Chapter V: Part II: describes the constitution as it existed at the period of (2)

CONSUMPTION (Lat. _consumere_), literally, the act of consuming or destroying. Thus the word is popularly applied to phthisis, a "wasting away" of the lungs due to tuberculosis (q.v.). In economics the word has a special significance as a technical term. It has been defined as the destruction of utilities, and thus opposed to "production," which is the creation of utilities, a utility in this connexion being anything which satisfies a desire or serves a purpose. Consumption may be either productive or unproductive; productive where it is a means directly or indirectly to the satisfaction of any economic want, unproductive when it is devoted to pleasures or luxuries. Its place in the science of economics, and its close relation with production, are treated of in every text-book, but special reference may be made to W. Roscher, _Nationaloekonomie_, 1883, and G. Schoenberg, _Handbuch d. polit. Oekonomie_, 1890-1891.

CONSUS, an ancient Italian deity, originally a god of agriculture. The time at which his festival was held (after harvest and seed-sowing), the nature of its ceremonies and amusements, his altar at the end of the Circus Maximus always covered with earth except on such occasions, all point to his connexion with the earth. In accordance with this, the name has been derived from _condere_ (= Condius, as the "keeper" of grain or the "hidden" god, whose life-producing influence works in the depths of the earth). Another etymology is from _conserere_ ("sow," cf. Ops Consiva and her festival Opiconsivia). Amongst the ancients (Livy i. 9; Dion. Halic. ii. 31) Census was most commonly identified with [Greek: Poseidon Hippios] (Neptunus Equester), and in later Latin poets Consus is used for Neptunus, but this idea was due to the horse and chariot races which took place at his festival; otherwise, the two deities have nothing in common. According to another view, he was the god of good counsel, who was said to have "advised" Romulus to carry off the Sabine women (Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 199) when they visited Rome for the first celebration of his festival (Consualia). In later times, with the introduction of Greek gods into the Roman theological system, Consus, who had never been the object of special reverence, sank to the level of a secondary deity, whose character was rather abstract and intellectual.

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 (like the Gr. [Greek: haskoliasmos]). 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 [Greek: hippokrateia] 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.

See W. W. Fowler, _The Roman Festivals_ (1899); G. Wissowa, _Religion
und Kultus der Roemer_ (1902); Preller-Jordan, _Roemische Mythologie_
(1881).

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 (whence Cotta Reni or Conti del Reno), 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 (1380); he was the first to melt down his plate and mortgage his property for the benefit of the state. Other Contarini doges were: Francesco (1623-1624), Niccolo (1630-1631), who built the church of the Salute, Carlo (1655-1656), during whose reign the Venetians gained the naval victory of the Dardanelles, Domenico (1659-1675) and Alvise (1676-1684). 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 (of the coffers), 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 (q.v.) 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 (1483-1542), and Marco Contarini (1631-1689), 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.

See J. Fontana, "Sulla patrizia famiglia Contarini," in _Il
Gondoliere_ (1843). (L. V.*)

CONTAT, LOUISE FRANCOISE (1760-1813), French actress, made her _debut_ at the Comedie Francaise in 1766 as Atalide in _Bajazet_. It was in comedy, however, that she made her first success, as Suzanne in Beaumarchais's _Mariage de Figaro_; and in several minor character parts, which she raised to the first importance, and as the soubrette in the plays of Moliere and Marivaux, she found opportunities exactly fitted to her talents. She retired in 1809 and married de Parny, nephew of the poet. Her sister Marie Emilie Contat (1769-1846), an admirable soubrette, especially as the pert servant drawn by Moliere and de Regnard, made her _debut_ in 1784, and retired in 1815.

