B R 1 



476 



B R I 



Bribery, anonymous letter to commit a theft, Sec. In law, 

 Brick. however, the term is more restricted ; and though 

 '" tf " the code of this and other countries will by no means 

 overlook the instigator of private mischief, yet 

 neither will it pursue him under the specific charge, 

 nor punish him with the proper pains of bribery. 

 But neither, on the other hand, is the offence con- 

 fined, as is sometimes imagined, to corrupt conduct 

 in thi- public function of admir : stering law and justice 

 to the community. The malpractices of judges, and 

 inferior officers of the law, form no doubt the most 

 striking, because the most pernicious species of the 

 crime. But the proper guilt of bribety, may also 

 bi- incurred in the exercise of oilier public duties 

 by a burgher in thi- exercise of his franchise of voting 

 at an election of magistrates toy a candidate for a 

 seat iii parliament, at- well as by the voter whom he 

 has corrupted by an officer of the customs or excise 

 a minister ot state in tlu- sale of offices or pensions, 

 &c. ; none ot whom, though respectively exercising 

 certain public functions, can with propriety be said 

 to be in a judicature capacity. 



The punishment of bribery is nearly the same in 

 England as it is in this country, and varies in both 

 according to the degree of the offence. In the for- 

 mer, by llth Henry IV. it is punished, in the case of 

 judges and officers of the crown, with forfeiture of 

 treble the bribe, chastisement at the king's will, and 

 dismissal from office for ever. In inferior offices, the 

 punishment is fine and imprisonment. By the law of 

 Scotland, the crime, in judges of the Court of Ses- 

 sion, is, by 1579, c. 93, visited with infamy, loss of 

 office, confiscation of moveablrs, and discretionary 

 punishment in the person of the offender ; and in in- 

 ferior judges and other persons, the chastisement, 

 partly by a variety of statutes, and partly by com- 

 mon law, is the loss of fame and office, payment of the 

 party's costs, reparation of his damages, and other 

 discretionary censure, as the magnitude of the offence 

 may require. Though these, however, are the modes 

 of punishment for cases ot ordinary turpitude, yet 

 where the consequences of the bribery are of pecu- 

 liar atrocity, such as the destroying an innocent man's 

 life by a gross and corrupt perversion of justice, the 

 law in both countries, overlooking the charge of bri- 

 bery, will visit the offender with the pains of the 

 h !<her crime in which he has participated. See 

 Encycl. Method. Jurisprudence voce Corruption. 

 Bl jckstone's Comjn. vol. vi. p. 139. Hume on the 

 Descnp. and Punish. -i>f Crimes, vol. li. p. 209. Ja- 

 cob's Larv Diet. (j. B. ) 



BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS, &c. See PARLIAMENT. 

 BRICK, a kind of factitious stone, made of ar- 

 gillaceous earth, formed in moulds, and baked in 

 kilns, or dried in the sun. 



This substance is now in very common use as a 

 material for building ; and its importance, in many 

 cases, as a substitute for stone, is generally acknow- 

 ledged. It is lighter than stone, and not so subject 

 to attract damp and moisture ; and from the quanti- 

 ties that are now made in Britain, its manufacture 

 has become a considerable object of revenue to the 

 state. 



'I ;.rt of brick-making consists chiefly in the 

 preparing and tempering of the clay, and in the 



burning of the bricks ; and as the quality of the ware Brick, 

 depends very much upon the right performance of ' u- 

 these operations, we shall present our readers with a 

 short sketch of the general process of this manufac- 

 ture. The earth proper for making bricks is of a 

 clayey loam, neither abounding too much in argilla- 

 ceous matter, which causes it to shrink in the drying, 

 nor in sand, which renders the ware heavy and brittle. 

 As the earth, before it is wrought, is generally brittle 

 and full of extraneous matter, it should be dug two 

 or three years before it is used, that, by bang ex- 

 posed to the action of the atmosphere, it may be suf- 

 ficiently mellowed and pulverised, and thus facilitate 

 the operation of tempering. At any rate, it should 

 always have one winter's frost ; but the longer il lies 

 exposed, and the more it is turned over and wrought 

 with the spade, the better will be the bricks. 



The tempering of the clay is performed by the 

 treading of men 01 oxen, and in some places by means 

 of a clay mill. If the operation be performed by 

 treading, which is the common way, the earth is 

 thrown into shallow pits, where it is wrought and 

 incorporated together until it is formed into a homo- 

 geneous paste, which is facilitated by adding now 

 and then small quantities of water ; but the less wa- 

 ter that is used, the substance of the clay will be more 

 tough and gluey, and consequently the bricks will 

 be smoother and more solid. This operation is the 

 most laborious part of the process; but it is of essen- 

 tial importance, and therefore ought to be done well ; 

 for it is to the negligence of the manufacturers in this 

 respect, that we are to attribute the bad quality of 

 our modern bricks, which are often light and spongy, 

 and full of cracks. Whereas, if the clay be properly 

 tempered, they are hard, ponderous, and durable ; 

 much stronger and better fitted for every kind of 

 building, than those made in the common way. This 

 will appear very evident from the following experi- 

 ment of M. Gallon. Having taken a quantity of 

 brick-earth tempered in the usual way, he let it re- 

 main exposed to the air for seven hours, and then 

 caused it to be moistened and beaten for the space 

 of half an hour : the next morning the operation 

 was repeated ; and in the afternoon the clay was 

 again beaten for fifteen minutes more ; making the 

 whole additional labour an hour and a quarter. The 

 bricks made of this earth being dried in the air for 

 thirteen days, and burned along \vith the rest with- 

 out any particular precautions, were found to be 

 not only heavier than common bricks, but also very 

 different in strength ; for on placing their centre 

 on a sharp edge, and loading both the ends, Mi- 

 Gallon found, that while it took a weight of 65 Ib. 

 at each end to break them ; other bricks were bro- 

 ken by the weight of only 35 Ib. The improvement 

 in the quality of the article thus far exceeds the ad- 

 ditional labour ; and none would hesitate to give 

 an additional price, since both the value and the coin- 

 fort of our dwellings depend so much on the quality 

 of the materials of which they are constructed. 



The next part of the process is the moulding of 

 the bricks. This is a very simple operation, and re- 

 quires very little skill, unless it be to make the great- 

 est number in the shortest time ; and the day's la- 

 bour of a handy workman, employed from five in the 



