ages, which were associations for the teaching and managing, each of its particular handicraft, and for eleemosynary purposes, in regard to its members, who might fall into decay. They were not established with any view to traffic or the inaking of profits. For incorporated companies trading as bankers, see Grant on 'Banking'; and the article BANK, BANKER, BANKING. For general information on corporations, see Grant's Law of Corporations,' where particulars are stated of the law respecting the universities and their colleges; grammar schools; hospitals; dean and chapters; guardians of the poor; bishops, parsons; and generally respecting all descriptions of corporate bodies known in this country. CORPORATIONS (MUNICIPAL) OF IRELAND. The present constitution of the boroughs of Ireland, will be treated under MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. The following is merely a historical notice of some of the peculiarities no longer existing, which marked the Irish corporations. : The whole system of boroughs, which holds so conspicuous and important a place in the history of the political and general civilisation of the British islands, is, in nature as well as name, of purely Teutonic original that particular species of organisation having ever been found repugnant to the habits and spirit of the Celtic nations in their independent state. Thus, in Great Britain itself, its local limits advanced with the growth and extension of the Germanic colonies both north and south of the Tweed; and in Ireland we find that the native race were strangers to it until the settlement on their eastern and southern coasts, about the 9th century, of some of those Danish, North-man, or, as they were called in Ireland, Ost-man (East-man) bands, in that great æra of the permanent migrations of those formidable sea-rovers. Of these maritime settlements, five, namely, Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick, appear as places of note at the commencement of the Anglo-Norman conquests in the island, and as possessing that municipal organisation which constantly attended all the branches of the Teutonic race. The Ost-man colonists of Ireland, too, though for a considerable time after their first settlement they adhered to their ancient paganism, had at the period in question, owing undoubtedly to the amicable relations which had arisen between them and the Irish population, and to the exertions of the Irish clergy, been long in the profession of Christianity; so that, it should seem, the first Anglo-Norman invaders might have recognised in them some degree of national affinity. But being ignorant and brutal, though subtle and daring adventurers, their thirst for plunder and for territorial acquisition would not pe: mit them, in their career of murderous rapine, to make any distinction in treatment between the Scandinavian and the Celtic blood, between the Ost-man and the Irishman. This unsparing temper of the early private invaders perfectly coincided with the policy of the English crown; and so soon as Henry II. had found leisure to take the business of the invasion into his own hands, one of his principal measures for securing the footing | of his government on the Irish soil was the colonisation of the Ost-man ports with English or Anglo-Norman settlers. Thus the Ost-men of Dublin were thrust without the walls of their city to inhabit the suburbs thence called Ost-man town, and still, by corruption, Oxmantown, giving place to a band of mercantile settlers from Bristol, who became the English king's "burgesses" of Dublin, with a charter of liberties modelled exactly upon that of Bristol. In like manner, during the various fluctuations of the territorial conquest, down to its completion at the close of the reign of Elizabeth, every permanent extension of the English frontier extended the English organisation of the territory, of which the establishment of fortified towns, with inhabitants municipally organised and trained to arms, was a constant and a prominent feature. The municipal commissioners of 1833 could not help observing the "marked distinction in the language of their charters, as to the constitutions of the municipal corporations in Ireland, according to the dates of those instruments," that is, according as they were granted before or after the commencement of the reign of James I. This was precisely the period when the crown was most actively exerting itself to secure the power of moulding the borough constitutions at its pleasure; and in the middle of James's reign was given the notable judicial decision in favour of the prerogative of establishing close boroughs by charter, upon which the crown ever afterwards acted. Far, however, as the exercise of this power was carried in England, yet, in the hands of the Stuarts at least, it failed of the complete attainment of its object. But in Ireland, which presented a much clearer field for its exertion, it was used both lavishly and effectually, not only in establishing new boroughs, but in reframing the constitutions of the old ones. In the "plantation of Ulster," as the settling of British inhabitants upon the lately-forfeited lands there was then denominated, by charters granted by James to various "undertakers" of the plantation, a number of incorporations were made beforehand, on the new and approved plan of towns "to be built" on the respective lands. Another and very similar mode of making boroughs in Ireland at this period was the incorporating of some village already existing, at the same time placing its corporation under the absolute control of the lord of the manor existing previously or newly erected. The whole number of boroughs thus created by James I. and his two immediate successors, a large proportion of which were originally of the class just described, though some of them have since risen to importance, was 61, and the number of the older boroughs was 45; there were also 11 other places which sent representatives to the Irish parliament, though no charters were in existence. but which derived their right from usage. Each of the 106 corporations referred to above, sent two members to the Irish House of Commons, and many of those created by James I. and his two successors served scarcely any other purpose from the beginning, their incorporation having been little more than a cover for the notnination of the two members by the landed proprietor. Many had consequently fallen into virtual disuse long before the legislative union with England. The mode of incorporation adopted by the crown in erecting the modern boroughs, presents little more than a parallel to the course it was pursuing in England; but in order to explain how it was that the subversion which it effected in the ancient borough constitutions of Ireland was so much more rapid and more complete than in those of England, we must advert to some very remarkable features in the