its 



FORGERY. 



FORMEDON. 



166 



frame which carries the forge-hearth, and connected with the frame is 

 a system of shafts, speed-wheels, pinions, &c., to move the piece of 

 metal which is to be acted on, and also the hammer. There is a 

 blowing-fail making sixteen hundred revolutions in a minute. The 

 boiler for the steam-engine is over the hearth. The forge-anvil is 

 placed by itself on the floor, at the other end of the machine. The 

 hammers are attached to levers on a horizontal shaft in the hearth- 

 frame, and are set in motion by the steam cylinder, through the 

 medium of a long sliding rod which strikes the tail of the lever or 

 levers. Hand-gear is provided for working the hammers if steam- 

 power should not be available. 



FORGERY is the false making, counterfeiting, altering, or uttering 

 any instrument or writing with a fraudulent intent, whereby another 

 may be defrauded. The offence is complete by the making the forged 

 instrument with a fraudulent intent though it be not published or 

 uttered, and the publishing or uttering of the instrument, knowing it 

 to be forged, is punished in the same manner as the making or 

 counterfeiting. 



It U by no means necessary to bring the offence within the legal 

 meaning of the term forgery, that the name of any person should be 

 counterfeited, though this is the most common mode in which the 

 crime is committed ; thus a man is guilty of forgery who antedates a 

 deed for the purpose of defrauding other parties, though he signs his 

 own name to the instrument ; and the offence is equally complete, if 

 a man being instructed to make the will of another, inserts provisions 

 of his own authority. In truth the offence consists in the fraud and 

 deceit. 



At common law the crime of forgery was only a misdemeanour, but 

 as the commerce of the country increased and paper credit became 

 proportionally extended, many severe laws were enacted, which in 

 most cases made the offence a capital felony. 



The extreme severity of these laws tended to defeat their object, 

 and parties very frequently chose rather quietly to sustain the loss 

 inflicted upon them by the commission of the offence, than by a prose- 

 cution to subject the offender to the loss of life. This feeling, and 

 the diffusion of the truth, that the object of all laws is to prevent 

 crime and not merely to punish, has caused successive mitigations in 

 the laws relating to forgery, and now by various statutes, particularly 

 the 11 Geo. IV., and 1 Will IV. c. 66 ; 2 &3 Will. IV. c. 59, and 1 Viet. 

 c. 84, the punishment of death is abolished in tesea of forgery, and a 

 punishment varying between transportation for life (now penal servi- 

 tude) and imprisonment for one year is substituted. 



(1 Hawk, P. C. : Russell on Crime ; Deacon's Criminal Law.) 



FORK (Anglo-Saxon fore ; the same as the Latin furca), an instru- 

 ment divided at the end into two or more prongs for various uses, 

 especially for the table. Addison speaks of a thunderbolt with three 

 forks. It is sometimes used for an arrow, and in old English for a 

 gallows or gibbet. Butler, in his ' Remains ' (ii. 195), says, " They had 

 run through all punishments, and just 'scaped the fork." The furca 

 was an instrument of punishment among the Romans. Criminals con- 

 victed of serious crimes were fastened to it and then scourged to death ; 

 but it was also used for slighter punishments, and for some offences 

 slaves were condemned always to carry it about with them : hence 

 the use of the word " f urcifer " as a term of reproach. 



The agricultural or dung-fork, and a large fork for the flesh-pot, 

 were the only implements of this name apparently in use among our 

 early ancestors. The first mention of table or eating forks is probably 

 found in the ' Chronicon Placentinum ' of John de Mussis (' Muratori," 

 vol. xvi., p. 584), a writer of the early part of the 15th century, who, 

 when speaking of the luxuries of the people of Piacenza recently intro- 

 duced, says, " they use cups, and spoons, and little forts of silver " 

 (" gt utuntur taciis, cugiariis, et forcellis argenti "). But the fork must 

 have been in use in some parts of Italy some centuries earlier, if 

 Alberti (' Urbis Venetae Descriptio,' Venice, 1626, p. 2211 be correct in 

 asserting that it was regarded as a mark of pride in the wife of the 

 Doge Domenico Silvio, who flourished towards the close of the llth 

 century, that she would not use her fingers, but employed a fork in 

 eating (" cibum non digitis sed furcilli* aureis caperet "). Coryate, in 

 his 'Crudities' (edit. 1611, p. 90), announces himself as the person 

 who introduced this Italian fashion into England. He says, " Here I 

 will mention a thing that might have been spoken of before, in dis- 

 course of the first Italian town. I observed a custom in all those 

 Italian cities and towns through the which I passed, that is not used in 

 any other country that I saw in my travels ; neither do I think that 

 any other nation of Christendom doth use it, but only Italy. The 

 Italian, and also most strangers that are commorant in Italy, do always 

 at their meals use a little fork when they cut their meat. For while 

 with their knife, which they hold in one hand, they cut the meat out 

 of Uie dish, they fasten their fork, which they hold in their other hand, 

 upon 'the same dish, so that whatsoever he be that, sitting in the com- 

 pany of any others at meal, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meat 

