Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

COMMERCIA BELLI

COMMISSION

226

COMMINALTY. The commonalty oi the people. COMMINATORIUM. In old practice. A clause sometimes added at the end of writs, admonishing the sheriff to be faithful in ex ecuting them. Bract, fol. 398. COMMISE. In old French law. For feiture; the forfeiture of a fief; the penalty attached to the ingratitude of a vassal. Guyot, Inst. Feod. c. 12. COMMISSAIRE. In French law. A person who receives from a meeting of shareholders a special authority, viz., that of checking and examining the accounts of a manager or of valuing the apports en nat ure, {q. v.) The name is also applied to a judge who receives from a court a special mission, e. g., to institute an inquiry, or to examine certain books, or to supervise the operations of a bankruptcy. Arg. Fr. Merc. Law, 551. COMMISSAIRES-PRISEURS. In French law. Auctioneers, who possess the exclusive right of selling personal property at public sale in the towns in which they are established; and they possess the same right concurrently with notaries, greffiers, and huissiers, in the rest of the arrondissement. Arg. Fr. Merc. Law, 551. COMMISSARIAT. The whole body of officers who make up the commissaries' de partment of an army. COMMISSARY. In ecclesiastical law. One who is sent or delegated to execute some office or duty as the representative of his su perior; an officer of the bishop, who exercises spiritual jurisdiction in distant parts of the diocese. In military law. An officer whose prin cipal duties are to supply an army with pro visions and stores. COMMISSARY COURT. A Scotch ec clesiastical court of general jurisdiction, held before four commissioners, members of the Faculty of Advocates, appointed by the crown. COMMISSION. A warrant or authority or letters patent, issuing from the govern ment, or one of its departments, or a court, empowering a person or persons named to do certain acts, or to exercise jurisdiction, or to perform the duties and exercise the authority of an office, (as in the case of an officer in the army or navy.)

OOMMERCIA BELLI. War contracts. Compacts entered into by belligerent nations to secure a temporary and limited peace. 1 Kent, Comm. 159. Contracts between na tions at war, or their subjects. COMMERCIAL LAW. A phrase used to designate the whole body of substantive jurisprudence applicable to the rights, inter course, and relations of persons engaged in commerce, trade, or mercantile pursuits. It is not a very scientific or accurate term. As foreign commerce is carried on by means of shipping, the term has come to be used oc casionally as synonymous with "maritime law;" but, in strictness, the phrase "com mercial law" is wider, and includes many transactions or legal questions which have nothing to do with shipping or its incidents. COMMERCIAL PAPER. The term *•commercial paper" means bills of exchange, promissory notes, bank-checks, and other ne gotiable instruments for the payment of money, which, by their form and on their face, purport to be such instruments as are, by the law-merchant, recognized as falling under the designation of "commercial pa per." 6N. B. R. 338. Commercial paper means negotiable paper given in due course of business, whether the element of negotiability be given it by the law-merchant or by statute. A note given by a merchant for money loaned is within the meaning. 5 Biss. 113. COMMERCIAL TRAVELER. Where an agent simply exhibits samples of goods kept for sale by his principal, and takes or ders from purchasers for such goods, which goods are afterwards to be delivered by the principal to the purchasers, and payment for the goods is to be made by the purchasers to the principal on such delivery, such agent is generally called a "drummer" or "commer cial traveler." 34 Kan. 434, 8 Pac. Rep. 865; 93 N. C. 511. COMMERCIUM. Lat. In the civil law. Commerce; business; trade; dealings in the nature of purchase and sale; a con tract. Commercium jure gentium commune esse debet, et non in monopolium et privatum paucorum qusestum conver tendum. 3 Inst. 181. Commerce, by the law of nations, ought to be common, and not converted to monopoly and the private gain of a few. i

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