lander's servant did as his master did and not as he said, and when aroused, with the warning that he would die if he slept, answered that that was all he desired. Similar expressions are recorded by all travellers in the arctic regions, and Napoleon's fatal retreat from Moscow was marked at every step by those who, benumbed with cold, lay down only to sleep, but never awoke again to life.-Justice, which has always claimed to be heaven-born, has more often shown, at least in past times, a lower affinity. When the torture, the quartering, and the burning of living criminals were the manifestations of the execution of law, cruelty succeeded in giving extreme horror and suffering to death. As late as the 16th century, the medical school at Montpellier received its annual tribute of a criminal to be dissected alive, for the benefit of science. Ravaillac, the assassin of Henry IV., was torn limb from limb by horses, while yet alive, and during the agony his flesh was pulled away in bits by red-hot pincers, and boiling oil poured upon the raw wounds. As late even as the time of Louis XV., Damiens met with a fate similar to that of Ravaillac. Even in England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, traitors were disembowelled during life; and in the time of her father, Henry VIII., boiling to death was an occasional punishment. It was only within the last century that in Great Britain justice, in dealing with treason, so far tempered punishment with mercy as to spare the traitor the agonies of a cruel and lingering death. In all civilized countries, while capital punishment has been retained for certain crimes, ingenuity has been exercised to render death as speedy and as little painful as possible. Loss of life, without any added horror, is supposed to be sufficiently effective for the ends of justice. Hanging is the mode of capital punishment practised in the United States and in England. The guillotine is the instrument used in France, and the garotte in Spain. The cause of death, in hanging, is ordinarily suffocation from the tightening of the rope about the windpipe. Occasionally, however, the neck is dislocated, although rarely, unless the executioner should give a sudden twist to the body when he swings off his victim, or a kinsman with a merciful intent, as in some countries was once allowed, should spring with his full weight upon his suspended relative. Hanging is not supposed to be a painful mode of terminating life. Those who have lived to record their sensations, after hanging by the neck until they became insensible and on the very verge of death, declare that at first there was but a brief period of discomfort, which at once gave way to delightful sensations of varied lights and colors and charming visions. "A criminal, who escaped," says a writer in the "Quarterly Review," "by the breaking of the cord, said that after a second of suffering, a fire appeared, and across it the most beautiful avenue of trees. Henry IV. of France sent his physician to question him, and when mention was made of a

pardon, the man answered coldly that it was not worth the asking." The Spanish garotte is composed of a metallic collar with a screw by which it is tightened about the neck of the criminal; its effects and the sensations produced must be similar to those of hanging. The guillotine, which was brought into operation in France at the suggestion of a Dr. Guillotin, can hardly be called an improvement upon the gallows. There is undoubtedly more suffering from the cutting effects of the falling blade of the instrument; but after the head is severed, although its eyes and lips may move and the muscles of the body contract, there is, notwithstanding some have argued the contrary, an end to all sensibility to pain. Probably crucifixion, with its cruel nails, its torturing strains, and its lingering agonies, is the most painful punishment ever invented by the ingenuity of cruelty. Travellers now and then record the existence of the most horrible tortures practised by barbarous nations on their criminals and captives. -We conclude the subject with that remarkable passage from Montaigne, from which the wise Bacon has borrowed a sentence, and the eloquent Taylor a noble passage. Montaigne says: "I have often considered with myself whence it should proceed that in war the image of death, whether we look upon it as to our own particular danger or that of another, should without comparison appear less dreadful than at home in our own houses (for if it were not so, it would be an army of whining milksops); and that being still in all places the same, there should be, notwithstanding, much more assurance in peasants and the meaner sort of people than in others of better quality and education; and I do verily believe that it is those terrible ceremonies and preparations wherewith we set it out that more terrify us than the thing itself. An entirely new way of living, the cries of mothers, wives, and children, the visits of astonished and afflicted friends, the attendance of pale and blubbering servants, a dark room set round with burning tapers, our beds environed with physicians and divines, in short, nothing but ghostliness and horror round about us, render it so formidable that a man almost fancies himself dead and buried already. Children are afraid even of those they love best and are best acquainted with, when disguised in a visor, and so are we: the visor must be removed as well from things as persons; which being taken away, we shall find nothing underneath but the very same death that a mean servant or a poor chambermaid died a day or two ago, without any manner of apprehension or concern. Happy, therefore, is the death that deprives us of the leisure for such grand preparations."