politico-religious history of Ireland. In the very first establishment of boroughs in that country, the Anglo-Norman crown had found itself under an absolute necessity of placing the municipalities on the footing of the most favoured class of boroughs in England: the security of the English power upon the Irish soil required that the incorporated hurgesses should be strong and prompt for defensive warfare; and, to be so, it was essential that they should be free. Not only therefore were the municipal and the parliamentary franchise enjoyed by the inhabitant householders at large, but their common exemption from burdensome duties and services, and from feudal jurisdictions, was rendered more effective than in England itself: and such, on the whole, did the civil condition of the Anglo-Irish boroughs continue to be until the completion of the territorial conquest. This completion, while it relieved the ancient boroughs from the danger of external attack from the unsubdued native Irish population, rendered their internal freedom more liable to attack from the English crown, at length relieved from the risk and embarrassment of the old contest with "the Irish enemy." Another remarkable circumstance appeared just at the same period, which, while it commenced an entirely new era in Anglo-Irish history, placed in the hands of the English government a weapon of sweeping efficiency for the prosecution in Ireland of its new policy towards ancient boroughs in general. When Henry VIII. had abolished, to his own advantage, the papal supremacy in England, the new religious reformation obtained only a partial reception in Ireland. In the reign of Elizabeth two statutes were passed relating to the crown's religious supremacy and to the uniformity of common prayer; but her government was too discreet to enforce either of them, except as to the clergy and the leading officers acting in civil capacities under the govern ment. But James I. sent presidents or military governors through the Irish provinces for the immediate enforcement of the statutes in ques tion, especially in the corporate towns. The leading municipal officers were ejected, others, of known pliancy, were substituted in their places; and these persons readily resigned the rights and liberties of their towns into the king's hands, and took out new charters of incorporation. And here it was that the leading object of the crown was accomplished. To the several ancient boroughs new charters were soon issued, so framed as to leave but a very sinall share of municipal power to the great body of the inhabitants. In these charters individuals were expressly nominated to fill the offices of mayor, sheriff, recorder, &c.: the members of the governing council of the corporations were in most instances nominated in like manner, with exclusive power to appoint their successors; so that the inhabitants at large were almost wholly deprived of that share in their local government which, under the original constitutions of these boroughs, they had enjoyed for upwards of four centuries. The system of exclusion was closely pursued by the persons thus newly placed in corporate authority, who, by this means, gradually severed their interests from those of the inhabitants at large: still they were unable wholly to extinguish the municipal rights of the ancient class of freemen, who though excluded by test-oaths from the higher corporate offices, continued pretty numerous until the year 1654, when the army of the Commonwealth obtained possession of all such towns. No sooner was Charles II. restored than the Lords Justices of Ireland issued a proclamation confirming to every one holding by grant or contract with" the late usurped powers," all their lands and possessions, as well in towns as elsewhere, during a given period. Under the authority of this proclamation, when the Irish legislature was called together for the general arrangement of landed property, and other public interests, which had been completely subverted by so many years of civil war, the Commonwealth soldiery, who, under Cromwell, had possessed themselves of the walled towns, were able to return an overwhelming majority of members to that parlia ment which passed the Acts of Settlement and Explanation. The permanence of their interest was thus provided for; and the estates, rights, and liberties of those corporate establishments were vested in a body of men but recently settled in the kingdom. The unjust exclusion consequently maintained, became, in the course of the same reign, a subject of inquiry with the Irish government; but, wavering as that government has so often been between justice and expediency, it procured no effectual change in that system, the evils of which it seemed to deplore. One measure, however, was taken at this period, the tendency of which was to mitigate in some degree the spirit of absolute exclusion prevailing in the Irish municipalities. The Act of Explanation empowered the Lord Lieutenant and Council, within seven years, to make rules, orders, and directions, for the better regulation of all cities, walled towns, and corporations. By virtue of this power, the Lord Lieutenant and Council, in 1672, issued what are called the "New Rules," which ordained that thenceforward the elections of persons to serve the offices of mayor, sheriff, recorder, or town-clerk of Dublin, Limerick, Galway, and the several other towns therein mentioned, should be subject to the approbation of the Lord Lieutenant and Council; and that no person should be capable of acting as mayor, recorder, sheriff, treasurer, alderman, town-clerk, common-councilman, or master or warden, until he should have taken the oath of supremacy, except such only with whose taking that oath the Lord Lieutenant should think fit, by name and in writing, to dispense. But that part of these New Rules which tended to restore the ancient basis of the municipal franchise, was a provision that all "foreigners, strangers, and aliens, being merchants, or skilled in any mystery, craft, or trade," then or thereafter residing and inhabiting within those cities or towns, should, on paying down a fine to the mayor and common council, or other persons authorised to admit freemen, be admitted to the freedom of such city or town respectively, and if they desired it, into any guild, brotherhood, &c., therein; that any person refusing to admit them to applying for their freedom should, upon due proof before the Lord Lieutenant and Council, be for ever deprived of the freedom of such city or town; and further, that on such refusal of admission by the corporate authorities, such person so applying should, on tendering twenty shillings, and taking the oath of allegiance before any justice of peace in the adjoining county, be therefore deemed, to all intents and purposes, a freeman of such corporation, guild, &c. Thus, in spite of the exclusive system then in