illustrated by a short extract from the judgment of Mr Justice Blackburn:—
“If I thought it was at common law an incident to a corporation that its capacity should be limited by the instrument creating it, I should agree that the capacity of a company incorporated under the act of 1862 was limited to the object in the memorandum of association. But if I am right in the opinion which I have already expressed, that the general power of contracting is an incident to a corporation which it requires an indication of intention in the legislature to take away, I see no such indication here. If the question was whether the legislature had conferred on a corporation, created under this act, capacity to enter into contracts beyond the provisions of the deed, there could be only one answer. The legislature did not confer such capacity. But if the question be, as I apprehend it is, whether the legislature have indicated an intention to take away the power of contracting which at common law would be incident to a body corporate, and not merely to limit the authority of the managing body and the majority of the share-holders to bind the minority, but also to prohibit and make illegal contracts made by the body corporate, in such a manner that they would be binding on the body if incorporated at common law, I think the answer should be the other way.”
On the other hand, the House of Lords, agreeing with the three dissentient judges in the exchequer chamber, pronounced the effect of the Companies Act to be the opposite of that indicated by Mr Justice Blackburn, “It was the intention of the legislature, not implied, but actually expressed, that the corporations, should not enter, having regard to this memorandum of association, into a contract of this description. The contract in my judgment could not have been ratified by the unanimous assent of the whole corporation.” In such companies, therefore, objects beyond the scope of the memorandum of association are ultra vires of the corporation. The doctrine of ultra vires, as it is called, is almost wholly of modern and judicial creation. The first emphatic recognition of it appears to have been in the case of companies created for special purposes with extraordinary powers, by act of parliament, and, more particularly, railway companies. The funds of such companies, it was held, must be applied to the purposes for which they were created, and to no other. Whether this doctrine is applicable to the older or, as they are sometimes called, ordinary corporations, appears to be doubtful. S. Brice (Ultra Vires) writes:—
“Take, as a strong instance, a university or a London guild. Either can undoubtedly manage, invest, transform and expend the corporate property in almost any way it pleases, but if they proposed to exhaust the same on the private pleasures of existing members, or to abandon the promotion, the one of education, the other of their art and mystery, it is very probable, if not absolutely certain, that the court of chancery would restrain the same, as being ultra vires.”
CORPS (pronounced as in French, from which it is taken, being a late spelling of cors, from Lat. corpus, a body; cf. “corpse”), a word in very general use since the 17th century to denote a body of troops, varying from a few hundred to the greater part of an army. In a special sense “corps” is used as synonymous with “army corps” (corps d’armée). The word is applied to any organized body, as in corps diplomatique, the general body of foreign diplomatic agents accredited to any government (see Diplomacy), or corps de ballet, the members of a troop of dancers at a theatre; so in esprit de corps, the common spirit of loyalty which animates any body of associated persons.
CORPSE (Lat. corpus, the body), a dead human body. By the common law of England a corpse is not the subject of property nor capable of holding property. It is not therefore larceny to
steal a corpse, but any removal of the coffin or grave-cloths is otherwise, such remaining the property of the persons who buried the body. It is a misdemeanour to expose a naked corpse
to public view, to prevent the burial of a dead body, or to disinter it without authority; also to bury or otherwise dispose of a dead body on which an inquest ought to be held, without
giving notice to a coroner. Anyone who, having the means, neglects to bury a dead body which he is legally bound to bury, is guilty of a misdemeanour, but no one is bound to incur a debt
for such a purpose. It is incumbent on the relatives and friends of a deceased person to provide Christian burial for him; failing relatives and friends, the duty devolves upon the parish. No corpse can be attached, taken in execution, arrested or detained for debt. See further Body-Snatching, and Burial and Burial Acts.
CORPULENCE (Lat. corpus, body), or Obesity (Lat. ob, against, and edere, to eat), a condition of the animal body characterized by the over-accumulation of fat under the skin and around certain of the internal organs. In all healthy persons a greater or less amount of fat is present in these parts, and serves important physiological ends, besides contributing to the proper configuration of the body (see Nutrition). Even a considerable measure of fatness, however inconvenient, is not inconsistent with a high degree of health and activity, and it is only when in great excess or rapidly increasing that it can be regarded as a pathological state (see Metabolic Diseases). The extent to
which excess of fat may proceed is illustrated by numerous well-authenticated examples recorded in medical works, of which only a few can be here mentioned. Thus Bright, a grocer of Maldon,
in Essex, who died in 1750, in his twenty-ninth year, weighed 616 ℔. Dr F. Dancel (Traité de l’obésité, Paris, 1863) records the case of a young man of twenty-two, who died from excessive
obesity, weighing 643 ℔. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1813 a case is recorded of a girl of four years of age who weighed 256 ℔. But the most celebrated case is that of Daniel Lambert (q.v.) of Leicester, who died in 1809 in his fortieth year. He is said to have been the heaviest man that ever lived, his weight being 739 ℔ (52 st. 11 ℔). Health cannot be long maintained under excessive obesity, for the increase in bulk of the body, rendering exercise more difficult, leads to relaxation and defective nutrition of muscle, while the accumulations of fat in the chest and abdomen occasion serious embarrassment to the functions of the various organs in those cavities. In general the mental activity of the highly corpulent becomes impaired, although there have always been many notable exceptions to this rule.
Various causes are assigned for the production of corpulence (see Metabolic Diseases). In some families there exists an hereditary predisposition to an obese habit of body, the manifestation of which no precautions as to living appear capable of averting. But it is unquestionable that certain habits favour the occurrence of corpulence. A luxurious, inactive, or sedentary life, with over-indulgence in sleep and absence of mental occupation, are well recognized predisposing causes. The more immediate exciting causes are over-feeding and the large use of fluids of any kind, but especially alcoholic liquors. Fat persons are not always great eaters, though many of them are, while leanness and inordinate appetite are not infrequently associated. Still, it may be stated generally that indulgence in food, beyond what is requisite to repair daily waste, goes towards the increase of flesh, particularly of fat. This is more especially the case when the non-nitrogenous (the fatty, saccharine and starchy) elements of the food are in excess. The want of adequate bodily exercise will in a similar manner produce a like effect, and it is probable that many cases of corpulence are to be ascribed to this cause alone, from the well-known facts that many persons of sedentary occupation become stout, although of most abstemious habits, and that obesity frequently comes on in the middle-aged and old, who take relatively less exercise than the young, in whom it is comparatively rare. Women are more prone to become corpulent than men, and appear to take on this condition more readily after the cessation of the function of menstruation.
For the prevention of corpulence and the reduction of superfluous fat many expedients have been resorted to, and numerous remedies recommended. These have included bleeding, blistering, purging, starving (see Fasting), the use of different kinds of baths, and of drugs innumerable. The drinking of vinegar was long popularly, but erroneously, supposed to be a remedy for obesity. It is related of the marquis of Cortona, a noted general of the duke of Alva, that by drinking vinegar he so reduced his body from a condition of enormous obesity that he could fold his skin about him like a garment.
In 1863 a pamphlet entitled “Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public by William Banting,” in which was narrated the remarkable experience of the writer in accomplishing the reduction of his own weight in a short space of time by the adoption of a
