CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

corporal punishment, chastisement inflicted by one person on the body (_corpus_) of another. by the common law of england, scotland and ireland, the infliction of corporal punishment is illegal unless it is done in self-defence or in defence of others, or is done either by some person having punitive authority over the person chastised or under the authority of a competent court of justice. corporal punishment in defence of self or others needs no comment, except that, like all other acts done in defence, its justification depends on whether or not it was reasonably necessary for the protection of the person attacked. among persons invested with punitive authority, mention must first be made of parents and guardians, and of teachers, who have, by implied delegation from the parents, and as incidental to the relation of master and pupil, powers of reasonable corporal punishment. such powers are not limited to offences committed by the pupil upon the premises of the school, but extend to acts done on the way to and from school and during what may be properly regarded as school hours (_cleary_ v. _booth_, 1893, 1 q.b. 465). the rights of parents, guardians and teachers, in regard to the chastisement of children, were expressly recognized in english law by the prevention of cruelty to children act 1904 (§ 28). poor law authorities and managers of reformatories are in the same position in this respect as teachers. the punitive authority of elementary school teachers is subject to the regulations of the education authority: that of poor law authorities to the regulation of the home office and the local government board. a master has a right to inflict moderate chastisement upon his apprentice for neglect or other misbehaviour, provided that he does so himself, and that the apprentice is under age (archbold, _cr. pl._, 23rd ed., 795). where a legal right of chastisement is exercised immoderately, the person so exercising it incurs both civil and criminal liability. in some of the older english legal authorities (e.g. bacon, abridg. tit. "baron and feme," b), it was stated that a husband might inflict moderate corporal punishment on his wife in order to keep her "within the bounds of duty." but these authorities were definitely discredited in 1891 in the case of _r._ v. _jackson_ (1 q.b. 671). by the unmodified mahommedan law, a husband may administer moderate corporal punishment to his wife; but it is doubtful whether this right could be legally exercised in british india (wilson, _digest of anglo-mahommedan law_, 2nd ed., pp. 153, 154). in hawkins's _pleas of the crown_ (bk. 1, c. 63, § 29) it is laid down that "churchwardens, and perhaps private persons, may whip boys playing in church" during divine service. but while the right to remove such offenders is undoubted, the right of castigation could not now safely be exercised. at common law the master of a ship is entitled to inflict reasonable chastisement on a seaman for gross breach of duty. but such offences are now specially provided for by the merchant shipping act 1894 (§§ 220-238); and where the provisions of that statute are available, corporal punishment would probably be illegal. as to corporal punishment in the army and navy, see articles military law; navy. in civil prisons, whether they are convict prisons or local prisons, corporal punishment may not be inflicted except under sentence of a competent court, or except in the case of prisoners under sentence of penal servitude, or convicted of felony, or sentenced to hard labour, who have been guilty of mutiny or incitement to mutiny, or of gross personal violence to an officer or servant of the prison (act of 1898, § 5). flogging for these offences in prison may not be inflicted except by order of the board of visitors or visiting committee of the prison, made at a meeting specially constituted, and confirmed by a secretary of state (prison act of 1898, § 5; convict prison rules 1899; stat. r. and o. 1899, no. 321, rr. 77-79; local prison rules 1899; stat. r. and o. 1899, no. 322, rr. 84, 85). the mode of inflicting the punishment is prescribed by the convict prison rules (rr. 82-85) and the local prison rules (rr. 88-91), which limit the number of strokes and prescribe the instrument to be used for inflicting them, the cat or birch for prisoners over 18, and the birch for prisoners under 18. corporal punishment for breaches of prison discipline in scottish prisons is not authorized by any statute nor under the scottish prison rules (see _stat. r. and o. revised_, ed. 1904, vol. x. tit. "prison, scotland," p. 60). in irish convict prisons corporal punishment may be inflicted by order of justices specially appointed by the lord-lieutenant under § 3 of the penal servitude act 1864, but the irish prison rules of 1902 (stat. r. and o. 1902, no. 590) contain no reference to this power. at common law, courts of justice had jurisdiction to impose a sentence of whipping on persons convicted on indictment for petty larceny or misdemeanours of the meaner kind (see 1 bishop, _amer. cr. law_, 8th ed., § 942). but they do not now impose such sentence except under statutory authority. the whipping of women was absolutely prohibited in 1820 by the whipping of female offenders abolition act of that year. but there are numerous statutes authorizing the imposition of a sentence of whipping on male offenders. the following cases may be noted. 