done either before or after marriage.* Adoption might, by a constitution of Anastasius and a later one of Justinian, take place before a magistrate, and a record of the proceedings was registered.† The manumission of a slave, where the act took place in a church, was recorded in a public document. I

During the Republic there was a quinquennial census, in which all citizens were enrolled according to the amount of their property, both moveable and immoveable. This census was made for the last time under Decius in 251 and was formally abolished by Constantine in 313. After the abolition of the old Republican census, the provincial census introduced by Augustus was (in the opinion of Huschke and others) extended to the whole Empire. Whether this be the truth or not, there was at any rate at the time of Justinian a census as an administrative basis for the collection of the revenue. Both moveable and immoveable property seem to have been registered. Tributa quæve præterea pro prædiis aut moventibus dari et reddi necesse est are the words of Quintus Mucius Scævola.§ The registration of immoveable property is mentioned by Cicero. It is as to the latter that most information is to be found. It was under the charge of censuales or censitores, responsible for its accuracy, and it was registered by the formula censualis in the censuales libri, possibly (but probably not) kept in the censuale officium. The land was registered according to its metes and bounds and the state of its cultivation,** its value being proved by production of

*Cod. v., 3, 20, I.

+ Inst. i., 11, 12; Cod. viii., 48, 11; Cod. viii., 49, 5.

Cod. i., 13.

§ Dig. xxxiii., 2, 32, 2, where moventibus is taken by Marquardt and others as equivalent to mobilibus.

|| Magnum agri modum censeri (pro Flacco, xxxii., 80).

The formula censualis ceased under Diocletian, but the censuales were still

members of the censuale officium.

** Dig. l., 15, 4; Cod. xi., 57; Nov. xvii., 8.

codices or accounts.* Both public and private lands were so registered. The unit of registration was the caput or capitatio, on which the tributum and other charges were based. Registration was a condition precedent to the alienation of immoveable property. The evidence of the census was preferred to that of witnesses. I

Registration of persons was either on the census or not. While the old form of census existed, a slave or a filiusfamilias might be manumitted by enrolment on it. But with the falling into desuetude of the census, such a form of manumission became obsolete. Under the Empire the principal case of registration of persons was the compulsory registration in the Augustan census. In this census the name of the owner of land and his age were bound to appear, as well as the names and character and extent of the holdings of certain of its non-free tenants, coloni, inquilini, casarii. The nature and extent of this registration is a question which is treated at great length by Marquardt and De Coulanges, and is too large for adequate treatment in this place. Those who were registered were registered in publicis libris,|| that is, in the censuales libri or polyptycha,¶ and were thence called censiti** or adscriptitii.†† The privileges of a soldier required in certain cases to be proved by the insertion of his name in the roll of the cohort or legion,‡‡ or by a certificate of some one acting on behalf

* Cod. xi., 55.

+ Cod. iv., 47, 2.

Dig. xxii., 3, 10. See on this part of the subject M. Cornil's Etude sur la Publicité de la Propriété dans le Droit Romain. Brussels, 1890.

§ Dig. 1., 15, 3.

|| Cod. xi., 47, 9.

This word is used in the Theodosian Code, and afterwards frequently occurs in the Polyptyques of early French and German Law.

** The proprietor is called censitus in one text, Cod. Theod. xiii., 10, 5

++ The adscriptitii may or may not have been the same as censiti. But the reason of the names seems the same. They were regarded as part of the property entered on the census, Cod. xi., 47, 22.

Cod. xii., 58, 4.

of one of the scrinia.* In the Theodosian Code appears a constitution of Diocletian for the registration of artificers.t This is not repeated by Justinian. The names, ages, and nationalities of slaves were registered in the censuales libri,‡ but this was probably rather as part of the property of their masters than as part of the population of the Empire.§ It does not appear certain whether there was any official registration of births, marriages, and deaths. The nuptiales tabulæ, or written record of the marriage, were not essential to its validity. Where they existed, they were destroyed on dissolution of the marriage. A divorce seems to have been registered.

