sold or let to the defendant to be used in the way of his calling. It
may also issue by leave of the judge or registrar in other cases, with
the single exception that no leave can be given in claims under £5 where the claim is not for the price or hire of goods sold or let as above, if the affidavit of debt discloses that the defendant is a servant or person engaged in manual labour. The advantage of a default summons is that judgment is entered for the plaintiff without hearing unless the defendant gives notice of defence within a limited time. A default summons must as a rule be served personally on the
defendant; an ordinary summons need nor be served personally,
but may in most cases be delivered to a person at the defendant’s
house or place of business. A summons is also issued to a witness
in the county court. Forms of summons are given in the County
Court Rules 1903. These include certain special forms used in
admiralty and interpleader actions and in proceedings under the
Friendly Societies Acts and the Married Women’s Property Acts.
Summonses issued from county courts are usually served by a
bailiff of the court and not by the party suing them out.
Justices of the peace have power to issue summonses to persons accused of indictable offences, or of offences summarily punishable, for their attendance, for preliminary inquiry or summary trial according to the nature of the charge, and also to persons against whom a complaint of a civil nature within the justices' jurisdiction is made. On failure to attend on summons, attendance may be enforced by warrant; and in the case of indictable offences this is the course always adopted. The forms in use for indictable offences are scheduled to the Indictable Offences Act 1848, and those for other purposes to the Summary Jurisdiction Rules 1886 (see Summary Jurisdiction). The attendance of witnesses before justices of the peace may be required by witness summons, enforced in the event of disobedience by arrest under warrant (see Witness).
The attendance of jurors in civil or criminal trials is required by jury summons sent by registered post.
In courts for the trial of indictable offences the attendance of the accused and of the witnesses is not secured by summons. Both ordinarily attend in obedience to recognizances entered into before justices for their attendance. In the absence of recognizances the attendance of the accused is enforced by bench warrant of the court of trial, or by justices’ warrant, and that of the witnesses by writ of subpoend issued from the crown office of the High Court. Disobedience to the writ is punished as contempt of court.
Scotland.—Summons is a term confined in strictness to the beginning of an action in the Court of Session. The summons is a writ in the sovereign’s name, signed by a writer to the signet, citing the defender to appear and answer the claim. The “will of the summons” is the conclusion of a writ containing the will of the sovereign or judge, charging the executive officer to cite the party whose attendance is required. It is regulated by several acts, e.g. The Debtors (Scotland) Act 1838 (1 & 2 Vict. c. 114) and the Court of Session (Scotland) Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 100). A privileged summoiis is one where the induciae are shortened to six days against defenders within Scotland (Court of Session [Scotland] Act 1825, s. 53). Defects in the summons are cured by amendment or by a supplementary summons. The summons goes more into detail than the English writ of summons, though it no longer states, as it once did, the grounds of action, now stated in the condescendence and pursuer’s pleas in law annexed to the summons. The form of the summons is regulated by the Court of Session (Scotland) Act 1850, s. 1 and schedule A. After the action has been set on foot by summons, the attendance of the parties and witnesses is obtained by citation. The Citation Amendment Acts 1871 and 1882 give additional facilities for the execution of citations in civil cases by means of registered letters, instead of by the old process known as “lock hole citation.” In the act of 1871 the term “summons” is used to denote part of the process of inferior civil courts.
In the sheriff court an action is now begun by writ (Sheriff Courts [Scotland] Act 1907), and not as formerly by petition or summons.
In criminal cases the summons of the accused, or of witnesses, is by warrant of citation, and of jurors by citation sent by registered post (1868, c. 95, s. 10).
Ireland.—In Ireland summonses are used substantially for the same purposes and in the same manner as in England, but generally speaking under statutes and rules applying only to the Irish courts. (W. F. C.)