1. _adults_: (a) who are incorrigible rogues (vagrancy act 1824, § 10); (b) who discharge fire-arms, &c., with intent to injure or alarm the sovereign (treason act 1842, § 2, and see 8 st. tr. n.s. 1, and _o'connor's case_, 1872, ib. p. 3 n.); (c) who are guilty of robbery with violence (larceny act 1861, § 43), or offences against § 21 of the offences against the person act of 1861; there has been much controversy as to whether the garrotters act of 1861, which authorized the ordering of more than one whipping in the case of an offender over 16 years of age, was the effective cause of the diminution of the offences against which it was directed, but the best judicial opinion is in the affirmative. 2. _males under sixteen_: (a) in any of the cases above noted; (b) for many statutory offences, e.g. larceny (larceny act 1861), malicious damage (malicious damage act 1861, § 75; criminal law amendment act 1885, § 4); (c) by courts of summary jurisdiction (summary jurisdiction act 1879, §§ 10, 11, and 1899; first offenders act 1887); if a boy is over 7 and under 12, not more than 6 strokes, if he is over 12, but under 14, not more than 12 strokes may be inflicted; the birch-rod is to be used, and the punishment is to be given by a police constable in the presence of a superior officer, and of the parent or guardian if he desire it. in scotland the whipping of male offenders under 14 is regulated by the prisons (scotland) act 1860, § 74, the whipping act 1862, and § 514 of the burgh police (scotland) act 1892; and offenders over 16 may not be whipped for offences against person or property (whipping act 1862, § 2). in ireland the law is in substance the same as in england; for special statutes see official _index to statutes_ (ed. 1905), p. 985, art. punishment, 6. the flogging of women is prohibited throughout british india (code of criminal procedure, act v. of 1898, § 393) and the british colonies, where the infliction of corporal punishment by judicial order is in the main regulated on the lines of modern english legislation. in some british colonies the list of offences punishable by whipping is larger than in england (see queensland criminal code 1899, arts. 212, 213, 216). in the united states whipping is not a legal punishment under the federal law (revised stats. u.s. § 5327). but in some of the states of the union whipping is inflicted under statute, and is not held cruel or unusual within the federal constitution (1 bishop, _amer. crim. law_, 8th ed., § 947). in delaware wife-beating and certain offences against property by males are punishable with flogging; and in maryland the same punishment is applicable for wife-beating. flogging is in force as a disciplinary measure in some penal institutions. it has been suggested by laurent (_principes de droit civil francais_ (1870), vol. iv. § 275) that the express definition in the french code civil (arts. 371 et seq.) of parental rights over children excludes the power of corporal punishment. but this view is not generally accepted. the parental right of moderate chastisement is expressly reserved in the civil code of spain (art. 155, 2). flogging is not recognized as a legal punishment by the french code penal, nor by the penal codes of germany, italy, spain or portugal. (see also whipping or flogging.) (a. w. r.) corporation (from lat. _corporare_, to form into a body, _corpus_, _corporis_), in english law, an association of persons which is treated in many respects as if it were itself a person. it has rights and duties of its own which are not the rights and duties of the individual members thereof. thus a corporation may own land, but the individual members of the corporation have no rights therein. a corporation may owe money, but the corporators as individuals are under no obligation to pay the debt. the rights and duties descend to the successive members of the corporation. this capacity of perpetual succession is regarded as the distinguishing feature of corporations as compared with other societies. one of the phrases most commonly met with in law-books describes a corporation as a society with perpetual succession and a common seal. the latter point, however, is not conclusive of the corporate character. the legal attributes of a corporation have been worked out with great fulness and ingenuity in english law, but the conception has been taken full-grown from the law of rome. the term in roman law corresponding to the modern corporation is _collegium_; a more general term is _universitas_. a _collegium_ or _corpus_ must have consisted of at least three persons, who were said to be _corporati--habere corpus_. they could hold property in common and had a common chest. they might sue and be sued by their agent (_syndicus_ or _actor_). there was a complete separation in law between the rights of the _collegium_ as a body and those of its individual members. the _collegium_ remained in existence although all its original members were changed. it