911 



INTKKMITTENT. 



1NTKUXATIONAL LAW. 



The early Christians followed the custom of the Romans in burying 

 outside of cities ; but they afterward) transferred their burial-places to 

 the vicinity of the churches and within towns, where they have con- 

 tinuedt o be generally aituated up to the present time, the churchyard 

 being the usual place of interment, though, when the church is sur- 

 rounded by houses, it is by no means a fit situation ; for the putrid 

 exhalations arising during the decomposition of animal bodies are in- 

 jurious to health, and capable of giving rise to, or at least of encouraging, 

 the progress of various pestilential disease, of which the most common 

 in this country are low nervous or typhus fevers. In all grounds used 

 for interment low wet places should be avoided, and care should be 

 taken that bodies are nut interred near wells or rivers from which 

 people are supplied with water. 



The subject of interment possesses considerable interest in a legal 

 point of view, for it is often of great importance to determine how long 

 a body has lain in the ground ; and by observing the changes which 

 naturally take place in bodies at different stages of decomposition, it is 

 possible in some cases to determine whether certain marks are the 

 result of decomposition, or the remains of injuries inflicted before 



a .:. 



The subject of interment attracted much attention in England for 

 many years, and a great amount of information was collected by a 

 special inquiry, of which the report was published by Edwin Chad- 

 wick, Esq. The report contains, in addition to the evidence on the 

 injurious effects of crowded burial places, much valuable information 

 on the injury to health caused, particularly among the poor, by the 

 delay in interments. Among the poor in some parts of London the 

 average time that a body is kept is about a week, which sometimes 

 arises from inability to raise money for the funeral expenses, as well as 

 other causes ; and where there is only a single apartment, the dead and 

 the living occupy it together. The injurious consequences to health 

 from the presence of a dead body, sometimes in a state of rapid decom- 

 position, in a small ill-ventilated apartment, and particularly when 

 death has been the consequence of malignant disease, cannot be dis- 

 puted ; and the moral effect on the living is demoralising. The expense 

 of funerals is another head which is examined in this report, where it 

 is well remarked that " the expense of interments, though it falls with 

 the greatest severity on the poorest classes, acts as a most severe 

 infliction on the middle classes of society." The cost of interment in 

 London varies from 4/. for a labourer, to 10002. for a gentleman ; for 

 persons of the condition of a gentleman it is stated that 1501. would be 

 a low average. But these charges do not include anything except the 

 undertaker's bill The account of the details of an expensive funeral, 

 " which is strictly the heraldic array of a baronial funeral, the two men 

 who stand at the doors being supposed to be the two porters of the 

 castle, with their staves in buck, ' &c., is ludicrous enough ; but the 

 disposition to laugh is checked by considering the pecuniary embarrass- 

 ment which this absurd display often entails on the survivors. 



The recognition of the numerous evils attendant on the usual church 

 and churchyard interments, led, in 1852, to the passing of the Act 

 15 & 16 Viet, cap. 85, " to amend the laws concerning the burial of 

 the dead in the Metropolis ; " and this was followed in the succeeding 

 year by the Act 16 & 17 Viet., cap. 134, for extending the provisions of 

 the Act of 1852 to places beyond the metropolis, in England and Wales. 

 Many other Acts for extending the powers or for regulating minor 

 details have followed.* In 1855 the 18 & 19 Viet., cap. 68, extended 

 the measure to Scotland, and the 19 & 20 Viet., cap. 8 (in 1856), to 

 Ireland. 



By these Acts ultra-mural interments are rapidly being discontinued. 

 In all towns or poor-law unions burial boards are constituted, with 

 iwwers to raise funds and provide cemeteries in proper places, to regu- 

 late fees, Ac., and to keep the burial-places in good order. Thu 

 secretary of state for the Homo department has the power of pro- 

 hibiting interments in any intra-mural burying-grouud which lie m .y 

 deem injurious to the surrounding community, inspectors are appointed, 

 and a system of extra-mural interment is extending itself throughout 

 the United Kingdom. No large towns in England, and few small ones, 

 are now without one or more cemeteries, selected with regard to con 

 T-enience and their sanitary qualifications; and it is stated that much 

 improvement has been already effected alike in the position and character 

 of the sites selected for the interment of the dead, and in the mode anc 

 expense of funerals. 



IB.] 



IXTKKXAL and EXTERNAL, geometrical terms applied to the 

 angles made by the aides of a bounded figure. The angle made by two 

 sides is an internal angle ; that made by a side and a aide produced is 

 an external angle. 