DEATH-WATCH, a small beetle, of the family serricornes, and genus anobium (Fabr.). The body is of a firm consistence, short, and ovoid in shape; the rounded head is almost entirely received into an arched thorax; the antennæ are terminated by 3 joints larger than the rest, the last being ovate; the mandibles are

short, thick, and dentated beneath the point; the palpi are very short, and end in a large ovoid joint; the tibiæ are not dentated, and the terminal spurs are very small. They are slow in their motions, rarely fly, and when touched counterfeit death for a long time; hence their generic name, from avaßtov, resuscitated. Olivier states that they will allow themselves to be pulled to pieces, and even slowly burned to death, without showing the least sign of life. The larvæ resemble white soft worms, with 6 short feet; the scaly head is armed with two powerful cutting maxilla, with which they gnaw into wood, old furniture, books, &c., leaving behind them small round holes like those of a gimlet, whence the French name vrillettes; their excrements form the small masses of wormeaten wood often seen on the floors of old and deserted houses; the larvæ also attack the flour of various grains, wafers, prepared birds and insects, concealing themselves in grooves or galleries; they pass the nymph state in their cells lined with a few silken threads. The tick of the death-watch is made by the perfect insects, of several species, by striking with their heads or mandibles against the wood in which they are concealed; these strong and repeated strokes, from 7 to 11, resemble the regular ticking of a watch, and are supposed to be the means by which the sexes call each other. There are 10 species enumerated by Mr. Stephens in Great Britain alone, which make this much dreaded sound. One of the most common is the A. striatum, with striated wing covers, considered by some the same as the A. pertinax (Fabr.), of a dark brown color; another is the A. tessellatum (Fabr.), with the wing covers handsomely tessellated. The tick resembles that made by tapping the finger-nail gently on the table, so much so that the insect hearing it may often be led to recommence its sounds. The superstitious regard this sound with fear, firmly believing that

The solemn death-watch clicks the hour of death.

Such firm hold had this belief in Sir Thomas Browne's time, that, says he, "the man who could eradicate this error from the minds of the people would save from many a cold sweat the meticulous heads of nurses and grandmothers." The wood louse, a neuropterous insect, of the tribe termitina, and genus psocus (Latr.), makes a similar tick. The P. pulsatorius (Linn.) is very small, soft, white, and slender, with a reddish mouth; it lives in old wood and books, wall paper, collections of insects and plants, &c.; it is quick in its motions, darting into dark corners; the ticking noise is made by striking the wood with its head, and probably for the same purpose as in anobium.

DE BAY. See BAIUS. DEBENTURE (Lat. debere, to owe), the drawback or right allowed to merchants of claiming repayment or remission of duties on imported goods when the goods are reëxported. The term is also used for the custom house certificate which is issued as a voucher for such right. Goods may

be entered subject to debenture, in which case the original invoice is left with the collector; but without such entry at the time of importation, the drawback may be obtained upon reëxportation by making satisfactory proof of the identity of the goods. It is required that they be exported in the original packages, casks, &c., and when any change of such packages may become necessary, it must be made under the inspection of a revenue officer. A drawback of duties on wines and spirits is not allowed unless such liquors have been deposited in public stores, and kept there from the time of landing until re-shipment. Three years from the time of importation is allowed for reexportation with drawback of duties, but such exportation must be from the district of original importation. The general regulations of debenture are contained in the act of congress of March 2, 1799, but modifications have been made by various other acts.

