709 



PR^FECTUS URBI. 



PRAETOR. 



710 



costs 



.13-81667 

 22 



22 ton 17 cwt. 1 qr. 19 Ib. cost 



316-00082 



So that the proper answer is less than a farthing above 316/. The 

 preceding process is much shorter than the application of the rule of 

 three, and also than a kind of double rule of practice once in use, which 

 is not given in modern works, and is not worth revival. 



This method of practice is also a convenient way of reducing fractions 

 of weights or measures to decimals. Thus, if 17 cwt. 1 qr. 19 Ib. is to 

 be reduced to a decimal fraction of a ton, we have 



1 cwt. is -05 



of a ton. 



17 cwt. 1 qr. 19 Ib. U -8709821 of a ton. 



PR/EFECTUS URBI (prefect or warden of the city), the title of a 

 Roman magistrate, said to have been instituted by Romulus (Tacit., 

 ' Anna!.,' vi. 11) to supply the place of the kings in their absence from 

 the city, within the walls of which he was for a time invested with 

 kingly power, where he had the imperium in urbe. (Livy, i. 59.) He 

 was appointed from among the senators. (Dionys., ii. 12.) During 

 the time of the republic the prafectus urbi was appointed by the 

 consuls, or by the senate (Dionys., viii. 64) when the consuls were 

 obliged to be absent from the city. During the time of his office he 

 exercised in the city the power of the consuls : he had the right to 

 convoke the senate (Varro., 'Ap. Gell.,' ziv. 7, comp. with xv. 8) and 

 to hold the comitia (Liv., i. 60). But in the course of time the prefect 

 of the city was superseded by the praetor urbanus, on which the former 

 magistrate became merely a shadow of what he had been, and was 

 appointed while the consuls were absent from Rome for the purpose of 

 celebrating the Feriae Latino;. This office, being of no importance, was 

 " often filled by young men, and Julius Caesar even appointed several 

 youths under age as prefects of the city. (Tacit, 1. c., iv. 36 ; Dion 

 Cans., xlix., p. 476.) This shadow of a magistrate seems to have con- 

 tinued to be appointed during the Feriae Latinge, even after Augustus 

 had made a permanent proefectus urbi. (Suet., ' Kero,' 7.) Augustus 

 invested this new prefect with considerable power, gave him the super- 

 intendence of public works, roads, aqueducts, the navigation of the 

 river, and the corn to be distributed among the people. (Suet./Octav.,' 

 37 ; Tacit., 1. c. ; Dion Cass., Hi., p. 547.) He was also invested with 

 jurisdiction over slaves and turbulent citizens. He was thus some- 

 thing like a chief officer of the police ; but his powers became gradually 

 more and more extensive, so that almost all the powers formerly 

 belonging to the office of praetor urbanus in the end were transferred 

 to the pncfectus urbi ('Dig.,' i., t. 12; ' De Off. Prsef. Urbi,' comp. 

 with Tacit., ' Annal.,' xiv. 41) ; and from the beginning of the 3rd 

 century he not only exercised the inferior but also the criminal juris- 

 diction, and that not only in the city, but at the distance of one 

 hundred miles from it. During the early period of the empire the 

 prefect of the city seems always to have held his office for a number of 

 yean ; but from the time of Valerian we find a new prefect almost 

 every year. Respecting the titles by which he was addressed, see 

 Brisson, ' De Form.,' p. 296. At the time when Constantinople was 

 raised to the rank of second capital, it received a prefect of the city, 

 who, like the prefect in the went, was the direct representative of the 

 emperor, and next to him the first person in the city. The whole 

 aiiitiini.itratioii of the city, all its corporations and institutions, were 

 utnliir his superintendence; every month he made a report to the 

 i.ir "i tin- transactions of the senate and people (Symmach., 

 ,,' x. 44) ; in the assemblies of the senate he gave his vote before 

 the consular* (Camiod., ' Variar.,' vi. 4), and wan the medium through 

 which the emperors a>niiuunicatt.-d with the city. 



I'U.KMI'XJ'KK (used for IT,, Hwncre, " to forewarn," Co. Lit. 129 

 is the first word of an ancient writ by which a party was summone<: 

 before the sovereign to answer a charge of contempt against him. The 

 commencement of the writ was as follows : " Praemunire facias A. B 

 quod sit coram nobis," &c. The contempt consisted in the doing o: 

 some act in derogation of his allegiance ; and in case of conviction, th 

 judgment was, that the defendant should be thenceforth out of tin 

 king'* protection, and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels 

 forfeited to the king, and his body should remain in prison at the 

 king's pleasure. The word praemunire, as now used, has two meaning: 

 one the writ itcelf, the other the offence to which the writ is 

 applicable. 



In late times it seems to have been considered that the offence was 

 eferrible only to attempts to introduce the papal authority into this 

 dngdom ; but it would appear that any attempt to introduce foreign 

 urisdiction or usurp upon the "kingly lawes of the crown" was equally 



within the penalties of a pneruunire. Most of these attempts did 

 elate to the papal jurisdiction, and the statute of praemunire (16 



Rich. II., c. 5) relates only to such attempts. But the 27 Edw. III., 

 . 1, referred to by that Act, visits an analogous offence with the same 

 >enalty where one " shall draw any out of the realm in plea whereof 

 he cognizance pertaineth to the king's courts, or whereof judgment is 



given in the king's courts, or which do sue in any other court to defeat 

 T impeach the judgment given in the king's court, &c." 