 with his fingers from which all at the table do cut, he will give occasion 

 of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of good 

 manners, insomuch that for his error he shall be at the least brow- 

 beaten, if not reprehended in words. This form of feeding, I under- 

 stand, is generally used in all places of Italy, their forks being, for the 

 most part, made of iron or steel, and some of silver, but those are used 

 only hy gentlemen. The reason of this their curiosity is, because the 



Italian cannot by any means endure to have his dish touched with 

 fingers, seeing all men's fingers are not alike clean. Hereupon I myself 

 thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by this forked cutting of 

 meat, not only while I was in Italy, but also in Germany, and often- 

 times in England since I came Home : being once quipped for that 

 frequent using of my fork, by a certain learned gentleman, a familiar 

 friend of mine, one M. Laurence Whitaker, who, in his merry humour, 

 doubted not to call me at table fttrcifer, only for using a fork at feed- 

 ing, but for no other cause." Coryate's testimony is confirmed by 

 Fynes Morison, in his 'Itinerary ' (P. i., p. 208, fol., 1617), who, speaking 

 of his bargain with the patron of the vessel which conveyed him from 

 Venice to Constantinople, says, " he gave us good diet, serving each 

 man with his knife, a spoon, and a fork." Ben Jonson, in ' The Divell 

 is an Asse ' (act v. so. 4), makes Mere-Craft speak of his " pains at 

 court" to get a patent for his "project" for " the laudable use of forks, 

 brought into custom here as they are in Italy, to the sparing of nap- 

 kins ; " and that they are to be " of gold and silver for the better 

 personages, and of steel for the common sort." See also his ' Volpone,' 

 act. iv. so. 1. 



Even when Heylin published his ' Cosmography,' in 1652, forks for 

 the table were still a novelty : see his third book, where, having spoken 

 of the ivory sticks used by the Chinese, he adds, " the use of silver 

 forks with us by some of our spruce gallants taken up of late, came 

 from hence into Italy, and from thence into England." 



FORM. Everything that exists may collectively be termed the 

 " something," in opposition to the " nothing." This " something " 

 divides itself into four great divisions, namely, things, ideas, forms, 

 and appearances. Form is the manner and mode in which a thing is 

 presented to our conceptions. Things are of two descriptions : imma- 

 terial, as faculties and intellect ; and material, as matter and bodies. 

 The forms of the immaterial things are called categories ; the forms 

 of the material we may call figures ; the form of appearances retains 

 the name of form ; and ideas are formless. The categories, according 

 to the opinion of the writer (founded upon those of Aristotle, Kant, 

 and many others), are the following : 1. Categories of position, to 

 be, not to be, and to become ; 2. Categories of quality, substance, 

 accident, and mode; 3. Categories of relation, cause, effect, and 

 action and reaction ; 4. Categories of quantity, universality, multi- 

 plicity, and unity. The logical categories are possibility, actuality, and 

 necessity. [CATEGORY.] The figures, on account of their variety, do 

 not admit of being classified, yet we may divide them according to 

 the senses, into shapes, colours, sounds, smells, and tastes, and into the 

 different modes of feeling. 



Form is distinguished from the real nature of things, and, considered 

 hi this point of view, the idea of form is practically used in common 

 speech and in science. Thus we speak of. a form of law, a form of 

 government, a beautiful form, a logical form, &c. Whoever esteems the 

 form of anything more highly than the thing itself, or through narrow- 

 mindedness confounds the one with the other, is a formalist, as many 

 learned men and official persons are. 



FORMA PAUPERIS. By stat. 11 Hen. VII. every poor person 

 shall have original writs or subpoenas, without paying for writing or 

 sealing the same ; and the judges of all courts of record, where such 

 suit shall be carried on, are authorised to assign clerks to write, and 

 counsel and attorney to act for such person, without taking any 

 reward. It is discretionary with the court to grant this indulgence, 

 but it is rarely refused upon petition, supported by affidavit that the 

 petitioner is not worth 51. in the world after paying his just debts, 

 exclusive of his wearing apparel, and the right to the matter in con- 

 troversy, and by a certificate by a barrister that he has good cause of 

 action or suit. The Court of Chancery has from an early period 

 permitted parties to sue and defend as paupers upon the same con- 

 ditions as the courts of law, though in that court, it seemg, if the 

 party be in possession of the subject matter in dispute, and that should 

 be worth more than 51., he cannot except it in his affidavit, and there- 

 fore will not be regarded as a pauper. The privilege may be granted 

 either at the commencement of the suit, or at any period of its progress, 

 but if granted during the pendency of the suit, it has no retrospective 

 effect, and the party is not relieved from the costs previously incurred. 



A person allowed to sue in forma paupcris pays neither for stamps, 

 nor fees to the officers of the court, but if he obtains a verdict with 

 damages above 51, the officers take the fees. In case of improper or 

 vexatious conduct on the part of the pauper, the courts will deprive 

 him of the privilege, which is called dispaupering him ; but it seems 

 that in such cases a pauper plaintiff is never ordered to pay costs to the 

 defendant, though, according to Blackstone, a pauper, if non-suited in 

 his action, formerly had his election either to be whipped or pay costs. 



FORMEDON (a compound of the two Latin words formam doni), 

 one of the many writs in use under the old law for commencing a real 

 action, before the more convenient mode of trying titles to land by 

 ejectment was established. [EJECTMENT.] It was the peculiar remedy 

 of a tenant in tail, who claimed per formam doni, and the highest he 

 could have, and was therefore called tenant in tail's writ of right. The 

 writ of right was granted to such only as claimed the fee simple, for 

 which reason the statute De Donis (Westm. 2, 13 Ed. I.) gave this writ 

 to tenants in tail. Together with all the others used for the com- 

 mencement of real actions, it was abolished by stat. 3 & 4 Will. IV 

 c. 27, . 36. 



