| the body is constantly costive. 
BILL. 
produce the evacuation of the excrement from 
the body. It is probable that these substances 
would remain mixed together, and they would, 
perhaps, even be partly absorbed together, were 
it not for the bile, which seems to combine with 
the excrement, and, by this combination, to fa- 
cilitate its separation from the chyle, and thus to 
prevent its absorption. Fourcroy supposes that 
the bile, as soon as it is mixed with the contents 
of the intestinal canal, suffers a decomposition ; 
that its alkali and saline ingredients combine 
with the chyle, and render it more liquid, while 
its albumen and resin combine with the excre- 
mentitious matters, and gradually render them 
less fluid. From the late experiments of Berze- 
lius on feces, it cannot be doubted that the con- 
stituents of the bile are to be found in the excre- 
mentitious matter; so that the ingenious theory 
of Fourcroy is so far probable. The bile also 
stimulates the intestinal canal, and causes it to 
evacuate its contents sooner than it otherwise 
would do; for when there is a deficiency of bile, 
Biliary calculi, 
or gall-stones, are sometimes found in the gall- 
bladders of men and animals. See the article 
CaLcuLus. 
BILL. An edged tool used for lopping hedges, 
pruning shrubs, cutting bushes, and some other 
purposes. It is a kind of hatchet, with a hooked 
point, and has a shorter or a longer handle ac- 
cording to the particular purpose for which it is 
employed. It takes its name from the resem- 
blance of its point to the bill of a bird. 
BILLARDIERA. See Appin-Berry. 
BILL OF EXCHANGE. A written request 
or order to one person to pay a certain sum of 
money to another, or to his order, at all events; 
that is, without any qualification or condition. 
The person who makes the bill is called the 
drawer; the person to whom it is addressed, the 
drawee ; and the person to whom, or whose order, 
on the face of the bill, it is payable, the payee. 
If the drawee accepts the bill, he thereby becomes 
the acceptor. A promissory note differs from a 
bill of exchange in being merely a promise to pay 
money by the maker, instead of being a request 
to another person to pay it, to the payee. The 
expression promissory note is not strictly confined 
to negotiable notes, or those payable to ‘ bearer,’ 
or to the payee named in it, ‘ or his order,’ but 
is more frequently used to denote such instru- 
ments; and we shall consider promissory notes 
in this sense in the present article, since the 
same rules and principles are, in a great degree, 
applicable to such notes and to bills of exchange. 
The maker of the note answers to the acceptor 
of the bill, since he is the party promising to 
pay it; whereas the maker or drawer of a bill of 
exchange does not directly promise, on the face 
of the instrument, to pay it, but merely requests 
the drawee to do so; this is, however, construed 
to be a virtual promise that the drawee, on the 
presentment of the bill for acceptance, and de- 
I. 
mand of payment according to its tenor, will pay 
it, and a conditional virtual promise, that he, the 
drawer, will pay it, in case of the drawee’s fail- 
ing either to accept it on due presentment, or 
to pay it on due demand. Bank checks are of a 
character similar to promissory negotiable notes, 
as to the rules by which the liabilities and rights 
of the parties to them are determined, with this 
difference in their common form, that promissory 
notes are usually made payable to the payee or 
‘his order,’ whereas checks, as also bank-notes, 
are usually made payable to the ‘ bearer,’ and the 
right to demand and receive payment of them is 
transferred from one person to another by mere 
delivery, without any indorsement or written 
order by the original payee; while the transfer 
or assignment of a promissory note or bill of ex- 
change is made by the payee in writing, either 
by indorsement or otherwise. He usually merely 
writes his name on the back, whereby he becomes 
the zndorser, and the person to whom it is thus 
indorsed or assigned, who is called the zndorsee, 
has a right to fill up this blank indorsement by 
writing over it an order to pay the contents to 
himself or to any other person; and any bona fide 
holder of the note or bill has the same right to 
fill up the indorsement or assignment. Thus a 
note or bill of exchange, being once indorsed in 
blank, becomes assignable or transferable, like a 
check payable to ‘ bearer,’ merely by delivery of 
the instrument. It is an essential quality of a 
negotiable bill, note or check, that it be a pro- 
mise to pay a certain sum of money, and that the 
promise be absolute; for if no definite amount is 
fixed, or it be a promise to deliver goods or do 
any other act than pay money, or if it be condi- 
tional, it is not a bill of exchange, or negotiable 
promissory note, or check. Besides the transfer 
by indorsement above-mentioned, these instru- 
ments are also transferable by assignment, or 
mere delivery, so as to give the holder all the 
rights, against the maker or acceptor, that he 
would have had if he had himself been the payee. 
Where the transfer is made by mere delivery, the 
assignor is exempt from all liability to the holder 
on the paper itself; he makes no promise to pay 
the money, but still he, in effect, warrants that 
it is the bill, note or check, which it purports to 
be; for if it be a forged instrument, if it be not 
bona fide the bill, note or check which it purports 
to be, he will be liable to indemnify the person 
to whom he transferred it. But if the transfer 
be made by an indorsement in writing, without 
any condition or exception, being an absolute 
order to pay the money to the indorsee or holder, 
the indorser in this case becomes in his turn a 
promiser; for he thereby virtually promises that, 
in case the maker of the note or check, or the 
drawer or acceptor of the bill, does not pay it on 
due demand, or in case the drawee does not ac- 
cept it, if it be a bill, on presentment according 
to its tenor, then he, the indorser, will pay it.— 
Though the forms of bills of exchange, promis- 
2D 
