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Until the year 1825 British consuls were usually merchants engaged in trade in the foreign countries in which they acted as consuls, and their remuneration consisted entirely of fees. An act of that year, however, organized the consular service as a branch of the civil service, with payment by a fixed salary instead of by fees; consuls were forbidden also to engage in trade, and the management of the service was put under the control of a separate department of the foreign office, created for the purpose. In 1832 the restriction as to engaging in trade was withdrawn, except as regards salaried members of the British consular service.

The duty of consuls, under the "General Instructions to British Consuls," is to advise His Majesty's trading subjects, to quiet their differences, and to conciliate as much as possible the subjects of the two countries. Treaty rights he is to support in a mild and moderate spirit; and he is to check as far as possible evasions by British traders of the local revenue laws. Besides assisting British subjects who are tried for offences in the local courts, and ascertaining the humanity of their treatment after sentence, he has to consider whether home or foreign law is more appropriate to the case, having regard to the convenience of witnesses and the time required for decision; and, where local courts have wrongfully interfered, he puts the home government in motion through the consul-general or ambassador. He sends in reports on the labour, manufacture, trade, commercial legislation and finance, technical education, exhibitions and conferences of the country or district in which he resides, and, generally, furnishes information on any subject which may be desired of him. He acts as a notary public; he draws up marine and commercial protests, attests documents brought to him, and, if necessary, draws up wills, powers of attorney, or conveyances. He celebrates marriages in accordance with the provisions of the Foreign Marriage Act 1892, and, where the ministrations of a clergyman cannot be obtained, reads the burial service. At a seaport he has certain duties to perform in connexion with the navy. In the absence of any of His Majesty's ships he is senior naval officer; he looks after men left behind as stragglers, or in hospital or prison, and sends them on in due course to the nearest ship. He is also empowered by statute to advance for the erection or maintenance of Anglican churches, hospitals, and places of interment sums equal to the amount subscribed for the purpose by the resident British subjects.

As the powers and duties of consuls vary with the particular commercial interests they have to protect, and the civilization of the state in whose territory they reside, instead of abstract definition, we summarize the provisions on this subject of the British Merchant Shipping Acts. Consuls are bound to send to the Board of Trade such reports or returns on any matter relating to British merchant shipping or seamen as they may think necessary. Where a consul suspects that the shipping or navigation laws are being evaded, he may require the owner or master to produce the log-book or other ship documents ; he may muster the crew, and order explanations with regard to the documents. Where an offence has been committed on the high seas, or aboard ashore, by British seamen or apprentices, the consul makes inquiry on oath, and may send home the offender and witnesses by a British ship, particulars for the Board of Trade being endorsed on the agreement for conveyance. He is also empowered to detain a foreign ship the master or seamen of which appear to him through their misconduct or want of skill to have caused injury to a British vessel, until the necessary application for satisfaction or security be made to the local authorities. Every British mercantile ship, not carrying passengers, on entering a port gives into the custody of the consul to be endorsed by him the seamen's agreement, the certificate of registry, and the official log-book; a failure to do this is reported to the registrar-general of seamen. The following five provisions are also made for the protection of seamen. If a British master engage seamen at a foreign port, the engagement is sanctioned by the consul, acting as a superintendent of Mercantile Marine Offices. The consul collects the property of British seamen or apprentices dying abroad, and remits to H.M. paymaster-general. He also provides for the subsistence of seamen who are shipwrecked, discharged, or left behind, even if their service was with foreign merchants; they are generally sent home in the first British ship that happens to be in want of a complement, and the expenses thus incurred form a charge on the parliamentary fund for the relief of distressed seamen, the consul receiving a commission of 2 1/2 % on the amount disbursed. Complaints by crews as to the quality and quantity of the provisions on board are investigated by the consul, who enters a statement in the log-book and reports to the Board of Trade. Money disbursed by consuls on account of the illness or injury of seamen is generally recoverable from the owner. With regard to passenger vessels, the master is bound to give the consul facilities for inspection and for communication with passengers, and to exhibit his "master's list," or list of passengers, so that the consul may transmit to the registrar-general, for insertion in the Marine Register Book, a report of the passengers dying and children born during the voyage. The consul may even defray the expenses of maintaining, and forwarding to their destination, passengers taken off or picked up from wrecked or injured vessels, if the master does not undertake to proceed in six weeks; these expenses becoming, in terms of the Passenger Acts 1855 and 1863, a debt due to His Majesty from the owner or charterer, where a salvor is justified in detaining a British vessel, the master may obtain leave to depart by going with the salvor before the consul, who, after hearing evidence as to the service rendered and the proportion of ship's value and freight claimed, fixes the amount for which the master is to give bond and security. In the case of a foreign wreck the consul is held to be the agent of the foreign owner. Much of the notarial business which is imposed on consuls, partly by statute and partly by the request of private parties, consists in taking the declarations as to registry, transfers, &c., under the Mercantile Shipping Acts. Consuls in the Ottoman empire, China, Siam and Korea have extensive judicial and executive powers.