DE BOW, JAMES DUNWOODY BROWNSON, an American journalist and statistician, born in Charleston. S. C., July 10, 1820. His father, Garrett De Bow, was long a merchant in Charleston, and the son was for 7 years employed in a mercantile house in that city. But, as he manifested an inclination for intellectual pursuits, his father determined to afford him full opportunity for acquiring a liberal education, and he was graduated at Charleston college in 1843. He next studied law, and was admitted to the Charleston bar in 1844. Owing to his fondness for literature and statistics, he made little effort to practise his profession, but became a contributor to the "Southern Quarterly Review," published at Charleston, and in 1844 he took charge of that periodical as chief editor. Among other papers prepared by him for its pages was an elaborate article, published in 1845, upon 66 Oregon and the Oregon Question," which attracted much attention both in this country and Europe. It was translated into French, and was the occasion of a debate in the French chamber of deputies. In the latter part of 1845 he withdrew from the "Southern Quarterly," removed to New Orleans, and established "De Bow's Commercial Review." This enterprise proved successful, and the work attained a circulation greater than has ever been reached by any similar publication in the South. In 1848 Mr. De Bow was elected professor of political economy and commercial statistics in the university of Louisiana. This position he held but a short time, when he was placed at the head of the census bureau of Louisiana. He held this office for 3 years, during which he collected and published a great mass of valuable statistics in reference to the population, commerce, and products of that state. In March, 1853, he was appointed by President Pierce to the office of superintendent of the U. S. census. In that position he collected and prepared for the press a large part of the material for the quarto edition of the census of 1850. He afterward compiled the 8vo.

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volume entitled "Statistical View of the United States," being a compendium of the 7th census. Of this work 150,000 copies were printed by order of congress. In 1853 he compiled from his review a work in 3 vols. 8vo., which he published under the title of "Industrial Resources of the Southwest." During Mr. De Bow's official career he continued to edit his review. The business connected with the census of 1850 was completed in 1855, and the bureau was discontinued. Since that time he has devoted his time to the review, lecturing, and other literary pursuits. He has taken an active part in the various enterprises tending to the advancement of the material and intellectual interests of the South. He has been a member of nearly every southern commercial convention since that at Memphis in 1845, over which the late John C. Calhoun presided. He was president of the convention at Knoxville, Tenn., in 1857. He has contributed many articles upon American topics to the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica," has delivered various addresses before literary, agricultural, and other associations, and was one of the founders of the historical society of Louisiana, which has since been merged in the academy of science. DEBRECZIN (Hung. Debreczen), after Pesth the largest and most important commercial town of Hungary, capital of the county of North Bihar, in the district of Gross-Wardein (according to the late division-previously Circle beyond the Theiss), is situated in an apparently boundless sandy but fertile plain, in the N. E. part of the Hungarian Lowland (Alföld), about 130 m. E. from Pesth; lat. 47° 32′ N., long. 21° 36′ E.; pop. about 60,000. It is an open town with long suburbs ending on a vast heath, and has a rustic appearance from its mostly one story thatched houses, with large yards, but contains also a number of fine buildings, of which the principal are the town house, several churches, the Piarist monastery, and the Protestant reformed college, founded in 1792. The last mentioned possesses a large library and other valuable collections, and is now the best frequented seat of learning for the Calvinist youth of Hungary. There are several other higher educational institutions belonging to both Protestants and Catholics, as well as a number of charitable establishments and a house of correction. The principal streets, in which a few years ago side planks still served to lead the passengers through the deep mud in winter and the dusty sand in summer, have lately been paved with brick. The inhabitants, who with the exception of a few thousands belong to the Protestant religion, are robust, hardy, and patriotic Magyars, and are regarded as the very types of the rural portion of their race. They are mostly agriculturists, and many of them retire several times in the year with their families and cattle to their distant fields on the plain, where they live for weeks in huts or under tents, performing the necessary labors. A numerous class is engaged in the manufacture of coarse