CONTE, literally a "story," derived from the Fr. _conter_, to narrate, through low Lat. and Provencal forms _contare_ and _comtar_. This word, although not recognized by the _New English Dictionary_ as an English term, is yet so frequently used in English literary criticisms that some definition of it seems to be demanded. A _conte_, in French, differs from a _recit_ or a _rapport_ in the element of style; it may be described as an anecdote told with deliberate art, and in this introduction of art lies its peculiar literary value. According to Littre, there is no fundamental difference between a _conte_ and a _roman_, and all that can be said is that the _conte_ is the generic term, covering long stories and short alike, whereas the _roman_ (or novel) must extend to a certain length. But if this is the primitive and correct signification of the word, it is certain that modern criticism thinks of a _conte_ essentially as a short story, and as a short story exclusively occupied in illustrating one set of ideas or one disposition of character. As early as the 13th century, the word is used in French literature to describe an anecdote thus briefly and artistically told, in prose or verse. The fairy-tales of Perrault and the apologues of La Fontaine were alike spoken of as _contes_, and stories of peculiar extravagance were known as _contes bleus_, because they were issued to the common public in coarse blue paper covers. The most famous _contes_ in the 18th century were those of Voltaire, who has been described as having invented the _conte philosophique_. But those brilliant stories, _Candide_, _Zadig_, _L'Ingenu_, _La Princess de Babylone_ and _Le Taureau blanc_, are not, in the modern sense, _contes_ at all. The longer of these are _romans_, the shorter _nouvelles_, not one has the anecdotical unity required by a _conte_. The same may be said of those of Marmontel, and of the insipid imitations of Oriental fancy which were so popular at the close of the 18th century. The most perfect recent writer of _contes_ is certainly Guy de Maupassant, and his celebrated anecdote called "Boule de suif" may be taken as an absolutely perfect example of this class of literature, the precise limitations of which it is difficult to define. (E. G.)

CONTE, NICOLAS JACQUES (1755-1805), French mechanical genius, chemist and painter, was born at Aunou-sur-Orne, near Sees, 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 Sees, 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 (1796) by the Directory to the command of all the aerostatic establishments. He was at the head of the newly created Conservatoire des arts et metiers, 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. Conte, 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 Sees, 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.

1. _The High Court of Parliament._ Each of the two houses of Parliament has by the law and custom of parliament power to protect its freedom, dignity and authority against insult, disregard or violence by resort to its own process and not to ordinary courts of law and without having its process interfered with by those courts. The nature and limits of this authority to punish for contempt have been the subject of not infrequent conflict with the courts of law, from the time when Lord Chief Justice Holt threatened to commit the speaker for attempting to stop the trial of _Ashby_ v. _White_ (1701), as a breach of privilege, to the cases of _Burdett_ v. _Abbott_ (1810), _Stockdale_ v. _Hansard_ and _Howard_ v. _Gosset_ (1842, 1843), and _Bradlaugh_ v. _Gosset_ (1834). It is now the accepted view that the power of either House to punish contempt is exceptional and derived from ancient usage, and does not flow from their being courts of record. Orders for committal by the Commons are effectual only while the House sits; orders by the Lords may be for a time specified, in which event prorogation does not operate as a discharge of the offender. It was at one time considered that the privilege of committing for contempt was inherent in every deliberative body invested with authority by the constitution, and consequently that colonial legislative bodies had by the nature of their functions the power to commit for contempt. But in _Kielley_ v. _Carson_ (1843; 4 Moore, P.C. 63) it was held that the power belonged to parliament by ancient usage only and not on the theory above stated, and in each colony it is necessary to inquire how far the colonial legislature has acquired, by order in council or charter or from the imperial legislature, power to punish breach of privilege by imprisonment or committal for contempt. This power has in some cases been given directly, in others by authority to make laws and regulations under sanctions like those enforced by the Houses of the imperial parliament. In the case of Nova Scotia the provincial assembly has power to give itself by statute authority to commit for contempt (_Fielding_ v. _Thomas_, 1896; L.R.A.C. 600). In _Barton_ v. _Taylor_ (1886; 11 A.C. 197) the competence of the legislative assembly of New South Wales to make standing orders punishing contempt was recognized to exist under the colonial constitution, but the particular standing orders under consideration are held not to cover the acts which had been punished. (See May, _Parl. Pr._, 10th ed., 1896; Anson, _Law and Custom of the Constitution_, 3rd ed., 1897.)

2. _Courts of Justice._ The term contempt of court, when used with reference to the courts or persons to whom the exercise of the judicial functions of the crown has been delegated, means insult offered to such court or person by deliberate defiance of its authority, disobedience to its orders, interruption of its proceedings or interference with the due course of justice, or any conduct calculated or tending to bring the authority or administration of the law into disrespect or disregard, or to interfere with or prejudice parties or witnesses during the litigation. The ingenuity of the judges and of those who are concerned to defeat or defy justice have rendered contempt almost Protean in its character. But for practical purposes most, if not all, contempts fall within the classification which follows:--

(a) Disobedience to the judgment or order of a court commanding the doing or abstaining from a particular act, e.g. an order to execute a conveyance of property or an order on a person in a fiduciary capacity to pay into court trust moneys as to which he is an accounting party. This includes disobedience by the members of a local authority to a _mandamus_ to do some act which they are by law bound to do; and proceedings for contempt have been taken in the case of guardians of the poor who have refused to enforce the Vaccination Acts, e.g. at Keighley and Leicester, and of town councillors who have refused to comply with an order to take specified measures to drain their borough (e.g. Worcester). This process for compelling obedience is in substance a process of civil execution for the benefit of the injured party rather than a criminal process for punishing the disobedience; and for purposes of appeal orders dealing with these forms of contempt have hitherto been treated as civil proceedings.

