ministry allowed disturbances to occur during the taking of inventories of church property, a clause of the law for which Briand was not responsible. Consequently he accepted the portfolio of public instruction and worship in the Sarrien ministry (1906). So far as the chamber was concerned his success was complete. But the acceptance of a portfolio in a bourgeois ministry led to his exclusion from the Unified Socialist party (March 1906). As opposed to Jaurès, he contended that the Socialists should co-operate actively with the Radicals in all matters of reform, and not stand aloof to await the complete fulfilment of their ideals.
BRIANZA, a district of Lombardy, Italy, forming the south part of the province of Como, between the two southern arms of the lake of that name. It is thickly populated and remarkable for its fertility; and being hilly is a favourite summer resort of the Milanese.
BRIARE, a town of north-central France in the department of Loiret on the right bank of the Loire, 4512 m. S.E. of Orléans on the railway to Nevers. Pop. (1906) 4613. Briare, the Brivodorum of the Romans, is situated at the extremity of the Canal of Briare, which unites the Loire and its lateral canal with the Loing and so with the Seine. The canal of Briare was constructed from 1605 to 1642 and is about 36 m. long. The industries include the manufacture of fine pottery, and of so-called porcelain buttons made of felspar and milk by a special process; its inventor, Bapterosses, has a bust in the town. The canal traffic is in wood, iron, coal, building materials, &c. A modern hospital and church, and the hôtel de ville installed in an old moated château, are the chief buildings. The lateral canal of the Loire crosses the Loire near Briare by a fine canal-bridge 720 yds. in length.
BRIAREUS, or Aegaeon, in Greek mythology, one of the three hundred-armed, fifty-headed Hecatoncheires, brother of Cottus and Gyges (or Gyes). According to Homer (Iliad i. 403) he was called Aegaeon by men, and Briareus by the gods. He was the son of Poseidon (or Uranus) and Gaea. The legends regarding him and his brothers are various and somewhat contradictory. According to the most widely spread myth, Briareus and his brothers were called by Zeus to his assistance when the Titans were making war upon Olympus. The gigantic enemies were defeated and consigned to Tartarus, at the gates of which the three brothers were placed (Hesiod, Theog. 624, 639, 714). Other accounts make Briareus one of the assailants of Olympus, who, after his defeat, was buried under Mount Aetna (Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 141). Homer mentions him as assisting Zeus when the other Olympian deities were plotting against the king of gods and men (Iliad i. 398). Another tradition makes him a giant of the sea, ruler of the fabulous Aegaea in Euboea, an enemy of Poseidon and the inventor of warships (Schol. on Apoll. Rhod. i. 1165). It would be difficult to determine exactly what natural phenomena are symbolized by the Hecatoncheires. They may represent the gigantic forces of nature which appear in earthquakes and other convulsions, or the multitudinous motion of the sea waves (Mayer, Die Giganten und Titanen, 1887).
BRIBERY (from the O. Fr. briberie, begging or vagrancy, bribe, Mid. Lat. briba, signifying a piece of bread given to beggars; the Eng. “bribe” has passed through the meanings of alms, blackmail and extortion, to gifts received or given in order to influence corruptly). The public offence of bribery may be defined as the offering or giving of payment in some shape or form that it may be a motive in the performance of functions for which the proper motive ought to be a conscientious sense of duty. When this is superseded by the sordid impulses created by the bribe, a person is said to be corrupted, and thus corruption is a term sometimes held equivalent to bribery. The offence may be divided into two great classes—the one where a person invested with power is induced by payment to use it unjustly; the other, where power is obtained by purchasing the suffrages of those who can impart it. It is a natural propensity, removable only by civilization or some powerful counteracting influence, to feel that every element of power is to be employed as much as possible for the owner’s own behoof, and that its benefits should be conferred not on those who best deserve them, but on those who will pay most for them. Hence judicial corruption is an inveterate vice of imperfect civilization. There is, perhaps no other crime on which the force of law, if unaided by public opinion and morals, can have so little influence; for in other crimes, such as violence or fraud, there is generally some person immediately injured by the act, who can give his aid in the detection of the offender, but in the perpetration of the offence of bribery all the immediate parties obtain what they desire, and are satisfied.
The purification of the bench from judicial bribery has been gradual in most of the European countries. In France it received an impulse in the 16th century from the high-minded chancellor, Michel de L’Hôpital. In England judicial corruption has been a crime of remarkable rarity. Indeed, with the exception of a statute of 1384 (repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1881) there has been no legislation relating to judicial bribery. The earliest recorded case was that of Sir William Thorpe, who in 1351 was fined and removed from office for accepting bribes. Other celebrated cases were those of Michael de la Pole, chancellor of England, in 1387; Lord Chancellor Bacon in 1621; Lionel Cranfield, earl of Middlesex, in 1624; and Sir Thomas Parker, 1st earl of Macclesfield, in 1725. In Scotland for some years after the Revolution the bench was not without a suspicion of interested partiality; but since the beginning of the 19th century, at least, there has been in all parts of the empire a perfect reliance on its purity. The same may be said of the higher class of ministerial officers. There is no doubt that in the period from the Revolution to the end of Queen Anne’s reign, when a speaker of the House of Commons was expelled for bribery, and the great Marlborough could not clear his character from pecuniary dishonesty, there was much corruption in the highest official quarters. The level of the offence of official bribery has gradually descended, until it has become an extremely rare thing for the humbler officers connected with the revenue to be charged with it. It has had a more lingering existence with those who, because their power is more of a constitutional than an official character, have been deemed less responsible to the public. During Walpole’s administration there is no doubt that members of parliament were paid in cash for votes; and the memorable saying, that every man has his price, has been preserved as a characteristic indication of his method of government. One of the forms in which administrative corruption is most difficult of eradication is the appointment to office. It is sometimes maintained that the purity which characterizes the administration of justice is here unattainable, because in giving a judgment there is but one form in which it can be justly given, but when an office has to be filled many people may be equally fitted for it, and personal motives must influence a choice. It very rarely happens, however, that direct bribery is supposed to influence such appointments. It does not appear that bribery was conspicuous in England until, in the early part of the 18th century, constituencies had thrown off the feudal dependence which lingered among them; and, indeed, it is often said, that bribery is essentially the defect of a free people, since it is the sale of that which is taken from others without payment.
In English law bribery of a privy councillor or a juryman (see Embracery) is punishable as a misdemeanour, as is the taking of a bribe by any judicial or ministerial officer. The buying and selling of public offices is also regarded at common law as a form of bribery. By the Customs Consolidation Act 1876, any officer in the customs service is liable to instant dismissal and a penalty of £500 for taking a bribe, and any person offering or promising a bribe or reward to an officer to neglect his duty or conceal or connive at any act by which the customs may be evaded shall forfeit the sum of £200. Under the Inland Revenue Regulations Act 1890, the bribery of commissioners, collectors, officers or other persons employed in relation to the Inland Revenue involves a fine of £500. The Merchant Shipping Act 1894, ss. 112 and 398, makes provision for certain offences in the nature of bribery. Bribery is, by the Extradition Act 1906,
