M : 



REGISTRATION. 



KEGULAR FIGURES, &c. 



1008 



equalizing the labours of the registrars by contracting the area v.heie 

 the population wu dense, and extending it where the population wan 

 thin. To each dutrict a registrar of births and deaths is appointed, 

 and alto a registrar of marriages ; and in each union there is a super- 

 intendent-registrar. The registrar of births and deaths is appointed by 

 the guardians, and is always a resident in the district in which he acts. 

 The registrar of marriages is appointed by the superintendent-registrar, 

 subject to the approval of the guardians. 



On August 7, 1S54, an Act for assimilating the registration of 

 births, deaths, and marriages in Scotland to that of England was 

 passed. A registrar-general was appointed, and the returns of the two 

 kingdoms are now annually laid before parliament The measure has 

 not yet been applied to Irelaml. 



REGISTRATION. (SmUand.) The registration of documents in 

 Scotland is intimately connected with the titles of real property, and 

 with the execution of the law. It is thus divided into two distinct 

 departments, which may be considered separately Registration for 

 Preservation and Registration for Execution. 



Registration for Preservation, in its simplest form, is merely the 

 preserving of an attested transcript of any deed in a public i 

 that thus an authentic copy may be had recourse to in case the original 

 should be lost. Besides the regular statutory records of particular 

 deeds, there are books attached to the several courts of civil juris- 

 diction, in which parties may for their own convenience register such 

 documents as do not require by any special obligatory law to be 

 recorded. It is a general rule that extracts from any such records 

 may stand in the place of the originals when these are not forth- 

 coming. In the case of deeds, of which, as will be seen below, it is 

 not the deed itself, but its registration, that makes the completed title, 

 an extract from the register is the proper document to be produced. 

 In actions, however, the object of which is the annulling the deed on 

 some legal ground, the original must be produced if it be accessible. 

 It is usual to speak of registration for preservation as being also for 

 publication ; and in this sense, when a deed is of such a character that 

 to make it effectual in the grantee's favour it must have been delivered 

 to him by the grantor, such registration is in the general case equiva- 

 lent to delivery. It will operate in this respect in adjusting questions 

 of competing right, as where a father makes over to one child the pro- 

 perty that, in case of his dying intestate, would go to another, and 

 registers the deed. The registration of ordinary documents for 

 preservation was sanctioned by the Act 1698, c. 4, which generally 

 extends to registration " in any authentic public register that is 

 competent." Besides the central register attached to the supreme 

 court, there are others connected with the Sheriff and Corporation 

 Courts ; but it does not appear to be distinctly settled what may be, 

 with reference to various descriptions of documents in each case, a 

 " competent " register. 



The most important of the registers for preservation is that of the 

 " Sasines and Reversions," the former word expressing the act by 

 which an estate is created or transferred in heritable (that is, real) 

 property, the latter the attestation of the extinction of a burden (that 

 is, of the devolution of a temporary estate on the person entitled to 

 the remainder). This system has been gradually formed. In its 

 present state its main operative principle is, that when a title to land 

 appears on the register, no latent title derived from the same authority 

 can compete with it, and that registered titles rank according to their 

 priority ; so that if A first sell his property to B and execute the 

 proper conveyance, and subsequently sell the same property to C, if C 

 get this title first recorded it cannot be questioned by B. who has only 

 his pecuniary recourse .against A. In pursuance of this system, in 

 transactions regarding land, the public records are relied on as affording 

 the means of ascertaining the character and title, aud after they have 

 searched for the period of prescription, or examined over a period of 

 forty years [PRESCRIPTION], parties can trust that there are no latent 

 rights, and may safely deal with the person who professes to dispose of 

 any right connected with it. The origin of this system may be traced 

 to the commencement of the 16th century, when the notaries were 

 required to record their proceedings in their protocols, and the other 

 officers connected with the feudal transference of land were bound to 

 make returns of their official acts. In 1599 an Act was passed in which 

 an effort was made to produce regularity in these registers, by penalties.' 

 It was by the Act 1617, c. 16. that the system was founded on its 

 right principle. The preamble of that statute bears " considering the 

 great hurt sustained by his Majesty's lieges by the fraudulent dealing 

 of parties who having annalh'ed [alienated] their lands, and received 

 great summes of money therefore, yet by their unjust concealing of 

 ome private right formerly made by them, render the subsequent 

 alienation done for great summes of money altogether unprofitable ; 

 which cannot be avoided unless the said private rights be made public 

 and patent to her Majesty's lieges." The Act then appoints the deeds 

 to be registered, otherwise they are " to make no faith in judgment, by 

 way of action or exception, in prejudice of a third party, who hath 

 acquired a perfect and lawful right to the said lands and heritages : 

 But (without) prejudice alwayes to them to use the said writs against 

 the party maker thereof, his heirs, and successors." There was a 

 material defect in this Act, that a person might have his title imme- 

 diately registered, but was liable to have it superseded by any other 

 person able to register a title on a warrant previously obtained. This 



was remedied by the Act 1693, c. 13, which gave the registerable titles 

 priority not according to the date of their execution, but to that of 

 their registration. 