operation, every resident trader in the corporate towns of Ireland was enabled, under these rules and orders, to become a freeman; though still, except by special dispensation, he could not fill the higher municipal offices, unless by taking the oath of supremacy and giving the other tests then required. But after the Revolution of 1688, the spirit and intention of this portion of these rules were wholly disregarded. Owing, indeed, in some degree to James II.'s unsuccessful attempts against his opponents in the corporate towns of Ireland, the system of absolute exclusion pursued in the early part of his brother's reign was revived with aggravated rigour; and under such circumstances little was to be expected from seeking the benefit of the rules and orders, or bringing in any other mode the rights of the excluded before such tribunals as then existed. From these causes, and from a sort of inviolability or sacredness of character which was thrown about corporate establishments in Ireland from the reign of William III. to the pass ng of the Irish Municipal Corporations Act in 1840, by which a number of them were disincorporated, and the remainder, in their constitution, were assimilated to the English boroughs as regulated by the Municipal Corporations Act, England (1 Vict. c. 78, 1837), by which all religious distinctions as affecting the rights of the inhabitants were wholly abolished, the inhabitants at large of municipal towns remained wholly unconnected in interests or feelings with the few individuals monopolising all corporate authority. CORPULENCE. [OBESITY.] CORPUS JURIS ČIVILIS. The term corpus juris (literally a body of law) which so far back as the year 1262, was specially applied to the several compilations made by Justinian (Sarti de Claris Archigymn,' t. i. pt. ii. p. 214), was not then used for the first time, for Livy (iii. 34), in narrating the history of the introduction of the decemviral code, and the reception it met with at Rome, states that the common impression was that two more laws were wanted to complete the work, for if they were added "absolvi posse velut corpus omnis Romani juris," whilst Justinian himself uses the term in the sense of the collection of Roman law then in being (C. 5. 13 pr.) But there are now two principal collections to which that appellation is given, the Corpus Juris Civilis and the Corpus Juris Canonici. [CANON LAW.] The term Corpus Juris Civilis designates the book in which the different parts of the legislation of the Emperor Justinian are collected, and which, considered as one whole, contains the main body of the Civil or Roman law. According to this definition, the Corpus Juris Civilis consists of the compilations of the codex, pandects or digests, institutes, and novels, which were made under the direction of the emperor Justinian. A.D. 535 and 559. In the middle ages, when the study of the Roman law began to flourish in the universities of Italy, the jurists were led to consider Justinian's separate collections as one entire legislation, to which a general title would be appropriate. Savigny, in his history of the Roman law in the middle ages, asserts that the term Corpus Juris Civilis was used in the 12th century. However, Russardus, professor in Bourges (which, in the 16th century, was one of the most celebrated French universities for jurisprudence), who first edited the collections of Justinian under a common title, at Lyon, in the year 1561, chose only the term Jus Civile for that purpose; and Dionysius Gothofredus, likewise a French jurist of Paris, is commonly considered as the first who, in his edition in the year 1583, at Lyon, adopted the term Corpus Juris Civilis as a general title for the collec tions of Justinian, for before this time each of the three volumes into which the glossers divided the collection, was known by a particular title; the first volume being called Digestum Vetus,' comprising the first twenty-three books and the first two titles of the twenty-fourth book; the second volume, Infortiatum,' running from the third title of the twenty-fourth book to the eighty-second paragraph of the second title of the thirty-fifth book; and the third volume Digestum Novum,' containing the remainder of the work. (See in Heynii Opuscula Academica,' vol. ii. p. 315, some remarks on this division.) From the time of Gothofredus his title has always been in use. The Corpus Juris Civilis, as it is now composed, contains: 1. The Collections of the Emperor Justinian, namely, the Institutes, in 4 books; the Pandects or Digests, in 50 books; the Codex, in 12 books, together with the Authenticæ, a name given, not by Justinian, but by the Glossers (professors of law, who in the 12th and 13th centuries taught the Roman law and explained the text of the Corpus Juris in the universities of Italy, especially Bologna) in order to distinguish the collection made by them and appended to the Corpus Juris from the Epitome Novellarum made by Julianus, A.D. 570; the number of these Novella Constitutiones is 168. 2. An arbitrary appendix, joined to the Corpus Juris by different editors since the time of Russardus, namely, a. several Constitutions of the Emperor Justinian and his two successors Justinian II. and Tiberius II., called Justinian's 13 edicts, which were first received into the Corpus Juris by Russardus; b. several other Constitutions of the same three emperors, which were first added by Contius, in his edition of 1571; c. 113 Constitutions of the Emperor Leo, the philosopher, given by him for the purpose of amending and correcting Justinian's legislation, together with a Constitution of the Emperor Zeno, likewise first added by Contius in his edition; d. a series of Constitutions of the successors of the Emperor Justinian from the 7th to the 14th century, first added to the Corpus Juris in the edition of Charondas of 1575; e. a series of 84 (or 85 according to the older division) ecclesiastical Canons, called Canones Sanctorum et Venerandorum Apostolorum, first added to the Corpus Juris by Gregorius Haloander about A.D. 530. According to the descriptive title by which they are headed they are to be ascribed to Cleinent, the first bishop of Rome, but their origin and history are involved in so much doubt that many writers have not hesitated to pronounce them to be apocryphal and devoid of authority (Dupin, Bibliothéque Ecclesiastique,' t. 1, p. 135); probably they are a private collection of decrees of councils and synods existing prior to the synod of Nicæa, A.D. 325; f. the Libri Feudorum, that is, the books which contain the usages and customs of the feudal system, and which were joined to the Corpus Juris by the Glossers; g. several Constitutions of the Emperor Frederic II.; h. a short book in ten titles, called 'Extravagantes, or Undecima Collatio,' containing some Constitutions of the Emperor Henry VII., A.D. 1312; i, and last of all, the Liber