Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/84

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74: PARDESSUS of distilled water, 4 parts of nitric acid being added when the mixture is cold. The parch- ment being moistened, this preparation is ap- plied with a brush, and the polish is given by white of egg or mucilage of gum arabic. Pa- per or vegetable parchment is a remarkable substance, first noticed in 1847 by Poumarede and Figuier, who called it papyrine. No prac- tical application was made of the discovery till 1857, when it was patented in England by W. E. Gaine. The material is manufactured in large quantities by De la Rue and co. It is made by dipping unsized paper for a few sec- onds in a mixture of equal volumes of strong sulphuric acid and water. Complete success requires attention to the strength of the mix- ture, which must also be allowed to cool be- fore the paper is dipped in it. Paper parch- ment is used for legal and other documents and maps, for connecting laboratory appara- tus, covering preserve jars, and various other purposes. PAUDESSUS, Jean Marie, a French jurist, born in Blois, Aug. 11, 1772, died in Paris, May 26, 1853. He became an advocate, and in 1807 a member of the legislative body in the interest of Napoleon, and was repeatedly elected a deputy under the restoration. He was profes- sor of mercantile law from 1810 to 1830, and was one of the highest authorities on that branch of jurisprudence. His principal work is GOUTS de droit commercial (4 vols., Paris, 1814-'16; 6th ed., 1856). He also published Traite des servitudes (1806), Traite du contrat et des lettres de change (2 vols., 1819), Col- lections des lois maritimes anterieures au XVIII' ne siecle (6 vols., 1828-'45), &c. PARDOE, Julia, an English author, born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1806, died Nov. 26, 1862. She produced a volume of poems when she was 13 years old,, and a novel at 15; but her first important work was "Traits and Traditions of Portugal " (2 vols., 1833). She went to Constantinople in 1835, and published "The City of the Sultan" (3 vols., 1836), and furnished the letterpress for " The Romance of the Harem " (3 vols., 1839), and " The Beau- ties of the Bosphorus " (2 vols. 4to). She af- terward visited Hungary, and wrote " The City of the Magyar" (3 vols. 8vo, 1840), and the novel of "The Hungarian Castle" (3 vols., 1842). Her other works include "Louis the Fourteenth, and the Court of France in the Seventeenth Century" (3 vols., 1847); "The Court and Reign of Francis I." (2 vols., 1849); " The Life of Mary de Medicis " (3 vols., 1852) ; " Pilgrimages in Paris " (1858) ; and " Episodes of French History during the Consulate and the Empire" (2 vols., 1859). In 1859 she re- ceived from the crown a pension of 100. PARDON, in its proper sense, the act of grace by which the sovereign declares that the guilty shall be regarded as innocent. In human polit- ical societies, this effect is accomplished, not by absolving the moral guilt of the criminal, but by removing or withholding those penal PARDON consequences which the law attaches to crime. Chief Justice Marshall's definition may not be altogether exact, but it is often quoted in our law books, and expresses the usual acceptation of the word. " A pardon," he says, " is an act of grace, which, proceeding from the power intrusted with the execution of the laws, ex- empts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment which the law inflicts for a crime which he has committed." A pardon is then an act not of justice, but of grace. Par- don necessarily implies punishment, or the lia- bility thereto ; and punishment supposes guilt, ascertained in the due course of law, and justly visited with a penalty. For, as in the state it must be the theory that the courts have the monopoly of doing justice, so theoretically it must be assumed that he is guilty whom the courts declare to be so, and that the penalty is justly inflicted. If the punishment of such a one be but an act of justice, the remission of it, or a pardon, must be an act of clemency or grace. But it is the chief end of punishment to advance the public welfare. When then the commonwealth will derive more or as much advantage, or even will suffer nothing, from the remission of the punishment, this may well be granted ; and this consideration ought to be the measure and guide of the pardoning power. Forgiveness must come of course from the one who is injured, and that, in all states, is the sovereign. The ultimate power, the real sovereignty, whether it reside in a king or in the people, as it is the source of the law, so must it be the source of grace to him who breaks the law. In the forms of government which have most prevailed, the crowned prince has been regarded as the sovereign, and par- don has always been his prerogative. In demo- cratic states, the people are sovereign; but they have generally delegated the power of pardon to him who is placed at the head of the state, that is, to the chief executive magistrate, though in the absence of such delegation the power would pertain to the legislature. The consti- tution of the United States gives the power to the president alone. In some of the states it is to be exercised with the advice and consent of the council. Sometimes, where it is reserved to the legislature, the governor can only re- prieve temporarily. A pardon presupposes guilt, and though it is now well settled that it may be granted as well before trial and con- viction as afterward, yet in every case it is to defeat a punishment which the law has pre- scribed for an act committed, and therefore to defeat and annul so far the law itself. Owing to the imperfection of the laws themselves, or to the imperfect application of good laws, an innocent man may be condemned to punish- ment, or a slight offence may be visited with too severe a penalty. But remission of the sen- tence in these cases, whole or partial, according as the sentence is wholly or partially unjust, though regarded as an act of clemency, is, in the one class of cases, only that very justice