preserving family 

 history, and of marking the relationships in which 



48 



the different branches of families stand to each 

 other, that the curious science of heraldry has 

 kept its place in modern life. Originally, it was 

 used for a different purpose. It consisted of an 

 ingenious system of emblems and marks, which 

 were painted on the shields of knights and nobles, 

 in order that they might be readily distinguishable 

 in battle. After these emblems ceased to serve 

 their original purpose, they were retained by the 

 families to whose heads they originally belonged, 

 and are still cherished by their descendants as 

 precious memorials. In the first instance, it is 

 probable that each warrior adopted whatever 

 emblem he fancied. But such license, it is 

 obvious, must very soon have led to endless con- 

 fusion, and defeated the whole objects of the 

 institution. With a view to obviating this incon- 

 venience, the right of granting armorial ensigns 

 suited to the rank and condition of the wearer, 

 was, at an early period, assumed by the sovereigns 

 of this and all other European countries, and pen- 

 alties were imposed upon those who arrogated to 

 themselves emblems which they had not derived 

 from this source. As the duty thus undertaken 

 could not, except in very rare instances, be per- 

 formed by the sovereigns in person, they delegated 

 their authority to their heralds, who, in general, 

 had made a study of what had now become a very 

 refined and complicated branch of knowledge. 

 It was thus that the heralds, whose function had 

 been to proclaim within the lists the armorial 

 bearings which individual knights had assumed, 

 came to be government officials intrusted with 

 the duty of conferring them and adjusting them to 

 the condition of the wearers in the community at 

 large. Jurisdiction in questions of arms has long 

 been, and is now, vested, in England, in the 

 Heralds' College ; in Scotland, in the Lyon Court ; 

 and in Ireland, in the College of Arms. No one 

 is entitled to bear arms unless he can claim them 

 either by hereditary male descent from a person 

 who has obtained them, or has himself obtained 

 them by grant from the competent authority. 

 Penalties, in Scotland, of rather a severe kind, 

 may be enforced against any one by whom arms 

 are assumed. The unauthorised use even of a 

 crest renders the assumer legally subject to these 

 penalties, whilst it involves the payment of assessed 

 taxes equally as if the crest were genuine. Pen- 

 alties for the use of false arms are seldom en- 

 forced, except in the case of a formal complaint 

 being made to the Lyon by some one whose 

 rights have been invaded. The social ridicule 

 attending an act which in kind is the same as if a 

 commoner were to call himself a lord, is generally 

 found a sufficient deterrent, and practically, false 

 arms are assumed only by ignorant and vulgar 

 persons. 



