COD

cod, the name given to the typical fish of the family _gadidae_, of the teleostean suborder anacanthini, the position of which has much varied in our classifications. having no spines to their fins, the gadids used, in cuvierian days, to be associated with the herrings, salmonids, pike, &c., in the artificially-conceived order of malacopterygians, or soft-finned bony fishes. but, on the ground of their air-bladder being closed, or deprived of a pneumatic duct communicating with the digestive canal, such as is characteristic of the malacopterygians, they were removed from them and placed with the flat-fishes, or _pleuronectidae_, in a suborder anacanthini, regarded as intermediate in position between the acanthopterygians, or spiny-finned fishes, and the malacopterygians. it has, however, been shown that the flat-fishes bear no relationship to the gadids, but are most nearly akin to the john dories (see dory). the suborder anacanthini is, nevertheless, maintained for the _muraenolepididae_ gadids and two related families, _macruridae_ and _muraenolepididae_, and may be thus defined:--air-bladder without open duct. parietal bones separated by the supra-occipital; prootic and exoccipital separated by the enlarged opisthotic. pectoral arch suspended from the skull: no mesocoracoid arch. ventral fins below or in front of the pectorals, the pelvic bones posterior to the clavicular symphysis and only loosely attached to it by ligament. fins without spines; caudal fin, if present, without expanded hypural, perfectly symmetrical, and supported by the neural and haemal spines of the posterior vertebrae, and by basal bones similar to those supporting the dorsal and anal rays. this type of caudal fin must be regarded as secondary, the _gadidae_ being, no doubt, derived from fishes in which the homocercal fin of the typical teleostean had been lost. about 120 species of gadids are distinguished, mostly marine, many being adapted to life at great depths; all are carnivorous. they inhabit chiefly the northern seas, but many abyssal forms occur between the tropics and in the southern parts of the atlantic and pacific. they are represented in british waters by eight genera, and about twenty species, only one of which, the burbot (_lota vulgaris_), is an inhabitant of fresh waters. several of the marine species are of first-rate economic importance. the genus _gadus_ is characterized by having three dorsal and two anal fins, and a truncated or notched caudal fin. in the cod and haddock the base of the first anal fin is not, or but slightly, longer than that of the second dorsal fin; in the whiting, pout, coal-fish, pollack, hake, ling and burbot, the former is considerably longer than the latter. the cod, _gadus morrhua_, possesses, in common with the other members of the genus, three dorsal and two anal fins, and a single barbel, at least half as long as the eye, at the chin. it is a widely-distributed species, being found throughout the northern and temperate seas of europe, asia and america, extending as far south as gibraltar, but not entering the mediterranean, and inhabits water from 25 to 50 fathoms deep, where it always feeds close to the bottom. it is exceedingly voracious, feeding on the smaller denizens of the ocean--fish, crustaceans, worms and molluscs, and greedily taking almost any bait the fisherman chooses to employ. the cod spawns in february, and is exceedingly prolific, the roe of a single female having been known to contain upwards of eight millions of ova, and to form more than half the weight of the entire fish. only a small proportion of these get fertilized, and still fewer ever emerge from the egg. the number of cod is still further reduced by the trade carried on in roe, large quantities of which are used in france as ground-bait in the sardine fishery, while it also forms an article of human food. the young are about an inch in length by the end of spring, but are not fit for the market till the second year, and it has been stated that they do not reach maturity, as shown by the power of reproduction, till the end of their third year. they usually measure about 3 ft. in length, and weigh from 12 to 20 lb, but specimens have been taken from 50 to 70 lb in weight. as an article of food the cod-fish is in greatest perfection during the three months preceding christmas. it is caught on all parts of the british and irish coasts, but the dogger bank, and rockall, off the outer hebrides, have been specially noted for their cod-fisheries. the fishery is also carried on along the coast of norfolk and suffolk, where great quantities of the fish are caught with hook and line, and conveyed to market alive in "well-boats" specially built for this traffic. such boats have been in use since the beginning of the 18th century. the most important cod-fishery in the world is that which has been prosecuted for centuries on the newfoundland banks, where it is not uncommon for a single fisherman to take over 500 of these fish in ten or eleven hours. these, salted and dried, are exported to all parts of the world, and form, when taken in connexion with the enormous quantity of fresh cod consumed, a valuable addition to the food resources of the human race. the air-bladder of this fish furnishes isinglass, little, if at all, inferior to that obtained from the sturgeon, while from the liver is obtained cod-liver oil, largely used in medicine as a remedy in scrofulous complaints and pulmonary consumption (see cod-liver oil). "the norwegians," says cuvier, "give cod-heads with marine plants to their cows for the purpose of producing a greater proportion of milk. the vertebrae, the ribs, and the bones in general, are given to their cattle by the icelanders, and by the kamtchatdales to their dogs. these same parts, properly dried, are also employed as fuel in