de pace Constantie, or the Treaty drawn up, A.D. 1190, between Frederick I. and the Lombard States, by which the freedom of twenty-four Lombard cities was granted. In several editions we find other appendages besides those here noticed. The manuscripts of the Corpus Juris Civilis are numerous, but nearly all of them contain only a part of Justinian's legislation: manuscripts containing the whole body of law are very rare. The best MS. of the latter is at Copenhagen. Of MSS. before the time of the Glossers we have only one of the Pandects, the celebrated Florentine manuscript, which was first at Pisa, but was brought to Florence in 1411, after the capture of Pisa, A.D. 1406; it probably belongs to the 6th or 7th century, and some even suppose that it may be the original copy of the Pandects which was sent by Justinian to the Western Empire. Whatever its early history may be, whether, as Odofredus says, it was brought to Pisa from Constantinople, or as the old story, Justinian himself, regarding each part of his legislation as a separate constantly repeated and supported by Brencman among others, has it, collection only made for the purpose of completing former compila- that it was given to the Pisans by Lothario II., after the capture of tions, never thought of giving a common title to them all. Each part Amalfi, A.D. 1133, its importance consists in the claim set up for it as had its separate and appropriate name; for instance, the codex was so being the sole authentic source from which the text of all other MSS. called because it was the hook in which the Roman emperors' constitu- has been taken; a claim as earnestly opposed as it has been hotly tions were collected; the institutes were so called because they con- contended for, and only to be settled, if it be possible, tantas componere tained the first principles and rules of the law; the digest or pandects lites, by the conjecture that there was another manuscript coeval with because they were the collection of the digested decisions and or prior to the Florentine text and accessible to the Glossators, and opinions of the old lawyers, forming a common receptacle of legal that each of these was copied from one and the same original. The learning (C. I. 17, 3, 1); and the novels because they were new con- other manuscripts are of the 12th 13th, and 14th centuries, and constitutions (novelle const tutiones), published by imperial authority tain the versio vulgata, or text as etted by the Glossators according to alter the appearance of the former works, namely, between the years, older manuscripts. In Munich and Paris there are valuable manu scripts of the versio vulgata of the Codex. As to the manuscripts, see Beck, 'Indicis Codicum et Editionum Juris Justinianei Prodromus,' Lips. 1823. Of the manuscripts in England, there is a valuable notice in the 5th vol. of the German Magazine of Historical Jurisprudence.' There are numerous editions of the Corpus Juris:' it was printed very soon after the invention of the art, but at first only separate parts were published. The oldest edition that we know of is that of the Institutes, by Peter Schoeffer, in Mentz, of the year 1468. There is a copy of this edition on vellum in the King's Library, British Museum. It has a small illumination of a presumed portrait of Justinian in the title-page. The larger capital letters throughout the books are illuminated, and some of them with gold. The last edition of importance is that of Schrader (Berlin, 1832), who formed the design of preparing an accurate and trustworthy edition of the Corpus Juris Civilis.' Till the year 1476 all the parts of the Corpus' were printed separately. The first edition, which contained the whole, is that by Honate, at Milan, of the years 1482 and 1483, but still not under a general title, which, as already mentioned, was first used by Russardus. Till the year 1518 all the editions were printed with the glosses, but after that date the glosses were commonly omitted. The last edition with glosses is of the year 1627. For a complete list of the editions, see Beck's' Index. Probably there are no editions that have been so generally received and have met with such favour as those of the celebrated Denys Godefroi; of these, the first, a quarto, appeared in 1583; the second, 2 vols. folio (a revised copy of the first), in 1590; the third, 4 vols. folio, in 1602; and the fourth, 2 vols. folio, in 1607; all of them being published at Lyon. These were followed in the year 1624 by an edition more complete than any that had preceded it, published at Geneva by his son James. In 1663 Simon Van Leeuween produced a folio edition at Amsterdam, in which not only the notes of Godefroi were given, but those of several other distinguished commentators; and in the same year a copy of Godefroi's first edition was published at Frankfort. The book, though extremely scarce, has very little to recommend it to the student. J. L. G. Beck, in 1825, published a very useful and carefully edited copy of the 'Corpus Juris' in two quarto volumes. CORPUSCULAR THEORY. [MOLECULAR THEORY.] CORRECTION, HOUSES OF. [REFORMATORIES.] CORRELATION OF PHYSICAL FORCES. [FORCE.] CORRIDOR, from the Italian coridore, signifies a gallery or passageway leading to apartments independent of each other. In all large buildings containing numerous apartments corridors are necessary, either closed or open. The corridor round the great cortile or open court of the Cancellaria at Rome, designed by Bramante, consists of an open gallery supported by columns. CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE. [MERCURY, Bichloride of.] CORRUGATION. A very simple but effective mode has been adopted during the last few years, of imparting additional strength to sheet metal. This consists merely in corrugating it; that is, bending it into a series of opposite curves, convex and concave alternately. The usual mode of producing this result is by passing the sheets between two rollers corrugated on their surfaces, rings of depression alternating with rings of protrusion, and the protuberances of one roller corresponding with, and working into, the depressions of another. If the two rollers work nearly in contact, a sheet of metal passed between them is forced to take a corrugated form; and if the rollers be powerful while the metal is thin, this might be done when cold; otherwise a heating of the metal is needed, especially when the corrugations are deep. Iron is the chief metal thus treated; though there is nothing to prevent the application of the process to copper and other metal. The iron may be galvanised or coated with a film of zinc, to render it more weather-proof; but this process is not necessarily connected with corrugation. The uses of corrugated iron are now very numerous, seeing that the material acquires, in practical construction, a degree of strength altogether beyond that which belongs to the