FOOTNOTES:

Particular quarters of mercantile cities were assigned to foreign traders and were placed under the jurisdiction of their own magistrates, variously styled syndics, provosts , ?chevins , &c., who had power to fine or to expel from the quarter. The Hanseatic League , particularly, had numerous settlements of this kind, the earliest being the Steelyard at London, established in the 13th century.

i.e. as regards the organization of the system. Consuls, or consuls-general, of other countries have sometimes a diplomatic or quasi-diplomatic status. Consuls-general charg?s d'affaires, e.g., rank as diplomatic agents. Of these the most notable is the British agent and consul-general in Egypt, whose position is unique. The diplomatic agent of Belgium at Buenos Aires, e.g., is minister-resident and consul-general, and the minister of Ecuador in London is consul-general charg? d'affaires.

See also instructions to consuls prepared by the Board of Trade and approved by the secretary of state for foreign affairs.

His festival was celebrated on the of August and the 15th of December. On the former date, the flamen Quirinalis, assisted by the vestals, offered sacrifice, and the pontifices presided at horse and chariot races in the circus. It was a day of public rejoicing; all kinds of rustic amusements took place, amongst them running on ox-hides rubbed with oil . Horses and mules, crowned with garlands, were given rest from work. A special feature of the games in the circus was chariot racing, in which mules, as the oldest draught beasts, took the place of horses. The origin of these games was generally attributed to Romulus; but by some they were considered an imitation of the Arcadian introduced by Evander. There was a sanctuary of Consus on the Aventine, dedicated by L. Papirius Cursor in 272, in early times wrongly identified with the altar in the circus.

CONTANGO, a Stock Exchange term for the rate of interest paid by a "bull" who has bought stock for the rise and does not intend to pay for it when the Settlement arrives. He arranges to carry over or continue his bargain, and does so by entering into a fresh bargain with his seller, or some other party, by which he sells the stock for the Settlement and buys it again for the next, the price at which the bargain is entered being called the making-up price. The rate that he pays for this accommodation, which amounts to borrowing the money involved until the next Settlement, is called the contango.

CONTARINI, the name of a distinguished Venetian family, who gave to the republic eight doges and many other eminent citizens. The story of their descent from the Roman family of Cotta, appointed prefects of the Reno valley , is probably a legend. One Mario Contarini was among the twelve electors of the doge Paulo Lucio Anafesto in 697. Domenico Contarini, elected doge in 1043, subjugated rebellious Dalmatia and recaptured Grado from the patriarch of Aquileia. He died in 1070. Jacopo was doge from 1275 to 1280. Andrea was elected doge in 1367, and during his reign the war of Chioggia took place ; he was the first to melt down his plate and mortgage his property for the benefit of the state. Other Contarini doges were: Francesco , Niccol? , who built the church of the Salute, Carlo , during whose reign the Venetians gained the naval victory of the Dardanelles, Domenico and Alvise . There were at one time no less than eighteen branches of the family; one of the most important was that of Contarini dallo Zaffo or di Giaffa, who had been invested with the countship of Jaffa in Syria for their services to Caterina Cornaro, queen of Cyprus; another was that of Contarini degli Scrigni , so called on account of their great wealth. Many members of the family distinguished themselves in the service of the republic, in the wars against the Turks, and no less than seven Contarini fought at Lepanto. One Andrea Contarini was beheaded in 1430 for having wounded the doge Francesco Foscari on the nose. Other members of the house were famous as merchants, prelates and men of letters; among these we may mention Cardinal Gasparo Contarini , and Marco Contarini , who was celebrated as a patron of music and collected at his villa of Piazzola a large number of valuable musical MSS., now in the Marciana library at Venice. The family owned many palaces in various parts of Venice, and several streets still bear its name.