the desolate steppes of the icy sea." at port logan in wigtonshire cod-fish are kept in a large reservoir, scooped out of the solid rock by the action of the sea, egress from which is prevented by a barrier of stones, which does not prevent the free access of the water. these cod are fed chiefly on mussels, and when the keeper approaches to feed them they may be seen rising to the surface in hundreds and eagerly seeking the edge. they have become comparatively tame and familiar. frank buckland, who visited the place, states that after a little while they allowed him to take hold of them, scratch them on the back, and play with them in various ways. their flavour is considered superior to that of the cod taken in the open sea. (g. a. b.) coda (ital. for "tail"; from the lat. _cauda_), in music, a term for a passage which brings a movement or a separate piece to a conclusion. this developed from the simple chords of a cadence into an elaborate and independent form. in a series of variations on a theme or in a composition with a fixed order of subjects, the "coda" is a passage sufficiently contrasted with the conclusions of the separate variations or subjects, added to form a complete conclusion to the whole. beethoven raised the "coda" to a feature of the highest importance. code (lat. _codex_), the term for a complete and systematic body of law, or a complete and exclusive statement of some portion of the law; and so by analogy for any system of rules or doctrine; also for an arrangement in telegraphy, signalling, &c., by which communications may be made according to rules adopted for brevity or secrecy. in jurisprudence the question of the reduction of laws to written codes, representing a complete and readily accessible system, is a matter of great historical and practical interest. many collections of laws, however, which are commonly known as codes,[1] would not correspond to the definition given above. the code of justinian (see justinian i.; roman law), the most celebrated of all, is not in itself a complete and exclusive system of law. it is a collection of imperial constitutions, just as the pandects are a collection of the opinions of jurisconsults. the code and the pandects together being, as austin says, "digests of roman law in force at the time of their conception," would, if properly arranged, constitute a code. codification in this sense is merely a question of the _form_ of the laws, and has nothing to do with their goodness or badness from an ethical or political point of view. sometimes codification only means the changing of unwritten into written law; in the stricter sense it means the changing of unwritten or badly-written law into law well written. the same causes which made collections of laws necessary in the time of justinian have led to similar undertakings among modern peoples. the actual condition of laws until the period when they are consciously remodelled is one of confusion, contradiction, repetition and disorder; and to these evils the progress of society adds the burden of perpetually increasing legislation. some attempt must be made to simplify the task of learning the laws by improving their expression and arrangement. this is by no means an easy task in any country, but in england it is surrounded with peculiar difficulties. the independent character of english law has prevented an attempt to do what has already been done for other systems which have the basis of the roman law to fall back upon. the most celebrated modern code is the french. the necessity of a code in france was mainly caused by the immense number of separate systems of jurisprudence existing in that country before 1789, justifying voltaire's sarcasm that a traveller in france had to change laws about as often as he changed horses. at first published under the title of _code civil des francais_, it was afterwards entitled the _code napoleon_ (q.v.)--the emperor napoleon wishing to attach his name to a work which he regarded as the greatest glory of his reign. the code, it has been said, is the product of roman and customary law, together with the ordinances of the kings and the laws of the revolution. in form it has passed through several changes caused by the political vicissitudes of the country, and it has of course suffered from time to time important alterations in substance, but it still remains virtually the same in principle as it left the hands of its framers. the code has produced a vast number of commentaries, among which may be named those of a. duranton, r. t. troplong and j. c. f. demolombe. the remaining french codes are the _code de procedure civile_, the _code de commerce_, the _code d'instruction criminelle_ and the _code penal_. the merits of the french code have entered into the discussion on the general question of codification. austin agrees with savigny in condemning the ignorance and haste with which it was compiled. "it contains," says austin, "no definitions of technical terms (even the most leading), no exposition of the _rationale_ of distinctions (even the most leading), no exposition of the broad principles and rules to which the narrower provisions expressed in the code are subordinate; hence its fallacious brevity." codes modelled on the french code have, however, taken firm root in most of the countries of continental europe and in other parts of the world as well, such as latin america and several of the british colonies. the prussian code (_code frederic_) was published by frederick the great in 1751. it was intended to take the place of "roman, common saxon and other foreign subsidiary laws and statutes," the provincial laws remaining in force as before. one of the objects of the king was to destroy the power of the advocates, whom he hoped to render useless. this, with other systems of law existing in