COMMISSION

COMMISSIONAIRES

383

Other permanent commissions are the Charity Commission, created 1853 (of four members, one of whom is unpaid), to examine into all the charities and the management of them, in England and Wales; the Commission for the management of the National Debt; the Ecclesiastical and Church Estates Commission; the Land Commission of England; the Public Works Loan Commission; the Thames Conservancy Commission; and the Commission for the adjustment of Cases under Income-tax Assessments. These are all bodies commissioned to execute certain specified functions, more or less administrative, and partaking to some extent of the character of public departments.

In law, a commission may be issued by mandate of a court to take evidence from parties residing abroad or incapacitated from appearing in person. A Commission in Bankruptcy is issued for the purpose of taking charge of the effects of an insolvent for behoof of his creditors. A Commission in Lunacy is appointed by the Court of Chancery to inquire into the mental condition of an alleged lunatic whose property may be in question. There are now permanent commissioners in lunacy whose duties include visitation and supervision of asylums. In governmental relations, commissions are sometimes constituted where Britain exercises protect orate but has not formed complete colonial establishments, as in Cyprus, South Africa (see CAPE COLONY), New Guinea, and some islands of the western Pacific. The commission in such cases is a delegation, with certain limitations, of the authority of the crown. In India (q.v.) the administrative head of a province is sometimes called chief-commissioner (assisted by district commissioners), who is responsible to the viceroy of India. Sometimes commissions are international -i.e. composed of representatives of various nations for international purposes. A conspicu ous example of such was the commission in 1871 on the Alabama question (see ALABAMA); more recent was the commission for Eastern Roumelia, appointed under the Treaty of Berlin of 1878.

Again, a commission may take the form of a temporary embassy for certain specific purposes. The appointments are then made by the primeminister and cabinet, as when Mr Gladstone was sent to the Ionian Islands in 1858, or Lord Dufferin to Egypt in 1883. Somewhat different in character was the commission given to Mr Chamberlain in 1887 to proceed to America, to confer with delegates of Canada and the United States upon matters in dispute concerning the fisheries.

In its parliamentary sense, a commission may be either Special or Royal. In the former case it is appointed usually, and in the latter case invariably, in response to a motion in one or other of the Houses. A royal commission is appointed only by the crown; but a special commission may be appointed by a department of state. The expenses of a commission of this kind are usually defrayed by the parties requiring it, but those of a royal commission are included in the estimates for the current year. The commissioners may be paid by fees regulated by government. When a commission sits in London, it has the power of authorising the payment of witnesses on the scale recog nised in courts of law; but when a commission sits in the country, witnesses are not paid.

A royal commission is appointed by motion in parliament, and is issued by a royal warrant nominating certain trusty and well-beloved cousins and counsellors' to undertake a specified Enquiry. Of such was the royal commission to inquire into the condition of the crofters (1882),

appointed by act of parliament in 1886 to carry out certain legislative decrees. The former was one of inquiry; the latter, one of administration. The royal commissions appointed to inquire into the causes of the depression of trade (1886-87), and into the recent changes in the relative values of the precious metals (commonly called the Silver Commission), also in 1886, are among the most prominent of recent appointments of this kind. When a royal commission is nominated by royal mandate, a secretary is appointed, and such clerical assistance as may be necessary is provided out of some of the departments. The commissioners are empowered to call and hear evidence (although not on oath), to examine documents, localities, &c. The evidence is reported in extenso-question and answer duly numbered-and is submitted, along with the formal report, to the sovereign and to parliament. The whole is then incorporated in a blue-book. The multiplication of royal and special commissions has become rather a legislative nuisance and a financial burden. Royal commissions always include members of the House of Lords or of the House of Commons, or of both.

The cost of parliamentary and royal commissions varies much. In 1896-97 the Charity Commission cost £42,869 (a small decrease on the preceding year), the Civil Service Commission £39,700 (decrease). In 1888 the figures for all were:

Charity Commission...
Civil Service Commission.
Land Commission of England.
Lunacy Commission of England.