SUMMUM BONUM (Lat. for “highest good”), in ethics, the ideal of human attainment. The significance of the term depends upon the character of the ethical system in which it occurs. It may be viewed as a perfect moral state: as pleasure or happiness (see Hedonism; Eudaemonism); as physical perfection; as wealth, and so forth. If, however, we abandon intuitional ethics, it is reasonable to argue that the term summum bonum ceases to have any real significance inasmuch as actions are not intrinsically good or bad, while the complete sceptic strives after no systematic ideal.
SUMNER, CHARLES (1811–1874), American statesman, was
born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 6th of January 1811.
He graduated in 1830 at Harvard College, and in 1834 graduated
at the Harvard Law School. Here, in closest intimacy with
Joseph Story, he became an enthusiast in the study of
jurisprudence: at the age of twenty-three he was admitted to the
bar, and was contributing to the American Jurist, and editing
law texts and Story’s court decisions. What he saw of Congress
during a month’s visit to Washington in 1834 filled him with
loathing for politics as a career, and he returned to Boston
resolved to devote himself to the practice of law. The three
years (1837–1840) spent in Europe were years of fruitful study
and experience. He secured a ready command of French,
German and Italian, equalled by no American then in public
life. He formed the acquaintance of many of the leading
statesmen and publicists, and secured a deep insight into
continental systems of government and of jurisprudence. In
England (1838) his omnivorous reading in literature, history
and jurisprudence made him persona grata to leaders of thought.
Lord Brougham declared that he “had never met with any man
of Sumner’s age of such extensive legal knowledge and natural
legal intellect.” Not till many years after Sumner’s death
was any other American received so intimately into the best
English circles, social, political and intellectual.
In his thirtieth year, a broadly cultured cosmopolitan, Sumner returned to Boston, resolved to settle down to the practice of his profession. But gradually he devoted less of his time to practice and more to lecturing in the Harvard Law School, to editing court reports and to contributions to law journals, especially on historical and biographical lines, in which his erudition was unsurpassed. In his law practice he had disappointed himself and his friends, and he became despondent as to his future. It was in a 4th of July oration on “The True Grandeur of Nations,” delivered in Boston in 1845, that he first found himself. His oration was a tremendous arraignment of war, and an impassioned appeal for freedom and for peace, and proved him an orator of the first rank. He immediately became one of the most eagerly sought orators for the lyceum and college platform. His lofty themes and stately eloquence made a profound impression, especially upon young men; his platform presence was imposing, for he was six feet and four inches in height and of massive frame; his voice was clear and of great power; his gestures unconventional and individual, but vigorous and impressive. His literary style was somewhat florid. Many of his speeches were monuments of erudition, but the wealth of detail, of allusion, and of quotation, often from the Greek and Latin, sometimes detracted from their effect.
Sumner co-operated effectively with Horace Mann for the improvement of the system of public education in Massachusetts. Prison reform and peace were other causes to which he gave ardent support. In 1847 the vigour with which Sumner denounced a Boston congressman’s vote in favour of the Mexican War Bill made him the logical leader of the “Conscience Whigs,” but he declined to accept their nomination for Congress. He took an active part in the organizing of the Free Soil party, in revolt at the Whigs' nomination of a slave-holding southerner for the presidency; and in 1848 was defeated as a candidate for the national House of Representatives. In 1851 control of the Massachusetts legislature was secured by the Democrats in coalition with the Free Soilers, but after filling the state offices with their own men, the Democrats refused to vote for Sumner, the Free Soilers' choice for United States senator, and urged the selection of some less radical candidate. A deadlock of more than three months ensued, finally resulting in the election (April 24) of Sumner by a majority of a single vote.
Sumner thus stepped from the lecture platform to the Senate, with no preliminary training. At first he prudently abstained from trying to force the issues in which he was interested, while he studied the temper and procedure of the Senate. In the closing hours of his first session, in spite of strenuous efforts to prevent it, Sumner delivered (Aug. 26, 1852) a speech, “Freedom national; Slavery sectional,” which it was immediately felt marked a new era in American history. The conventions