Numerous statutes have defined what shall be such a contempt as 

 mounts to a praemunire. Most of the earlier are directed against 

 iromor, as they were called, or persons who purchased from Rome 

 irovisions for holding abbeys or priories, &c., before those benefices 

 vere vacant (25 Edw. III., stat. 5, c. 22, stat. 6), or for exemption 

 rom obedience to their proper ordinary (2 Hen. IV., c. 3), or bulls 

 or exemption from tithes (2 Hen. IV., c. 4), or those who held bene- 

 ices in favour of aliens, &c. (3 Rich. II., c. 3; 7 Rich II., c. 12; 12 

 tich. II., c. 15; 13 Rich. II., stat. 2, c. 2), or those who purchased 

 procured) bulls, sentences of excommunication, &c., against the king 

 16 Rich. II., c. 5). During the time of Henry VIII., several statutes 



applied the penalties of a prscmunire to those who sued for or attempted 



enforce any bull, &c., from Rome, or appealed there (23, c. 2 ; 24, c. 

 2; 25, cc. 19, 21 ; 28,c. 16),or refused to elect a bislfop named by the 



ring (25, c. 20). By 5 Eliz. c. 1, 13 c. 2, 27 c. 2, it was applied to 

 ,hose who refused to take the oath of supremacy, or defended the 

 x>pe's jurisdiction, abetted publishers of bulls, etc., or sent relief to 

 'esuits beyond seas. 



About this time the penalties of a pnemunire ceased to be confined 

 to the class of offences above referred to. The 13 Ch. II., s. 1, c. 1, 

 made persons who advisedly assert that both or either house of parlia- 

 ment have a legislative authority without the king, and 4 Jac. I., c. 4, 



1 \V. & M., s. 1 , c. 8, those who refused to take the oath of allegiance, 

 juilty of a pnemunire. By 7 & 8 Will. III., c. 4, Serjeants, barristers, 



attorneys, &c., are subjected to the same penalties if they practise 

 without taking the oath. By the 6 Anne, c. 7, a malicious or advised 

 assertion that the then pretended Prince of Wales had any right to 

 the throne, or that the king and parliament cannot make laws to limit 

 ;he descent of the crown, amounts to the same offence. And 12 

 Geo. III., c. 11, attaches the same penalties to all such as willingly 

 solemnise or assist, Ate., at any forbidden marriage of the descendants 

 of George II. The penalties of a praemunire have also been attached 

 to persons guilty of offences of very different characters : to those who 

 molested the possessors of abbey lands granted to Henry VIII. a'.id 

 Edward VI. ; to brokers in any usurious contract, by 13 Eliz., c. 8 ; to 

 those who obtained any stay of proceedings other than by arrest of 

 judgment or writ of error in any suit for a monopoly, by 21 Jac. I , 

 c. 3, s. 4 ; and to those who obtained an exclusive patent for the sol", 

 making or importation of gunpowder or arms, or hindered others from 

 importing them, by 16 Ch. I., c. 21. By the Habeas Corpus Act, 

 31 Ch. II., c. 2, those who deprive or assist in depriving any subject of 

 this realm of his liberty contrary to that Act, incur the penalties of 

 prsemunire ; and by 6 Anne, c. 23, if the peers of Scotland convened to 

 elect their representatives treat of any other matter, they are guilty of 

 a praemunire. After the breaking of the South Sea bubble, those who 

 thereafter engaged in such undertakings were, by 6 Geo. I., c. 18 (now 

 repealed), made liable to the penalties of a prsemunire. 



The punishment of a pnemunire has already been stated. After 

 judgment, the defendant might formerly have been killed by any man. 

 " But Queene Elizabeth and her parliament, liking not the extreme and 

 inhumane rigor of the law in that point," made it unlawful to slay 

 him. (5 Eliz., c. 1.) Still, being out of the protection of the law, he 

 cannot sue in any action (Co. Lit., 129 b), and he forfeits all his goods 

 and chattels, his lands and tenements in fee, and his life interest in 

 lands in tail. (3 ' Inst.,' 119, " Of Praemunire.") Prosecutions for this 

 offence are now obsolete. 



PRAETOR, a word which apparently contains the same elements as 

 the verb f/nrire. The consuls were originally called prastors, but the 

 name pnctor was specially appropriated to a magistrate called the 

 prsetor urbanus, who was first appointed B.C. 365. He was called a 

 colleague of the consuls, and was created with the same auspices. 

 (Liv., vii. 1.) The prsotor was at first only chosen from the patri- 

 cians, as a kind of compensation to them for admitting the plebeians to 

 fill one of the consulship.-!. (Liv., vi. 42.) In the year B.C. 336 the 

 first plebeian pnctor was created. 



The pnctor, in his origin, seems to have been a kind of third con- 

 sul. While the consuls were at the head of the armies in the field, 

 the pnctor exercised the consular power within the city, in the senate, 

 and in the comitia. He also administered justice (" jus in urbe dice- 

 bat," Liv., vi. 42). On some occasions the pnctor led the armies of 

 the state. (Liv., vii. 23, &c.) Yet the imperium of the pnctor was 

 less than that of the consuls, to whom he owed obedience. There was 

 also a distinction in his insignia of office, for the pnctor had only six 

 lictors, from which circumstance he is called by Polybius "the general 

 with six lictors" (Tiyf^iav or orpaTjjyos {air'\cKus, and sometimes simply 

 *Jair<?\eKi, &c.). It appears from Livy that the prtetorship was 