was governed by its own by-laws, provided these were not contrary to the common law. the power of forming _collegia_ was restrained, and societies pretending to act as corporations were often suppressed. in all these points the _collegia_ of roman closely resemble the corporations of english law. there is a similar parallel between the purposes for which the formation of such societies is authorized in english and in roman law. thus among the roman _collegia_ the following classes are distinguished:--(1) public governing bodies, or municipalities, _civitates_; (2) religious societies, such as the _collegia_ of priests and vestal virgins; (3) official societies, e.g. the _scribae_, employed in the administration of the state; (4) trade societies, e.g. _fabri_, _pictores_, _navicularii_, &c. this class shades down into the _societates_ not incorporated, just as our own trading corporations partake largely of the character of ordinary partnerships. in the later roman law the distinction of corporations into civil and ecclesiastical, into lay and eleemosynary, is recognized. the latter could not alienate without just cause, nor take land without a licence--a restriction which may be compared with modern statutes of mortmain. all these privileged societies are what we should call _corporations aggregate_. the _corporation sole_ (i.e. consisting of only a single person) is a later refinement, for although roman law held that the corporation subsisted in full force, notwithstanding that only one member survived, it did not impute to the successive holders of a public office the character of a corporation. when a public officer in english law is said to be a corporation sole, the meaning is that the rights acquired by him in that capacity descend to his successor in office, and not (as the case is where a public officer is not a corporation) to his ordinary legal representative. the best known instances of corporation sole are the king and the parson of a parish. the conception of the king as a corporation is the key to many of his paradoxical attributes in constitutional theory--his invisibility, immortality, &c. the term _quasi-corporation_ is applied to holders for the time being of certain official positions, though not incorporated, as the churchwardens of a parish, guardians of the poor, &c. the roman conception of a corporation was kept alive by ecclesiastical and municipal bodies. when english lawyers came to deal with such societies, the corporation law of rome admitted of easy application. accordingly, in no department has english law borrowed so copiously and so directly from the civil law. the corporations known to the earlier english law were mainly the municipal, the ecclesiastical, and the educational and eleemosynary. to all of these the same principles, borrowed from roman jurisprudence, were applied. the different purposes of these institutions brought about in course of time differences in the rules of the law applicable to each. in particular, the great development of trading companies under special statutes has produced a new class of corporations, differing widely from those formerly known to the law. the reform of municipal corporations has also restricted the operation of the principles of the older corporation law. these principles, however, still apply when special statutes have not intervened. the legal origin of corporation is ascribed by j. grant (_treatise on the law of corporations_, 1850) to five sources, viz. common law, prescription, act of parliament, charter and implication. prescription in legal theory implies a grant, so that corporations by prescription would be reducible to the class of chartered or statutory corporations. a corporation is said to exist by implication when the purposes of a legally constituted society cannot be carried out without corporate powers. corporations are thus ultimately traceable to the authority of charters and acts of parliament. the power of creating corporations by charter is an important prerogative of the crown, but in the present state of the constitution, when all the powers of the crown are practically exercised by parliament, there is no room for any jealousy as to the manner in which it may be exercised. the power of chartering corporations belonged also to subjects who had _jura regalia_, e.g. the bishops of durham granted a charter of incorporation to the city of durham in 1565, 1602 and 1780. the charter of a corporation is regarded as being of the nature of a contract between the king and the corporation. it will be construed more favourably for the crown, and more strictly as against the grantee. it cannot alter the law of the land, and it may be surrendered, so that, if the surrender is accepted by the crown and enrolled in chancery, the corporation is thereby dissolved. great use was made of this power of the crown in the reigns of charles ii. and james ii. every corporation, it is said, must have a name, and it may have more names than one, but two corporations cannot have the same name. and corporations cannot change their name save by charter or some equivalent authority. the possession of a common seal, though, as already stated, not conclusive of the corporate