from felony in character or in the mode of punishment that, in the absence of a code, no logical line of division can now be drawn, inasmuch as few felonies are now capital and none involve the forfeitures of land or goods, which at one time afforded an appreciable distinction between the two categories of crime. The result is that it is impossible to distinguish without enumerating the specific crimes falling under each head.
Among the chief misdemeanours are: (1) Assault on the sovereign; (2) unlawful assembly; (3) riot and sedition; (4) forcible entries; (5) perjury, which until 1563 was mainly, if not solely, cognizable by the spiritual courts; (6) blasphemy; (7) extortion; (8) bribery; (9) obtaining property by false pretences (which is nearly cognate to the felony of larceny); (10) assault; (11) public nuisance; (12) libel; (13) conspiracy to defraud, &c.; (14) attempts to commit other crimes.
Numerous acts or omissions are punishable as “misdemeanours by interpretation.” In other words, disobedience to the command or prohibition of a statute as to a matter of public concern is indictable as a misdemeanour, even if the statute does not so describe it, unless the terms of the statute indicate that some other remedy alone is to be pursued. For some misdemeanours penal servitude may be imposed by statute. But as a rule the appropriate punishment is by fine or imprisonment without hard labour or both, at the discretion of the court unless limited by a particular statute. The offender may also be put under recognizance to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. Theoretically, whipping may be imposed; but this is not now done except under specific statutory authority: and the like authority is necessary to authorize the addition of hard labour to a sentence of imprisonment.
At the present time the practical difference in English law between misdemeanour and felony lies in matters of procedure, in which a trial for misdemeanour closely resembles an ordinary civil trial.
1. An arrest for misdemeanour may not be made without judicial authority except under specific statutory authority.
2. A person charged with misdemeanour is entitled to bail (see Arrest, i.e. to release on the obtaining of sureties, or even on his own recognizance without sureties to appear and take his trial. Bail is obligatory in all misdemeanours, with the exception of misdemeanours where the costs of the prosecution are payable out of the county or borough rate or fund.
3. A misdemeanour may be tried on an information filed by the attorney-general or by leave of the high court without the indictment essential in cases of treason and felony.
4. The same indictment or information may include a number of charges of misdemeanour committed at different times and even against different persons. See Indictment.
5. A trial for misdemeanour may proceed in the absence of the defendant, who is not “given in charge” to the jury, as in the case of felony.
6. On a charge of misdemeanour a trial by special jury may be ordered.
7. There is no right to challenge peremptorily any of the jurors summoned to try the case; any challenge made must be for cause. The jury is sworn collectively (four men to a book), and not poll by poll as in felony, and their oath is to try the issues joined between the king and the defendant. They may separate during adjournments of the trial, like a jury in a civil case.
8. The costs of prosecuting certain misdemeanours are recoverable out of public funds under specific statutory provisions; but in very few cases can the court make the misdemeanant himself pay them.
9. There are no accessories after the fact to misdemeanour. (See Accessory.)
Under French law and systems based thereon or having a common origin a distinction is drawn between crime (verbrechen), délit (vergehen) and contravention. The English term misdemeanour roughly corresponds to the two classes of délit and contravention but includes some offences which would be qualified as “crime.” In the criminal code of Queensland the term “misdemeanour” is retained, while that of “felony” is abolished; and offences are classified as crimes, misdemeanours and simple offences, the two former punishable on indictment, the latter on summary conviction only; the more serious offences described in English law as misdemeanours are in that code described as crimes (e.g. perjury). In the United States the English common law as to misdemeanour is generally followed, but in New York and other states a statutory distinction has been made between misdemeanour and felony by defining the latter as a crime punishable by death or by imprisonment in a state prison. (W. F. C.)
MISE, an Anglo-French term (from Fr. mettre, to place) signifying
a settlement of accounts, disputes, &c., by agreement or
arbitration. As an English legal term it was applied to the issue
in a writ of right; and in history to the payment, in return for
certain privileges, made by the county palatine of Chester to
each new earl, and by the Welsh to each new lord of the Marches,
or to a prince or king on his entry into the country. In its
more general sense of agreement the term is familiar in English
history in the “Mise of Amiens,” in January, and that of Lewes,
in May of 1264, made between Henry III. and the barons.
MISENUM, an ancient harbour town of Campania, Italy,
about 3 m. S. of Baiae (q.v.) at the western extremity of the
Gulf of Puteoli (Pozzuoli). Until the end of the Republic it was
dependent on Cumae, and was a favourite villa resort. Agrippa
made the fine natural harbour into the main naval station of the
Mediterranean fleet, and founded a colony there probably in
31 B.C. The emperor Tiberius died in his villa here. Its
importance lasted until the decline of the fleet in the 4th
century A.D. It was at first an independent episcopal see:
Gregory the Great united it with that of Cumae. In 890 it
was destroyed by the Saracens. The name was derived from
one of the companions of Ulysses, or from Aeneas' trumpeter,
an account of whose burial is given in Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 232.
The harbour consisted of the outer basin, or Porto di Miseno, protected by moles, of which remains still exist, and the present Mare Morto, separated from it by a comparatively modern embankment. The town lay on the south side of the outer harbour, near the village of Miseno, where remains of a theatre and baths and the inscriptions relating to the town have been found. Remains of villas can also be traced, and to the largest of these, which occupied the summit of the promontory, and belonged first to Marius, then to Lucullus, and then to the imperial house, probably belongs the subterranean Grotta Dragonara. Roads ran north to Baiae and north-west past the modern Torre Gaveta to Cumae: along the line of both are numerous columbaria.
See J. Beloch, Campanien, ed. ii. (Breslau, 1890), 190 sqq. (T. As.)
MISER, a term originally meaning (as in Latin) miserable
or wretched, but now used for an avaricious person who
hoards up money and who spends the smallest possible sum
on necessities.
MISERERE (the imperative of Lat. misereri, to have mercy or
pity), the name of one of the penitential psalms (li.), from its
opening words, Miserere mei, Deus. The word is frequently
used in English as equivalent to “Misericord” (Lat. misericordia,
pity, compassion) for various forms in which the rules of a
monastic order or general discipline of the clergy might be
relaxed; thus it is applied to a special chamber in a monastery
for those members who were allowed special food, drink, &c.,
and to a small bracket on the under side of the seat in a stall
of a church made to turn up and afford support to a person
in a position between sitting and standing. “Misericord”
and “miserere” are also used of a small dagger, the “dagger
of mercy,” capable of passing between the joints of armour,
with which the coup de grâce might be given to a wounded
man.
MISHAWAKA, a city of St Joseph county, Indiana, U.S.A., on the St Joseph river of Michigan, about 80 m. E. by S. of Chicago. Pop. (1900), 5560 (821 foreign-born); (1910) 11,886. It is served by the Grand Trunk and the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railways, and by inter-urban electric lines. It has an extensive trade in grain and other agricultural products. Two miles up the river is the Hen Island dam, which, with the Mishawaka hydraulic dam, nearer the city, is the source of much of the power used by the city’s manufactories. St Joseph Iron Works was laid out on the south side of the river, in 1833, and in 1835 was organized as a village and two additions were platted. In 1836 Indiana City was laid out on the north side of the river;