woollens, sheepskins for clothing, leather, shoes and boots, saltpetre, soap, various kinds of pottery, cutlery, cooperage, combs, buttons, pearl wreaths, and particularly clay tobacco pipes, of which several millions are produced annually. The trade of Debreczin is equally important, consisting chiefly in cattle, horses, swine, hides, bacon, potash, wine, various kinds of oils, cheese, and Vienna haberdashery and colonial articles, for which it is the chief depot for eastern Hungary and Transylvania. Its 4 annual fairs are held on the surrounding plain, an immense space of which is then covered with tents and huts, herds and wagons, bales and cases, and thousands of people from all parts of the country and the adjoining provinces. Numerous railway lines, which are now in course of completion, will soon connect Debreczin with all parts of the Austrian empire. The bread of Debreczin is renowned, but the town suffers from scarcity of water.-During the long wars between the Hapsburg monarchs of Hungary, the Turks, and the princes of Transylvania, Debreczin was often taken, pillaged, and partly destroyed. The Turks finally left it in 1684. Having embraced Protestantism in the first half of the 16th century, and adopted the Helvetian creed in a synod held there in 1567, it suffered bloody persecutions, in 1686, from the Austrian general Caraffa. It also suffered greatly during the insurrection under Rákóczy, after the termination of which it was made a free royal town in 1715. In the earlier part of 1849 it was the seat of the Hungarian revolutionary government under Kossuth, and the sessions of the diet were held there from Jan. 9 to May 30, in the most important of which, held in the Calvinist church, on April 14, the independence of Hungary was declared. On Aug. 2 the flank guard of Görgey, under Gen. Nagy-Sándor, was surprised by an overwhelming Russian force on the plain before the town, and was dispersed after a short though lively resistance.

DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. In the early laws of every country there will be found greater severity against debtors than there is at a later period of civilization. The reason is twofold: 1, the want of sufficient intellectual acumen to distinguish the degrees of wrong in cases of fraud and of unforeseen accident and misfortune; 2, the actual want of probity in the earlier period of national existence. There is undoubtedly a prevalent error in respect to the latter consideration. It is very common to suppose that in a rude state of society there is a greater degree of honesty and fair dealing than in an advanced civilization. But that this is a mistake we need no better proof than the history of the laws of the Germanic nations. There was no lack of personal independence, at least of intrepidity in war, yet in judicial proceedings it was found that no reliance whatever could be placed upon the oaths of parties or witnesses. Thus, instead of producing witnesses who could testify to the fact in question, numerous compurgators or conjurators were called to swear that

they believed the statement made by the party who called them; and even this was found so uncertain that the trial by combat was preferred by the men of that period, as a better mode of determining the fact. So it is reasonable to infer by analogy that the cruelty exhibited in the early laws of the Athenians, and in the Roman law of the 12 tables, was founded upon the trick ery and dishonesty which prevailed at Athens and Rome. It was, however, a barbarism to involve the innocent as well as the guilty in an undiscriminating condemnation. The right of the creditor to sell the debtor as a slave was abolished by Solon. The decemvirs of Rome, who professed to follow his legislation, did not conform to it in this particular, but enacted a law more oppressive than the Athenian, or indeed than any other law of which we have an authentic record, whereby the debtor was subject to be taken by the creditor to his own house, and to be dealt with in the most cruel manner for 60 days, after which he could be sold into foreign slavery. The atrocious conduct of a usurer who undertook to gratify his lust upon a young man who had surrendered himself for a debt of his father, and in consequence of the resistance of the prisoner to his attempt, scourged and otherwise maltreated him, led to an outbreak of the people and the passage of a law by the senate, A. U. C. 428, by which creditors were prohibited from taking debtors into their own custody, but the right of selling them into slavery still remained. This power of the creditor over the debtor seems to have become practically obsolete, and a milder mode of treatment grew up, under the emperors. According to the Institutes of Justinian, a debtor was subject only to loss of property for payment of his debts. The same practice prevailed in England at an early period. Suits were commenced by a summons, and if the defendant failed to appear, process was issued for the attachment of his property; but in actions upon contract no further remedy was given, either at the commencement of the suit or after judgment. In actions for injuries accompanied with force, it was, however, permitted to issue process for the arrest of the person. By various statutes the same remedy was extended to other actions in which there was no force, as actions of account, debt, detinue, and actions on the case. In the court of king's bench, however, the defendant was, without the aid of these statutes, liable to arrest upon process issued for an alleged trespass, and when arrested he was made to answer for any other cause of action. In the court of exchequer jurisdiction was obtained by a similar fiction. Upon recovery of judgment in any action in which an arrest was allowed upon mesne process, a writ could be issued called a capias ad satisfaciendum, whereby the defendant could be arrested and committed to close custody (in arcta custodia); in which respect the proceeding was more rigid than it was upon mesne process, for in the latter the defendant could be discharged upon giving bail for

