» LNSISUU IG) 10 
ass? Or if any farmer cannot, consistently with 
the economics of his farm, diminish the number 
of his horses, he might derive considerable bene- 
fit to his land and corresponding increase to his 
profit, by employing an ass or two, with children 
for drivers, and panniers for means of carriage, 
in performing some kinds of work, which are at 
present ill attended to, and for which the horse 
is not adapted. For example—to adopt the hint 
and use the words of the Knowledge Society’s Trea- 
tise on British Husbandry—“ the saving of food 
by weeding may not amount to much in a money 
calculation, though many herbs thus thrown 
| away would be found palatable if gathered for 
cattle; but were these animals only employed to 
remove the weeds from the ground when hoed, 
it would be of great service, for at least one-half 
of them strike root again after the first shower, 
and the remainder, if not eaten, is lost to the 
dung-heap, whereas that loss would be prevented 
were they raked up and collected. Their drivers 
also would be kept employed, which would be 
found very serviceable to the poor, not alone as 
an addition, however trifling, to their earnings, 
but as bringing them up in habits of industry, 
and as early initiating them into the care of do- 
mestic animals, by which their kindness and 
attention to brutes is found to be very much im- 
| proved.” — Naturalis?’s Library.— Buffon’s His- 
p ¥Y 
toire Naturelle—Pictorial Musewm of Animated 
Nature—Proceedings of the Zoological Socrety.— 
Mortimer’s Husbandry.—Treatise on British Hus- 
bandry in Library of Useful Knowledge.—Doyle’s 
| Practical Husbandry —@illey on Live Stock— 
Sproule’s Treatise on Agriculture. 
ASSAULT. A term which, in the law of Eng- 
land, signifies an injury violently offered to a 
man’s person. It does not necessarily imply an 
injury actually done, since a menacing gesture 
may amount to an assault. 
Assault denotes an injury of a more compre- 
hensive nature than datiery : for the former may 
be committed by merely offering a blow, as when 
one lifts up his stick or his fist, in a threatening 
manner, at another, or strikes at but misses him. 
And thus assault is defined by Finch (Lib. 202.) 
to be, “ an unlawful setting upon one’s person ;” 
whereas, to constitute a battery, there must be 
an actual beating. 
To strike a man, therefore, even should he re- 
ceive no injury from the blow, constitutes an as- 
sault ; nay, even the striking at a person, or 
pointing a loaded gun, or throwing a stone at 
him, though he should be neither hit nor hurt, 
has been adjudged to amount to assault. For 
assault does not always imply, that a blow was 
actually received; and hence, in action of tres-. 
pass for assault and battery, the offender may be 
found guilty of the assault, and acquitted of the 
battery. If a man threaten to beat another, or 
lie in wait to do it, whereby that other person is 
hindered in his business, action lies for the in- 
ASSIGNATION. 2 0 
In an action of trespass and assault, the de- 
fendant may plead in justification, molliter manus 
imposurt,—that he laid hands upon him gently, 
not in anger, nor with any intention of hurting 
him. A man may justify an assault in defence 
of his own person or goods; or of his wife, father, 
mother, or master; or for the maintenance of 
justice; and the husband, father, or master, may 
have action of trespass for the assault of the wife, 
child, or servant ; but no words, however insolent 
and contumelious, will justify an assault, though 
they may be pled in mitigation; and no provo- 
cation which did not take place recently before 
the assault will justify it. 
ASSIGNATION. This word, in the law of 
Scotland, signifies a written deed of conveyance, 
whereby the property of any subject not strictly 
feudal is transferred from one person to another. 
Even heritable rights, when they are either not 
perfected by seisin, or when they require no sei- 
sin, are proper subjects of assignation. 
Assignations are either of debts, as bonds, 
which are perfected by intimation ; or of move- 
ables, which sometimes, though improperly, get | 
the name of dispositions, and are completed by | 
an instrument of possession. The granter of the 
assignation is called the cedent. The receiver, or 
assignee, is sometimes called in our law style, as 
he was by the Roman, the cesstonary. An assig- 
nation made over to a third party, is called a 
translation; and, when conveyed back by that 
third party to the cedent, a retrocession. 
Assignations are considered as conveyances, 
by which the property of the subject assigned is 
fully vested in the assignee; and, in general, he 
who is in the right of any subject, though it 
should not bear to assignees, may at pleasure con- 
vey it to another, excepting in cases where he is 
barred, either by the nature of the subject, or | 
by immemorial usage. Such exceptions are: 1, 
Life-rent rights, of which nothing can be assigned 
but the profits during the life of the granter. 
Alimentary rights. 3. 
delectus persone in the granter, which cannot be 
transferred without special powers given for that 
purpose; as the right of an office, of a lease, &c. 
4, Paraphernal goods, which are not presumed | 
to be conveyed even in a general assignation by a 
wife to her husband, unless specially mentioned. | 
In order to complete the conveyance, it is ne- 
cessary, not only that the assignation should be 
delivered over to the assignee, but that it be in- 
timated or notified to the debtor; for the pur- 
pose of acquainting him, that he must make pay- 
ment, not to the original creditor, but to his as- 
signee. And hence, though an assignation not 
intimated be valid against the granter, who is 
not permitted to question his own deed; yet if, 
before intimation of a first assignment, the cedent 
shall grant a second to a different assignee, the 
second, if intimated before the first, will be pre- 
ferred to it. On this ground, also, an assignee 
cannot plead compensation upon the debt as- 
2. | 
Rights which imply a 