CONT?, NICOLAS JACQUES , French mechanical genius, chemist and painter, was born at Aunou-sur-Orne, near S?es, on the 4th of August 1755, of a family of poor farm labourers. At the age of fourteen he displayed precocious artistic talent in a series of religious panels, remarkably fine in colour and composition, for the principal hospital of S?es, where he was employed to help the gardener. With the advice of Greuze he took up portrait painting, quickly became the fashion, and laid by in a few years a fair competency. From that time he gave free rein to his passion for the mechanical arts and scientific studies. He attended the lectures of J. A. C. Charles, L. N. Vaquelin and J. B. Leroy, and exhibited before the Academy of Science an hydraulic machine of his own invention of which the model was the subject of a flattering report, and was placed in Charles's collection. The events of the Revolution soon gave him an opportunity for a further display of his inventive faculty. The war with England deprived France of plumbago; he substituted for it an artificial substance obtained from a mixture of graphite and clay, and took out a patent in 1795 for the form of pencil which still bears his name. At this time he was associated with Monge and Berthollet in experiments in connexion with the inflation of military balloons, was conducting the school for that department of the engineer corps at Meudon, was perfecting the methods of producing hydrogen in quantity, and was appointed by the Directory to the command of all the aerostatic establishments. He was at the head of the newly created Conservatoire des arts et m?tiers, and occupied himself with experiments in new compositions of permanent colours, and in 1798 constructed a metal-covered barometer for measuring comparative heights, by observing the weight of mercury issuing from the tube. Summoned by Bonaparte to take part as chief of the aerostatic corps in the expedition to Egypt, he considerably extended his field of activity, and for three years and a half was, to quote Berthollet, "the soul of the colony." The disaster of Aboukir and the revolt of Cairo had caused the loss of the greater part of the instruments and munitions taken out by the French. Cont?, who, as Monge says, "had every science in his head and every art in his hands," and whom the First Consul described as "good at everything," seemed to be everywhere at once and triumphed over apparently insurmountable difficulties. He made, in an almost uncivilized country, utensils, tools and machinery of every sort from simple windmills to stamps for minting coin. Thanks to his activity and genius, the expedition was provided with bread, cloth, arms and munitions of war; the engineers with the exact tools of their trade; the surgeons with operating instruments. He made the designs, built the models, organized and supervised the manufacture, and seemed to be able to invent immediately anything required. On his return to France in 1802 he was commissioned by the minister of the interior, Chaptal, to superintend the publication of the great work of the commission on Egypt, and an engraving machine of his construction materially shortened this task, which, however, he did not live to see finished. He died at Paris on the 6th of December 1805. Napoleon had included him in his first promotions to the Legion of Honour. A bronze statue was erected to his memory in 1852 at S?es, by public subscription.

CONTEMPT OF COURT, in English law, any disobedience or disrespect to the authority or privileges of a legislative body, or interference with the administration of a court of justice.

Disobedience by inferior judges or magistrates to the lawful order of a superior court. Such disobedience, if amounting to wilful misconduct, would usually give ground for amotion or removal from office, or for prosecution or indictment or information for misconduct .

Disobedience or misconduct by executive officers of the law, e.g. sheriffs and their bailiffs or gaolers. The contempt consists in not complying with the terms of writs or warrants sent for execution. For instance, a judge of assize having ordered the court to be cleared on account of some disturbance, the high sheriff issued a placard protesting against "this unlawful proceeding," and "prohibiting his officer from aiding and abetting any attempt to bar out the public from free access to the court." The lord chief justice of England, sitting in the other court, summoned the sheriff before him and fined him ?500 for the contempt, and ?500 more for persisting in addressing the grand jury in court, after he had been ordered to desist. A sheriff who fails to attend the assizes is liable to severe fine as being in contempt . And in Harvey's case steps were taken to attach a sheriff who had failed to execute a writ of attachment for contempt of court in the mistaken belief that he was not entitled to break open doors to take the person in contempt. The Sheriffs Act 1887 enumerates many instances in which misconduct is punishable under that act, but reserves to superior courts of record power to deal with such misconduct as a contempt .

