THE CROWN is a term often employed to signify the state and the matters under control of the executive authority. Thus, in the interests of the state there are crown-ministers, crown-lawyers, crown-officers, crown-lands, &c.-the term, in no instance, having any special connection with the sovereign personally. In Scotland, certain high crimes are technically called Pleas of the Crown. These are four in number-murder, robbery, rape, and wilful fire-raising-and fall within the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justiciary. Likewise, in Scotland, there is a functionary styled crown-agent. He is a practising law-agent or solicitor, who, under the Lord Advocate and his deputes, takes charge of criminal proceedings. His duty is to receive from the procurators-fiscal of the different counties the precognitions which they have taken, and to lay these precognitions before the lawyers for the crown, that they may determine whether there is ground sufficient to call for a prosecution. | He also expedes indictments and criminal letters, and otherwise discharges the duties of an agent in preparing and assisting in the conduct of trials before the High Court of Justiciary. The appointment of the crown-agent is with the Lord Advocate, and ceases with the administration.

CROWN CASES RESERVED, COURT FOR. See APPEAL.

CROWN-SOLICITOR, the solicitor to the Treasury, who, in state prosecutions in England, acts as solicitor for the crown in preparing the prosecution. In Ireland there are crown-solicitors attached to each circuit, whose duties correspond in some degree to those of the Procurators-fiscal (q.v.) and crown-agent in Scotland. In England there are no analogous officers, and prosecutions are consequently conducted by solicitors appointed either by the parish, or by private parties bound over by the magistrates to prosecute. But in cases of great importance to the public, such as unusual or monstrous crimes, it is of frequent occurrence that the Solicitor to the Treasury takes charge of the case

and instructs counsel.

CROWN DEBTS.-It is a prerogative of the crown to take precedence of all other creditors, and in England, to recover its debts by a summary process called an extent. By 33 Henry VIII., chap. 39, this preference is given over all creditors who have not obtained judgment (meaning in Scotland, the execution of diligence) for their debts before the commencement of the crown's process; and the Act 6 Anne, chap. 26, extended the law of England in this respect to Scotland, the old writ of extent being abolished in 1856. The rule in Scotland was limited to movable or personal property, and the crown has no privilege over a subject in a competition for heritage. It obtains, however, as opposed to the landlord's Hypothec (q.v.). Mercantile sequestration does not discharge crown debts except with consent of the Treasury; and in a sequestration the crown has a statutory preference for one year's arrears of income and property tax, and assessed taxes. A similar preference is given for local rates. See EXTENT, EXCHEQUER.

CROWN-LANDS must be distinguished from such rights as that in the seashore, which are merely held by the sovereign in trust for the people; and also from that portion of the royal patrimony which consists of such reserved rights as mines, salmonfishings, &c. The crown lands are called annexed property in Scotland, and demesne lands in England, and are of course also distinct from the private estate of the person who happens to be Sovereign. They are now contracted within narrow limits, having been almost entirely granted away to subjects. King William III. so impoverished the crown in this manner, that an act was passed

CROYDON

in 1703 voiding all grants or leases from the crown of royal manors, or other possessions connected with land, for a period exceeding thirty-one years. At a much earlier period (1455, chap. 41) a Scottish statute had rendered the consent of parliament necessary to the alienation of the property of the crown, but the policy adopted of extensive subinfeudation to encourage agriculture had the effect of greatly diminishing the relative value of crownlands not actually given away; and in Scotland they now consist mainly of a few castles, palaces, and feu-duties. The superintendence of such property as still belongs to the crown is now vested in commissioners appointed for the purpose, called the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues. See WOODS AND FORESTS. In some British colonies unallotted ground is nominally crown-land. Thus the sale and settlement of land in New South Wales was regulated by the Crown Lands Act of 1884.

Crown, in Architecture, a species of spire or lantern, formed by converging flying-buttresses. Familiar examples in Scotland are the crowns of St Giles's, Edinburgh, and King's College, Aberdeen; south of the Tweed the only old crown is that of St Nicholas's Cathedral at Newcastle.

Crown Imperial. See FRITILLARY.

Crown Pieces of silver, of the value of five shillings, were introduced into the English coinage by Henry VIII. They have a standard weight of 436.56 grains. None were coined from 1861 till 1887, but since then they have again been struck. The name crown is also used as the translation of the French écu, which varied in value from 6 francs (or livres) to 3 francs.

Crown Point, a post-village of New York, on Lake Champlain, near the site of a British fort of the same name surprised and captured by Colonel Ethan Allen in 1775.