"

£36,701

44,477

12,210

15,217

Another kind of commission is that sometimes given to two or more judges to inquire into certain alleged crimes, such as the commission (1867–69) to inquire into the Sheffield trades-union outrages, and that (1888-90) of three judges appointed by act of parliament, to inquire into the charges and allegations' brought in the Times newspaper against Mr Parnell and others.

It should be added that the sovereign, who nominally presides over the annual deliberations of delegates the duty to a Scotch peer as Lord High the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Commissioner, a fresh commission being issued every year. For the ecclesiastical court created by Queen Elizabeth, see HIGH COMMISSION.

Commission Agent, or MERCHANT, is a person employed to sell goods consigned or delivered to him by another who is called his principal, for a certain percentage, commonly called his commission or factorage. See BROKER.

Commissionaires is a name given a class of attendants at continental hotels, who perform certain miscellaneous services. Employed to attend at the arrival of railway trains and steamboats to secure customers, they wait to take charge of luggage, see it passed through the hands of the customhouse officers, and send it on to the hotel; for all which service they charge a fee.

In 1859 the Corps of Commissionaires was estab lished by Sir Edward Walter in England, with divisions in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and other large cities in the United Kingdom. The corps has recently extended its operations to the principal cities of Australia, and purposes to continue its further development throughout the colonial empire. The corps is com posed of picked men from every branch of Her

384 COMMISSION DEL CREDERE

Majesty's naval and military service, and in the London division alone there are 1200 men. They can be engaged by the day or any other period, and for any duty where honesty, sobriety, and intelligence are required. The wages range from twenty to forty shillings per week.

Commission del Cre'deré. See DEL CREDERE COMMISSION.

Commissioners of Supply. See SUPPLY. Commissions, ARMY, are warrants from the head of the state for holding various military offices, whether combatant or non-combatant. The latter class comprises the various departments of the army, such as chaplains, commissariat, transport, veterinary, ordnance store, &c., in which, so far as the British army is concerned, commissions, carrying honorary or relative military rank, are obtained by direct examination, by nomination coupled with special professional qualifications, or by transfer from other branches of the service. Candidates for the Medical Staff (q. v.) pass through a course of instruction at the Army Medical School attached to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, before being commissioned as surgeons. As regards the combatant officers, a first commission as sublieutenant can be obtained by any British subject of proper age, character, and physical qualifications, either by entering one of the Military Schools (q.v.) as a Cadet (q.v.), or by passing both a literary and a military examination (similar to that mentioned below for a lieutenant's promotion), after having served two trainings as an officer in the militia. All correspondence regarding first commissions or cadetships is conducted by the military secretary at the War Office. Commissions in the Royal Marines are obtained by direct com. petitive examination. Two or three sub-lieutenants' commissions are given each year to cadets from the Royal Military College of Canada. is also possible to obtain such a commission by enlisting; but only two or three specially selected sergeants are promoted each year to the rank of sub-lieutenant in the cavalry and infantry (135 officers now serving have risen from the ranks), though all quartermasters, riding-masters, officers of the Coast Brigade Royal Artillery, and Coast Battalion Royal Engineers, are commissioned, as lieutenants, from the ranks.

It

or

Subsequent commissions up to that of lieutenant-colonel are given, as vacancies occur, to the senior officer of the next lower rank, provided that he has been favourably reported on, and, in the case of a lieutenant or captain, has passed an examination for promotion in regimental duties, drill, fortification, tactics, military law, and topography. To assist officers in passing this test, a deputy-assistant adjutant-general for instruction is appointed to the staff of each military district, and classes are held under him for the study of the four last-mentioned subjects. The rank of colonel is only conferred by Brevet (q.v.) for distinguished service, or on appointment to certain positions carrying that rank, such as aide-de-camp to the Queen, assistant adjutant-general, or commander of a regimental district. Promotion to major general, lieutenant-general, and general, is by selection, as vacancies occur. The establishment in these ranks has been much reduced, and only those who are eminently qualified, profes and physically, are eligible for commis ic

COMMODORE

by purchase, by passing a direct non-competitive examination. The lowest price of a first commission in the line was £450, the highest (in the Life Guards) was £1260. Large sums had also to be paid for each step in rank, so that the interest of the money thus invested sometimes exceeded the pay of the rank.

