COMITIA 85 COMMERCE COMITIA, the ordinary and legal as- semblies of the Roman citizens for the passing of laws, election of magistrates and officers, etc. COMMANDER ISLANDS, a group of four islands off the coast of Siberia, in the Bering Sea. The largest of them, Bering, has an area of 609 square miles, and the next largest, Mednj, 180 square miles, both of them having a small pop- ulation. The chief industry is the breed- ing of fur seals, protected by the Si- berian Government. COMMANDITE (kom-man-det) , a term used in France, a partnership en commandite being one in which a person may advance capital without takmg an active part in the management of the business, and be exempt from responsi- bility for more than he put into it; much the same as limited liability. COMMELYNACE-ffi, spiderworts, an order of endogens, alliance xyridales. They are herbaceous plants, with flat narrow leaves. The species are found in the East and West Indies, New Holland, Africa, etc. COMMENDAM, the administration or provisional management of a benefice during a vacancy. The person intrusted with the management was called com,- mendator. The grant of ecclesiastical livings in this way gave rise to great abuses. In England the term was ap- plied to a living retained by a bishop after he had ceased to be an incumbent. By 6 and 7 William IV. the holding of livings in commendam was, for the fu- ture, abolished. COMMENSAL, messmate; applied in zoology to animals which live on or in other animals for part or the whole of their life, simply sharing the food of their host without being parasite on him ; thus the pea-crabs live within the cavity of shell-fish, and find their food in the water introduced for the benefit of their host. COMMENSURABLE, an appellation given to such quantities or magnitudes as can be measured by one and the same common measure. Commensurable num- bers are such as can be measured or divided by some other number without any remainder: such are 12 and 18, as being measurea by 6 or 3. COMMENTARY, a term used (1) in the same sense as memoirs, for a narrative of particular transactions or events, as the "Commentaries" of Caesar. (2) A series or collection of comments or annotations. These may either be in the form of detached notes. or may be embodied in a series of re- marks written and printed in a con- nected form. COMMERCE, a mutual exchange, buying and selling, whether abroad or at home, but in a more specific or limited sense it denotes intercourse or trans- actions of the character now described with foreign nations or with colonies; mutual exchange or buying and sellinj; at home being designated not commerce but trade. History. — The Phoenicians, whose prim- itive seat was at Sidon and their next at Tyre, were the great commercial nation of the old world. The Greeks with all their intellect, and the Romans with their unparalleled opportunities, did not show remarkable aptitude for Commerce, nor was their success high. In the Middle Ages, the Venetians, the Pisans, the Genoese, the Hanse or Han- seatic towns and Flanders, either suc- cessively or in some cases two or more together, took the lead in Commerce. The great impulse communicated by the discovery of America brought first the Spaniards and Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British upon the scene. Even before this time London had become a large emporium of trade. The reign of Elizabeth gave an impulse to Commerce, and before the 16th cen- tury had closed, the English engrossed, by an exclusive privilege, the Commerce of Russia; they explored the sea of Spitzbergen for a passage to the mar- kets of the East; they took an active part in the trade of the Mediterranean, and they excited the jealousy of the Hanse Towns by their operations in Ger- many and the continent of Europe. Other English cities were now engaged in foreign trade, the merchants of Bris- tol doing so with the Canary Islands, and those of Plymouth with the coasts of Guinea and Brazil. The English traffic with India created the Anglo-In- dian empire, and it again favorably re- acted on the Commerce which had given it birth. Commerce of the United States. — Even before the Revolutionary War the Commerce of the colonies had grown to a considerable extent, so much indeed as in some departments to excite the jeal- ousy of the mother country and cause the enactment of stringent customs reg- ulations, discriminating against the co- lonial products. For a long time after the war had ceased, the unsettled condi- tion of Europe, while it gave an exten- sive market for American products, yet was a source of considerable risk and annoyance to shipping, by reason of the exposure to privateering, piracy, etc.,
