BANEBERRY. 
underneath the ears, and the consequence is that 
the sheaves can scarcely hold together to be flung 
into the cart, and are certainly in great risk of 
falling to pieces before they are thrashed:—The 
bands of a saddle are two pieces of iron, flat, and 
three fingers broad, nailed on the bows of a sad- 
dle, one on each side, to hold the bows in the 
proper saddle-shaped situation. — 
BANE. ‘The rot in sheep. See article Ror. 
BANEBERRY, or Hers-CuristoepHER,—botan- 
ically Actea. A small genus of perennial, orna- 
mental, hardy, herbaceous plants, of the ranun- 
culus tribe. The common herb-christopher or 
spiked baneberry, Actwa spicata, grows wild in 
the mountainous woods of Great Britain, and is 
particularly abundant in the woods near Kirby- 
Lonsdale, and in some parts of Yorkshire. It 
rises to the height of about 18 inches, the foot- 
stalks of its leaves are long, and arise from the 
root ; its subordinate footstalks and its lobes 
make.a successive threefold division, so as to form 
a compound leaf of twenty-seven leaflets or lobes; 
its flower-stem also rises from the root, and is 
garnished with smaller compound leaves of the 
same form; its flowers are produced in ramose 
spikes from the top of the stalk, have a pure 
white colour, and bloom from April till June ; 
and its berries are about the size of peas, have a 
shining black colour, and ripen about Michael- 
mas, and have fetid, nauseous, and dangerous 
properties.—T'wo other species, and two or more 
varieties of these, are natives of North America, 
and have long been known in Great Britain, and 
are not unworthy of attention in ornamental 
culture. The root of one of these species is, or 
was, greatly used in many disorders by the medi- 
cal men of North America, and has the reputation 
of being an antidote to the poisonous bite of the 
rattle-snake. 
BANGLE-EARS. A deformed position in the 
ears of the horse. The deformity can be rectified, 
but not without much pain to the animal. 
BANK. See Empanxment. 
BANKRUPTCY. A term which, in its more 
general and extended sense, may be defined in- 
solvency, actual or presumed, followed by some 
open and public act denoting that the insolvency 
is irretrievable. He is a bankrupt, who, being 
insolvent, has subjected himself to the operation 
of the bankrupt laws. 
In the early ages of a state, the law of bank- 
ruptcy is uniformly cruel and oppressive. The 
unfortunate debtor is regarded as a criminal, 
without distinguishing whether his inability has 
arisen from ‘culpability or from misfortune ; and 
the law looks merely to the interest of the credi- 
tor, without paying any regard to the feelings or 
to the future comfort of the debtor. The severity 
of the Roman laws against debtors in the infancy 
of the republic, and the oppression of creditors, 
which occasioned so many popular insurrections 
and so many secessions to the Mons Sacer, are 
BANKRUPTCY. 
321] 
ization, and as commerce becomes more extend- 
ed, less illiberal notions prevail, and the innocent 
trader, reduced to bankruptcy by misfortune, 
becomes an object of compassion rather than of 
severity. Creditors, too, begin to see that it is 
for the public interest that the funds of the bank- 
rupt should belong to the creditors at large, in- 
stead of being left to be scrambled for by the 
diligence of individuals ; and through the fre- 
quency of failures which attends the growth of 
commerce, the principles of the bankrupt-law are 
examined and matured into a regular system. 
The great fundamental principle upon which 
every code of bankrupt-law must rest is, that 
from the moment of the failure, the funds of the 
bankrupt become the common property of his 
creditors at large, and are no longer liable to be 
disposed of by himself, or to be attached by indi- 
vidual creditors. The perfection of such code 
must depend upon the manner in which this 
principle is carried into effect, by the adoption 
of a simple, economical, and speedy mode of dis- 
tributing the common fund. 
It was not till a very late period that the bank- 
rupt-law of Scotland assumed a systematic form. 
Scottish jurisconsults, indeed, at an early date, 
adopted from the Roman law the mild remedy of 
the cessio bonorum, by which an honest though 
insolvent debtor, who was willing to surrender 
all his effects to his creditors, escaped the hard- 
ship of a long imprisonment ; and by the statutes 
1621, c. 18, and 1696, c. 5, attempts were made 
to prevent insolvent debtors from granting any 
deeds in defraud of their creditors. By this last 
statute, bankruptcy was accurately defined, and 
its date being fixed, a presumption of law was 
established against all deeds granted within 60 
days of it, in favour of prior creditors. Still, 
however, no plan was devised for a general dis- 
tribution of the bankrupt’s effects. The credi- 
tors were left to proceed with their individual 
diligence as they best could, and the maxim of 
law being, “ Jus civile vigilantibus scriptum est,” 
an unfortunate debtor was, on the first suspicion 
of insolvency, overpowered with a torrent of dili- 
gence which even the best credit could scarcely 
withstand. . 
By the statute 1696, c. 5, any. person may be 
rendered a bankrupt who is at the time in Scot- 
land, and subject to its laws. The effect of this 
bankruptcy against persons who are not traders, 
is only such as to enable creditors to challenge 
undue preferences, and tc follow forth the ordi- 
nary processes for attachment and distribution of 
the funds. But by the 33° Geo. III. c. 74, a new 
process called sequestration was introduced, by 
which the whole estate of a bankrupt trader is 
adjudged from him, and vested in a trustee for 
the creditors at large. The statute describes the 
persons liable to bankruptcy by sequestration, to 
be “in general, any person who, either for him- 
self, or as agent or factor for others, seeks his 
aa to every one. As states advance in civil- | living by buying and selling, or by the: workman- 
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