mere thickness of the sheet. It will form either a wall or roof, with very little support from other sources. Railway travellers have become accustomed to the use of this material in the sides and coverings of ticket-platforms, in the sides of carriage sheds, and in the roofs and appendages of stations. In dockyards and other large establishments, it is much employed for light and temporary structures. Temporary churches are in part made of it. It is used also for emigrant houses and storerooms. An American inventor, Mr. Joseph Francis, of New York, has devised a remarkable mode of applying corrugated sheet-iron to the construction of very light and buoyant boats, available as safety-boats, and for other purposes. Captain Portlock has described the difficulties attending this application, and the ingenious way in which those difficulties have been surmounted. By corrugating the iron, the flexible sheet is rendered rigid as the surface is bent, so as to produce longitudinally, in effect, a series of parallel girders or beams, and transversely a series of arches; but it is also evident that by thus rendering the sheet rigid, the difficulty of adjusting it to a curved or varying surface is greatly increased. Mr. Francis's mode of getting over this difficulty is a singular one. He produces the rigidity due to corrugation, and the form of the boat itself, by one simultaneous operation. For this purpose, he prepares pressing or stamping apparatus, in the form of enormous dies, and corresponding in shape and size with the boat to be made, with grooves to represent the corrugations. The plain sheets of iron being placed between the two dies, or the die and counterdie, and subjected to a powerful hydrostatic pressure, are at the same time shaped and corrugated. In the earlier experiments, however, he found that the same breadth of metal being required to be adjusted to different spaces, the surfaces became wrinkled, overlapping the lesser spaces. This obstacle he removed by adjusting the gauge of the corrugations to the position of the sheet; and thus, as it were, not only swallowing up the superfluous metal, but giving more strength to the parts requiring it. The theory of this construction is, that the combined curves and corrugations give so much strength to a boat of small size, as to render all internal bracings and strengthenings unnecessary. Major Vincent Eyre, in a paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the Cheltenham Meeting in 1856, gave an account of these corrugated boats which, if not too highly coloured, denotes the combination in them of many very remarkable qualities. Two trials of boats were made, one at Liverpool and the other at Woolwich, "On both occasions the tests were such as not even the strongest wooden boat that was ever built could have sustained without going immediately to pieces. For instance, being manned by a full crew, they were rowed several times with full speed against the stone-work of the dock; they were tossed over and over with excessive violence on the stone pavement; they were filled with large blocks of stone placed midships and piled up to a considerable height, and then hoisted up by tackle head and stern; they were battered on the sides by large hammers on one spot, with all the force a strong man could muster-but all without producing the slightest injurious effect. At the end of this rough treatment, they were found perfectly whole and watertight." This authority summed up his encomiums by declaring the corrugated boats to be fire-proof, water-proof, worm-proof, incorrodible, liable neither to warp nor to split: strong, light, buoyant, and cheap. Boats of this construction were used by Lieutenant Lynch, in the United States expedition to the Dead Sea and the river Jordan ; they were impelled against rocks, dragged over shoals, swept down rapids and cascades, and exposed to other rough usage, which they bore well. It has been suggested that corrugated iron, manufactured in this way, would render good service as a material for military waggons, which would either run upon wheels on land, or float on water, and thus serve as waggons, bridges, or boats. CORRUPTION OF BLOOD. [ATTAINDER.] CORSET, an article of dress for compressing, under the pretext of supporting, the chest and waist, worn chiefly by females, but also sometimes by effeminate individuals of the other sex. It consists of cloth made to surround the body, stiffened by whalebone or other means, and tightened by a lace. It seems a remnant of the old practice of enveloping the whole frame in swaddling bands; a practice which has been generally discarded in rearing male children, but which still lingers as a part of the attire of female children, in defiance of nature, reason, and experience. The advantages arising from its use are trifling, if any; the disadvantages, manifold and serious. Nature has formed the chest (in which are lodged the lungs for respiration and the heart for circulation, two out of three of the vital functions) in the shape of a truncated cone, the base of which is capable of being alternately widened and contracted during inspiration and expiration. The wonderful and perfect mechanism for carrying on respiration cannot come into full play if any compression be applied to the lower part of the chest, which is however the part commonly selected, from yielding most easily, to endure the hurtful restraint of tight lacing. The chest never being allowed to expand to the extent which is necessary, the defect in each respiration is attempted to be compensated for by their greater frequency, and thus a hurried circulation is produced. The heart is also hindered in its action, and an imperfectly aerated blood is circulated by it, by which nutrition is inadequately accomplished: unhealthy secretions are likewise formed out of this vitiated blood, and prove a further source of disease. The muscles of the chest, spine, and abdomen, being deprived of their proper exercise, become attenuated and feeble, and incapable of giving due support, whence result distortions of the spine and chest, and much of that constipation which so frequently afflicts females. The viscera of the abdomen, especially the liver, suffer greatly, both by displacement--being forced downwards-and by being actually indented by the edges of the compressed ribs. "In examining," says Dr. Hodgkin, whose connection with Guy's Hospital gave him extensive opportunities of observation, the bodies of the dead, I have frequently found the lower ribs of females greatly compressed and deformed. I have repeatedly seen the liver greatly misshapened by the unnatural pressure to which it had been subjected, and the diaphragm or midriff very much displaced." The diseases which result from this interference with nature are various; and though they do not all occur in every female who adopts this mischievous practice, yet on inquiry too