BATTERING-RAMS, BOWS AND ARROWS.-1. Black Prince at Crécy. 2. Scythian riders. 3. Sculptu 7. Bows, arrows, etc., of African tribes west of Zanzibar. 8. Munga (Africa) bow. 9. Arrow

Battering-ram.

the parties fought in person, unless the appellor were a woman, a priest, an infant, or a man of the age of 60, or lame, or blind, all of whom might refuse the wager of B., and compel a trial by jury. Peers of the realm also could not be challenged to wage B., on account of their personal dignity, nor, by special charter, could the citizens of London, fighting being considered foreign to their education and employment. Whether by champions or in person, the mode of proceeding was the same. The appellee, or defendant, as he might be called, threw down his glove, and declared that he would prove his right, or defend himself with his body. The appellor, or prosecutor, in accepting the challenge, took up the glove, and replied that he was ready to make good his appeal, body for body; and thereupon the parties, holding each other's hands, joined issue before the court in a very formal and solemn manner. The weapons used were batons or staves an ell long, and a four-cornered leathern target, and the combatants were obliged to swear that neither of them would resort to sorcery or witchcraft! The B. lasted till the stars appeared in the evening, and the party who by that time had either killed or got the better of his opponent, was considered the successful suitor of justice. In a charge of murder, if the accused was slain, it was taken as proof of his guilt, and his blood was attainted; and if so far vanquished as not to be able or willing to fight any longer, he was adjudged guilty, and sentenced to be hanged immediately!

So late as the year 1818, this barbarous procedure was solemnly decided by the court of king's bench to be a valid and legal mode of trial, which the king's subjects were free to adopt! Of course, the principle was, that all laws, no matter how unsuitable to the times, could be enforced, unless expressly repealed by act of parliament. As a matter of curiosity, we may give the names of the parties (they were of the laboring-class) who seriously submitted their contention in the above form before lord chief-justice Ellenborough and his brother-judges of the period. The case is that of Ashford v. Thornton, and is reported in the first volume of Barnwall & Alderson's Reports, p. 405. As we have stated, the court decided in favor of the validity of the trial, one of the judges remarking that sufficient had not been stated to induce their lordships to refuse the B., and another more plainly and unequivocally observed that the defendant was "entitled to this his lawful mode of trial." But lord Ellenborough put the matter more clearly by stating, that 'the general law of the land is in favor of the wager of B., and it is our duty to pronounce the law as it is, and not as we may wish it to be; whatever prejudices, therefore, may justly exist against this mode of trial, still, as it is the law of the land, the court must pronounce judgment for it." Happily, the pugnacious litigant who obtained this judgment was induced to go no further, and the above statute, the 59 Geo. III. c. 46, was passed, by which the shocking ordeal was wholly abolished.

In Scotland, we believe the matter would have been differently disposed of; for the judges there, following the doctrine of the Roman law, would have held the proceeding to have been in desuetude and obsolete, and there the matter would have ended. Mr. Rush, the then American envoy to the British court, thus justly remarks on this case in his Residence at the Court of London (published 1833). To repeal laws belongs to the legislature. Courts expound and apply them. Free government is complex, and works slowly; tyranny is simple, and does its work at once. An absurd law may sleep in a free code, because overlooked; but whilst there, it is the law. It is so, I suppose, that we must reason; and generally, the reason would be right. Yet it might have been thought that, in a case like this, long disuse added to obvious absurdity, would have worked the silent repeal of the law, according to the doctrine of desuetude under the Roman code."

Montesquieu, in his Spirit of Laws, book 28, chapters 20 and 22, very ingeniously and plausibly deduces the modern practice of dueling and the so-called laws of honor from the above barbarous judicial combat. See ORDEAL.

BATTENBERG, Germany. See page 885.

BATTENBERG, JULIE, Countess of. See page 885.

BATTEN, or LAY, or LATHE, is the swing utensil of a loom, by which the weft or woof is struck home, and in which the shuttle runs. B. and lay are synonymous, B. being the English name, and lay the Scotch. See WEAVING.

BAT'TENS, a species of sawn fir timber, of smaller dimensions than the kind called planks. B. are usually from 12 to 14 ft. long, 7 in. broad, and 2 in. thick. Cut into two boards (1 in. thick), they are used for flooring; cut into three boards, they are put on roofs below slates; in narrower pieces, they are put upright on walls for fixing the laths for plastering. The best B. are brought from Norway, and sold wholesale by wood-merchants.

BATTER, in architecture, used as a verb to express the manner in which the walls of towers, which are smaller at the top than at the bottom, slope inwards. The walls of wharfs, and those built to support embankments and the like, usually batter.

BATTERING-RAM, an engine of war used in ancient times, and in the middle ages. It consisted of a beam of wood, with a mass of bronze or iron on one end, resembling the head of a ram (in Lat. aries). In its simplest form, it was borne and impelled by the hands of the soldiers; afterwards, it was suspended in a frame, and made to swing. Another form moved on rollers. The alternating motion was communicated by ropes. To protect those working it, a wooden roof (testudo) was constructed over it, and the whole was mounted on wheels. The beam of the ram varied from 60 to 120 ft. in length, the head sometimes weighed above a ton, and as many as 100 men were employed

Batthyanyi.

in impelling the machine. When the blows were long enough continued, hardly any wall could resist. When or where it was invented, is unknown. It is mentioned by Ezekiel. The Romans derived it from the Greeks.

