1021 



WRECK. 



WRITER TO THE SIGNET. 



1022 



the examination was over, admitted the candidates, not to the Bache- 

 lor's degree, but " ad respondendum question!," and the person thus 

 admitted was called a questionist. The form of asking some trifling 

 question, or keeping a mock act [ACT] was afterwards performed be- 

 tween the questionist and the Father of his college, which is the name 

 given to one of the fellows whose duty it is to present the candidates 

 of his college to the vice-chancellor. On the Thursday after Midlent 

 Sunday the vice-chancellor used to declare all the questionists (who in 

 the interval had borne the name and assumed the dress of Bachelor of 

 Arts) " actualiter esse in artibus baccalaureos." The term wrangler 

 then must imply one who is held more than usually qualified to proceed 

 to the disputations which were once the practical test of his fitness for 

 the degree. 



The Tripos lists are given in the ' Cambridge Calendar' from 1747 

 downwards ; but the wranglers and senior optime's form one list 

 till 1752 inclusive. It is said that the regular order of previous 

 years cannot be ascertained, as the proctors were in the habit 

 of making honorary senior optime's, and placing them in the list at 

 pleasure. 



WRECK. [SHIPWRECK.] 



WRIT, a law term, which in its proper signification means a writing 

 under the king's seal, whereby he confers some right or privilege, or 

 commands some act to be done. Writs are either patent (open, com- 

 monly called letters patent, literre patent**), which are not sealed up, 

 but have the great seal attached to them; or dote (literce cfausa), 

 which are, or are supposed to be, sealed up. The former are addressed 

 to all persons indiscriminately, generally in these terms " To all to 

 whom these presents shall come ; " the latter are directed to some 

 officer or other individual. Of the former kind is the creation of a 

 peer by patent, which is a royal grant of peerage ; of the latter, the 

 n of a peer by writ, which is a summons to attend the house of 

 peers by the style and title of some barony. 



Writ in its ordinary and more limited sense is a term applicable to 

 a process in tint or criminal proceedings. Civil writs are divisible into 

 riginal writs issue out of the Court of Chan- 

 cery, and give authority to the courts, in which they are returnable, to 

 proceed with the cause; judicial writs are awarded by the court in 

 which the action is already pending. These are again subdivided into 

 menu and final. Original writs (which have been superseded by the 

 writ of summons) used to contain a brief statement of the plaintiff's 

 alleged cau.se of action ; and such a writ was called in law Latin breve, 

 in law French brief : and this term was afterwards applied to judicial 

 and other writs. Original writa issuing from Chancery were always 

 -ed, or letted, in the name of the king; judicial writs issued 

 from that one of the superior common law courts in which the original 

 writ was made returnable, and were tested in the name of the chief 

 judge of such court. 



There are many kinds of writs, some of the more important of which 

 may be here mentioned. There is the writ to the sheriff of a county 

 to elect a member or members of the Commons' House of Parliament, 

 in case of a vacancy or general election, which issues upon thu warrant 

 of the lord chancellor, or in certain cases of the speaker of the House 

 i.f Commons. The writ of hubeai corpus (><> . whirh 



is directed to :n-. v. ho detains another, commanding him 



the body of the prisoner at such a time and place, 

 together with the cause of his caption and detention, to do, submit 

 to, and receivi (>' fnriiiflmn, iu!jjiciendnm,c/ //';//,,/(/,) whatever 

 the court or judge by whom the writ is awarded shall think fit. 

 [HABEAS CORPUS.] There are various other writs of hateat corpus, 

 for the purpose of bringing up prisoners to be charged in execution, 

 to give testimony, Ac. the writs of subpunaad testijicandum, by which 

 a party is commanded to appear at the trial of a cause, to give evidence 

 under a pecuniary penalty ; and of mb/jini'i <tuce tccum, by which the 

 party is commanded to bring certain specified documents for the pur- 

 pose of the trial. A defendant privileged from the particular suit, or 

 Don being sued except before some other tribunal, is entitled to a 

 writ of /. :i ril ', , by which the court is required to discontinue the 

 suit. In modem tunes a party is allowed his privilege without suing 

 out any writ of privilege. 



W KIT OF KIUIOR. Writs of error in purely civil suite are abolished 

 .-ion Law Procedure Acts and a more simple procedure for 

 reviewing and correcting the decisions of the superior and other courts 

 of record was established. [Ettnoit ] 



In criminal cases there is a writ of error from all inferior courts to 

 'en's IVnrh. and from that to the House of Lords. 



WKIT OF INQUIRY. In cases where a plaintiff seeks to recover 



a specific chattel (as in the action of detinue), or a specific sum of 



money (as in debt), if the defendant allows judgment to go against him 



by default, this is considered as an admission that the plaintiff is 



entitled to what he claitus ; and the judgment therefore is final in the 



first instance, provided thu plaintiff is content to take a small nominal 



rt'jni l'ir tin- !. images resulting from the detention of the chattel or 



ijt. But where a plaintiff only seeks to obtain damages for an 



injury done to his )iersoQ or his real or personal estate, or for the 



ance of a promise, if the defendant lets judgment go by 



t, this, though an admission that the plaintiff has a cause of 



does not operate as an admission of the amount of damages 



. :h he is entitled; and such judgment is called interlocutory. 