(b) 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 (Archbold, _Criminal Pleading_, 147, 23rd ed.).

(c) 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 L500 for the contempt, and L500 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 (Oswald, 51). And in Harvey's case (1884, 26 Ch. D. 644) 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 (s. 29).

(d) 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.

(e) 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.

(f) Contempt in _facie curiae_. "Some contempts," says Blackstone, "may arise in the face of the court, as by rude and contumelious behaviour, by obstinacy, perverseness or prevarication, by breach of the peace, or any wilful disturbance whatever"; in other words, direct insult to or interference with a sitting court is treated as contempt of the court. It is immaterial whether the offender is juror, party, witness, counsel, solicitor or a stranger to the case at hearing, and occasionally it is found necessary to punish for contempt persons under trial for felony or misdemeanour if by violent language or conduct they interrupt the proceedings at their trial. Judges have even treated as contempt the continuance outside the court-house after warning of a noise sufficient to disturb the proceedings of the court; and in Victoria Chief Justice Higginbotham committed for contempt a builder who persisted after warning in building operations close to the central criminal court in Melbourne, which interfered with the due conduct of the business of the sittings.

(g) 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 (e.g. by fraudulently circularizing shareholders of a company against which a winding-up petition had been filed), 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.

The _locus classicus_ on the subject of contempt by attacks on judges is a judgment prepared by Sir Eardley-Wilmot in the case of an application for an attachment against J. Almon in 1765, for publishing a pamphlet libelling the court of king's bench. The judgment was not actually delivered as the case was settled, but has long been accepted as correctly stating the law. Sir Eardley-Wilmot said that the offence of libelling judges in their judicial capacity is the most proper case for an attachment, for the "arraignment of the justice of the judges is arraigning the king's justice; it is an impeachment of his wisdom and goodness in the choice of his judges; and excites in the minds of the people a general dissatisfaction with all judicial determinations, and indisposes their minds to obey them. To be impartial, and _to be universally thought_ so, are both absolutely necessary for the giving justice that free, open and uninterrupted current which it has for many ages found all over this kingdom, and which so eminently distinguishes and exalts it above all nations upon the earth." Again, "the constitution has provided very apt and proper remedies for correcting and rectifying the involuntary mistakes of judges, and for punishing and removing them for any perversion of justice. But if their authority is to be trampled on by pamphleteers and news-writers, and the people are to be told that the power given to the judges for their protection is prostituted to their destruction, the court may retain its power some little time, but I am sure it will eventually lose all its authority."

The object of the discipline enforced by the court by proceedings for contempt of court is not now, if it ever was, to vindicate the personal dignity of the judges or to protect them from insult as individuals, but to vindicate the dignity and authority of the court itself and to prevent acts tending to obstruct the due course of justice. The question whether a personal invective against judges should be dealt with _brevi manu_ by the court attacked, or by proceedings at the instance of the attorney-general by information or indictment for a libel on the administration of justice or on the judge attacked, or should be dealt with by a civil action for damages, depends on the nature and occasion of the attack on the judge.

There has at times been a disposition by judges in colonial courts to use the process of the court to punish criticisms on their acts by counsel or parties or even outsiders, which the privy council has been prone to discourage. For instance in a Nova Scotia case a barrister was suspended from practice for writing to the chief justice of the province a letter relating to a case in which the barrister was suitor. The privy council while considering the letter technically a contempt, held the punishment inappropriate. In _Macleod_ v. _St Aubyn_ (1899, A.C. 549) it was said that proceedings for scandalizing the court itself were obsolete in England. But in 1900 the king's bench division, following the Almon case, summarily punished a scurrilous personal attack on a judge of assize with reference to his remarks in a concluded ease, published immediately after the conclusion of the case (_R._ v. _Gray_, 1900, 2 Q.B. 36). The same measure may be meted out to those who publish invectives against judges or juries with the object of creating suspicion or contempt as to the administration of justice. But the existence of this power does not militate against the right of the press to publish full reports of trials and judgments or to make with fairness, good faith, candour and decency, comments and criticisms on what passed at the trial and on the correctness of the verdict or the judgment. To impute corruption is said to go beyond the limits of fair criticism. Shortt (_Law relating to Works of Literature_) states the law to be that the temperate and respectful discussion of judicial determination is not prohibited, but mere invective and abuse, and still more the imputation of false, corrupt and dishonest motives is punishable. In an information granted in 1788 against the corporation of Yarmouth for having entered upon their books an order "stating that the assembly were sensible that Mr W. (against whom an action had been brought for malicious prosecution, and a verdict for L3000 returned, which the court refused to disturb) was actuated by motives of public justice, of preserving the rights of the corporation to their admiralty jurisdiction, and of supporting the honour and credit of the chief magistrate," Mr Justice Butler said, "The judge and jury who tried the case, confirmed by the court of common pleas, have said that instead of his having been actuated by motives of public justice, or by any motives which should influence the actions of an honest man, he had been actuated by malice. These opinions are not reconcilable; if the one be right the other must be wrong. It is therefore a direct insinuation that the court had judged wrong in all they have done in this case, and is therefore clearly a libel on the administration of justice."