The

his appearance, whereas upon final process he could not be allowed to be at large; and if he was suffered by the sheriff to be outside of the gaol, it was deemed an escape, for which he was made liable for the whole amount of the debt. In the United States the same forms of proceeding were introduced, but were gradually modified in advance of the changes which were made in the English practice, which will be presently adverted to. Thus, in the state of New York it was provided that a capias ad satisfaciendum should not be issued till after an execution against the property (called a fieri facias) had been first issued and returned unsatisfied. In 1831 imprisonment for debt upon contract, except in certain cases, was abolished in that state. excepted cases were where fraud had been committed or was intended, in which cases an arrest could be ordered by a judge, to which exception was added, by statute of 1846, the case of money received in a fiduciary capacity; and by a subsequent statute imprisonment for interlocutory costs was abolished. The principle embraced in these laws was adopted in the code of procedure of 1849. Arrest is thereby prohibited in all civil actions, except in certain specified cases, viz.: in actions for injury to the person or character, or for injuring or wrongfully taking or detaining property; in cases of embezzlement by public officers, or persons acting in a private fiduciary capacity; for misconduct in office or any professional employment; in actions to recover the possession of personal property where it is concealed or kept out of the reach of the sheriff; and in cases where the defendant has been guilty of a fraud in contracting the debt or in avoiding the payment of it. In the excepted cases there may be an arrest by an order of a judge, in which order the amount for which the defendant shall be held to bail is specified; and when there has been arrest upon mesne process the like remedy in all cases is given upon final process. No provision is made by the code for a discharge from an arrest under such order. Females are exempted from arrest in all cases except actions for wilful injury to person, character, or property. The legislation of the state of New York has been followed in several other states, and may be assumed in its general features as the prevalent system throughout the United States, in respect to the coercive remedy for the collection of debts by process against the person.-In England important modifications have been recently made in the laws relating to the collection of debts. In 1838 (by stat. I and 2 Victoria, c. 110), arrest upon mesne process for debts exceeding £20 was abolished, except in cases where proof was made of the intention of the defendant to leave England. Provision was also made for discharge from liability to imprisonment upon final process, upon the surrender by the debtor of all his property for the payment of his debts. In 1842 (by stat. 5 and 6 Victoria, c. 116), similar provision was made for discharge from imprisonment for debts under £20; and in 1844 (7 and 8 Victoria, c. 96),