many may be traced to this source. Of these diseases consumption is the most frequent and fatal. Nor is the real object of all this painful and irksome compression in any instance attained. The figure of the female bust may be altered by it, but not improved. Sculptors, who are the closest observers of nature, and who transfer to their statues 66 world." every beauty presented to their eye, have invariably given ample dimensions to the lower part of the chest. The more therefore any female, not of unnatural proportions, compresses her waist, the more does she depart from resemblance to "the statue which enchants the The accompanying figures, the first, A, representing the Venus de' Medici, and the skeleton in its natural form; the second, B, the form as altered by the use of tight stays, taken from Professor Soemmering, 'On the Effects of Stays,' will illustrate this. A B CORTES, the name of the assembly of representatives of the Spanish nation. These assemblies have been variously constituted in different ages, and in the different kingdoms into which Spain was divided till the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. The cortes of Castile and Leon and those of Aragon were the principal. Considerable obscurity prevails as to the origin and the formation of both. The earliest national assemblies under the Visigothic kings met generally at Toledo: they consisted chiefly of the dignitaries of the church, and were called councils. After deciding all questions of church discipline, they concerned themselves with temporal affairs, and in this stage of the discussion the lay lords or barons took an active part, and the king presented his requests. In the acts of the council of Leon, A.D. 1020, ch. vi., the transition from ecclesiastical to temporal affairs is clearly pointed out: "Judicato ergo ecclsia judicio, adeptaque justitia, agatur causa regia, deinde populorum." In the acts of the council of Jaca, 1063, we find that several points of discipline were reformed "with the consent of the nobles and prelates;" and the signatures are those of the king, the infantes, nine bishops, three abbots, and three magnates; but it is added in a note that "all the other magnates had subscribed to the same acts." It is now generally acknowledged, that in that age, and down to the end of the 12th century, there was no popular representation from the towns or commons of Castile and Leon in those assemblies. (Marina, Teoria de las Cortes;' Sempere, Histoire des Cortes;' Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella,' and 'Hist. of Philip II.') The people are said to have occasionally attended these national councils on some solemn occasions, as in the council held at Toledo in 1135, but only as spectators and witnesses, "to see, to hear, and to praise God." By degrees, as the towns rose into import ance, and obtained local fueros, or charters, from the kings for their ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. III. own security, or formed themselves into fraternities for their mutual protection against the Moors or against the violence of their own nobles, some of them obtained at last the privilege of sending deputies to the national councils, which were now styled cortes, because, according to some etymologists, they were held at the place where the king had his court. The cortes held at Salamanca by Ferdinand II., in 1178, consisted only of the nobility and clergy; but at the cortes of Leon, in 1188, we first hear that there were present deputies "of towns chosen by lot;" and in the same year the Cortes of Castile assembled at Burgos, where deputies from about fifty towns or villages, the names of which are mentioned, were present. How these places came to obtain this privilege is not known, although it is probable that it was by the king's writ or by charter. The cortes were henceforth composed of three estamentos or states, clergy, lords, and procuradores, or deputies from the enfranchised towns, forming together one chamber, but voting as separate states. It was a standing rule that general laws must have in their favour the majority of each estamento. This was the principle of the cortes of the united kingdom of Castile and Leon. The same principle existed in the kingdom of Aragon, only there the cortes were composed of four brazos or states,-namely, the prelates, including the commanders of the military orders; the ricos hombres, or barons; the infanzones, or caballeros, who held their estates of the great barons; and lastly, the universidades, or deputies of the royal towns. These last are first mentioned in the cortes of Monzon, in 1131. The towns and boroughs in Aragon which returned deputies were thirty-one; but the number of deputies returned by each is not defined by the historians, any more than those for the cortes of Castile. We find the same town returning sometimes a greater, sometimes a smaller number, and at other times none at all, and a small town or village sending more deputies than a large one; while many considerable towns never returned any, independently of the seignorial towns, which of course had no representative privilege. How all this was made to agree with the manner of voting, in order to ascertain the opinion of the majority, is not clearly stated. In Castile, from the end of the 13th century, the popular estamento made rapid strides towards increasing its influence, being favoured in this by some kings or pretenders to the crown, such as Sancho IV. and Enrique II., or taking advantage of disputed successions and stormy minorities to obtain from one of the contending parties an extension of their privileges. In 1295 the deputies of thirty-two towns and boroughs of Castile and Leon assembled at Valladolid, and entered into a confederacy to defend their mutual rights against both the crown and the nobles. Among many other resolutions, one was, that each of the thirty-two constituencies should send two deputies every two years to meet about Pentecost at Leon or some other place, in order to enforce the observance of their stipulations. In 1314, during the frightful confusion which attended the minority of Alonso XI, we find another confederacy between the nobles and the procuradores of 100 communities, with a similar clause as to deputies meeting once or twice every year. These meetings of deputies for special purposes ought not to be confounded with the general cortes of the kingdom, which were always convoked by the king, though at no fixed times. Enrique II. having revolted against his brother, Pedro the Cruel, courted the support of the municipal towns, which at the cortes of 1367 demanded the admission de jure of twelve deputies into the royal council, which had till then consisted of hereditary nobles and prelates, with occasionally some civilians called in by the king. Enrique promised to comply with their request, but his brother's death having ensured