germany, has been replaced by the civil code of 1900 (see germany). the object of all these codes has been to frame a common system to take the place of several systems of law, rather than to restate in an exact and exhaustive form the whole laws of a nation, which is the problem of english codification. the french and prussian codes, although they have been of great service in simplifying the law, have failed to prevent outside themselves that accumulation of judiciary and statute law which in england has been the chief motive for codification. a more exact parallel to the english problem may be found in the _code of the state of new york_. the revised constitution of the state, as adopted in 1846, "ordered the appointment of two commissions, one to reduce into a written and a systematic code the whole body of the law of the state, and the other to revise, reform, simplify and abridge the rules and practice, pleadings, &c., of the courts of record." by an act of 1847, the state legislature declared that the body of substantive law should be contained in three codes--the political, the civil and the penal. the works of both commissions, completed in 1865, filled six volumes, containing the code of civil procedure (including the law of evidence), the book of forms, the code of criminal procedure, the political code, the penal code and the civil code. in the introduction to the civil code it was claimed that in many departments of the law the codes "provided for every possible case, so that when a new case arises it is better that it should be provided for by new legislation." the new york code was defective in the important points of definition and arrangement. it formed the basis, however, of the present codes of civil and criminal procedure in the state of new york. much interest has attached to the penal code drawn up by edward livingston (q.v.) for the state of louisiana. the system consists of a code of crime and punishments, a code of procedure, a code of evidence, a code of reform and prison discipline, and a book of definitions. "though the state for which the codes were prepared," said chief justice chase, "neglected to avail itself of the labours assigned and solicited by itself, they have proved, together with their introductions, a treasure of suggestions to which many states are indebted for useful legislation." most of the other states in the united states have codes stating the law of pleading in civil actions, and such states are often described as code states to distinguish them from those adhering to the older forms of action, divided between those at law and those at equity. a few states have general codes of political and civil rights. the general drift of legislation and of public sentiment in the united states is towards the extension of the principle of codification, but the contrary view has been ably maintained (see j. c. carter, _provinces of the written and the unwritten law_, new york, 1889). since the time of bentham, the codification of the law of england has been the dream of the most enlightened jurists and statesmen. in the interval between bentham and our own time there has been an immense advance in the scientific study of law, but it may be doubted whether the problem of codification is at all nearer solution. interest has mainly been directed to the historical side of legal science, to the phenomena of the evolution of laws as part of the development of society, and from this point of view the question of remodelling the law is one of minor interest. to bentham the problem presented itself in the simplest and most direct form possible. what he proposed to do was to set forth a body of laws, clearly expressed, arranged in the order of their logical connexion, exhibiting their own _rationale_ and excluding all other law. on the other hand the problem has in some respects become easier since the time of bentham. with the benthamite codification the conception of reform in the substantive law is more or less mixed up. if codification had been possible in his day, it would, unless it had been accompanied by the searching reforms which have been effected since, and mainly through his influence, perhaps have been more of an evil than a good. the mere dread that, under the guise of codification or improvement in form, some change in substance may secretly be effected has long been a practical obstacle in the way of legal reform. but the law has now been brought into a state of which it may be said that, if it is not the best in all respects that might be desired, it is at least in most respects as good as the conditions of legislation will permit it to be. codification, in fact, may now be treated purely as a question of form. what is proposed is that the law, being, as we assume, in substance what the nation wishes it to be, should be made as accessible as possible, and as intelligible as possible. these two essential conditions of a sound system of law are, we need hardly say, far from being fulfilled in england. the law of the land is embodied in thousands of statutes and tens of thousands of reports. it is expressed in language which has never been fixed by a controlling authority, and which has swayed about with every change of time, place and circumstance. it has no definitions, no rational distinctions, no connexion of parts. until the passing of the judicature act of 1873 it was pervaded throughout its entire sphere by the flagrant antinomy of law and equity, and that act has only ordered, not executed, its consolidation. no lawyer pretends to know more than a fragment of it. few practical questions can be answered by a lawyer without a search into numberless acts of parliament and reported cases. to laymen, of course, the whole law is a sealed book. as there are no authoritative general principles, it happens that