n a i 



204 



BAT 



SiiiifT, sworn to take distresses, truly impanel jurors, make 

 "Y- returns by indenture between them and sheriffs, &c. 

 and shall be liable to punishment for malicious dis- 

 tresses, by fine and treble damages. 12 Edw. II. 

 St. 1. c. 5 ; 14 Edw. III. St. 1. c. 9; 20 Edw. III. 

 c. 8; 1 Edw. III. st. 1. c. 5; 2 Edw. III. c. 4; 

 5 Edw. 111. c. 4; 11 Hen. VII. c. 15; 27 Hen. 

 VI II. c. 21 ; !i Geo. I. c. 15, j 10. 



Bailiffs of Sheriffs, or sheriff's officers, are cither 

 bailiffs of hundreds, or special bailiffs. Bailiffs of 

 hundreds are officers appointed by the sheriffs to col- 

 lect fines in their respective districts ; to summon 

 juries ; to attend the judges and justices at the as- 

 sizes and quarter sessions ; and also to execute writs 

 and processes in the several hundreds. But as these 

 bailiffs of hundreds are generally plain men, and not 

 thoroughly skilful in this latter part of their office, 

 it is now usual to join special bailiffs with them. 

 The sheriff being answerable for the misdemeanors 

 f these bailiffs, they are therefore usually bound in 

 a bond for the due execution of their offices, and are 

 thence called bound bailiff's ; which the common peo- 

 ple have corrupted into a much more homely appella- 

 tion. 



Bailiffs of lords of manors, are those that collect 

 their rents, and levy their fines and amercements, Sec. 



Bailiffs of Courts Baron, summon those courts, 

 and execute the process thereof, &c. 



Bailiffs of husbandry, are the officers belonging to 

 private persons of property, who superintend the in- 

 ferior servants, regulate their labour, &c. 



Bailiff, Water, is an officer anciently established 

 in all seaport towns, for the searching of ships. 

 28 Hen. VI. c. 5. 



Such an officer still exists in the city of London, 

 who supervises and searches all fish brought thither, 

 and gathers the toll oir the river Thames. He also 

 attends the Lord Mayor in his excursions by water, 

 and marshals the guests at table. He can also arrest 

 for debt, &c. on the river Thames, by warrant of 

 his superiors. 



There are different other denominations of bailiffs 

 to be met with in this and other countries ; such as, 

 provincial, royal, itinerant, and heritable bailiffs ; 

 Uailiffs of France, of tbe empire, of boroughs, &c. 

 SeeBlackst. Comment. Jacob's Law Diet, (z) 



BAILLY, Jean Sylvain, a celebrated French 

 astronomer, was born at Paris on the 15th September 

 1736. A genius for painting having been heredi- 

 tary in the family for four successive generations, 

 Bailly was bred to the profession of his ancestors, 

 and made considerable progress in that delightful art. 

 A passion, however, for poetry, and other branches 

 f literature, distracted the attention of the young 

 artist, and unfitted him forthat intense and nndeviat- 

 ing application to the practice of his art which can 

 alone raise the painter to opulence and fame. 



The friends of Bailly soon perceived that his mind 

 was bent upon subjects foreign to his profession, and 

 regretted that a genius so promising and ardent should 

 be chained down to the practice of an art when it 



aimed at the highest flights of literature and science. 

 An accidental acquaintance with the celebrated as- 

 tronomer La Caille, determined the general train of 

 lilies, and inspired him with the most passionate 

 enthusiasm for the science of astronomy. His first 

 effort in this new career was the calculation of the 

 orbit of the famous comet of 1759, which was pub- 

 lished in the memoirs of the academy for that year. 

 On the 29th January, 1763, Bailly was admitted a 

 member of the academy of sciences, and in the same 

 year lie published three memoirs on the theory of 

 Jupiter's satellites, and his reduction of the numerous 

 observations made by La Caille in 1760 and 1761, 

 on 515 zodiacal stars. These reductions were pub- 

 lished in 1763, at the beginning of the Ephcmendes 

 computed by La Caille for the years 1765 1771. 



The importance which was now attached to the 

 method of finding the longitude by the eclipses of 

 Jupiter's satellites, turned the attention of astrono- 

 mers to the theory of these secondary planets. This 

 interesting subject was proposed by the academy as 

 the prize question for 1764, and Bailly engaged in 

 the investigation with the utmost ardour. In- the 

 illustrious La Grange, however^ who was almost ex- 

 actly of the name age with himself, he found a for- 

 midable and a successful rival. In applying the prob- 

 lem of the three bodies to the satellites of Jupiter, 

 Bailly considered only the action of one satellite upon 

 another, while La Grange viewed the subject in a 

 more general aspect, and took into account the mu- 

 tual derangements of all the four satellites. The 

 results of Bailly's investigations were published in 

 1766, in a separate treatise, entitled, Essais sur la 

 Theorie des Satellites de Jupiter, suivi des tables de 

 leur mouvement ; which likewise contained the history 

 of that branch of astronomy. In this treatise he 

 happened to mention as his own, the discovery of the 

 cause of the variation in the inclination of the orbits 

 of Jupiter's satellites. This circumstance occasioned 

 a dispute between him and La Lande, who laid claim 

 to the same discovery. Bailly asserted his own claim 

 in the Journal Encyclopcdique for June 1773, but he 

 had afterwards the candour to state in his history of 

 astronomy , the opposite claims of La Lande and himself, 

 and to leave the subject to the decision of his readers. 



The difficulty of finding the exact instant of the 

 immersions and emersions of the satellites of Jupiter, 

 stimulated Bailly to make a number of observations 

 on this curious subject, which he has published in an 

 interesting paper in the memoirs of the academy for 

 1771- The great discrepancy which was perceived in 

 the observation of these eclipses, obviously arose from 

 the diameters of the satellites, and from the different 

 apertures of the telescopes with which they were ob- 

 served.* In order to determine the exact diameters 

 of the satellites, Bailly observed an immersion with a 

 telescope whose aperture was so much contracted 

 that the satellite could scarcely be seen, so that it 

 became entirely visible when the smallest portion of 

 its diameter had entered into the shadow; He then 

 observed the immersion of the same satellite with the. 



6ail!y. 



* On the 25th January 1769, Maraldi observed the immersion of the fourth satellite at 6" \r>\', with a pood telescope of 

 1 j feet, while Messier, with a Gregorian telescope of 30 inches, observed the same immersion, at 6' 1 29'. ike Astbonouv. 

 part, i. chap. i. sect. rf. 