Misconduct or neglect of duty by subordinate officials of courts of justice, including solicitors. In these cases it is more usual for the superior authorities to remove the offender from office, or for disciplinary proceedings to be instituted by the Law Society. But in the case of an unqualified person assuming to act as a solicitor or in the case of breach of an undertaking given by a solicitor to the court, proceedings for contempt are still taken.

Misconduct by parties, jurors or witnesses. Jurors who fail to attend in obedience to a jury summons and witnesses who fail to attend on subpoena are liable to punishment for contempt, and parties, counsel or solicitors who practise a fraud on the court are similarly liable.

Attempts to prevent or interfere with the due course of justice, whether made by a person interested in a particular case or by an outsider. This branch of contempt takes many forms, such as frauds on the court by justices, solicitors or counsel , tampering with witnesses by inducing them through threats or persuasion not to attend or to withhold evidence or to commit perjury, threatening judge or jury or attempting to bribe them and the like; and also by "scandalizing the court itself" by abusing the parties concerned in a pending case, or by creating prejudice against such persons before their cause is heard.

Invectives against judges.

Courts having jurisdiction.

Punishment.

An order of committal is an order in execution specifying the nature of the detention to be suffered, or the penalty to be paid. The process of attachment merely brings the accused into court; he is then required to answer on oath interrogatories administered to him, so that the court may be better informed of the circumstances of the contempt. If he can clear himself on oath he is discharged; if he confesses the court will punish him by fine or imprisonment, or both, at its discretion. But in very many cases on proper apology and submission, and undertaking not to repeat the contempt, and payment of costs, the court allows the proceedings to drop without proceeding to fine or imprison.

CONTI, PRINCES OF. The title of prince of Conti, assumed by a younger branch of the house of Cond?, was taken from Conti-sur-Selles, a small town about 20 m. S.W. of Amiens, which came into the Cond? family by the marriage of Louis of Bourbon, first prince of Cond?, with Eleanor de Roye in 1551.

CONTINENT , a word used in physical geography of the larger continuous masses of land in contrast to the great oceans, and as distinct from the submerged tracts where only the higher parts appear above the sea, and from islands generally.

As bearing on this geological idea, it is interesting to notice in this connexion that the areas of volcanic activity are mostly where continent and ocean meet; and that around the continents there is an almost continuous "deep" from 100 to 300 m. broad, of which the Challenger Deep and the great Tuscarora Deep are fragments. If on a map of the world a broad inked brush be swept seawards round Africa, passing into the Mediterranean, round North and South America, round India, then continuously south of Java and round Australia south of Tasmania and northward to the tropic, this broad band will represent the encircling ribbon-like "deep," which gives strength to the suggestion that the continents in their main features are permanent forms and that their structural connexion with the oceans is not temporary and accidental. The great protruding or "squeezed" segments are the Eurasian , strongly ridged on the south and east, and relatively flat on the north-west; the African , rather strongly ridged on the east, less abruptly on the west and north; the North American , strongly ridged on the west, more gently on the east, and relatively flat on the north and in the interior; the South American , strongly ridged on the west and somewhat on the north-east and south-east, leaving ten for the smaller blocks. The sum of these will represent one-third of the earth's surface, while the remaining two-thirds is covered by the ocean. The foundation structure of the continents is everywhere similar. Their resulting rocks and soils are due to differential minor movements in the past, by which deposits of varying character were produced. These movements, taking place periodically and followed by long periods of rest, produce continued stability for the development and migration of forms of life, the grading of rivers, the development of varied characteristic land forms, the migration and settlement of human beings, the facility or difficulty of intelligent intercourse between races and communities, with finally the commercial interchange of those commodities produced by varying climatic conditions upon different parts of the continental surface; in short, for those geographical factors which form the chief product of past and present human history.

