objection being taken to the execution of such commissions by persons who in that employment were officers of courts foreign to the countries in which they acted, besides which those commissions could give no power to compel the attendance of witnesses abroad. Consequently both in the mother country and in the United States acts have been passed empowering the courts to issue commissions for taking evidence to colonial or foreign courts, and to execute such commissions when received by them from the courts of the colonies or of foreign countries. The British statutes are 13 Geo. III. c. 63; 1 Will. IV. c. 22; 3 & 4 Vict. c. 105, 6 & 7 Vict. c. 82, 22 Vict. c. 20 and 48 & 49 Vict. c. 74. But neither in England nor in the United States have commissions of the old kind been entirely disused. In the practice under the Anglo-American statutes, the leading rules are that all the acts of the judge whose services are required, and all things done before him, are governed by the law of the country in which the execution takes place (locus regit actum), while the admissibility of the evidence and all else which concerns the conduct of the action is governed by the law of the country in which it is pending (lex fori). Details may be seen for England and the United States in the usual books of practice, and in Wharton's Conflict of Laws (2nd ed., 1881), §§ 722–31, and Sir R. Phillimore's International Law (3rd ed., 1889), v. 4, §§ 882-85; for other countries in von Bar's Private International Law, translated by Guthrie (2nd ed., 1892), §§ 391, 392, 409, 410. In ecclesiastical law, letters of request are issued for the purpose of sending causes from one court to another. Where a diocesan court within a province has jurisdiction over the parties concerned, the plaintiff may apply to the judge of such court for letters of request, in order that the cause may be instituted either in the court of arches or the chancery court of York, as the case may be. When the judge of the diocesan court consents to sign such letters and they have been accepted by the judge of the higher court, a decree issues under his seal, calling upon the defendant to answer to the plaintiff in the suit instituted against him. Letters of request are also issued for other purposes, being sometimes sent from one judge to another to request him to examine witnesses who are out of the jurisdiction of the former, but in that of the latter; to enforce a monition, &c.
REQUESTS, COURT OF, a minor court of the king's council
in England, under the presidency of the lord keeper of the
privy seal. Its possible origin has been assigned to an order
in council of 1390 directing the lords of the council to form a
committee to examine the petitions of the humble people. Its
jurisdiction was chiefly equitable, and owing to the small expenses
of procedure it grew in popularity, especially for, cases not of
sufficient importance to bring into the court of chancery itself.
Under Wolsey the court was fixed permanently at Whitehall.
The judges of the court were styled masters of requests. In
the reign of Queen Elizabeth there were two masters ordinary
and two masters extraordinary. In James I.'s reign there were
four masters ordinary. In Henry VIII.'s reign the judges of
the court had ceased to be privy councillors, and towards the
end of Elizabeth's reign the court incurred the hostility of the
common law courts, as having neither a statutory nor prescriptive
title to jurisdiction. Notwithstanding a decision in 1598 as
to the illegality of its jurisdiction, and subsequent decisions
to the same effect in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., it
continued to flourish until the suppression of the Star Chamber
in 1640 virtually put an end to it. Although it sat until 1642,
and masters of requests were appointed even after the Restoration,
it ceased to exercise judicial functions. There were also
courts of requests or, as they were sometimes called, courts of
conscience, established in London in the reign of Henry VIII.
with jurisdiction in matters of debt under forty shillings. These
courts were extended in the reigns of George I. and George II.
to various places in England, but they were abolished by an
act of 1846 (County Courts Act), which established in their
place the tribunal of the county court (q. v.).
REQUIEM, the name of a solemn mass for the dead (Missa
pro defunctis) in the Roman Church, appointed to be sung on
All Souls' Day, in memory of all “ faithful departed,” at funeral
services, and at the anniversaries of the death of particular
persons. The name is taken from the first words of the Introit,
Requiem aeternam dana eis, Domine. The term is specially
applied to the musical setting of the mass. The most celebrated
Requiem Masses are those of Palestrina, Mozart and Cherubini.
The word has been also used of memorial services held in honour
of a deceased person in churches other than the Roman.
REREDOS (Anglo-Fr. areredos, from arere, behind, and dos,
back), an ornamental screen of stone or wood built up, or
forming a facing to the wall behind an altar in a church.
Reredoses are frequently decorated with representations of the
Passion, niches containing statues of saints, and the like. In
England these were for the most part destroyed at the Reformation
or by the Puritans later; a few medieval examples, however,
survive, e.g. at Christchurch, Hants. In some large cathedrals
e.g. Winchester, Durham, St Albans, the reredos is a mass of
splendid tabernacle work, reaching nearly to the groining. In
small churches the reredos is usually replaced by a hanging or
parament behind the altar, known as a dossal or dorsal. (See
also Altar.) For the legality of images on reredoses in the
Church of England, see Image.
The use of the word reredos for the iron or brick back of an open fire-place is all but obsolete.
RESCHEN SCHEIDECK. This Alpine pass is in some sort
the pendant of the Brenner Pass, but leads from the upper valley
of the Inn or Engadine to the upper valley of the Adige. It
is but 4902 ft. in height. Near the summit is the hamlet
of Reschen, while some way below is the former hospice of
St Valentin auf der Haid, mentioned as early as 1140. Starting
from Landeck, the carriage road runs up the Inn valley to
Pfunds, whence it mounts above the gorge of Finstermünz to
the village of Nauders (271⁄4 m.) where the road from the Swiss
Engadine falls in (531⁄2 m. from St Moritz). Thence the road
mounts gently to the pass, and then descends, with the infant
Adige, to Mals (151⁄2 m.), whence the pass is sometimes wrongly
named Malserheide. The road now descends the upper Adige
valley, or Vintschgau, past Meran (371⁄4 m.) to Botzen (20 m. from
Meran, or 100 m. from Landeck) where the Brenner route is
joined. (W. A. B. C.)
RESCUE (in Middle Eng. rescous, from O. Fr. recousse,
Low Lat. rescussa, from reexcussa, reexcutere, to shake off again,
re, again, ex, off, quatere, to shake), the forcible setting at liberty
of a person or thing. To constitute the legal offence of rescue,
the person rescued must be in the custody of a constable or
private individual, but in the latter case the rescuer must know
that the prisoner is in lawful custody. The punishment for
the offence is fine and imprisonment, with or without hard
labour, if the party rescued has not been convicted of the offence
for which he was in not custody. But if the prisoner has been
imprisoned on a charge of, or under sentence for, high treason,
felony or misdemeanour, the rescue is high treason, felony or
misdemeanour. The punishment for a felonious rescue may be
penal servitude for not more than seven or less than three years,
or imprisonment for not more than two years, with or without
hard labour. The forcible rescue of goods legally distrained or
the rescuing of cattle by pound breach are misdemeanours
indictable at common law, but the more usual procedure is a
civil action under 2 W. & M. c. 5, s. 3 (1690), which makes an
offender liable for treble damages.
RESEARCH (O. Fr. recerche, from recercher, re- and cercer,
mod. chercher, to search; Late Lat. circare, to go round in a circle, to explore), the act of searching into a matter closely and carefully, inquiry directed to the discovery of truth, and in particular the trained scientific investigation of the principles
and facts of any subject, based on original and first-hand study of authorities or experiment. Investigations of every kind which have been based on original sources of knowledge may be styled “ research,” and it may be said that without “ research ” no authoritative works have been written, no scientific discoveries or inventions made, no theories of any value propounded; but the word also has a somewhat restricted