The entire abolition of the purchase system (by royal warrant in 1871) has at the same time increased the actual value of commissions as a means of livelihood, and the number of those who are in a position to compete for them. The competition has in consequence become very severe at the examinations, which are held usually twice a year, for admission to the two military colleges and for militia candidates for army commissions. To meet this, a large number of special educa tional establishments have been formed, devoted entirely to the work of preparing candidates for these tests, and most of the large schools have special army classes. The expenses thus entailed are often not much less than the cost of a first commission under the purchase system, but no further payment is incurred by promotion.

The subjects of examination for cadetships are selected, so far as the number of marks allotted to each is concerned, so as to encourage boys who have received the usual classical education, to come up direct from school without having to undergo a course of cramming at a military tutor's, where the influences are not always desirable. See CADET.

Commissure, an anatomical term applied to nervous connections between adjacent parts of the nervous system. Though it is not always used in quite the same way, the general signification of the term, and the physiological import of the structure, SYSTEM. is that of a uniting bridge. See BRAIN, NERVOUS

Commitment. See CRIMINAL LAW.

Committee (Fr. comité), a portion, generally consisting of not less than three members, selected from a more numerous body, to whom some special act to be performed, or investigation to be made, is committed. But though a committee usually consists of several members of the body by which it is appointed, it may consist of one member, or, what is more frequent, of the whole of the members acting in a different capacity from that which usually belongs to them. For the committees of parliament, whether select,' of the whole house,' grand,' or 'standing' committees, see PARLIA

MENT.

Commodore, in the royal navy, is a rank intermediate between an admiral and a captain. It is not permanent, but is bestowed for a time on a captain. Usually a commodore commands more ships than one, detached from a fleet on some special service; he hoists at that time a white broad pennant, with a red cross, at the main if a commodore of the first class, at the fore if of

the second class. A commodore is privileged to have a commander under him in his ship, in the same way as an admiral is privileged to have a captain. The commodore, in matters of etiquette, ranks with a brigadier-general in the army. When in independent command, a commodore of the first class receives £7, 10s. a day, and a commodore of the second class about £4, 10s.

A

n

on

COMMODUS

Commodus, LUCIUS AURELIUS, a Roman emperor, born at Lanuvium in 161 A.D., was the son of the great Marcus Aurelius and his profligate wife, the younger Faustina. He was carefully educated under his father's care, but lived to become one of the most worthless and bloody wretches that ever disgraced a throne. At his father's death in the spring of 180, he was successfully fighting the Marcomanni and other tribes on the upper Danube, but he at once concluded a treaty with the barbarians, and hastened to Rome to enjoy the pleasures of power. After the discovery of his sister Lucilla's plot against his life in 183, he gave uncontrolled vent to the senseless savagery of his nature. Nearly all who, by virtue, ability, and learning, had risen to honour during his father's lifetime, were sacrificed to appease his savage jealousy of the good and the great. Proud of his own physical strength, he demeaned himself by exhibiting it in gladiatorial combats, and besides used, in public, to sing, dance, play, and act the buffoon. Though a glutton and a shameless debauchee, who wallowed in the most sensual abominations, he yet demanded to be worshipped as a god, and assumed the title of Hercules Romanus. Many unsuccessful plots were devised against the life of this mingled monster and madman, until at length his mistress, Marcia, finding her own name marked down in his tablets for death, in concert with two confederates, tried first to poison him, then caused him to be strangled by Narcissus, a famous athlete, on the 31st of December 192.