In the provinces the principal officer for registration seems to have been the curator¶ or logista,** but in some there were special officers who had powers in such matters, e.g., the juridicus at Alexandria. The defensores civitatis had, as has been already stated, limited jurisdiction over registration of wills and gifts.++ The difference between them and the curatores seems to be that the former were confined to private documents, the latter had the charge of public documents, especially those of a political nature, such as the register of the council (lectio senatûs)‡‡ and its entry on the album decurionum.§§ The duumviri are recognised as local registrars by both the lex Ursonensis and the lex Malacitana. Provincial administration in the Roman Empire is a matter so full of difficulty that anything said on the subject cannot be regarded as certain.

JAMES WILLIAMS.

Cod. xii., 60, 10.

Dig. 1., 15, 4, 5; Cod. viii., 53, 7.

+ Cod. Theod. xvi., 2, 151.

§ They formed a part of the instrumentum fundi, Dig. xxxiii., 7, 12, 4.

|| Tac. Ann. xi., 30.

** Cod. i., 57.

Cod. i., 54, 3.

tt Nov. xv., 3.

‡‡ A survival of the lectio senatûs and recognitio equitum at Rome during the Republic.

§§. See the lex Julia Municipalis, cited in Bruns and in 1 Marquardt, 223.

88

V. CURRENT NOTES ON INTERNATIONAL

LAW.

Public International Law.

Governments de Facto and de Jure.

A very interesting case upon this question arose recently in connection with the Chilian Revolution which attracted so much attention two or three years ago. The facts were briefly these: President Balmaceda, in May, 1891, when the Civil War was at its height, induced the Chilian Cortes to pass a decree authorising him to use and dispose of a large quantity of silver bars deposited at the Chilian Mint. A few days later the Cortes passed a further Law authorising and ratifying all the President's acts. The Provisional Government, instituted by the party opposed to Balmaceda, upon hearing of this, issued a decree declaring that the silver was deposited as a guarantee for the note issue of the State, and was therefore outside the sphere of all commercial movement, and that all negotiations which might be entered into in respect thereof would be null and void. Notwithstanding this counterblast, Balmaceda negotiated for and procured a loan from the London and River Plate Bank upon the security of the bars of silver, which were shipped to Monte Video and ultimately to the head office of the Bank in London. Shortly afterwards, on 28th August, 1891, the supporters of Balmaceda were finally routed in the battle of Placilla; the President abdicated, and the Provisional Government took up its position in the capital as the sole governing body in Chili. Previously to this, on 17th August, the representative of the Provisional Government had notified the Bank at Monte Video not to part with the silver, but on the 21st August the silver was shipped to London, as already mentioned. The new Government of

Chili commenced proceedings against the Bank to restrain them from dealing with the silver. The action came before the Court of Appeal last August (see The Republic of Chili v. The London and River Plate Bank, 10 Times L.R., p. 658), when the Court dismissed the appeal and gave judgment for the defendants. It was pointed out in the Judgment that at the time of the contract with the Bank, Balmaceda's Government was the de facto sovereign power; and that even after his resignation, the President was for a time recognised by the English Government, and that the new Government, when it acquired the de facto status on or about the 29th August, 1891, remained bound by all the obligations entered into by its predecessor.

This case is really very similar to that of The Republic of Peru v. Dreyfus Brothers, which, with the authorities upon the subject was discussed by us at some length in a former issue (Law Magazine and Review, No. CCLXXI., for February, 1889, pp. 142, seqq., Art., Some Recent Incidents in International Law).

Private International Law.

Foreign Wills.

The nature of an English grant of administration in respect of English property to the personal representative of a domiciled foreigner, was considered in the recent case of In the goods of Brieseman, 6 Rep. 28, and L.R. [1894] 2 Q.B. 260. In this case a domiciled German testator specially appointed persons in England to realise his English estate and transmit the proceeds to the German executors. The Court, however, on the authority of In the goods of Earl, L.R. 1 P. 450, declined to grant probate to these persons as executors according to the tenor of the will, but made a grant to them under sect. 73 of the Court of Probate Act, 1857, to administer the estate in England