764 P R I P R I In general the labour is hired by contractors at a fixed sum per day, which varies from a few cents to as much as a dollar. The chief cause for the present inadequacy of the American prisons, over and above the faults in administration already mentioned, is probably the rapidly increased demand on their accommodation in recent years. This is due partly to the growth of population, partly also to the influx of "coloured" criminals since the emancipation. In the days of slavery the slave was punished summarily by his master, but now he is arraigned and sent to prison. The result has been that the prisons were suddenly crowded before any new and improved system could be introduced. While there are but few agencies for the assistance of discharged prisoners, considerable care is devoted in the United States to the treatment and checking of juvenile crime. Reformatories have existed since 1825, when the first was established on Randall s Island within the limits of the city of New York. Others followed ; but these did not form part of the penal system of the States till 1847, when the State reform school at West borough was established by law. They soon increased and multiplied, and now between sixteen and twenty are to be found within the principal States. There are also a number of semi-public schools. The average reform xtory population is about 15,000. The results are said to be very satisfactory. The percentage of youths reformed and trained into good citizens has been placed as high as 60, 75, even 80 per cent. Parents may in some States contribute to the support of their children in reformatories, but as a rule the inmates are orphans or abandoned children or those whose parents are very poor. The best system for training and caring for juvenile offenders probably is that which obtains in Massachusetts. (A. G. ) PRISREXD, PRISDREN, PRISDRA, PISDRA, PISREN, or PISRA, in Roumelia, the chief town of a sandjak and the seat of a Greek and a Roman Catholic archbishop, in the Turkish vilayet of Kossovo (formerly Monastir), stretches for 2 or 3 miles along the north-Avestern base of the Scardus or Shar-dagh, and is traversed by the rapid waters of the Resna Mitritza, which, issuing from a deep gorge a little above the town, joins the Drin (White or Albanian Drin) a few miles below. To the north-north-west of Prisrend, which lies at a height of 1577 feet above the sea, a great undulating and fertile plain extends for more than 40 miles towards Ipek. In 1865 the Roman Catholic archbishop estimated the total at 50,000 (8000 Moham medan families, 3000 Greek, and 150 Latin). It is now about 46,000. There is a castle on the buttress of the Scardus, at the foot of which lies the Christian quarter, with a small brick-built ancient-looking Byzantine church. The old cathedral, now a mosque, is also a Byzantine build ing. Prisrend, doubtfully identified with Tharendus, was at one time the capital of Servia, and the district is still called Old Servia. At present the town owes much of its importance to its manufacture of arms ; and it also pro duces glass, pottery, and saddlery. PRIVATEER is an armed vessel belonging to a private owner, the subject of a belligerent power, commissioned by the sovereign of that power. The commission is either a commission of war or of marque and reprisals in time of peace. It was marque in this sense which was granted to aggrieved subjects of the realm of England as early as the statute 4 Hen. V. c. 7. The term "letters of marque," however, is now generally applied less strictly to the commission under which a privateer sails in time of war. The acceptance of a commission from a belligerent power by a neutral, though not piracy by the law of nations, has frequently been made so by treaty. 1 Accept ance of such a commission by a British subject is for bidden by the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870. A vessel with a commission from each of two powers at war with one another is a pirate by the law of nations. Privateers stand in a position between that of a public ship of war and a merchant vessel. They are not entitled to the full rights which the comity of nations extends to public ships of war ; e.y., by the municipal regulations of most nations they may not carry the flag of a public ship of war. A 1 Instances will be found in Phillirnore, International Law, vol. i.
- t. iii. ch. xx. ; Twiss, Law of Nations, vol. ii. ch. x.
capture made by a privateer may either become the pro perty of the captor or, following the general rule of inter national law, the property of the state (see PRIZE). In Great Britain, in order to encourage privateering, the prize taken by a privateer was formerly divided between the owners and the captors, and the rights of the crown were specially excluded in numerous Prize Acts. But now, by the iSTaval Prize Act, 1864, a prize made by a privateer belongs to the crown in its office of admiralty. By the United States Prize Act of 1864, the whole pro ceeds of a prize made by a privateer go, unless it is other wise provided in her commission, to the captors. The sum awarded is divided, in the absence of agreement, equally between the owners and the ship s company. Privateering is now a matter of much less importance than it formerly was, owing to the terms of Art. 1 of the Declaration of Paris, April 1C, 1656, "Privateering is and remains abolished." The Declaration binds only the powers who are signatories or who afterwards assented, and those only when engaged in war with one another. The United States, Mexico, Uruguay, and Spain have not acceded to it, and thus it would not hold in case of a war be tween the United States and any other power, whether the latter were bound by the Declaration or not. By the constitution of the United States, Congress has power to grant letters of marque and reprisal. Congress, by an Act of March 3, 1863, authorized the issue of letters of marque by the president, but they were never in fact issued either by the United States or Confederate Government. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Prussia, in spite of the Declaration of Paris, took a course very little removed from priva teering in the creation of a volunteer ileet. PRIVET (Ligustrum), the vernacular name 2 of a genus of Oleacese. There are several species, all of them shrubs or low trees with evergreen or nearly evergreen opposite entire leaves, and dense cymes of small white tubular four-parted flowers, enclosing two stamens and succeeded by small, globular, usually black berries, eacli with a single pendulous seed. The best-known species is the common European privet, which makes good hedges in cases where no great powers of resistance to the inroads of cattle, etc., are required. L. ovalifolium thrives by the seaside and even in towns, and is thus a valuable all but evergreen shrub. L. lucidum is taller and handsomer. There are several other species, mostly natives of China and Japan, some of which when attacked by a species of scale-insect (Coccus) yield a waxy substance. PRIVILEGE, in law, is an immunity or exemption conferred by special grant in derogation of common right. The term is derived from privilegium, a law specially passed in favour of or against a particular person. In Roman law the latter sense was the more common ; in modern law the word bears only the former sense. Privi lege in English law is either personal or real, that is to say, it is granted to a person, as a peer, or to a place, as a university. The most important instances at present existing in England are the privilege of parliament (see PARLIAMENT), the privilege Avhich protects certain com munications from being regarded as libellous (see LIBEL), and certain privileges enjoyed by the clergy and others, by which they are to some extent exempt from public duties, such as serving on juries. Privileged copyholds are those held by the custom of the manor and not by the will of the lord. There are certain debts in England, Scotland, and the United States which are said to be privileged, that is, such debts as the executor may pay before all others for example, funeral expenses or servants wages. In English law the term "preferred" rather than "privi leged " is generally applied to such debts. There are certain deeds and summonses which are privileged in Scotch law, the former because they require less solemnity than ordinary deeds, the latter because the ordinary - Another form of the name, primprivet, primprint, or primet, like
liijustrum itself, used at one time to be applied to the primrose.