1XTEKXAT1ONAL LAW. This term was- originally applied by 

 Beotham to what was previously called the " law of nations," and it 

 has been generally received as a more apt designation than that which 

 it superseded, when the term " law of nations " was in use, that o 

 " law of peace and war" was sometimes employed as a synonym, anc 

 as indicative of the boundaries of the subject. It was thus in its 

 proper sense restricted to the disputes which governments might have 



TkM kav* bses) eellMted, with notes and cipUnntorjr remark*, under the 

 tiur of ' BrUl Acta, Metropolitan and Provincial,' tie., bj J. J. Scott, sq 

 (Krnicht ft Co., Fleet Mnet). 



with each other, and did not in general apply to questions between 

 ubjects of different states, arising out of the position of the states 

 with regard to each other, or out of the divergences in the internal laws 

 of the separate states. But under the more expressive designation, inter- 

 national law, the whole of these subjects, intimately connected with 

 each other as they will be found to be, can be comprehended and 

 examined, and thus several arbitrary distinctions and exclusions are 

 aved. To show how these subjects are interwoven, the following 

 nstances are taken : A port is put in a state of blockade ; a vessel of 

 war of a neutral power breaks the blockade : this is distinctly a ques- 

 ion between nations, to be provided for by the law of peace and war, 

 in as far as there are any consuetudinary rules on the subject, and the 

 larties will submit to them. But suppose a merchant vessel belonging 

 o a subject of a neutral power attempts an infringement of the blockade, 

 and is seized : here there is no question between nations in the first 

 dace. The matter is adjudicated on in the country which has made 

 .he seizure, as absolutely and unconditionally aa if it were a question 

 of internal smuggling ; and it will depend on the extent to which just 

 rules guide the judicature of that country, and not on any question 

 settled between contending powers, whether any respect will be paid to 

 what the party can plead in his own favour, on the ground of the 

 comity of nations, or otherwise. But there is a third class of cases 

 most intimately linked with these latter, but which are completely 

 ndependent of any treaties, declarations of war, or other acts by 

 nations towards each other. They arise entirely out of the internal 

 aws of the respective nations of the world, in as far as they differ 

 rom each other. The "conflict of laws" is a term very generally 

 applied to this branch of international law, and the circumstances in 

 which it comes into operation are when the judicial settlement "i tin' 

 question takes place in one country, but some of the circumstances of 

 which cognisance had to be taken have occurred in some other country 

 where the law applicable to the matter is different. One of the most 

 common illustrations of this subject is, a judicial inquiry in England 

 whether a marriage has taken place in Scotland according to the law of 

 that country ; or, an inquiry in Scotland whether a marriage has taken 

 place according to the law of England ; in either of which cases there 

 will generally be the further and nicer question, Which country's law 

 ought to prevail as the criterion ? 



Thus the three leading departments of international law are 



1. The principles that should regulate the conduct of states to each 

 other. 



2. The principles that should regulate the rights and obligations of 

 private parties, arising out of the conduct of states to each 



3. The principles that should regulate the rights and obligations of 

 private parties, when they are affected by the separate internal codes 

 of distinct nations. 



The first of these has been the principal subject of the well-known 

 works of Grotius, Puflendorf, Vattel, and other publicists, who have 

 derived from general principles of morality and justice a series of 

 minute abstract rules for the conduct of nations towards each other, 

 and subsidiarily for the conduct of their subjects in relation to inter- 

 national questions. 



It is clear that thus in its large features, aa a rule for the conduct of 

 independent communities towards each other, the law of nations wonts 

 one essential feature of that which is entitled to the term law a 

 binding authority. Nations even the most powerful are not wit limit 

 checks in the fear of raising hostile combinations and otherwise ; but 

 there can be no uniformity in these checks ; end in general wh 

 interest is of overwhelming importance, and the n ml, it 



takes its own way. The importance of the questions which may be 

 involved in the law of nations thus materially affects the question how 

 far it is uniformly obeyed. In many minor questions, such as the 

 safety of the persons of ambassadors, and their CM mptinn from respon- 

 sibility to the laws of the country to which they are accredited, and in 

 other matters of personal etiquette, a set of uniform rules has been 

 established by the practice of all the civilised world, which are rarely 

 infringed. But in the more important questions, regarding what is a 

 justifiable ground for declaring war ? what territory a nation is en 

 to the sovereignty of ? what is a legitimate mode of conducting a war 

 once commenced ? &c. the rules of the publicists arc often precise 

 enough ; but the practice of nations has been far from regular, and 

 has been, as every reader of history knows, influenced by the rel.it he 

 strength of the disputing parties more than by^liu justice of their 

 cause. The later writers on this subject have from this circumstance 

 directed their attention more to the means by which any y .- 1 

 international law can be enforced, than to minute and abstract state- 

 ments of what may be theoretical justice, but has little chance of 

 being enforced. They have found several circumstances which have 

 on influence in the preservation of international justice, though of 

 course no sanctions which can give it the uniformity and consistency 

 of internal laws. 



The combinations for the preservation of what is called the Balance 

 of Power [BALANCF. or POWER] are among the most useful restrictions 

 of ambition. All period* of history furnish illustrations of this 

 principle. Hume found that the Peloponneuan war was carried mi im- 

 the preservation of the balance of power against Athens. The war 

 with the French Uepublic and Empire exhibited a noted illustration 

 of combination to prevent universal conquest on the part of the 



