PRIPET 



634O 



PRISON COMMISSION 



Pripet. River of W. Russia. 

 Rising in the swamps of W. Volhy- 

 nia, it traverses the govts. of 

 Minsk and Kiev, and after flowing 

 through vast tracts of almost un- 

 inhabited country, the Pinsk or 

 Pripet marshes, falls into the Dnie- 

 per, 50 m. N. of Kiev. It is navig- 

 able to Pinsk, and is connected by 

 canals with the Niemen and Vis- 

 tula. Its length is about 500 m. 

 During the Great War the district 

 was prominent in the fighting 

 between the Germans and Rus- 

 sians, engagements taking place 

 at various points, Sept., 1915, a 

 Russian force being driven back to 

 the marshes where further pursuit 

 was impossible. See Lutsk,Battles of. 



Priscillian (d. 385). .Spanish 

 heretic. A man of birth, fortune, 

 eloquence, and learning, his teach- 

 ing appears to have been an ad- 

 mixture of Gnostic and Mani- 

 chaean doctrines. He exerted in- 

 fluence at the court of the emperor 

 Gratian, and by two bishops, whom 

 he converted to his views, was 

 made bishop of Avila. The civil 

 power being invoked, Priscillian and 

 several of his followers were, by 

 order of Maximus, put to death at 

 Treves, the first victims of a crim- 

 inal prosecution for heresj'. S. 

 Martin of Tours, and S. Ambrose, 

 while disavowing sympathy with 

 Priscillianism, entered a protest 

 against capital punishment for 

 heresy. The sect founded by 

 Priscillian existed until about 560. 

 The term Priscillianists is some- 

 times applied to the Montanists 

 from an earl}' prophetess of Mon- 

 tanism (q.v.) called Priscilla. See 

 Priscillien et le Priscillianisme, E. 

 C. Babut, 1909. 



Priscus, HELVIDIUS. Roman 

 statesman who lived in the 1st cen- 

 tury A.D. Sn-in-law of Thrasea 

 Paetus (q.v. ), whom he resembled 

 in his disgust for the imperial regime 

 and regret for the old republic, his 

 attitude made him obnoxious to 

 Nero, and he suffered banishment 

 when his father-in-law was put to 



death in 66. He subsequently 

 returned to Rome, but his too 

 openly expressed sentiments in- 

 curred the disapproval of the 

 emperor Vespasian, and he was 

 again banished and soon after- 

 wards put to death. 



Prishtina OR PRISTINA. Town of 

 Yii<_ r u-Slavia, in Serbia. Situated 

 on the E. side of the Kossovo 

 Plain, it is 60 m. N. of tJskiib 

 close to the rly. from tJskiib to 

 Mitrovitsa. In normal times it 

 has a fair trade in grain and wine. 

 It was captured by the Serbs from 

 the Turks on Oct. 22, 1912. 

 During the Great War it was occu- 

 pied by the Austro-Germans, Nov. 

 26, 1915, and reoccupied by the 

 Allies in Oct., 1918. Pop. 10,000. 



Prism (Gr. prisma, something 

 sawn). Semi-regular solid. The 

 two faces or bases are equal poly- 

 gons, and the lateral faces par- 

 allelograms. A right prism has 

 the lateral faces perpendicular to 

 the bases. If the bases are regular 

 polygons, and the prism is also a 

 right prism, it is called a regular 

 prism. The prism used in optics 

 is usually a triangular prism, i.e. 

 its bases are triangles. In the figure 

 A is a source of light and A B a 

 ray which is deflected along B C to 



the eye, D, of the observer, by the 

 prism G E F. The light appears to 

 the observer to be in the line D C H. 

 See Binocular ; Crystallography ; 

 Dispersion; Optics; Spectrum. 



Prison. Place where persons 

 are confined or restrained in their 

 liberty. Prisons as places of deten- 

 tion are prehistoric, though prisons 

 exclusively for the reception of 

 .,fj priminals as apart from 

 r-i x x % political prisoners are 



:: s *^ comparatively mod- 

 ern; the 

 prison 

 s y s t em 



Prism. Diagram illus- 

 trating bow rays of D 

 light are deflected. .See 

 text 



of punishment is chiefly a product 

 of the 19th century. Prisons were, 

 in fact, originally places of deten- 

 tion and not of punishment. See 

 Bastille ; Dartmoor ; Millbank ; 

 Newgate; Pentonville; Tower, etc. ; 

 also Borstal System ; Criminology ; 

 Penology ; Reformatory. 



Prison Breaking. In English 

 law, the breaking out from any 



Elace by a prisoner who is being 

 iwfully detained upon a charge 



Prison. Circular, centrally controlled prison in Illinois, U.S.A., based on 



penological principles. Top, right, interior, showing guard's controlling tower 



from which a view of every cell is obtained 



of, or under sentence for, a felony 

 or misdemeanour. The place need 

 not be a prison, but there must be 

 an actual breaking in the legal 

 sense, as distinct from escaping. 

 In Scotland the offence is confined 

 to escaping from prisons and does 

 not apply to other places of deten- 

 tion. The escape may be in any 

 manner, and is not confined to 

 actual breaking out. 



Prison Commission. Depart- 

 ment of the home office which 

 looks after the convict prisons in 

 England and Wales. It consists of 