Common Bench. See BENCH, and COMMON LAW.

Commoner, one under the rank of nobility; also a member of the House of Commons. For the Commoners at Oxford, a class of students eating at the common table, see Oxford.

Common Forms are the ordinary clauses which are of frequent occurrence in identical terms in writs and deeds.

Common Good. See BOROUGH.

Common Law, in England, is the ancient customary law of the land. Before the Norman Conquest, the rights of an Englishman were determined mainly by the customs of the manor, borough, or shire in which he lived. After the Conquest, the king's judges began to go their circuits in every part of the country, doing justice according to the custom of the realm or the common law. In some points they kept to the ancient local customs, in others again they introduced new rules. Primogeniture, e.g., is a rule introduced by the influence of the judges; the ancient English rule of equal division survives only as the custom of Kent' under the name of Gavelkind (q.v.). The custom of certain ancient boroughs, which gave the land to the youngest son, survives under the name of Borough English (q.v.). The custom of a place, or of a body of persons, is allowed to supplement or modify the common law if it has been observed from a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.' Legal memory does not go back beyond the first year of the reign of Richard I., but evidence may be given to impugn the 'immemorial' character of a local custom by showing that it had its origin later than that year.

Even in making new rules, the judges never assumed to legislate; they professed to expound the good customs of the realm, and in applying the rules of common law, each generation of judges was guided by the decisions of its predecessors. Decisions followed in a series of subsequent cases acquired special authority, and were quoted as leading cases. The law fixed by custom and by judicial decision could only be set aside or amended by an act of parliament. But without setting aside

the law, courts of equity, and especially the Court of Chancery (q.v.), framed rules of their own, which enabled them to prevent the stricter rules of common law from being used in defence of injustice. By the Judicature Acts (q.v.), courts of common law and equity were made parts of one supreme court; the two systems are administered concurrently; where there is any conflict between equity and common law, the rules of equity prevail. See EQUITY.

English settlers going to an uncivilised country take with them as much of the common law as the nature of things will bear.' In Canada, Australia, &c., and in the United States, the his torical basis of the law is the same as in England. In Scotland, and in some other countries, the term common law is used in a sense analogous to its English meaning.

At

THE COURTS OF COMMON LAW.-The superior courts of Common Law in England had their origin in the Curia Regis of the early Norman kings, the chief officers of which were the Chiefjusticiar, the Chancellor, and the king's justices. The justices sat in the King's Bench to supervise the proceedings of inferior courts and corporations, and to deal with criminal matters directly concerning the crown. In the Common Bench or Common Pleas they held pleas between subject and subject. In the Exchequer they sat, as Barons of the Exchequer, to decide revenue cases. first all these courts followed the king, to the great inconvenience of suitors. The Common Pleas were fixed at Westminster by Magna Charta; and in course of time the three superior courts of Common Law were all established on one side of Westminster Hall, each court having its own chief and four (afterwards five) puisne or junior judges, who were called justices in the King's Bench and Common Pleas, and Barons in the Exchequer. On the passing of the Judicature Acts (1873-76), the three courts became divisions of the High Court of Justice. The offices of Chief-justice of the Common Pleas and Chief-baron of the Exchequer are now abolished, and the three divisions are consolidated in the Queen's Bench Division. The Lord Chiefjustice of England is the presiding judge; he is appointed by the crown on the advice of the prime. minister, and his salary is £8000. There are fourteen puisne justices, appointed by the crown on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, each of whom has a salary of £5000. The sittings of the Division are held at the Royal Courts in London; the judges also try cases on their circuits and at the Central Criminal Court. The jurisdiction of the Division includes all special authorities formerly belonging to any of the old Common Law Courts. It takes, e.g., appeals from Revising Barristers (q.v.) which formerly went to the Common Pleas, and revenue cases which belonged to the Exchequer. Appeals from any of the old Common Law Courts went to the judges of the other two courts, sitting in the Exchequer Chamber, and from them to the House of Lords. Appeals from the Queen's Bench Division now go to the Court of Appeal, and thence to the House of Lords.

