CLERK OF THE HOUSE OP COMMONS. 



CLIMATE. 



sun 



haa the custody of all poll-books taken at elections, and is required to 

 register them, to give office copies or an inspection of them to all 

 parties applying, and to prove them before election committees. He 

 attends all election committees with the returns of members ; and 

 when a return ia to be amended in consequence of the determination 

 of an election committee, he attends at the table of the House to 

 amend it. 



He is also an officer of the lord chancellor, as the holder of the great 

 seal ; and in this department makes out all patents, commissions, 

 warrants, appointments, or other instruments that pass the great seal, 

 except patents which are passed in the Patent Office. He administers 

 the oaths of office to the lord chancellor, the judges, the serjeants-at- 

 law, and all other law officers, and records the same in the books of his 

 office. For these several duties he receives a salary of 10007. a year. 

 (7 & 8 Viet. c. 77 ; ' Parl. Report,' 455, Sess. 1844.) 



The office of the Clerk of the Crown is commonly called the Crown 

 Office ; but there is also an office in the Court of Queen's Bench called 

 the Crown side, or Crown office of the Court, of which there is a 

 master and other officers. 



CLERK OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, the chief officer of that 

 House, is appointed by the crown for life, by letters patent. Upon 

 entering office he is sworn before the lord chancellor " to make true 

 entries, remembrances, and journals of the things done and passed in 

 the House of Commons ;" in which duties he is aided by the clerk- 

 assistant and second clerk-assistant. These three officers are more 

 commonly known as " clerks at the table." The chief clerk signs all 

 orders of the House, endorses the bills, and reads whatever is required 

 to be read in the proceedings of the House. He is also responsible for 

 the execution of all the official business of the House, which is under 

 his superintendence. In the patent he is styled " Under Clerk of the 

 Parliaments to attend upon the Commons;" whence it is inferred that 

 on the separation of the two Houses, the under-clerk of the Parliaments 

 went with the Commons, leaving the clerk of the Parliaments in the 

 Upper House, 



(Hatsell, Precedents, vol. ii. p. 251 ; May, Law, A-e. of Parliament ; 4 & 

 5 Will. IV. c. 70.) 



CLERK OF THE PARLIAMENTS is the chief ministerial officer 

 of the House of Lords. His duties (which are executed by the clerk- 

 assistant and additional clerk-assistant) are to take minutes of all the 

 proceedings, orders, and judgments of the House; to sign all orders, 

 to tmlur.se bills, to swear witnesses at the bar, to wait upon the sove- 

 reign when the royal assent is given to bills, and to take the commands 

 of the crown upon them ; and to signify the royal assent in all cases, 

 whether given by the sovereign in person or by commission. He is 

 also sent occasionally as a messenger from the Lords to the Commons. 

 Besides these and other special duties, he is charged with the general 

 superintendence of the official establishment of the House of Lords. He 

 is paid out of the Lords' Fee Fund, of which no account is ever given. 



(May, Law, <fr. nf Parliament.) 



CLERK OF THE PEACE is an officer attached to every county or 

 division of a county, city, borough, or other place in which quarter- 

 eessions ore held ; being the ministerial officer of the court of quarter- 

 sessions. He is appointed by the Custos JCotulorum of the county, and 

 holds his appointment so long as he shall well demean himself. In 

 case of misbehaviour the justices in sessions, on receiving a complaint 



or division. In case of his refusal or neglect to make this appointment, 

 b'-foro the next general quarter-sessions, the justices in sessions 

 may appoint a elerk of the peace. (1 Will. III. c. 21, a. fl.) The 

 CWox Kiituhrum may not sell the office or take any bond or assurance 

 to receive any reward, directly or indirectly, for the appointment, on 

 pain of both himself and the Clerk of the Peace being disabled from 

 holding their respective offices, and forfeiting double the value of the 

 consideration, to any one who shall sue them. (Id. s. 8.) To give 

 effect to this provision, before the Clerk of the Peace enters upon the 

 execution of his duties he takes an oath that he has not paid anything 

 for his nomination. 



The Clerk of the Peace may execute the duties of his office either 

 personally, or by a sufficient deputy approved by the Ciatas Rotulurum. 

 He,or his deputy must be constantly in attendance upon the court of 

 quarter-sessions. He gives notice of its being holden or adjourned ; 

 issues its various processes ; records its proceedings ; and performs all 

 the ministerial acts required to give effect to its decisions. During the 

 sitting of the court, he reads all acts directed to be read in sessions ; 

 calls the jurors, and parties under recognizance ; presenta the bills to 

 he 'grand jury and receives them again ; arraigns prisoners, administers 

 oaths and receives and records verdicts. Whenever prosecutors 

 decline any other professional assistance, he is required to draw bills 

 of indictment. . 



Tn addition to these general duties he haa other special duties 

 imposed upon him by different statutes, in regard to the summoning 

 of juries, the appointment of sheriffs and under-sheriffs, the custody of 

 inclosure awards, orders for stopping up highways, documents required 

 to be deposited with him under Acts of Parliament and standing 

 orders of the Houses of Parliament, and other matters. 



The Clerk of the Peace is paid by fees or by salary, by order o{ a 



secretary of state, on the recommendation of the court of quarter- 

 sessions, in- (in boroughs) of the town council. (14 & 15 Viet. c. 55. 

