21 



REPETEND. 



REPLEVIN. 



ing off and of division are eliminated. The only precaution to be 

 observed is, that the stand must receive no angular motion from the 

 motion of the telescope, and this in easily effected by giving a certain 

 massivenesg to the stand and a considerable heaviness to its motion, 

 while the telescope and its verniers revolve as lightly as possible. The 

 observer should satisfy himself as to this perfect independence of the 

 two motions and the stability of his repeating tripod by taking a set 

 of twenty repetitions of an angle, always moving the telescope for- 

 ward in the order of the divisions, and a second set of twenty of the 

 same angle, carrying the telescope round the contrary way. The two 

 results should agree if the stand has no motion ; and if they do not, 

 the upper motion must be lightened or the lower be loaded till they 

 do agree. We should not feel satisfied to use the repeating stand if a 

 motion of the telescope a little ruder than necessary affected its posi- 

 tion although undamped ; and the stand which is here figured 

 fulfilled this condition very well with a 12-inch theodolite. As the 

 absolute coincidence of the axes of the tripod and theodolite cannot be 

 obtained, the angle should be repeated at least once round the circle, 

 and, if the case requires it, until the multiple angle is very nearly 

 equal to one, two, or more circumferences. The original repeating 

 tripod as designed by Mr. Pond was considerably higher than that 

 figured here. (See Pearson's ' Practical Astronomy," plate xxix., fig. 7, 

 and vol. ii., p. 513.) A little greater nicety is thus given to the 

 adjustment of the vertical axis of the tripod, which is not necessary, 

 and the snugncss of the present stand is, we think, more than an 

 equivalent. The axis of the tripod must first be set vertical, either 

 by a level of its own or the theodolite level, exactly as is described in 

 the adjustment of the vertical column of Borda's circle. For the 

 subsequent adjustments, 4c.,of the theodolite, see THEODOLITE. 



REPETEND, the part of a CIRCULATING DECIMAL which is per- 

 petually repeated. The word, however, means simply to be repeated, 

 and is go little used in the above sense that it might be advantageously 

 employed with more generality. 



REPLEVIN" (delirrance de namps, rtpltylatio). In the middle ages 

 the performance of legal duties was enforced by taking the person, the 

 lands, or the goods of the defaulter into the custody of the party 

 authorised to enforce the performance of such duties. When such a 

 taking was effected, the party was said to be distrained (disti-ictus, put 

 under compulsion), by his body, his lands, or his goods, to do the act 

 in respect of which he was supposed to have made default. [DISTRESS.] 



Upon a distress being effected, the body, land, or goods, as the case 

 might be, of the distrainee remained in the custody of the distrainor 

 until the act for which the enforcing of the distress had been made was 

 performed : unless the distrainee brought the question of the legality 

 of the taking before a competent tribunal, in which case he might 

 cither await the result of his legal proceedings, or, if he was desirous 

 of obtaining a more ppeedy liberation of the thing distrained, he might 

 rcplevy it by giving a pledge or security to replace it in the custody 

 of the distrainor in the event of the legal decision being in favour of 

 the latter. 



The alleged defaulter might contest the legality of the taking in an 

 action of trespass. [TRESPASS.] Bui in this form of action he could 

 recover damages only. He would not be entitled to the liberation of 

 his body, lands, or goods, as the case might be, pending the suit ; nor 

 indeed when the suit had terminated in his favour, could he by any 

 proceeding which could be resorted to in the action of trespass be 

 relieved from the distress. The remedy by which a party was to 

 recover his liberty or the property distrained, and also damages for the 

 temporary detention, was an action of replevin. Where the person of 

 the plaintiff was taken, his remedy was by an action of replevin in a 

 peculiar form, which, taking its denomination from the writ by which 

 it wan commenced, was called de homine replcgiaudo. This proceeding 

 was however surrounded by so many difficulties, rendered perhaps 

 indispensable by the necessity of preventing criminals from using it as a 

 means of evading justice, that it hag now become obsolete in England, 

 parties preferring to obtain their discharge by the more summary 

 process of habeas corpus. [HABEAS CORPUS.] The great mass of the 

 cages of homine replegiando in the old law books arose upon the seizure 

 and detention of persons whom the parties seizing claimed as their 

 fugitive villeins [VILLEIN], and this process was frequently resorted to 

 in Jamaica and other slave colonies. The seizing of the lands of a 

 defaulter by way of distress has long ceased to be practised. 



Formerly not only lands but incorporeal hereditaments were the 

 subjects of replevin, of which a remarkable instance occurred in the 

 reign of Edward III. (' Parliament Rolls,' vol. i., 45.) 



The third form of replevin, and the only one now in use, is replevin 

 of goods, called in the old statutes replegiari de averiit, cattle (in law 

 Latin, averia) being the species of goods which usually formed the 

 subject of a distress. 



