powerless. The wholesale issue of paper money could only have the most disastrous results. In July, 1794, 100 francs in paper were valued at 34 francs in coin; but in January. 1795, the value had fallen to 18 francs, and in July of the same year was less than 3 francs. In February, 17!)G, "wlien the issues were finally abandoned, 100 francs equaled about 30 centimes in coin. The whole issue of money had been upward of 45,000,000.000 francs. It "was now proposed that the assignats be redeemed at the rate of 30 to 1 in a new form of paper money known as terri- torial niaixiats. The mandat-s had this advan- tage over assignats, that they enabled the bolder to take possession of public lands immediately, while the assignats could be offered only in lieu of the purchase price at a sale. As much as 1,400,000,000 of this money was issued, but it soon lost any value which it might have had and was finally repudiated by the refusal of the Gov- ernment to receive it at its own treasuries. By a law passed in July, 1796, it was enacted that every one was entitled to transact business in whatever medium he pleased, and that mandats might be taken only at their current value in private transactions, as well as in the payment of taxes. On May 21, 1797, all outstanding assignats were declared void. This riotous issue of paper worked rank injustice and a complete redistribution of the national wealth. If its his- tory is comparatively unknown except in gen- eralities, it is because it was only one of a vast number of measures which reversed the whole order of society during the Revolutionary period. Consult Rene Stourm, Les finances do I'ancien regime et de la revolution, frariQaise (Paris, 1S85).
ASSIGNEE' IN BANK'RUPTCY. See
A.SSIG.XMEXT ; IXSOLVEXCV.
ASSIGN'MENT (from Lat. ad, to -f signare,
to sign ) . In law, a transfer or making over
(usually in writing) to another, of any property,
real or personal, or of any right therein. The
term is usually, although not with strict accu-
racy, applied to a transfer in writing, as dis-
tinguished- from a transfer whose validity de-
pends upon mere delivery or miwritten agree-
ment; and it is more frequently applied to the
transfer of personal property than of real prop-
erty, which requires to be transferred by an in-
strument under seal, and which at early common
law required other fonnalities, not referable to
the doctrine of assigmnent, in order to effect the
conveyance. The formal words of assignment
are: assign, transfer, and sct-orcr. At common
law all personal property in being, and other
property not yet in being, but having po-
tential existence (as crops planted but not
yet grown, the wool to be grown by the as-
signor's flock of sheep within the year, etc.)
could be freely assigned, and the assignment
vested a present property riglit in the assignee.
Courts of cqtiity also recognized assignments of
property to be created in futuro when such as-
signments were made for vaUie, ;
d enforced
them against the assignor whenever this prop-
erty canu' into existence. At conunon law, tJie
assignment of a ('hose in action, other than com-
mercial pa])er, was forbidden, as violating the
rules against maintenance (q.v.) and champerty
(q.v. ). Such assignments, nevertheless, con-
ferred upon the assignee the right to sue in the
assignor's name, and, if the assignment was
made for value, equity vvould restrain the as-
signor from interfering with the assignee's rights
thereunder. To this rule, however, there were
certain exceptions, based on grounds of public
policy. Thus equity refused to protect the as-
signment of the salarj' of a public officer or
judge, rights of action based on pei"sonal torts,
etc. In the United States, generally, assign-
ments of legal choses in action capable of
manual delivery, such as bonds and insurance
policies, when accompanied by delivery, are
protected by courts of equity, although made
without consideration. Equitable choses in
action have always been held assignable, al-
though the assignment is made without consid-
eration: and in the United States to-day legal
choses in action are generally made subject to
the same rule by statute.
An assignment for the benefit of creditors is an assignment of real or personal property, or both, to a trustee, usually made by an insolvent debtor for the protection of his creditors, and to obtain discbarge from further obligations. These are regulated by special statutes in each jurisdiction. See Bill of Sale; Chose in Action; Bastkbtjptcy ; Insolvency; and Con- tracts.
ASSIM'ILA'TION (Lat. assimilare, assimu- lare, to make like, from ad, to + similis, like, similar) in Pl. ts. The process by which foods are transformed into living substance. It is the final step in nutrition (q.v., where its relation to other processes is shown). The term has long been applied in plant-nutrition to the special process, photosynthesis (q.v.). by which green plants make a particular kind of food with the aid of light, since this is superficially the most striking feature of their nutrition. But when, with more careful anah-sis, there appeared need of a term to name the process in plants, as defined above, to which the word assimilation had long been applied by animal physiologists, and when there began to arise the confusion un- avoidable from using the word in one sense- for plants and in another for animals, some writers sought to escape the dittieulty by using in the one case a qualifying word, as in the expression "carbon assimilation' for photosynthesis. But it is better to use the word assimilation only for the conversion of foods into living proto- plasm, and to apply other terms to food-getting and food-making.
Plant foods must imdergo various changes before they actually form a part of the living ])rotoplasm. Since at present the chemical com- position of protoplasm is unknown and that of many foods is equally unknown, the chemical details by which the latter are converted into the former could hardly be a.scertainable. Pro- teids seem to be most like protoplasm in chemi- cal composition, and therefore constitute the most important group of foods for its imme- diate nutrition. Because they are so like pro- topUism in many chemical reactions, it is sup- posed that the assimilation of proteids consists r;ither in a change in their molecular structure than in their composition, by which change they become very unstable. But nothing is really known about the matter. The assimilation of carbohydrate foods, which might well be distin- guished from assimilation proper, involves pro-
