by a telpher, and at the other end by what is known as a trailer, or again, two telphers may be installed, one at each end of the load. The telpher carries a small trolley sheave or bow which serves to collect the current from a trolley wire stretched a little above the rail. Frequently the telpher is accompanied by an attendant who manipulates it, but by dividing the trolley wire into sections any system of telpherage may be constructed to work automatically, and by switching off the current from the section in which the telpher is required to stop it can be brought to a standstill at any required point. The speed of the telpher may be readily regulated by the introduction of a resistance between any section of the line and the supply of electricity. The speed may be high, as much as 1500 ft. per minute over the straight portions of the line, but slackened at curves and loading stations, or when approaching a terminus. The required power may be obtained from the mains of an ordinary electric supply with either direct or alternating current, but the former is preferable. The mean expenditure of power in a working day is said to average (including electrical hoisting) 1 H.P. per ton of average load.
The uses of telpherage are many and various. In factories and warehouses, where the buildings are scattered, it has been installed with excellent results. Being essentially an overhead system, there is a saving of floor space, the ground not being obstructed by trucks or trolleys. The same reasons which render ropeways an economical means of handling such material as coal, ore, stone, slate, &c., between the mine or quarry and the rail or barge, may be adduced in favour of telpherage. For the unloading of railway trucks in a crowded goods-yard it is undoubtedly applicable. Any kind of tipping or hoisting operations can be automatically effected by its aid, and any sort of grab may be used in dealing with such materials as sand, clay or gravel. Telpherage is clearly a labour-saving method of handling materials, but of course the exact conditions under which any system is to be used need careful study, while the economy to be effected by the installation of a telpher line must to a great extent depend upon the available supply of electrical energy. (G. F. Z.)
CONVOCATION (Lat. convocatio, a calling together), an assembly of persons met together in answer to a summons. The term is more usually applied in a restricted sense to assemblies
of the clergy or of the graduates of certain universities.
In the American Protestant Episcopal Church a convocation is a voluntary deliberative conference of the clergy; it has no legislative function, and like the convocation of a university, assembles primarily to discuss matters of common interest.
In England the name “convocation” is specifically given to an assembly of the spirituality of the realm of England, which is summoned by the metropolitan archbishops of Canterbury and of York respectively, within their ecclesiastical provinces, pursuant to a royal writ, whenever the parliament of the realm is summoned, and which is also continued or discharged, as the case may be, whenever the parliament is prorogued or dissolved. These assemblies consist of two Houses, an upper and lower. In the upper house sit the archbishops and bishops, and in the lower the deans and archdeacons of every cathedral, the provost of Eton College, with one proctor elected by each cathedral chapter and two by the beneficed clergy in each diocese in the province of Canterbury (in the province of York two proctors are elected by each archdeacon), with a prolocutor at their head. When and how this convocation originated is not historically clear. This much is known from authentic records, that the present constitution of the convocation of the prelates and clergy of the province of Canterbury was recognized as early as in the eleventh year of the reign of Edward I. (1283) as its normal constitution; and that in extorting that recognition from the crown, which the clergy accomplished by refusing to attend unless summoned in lawful manner (debito modo) through their metropolitan, the clergy of the province of Canterbury taught the laity the possibility of maintaining the freedom of the nation against the encroachments of the royal power. It had been a provision of the Anglo-Saxon period, the origin of which is generally referred to the council of Clovesho (747), that the possessions of the church should be exempt from taxation by the secular power, and that it should be left to the benevolence of the clergy to grant such subsidies to the crown from the endowments of their churches as they should agree to in their own assemblies. It may be inferred, however, from the language of the various writs issued by the crown for the collection of the “aids” voted by the Commune Concilium of the realm in the reign of Henry III., that the clergy were unable to maintain the exemption of church property from being taxed to those “aids” during that king’s reign; and it was not until some years had elapsed of the reign of Edward I. that the spirituality succeeded in vindicating their constitutional privilege of voting in their own assemblies their free gifts or “benevolences,” and in insisting on the crown observing the lawful form of convoking those assemblies through the metropolitan of each province.
The form of the royal writ, which it is customary to issue in the present day to the metropolitan of each province, is identical in its purport with the writ issued by the crown in 1283 to the metropolitan of the province of Canterbury, after the clergy of that province had refused to meet at Northampton in the previous year, because they had not been summoned in lawful manner; whilst the mandates issued by the metropolitans in pursuance of the royal writs, and the citations issued by the bishops in pursuance of the mandates of their respective metropolitans, are identical in their purport and form with those used in summoning the convocation of 1283, which met at the New Temple in the city of London, and voted a “benevolence” to the crown, as having been convoked in lawful manner. The existing constitution of the convocation of the province of Canterbury—and the same observation will apply to that of the province of York—in respect of its comprising representatives of the chapters and of the beneficed clergy, in addition to the bishops and other dignitaries of the church, would thus appear to be of even more ancient date than the existing constitution of the parliament of the realm.
From this period down to the eleventh year of the reign of Edward III. there were continual contests between the spirituality of the realm and the crown,—the spirituality contending for their constitutional right to vote their Contest between spirituality and crown. subsidies in their provincial convocations; the crown, on the other hand, insisting on the immediate attendance of the clergy in parliament. The resistance of the clergy to the innovation of the “praemunientes” clause had so far prevailed in the reign of Edward II. that the crown consented to summon the clergy to parliament through their metropolitans, and a special form of provincial writ was for that purpose framed; but the clergy protested against this writ, and the struggle was maintained between the spirituality and the crown until 1337 (11 Edward III.), when the crown reverted to the ancient practice of commanding the metropolitans to call together their clergy in their provincial assemblies, where their subsidies were voted in the manner as accustomed before the “praemunientes” clause was introduced. The “praemunientes” clause, however, was continued in the parliamentary writs issued to the several bishops of both provinces, whilst the bishops were permitted to neglect at their pleasure the execution of the writs.
The history of the convocation of the province of Canterbury, as at present constituted, is full of stirring incidents, and it resolves itself readily into five periods. The first period, by which is meant the first period which dates Five characteristic periods. from an epoch of authentic history, is the period of its greatest freedom, but not of its greatest activity. It extends from the reign of Edward I. (1283) to that of Henry VIII. The second period is the period of its greatest activity and of its greatest usefulness, and it extends from the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Henry VIII. to the reign of Charles II. The third period extends from the fifteenth year of the reign of Charles II. (1664) to the reign of George I. This was a period of turbulent activity and little usefulness, and the anarchy of the lower house of convocation during this period created a strong prejudice against the revival of convocation in the mind of the laity. The