character, is an incident of every corporation aggregate. the inns of courts have common seals, but they are only voluntary societies, not corporations. generally speaking, all corporate acts affecting strangers must be performed under the common seal; acts of internal administration affecting only the corporators, need not be under seal. the rule has been defended as following necessarily from the impersonal character of a corporation; either a seal or something equivalent must be fixed upon so that the act of the corporation may be recognized by all. a corporation may be abolished by statute, but not by the mere authority of the crown. it may also become extinct by the disappearance of all its members or of any integral part, by surrender of charter if it is a chartered society, by process of law, or by forfeiture of privileges. the power of the majority to bind the society is one of the first principles of corporation law, even in cases where the corporation has a head. it is even said that only by an act of parliament can this rule be avoided. the binding majority is that of the number present at a corporate meeting duly summoned. in corporations which have a head (as colleges), although the head cannot veto the resolution of the majority, he is still considered an integral part of the society, and his death suspends its existence, so that a head cannot devise or bequeath to the corporation, nor can a grant be made to a corporation during vacancy of the headship. a corporation has power to make such regulations (by-laws) as are necessary for carrying out its purposes, and these are binding on its members and on persons within its local jurisdiction if it has any. the power to acquire and hold land was incident to a corporation at common law, but its restriction by the statutes of mortmain dates from a very early period. the english law against mortmain was dictated by the jealousy of the feudal lords, who lost the services they would otherwise have been entitled to, when their land passed into the hands of a perpetual corporation. the vast increase in the estates of ecclesiastical corporations constituted by itself a danger which might well justify the operation of the restricting statutes. the mortmain acts applied only to cases of alienation _inter vivos_. there was no power to devise lands by will until 32 henry viii. c. 1 (1540), and when the power was granted corporations were expressly excluded from its benefits. no devise to a corporation, whether for its own use or in trust, was allowed to be good; land so devised went to the heir, either absolutely or charged with the trusts imposed upon it in the abortive devise. a modification, however, was gradually wrought by the judicial interpretations of the charitable trusts act 1601, and it was held that a devise to a corporation for a charitable purpose might be a good devise, and would stand unless voided by the mortmain acts; so that no corporation could take land, without a licence, for any purpose or in any way; and no localised corporation could take lands by devise, save for charitable purposes. then came the act of 1736, commonly but improperly called the mortmain act. its effect was generally to make it impossible for land to be left by will for charitable uses, whether through a corporation or a natural person[1]. the wills act 1837 did not renew the old provision against devises to corporations, which therefore fell under the general law of mortmain. the law was consolidated by the mortmain and charitable uses act 1888, and the result is simply that corporations cannot take land for any purpose without a licence, and no licence in mortmain is granted by the crown, except in certain statutory cases in the interests of religion, charity or other definite public object. the power of corporations at common law to alienate their property is usually restricted, as is their power to lease it for more than a certain number of years, except by sanction of a public authority. the more important classes of corporations, however, are now governed by special statutes which exclude or modify the operation of the common law principles. the most considerable class of societies still unaffected by such special legislation are the livery companies (q.v.). under company will be found an account of the important enactments regulating joint-stock companies. the question to what extent the common law incidents of a corporation have been interfered with by special legislation has become one of much importance, especially under the acts relating to joint-stock companies. the most important case on this subject is that of _riche_ v. _the ashbury railway carriage company_, 1875 (l.r. 9 ex. 224; l.r. 7 h.l. 653), in which, the judges of the exchequer chamber being equally divided, the decision of the court below was affirmed. the view taken by the affirming judges, viz. that the common law incidents of a corporation adhere unless expressly removed by the legislature, may be illustrated by a short extract from the judgment of mr justice blackburn:-- "if i thought it was at common law an incident to a corporation that its capacity should be limited by the instrument creating it, i should agree that the capacity