532 



BILEDULGEIUD BILL OF EXCHANGE. 



in the gall-bladders of men ami animals. They are 

 more rarely ir.et witli in tlie substance and Ixxiy of 

 tlic liver. Those tliat are fourul in tin- liuman sub- 

 ieet consist, principally, of that prciiliur substance, 

 called by Fourcroy, adipocire. They arc of a white 

 greyish- brown, or black colour. The calculi found in 

 the gall-bladders of quadrupeds have In en thought to 

 consist alino>t entirely of inspissated bile ; but, though 

 much less complicated Uian corresponding concretions 

 in the human subject, they must contain something 

 more than the inspissated fluid, since they are inso- 

 luble, both in alcohol and water. 



BiLEPUuiRKin (llhelad at Dsherid, country of dates) ; 

 a country in northern Africa, south of mount Atlas, 

 bounded on the mirth by Tunis, on the west by Al- 

 giers and the Sahara, on the east by Tripoli; sup- 

 posed to be about 180 miles square. In the desert 

 are oases (q. v.), which are cultivated and watered 

 lite gardens. At the foot of mount Atlas, the winds 

 which come from these mountains allay the heat of 

 the climate. The chief product of the oases are bar- 

 ley of an excellent kind, used by the caravans, and 

 dates, which are no where else so excellent. Much 

 dew falls in the oases, rain but seldom. All the 

 productions of the tropics, which can ripen with- 

 out rain, grow here in abundance. The Berbers 

 who live here, as likewise the Negroes and Arabs, 

 carry on trade by means of caravans. A large pro- 

 portion of the young men are destroyed by the change 

 of climate to which they are thus exposed, as 

 also by bad nourishment and epidemic fevers. Cer- 

 tain parts of this country, called Dara, Tasilet, and 

 Segelmesse, belong to Morocco ; to Algiers belongs 

 Wadreag, and to Tunis Tozer. Gademes, Welled- 

 Sidi, and Mosselemis are independent. Little is 

 known of the customs, laws, c., of the inliabitants 

 of Biledulgerid. 



BILIN, mineral spring of; a celebrated spring near 

 the town of Bilin, in Bohemia. The water is clear, 

 has a sourish taste, and mantles, particularly if mixed 

 with wine and sugar. The temperature of the spring 

 is 59 Fahrenheit. The water is used with advan- 

 tage in many complaints. 



BILIOUS FEVER. See Fever. 



BILL OF EXCHANGE is a written request or order to 

 one person to pay a certain sum of money to another, 

 or to his order, at all events ; that is, without any 

 qualification or condition. The person who makes 

 the bill is called the drawer; the. person to whom it 

 is addressed, the drawee, and the person to whom, or 

 whose order, on the face of the bill, it is payable, the 

 payee. If the drawee accepts the bill, he thereby 

 becomes the acceptor. A promissory note differs 

 from a bill of exchange in being merely a promise to 

 pay money by the maker, instead of being a request 

 to another person to pay it to the payee. The ex- 

 pression promissory note is not strictly confined to 

 negotiable notes, or those payable " to bearer," or to 

 the payee named in it, " or his order," but is more 

 frequently used to denote such instruments ; and we 

 shall consider promissory notes in this sense in the 

 present article, since the same rules and principles 

 are, in a great degree, applicable to such notes and 

 to bills of exchange. The maker of the note an- 

 swers to the acceptor of the bill, since he is the party 

 projnising to pay it ; whereas the maker or drawer 

 of a bill of exchange does not directly promise, on 

 the face of the instrument, to pay it, but merely re- 

 quests the drawee to do so : this is, however, con- 

 strued to be a virtual promise that the drawee, on 

 the presentment of the bill for acceptance, and de- 

 mand of payment according to its tenor, will pay it, 

 and a conditional virtual promise, that he, the 

 drawer, will pay it, in case of the drawee's failing 

 either to accept it on due presentment, or to pay it 



on due demand. Rank checks are of a character 

 similar to promissory negotiable notes, as to the rules 

 by which the liabilities and rights of the parties In 

 them are determined, with this ditlerencc in their 

 common form, that promissory notes are usually 

 made payable to the payee or " his order," whereas 

 checks, as also bank notes, are usually made pay- 

 able to the " bearer," and the right to demand and 

 receive payment of them is transferred from one 

 person to another by mere delivery, without any in- 

 dorsement or written order by the original payee ; 

 while the transfer or assignment of a promissory note 

 or bill of exchange is made by the payee in writing, 

 either by indorsement or otherwise. He usually 

 merely writes his name on the back, whereby lie 

 becomes the indorser, and the person to whom it is 

 thus indorsed or assigned, who is called the indorsee, 

 lias a right to fill up this blank indorsement by writ- 

 ing over it an order to pay the contents to himself in- 

 to any other person ; and any bonafide holder of the 

 note or bill has the same right to fill up the indorse- 

 ment or assignment. Thus a note or bill of exchange, 

 being once indorsed in blank, becomes assignable or 

 transferable, like a check payable to " bearer," 

 merely by delivery of the instrument. It is an es- 

 sential quality of a negotiable bill, note, or check, 

 that it be a promise to pay a certain sum of money, 

 and that the promise be absolute ; for if no defi- 

 nite amount is fixed, or it be a promise to deliver 

 goods or do any other act than pay money, or if it 

 be conditional, it is not a bill of exchange, or nego- 

 tiable promissory note, or check. Besides the trans- 

 fer by indorsement above mentioned, these instru- 

 ments are also transferable by assignment, or mere 

 delivery, so as to give the holder all the rights, 

 against the maker or acceptor, that he would have 

 had if he had himself been the payee. Where the 

 transfer is made by mere delivery, the assigner is 

 exempt from all liability to the holder on the paper 

 itself ; he makes no promise to pay the money, but 

 still he, in effect, warrants that it is the bill, note, or 

 check, which it purports to be ; for if it be a forged 

 instrument, if it be not bona fide, the bill, note, or 

 check, which it purports to be, he will be liable to 

 indemnify the person to whom he transferred it. 

 But if the transfer be made by an indorsement in 

 writing, without any condition or exception, being 

 an absolute order to pay the money to the indorsee 

 or holder, the indorser in this case becomes in his 

 turn a promiser ; for he thereby virtually promises, 

 that, in case the maker of the note or check, or 

 the drawer or acceptor of the bill, does not pay 

 on due demand, or in case the drawee does not ac- 

 cept it, if it be a bill, on presentment, according to 

 its tenor, then he, the indorser, will pay it. 



Though the forms of bills of exchange, promissory 

 notes, checks, and bank-notes, are, respectively, 

 pretty uniform, yet no precise form of words is ne- 

 cessary to constitute either of these instruments. 

 Any words, purporting to be an absolute promise to 

 pay a certain sum of money, or an absolute order for 

 its payment to a particular person or his order, or tc 

 the bearer, is either a bill of excliange, promissory 

 note, or check. 



Bills of exchange are, in England, either inland, 

 that is, payable in the kingdom, or foreign, that is, 

 payable out of the kingdom. A similar distinction 

 is made in the United States, where, in most of the 

 states, a bill payable in the state in winch it is made 

 is considered to be inland. The material distinction 

 between foreign and inland bills is, that on inland 

 bills, a protest for non-acceptance or non-payment is 

 not usually necessary, and that less damages can lie 

 claimed in consequence of the dishonour of, the bill, 

 if, indeed, any can be claimed. Generally, in fact 