Crown-work, in Fortification, is an outwork consisting of two Bastion (q.v.) fronts connected with the main work by long flanks, so that its plan resembles somewhat the outline of a crown.

Crow's-feet. See CALTROP.

Crow-stone, the top stone of the gable-end of a building. See CORBIE STEPS.

Crowther, SAMUEL ADJAI, Bishop of the Niger territory, whose native name is Adjai, was born in Ochugu, to the east of the kingdom of Dahomey, in 1812, was carried off as a slave in 1819, and after having been bartered and sold more than once, was taken by a British man-of-war and landed at Sierra-Leone in 1822. He was placed under a missionary for training at Bathurst, and in 1825 professed his adherence to Christianity, taking his present name after a London vicar. He was next placed in charge of a mission school at Regent's Town; was with the first and second Niger expeditions (1841, 1854); visited London in 1842, when, as the result of some further training, he was ordained by the Bishop of London, entered with enthusiasm upon his missionary labours, and was consecrated Bishop of the Niger territory in 1864. He was D.D. of Oxford, author of several native tracts, and translated the Bible into the Yoruba language. Died in 1891. See his Life (1888).

Croydon, a town in Surrey, 10 miles S. of London Bridge, yet practically a suburb of London. It lies on the edge of the chalk and plastic clay, near the Banstead Downs, at the source of the Wandle, hence its name Croindene (Fr., ‘chalkhill`) in Domesday. The archbishops of Canterbury had a palace here from the Conquest till 1757. Its Perpendicular hall (1452) and chapel (1633-63) were purchased by the Duke of Newcastle in 1887 and presented to the Sisters of the Church Extension

CROZET ISLANDS

Association. Addington Park, 3 miles ESE., has since 1807 been the summer seat of the archbishops. Addiscombe House, at one time the residence of the first Earl of Liverpool, was converted in 1812 into the East India Military College, but was pulled down in 1863. The fine old Perpendicular parish church was destroyed by fire in January 1867, with the exception of the tower, but was rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott, and retains the monument of Archbishop Sheldon, with fragments of that of Archbishop Grindal. That of Archbishop Whitgift was restored in 1888 at a cost of £600. Whitgift's Hospital (1596) is a red brick pile, restored in 1860; his grammar-school now occupies buildings of 1871, besides a large Whitgift middle school. A new town hall, with law-courts and free library, was opened by the Prince of Wales in May 1896. Croydon was one of the first towns to grapple effectually with the economical disposal of town-sewage. A system of disposing of sewage by irrigation was inaugurated in 1858, and the corporation now possess two sewage farms, comprising 680 acres. In 1868 new water-works were completed, the water, which is of great purity, being obtained from an artesian well, yielding nearly 3,000,000 gallons per diem; and a further supply of 2,000,000 gallons per diem was introduced in 1888 at a cost of £50,000. The deathrate in 1848, the year before the adoption of the Public Health Act, was 28:16; in 1887 it was 14.71. There are thirteen railway stations. Till the 18th century Croydon was famous for its colliers' or charcoal-burners; now its chief specialty is the manufacture of church clocks and carillons. It was made a municipal borough in 1883, a parliamentary one in 1885, and a county borough in 1888. Pop. (1851) 10,260; (1881) 78,953; (1891) 102,697. See J. C. Anderson's Short Chronicle (1882).

Crozet Islands, a group to the south of the Indian Ocean, almost on a line between the Cape of Good Hope and Kerguelen's Land, in lat. 46° S., and long. 52 E. Except four or five, they are mere rocks, and are all uninhabited, though shipwrecked sailors have lived for a time on them. They were visited by the Challenger expedition in 1873-74. Crozier. See CROSIER.

Crucian (Carassius vulgaris), a fresh-water fish, nearly related to the carp, from which it differs in the absence of barbules, in the singlerowed arrangement of the pharyngeal teeth, and in a few other minor points. It is found in numerous varieties in rivers, ponds, and lakes in Europe and Asia; and is sometimes, though rarely, caught in the Thames. The food chiefly consists of dead vegetable and animal matter. The flesh is less esteemed than that of carp. The fish spawn in May or June, and then assemble in great numbers. See CARP.

Crucibles (Low Lat. crucibulum; from the root of Old Fr. cruche, a pot') are vessels made of materials capable of being exposed to high temperatures without alteration, and used for fusing substances together, such as the materials for glass-making, or metallic ores, with various fluxes to obtain the several metals they yield. Crucibles should

resist the corrosive action of the substances brought into contact Crucible. with them, and are generally made of fireclay, porcelain, graphite, iron, platinum, and, for some special operations, of silver. See ASSAYING.