of a company incorporated under the act of 1862 was limited to the object in the memorandum of association. but if i am right in the opinion which i have already expressed, that the general power of contracting is an incident to a corporation which it requires an indication of intention in the legislature to take away, i see no such indication here. if the question was whether the legislature had conferred on a corporation, created under this act, capacity to enter into contracts beyond the provisions of the deed, there could be only one answer. the legislature did not confer such capacity. but if the question be, as i apprehend it is, whether the legislature have indicated an intention to take away the power of contracting which at common law would be incident to a body corporate, and not merely to limit the authority of the managing body and the majority of the share-holders to bind the minority, but also to prohibit and make illegal contracts made by the body corporate, in such a manner that they would be binding on the body if incorporated at common law, i think the answer should be the other way." on the other hand, the house of lords, agreeing with the three dissentient judges in the exchequer chamber, pronounced the effect of the companies act to be the opposite of that indicated by mr justice blackburn, "it was the intention of the legislature, not implied, but actually expressed, that the corporations, should not enter, having regard to this memorandum of association, into a contract of this description. the contract in my judgment could not have been ratified by the unanimous assent of the whole corporation." in such companies, therefore, objects beyond the scope of the memorandum of association are _ultra vires_ of the corporation. the doctrine of _ultra vires_, as it is called, is almost wholly of modern and judicial creation. the first emphatic recognition of it appears to have been in the case of companies created for special purposes with extraordinary powers, by act of parliament, and, more particularly, railway companies. the funds of such companies, it was held, must be applied to the purposes for which they were created, and to no other. whether this doctrine is applicable to the older or, as they are sometimes called, ordinary corporations, appears to be doubtful. s. brice (_ultra vires_) writes:-- "take, as a strong instance, a university or a london guild. either can undoubtedly manage, invest, transform and expend the corporate property in almost any way it pleases, but if they proposed to exhaust the same on the private pleasures of existing members, or to abandon the promotion, the one of education, the other of their art and mystery, it is very probable, if not absolutely certain, that the court of chancery would restrain the same, as being _ultra vires_." footnote: [1] devises to colleges are excepted from the operation of the act, but such devises must be for purposes identical with or closely resembling the original purposes of the college; and the exception from this act does not supersede the necessity for a licence in mortmain. corps (pronounced as in french, from which it is taken, being a late spelling of _cors_, from lat. _corpus_, a body; cf. "corpse"), a word in very general use since the 17th century to denote a body of troops, varying from a few hundred to the greater part of an army. in a special sense "corps" is used as synonymous with "army corps" (_corps d'armee_). the word is applied to any organized body, as in _corps diplomatique_, the general body of foreign diplomatic agents accredited to any government (see diplomacy), or _corps de ballet_, the members of a troop of dancers at a theatre; so in _esprit de corps_, the common spirit of loyalty which animates any body of associated persons. corpse (lat. _corpus_, the body), a dead human body. by the common law of england a corpse is not the subject of property nor capable of holding property. it is not therefore larceny to steal a corpse, but any removal of the coffin or grave-cloths is otherwise, such remaining the property of the persons who buried the body. it is a misdemeanour to expose a naked corpse to public view, to prevent the burial of a dead body, or to disinter it without authority; also to bury or otherwise dispose of a dead body on which an inquest ought to be held, without giving notice to a coroner. anyone who, having the means, neglects to bury a dead body which he is legally bound to bury, is guilty of a misdemeanour, but no one is bound to incur a debt for such a purpose. it is incumbent on the relatives and friends of a deceased person to provide christian burial for him; failing relatives and friends, the duty devolves upon the parish. no corpse can be attached, taken in execution, arrested or detained for debt. see further body-snatching, and burial and burial acts. corpulence (lat. _corpus_, body), or obesity (lat. _ob_, against, and _edere_, to eat), a condition of the animal body characterized by the over-accumulation of fat under the skin and around certain of the internal organs. in all healthy persons a greater or less amount of fat is present in these parts, and serves important physiological ends, besides contributing to