210 A P P A P P Commons was treated by the other house as a breach of its privileges, and was finally abandoned. The Amend ment Bill of 1874 (withdrawn for want of time at the close of the session) supplied this deficiency, and made some changes in the divisional arrangements of the Appeal Court. Although under the Act of 1873 there was nominally only one appeal, yet as the court was to sit in division, it was feared that there might be some danger of these divisions gradually developing independent and con tradictory principles of jurisprudence. It was therefore proposed that one division of the Appellate Court should sit to hear Scotch and Irish and important colonial cases, the rest of the court sitting in sections according to con venience. Should there be a disagreement of opinion among the judges of these lower sections, a rehearing before the first division was to be permitted. The large proportional amount of the judicial work in the House of Lords, caused by appeals from Scotland, has often been noticed. It proceeds from two causes. In England there was a virtual appeal for writ of error from one of Common Law Courts to the other two, not exemplified in Scotland. But there have always appeared to the dis appointed Scotch litigant chances in his favour from his appealing to English judges against the Scotch judges who have decided against him ; and the House of Lords being not only a court of law, but a House of Parliament, was believed to be at liberty to take wider views of legal questions than the constitution permitted to the inferior courts. Under the new system, proposed in the Bill of 1874, appeals for Scotland will only be allowed when the cause involves money to the amount of 500, or points of law relating to the right of property. It may be doubted whether the principle of such restriction can in any case be defended, and it is clear that the limit fixed by the bill would exclude many causes of great commercial importance. No express provision is made for the presence of a Scotch judge in the Court of Appeal, but Scotch advocates and judges are to be eligible for appointments to that tribunal, and there would probably always be one, at least, of its members selected for his acquaintance with the law of Scotland. In France the adoption of the nomenclature of the civil law has made the term, in its French shape of appel, of more comprehensive use to express references from a lower to a higher tribunal, than in this country. The United States, in adopting the structure of the English law, brought with it the practice of appeal and writ of error, but the federal constitution and the jealousy of central power have practically restricted the operation of the system. By the constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States is vested with " appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as Congress should make." It appears to have been held, however, that this does not confer appel late jurisdiction, but only authorises Congress to create it. In the words of Mr Kent, "If Congress had not provided any rule to regulate the proceedings in appeal, the court could not exercise an appellate jurisdiction : and, if a rale be provided, the Court could not depart from it. In pursuance of this principle, the Court decided in Clarice v. Bazadone, that a writ of error did not lie to that court from a. court of the United States territory north west of the Ohio, because the act had not authorised an appeal or writ of error from such a court." (Commentaries, i. 324.) It was urged that the constitution itself had vested appellate jurisdiction in the Supreme Court, but that Congress may introduce such exceptions as it thinks proper. The action of Congress, it was said, is not re quired to create the jurisdiction, but is sufficient at any time to remove any part of it. The Court, however, has adhered to the view that its appellate jurisdiction is limited by the judiciary statutes, which are to be understood as making exceptions, and implying a negative on the exercise of such power in every case but those in which it is affirmatively given. A peculiar and pernicious process which existed until a late period in English criminal law, received the name of appeal. It Avas a right of prosecution possessed as a per sonal privilege by an injured party, of which the Crown could not deprive him, directly or indirectly, since he could use it alike when the prisoner was tried and acquitted and when he was convicted and pardoned. It was chiefly known in practice as the privilege of the nearest relation of a murdered person, and was generally employed when the public passions were roused against the accused, on account, not so much of the evidence against him as the atrocity of the crime. Thus, after Colonel Oglethorpe s inquiry and report on the London prisons, when, in 1729, Banbridge and the other jailors were acquitted on indict ments for deficiency of evidence, they were hotly pursued by appeals of murder. In the case of Slaughterforcl, in 1708, the public indignation was roused by the atrocity with which the accused was charged with murdering the woman he had seduced. The evidence was very imperfect, and he was acquitted on indictment ; but an appeal was brought, and on conviction he was hanged, as his execution was a privilege belonging to the prosecutor of which the Crown could not deprive him by a pardon. In 1818 a parallel case occurred, when the appeal was ingeniously met by an offer of battle, since if the appellee were an able-bodied man, he had the choice of the two ordeals, combat or a jury. This neutralising of one obsolete, and barbarous process by another, called the attention of the Legislature to the subject, and appeal in criminal cases, along with trial by battle, was abolished by 59th Geo. III., cap. 46. APPENDINI, FRANCESCO MARIA, historian and philo logist, was born at Poirino, near Turin, on the 4th Nov. 1768. Educated at Rome, he took orders and was sent to Ragnsa, where he was appointed professor of rhetoric. When the French seized Ragusa, Napoleon placed Appen- dini at the head of the Ragusan Academy. After the Austrian occupation he was appointed principal of the Normal Institution at Zai*a, where he died in 1S37. Appendini s chief work was his Notizie Istorico-critiche suite Antickita, Storia, e Letteratura dei Ragusci (1802-3). APPENZELL (for derivation see below), one of the twenty-two cantons of the Swiss Confederation, is an alpine region, with an area of about 152 square miles, entirely surroiinded by the canton of St Gall. The mountains in the south attain a considerable elevation, the highest, Mount Sentis, being 8215 feet in height, and reaching the region of perpetual snow ; but towards the north the surface is composed of "mere hills and hollows, some of the hills being rather remarkable for their conical shape. The canton is watered by a tributary of the Thur, the Sitter, which takes its rise from a glacier on Mount Sentis, its affluent the Urnasch, and a number of mountain streams. It was at one time almost covered with forests of fir and pine ; but in consequence of the extension of the population, these have been greatly diminished. Peat and wood for fuel are abundant. The climate is cold and variable, but not unhealthy. Subject like the rest of Switzerland to the Franks in the 8th century, Appenzell gradually passed into the hands of the abbots of St Gall; in 1401 it rebelled against what had become an ecclesiastical tyranny ; and in 1513 it was admitted into the Swiss Confederation. The violent struggles which followed the Reformation led to its division, in 1597, into two parts the Inner Rhodes (a
word of military origin, like the German Rotte], in the