the few legal maxims known to the public, being apprehended out of relation to their authorities, are as often likely to be wrong as to be right. it is hopeless to think of making it possible for every man to be his own lawyer, but we can at least try to make it possible for a lawyer to know the whole law. the earlier advocates of codification founded their case mainly on the evils of judiciary law, _i.e._ the law contained in the reported decisions of the judges. bentham's bitter antipathy to judicial legislation is well known. austin's thirty-ninth lecture (_lectures_, ed. 1869) contains an exhaustive criticism of the tenable objections to judiciary law. all such law is embedded in decisions on particular cases, from which it must be extracted by a tedious and difficult process of induction. being created for particular cases it is necessarily uncomprehensive, imperfect, uncertain and bulky. these are evils which are incident to the nature of judiciary laws. the defective form of the existing statute law, moreover, has also given rise to loud complaints. year by year the mass of legislation grows larger, and as long as the basis of a system is judiciary law, it is impossible that the new statutes can be completely integrated therewith. the mode of framing acts of parliament, and especially the practice of legislating by reference to previous acts, likewise produce much uncertainty and disorder. some progress has, however, been made by the passing from time to time of various acts codifying branches of law, such as the bills of exchange act 1882, the partnership act 1890, the trusts act 1893, and the interpretation act 1889. the statute law revision committee also perform a useful work in excising dead law from the statute-book, partly by repeal of obsolete and spent acts and parts of acts, and partly by pruning redundant preambles and words. the construction of a section of an act may depend on the preamble and the context, and the repeal of the preamble and certain parts of the act may therefore affect the construction of what is left. this is provided for by a clause which is said to have been settled by lord westbury. it provides (in effect) that the repeal of any words or expressions of enactment shall not affect the construction of any statute or part of a statute. the lawyer, therefore, cannot rely on the revised edition of the statutes alone, and it is still necessary for him to consult the complete act as it was originally enacted. the process of gradual codification adopted in india has been recommended for imitation in england by those who have had some experience of its working. the first of the indian codes was the penal code (see criminal law), and there are also codes of civil and criminal procedure. whether any attempt will ever be made to supersede this vast and unarranged mass by a complete code seems very doubtful. writers on codification have for the most part insisted that the work should be undertaken as a whole, and that the parts should have relation to some general scheme of the law which should be settled first. the practical difficulties in the way of an undertaking so stupendous as the codification _uno coetu_ of the whole mass of the law hardly require to be stated. in discussions on codification two difficulties are insisted on by its opponents, which have some practical interest--(1) what is to be done in those cases for which the code has not provided? and (2) how is new law to be incorporated with the code? the objection that a code will hamper the opinions of the court, destroy the flexibility and elasticity of the common law, &c., disappears when it is stated in the form of a proposition, that law codified will cover a smaller number of cases, or will be less easily adapted to new cases, than law uncodified. the french system ordered the judges, under a penalty, to give a decision on all cases, whether contemplated or not by the code, and referred them generally to the following sources:--(1) equite naturelle, loi naturelle; (2) loi romain; (3) loi coutumier; (4) usages, exemples, jugements, jurisprudence; (5) droit commun; (6) principes generaux, maximes, doctrine, science. the prussian code, on the other hand, required the judges to report new cases to the head of the judicial department, and they were decided by the legislative commission. no provision was made in either case for incorporating the new law with the code, an omission which austin justly considers fatal to the usefulness of codification. it is absurd to suppose that any code can remain long without requiring substantial alteration. cases will arise when its meaning must be extended and modified by judges, and every year will produce its quota of new legislation by the state. the courts should be left to interpret a code as they now interpret statutes, and provision should be made for the continual revision of the code, so that the new law created by judges or directly by the state may from time to time be worked into the code. footnote: [1] the most ancient code known, that of khammurabi, is dealt with in the article babylonian law. code napoleon, the first code of the french civil law, known at first as the _code civil des francais_, was promulgated in its entirety by a law of the 30th ventose in the year xii. (31st of march 1804). on the 3rd of september 1807 it received the official name of code napoleon, although the part that napoleon took in framing it was not very important. a law of 1818 restored to it its former name, but a decree of the 27th of march 1852 re-established the title of code napoleon. since the 4th of september 1870 the laws have quoted it only under the name of the code civil. never has a work of legislation been more national in the exact sense of the word. desired for centuries by the france of the _ancien regime_, and