Committee
one or more persons elected or deputed to examine, consider and report on any matter of business. A Committee of the whole House, a dered. Despite these annoyances, how-term used when a legislative body resolves itself into a committee to consider any bill or matter, in which case the speaker leaves the chair, which is taken by one of the members, called the Chairman of Committee. While in committee a member is allowed to speak more than once on any point. The Committee of Public Safety; a rendering of the French term, Comité de Salut public, the name given to a committee of members of the French National Convention during the first revolution. When the National Convention, about the end of 1792, abolished monarchy and proclaimed a republic, it divided the executive government among several committees, paramount over which was the Committee of Public Safety, appointed on April 6, 1793. It was the rule of this tyrannical and sanguinary committee which is known as the Reign of Terror. Robespierre was its animating spirit, next to whom stood Couthon and St. Just. In March, 1871, the Communists established a similar committee in Paris, which fell in May of the same year. National Committee, a body vested with control of a political party in the United States with special reference to a Presidential election.
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Commodus
LUCIUS AELIUS AURELIUS, a Roman Emperor; born in A. D. 161; the son of Marcus Aurelius. He was most carefully educated, and accompanied his father on several military expeditions. He succeeded him in 180, and, after a short period of orderly government, he dismissed his wisest counsellors, and gave himself up to the lowest society. He went so far in defiance of decency as to fight in the circus like a gladiator, and then gave himself out to be a god, and would be worshipped as Hercules. He was at last poisoned by Marcia, and then strangled by an athlete. The vices and misgovernment of Commodus hastened the fall of the empire. He died Dec. 31, 192.
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Common Council
the council of a city or corporate town, empowered to make by-laws for the government of the citizens.
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Common Law
the unwritten law, the law that receives its binding force from immemorial usage and universal reception, in distinction from the written or statute law; sometimes from the civil or canon law; and occasionally from the lex mercatoria, or commercial and maritime jurisprudence. It consists of that body of rules, principles, and customs which have been received from former times, and by which courts have been guided in their judicial decisions. The evidence of this law is to be found in the reports of those decisions and the records of the courts. It is contrasted with the statute law contained in acts of Parliament; equity, which is also an accretion of judicial decisions, but formed by a new tribunal, which first appeared when the common law had reached its full growth; and the civil law inherited by modern Europe from the Roman Empire. Wherever statute law, however, runs counter to common law, the latter is entirely overruled; but common law, on the other hand, asserts its pre-eminence where equity is opposed to it.
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Common Pleas
in law, pleas brought by private persons against private persons, or by the government, when the cause of action is of a civil nature. In many States of the United States it is a court having jurisdiction generally in civil actions. In England the old Court of Common Pleas is now merged in the High Court of Justice.
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Common Prayer
BOOK OF, the public form of prayer prescribed by the Church of England to be used in all churches and chapels, and which the clergy are to use under a certain penalty. It dates from the reign of Edward VI., was published in 1549, and again with some changes in 1552. Some slight alterations were made upon it when it was adopted in the reign of Elizabeth. In the reign of James I., and finally soon after the Restoration, it underwent new revisions.
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Commoner
in Great Britain, a term applied to all citizens except the hereditary nobility.
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Commonwealth
the state or prosperity of a country without any reference to the form of government under which it may be at the time. Owing to the semi-independent position of the States of the American Union the term commonwealth is of frequent application to the various members of the great Federal Government, which itself is spoken of as the National or Federal Commonwealth in contradistinction from its constituent autonomies. In many of the States the legal proceedings against criminals, etc., are instituted in the name of the (e. g.) "Commonwealth of vs. John Doe." The word is also applied to the period in the history of England during which the Parliamentary army and the Protector Oliver Cromwell exercised the power of government. See OLIVER CROM- WELL.
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Communion
in theology, the act of partaking with others of the sacramental symbols in the Lord's Supper . For the first three centuries the communion was administered every Lord's Day; then it became more infrequent , and before long was limited to Easter, Whitsunday, and Christmas . neglecting it even on these days, the Council of Lateran, in 1215 , ordered all Catholics to commune at least once a year, naming Easter as the time, an injunction which the Council of Trent confirmed. For the first seven centuries the practice was somewhat general of mixing water with the wine to symbolize the mystic union between Christ and the communicant's soul. Originally both bread and wine were administered, but in 1096, Pope Urban II. sanctioned the practice of omitting the wine when the This communicant was layman . a method the Council of Constance enjoined in 1414. It has since remained in force in the Church of Rome, but at the Reformation communion in both kinds, as it is often termed, was restored to the laity. The word applies also to the community of belief, and theoretically , at least, of Christian affection, existing among those who partake together of the Lord's Supper. From this use of the Latin word is derived the practice of calling the several denominations, Communions, as the Lutheran Communion, the Congregational Communion , etc.
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