BAN 



BAN 



BANE, in law, destruction, as he who 

 is the cause of another man's death is 

 said to be le bane, that is a malefactor. 

 Bracton. 



BANERET. See BANKEKET. 



BANIAN days, a sea term among 

 sailors, to signify those days in which they 

 have no meat. It was probably derived 

 from the practice of the Banians, which 

 see. 



BANIANS, a religious sect in the em- 

 pire of the Mogul, who believe a metemp- 

 sychosis, and will therefore eat no living 

 creature, nor even kill noxious animals ; 

 but endeavour to release them when in 

 the hands of others. 



The Banians are said to be so fearful of 

 having communication with other nations, 

 that they break their cups, if one of a dif- 

 ferent religion has drank out of them, or 

 even touched them. It is said, that if they 

 happen to touch one another, they purify 

 and wash themselves before they eat, or 

 enter their own houses. They carry, 

 hanging to their necks, a stone called 

 tamberane, as big as an egg, and perfo- 

 rated in the middle, through which run 

 three strings ; this stone, they say, repre- 

 sents their great god, and upon that ac- 

 count they have great respect shewn 

 them by all the Indians. 



BANISHMENT is the quitting of the 

 realm : there are two kinds of it, one vo- 

 luntary, called abjuration, and the other 

 upon compulsion, for some offence. By 

 the habeas corpus act no subject of this 

 realm, who is an inhabitant of England, 

 Wales, or Berwick, shall be sent prisoner 

 into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, 

 or place beyond seas, where they cannot 

 have the protection of the common law; 

 for by it every Englishman may claim a 

 right to abide in his own country so long 

 as he pleases, and not be banished or dri- 

 ven from it but by sentence of the law. 



BANISTERIA, in botany, named after 

 the Rev. John Banister, a curious botanist, 

 who lost his life in the search of plants in 

 Virginia ; a genus of the Decandria Tri- 

 gynia class and order. Natural order, 

 trihilatae rnalphigiae. Essential charac- 

 ter : calyx five-parted, with melliferous 

 pores at the base on the outside; petal 

 roundish with claws ; stigmas leaf shap- 

 ed; seedsthree-winged, with membranes. 

 There are 24 species, all of which are in- 

 habitants of very hot climates, chiefly in 

 America, from Brazil to Louisiana, par- 

 ticularly the islands. They are shrubs, 

 mostly with twining stems, adorning the 

 woods with the beauty of their flowers, 

 and the variety of their opposite leaves. 



They cannot be preserved in England 

 unless they are kept in a bark stove. They 

 are propagated by seeds, which must 

 be procured from the countries where 

 they grow naturally. The seeds must 

 be fully ripe, and put into sand or earth, 

 in which they should be sent to England, 

 otherwise they will not grow : when they 

 arrive they should be immediately sown 

 in pots ; and if it happen in autumn or 

 winter, the pots should be plunged into a 

 hot-bed of tanner's bark, and secured 

 from frost and wet till spring, when 

 they must be removed to a fresh hot-bed, 

 which will bring up the plants ; but if 

 they should not appear the first year, 

 the pots should be preserved to the next 

 spring, as the plants may come up then. 

 When the plants appear, they must be 

 treated like other tender plants from the 

 same countries. 



BANKS, in commerce, are of three kinds, 

 viz. banks of deposit, banks of discount, and 

 banks of circulation. Hanks of deposit have 

 been instituted, 1st, with a view of afford- 

 ing security against the loss of money 

 by pillage or fire ; 2dly, for the purpose 

 of affording facilities to commercial trans- 

 actions, by substitutnig a transfer on the 

 books of the bank, in the place of the 

 actual payment in coin of the sums to be 

 expended ; and 3dly, for the purpose of 

 establishing a circulating medium equiva- 

 lent to coin of a standard weight, as de- 

 scribed below in relation to the bank of 

 Amsterdsm. Banks of discount, are insti- 

 tutions possessed of capitals, which, with 

 the money placed on deposit, are employ- 

 ed in the discounting of promissory notes, 

 bills of exchange, and other securities. 

 Banks of circulation, in addition to the 

 loan of their capitals, issue promissory 

 notes, payable on demand, for such an ad- 

 ditional amount as the circulation of their 

 neighbourhoods will easily bear, without 

 rendering themselves liable to more de- 

 mands than the specie in their coffers 

 can at any time discharge. Most banks, 

 particularly in the United States, are 

 banks of circulation, and are there almost 

 exclusively owned by incorporated bo- 

 dies, chartered for the purpose by their 

 respective states. In England, the great 

 mass of banks are the establishments of 

 one or a few individuals. The facilities 

 which banks afford to commerce, added 

 to the benefits which the countries in 

 which they are situated derive from the 

 substitution of a paper medium for one of 

 coin, are such as have induced the prin- 

 cipal nations of Europe and elsewhere to 

 patronise and authorise their establish- 