Cruciferæ (Lat., 'cross-bearing, from the Xwise position of the four petals), an important order of thalamifloral dicotyledons, including about 1200 known species, mostly palæarctic, and specially abundant in Europe. No order is indeed more

familiar or more widely represented; the Mustard, Shepherd's Purse, &c., are among the commonest weeds of cultivation, while the Turnip and Cabbage, the Radish and Cress, &c., are no less familiar and widespread in usefulness. As wild flowers, they are mostly inconspicuous, but the pretty Cuckoo-flower or Lady's Smock (Cardamine pratensis), and hot a few others, might be mentioned as contributing some characteristic feature to marsh or cliff or copse; while a large number of genera are of the greatest value to the florist, for whom the exuberant masses of Iberis, Alyssum, Arabis, and Aubrietia are among the most admired resources of the rock-garden. Besides the Stocks and Wallflowers, &c., the old-fashioned Honesty and Gillyflower are among the most familiar inmates of every cottage-garden. The general character of the order is antiscorbutic and stimulating, with more or less acridity; the familiar flavour being due to the presence of a characteristic ethereal oil. Striking examples of these properties are given by the Scurvy-grass of our shores, so important to mariners in the days of long voyages and salt provisions; or more familiarly by the Common Water-cress; while a wide range of varia tion of flavour is presented by the flesh, rind, and leaves of the Common Turnip, especially in different varieties, soils, and seasons. A fixed oil is largely present in the seeds (see RAPE, COLZA), and the Woad Plant (Isatis, see WOAD) has been used from the earliest times as a source of indigo. The order was conveniently subdivided by Linnæus by the nature of its fruit as long and short podded (Siliquosæ and Siliculosa), while later systematists have derived important characters from the mode of folding of the cotyledons within the seed. See Engler's Pflanzenfamilien, or other systematic work, and separate articles-e.g. CABBAGE, &c.

Crucifix (Lat. crux, 'the cross,' and figo, 'I fix'), a cross with the effigy of Christ fixed to it. in the centre of The principal crucifix in Catholic churches stands the high-altar. It overtops the tapers, and is only removed to make place for the host in the service of Benediction. In well-appointed churches, the altar crucifix is gener ally either of gold or silver. Crucifixes are used in Lutheran churches, and in Prussia they are often made of Berin iron. The crucifix first began to take the place of the plain cross in the time of Con

stantine, but it was never publicly acknowledged by the Greek Church, and did not come into general use in the East till towards the end of the 8th century. It was not till the Carlovingian age that it became general in the Latin Church. On the earlier crucifixes, Christ is represented as alive, with open eyes, and generally clad, and fastened with four nails. On later ones he is represented as dead, naked, except for a cloth round the loins, and fastened with three nails-i.e. the two feet pierced by a single nail. See CROSS.

Cruden, ALEXANDER, born at Aberdeen, 31st May 1701, from the grammar-school passed to

592

don.

CRUELTY

Marisehal College, where he took his M.A., but, having shown symptoms of insanity, was for a short time placed in confinement. On his release he left Aberdeen, and, after spending ten years as a tutor, in 1732 established himself as a bookseller in LonIn 1737 appeared his Complete Concordance of the Holy Scriptures, a really admirable work. It was dedicated to Queen Caroline, who graciously promised to remember him,' but unfortunately died a few days later. Cruden now relapsed into insanity, and for ten weeks was kept in a madhouse, as again for a fortnight in 1753. Earning meanwhile his livelihood as a press-reader, he assumed the title of Alexander the Corrector,' and in 1755 began to go through the country, reproving by voice and pen the nation's sins of Sabbath-breaking and profanity. But many a good and kindly action was interwoven with his crack-brained courtships, his dreams of knighthood and a seat in parliament. He was just back from a visit to his native city, when he died at his prayers in his Islington lodgings, 1st November 1770. See the Life by A. Chalmers, prefixed since 1824 to many of the numerous editions of the Concordance. See CONCORDANCE.

Cruelty. See ANIMALS (CRUELTY TO), CHILDREN (CRUELTY TO).

