PI PE-CL AY PI RACY. 



567 



PIPE-CLAY. See Clay. 



PIPE, SMOKING. In Asia, the smoking of pipes is 

 much more general than that of cigars, though the 

 latter are also used, and called in India cheeroots. In 

 Russia, Poland, and Germany also, pipes are much 

 more common than cigars ; the Spaniards, Portu- 

 guese and Americans (both North and South), how- 

 ever, much prefer the cigars. Smoking-pipes are of 

 a great variety of kinds. The simplest, and one of 

 the most esteemed, is the clay-pipe. (See Clay.) 

 These are formed in moulds, the hollow in the tube 

 being 1 made by running up a wire; the pipes are then 

 dried and baked in a furnace moderately heated. 

 Another kind is made of one long cane, with a bowl 

 and mouth-piece, which is the usual form of Turkish 

 pipes: the mouth-piece is of amber, or a cheaper 

 composition resembling it. In Germany, there are 

 a great number of sorts of pipes, short, long, flexi- 

 ble, with bowls of wood, meerschaum, porcelain, 

 &c. The fine porcelain bowls are wrought with 

 much elegance, and are articles of very considerable 

 luxury. A German pipe generally consists of four 

 chief parts ; the mouth-piece, the tube, the bowl, 

 and a part which connects the two latter, and serves 

 to collect the juice descending from the tobacco, and 

 prevent it from getting into the tube. The Eastern 

 hookah, or houkar, is a very curious instrument, the 

 essential feature of which is, that the smoke passes 

 through water, loses the particles which give it an 

 unpleasant flavour, and becomes cool before it reaches 

 the mouth. The mode of effecting this is as follows : 

 From the bowl, which is on an air-tight vessel, half 

 filled with water, a small tube descends into the 

 water; in the side of the vessel the smoking-tube is 

 inserted, so that it communicates only with the air in 

 the vessel. If the smoker now withdraws the air in 

 the vessel, the atmosphere, pressing from without on 

 the bowl, forces the smoke of the burning" tobacco 

 through the small tube into the water, from which it 

 immediately bubbles up and enters the smoking tube, 

 which is generally very long and pliable. 



PIPERINE ; the active principles of pepper, a new 

 vegetable principle extracted from black pepper by 

 means of repeated digestions in alcohol. The solu- 

 tion is at length evaporated to dryness, when an 

 oily, resinous matter is obtained. This, on being 

 washed in warm water, becomes of a good green 

 colour. It has a hot and burning taste, dissolves 

 readily in alcohol, less so in ether. Concentrated 

 sulphuric acid gives it a fine scarlet colour. The 

 alcohol solution, after some days, deposits crystals, 

 which are purified by repeated crystallizations in al- 

 cohol and ether, when they form colourless four-sided 

 prisms, with single, inclined terminations. They 

 have scarcely any taste. Boiling water dissolves a 

 small portion of it, but it is insoluble in cold. They 

 are soluble in acetic acid, from which solution feather- 

 like crystals may be obtained. The fatty matter left, 

 after extracting the piperine, is solid at a tempera- 

 ture of 32, but liquefies at a slight heat. It has an 

 extremely bitter and acrid taste, is very slightly vol- 

 atile, and may be considered as being composed of 

 two oils, one volatile and balsamic, the other more 

 fixed, and containing the acrimony of pepper. 



PIPOWDERS COURT. See Courts. 



PIQUET ; a celebrated game at cards, played be- 

 tween two persons, with only thirty-two cards, all the 

 deuces, threes, fours, fives and sixes being set aside. 

 In reckoning at this game, every card goes for the 

 number which it bears, as a ten for a ten, and the 

 ace for eleven, only all court-cards go for ten, and the 

 usual game is one hundred up. In playing, the ace 

 wins the king, the king the queen, and so on. Twelve 

 cards are dealt round, usually by two and two ; 



which done, those that remain are laid in the middle. 

 For the rules of the game, see Hoyle. 



PIRACY is the crime of robbery and depredation 

 committed upon the high seas. It is an offence 

 against the universal law of society, a pirate being, 

 according to Sir Edward Coke, hunt is humani generis. 

 As, therefore, he has renounced all the benefits of 

 society and government, and has reduced himself to 

 the savage state of nature, by declaring war against 

 all mankind, all mankind must declare war against 

 him ; so that every community has a right, by the 

 rule of self-defence, to inflict that punishment upon 

 him which every individual would, in a state of nature 

 otherwise have been entitled to do, for any invasion 

 of his person, or personal property. By various 

 statutes in England and the United States of America, 

 other offences are made piracy. Thus, if a subject 

 of either of these nations commits any act of hostility 

 against a fellow-subject on the high seas, under 

 colour of a commission from any foreign power, this 

 is an act of piracy. So if any captain of any vessel, 

 or mariner, run away with the vessel, or the goods, 

 or yield them up to a pirate voluntarily, or if any 

 seaman lay violent hands on his commander, to 

 hinder him from fighting in defence of the ship 

 or goods committed to his charge, or make a revolt 

 in the ship, these offences are acts of piracy, by the 

 laws of England. By the statute of 8 George I. c. 

 24, the trading or corresponding with known pirates, 

 or the forcibly boarding any merchant vessel (though 

 without seizing her or carrying her off), and destroy- 

 ing any of the goods on board, are declared to be 

 acts of piracy ; and by the statute 18 George II. c. 

 30, any natural born subject, or denizen, who, in 

 time of war, shall commit any hostilities, at sea, 

 against any of his fellow-subjects, or shall assist an 

 enemy, on that element, is liable to be punished as 

 a pirate. By statute of George II. c. 25, the ran- 

 soming of any neutral vessel, which has been taken 

 as a prize, by the commander of a private ship of war, 

 is declared to be piracy. By the act of parliament 

 passed March 31, 1824, the slave-trade is also declared 

 to be piracy. In the time of Richard I L I. by the laws 

 of Oleron, all infidels were regarded as pirates, and 

 their property liable to seizure wherever found. By 

 the law of nations, the taking of goods by piracy does 

 not divest the actual owner of the property. By the 

 civil institutions of Spain and Venice, ships taken 

 from pirates become the property of those who re- 

 take them. Piracy is every where pursued and pun- 

 ished with death, and pirates can gain no rights by 

 conquest. It is of no importance, for the purpose 

 of giving jurisdiction in cases of piracy, on whom or 

 where a piratical offence is committed. A pirate, 

 who is one by the law of nations, may be tried and 

 punished in any country where he may be found ; 

 for he is reputed to be out of the protection of all 

 laws. But if the statute of any government declares 

 an offence, committed on board one of their own 

 vessels, to be piracy, such an offence will be punish- 

 ed exclusively by the nation which passes the statute. 

 In England, the offence was formerly cognizable only 

 by the admiralty courts, which proceeded without a 

 jury, in a method founded upon the civil law. But, 

 by the statute of Henry VIII. c. 15. it was enacted that 

 piracy should be tried by commissioaers nominated 

 by the lord chancellor, the indictment being first 

 found by a grand jury of twelve men, and afterwards 

 tried by another jury, as at common law. Among 

 the commissioners, there are always some of the com 

 mon law judges. 



Piracy, in tiie common sense 'of the word, is dis- 

 tinguished from privateering, by the circumstance 

 that the pirate sails without any commission, and mi- 



