EX POST FACTO 



2116 



EXTERRITORIALITY 



purposes, for most buildings are torn down 

 after the exposition closes. Nearly every ex- 

 position has left one permanent building or 

 structure as a memorial. The Eiffel Tower 

 and the magnificent Alexander III Bridge at 

 Paris, the Memorial Art Gallery at Philadel- 

 phia, the German Building in Jackson Park, 

 Chicago, and the Art Gallery at Saint Louis 

 are monuments of past expositions. W.F.Z. 



Related Subject*. The following expositions 

 are given space in these volumes: 

 Alaska- Yukon-Pacific Panama-Pacific 

 Centennial International 



Lewis and Clark Pan-American 



Louisiana Purchase World's Columbian 



"EX POST FACTO. This phrase is Latin, 

 and literally means from something done after- 

 ward. A law, for example, under which a man 

 could be punished for a deed committed before 

 the act was passed, is an ex post facto law. In 

 its broadest sense the term applies to any 

 law which changes the status of the past, that 

 is, any law which is retroactive, making a deed 

 a crime which was not a crime when com- 

 mitted. The Constitution of the United States 

 expressly forbids the passage of ex post facto 

 laws by the Congress. 



EXPRESS COMPANY, an association or 

 corporation which undertakes the transporta- 

 tion of small parcels and goods upon payment 

 of fees. Such an enterprise is distinctly of 

 American growth and has no counterpart in 

 Europe, where the parcel post and railroads 

 perform express services. In 1839 William F. 

 Harnden advertised tha't he would undertake 

 the transportation of small parcels and money 

 between New York and Boston. His venture 

 grew to large proportions and was copied by 

 others, with the result that in a few years 

 parcels and money could be sent to all parts of 

 the United States, and eventually to many 

 countries of the world, through express com- 

 panies. Provisions for the issue and payment 

 of money orders and the introduction of meth- 

 ods by which goods are paid for on delivery, 

 still further increased the operations of express 

 companies. Money orders and letters of credit 

 issued by express companies are used by people 

 abroad and prove of great convenience. 



Express companies accept responsibility for 

 loss or damage to articles they agree to carry, 

 the amount of their liability being stated on 

 the receipt handed to the shipper. In 1912 

 it was estimated that the four largest of the 

 American express companies represented an 

 investment of more than $40,000,000, with gross 



receipts amounting to nearly $132,000,000 

 yearly. 



The introduction of the parcel post (which 

 see) January 1, 1913, by the United States 

 government as a branch of the Postoffice De- 

 partment, seriously affected the business of 

 the express companies. 



EXTEN'SION, in physics, is that property 

 of matter by virtue of which it occupies space. 

 Every material object, even the most minute, 

 occupies a certain amount of space and has 

 dimensions of length, breadth and thickness. 

 A line having no breadtfy is imaginary; the 

 thinnest sheet of paper has a certain thickness 

 or it could not materially exist. The two units 

 used in the measurement of extension are the 

 English yard and the international meter. See 

 PHYSICS; MATTER. 



EXTERRITORIALITY, ex ter ri to ri al'i ti. 

 If the ambassador from Russia drives an auto- 

 mobile in the streets of Washington at a speed 

 of sixty miles an hour the police will not arrest 

 him. In theory he is not in the United States 

 at all, and is subject only to the laws of his 

 own nation. If he persists in disregarding 

 American regulations, the American govern- 

 ment may request that he be called back to 

 Russia, but so long as he remains in the United 

 States he and all his family and his retinue 

 are free to act as they please. This is an 

 extreme illustration, but states a legal condi- 

 tion; as a matter of fact, diplomats scrupu- 

 lously observe the laws of the country to which 

 they are accredited. 



This doctrine that certain persons carry their 

 country with them wherever they go is called 

 exterritoriality. It applies first of all to 

 sovereigns, for of course no ruler could ever 

 subject himself to the orders of a foreign 

 power. Secondly, it concerns ambassadors and 

 other diplomats; they are the personal repre- 

 sentatives of sovereigns and derive a certain 

 sacredness of character from traditions of her- 

 alds, who from prehistoric to modern times 

 were able to come and go in enemy camps 

 without harm. Thirdly, exterritoriality ap- 

 plies, with limits, to ships and armies of for- 

 eign governments; in this case immunity is a 

 matter of courtesy, not of right, and a visiting 

 ship or army must do nothing to violate the 

 neutrality of its host. Last of all, the rights 

 of exterritoriality are granted by treaty to 

 citizens of the great powers by some of the 

 non-Christian countries. Thus, British or 

 American citizens in China or Turkey are 

 tried by courts of their own countrymen. 