In such cases, and also where the plaintiff seeks to recover substantial 

 damages for the detention of a chattel, or of a debt, the intervention 

 of a jury is required in order to ascertain for what damages the 

 plaintiff is entitled to have final judgment. For this purpose, a 

 judicial process, called a ivrit of inquiry, issues to the sheriff, com- 

 manding him to summon a jury to inquire what damages the plaintiff 

 has sustained. If the plaintiff offer no evidence before the jury, a ver- 

 dict must be found for nominal damages, as existence of some damage 

 is admitted. 



When the inquisition (or finding of the jury) is returned, the plaintiff 

 is entitled to judgment for that amount. 



WRIT OF SUMMONS. [WRIT.] 



WRIT OF TRIAL. All trials of 'causes in the superior courts took 

 place formerly either at bar before the whole court, or at nisiprius 

 before one of the judges of the court, or a judge or serjeaut named 

 in the commission of assize ; but now, by the 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 42, 

 s. 1 7, in any action depending in any of the superior courts for any 

 debt or demand in which the sum sought to be recovered and indorsed 

 on the writ of summons shall not exceed 201., the court, or a judge 

 (if satisfied that the trial will not involve any difficult question of 

 fact or law), may order the trial to take place before the sheriff of the 

 county where the action is brought, or some judge of an inferior court, 

 and for that purpose a writ shall issue (called the Writ of Trial) 

 directed to the sheriff or such judge, commanding him to try the 

 cause before a jury, and to return such writ with the finding of the 

 jury thereon indorsed. The statute applies only to actions for a debt 

 or dimand indorsed on the writ of summons; it does not therefore 

 extend to cases where the action is brought for a wrong, or where the 

 demand, being for unliquidated damages, the amount claimed cannot 

 properly be indorsed on the writ of summons. The proceedings under 

 the writ of trial, when directed to the sheriff, usually take place before 

 his under-sheritf or other his deputy ; and they are conducted in the 

 same manner as at a trial at nisi prius : and the court will grant a new 

 trial for the same causes as if the trial had been before one of 

 the superior judges; but a new trial will not be granted upon the 

 ground that the verdict is against the evidence, where the amount 

 of such verdict is less than 51., unless such verdict be manifestly 

 ptnene. 



WRITER, in Scotland, is a term of nearly the same meaning as 

 attorney in England, and is generally applied to all legal practitioners 

 who do not belong to the bar. The body who in Edinburgh enjoy, 

 concurrently with writers to the signet, the privilege of conducting 

 cases before the Court of Session, the Court of Justiciary, &c., are 

 called solicitors of supreme courts (abbreviated S. S. C.), and the prac- 

 titioners before the sheriff court of Aberdeen are by local custom called 

 advocates. In each county there is generally a society of writers 

 privileged to practise in the sheriff court and in the other local judica- 

 tories, who frame their own bye-laws, and regulate the terms of admis- 

 sion to their body. Individually, they are responsible for their conduct 

 to the local judges before whom they practise : and as bodies they 

 are, on the one hand, protected from the infringement of their privileges 

 by unlicensed persons, and on the other, liable to judicial control if 

 they attempt unduly to restrict the means of admission to their 

 privileges. 



WRITER TO THE SIGNET, abbreviated W.S., is the designation 

 of the members of that class of attorneys or procurators who enjoy, in 

 common with the solicitors of supreme courts, and with one or two 

 smaller bodies, the privilege of conducting cases before the Court of 

 Session, the Court of Justiciary, and the Commission of Teiuds. Their 

 peculiar privilege, however, is that of preparing the writs which pass 

 the royal signet. The signet was a seal or die under the control of the 

 secretary of state, with which the writs by which the king directed 

 parties to appear in court, or ordered them to obey the decrees given 

 against them, and other executive instructions, were stamped for the 

 sake of authentication. In the 10th century, the persons who were 

 entitled to present the writs which received the impression of the 

 signet are supposed to have been the clerks in the secretary of state's 

 office ; and it is not known how or precisely at what time the persons 

 who transacted this department of official business became converted 

 into a body of private practitioners. Sincethe Union of 177, the signet 

 has been under the disposal of the Court of Session; but down to 

 about the middle of last century the keeper of the signet was deputed 

 by the secretary of state for the home department. Since that time he 

 has been appointed under the great seal, and he names a deputy, who 

 is a member of the society of writers to the signet, and by usage pre- 

 sides at their meetings. In the general . case the summons by which 

 an ordinary action is brought into the Court of Session requires to be 

 signeted, and to be, as a preliminary, signed by a writer to the signet ; 

 although a member of one of the other privileged bodies may conduct 

 the case. Advocation [ADVoCATiON],and some other analogous classes 

 of procedure, required formerly to have the interposition of the signet ; 

 but this step in the procedure has been abolished. The writers to the 

 signet now possess few privileges which are not shared by the other 

 practitioners before the supreme courts. They still retain their privi- 

 leges as to summonses, and they have the exclusive right of presenting 

 signatures in exchequer, or of presenting, through the judges acting in 

 exchequer, the indorsed drafts of the writs passing under the great and 

 other seals in Scotland appended to crown charters, appointments to 