The exact limits of the power to punish for contempt of court in respect of statements or comments on the action of judges and juries, or with reference to _pending_ proceedings, have been the subject of some controversy, owing to the difficulty of reconciling the claims of the press to liberty and of the public to free discussion of the proceedings of courts of justice with the claims of the judges to due respect and of the parties to litigation that their causes should not be prejudiced before trial by outside interference. As the law now stands it is permissible to publish contemporaneous _reports_ of the proceedings in cases pending in any court (Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888, s. 3), unless the proceedings have taken place in private (_in camera_), or the court has in the interests of justice prohibited any report until the case is concluded, a course now rarely, if ever, adopted. But it is not permissible to make any comments on a pending case calculated to interfere with the due course of justice in the case, nor to publish statements about the cause or the parties calculated to have that effect. This rule applies even when the case has been tried and the jury has disagreed if a second trial is in prospect. Applications are frequently made to commit proprietors and editors who comment too freely or who undertake the task of trying in their newspapers a pending case. The courts are now slow to move unless satisfied that the statements or comments may seriously affect the course of justice, e.g. by reaching the jurors who have to try the case.

The difference between pending and decided cases has been frequently recognized by the courts. What would be a fair comment in a decided case may tend to influence the mind of the judge or the jury in a case waiting to be heard, and will accordingly be punished as a contempt. In _Tichborne_ v. _Mostyn_ the publisher of a newspaper was held to have committed a contempt by printing in his paper extracts from affidavits in a pending suit, with comments upon them. In the case of _R._ v. _Castro_ it was held that after a true bill has been found, and the indictment removed into the court of queen's bench, and a day fixed for trial, the case was pending; and it was a contempt of court to address public meetings, alleging that the defendant was not guilty, that there was a conspiracy against the defendant, and that he could not have a fair trial; and the court ordered the parties to answer for their contempt. In the case of the Moat Farm murder (1903) the high court punished as contempt a series of articles published in a newspaper while the preliminary inquiry was proceeding and before the case went to a jury (_R._ v. _Parker_, 1903, 2 K.B. 432). The like course was followed in 1905 in the case of statements made in a Welsh newspaper about a woman awaiting trial for attempted murder (_R._ v. _Davies_, 1906, 1 K.B. 32); and in the case of the _Weekly Dispatch_ in 1902 (_R._ v. _Tibbits and Windust_, 1 K.B. 77), two journalists were tried on indictment, and held to have been rightly convicted, for conspiring to prevent the course of justice by publishing matter calculated to interfere with the fair trial of persons who were under accusation.

Courts having jurisdiction.

"In the superior courts the power of committing for contempt is inherent in their constitution, has been coeval with their original institution and has been always exercised" (Oswald, _On Contempt_, 3). The high court in which these courts are merged is the only court which has a general jurisdiction to deal summarily with all forms of contempt. Each division of that court deals with the particular contempts arising with reference to proceedings before the division; but the king's bench division, in the exercise of the supervisory authority inherited from the old court of king's bench as _custos morum_, also from time to time deals with acts constituting interference with justice in other inferior courts whether of record or not. The nature and limits of this jurisdiction after much discussion have been defined by decisions in 1903 and 1905 in attempts to try by newspapers cases under inquiry by justices or awaiting trial at assizes or quarter sessions. The exercise of this authority in the king's bench division, being in a criminal cause or matter, is not the subject of appeal to any higher court.

Inferior courts of record have, as a general rule, power to punish only those contempts which are committed _in facie curiae_ or consist in disobedience to the lawful orders or judgments of the court. For instance, a county court may summarily punish persons who insult the judge or any officer of the court or any juror or witness, or wilfully interrupt the proceedings, or misbehave in the court-house (County Court