Besides the superior courts, there are many inferior courts which exercise a limited commonlaw jurisdiction. Each manor has its own courts, but except in regard to Copyholds (q.v.)., manorial jurisdiction has been superseded by local courts of modern origin. The same remark applies to the Hundred Court and the ancient County Court. The Court of Common Pleas in Lancaster and the Court of Pleas in Durham, now form part of the High Court. The modern County Court (which ought more properly to be called a district court) has a common-law jurisdiction; and several statutes contain provisions for remitting the less important

class of common-law actions to the County Court for trial.

Of Borough Courts some (as, e.g., the Court of Hustings in London) are obsolete; others (as, e.g., the Mayor's Court in London and the Court of Passage in Liverpool) are still of importance. The City of London Court is framed on the model of the modern County Courts. The Court of the Cinque Ports is held before the mayor and jurats of each port; from them appeals are taken to the Lord Warden's Court, and thence to the Queen's Bench Division. Courts of Request for the recovery of small debts existed in several boroughs; they are now obsolete, as also is the Court of Pie Poudre, or dusty foot, held by the steward of a manor to which a market belongs, for the immediate decision of questions arising in the market. There are still courts of some importance, established for the benefit of privileged bodies of persons. See, as to miners (under Stannaries), STANNARY COURTS; as to Oxford and Cambridge, see UNIVERSITIES. Common Pleas. See COMMON LAW. Common Prayer, Book of. See PRAYER

Commons, the dinner provided in English colleges and inns of court for their members. In the inns of court it is provided only during term. Separate tables are appointed for the benchers (see BENCH), for the barristers, and for the students and other members of the inn.

Commons, HOUSE OF. See PARLIAMENT. Commons and Enclosures. This is one of the numerous instances in which a different meaning is attached to the same term in the legal systems of England and Scotland. In England the property in the common land belongs to the lord of the manor; although rights over the common land are possessed by certain persons who hold land in the manor, and are known as commoners. Thus Blackstone defines a common as a profit which a man hath in the land of another, as to feed his beasts, to catch fish, to dig turf, to cut wood and the like.' But in Scotland, where the law has adopted the divisions and followed the nomenclature of the civil law and of the legal systems of continental Europe, all these profits, or rights to derive profit, are known as Servitudes (q.v.), whereas a common, or commonty, as it is more frequently called, is a common right of property existing in several individuals, frequently the inhabitants of a whole village, in a piece of ground. In each individual the right of course is limited, so as in reality to amount to little more than a servitude; but there is no over-lord, the land is not the land of another, but the land of the community as a body.

The nature and origin of rights of common have been the subjects of elaborate investigation, but are still obscure. They are probably derived from the old Germanic rights of common pasture on the Folkland (q.v.). In England at present almost the only land subject to common rights is waste land; but formerly rights of joint cultivation extended over a great part of the arable land. These are not yet quite extinct. So long as the lands subject to rights of common were extensive and fertile, their enclosure was a source of wealth|

COMMONS AND ENCLOSURES

both to lords of manors and to the nation as a whole. Accordingly enclosures began to be frequent in the 16th, and were continued on a great scale to the end of the 18th century. Formerly the enclosure of a common required a private act of parliament. The commoners, who were generally poor and unable properly to represent their case, often suffered by enclosure, obtaining inadequate compensation. By the Act 6 and 7 Will." IV. chap. 115, and subsequent acts, the necessity for a private act of parliament is abolished. By the Act 8 and 9 Vict. chap. 118, which has been often amended, a Board of Commissioners is appointed to inquire into the propriety of any proposed enclosure or partition, and to report to parliament, which may then pass a public act authorising their proceedings. This is the course generally adopted.

In Scotland, commonties or commons were made divisible by an action in the Court of Session, at the instance of any person having an interest by the Stat. 1695, chap. 38.