his seat on the throne, he evaded the fulfilment of his promise by creating an Audiencia real, or high court of appeal, consisting of prelates and civilians, and a criminal court of eight alcaldes, chosen from different provinces of the kingdom. Juan I., who succeeded him after the loss of the battle of Aljubarrota, created a new council in 1385, consisting of four bishops, four nobles, and four citizens, with extensive executive powers. The towns next solicited the dismissal of the bishops and nobles from the council, in order that it should consist entirely of citizens; but Juan rejected the demand. "The 14th century seems to have been the brightest period of popular, or more properly municipal, representation in Spain. The cortes were frequent, and the subject of their deliberations of the most important nature. But Spain had never a definite representation; to no meeting of this period did all or half the great towns send deputies, and those which did return them appear to have observed little proportion in the numbers." (Dunham's Hist. of Spain and Portugal.') The remonstrances or petitions of the general cortes to the king generally began as follows: "The prelates, lords, and caballeros of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, in the name of the three estates of the kingdom," &c. Remonstrances from the deputies of the towns began: "Most high and powerful prince! your very humble vassals, subjects, and servants, the deputies of the towns and boroughs of your kingdoms, who are assembled in your presence by your order," &c. (Cortes of Valladolid, June, 1420.) In the cortes of 1402, Enrique III. demanded for his wars with the Moors a supply of 60,000,000 of maravedis, but the deputies granted only 45,000,000. By his testament, Enrique excluded the citizens from the council of regency during the minority of his son, Juan II., and after this they were no longer admitted into the royal council. Thus the municipal towns lost a great advantage they had gained thirty R 1 years before under Juan I. They soon after sacrificed of their own accord their elective franchises. The expenses of the deputies to the cortes had been till then defrayed by the towns; but now, having lost their influence at court by their exclusion from the royal council, the towns began to complain of the burden. Juan II. listened attentively to their complaints, and, in the cortes of Ocaña, 1422, he proposed that the future expenses of the deputies should be defrayed out of the royal treasury, a proposal which was willingly accepted. Accordingly, in the next cortes, twelve cities only (Burgos, Toledo, Leon, Zamora, Seville, Cardova, Murcia, Jaen, Segovia, Avila, Salamanca, and Cuença) were summoned to send their deputation. Some other towns were informed that they might intrust their powers to any deputy from the above. The privilege was subsequently extended to six more cities— Valladolid, Toro, Soria, Madrid, Guadalaxara, and Granada. These eighteen places constituted henceforth the whole representation of the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Galicia, and Andalusia. The other communities, at last perceiving the advantage they had lost, petitioned to be restored to their right, but found themselves strenuously opposed by the privileged towns. The influence of the court was openly exercised in the elections of these towns, and although the cortes of Valladolid in 1442, and those of Cordova in 1445, requested the king to abstain from such interference, yet the practice became more barefaced than ever. In 1457 Enrique IV. wrote to the municipal council of Seville, pointing out two individuals fit to be deputies in the next session, and requesting they might be elected. Thus long before Charles I. (the Emperor Charles V.), who has been generally accused of having destroyed the liberties of Spain, the popular branch of the representation was already reduced to a shadow; for the deputies of the eighteen cities elected by court influence, were mere registrars of the royal decrees, and ready voters of the supplies demanded of them. Under Ferdinand and Isabella the royal authority became more extended and firmly established by the subjection of the privileged orders. Charles only finished the work by excluding the privileged orders from the cortes altogether; he and his successors contenting themselves with convoking the deputies of the eighteen royal cities of the crown of Castile on certain solemn occasions, to register their decrees, to acknowledge the Prince of Asturias as heir apparent to the throne, to swear allegiance to a new sovereign, &c. In Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia, which formed the dominions of the crown of Aragon, the cortes of each of these three states continued to assemble under Charles I. and his successors of the Austrian dynasty, who convoked them in their accustomed manner by brazos or orders, and they maintained some show of independence, although in reality much reduced in importance, after Philip II. had abolished the office of the Justiza. [ARAGON, in GEOG. DIV.] But after the War of the Succession, Philip V. of Bourbon formally abolished the cortes of these states by right of conquest, as he expressed it, because they had taken part with his rival, the Archduke Charles. When, in 1808, the Spanish people rose in every province against the invasion of Napoleon, the king was a prisoner in France, after having been obliged by threats to abdicate the crown, and the nation found itself w.thout a government. Municipal juntas were formed in every province, consisting of deputies taken from the various orders or classes of society,-nobles, clergymen, proprietors, merchants, &c. These juntas sent deputies to form a central junta, with executive powers for the general affairs of the country; but a legislature was still wanting. The central junta was called upon to assemble the cortes for all Spain. They at first thought of reviving the ancient cortes by estamentos or brazos, but many difficulties presented themselves. The difference of formation between the old cortes of Aragon and those of Castile; the difficulty of applying those forms to the American possessions of Spain, which were now, for the first time, admitted to equal rights with the mother country, but where the same elements of society did not exist, at least not in the same proportion; the difficulty even in Spain of collecting a legitimate representation of the various orders, while most of the provinces were occupied or overrun by French armies, and while many of the nobility and the higher clergy had acknowledged the intrusive king Joseph Bonaparte; all these, added to the altered state of public opinion, to the long discontinuance of the old cortes by orders or states, to the diminished influence of the old nobility, and the creation of a new nobility during the latter reigns merely through court favour, made