When property is offered for sale or mortgage, a " search " generally 

 forms part of the titles offered for inspection to the parties treating for 

 it. This is a certificate by the proper officer, describing all registered 

 documents regarding that particular pii-c-c of land which have been 

 recorded during forty years. It is remarkable that the enlightened 

 mind of Cromwell appears to have comprehended the utility of this 

 system, and that he made an effort to introduce it into England. \\ '< 

 are told by Ludlow (Memoirs, I., p. 436), " In the meantime the 

 reformation of the law went on but slowly, it being the interest 

 lawyers to preserve the lives, liberties, and estates of the whole nation 

 in their own hands, so that upon the debate of registering deeds in 

 each county, for want of which, within a certain time fixed after the 

 sales, such sales should be void, and being so registered that land 

 should not be subject to any incuinbrauce, this word incumbrance was 

 so managed by the lawyers that it took up three months' time before 

 it could be ascertained by the committee." 



Registration for Execution is another peculiarity of the law of 

 Scotland, although the system of warrants to confess judgment in 

 England iu some measure resembles it. The party to a solemn deed 

 incorporates with it a clause of registration, by which, on the deed 

 being registered in the books of a court competent to put the d> 

 force, the decision of the court shall be held as pronounced in terms of 

 the deed, and execution may proceed against the party on an extract, 

 as if it were the decree of a court. The engagement on which *ueh 

 execution may issue must be very distinctly set forth. Thus, if it be 

 for payment of money, it must be for a sum named in the deed, and 

 not for the balance that may be due on an account arising out of the 

 transactions to which the deed refers. This method of execution was 

 by statute (1681, c. 20) made applicable to bills and promissory notes 

 without their containing any clause of registration. To entitle it to 

 this privilege, the bill or note must be apparently without flaw, must 

 bear the appearance of due negotiation, and must have been prm 

 The operation of this system was much widened by the Act 1 & 2 

 Viet. c. 114, which extended registration for execution to the Sheriff' 

 Courts. 



REGISTRY OF SHIPS. [SHIPS.] 



REGIUS MORBUS, as used by the classical Latin authors, must not 

 be confounded with the h'iny's eril, or Rey'ius im/rlmx, of the writers of 

 the middle ages. In the former it means jaundice (Horat.,'Art. I'u.-t..' 

 453), called also Ixrffos, " morbus arquatus," and " aurugo " (or 

 "aurigo"); in the latter it means scrofula. [SCROFCLA.] The 

 derivation of the term as applied to jaundice is both uncertain and 

 unsatisfactory. According to Serenus Sanionicus (' De Medic.,' cap. 

 58, v. 1033) 



" Itfijuis cst vero sifinatus nomine morbus, 

 Mulliter hie quoniam celsa curatur in aula." 



Varro (apud Plin., ' Hist. Nat.,' lib. xxii., cap. 53, ed. Tauchn.), 

 " Jtiyium cognominatum morbum arquatuin tradit, quoniam mulso 

 curatur;" "Scilicet" (says Doering, ad Horat., loc. tit.), " ii, 

 (viimm nielle conditum) pertinet ad delicias, quas reges imprimis et 

 beatiores appetunt et facile sibi comparare possunt." The same 

 derivation ia given by Celsus (' De Medic.,' lib. iii., cap. 2J), who says 

 the cure is to be attempted by various kinds of exercises : " Lecto 

 etiam et conclavi cultiore, lusu, joco, India, lascivia, per qua mens 

 exhilaretur, ob quse rcyius morbus diet us videtur." Blancardus 

 (Blanckaert, or Blankuard) in his ' Lexicon Medicum,' is rather 

 inclined, " ab au.ro, metollorum reye, deuominationem statuere, sicut 

 et A iiriyii, ab auri colore." Dr. Good (' Study of Medicine ' ) says, 

 " the meaning of Keyius, as expounded by Celsus, will, I apprehend, 

 content very few ; " he then remarks that this and the two other 

 Latin names of the disease (Arquatus Murbui and A uriujo) " are not 

 indeed univocals, but very clearly equivalents, and equally import yold, 

 >. ;/(tUlen Itftw, or (</<>', f<i.-fm ; the colour of the disease, 

 and its encompassing the body." Each of these derivations n; 

 somewhat far-fetched and unsatisfactory, and the term is probably one 

 of those of which no plausible explanation can be given. 



REGRATING. A regrator is defined (6 Ed. VI., c. 14) to be one who 

 Iniy.s in a fair or market the various articles specified by the Act, 

 which are principally articles of provision, and sells them again in the 

 same or in any other fair or market within four miles. That statute 

 aud others providing certain penalties for such acts have all been 

 repealed by 12 Geo. III., c. 7- 



REGULAR CLERGY [CLEUOY.] 



REGULAR FIGURES, POLYGONS, SOLIDS, POLYHEDRONS. 

 We have here to add to what is said in POLYGON AND POLYHEDRON all 

 that concerns the regular figures or solids, not as to their general 

 properties, but as to the proportions of their parts and the mode of 

 describing them. We shall take first the plane figures, and then the 

 solids. 



A regular polygon, meaning one of which all the sides are equal and 

 all the angles are equal, may have any number of sides from three 

 upwards. The Greek terms trigon, tetragon, pentagon, hexagon, hep- 

 tagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon, undecagon, dodecagon, are in u -> 

 (except the first two) to express polygons of three, four, &c., up to 