Cruikshank, GEORGE, one of the most gifted of English pictorial satirists, was born in London, September 27, 1792, the son of Isaac Cruikshank, who, as well as his eldest son, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, was also known as a caricaturist. Cruikshank at first thought of the stage as a profession; but some of his sketches having come under the notice of a publisher, he was induced to engage in the illustration of children's books and songs. A publication, The Scourge (1811-16), afforded scope for the display of his satiric genius, and from that time forth he continued to pursue with remarkable success this his true vein. His illustrations for Hone's political squibs and pamphlets, and especially those dealing with the Queen Caroline trial, attracted much attention, and sent some of them through no less than fifty editions. But in the exquisite series of coloured etchings contributed to the Humorist (1819-21), and in the etchings to the Points of Humour (1823-24), did his true artistic power begin to be visible. This second, and in many ways finest, period of his art, represented by these works, culminated in the etchings to Peter Schlemihl (1823), and to Grimm's German Popular Stories (1824-26), which in the simple directness and effectiveness of their execution, and in their fertile and unencumbered fancy, rank as the artist's masterpieces. The latter series, now extremely scarce, was reproduced in 1868, with a laudatory preface from the pen of Mr Ruskin. Similar in artistic aims and method are the spirited little woodcuts contributed to the Italian Tales (1824), Mornings at Bow Street (1824-27), and Clark's Three Courses and a Dessert (1830); and the plates to Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft (1830) may be regarded as the last examples of his earlier and simpler method as an etcher. His numerous plates in Bentley's Miscellany mark a third period of his art, in which he aimed at greater elaboration and completeness, introducing more complex effects of chiar-oscuro, and frequently attaining great power of tragic design. The finest of these are the great series to Dickens's Oliver Twist, and to Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard in Bentley's Miscellany, and The Tower of London, and in the same class are to be ranked the plates to Windsor Castle, and The Miser's Daughter, of which, as of Oliver Twist, he thirty years afterwards claimed the chief authorship. Among the best productions of his later years are the large

CRUSADES

and elaborate etchings to Brough's Life of Sir John Falstaff, published in 1858. His last illus tration was the frontispiece to Mrs Blewitt's The Rose and the Lily (1877), Designed and etched by George Cruikshank, aged eighty-three, 1875.' As a water-colourist he left work marked by considerable skill and delicacy. In his late years he devoted himself to oil-painting, and in this province showed perhaps more humour, fervour, and inventive ability than artistic power. His most important picture was 'Worship of Bacchus ' (1862), which has been engraved partly by his own hand, a vigorous and earnest protest against the evils of drunkenness; and to the cause of temperance he also devoted many of his designs, especially the tragic and powerful series of The Bottle (1847), which, reproduced by glyptography, attained an immense circulation. He died 1st February 1878. There are excellent collections of his works in the printroom, British Museum; the Royal Aquarium, Westminster; and the South Kensington Museum. The last named, presented in 1884 by the artist's widow, numbers 3481 items. See G. W. Reid's Catalogue (3 vols. 1871), and Lives by Bates (2d ed. 1879), Jerrold (2d ed. 1883), and Stephens (1891); and Marchmont's The Three Cruikshanks (1897).

Cruiser, formerly an armed ship employed to protect commerce or capture enemies' ships. See PRIVATEER, FRIGATE; and for what are now called 1st and 2d class cruisers, see NAVY.

Crusades is the name given to the religious wars carried on during the middle ages between the Christian nations of the West and the Mohammedans. In time, however, the name came to be applied to any military expedition against heretics or enemies of the pope. The first of the regular crusades was undertaken simply to vindicate the right of Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy Sepulchre. On the conquest of Palestine, however, the object of the crusades changed, or at least enlarged, and the efforts of the subsequent crusaders were directed to the recovery of the whole land from the Saracens, who had repossessed themselves of it. From an early period in the history of the church, it was considered a pious act to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, and to visit the various apots which the Saviour had consecrated by his presence. When Palestine was conquered by the Arabs in the 7th century, that fierce but generous people respected the religious spirit of the pilgrims, and allowed them to build a church and a hospital in Jerusalem. Under the Fatimides of Egypt, who conquered Syria about 980 A.D., the position both of the native Christian residents and of the pilgrims became less favourable; but the subjugation of the country in 1065 by brutal hordes of Seljuk Turks from the Caucasus rendered it intolerable. These barbarians, but recently converted to Mohammedanism, were nearly as ignorant of the Koran as of the Scriptures. They hardly knew their fellow-religionists, and are said to have wreaked their vengeance on the Mussulmans of Syria as well as on the Christians. The news of their atrocities produced a deep sensation over the whole of Christendom. The first to take alarm were, naturally enough, the Byzantine monarchs. 1073 the Greek emperor, Manuel VII., sent to supplicate the assistance of the great Pope Gregory VII. against the Turks, accompanying his petition with many expressions of profound respect for His Holiness and the Latin Church. Gregory-who beheld in the supplication of Manuel a grand opportunity for realising the Catholic unity of Christendom-cordially responded; but circumstances prevented him from ever carrying the vast designs which he entertained into execution, and the idea of a crusade died gradually away. It was, however,

In