demanded by the _cahiers_ of 1789, this "code of civil laws common to the whole realm" was promised by the constitution of 1791. however, the two first assemblies of the revolution were able to prepare only a few fragments of it. the preparation of a coherent plan began with the convention. the _ancien regime_ had collected and adjusted some of the material. there was, on the one hand, a vast juridical literature which by eliminating differences of detail, had disengaged from the various french "customs" the essential part which they had in common, under the name of "common customary law"; on the other hand, the roman law current in france had in like manner undergone a process of simplification in numerous works, the chief of which was that of domat; while certain parts had already been codified in the _grandes ordonnances_, which were the work of d'aguesseau. this legacy from the past, which it was desired to preserve within reason, had to be combined and blended with the laws of the revolution, which had wrought radical reforms in the conditions affecting the individual, the tenure of real property, the order of inheritance and the system of mortgages. cambaceres, as the representative of a commission of the convention, brought forward two successive schemes for the code civil. as a member of one of the councils, he drew up a third under the directory, and these projected forms came in turn nearer and nearer to what was to be the ultimate form of the code. so great was the interest centred in this work, that the law of the 19th brumaire, year viii., which, in ratification of the previous day's _coup d'etat_ nominated provisional consuls and two legislative commissions, gave injunctions to the latter to draw up a scheme for the code civil. this was done in part by one of the members, jacqueminot, and finally under the constitution of the year viii., the completion of the work was taken in hand. the legislative machinery established by this constitution, defective as it was in other respects, was eminently suited for this task. indeed, all projected laws emanated from the government and were prepared by the newly established council of state, which was so well recruited that it easily furnished qualified men, mostly veterans of the revolution, to prepare the final scheme. the council of state naturally possessed in its legislative section and its general assembly bodies both competent and sufficiently limited to discuss the texts efficiently. the _corps legislatif_ had not the right of amendment, so could not disturb the harmony of the scheme. it was in the discussions of the general assembly of the council of state that napoleon took part, in 97 cases out of 102 in the capacity of chairman, but, interesting as his observations occasionally are, he cannot be considered as a serious collaborator in this great work. those responsible for the scheme have in the main been very successful in their work; they have generally succeeded in fusing the two elements which they had to deal with, namely ancient french law, and that of the revolution. the point in which their work is comparatively weak is the system of hypothec (q.v.), because they did not succeed in steering a middle course between two opposite systems, and the law of the 23rd of march 1855 (_sur la transcription en matiere hypothecaire_) was necessary to make good the deficiency. a fault frequently found with the code civil is that its general divisions show a lack of logic and method, but the division is practically that of the institutes of justinian, and is about as good as any other: persons, things, inheritance, contracts and obligations, and finally, in place of actions, which have no importance for french law except from the point of view of procedure, privileges and hypothecs, as in the ancient _coutumes_ of france, and prescription. it is, _mutatis mutandis_, practically the same division as that of blackstone's commentaries. of late years other objections have been expressed; serious omissions have been pointed out in the code; it has not given to personal property the importance which it has acquired in the course of the 19th century; it makes no provision for dealing with the legal relations between employers and employed which modern complex undertakings involve; it does not treat of life insurance, &c. but this only proves that it could not foretell the future, for most of these questions are concerned with economic phenomena and social relations which did not exist at the time when it was framed. the code needed revising and completing, and this was carried out by degrees by means of numerous important laws. in 1904, after the celebration of the centenary of the code civil, an extra-parliamentary commission was nominated to prepare a revision of it, and at once began the work. the influence of the code civil has been very great, not only in france but also abroad. belgium has preserved it, and the rhine provinces only ceased to be subject to it on the promulgation of the civil code of the german empire. its ascendancy has been due chiefly to the clearness of its provisions, and to the spirit of equity and equality which inspires them. numerous more recent codes have also taken it as a model: the dutch code, the italian, and the code of portugal; and, more remotely, the spanish code, and those of the central and south american republics. in the present day it is rivalled by the german civil code, which, having been drawn up at the end of the 19th century, naturally does not show the same lacunae or omissions. it is inspired, however, by a very different spirit, and the french code does not suffer altogether by comparison with it either in substance or in form. see _le code civil, livre du centenaire_ (paris, 1904), a collection of essays by french and foreign lawyers. (j. p. e.)