 By the 57 Geo. III. c. 91, and the 11 & 12 Viet. c. 43, the justices of 

 the pence for the county, and the town council in boroughs, are 

 authorised to settle a table of fees, to be approved by the secretary of 

 state, which may not be exceeded by the clerk of the peace, under a 

 penalty. If he take more than is authorised by such table of fees, he 

 will also be liable to be proceeded against at common law for extortion, 

 and to be removed from his office by the court of quarter sessions. 

 The sessions cannot, however, compel the payment of these fees by 

 summary process, nor detain the parties until they be paid, but the 

 Clerk of the Peace is left to his remedy by action. 



(Dickinson, Quartet- Sessions ; Burn, Justice of the Peace.) 



CLERKS AND SERVANTS. [SERVANTS.] 



CLIENT (Cliens), apparently derived from the verb duo, " to li.sU-n 

 to," " to obey ; " though Dr. Ihne thinks that the derivation of the 

 word from colere (client quasi colonus) has a certain value, as serving to 

 mark out what he maintains, in opposition to Niebuhr, to be the fact 

 that the '.true clients supported themselves through their connexion 

 with agriculture. From the origin of the institutions of ancient Roma, 

 there appears to have existed the relation of patronage (palronatus) and 

 clientship (clientela). Romulus, the founder of Rome, was, according 

 to tradition, the founder of this institution. Ihne, however, endeavours 

 to maintain that the clientage was not an institution belonging exclu- 

 sively to Rome, called into life by the whim of a king, or the co- 

 operation of peculiar causes, but that it existed among all Italian 

 people, Sabines, Samnites, and Etrurians. (See ' Researches into the 

 History of the Roman Constitution,' by W. Ihne.) The cliens may 

 perhaps be compared with the vassal of the middle ages. Being a man 

 generally without possessions of his own, the client in such case 

 received from some patrician a part of his domains, as a precarious and 

 revocable possession. The client was under the protection of the 

 patrician of whom he held his lands, who in respect of such a relation 

 was named patron (patrnnus), that is, father of the family, as matnnu 

 was the mother, " in relation to their children and domestics, and to 

 their dependents, their clients." (Niebuhr.) It was formerly the 

 opinion that every plebeian was also a client to some patrician ; but 

 Niebuhr, in speaking with reference to the proposition that "the 

 patrons and clients made up the whole Roman people," affirms that the 

 " assertion is one the validity of which is not to be questioned, save 

 when it is carried too far. If we do not acknowledge that the plebeians 

 were free, and overlook the nature of the commonalty, it is both iaU> 

 and destructive of historical truth ; but it is perfectly true if applied 

 to the period before the commonalty was formed, when all the Romans 

 were comprised in the original tribes, each in his own house." In the 

 later times of the republic the clients probably, for the most part, con- 

 sisted of liberti and their descendants. Between the patron and his 

 client there existed mutual rights and obligations. The patron was 

 bound to take his client under his paternal protection ; to help him in 

 case of want and difficulty, and even to assist him with his property ; 

 to plead for him and defend him in suits. The client on his part was 

 bound in obedience to his patron, as a child to his parent ; to promote 

 his honour, assist him in all affairs ; to give his vote for him when he 

 sought any office, to ransom him when he was made prisoner and not 

 able to pay the ransom himself; and to contribute to the portion of 

 the patron's daughter. The patron succeeded to his property when 

 the client died without heirs; which was also the law of the twelve 

 tables in the case of a freedman (Ulpian., Fragm., tit. xxvii. S i., and 

 tit. xxix. i.) who died intestate and left no heir (mus hcrcs). Patnni 

 and client were not permitted to sue at law, or give evidence against 

 one another ; and so sacred were the duties of the patron towards his 

 client, that whoever trespassed against them was guilty of treason, and 

 devoted to the infernal gods (outlawed), so that any one might kill him 

 with impunity. 



Originally patricians only could be patrons ; but when, in the later 

 times of the republic, the plebeians had access to all the honours of the 

 state, clients also were attached to them. 



The terms patronui and lilierlus, or even patronm and clien-s, as used 

 in the later yeara of the republic, and under the emperors, cannot be 

 considered as expressing the same relation as the terms patron us and 

 cliens in the early ages of Rome, though the latter relation was pro- 

 bably derived from the earlier one. When a foreigner who came to 

 reside at Rome selected a patron, which, if not the universal, was the 

 comnfcn practice, he did no more than what every foreigner who settles 

 in a strange country often finds it his intereat to do. The existing 

 relationship at Rome between patron and client facilitated the for- 

 mation of similar relations between foreigners and Roman citizens; 

 the foreigner thus obtained a protector and perhaps a friend, and 

 the Roman increased his influence by becoming the patron of 

 men of letters and of genius. (See Cicero 'pro Archia," c. 3, and 

 ' De Oratore,' i. 39, on the 'Jus Applications ;' Dionysius ii. 9, 10. 

 See also Niebuhr, vol. i., p. 322, edition 1851, &c., and the references 

 in the notes. 



As a Roman Client was defended in law-suits by his patron, the word 

 client is used in modern times fur a party who is represented by a 

 hired counsellor or solicitor. 



CLIMATE is a word which has been transplanted from the Greek 

 into every modern European language. The Greek word K\l/j.a < 