The lands still subject to rights of common are for the most part such as could not be cultivated with advantage. The increase of population, however, has made them valuable as places of exercise and recreation. This value has been clearly stated by Mr J. S. Mill (Dissertations and Discussions, vol. ii. p. 213): We must needs think, also, that there is something out of joint, when so much is said of the value of refining and humanising tastes to the labouring-people-when it is proposed to plant parks and lay out gardens for them, that they may enjoy more freely nature's gift alike to along with this a counter-progress is constantly rich and poor, of sun, sky, and vegetation; and going on of stopping up paths and enclosing commons. Is not this another case of giving with other? We look with the utmost jealousy upon one hand and taking back more largely with the any further enclosure of commons. In the greater part of this island, exclusive of the mountain and moor districts, there certainly is not more land remaining in a state of natural wildness than is desirable. Those who would make England resemble many parts of the Continent, where every foot of soil is hemmed in by fences, and covered over with the traces of human labour, should remember that where this is done, it is done for the use and benefit, not of the rich, but of the poor; and that in the countries where there remain no commons, the rich have no parks. The common is the peasant's park. Every argument for ploughing it up to raise more produce applies a fortiori to the park, which is generally far more fertile. The effect of either, when done in the manner proposed, is only to make the poor more numerous, not better off. But what ought to be said when, as so often happens, the common is taken from the poor, that the whole or great part of it may be added to the enclosed pleasure-domain of the rich? Is the miserable compensation, and though miserable not always granted, of a small scrap of the land to each of the cottagers who had a goose on the common, any equivalent to the poor generally, to the lovers of nature, or to future generations, for this legalised spoliation?'

Acting upon the principles expressed in this extract, the legislature in the 19th century has regulated enclosures with reference to the enjoyment of the general public, as well as to the rights of the lord of the manor and of the commoners. Restraints have been placed on the enclosure of commons in or near towns, and provision has been made for laying them out and maintaining them as places of recreation. Near London especially, many commons have thus been secured to the public. See Miss Octavia Hill, Our Common Land (1878); Elton,

COMMON SENSE

The Law of Commons; Commons and Common Fields (1887); and works by Scrutton, Chambers, Cooke, Hall, Williams, Shaw-Lefevre (1894), and Sir R. Hunter (1897). Lord Thring's act against unlawful enclosures was passed in 1893.

In the United States 'common' in one sense signifies the common or general fields set apart as pasture-land at the foundation of towns or villages; the idea of such common fields may probably have been suggested by those of semi-feudal England. Common fields also existed in the villages of French and Spanish settlers. The title to these lands was confirmed to the inhabitants by act of congress. Unappropriated lands in Virginia have similarly been confirmed as common lands by statute, and the constitution of Illinois sets apart certain lands as commons. Unless the statute expressly forbids, commons in this sense may be divided at the instance of individuals interested, if they think fit to take legal proceedings for that In the other sense, the term purpose. is applied to a public park which may belong to the municipality or to the nation-e.g. the Yellow stone Park-respecting which no individual or individuals can claim a division. Such parks are under the direct control of the authorities. As applied to a school, the epithet 'common' means public, supported by taxation, and open to all children of It has no reference to the studies of

a certain age. the school.

་ common

Common Sense, THE PHILOSOPHY OF. There are certain beliefs that have been current among men in all ages, which by some philosophers have been declared to be groundless illusions. Of these, the most remarkable instance is the belief in an external, material world, independent of any mind to perceive it. Berkeley's doctrine (see BERKELEY) seemed to his contemporaries to contradict this belief, and affirm that there is no such thing as a material world; and Hume, carrying the same principles to their full length, disintegrated the world of spirits, and left nothing in nature but isolated ideas and impressions.