the proper configuration of the body (see nutrition). even a considerable measure of fatness, however inconvenient, is not inconsistent with a high degree of health and activity, and it is only when in great excess or rapidly increasing that it can be regarded as a pathological state (see metabolic diseases). the extent to which excess of fat may proceed is illustrated by numerous well-authenticated examples recorded in medical works, of which only a few can be here mentioned. thus bright, a grocer of maldon, in essex, who died in 1750, in his twenty-ninth year, weighed 616 [lb]. dr f. dancel (_traite de l'obesite_, paris, 1863) records the case of a young man of twenty-two, who died from excessive obesity, weighing 643 [lb]. in the _philosophical transactions_ for 1813 a case is recorded of a girl of four years of age who weighed 256 [lb]. but the most celebrated case is that of daniel lambert (q.v.) of leicester, who died in 1809 in his fortieth year. he is said to have been the heaviest man that ever lived, his weight being 739 [lb] (52 st. 11 [lb]). health cannot be long maintained under excessive obesity, for the increase in bulk of the body, rendering exercise more difficult, leads to relaxation and defective nutrition of muscle, while the accumulations of fat in the chest and abdomen occasion serious embarrassment to the functions of the various organs in those cavities. in general the mental activity of the highly corpulent becomes impaired, although there have always been many notable exceptions to this rule. various causes are assigned for the production of corpulence (see metabolic diseases). in some families there exists an hereditary predisposition to an obese habit of body, the manifestation of which no precautions as to living appear capable of averting. but it is unquestionable that certain habits favour the occurrence of corpulence. a luxurious, inactive, or sedentary life, with over-indulgence in sleep and absence of mental occupation, are well recognized predisposing causes. the more immediate exciting causes are over-feeding and the large use of fluids of any kind, but especially alcoholic liquors. fat persons are not always great eaters, though many of them are, while leanness and inordinate appetite are not infrequently associated. still, it may be stated generally that indulgence in food, beyond what is requisite to repair daily waste, goes towards the increase of flesh, particularly of fat. this is more especially the case when the non-nitrogenous (the fatty, saccharine and starchy) elements of the food are in excess. the want of adequate bodily exercise will in a similar manner produce a like effect, and it is probable that many cases of corpulence are to be ascribed to this cause alone, from the well-known facts that many persons of sedentary occupation become stout, although of most abstemious habits, and that obesity frequently comes on in the middle-aged and old, who take relatively less exercise than the young, in whom it is comparatively rare. women are more prone to become corpulent than men, and appear to take on this condition more readily after the cessation of the function of menstruation. for the prevention of corpulence and the reduction of superfluous fat many expedients have been resorted to, and numerous remedies recommended. these have included bleeding, blistering, purging, starving (see fasting), the use of different kinds of baths, and of drugs innumerable. the drinking of vinegar was long popularly, but erroneously, supposed to be a remedy for obesity. it is related of the marquis of cortona, a noted general of the duke of alva, that by drinking vinegar he so reduced his body from a condition of enormous obesity that he could fold his skin about him like a garment. in 1863 a pamphlet entitled "letter on corpulence, addressed to the public by william banting," in which was narrated the remarkable experience of the writer in accomplishing the reduction of his own weight in a short space of time by the adoption of a particular kind of diet, started the modern dietetic treatment, at first called "banting" after the author. after trying almost every known remedy without effect, banting was induced, on the suggestion of mr harvey, a london aurist, to place himself upon an entirely new form of diet, which consisted chiefly in the removal, as far as possible, of all saccharine, starchy and fat food, the reduction of liquids, and the substitution of meat or fish and fruit in moderate quantity at each meal, together with the daily use of an antacid draught. under this regimen his weight was reduced 46 [lb] in the course of a few weeks, while his health underwent a marked improvement. his experience, as might have been expected, induced many to follow his example; and since then various regimens have been propounded, all aiming at treating corpulence on modern physiological principles (see also dietetics, metabolic diseases and nutrition). it is important, however, to bear in mind that the treatment should be followed under medical advice and observation; for, however desirable it be to get rid of superabundant fat, it would be manifestly no gain were this to be achieved by the sacrifice of the general health.