BATTERSEA, a s.w. suburb of London, situated in Surrey, on the s. bank of the Thames, at the bridge to Chelsea, which is nearly opposite. It lies in B. parish, which is partly laid out in market-gardens for London, and has many manufactories. The church has a monument to the celebrated lord Bolingbroke. The flats, called B. Fields, once famed as a rich botanical station, are now formed into a public park. Adjacent to the park, the Thames is crossed by B. bridge (lately rebuilt), Albert bridge, Chelsea suspension bridge, and a railroad bridge. The first asparagus raised near London was grown by the market-gardeners of Battersea; but railways have much changed the locality.

BATTERY, in criminal law, means the beating or wounding, or more correctly, an assault by beating or wounding of another. Violence or force is not a necessary element in this offense, but the least touching, however trifling, of another's person in an angry, rude, insulting manner, is a B.; for the law, says Blackstone, cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence, and therefore totally prohibits the first and lowest stage of it, every man's person being sacred, and no one having a right to meddle with it in any the slightest manner. The remedy for an injury of this kind may be either by a civil action, as for damages, or by indictment, as for a misdemeanor. Where the B. is on a man's wife, the former may sue for damages by action of trespass, and it must be brought in the names of the husband and wife jointly; but if the maltreatment be so serious as to have deprived the husband for any time of his wife's company, the law then gives him a separate remedy, by an action in which he may recover special damage, on the ground of the loss of his wife's society, whilst suffering from the beating. By the common law procedure act, the 15 and 16 Vict. c. 76, the remedy for such ill usage is further varied, for by section 40 of that act, it is provided, that in any action brought by a man and his wife for an injury done to the latter, it shall be lawful for the husband to add thereto claims in his own right, and separate actions brought in respect of such claims may be consolidated, if the court or a judge shall think fit.

It is a good defense to prove that the alleged B. happened by accident, or that it was not in anger, or that it was merely the correction which a parent or master is entitled to use to a child, or scholar, or servant, or that it was done in self-defense, or in defense of a wife, a husband, a parent, a child, a master, or a servant; or that it was such personal force as a proper officer was entitled to employ, or that the defend ant has already been summarily proceeded against under the 24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, by sections 44 and 45 of which act it is provided that further proceedings shall be barred where the complaint has been disposed of by two justices either by conviction or dismissal of the case, provided, in the former case, the defendant has paid the penalty, and suffered the imprisonment awarded; and, in the latter, the magistrates have dismissed the case, because it was justified, or so trifling as not to merit punishment, and this be forthwith certified under their hands.

In the Scotch law, there was what was called a B. pendente lite, which consisted in assaulting an adversary in a lawsuit during its dependence. This peculiar offense was created by two old Scotch statutes passed respectively in 1584 and 1594-and which curiously provided as a punishment the loss of the cause to the offender-but they were repealed in 1826 by the 7 Geo. IV. c. 19.

BATTERY (ante), in criminal law, any unlawful beating or other wrongful physical violence or constraint inflicted upon a person without his consent. B. must be wilfully committed or result from want of care. An injury done in an angry, rude, or spiteful manner, such as spitting on a person, or even touching him in anger, or to insult, or annoy, is a B.; or it is a B. if one strike a cane in the hands of another. But B. may be justified, as in a parent's correction of a child, or a schoolmaster's discipline of a scholar, or as a means of preserving the peace, or of defense, or the protection of others; but in such cases the B. must not exceed the necessary amount; and a B. may also be justified in defense of one's property.

BATTERY, in military language, has two meanings: the one relating to field operations; the other, to fortification. A B. in field-operations consists of from 4 to 8 (in the British army, usually 6) pieces of ordnance, together with the necessary gun-carriages, ammunition-wagons, horses, artillerymen, and officers. A B. of foot-artillery (see ARTILLERY, ROYAL REGIMENT OF) is usually called a field B., as distinguished from a horse B. There are also heavy and light batteries, according to the weight of the ordnance. The term B. is also applied in a narrower sense to the personnel, or complement of men and officers attending such a set of guns. The designation for this used to be, in the foot artillery, a company, and in the horse artillery, a troop; but by an order issued in 1859, both these terms are now nearly superseded by the word B., thereby giving complexity to a term already used in two different meanings. The personnel of a field B. of six 12-pounder rifled guns, is thus composed: 1 major, 1 captain, 3 lieutenants, 1 surgeon, 1 battery sergeant-major, 1 battery quartermaster-sergeant, 6 sergeants, 4 corporals, 4 bombardiers, 66 gunners, 2 trumpeters, 1 farrier and carriage-smith, 3 shoeingsmiths, 2 collar-makers, 1 wheeler, G1 drivers (privates)-in all 158. In war, gunners