A dead-lock in philosophy was the result of these doctrines of Berkeley and Hume; and the solution offered by Reid consisted in setting up common sense as an arbiter from which there could be no appeal that is to say, the universally admitted impressions of mankind were to be taken as corresponding to the fact of things without any further scrutiny. It is only the same view otherwise expressed, when it is declared by other philosophers that the deliverance of consciousness must be presumed true. According to Sir W. Hamilton, in the most elaborate vindication of the common-sense philosophy that has ever been produced (in his edition of Reid's works), consciousness assures us that, in perception, we are immediately cognisant of an external and extended non-ego (not-self); and that the testimony of consciousness must be viewed as entitled to prompt and unconditional

assent.

The conclusiveness of this reasoning is disputed by many, who say that it is an abnegation of the tasks of philosophy, and may establish mere prejudices as dictates of consciousness. Consciousness (q.v.) is a very wide word, comprising indeed everything that we call mind. Suppose, it is argued, we were to maintain that the veracity of each one's memory was beyond all question or dispute, it would be apparent at once how the case really stands. But there must be a standard truth. Experience is the criterion how far the memory is to be trusted; and possibly the same may be true of the larger fact named consciousness. See PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY.

The truths of common sense, assumed to be those of consciousness, are such as these: the

laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle; the axioms of Mathematics; the law of Causality (q.v.); the doctrine of an innate moral sense (see article ETHICS); the doctrine of man's Moral Liberty (see FREE-WILL); the exist ence of an external world independent of every percipient mind. Some of these truths, which however by no means stand all on the same footing, are termed Intuitions, Intuitive Cognitions, Instincts, Feelings, Beliefs, Principles, Ultimate or Primordial Elements, Truths a priori. Kant's mission was to investigate the origin of such of those truths as might be accounted a priori; see KANT, A PRIORI. The philosophy of common sense, as promulgated by Reid, bore reference especially to the denial by Berkeley of the received view of the material world; see PERCEPTION.

Commonty. See COMMONS AND ENCLOSURES. Commonwealth (practically, a translation of Lat. respublica, republic') is used in a special sense for the form of government established in England after the execution of Charles I. in January Usually the Commonwealth is held to extend till the Restoration in 1660; and in the Calendar of State Papers this is the usage of the word. But the Commonwealth is sometimes

1649.

See

In

limited to the period 1649-53, ending with the establishment of Cromwell's Protectorate. Several states of the CROMWELL, ENGLAND. Virginia) are officially called commonwealths. American Union (as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Commune is the unit or lowest division in the administration of France, corresponding in the rural districts to the English parish or township, and in towns to the English municipality. France there are about 36,000 communes, with a considerable measure of self-government, with the power of holding property, &c. Each commune has a council elected by universal suffrage, and the council is presided over by a maire and one or more adjoints or assistants. In the larger communes the maire is selected by the central government out of the members of the council; in others he is appointed by the prefect of the department. The central government through its officials exercises generally a very large control over the affairs of the For the Russian commune, see MIR,

commune.

and RUSSIA.

The rising of the commune of Paris in 1871 should not be confounded with Communism (q.v.). It was a revolutionary assertion of the autonomy of Paris, that is, of the right of self-government through its commune or municipality. The theory of the rising was that every commune should have a real autonomy, the central government being merely a federation of communes. The movement was based on discontent at Paris, where the people found themselves in possession of arms after the siege by the Germans. The rising began on the 18th March 1871, and was only suppressed ten weeks later after long and bloody fighting between the forces of the commune and a large army of the central government; 6500 Communists having fallen during 20-30th May, and 38,578 been taken prisoners. See FRANCE; and see histories of the Paris commune by Lissagaray (trans. 1886) and Thomas March (1896).

Communion signifies, in ecclesiastical language, that relation, involving mutual claims and duties, in which those stand who are united by uniformity of belief in one religious body or church. To exclude from this relation and its involved rights is to excommunicate. The most visible symbol of this relation being the partaking together of the Lord's Supper, that rite is often called the Communion. See LORD'S SUPPER, PRAYER-BOOK, LITURGY; and for Communion Table, see ALTAR