arrest upon final process in an action for a debt not exceeding £20 was abolished, except where there was fraud in the contracting of the debt, or a fraudulent attempt to avoid payment, leaving it to the discretion of a judge to order an arrest upon proof of any such fraud. A great amelioration was effected by these statutes. The relief under the previously existing bankrupt laws applied only to a class designated as traders, leaving a large proportion of debtors entirely unprovided for; and the relief itself, even in cases to which it was applicable, was harsh to the debtor, wasteful of the assets devoted to the creditors, and not unfrequently all beneficial effect was defeated by the technical stringency of the statutes, and the extreme severity of the courts. (See BANKRUPT.) Then as to the relief of insolvents, under the act of 32 George II., c. 28 (commonly called the lords act, from the circumstance of its having originated in the house of lords), it was limited to debtors actually in custody upon execution for debts under £100 (afterward extended to £300); and notwithstanding the surrender of the debtor's property as provided by the act, the creditor could still if he chose detain the debtor in prison, subject only to the condition that he was to allow 28. 4d. per week for his support.-The insolvent laws of the state of New York are of a twofold character. By one mode of proceeding, the debtor obtains a discharge from imprisonment on account of debts upon the surrender of his property, the application for this purpose being made by the debtor upon notice to all his creditors; by another mode of proceeding, upon the application of the debtor in concurrence with creditors to the amount of two-thirds of the entire indebtment, he obtains a discharge from all future obligation on account of his debts, or in other words, from the obligation of his debts. In both these cases the discharge is withheld when the debtor, knowing his insolvency, has made disposition of any part of his property with the view of giving a preference to one creditor over others. The practical effect of this provision has been to restrict the benefit of the statute within too narrow limits, as there are few cases where a discharge could be obtained if the restriction should be rigidly enforced. In the struggle to avoid a failure, peculiar obligations are to a greater or less extent almost always incurred, which have a claim upon the debtor superior to that of his ordinary indebtment, although in law all are placed upon the same footing. Preferences will accordingly be given by the debtor in such cases, even at the peril of having to depend upon the gratuitous consent of the rest of his creditors for release from his debts. Individual hardship will thus sometimes occur, but generally relief can be had by compromise with the creditors upon fair terms when the case is free from fraud. Greater liberality in this respect is perhaps to be found in this country than in any other. In both of these insolvent proceedings, the discharge is only from debts upon

contract; yet a judgment for a cause of action arising ex delicto is deemed to have merged the original nature of the debt, and is included. A 3d form of insolvent proceedings is where the debtor is in custody upon execution, in which case he may obtain a discharge in the particular suit by a surrender of his property, without being precluded by having given preferences in payment of debts; nor is it prescribed by statute that the judgment upon which such execution has issued must have been recovered upon contract. It has now no other value except as it may be available for a discharge in actions for tort and other cases in which arrest is still allowed by the code. A similar insolvent procedure has been adopted in most of the states, so far as respects relief from imprisonment, but the experiment made in the state of New York of releasing the obligation of debts has not been generally acted upon in other states. An interesting question in respect to the validity of insolvent laws of the latter description has been brought into discussion in the U. S. courts, under the provision of the federal constitution prohibiting the passage of a state law impairing the obligation of contracts (Constitution, art. 1, § 10), and the following propositions have been settled: 1, that an insolvent law is inoperative to discharge a debt existing at the time of the passage of the law; 2, that it has no validity for the discharge of debts due to citizens of other states, or rather that such discharge is no bar to an action brought by citizens of other states for the recovery of such debts in the courts of the United States, or of any other state than that where the insolvent discharge was granted; 3, that the validity of such discharge is not sustained by the fact that the contract was made in the state where it is discharged, as against citizens of other states; 4, that in the courts of the state whose insolvent law is in question, as between citizens of such state, it is not to be held a law impairing the obligation of contracts, and a discharge under it may be properly held valid; 5, that a citizen of another state who sues in the courts of the state where the discharge is granted, is subject to the same rule as a citizen of such state. (Ogden vs. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213; Boyle vs. Zacharie, 6 Peters, 648.) The last proposition was not necessarily involved in the decision of either of the above cited cases, and seems scarcely consistent with the harmony of the courts of the different states and of the United States. Another proposition was left untouched, viz.: what is the rule where the question is between parties who were both citizens of the state where such an insolvent law exists, and the contract was made in such state, but the creditor has become a citizen of another state and sues in the courts of the United States or of such other state. Two principles combine to make the discharge valid, viz.: the lex loci contractus, and the subjection or supposed consent of both parties to the law of the state of which they were citizens. The former was