CONTINENTAL SHELF, the term in physical geography for the submerged platform upon which a continent or island stands in relief. If a coin or medal be partly sunk under water the image and superscription will stand above water and represent a continent with adjacent islands; the sunken part just submerged will represent the continental shelf and the edge of the coin the boundary between it and the surrounding deep, called by Professor H. K. H. Wagner the continental slope. If the lithosphere surface be divided into three parts, namely, the continent heights, the ocean depths, and the transitional area separating them, it will be found that this transitional area is almost bisected by the coast-line, that nearly one-half of it lies under water less than 100 fathoms deep, and the remainder 12,000,000 sq. m. is under 600 ft. in elevation. There are thus two continuous plain systems, one above water and one under water, and the second of these is called the continental shelf. It represents the area which would be added to the land surface if the sea fell 600 ft. This shelf varies in width. Round Africa--except to the south--and off the western coasts of America it scarcely exists. It is wide under the British Islands and extends as a continuous platform under the North Sea, down the English Channel to the south of France; it unites Australia to New Guinea on the north and to Tasmania on the south, connects the Malay Archipelago along the broad shelf east of China with Japan, unites north-western America with Asia, sweeps in a symmetrical curve outwards from north-eastern America towards Greenland, curving downwards outside Newfoundland and holding Hudson Bay in the centre of a shallow dish. In many places it represents the land planed down by wave action to a plain of marine denudation, where the waves have battered down the cliffs and dragged the material under water. If there were no compensating action in the differential movement of land and sea in the transitional area, the whole of the land would be gradually planed down to a submarine platform, and all the globe would be covered with water. There are, however, periodical warpings of this transitional area by which fresh areas of land are raised above sea-level, and fresh continental coast-lines produced, while the sea tends to sink more deeply into the great ocean basins, so that the continents slowly increase in size. "In many cases it is possible that the continental shelf is the end of a low plain submerged by subsidence; in others a low plain may be an upheaved continental shelf, and probably wave action is only one of the factors at work" .

CONTINUED FRACTIONS. In mathematics, an expression of the form

The notation employed by English writers for the general continued fraction is

b2 b3 b4 a1 ? -- -- -- ... a2 ? a3 ? a4 ?

Continental writers frequently use the notation

The terminating continued fractions

b2 b2 b3 b2 b3 b4 a1, a1 + --, a1 + -- --, a1 + -- -- --, ... a2 a2 + a3 a2 + a3 + a4

reduced to the forms

are called the successive convergents to the general continued fraction.

Their numerators are denoted by p1, p2, p3, p4...; their denominators by q1, q2, q3, q4....

We have the relations

b2 b3 b4 In the case of the fraction a1 - -- -- -- ..., we have the a2 - a3 - a4 -

relations

Taking the quantities a1 ..., b2 ... to be all positive, a continued

p1, p2, p3 ..., q1, q2, q3 ...,

are two series of positive integers increasing without limit if the fraction does not terminate.

b2 b3 b4 The general continued fraction a1 + -- -- -- ... is evidently a2 + a3 + a4 +

equal, convergent by convergent, to the continued fraction

Any quantity, commensurable or incommensurable, can be expressed uniquely as a simple continued fraction, terminating in the case of a commensurable quantity, non-terminating in the case of an incommensurable quantity. A non-terminating simple continued fraction must be incommensurable.

In the case of a terminating simple continued fraction the number of partial quotients may be odd or even as we please by writing the last

The odd convergents form an increasing series of rational fractions continually approaching to the value of the whole continued fraction; the even convergents form a decreasing series having the same property.

Every even convergent is greater than every odd convergent; every odd convergent is less than, and every even convergent greater than, any following convergent.

Every convergent is nearer to the value of the whole fraction than any preceding convergent.

Every convergent is a nearer approximation to the value of the whole fraction than any fraction whose denominator is less than that of the convergent.

The difference between the continued fraction and the n^ convergent

may be replaced by the following, which, though not so close, are

Every simple continued fraction must converge to a definite limit; for its value lies between that of the first and second convergents and, since

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