reneral
narried
3 1nca-
s fory
n pro-
te use,
ssessed
quired,
shand.
respect
nation
e pay
or the
ple of
ing ‘to
r own
which
on and
-ansfer
eneral,
b cases
ilaries,
made
(q. v.)
d by
aw 18
is the
f pro-
ssels.
hnical
oment
by a
edure
ted to
ds to
eding
elease
PPEAL
ES, is
ur an
River
boine
river
VIVER
. Bay
5 falls
vhich
the
a, is
2" aak |
y wall |
tadel |
who |
onas- |
\ame,
rliest
re in
stery
other
e are
roest
rated
last
Tims, |
dred |
re on |
b
|
ASSIZE—ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.
A. occupies the site of the ancient Assisium, a
municipal town of Umbria, and presents the remains
of the forum, the baths, and the aqueducts of the
days of the Romans. In the piazza, or square, there
stands a beautiful portico of the ancient temple of
Minerva, consisting of fluted Corinthian columns and
a pediment. There are abundance of olive-trees, and
some fine mineral springs in the vicinity. The town
has given title to a bishop since 240 A.p. It has
manufactures of needles and files.
ASSI'ZE. This word, literally signifying a ¢sitting’
or ‘session,’ is a term used in the principal European
legal systems, and very much in the same sense, or
rather senses in all, for 1t has more than one distinctive
meaning. As is common with regard to most of our
ancient legal technicality, the Latin language, in the
first instance (assideo), and then the French (assis),
appear to have led to its introduction into the phra-
seology of the law of England, and, it may be added,
also of Scotland, although in the latter country it
has a more limited application in judicial procedure
than in England, 4. being in Scotland the old tech-
nical expression for a jury. In England, this word
may also signify a jury, and it is sometimes used to
denote an ordinance, decree, or law. But in modern
practice, it is commonly applied to the sessions or
sittings of the judges of the superior law-courts,
held periodically in each county, for the purpose of
administering civil and criminal justice. These
courts came into use in room of ancient justices in
eyre, justicia rei in itinere. They are now appointed
by commissions issued to all the judges of the courts
of common law, and to other learned persons, such
as serjeants and barristers of suitable rank; and
such commissions are accompanied by writs of asso-
ciation, whereby certain persons (usually the clerk
of A. and his subordinate officers) are directed to
associate themselves with the justices and serjeants,
and they are required to admit the said persons into
their society, in order to take the assizes, &c., that a
sufficient supply of commissioners may never be
wanting. But, to prevent the delay of justice by the
absence of any of them, there is also issued, of course,
a writ of St non omnes, directing that, if all cannot be
present, any two of them (a justice or serjeant being
one) may proceed to execute the commission. These
commissioners or judges of A. are sent twice in every
year on circusts all round the kingdom, to try bya jury
of the respective counties the truth of such matters
of fact as are then under dispute in the courts of
Westminster Hall ; and occasionally a third circuit
is appointed in the course of the year, for the pur-
pose of jail delivery. The circuits are eight in
pumber—such as the Home, the Midland, the Nox-
folk, the Oxford, the Northern, the Western, the
North Wales, and the South Wales circuit ; and in
going them, the judges or commissioners sit by
virtue of four several authorities: 1. The commis-
sion of the peace; 2. A commission of oyer and
terminer ; 3. A commission of general jail delivery.
The other authority is, 4. That of nisi prius, which
is a consequence of the ancient commission of A.
being annexed to the office of justices of A. by the
statute of Westminster the second (13 Edw. L c.
30) ; and it empowers them to try all questions of
fact issuing out of the courts at Westminster that
are then ripe for trial by jury. These, by the
ancient course of the courts, were usually appointed
to be tried at Westminster in some Kaster or
Michaelmas term, by a jury returned from the
county wherein the cause of action arose ; but with
this proviso, nist prius, unless before the day pre-
fixed the judges of A. should come into the county
in question, which in modern times they have
invariably done in the vacations preceding ; so that
the trial has always, in fact, taken place before
those judges. And now, by the effect of the statute
15 and 16 Vict. c. 76 (the Common Law Procedure
Act, 1852), the course of proceeding is no longer
even ostensibly connected with a proviso at nisi
prius, but the trial is allowed to take place without
the use of any such words in the process of the
court, and as a matter of course, before the judges
sent under commission into the several counties.
The circuit system, however, does not extend to
London and Middlesex, which have instead courts
of nisi prius, which are held before the chief or other
judge of the superior courts for the trial of civil
causes, at what are called the London and West-
minster Sittings—the times for which sittings are
now regulated by the Common Law Procedure Act
of 1854 (17 and 18 Vict. ¢. 125, s. 2) ; and the estab-
lishment of the Central Criminal Court (by the 4
and 5 Will. IV. c. 36, the jurisdiction of which has
been recently extended by the 19 and 20 Vict. c. 16),
has sufficiently provided for the administration of
criminal justice within these districts.
The circuit courts of Justiciary in Scotland, of
which there are three—the North, the West, and
the South—very much resemble the assizes in
England, and have, in criminal matters at least,
very much the same jurisdiction ; but in civil causes
their authority is very limited.
In the sense of an ordinance or law, the term A.
has various applications, although chiefly in the
more ancient systems of jurisprudence. Thus, the
‘Assizes’ of Jerusalem were, as we are told in Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall (vol. xi. p. 93), a code of feudal laws
for the kingdom of Jerusalem, formed in 1099 by an
assembly of the Latin barons and of the clergy and
laity under Godfrey of Bouillon. Then there were
the ¢Assizes’ or ordinances regulating the price of
bread, ale, fuel, and other common necessaries of
life, but all of which have been abolished. The
same regulations appear to have prevailed in Scot-
land in ancient times. See JURY, TRIAL BY JURY,
MARKETS.
ASSOCIATE SYNOD, ASSOCIATE PRES-
BYTERY, &ec., designations adopted among the
SECEDERS (q.Vv.) from the Church of Scotland.
There is also an Associate Synod in America, and
an Associate Reformed Church, both of which have
sprung from the Scottish Secession.
ASSOCIA'TION. See Co0-0PERATION ; also,
Sociery, LEAGUE, COMPANY.
ASSOCIA'TION OF IDE'AS. This is a phrase
of great importance in the Philosophy of the Human
Mind, as expressing the most pervading fact at the
foundation of our intelligence. By giving, therefore,
a somewhat full exposition of this subject, we are
able to explain, at once, a considerable number of
the complex phenomena of mind in a more satisfac-
tory way than by treating the several phenomena
separately. What is meant by Association of Ideas,
is familiarly illustrated by such occurrences as the
following: When we see the sky becoming overcast,
we think of rain as about to follow, the notion of
rain not having previously been present to our mind.
‘When we hear the church-bells, we are apt to think
of the crowds in the street, or of some of the other
circumstances of public worship. When we pass a
house, we are reminded of its occupier; and meeting
a person we know, we may be carried in thought to
his office, and from that to other persons holding the
same office, and so on. If an object is before my
eyes, as a mountain, I am said to receive an impres-
sion or sensation of it, in consequence of the actual
presence of the thing; but it is possible for me to
remember the mountain, or to have an idea of if,
when far away from the reality, in which case there
must be some power in the mind itself, different
493