the original plan appear impracticable. The situation of the country was, in fact, without a parallel in history. The central junta consulted the consejo (reunido), or cornmi sion of magistrates, from the old higher courts of the monarchy, who proposed to assemble deputies of the various brazos or estamentos, all to form one house, a proposal extremely vague and apparently impracticable, which looks as if made to elude the question. Jovellados and others then proposed two houses, constituted as in England; but this would also have been a new creation without precedent in Spain, and surrounded by many difficulties, the state of society being very different in the two countries. Meantime the central junta being driven away by the French, first from Madrid, and afterwards from Seville, in January, 1810, took refuge at Cadiz, which became the capital of the Spanish patriots, whither a number of persons from the various provinces and classes had flocked. Soon after arriving at Cadiz it resigned its powers into the hands of a council of regency composed of five individua's, who issued letters of convocation for the deputies of all the provinces to assemble in cortes at the Isla de Leon on the 24th September, 1810. The cortes, styled "extraordinary," sat at Cadiz from September, 1810, til September, 1813. During this time, amidst numerous enactments which they passed, they framed a totally new constitution for Spain, which has become known by the name of " the constitution of 1812," the year in which it was proclaimed. This constitution established the representative system with a single popular chamber, elected in a numerical proportion of one deputy for every 70,000 individuals. The extraordinary cortes of Cadiz were succeeded in October, 1813, by the ordinary cortes, elected according to the prin ciple of the constitution. In March, 1814, King Ferdinand returned to Spain, and soon after dissolved the cortes, abrogated the constitution, and punished its supporters. In 1820 the constitution was proclaimed again through a military insurrection; the king accepted it, and the cortes assembled again. The king and the cortes, however, did not remain long in harmony. In 1823 a French army, under the duke of Angoulême, entered Spain; the cortes left Madrid, taking the king with them to Seville, and thence transferred him by force to Cadiz. Cadiz having surrendered to the French, the cortes were again dispersed, and the constitution was again abolished. Ferdinand VII., before his death, assembled the deputies of the royal towns, according to the ancient form, not to deliberate, but to acknowledge as his successor his infant daughter Isabella. On April 10, 1834, the queen regent proclaimed a charter for the Spanish nation, which was called Estatuto Real. It established the convocation of the cortes and its division into two houses, the procuradores, or deputies from the provinces, and the proceres, or upper house, consisting of certain nobles, prelates, and also of citizens distinguished by their merit. The power of the cortes, however, was very limited, the initiative of all laws belonging exclusively to the crown. This charter did not last above two years. In the summer of 1836 insurrections broke out at Malaga and other places, where the constitution of 1812 was again proclaimed; and at last the insurrection spread among the troops which were doing duty at the queen's residence, at La Granja, in consequence of which the queen accepted the constitution, “subject to the revision of the cortes." The cortes were therefore convoked according to the plan of 1812; and early in 1837 they commenced their duties, forming a constitution which was decreed on June 16. By this the cortes were to consist of a senate and congress of deputies; each province was to return three persons as senators, of whom the sovereign was to select one: and there was to be one deputy for every 50,000 souls of the population. The deputies were to be elected for three years, and the cortes were to meet every year. Laws relating to taxes and public credit were to be first submitted to the deputies, and if altered in the senate were to be returned to the deputies for their ultimate decision. This constitution was in force till Dec. 27, 1843, when the sittings of the cortes were suddenly suspended by a decree; but in 1844 a new cortes was summoned, at which it was proposed that the senators should be named by the crown for life; that the cortes, instead of meeting every year, should only be at the pleasure of the crown; and that the political offences of the press should not be submitted to a jury; and in March, 1845, other regulations were enacted relating to the qualifications of deputies and electors. On the suppression of the Carlist war the cortes were re-established in 1848, with considerable power by Espartero, who became himself the victim of the party feeling prevailing among its members. Since that time they have been accustomed to meet, and to debate, but have generally been under some sinister influence, either the power of the army or the corruption of the ministry, and have on the whole played a very insignificant part in the history of their country during the last twenty years. The history of the cortes of Portugal is nearly the same as that of those of Spain, only that the towns which sent deputies were com paratively fewer, seldom more than ten or twelve at a time, and the influence of the privileged orders greater in proportion. The nobles having by degrees become courtiers, as in Spain, the kings reigned in fact absolute. In 1820, while King João VI. was in Brazil, a military insurrection broke out in Portugal, and a constitution was fra ned in imitation of the Spanish one of 1812, but it was soon after upset. For an account of these transactions see Kinsey's Portugal Illustrated,' 1828. After the death of King João, his son, Don Pedro, gave a charter to Portugal, establishing a system of popular representation with two houses; this charter was afterwards abolished by Don Miguel, again re-established by Don Pedro; and has been maintained, with a short interruption in 1836, by Queen Maria and the present king. The Aragonese, during their period of splendour, extended their representative system by brazos or estamentos to the island of Sardinia, then subject to the crown of Aragon, and the institution remained till lately under the name of Stamenti. They were convoked by the crown on particular occasions, chiefly to grant extraordinary supplies, but have been now replaced by a representative assembly, meeting at Turin. [SARDINIAN STATES, in GEOG. DIV.] CORTICIN. An inodorous, tasteless substance, said to exist in the bark of the aspen-tree. CORVUS, the Crow, sometimes Hydra et Corvus, because this constellation, in fact, contains a part of the body of Hydra, on which the bird rests. In Aratus, Hydra, Crater, and Corvus form one con |