If the goods of a party were taken out of his possession against his 

 will, he was entitled to a writ of repleyiari facial, by which the sheriff 

 was required to cause the goods to be replevied, that is, restored to the 

 owner upon his giving pledges for the prosecution of his action, and 

 for the return of the goods to the distrainor in case a return should be 

 adjudged. As the right of the party from whom the goods are taken 

 to have the possession restored to him by replevin, depends upon the 

 property belonging to him if the taker of the goods claim them as 

 his own property, the power of the sheriff is suspended, until the party 



has sued out a writ <7e proprietatt probandd, by which the sheriff tries 

 whether the goods are the property of the plaintiff or of the defendant ; 

 and if they are found to be the property of the plaintiff, then to 

 replevy them ; if of the defendant, the plaintiff's claim to be restored 

 to the possession of the goods remains in suspense until the termina- 

 tion of the action. 



A replevin does not lie for goods taken in execution, or for goods 

 seized for a debt to the crown. In a very intemperate speech, 

 addressed by Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, to the House of Lords, 

 upon a charge against the barons of the Exchequer, for enjoining the 

 sheriffs of London not to execute a writ of replevin of goods seized by 

 the officers of the custom-house in respect of unpaid tonnage and 

 poundage, he is stated to have said, in the course of his argument, 

 " We all know a replevin lies against the king, if the goods be (be not?) 

 in his own hands." (' Rushworth,' part 2, vol. ii., 1361.) Though this 

 strange assertion has been regularly transcribed by succeeding writers, 

 it appears to be altogether unfounded. The replevins sued out for 

 goods seized in respect of tonnage and poundage would issue against 

 the officers as for goods seized by them in respect of debts claimed to 

 be due to the crown. But goods seized for the king's debts cannot 

 be replevied without the special mandate of the king or of the barons 

 of the Exchequer. Still less could replevin be brought in respect 

 of goods in the actual possession of the king, and upon an allegation 

 of their having been wrongfully taken by him. 



Replevin does not lie for goods taken in a foreign country, though 

 afterwards imported here. 



If upon a distress taken by the superior landlord upon premises in 

 the possession of an under-tenant, the mesne or intermediate tenant 

 puts his cattle in the place of those distrained, as by law he was 

 allowed to do, he might replevy the goods so substituted, though the 

 latter were never distrained. 



Replevin lies notwithstanding an express agreement that the laud- 

 lord shall be at liberty to distrain and hold the goods against pledges 

 (that is, notwithstanding a tender of pledges) until the rent be paid ; 

 for goods cannot be made irreplevisable by the mere agreement of the 

 parties. 



Executors may maintain replevin for the goods of the testator taken 

 in his lifetime, and a husband may bring replevin alone without 

 naming his wife, for the %oods of the wife taken before the marriage ; 

 as the property in the goods passes to the executors, and to the husband 

 respectively, notwithstanding the seizure and detention. 



A person may in some cases support a replevin without being the 

 owner of the goods, as where the plaintiff is the bailee of the goods 

 taken. [BAILMENT; PLEDGE.] 



The writ of repleyiari facias, which must have been sued out of the 

 Court of Chancery, was attended with great inconvenience and delay at 

 a period when the chancery followed the person of the king, and hence 

 it was provided by the statute of Marlbridge, (1267) that the sheriff 

 should, after complaint made, deliver the goods without hindrance or 

 refusal of him who took them, and by 1 and 2 Philip,and Mary, c. 12, 

 every sheriff was required to appoint four deputies dwelling not above 

 twelve miles distant from one another, to make replevies and 

 deliverance of distresses. Under these two statutes distresses continued 

 to be replevied, until quite recently ; when by the statute 19 & 20 

 Viet. c. 108, the powers of the sheriffs were transferred to the registrars 

 of the County Courts [COUNTY COURTS], who now grant replevins, and 

 take security from the replevisor for the prosecution of an action either 

 in the County Court or in one of the superior courts to try the validity 

 of the distress. This bond is taken under the statute 11 Geo. II., c. 

 19, s. 23, requiring sheriffs and other officers having authority to grant 

 replevin, in every replevin of a distress for rent, to take from the 

 plaintiff and two responsible persons as sureties a bond in double the 

 value of the goods distrained, with a condition for prosecuting the suit 

 with effect and without delay, and for duly returning the goods and 

 chattels distrained in case of a return being awarded. 



By this statute this bond may be assigned to the avowaut (the party 

 who took the distress in his own right), or to the person making 

 cognizance (the party acknowledging the taking of the distress on 

 behalf of some other person), and the assignee may sue upon it in the 

 event of the condition of the bond not being performed. 



In the action which follows the replevin, the plaintiff declares again? t 

 the defendant for the taking of the goods and chattels of the plaintifl, 

 at such a time and in such a place, and claims damages. To this 

 declaration the defendant may plead non cepit, whereby he admits that 

 the goods belong to the plaintiff, and denies the taking only ; or he 

 may plead that the goods do not belong to the plaintiff, thereby 

 admitting that he took and detained them. 



But in ordinary cases, the defendant avows in his own right, or 

 makes cognizance as bailiff to his employer, for rent, or for some 

 other duty or cause, for which a distress is allowed by law [DIS- 

 TRESS], in doing which he may set up any ground of distress, though 

 differing from that expressed at the time when the distress was 

 made. 



The plaintiff may reply to the defendant's plea as in other cases 

 [PLEADING] ; but inasmuch as an avowaut, or a person making cog- 

 nizance, is not merely a defendant, but a party seeking to recover some 

 thing, the plaintiff's answer to an avowry or cognizance, which is in 

 the nature of a declaration for the right or duty withheld, it called a 



