Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/744

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72i JUSSIEU mands him to summon to come (ut facias ve- nire, in the old law Latin) to the court at the appointed time the proper number of persons. The authorities of every city and town, or sometimes county, put into a box the names of all persons therein, or a certain proportion thereof, qualified and bound to serve as jurors. Usually these are all persons qualified to vote, with some special exemptions. From the number so returned the requisite number for grand and petit jurors is drawn by lot, and the persons so selected are then summoned by the sheriff or marshal. The whole list or schedule of a jury is called the " panel." (In the Scotch law, the word "pannel" means the accused, or the party on trial.) The grand jury is "impanelled" when sworn and organ- ized. A petit jury is impanelled when the names are called over, and the first 12 who are present, and are not excused or objected to, are sworn, and set apart as the jury. It is common in most of our courts having much business to impanel two juries ; that sitting on the right hand of the court being called " the first jury," and that on the left hand "the second jury." Sometimes, when the urgent pressure of business requires it, a third jury is impanelled. The purpose in impanelling more than one jury is, that while one is charged with a case and is deliberating, another case may be tried before another jury. Upon trials before a jury, the court are the exclusive judges of the admissibility or competency of evidence ; but if it be admitted, the jury are the judges of its value. For about a quarter of a century changes of an important nature have been gradually creeping into the system of jury trial in the United States by statutory modifications. One of these very generally adopted is the trial of cases by fewer than 12 in all courts not of record; usually six, but sometimes a still smaller number. One more important, however, is the trial of all questions of fact as well as of law in all civil cases by the judge without a jury, unless a jury is demanded by one of the parties or spe- cially ordered by the court. Where this change has been introduced it is found that in the large majority of cases the parties are satisfied to submit their disputes to the court. We may remark that the institution of the grand jury certainly existed, substantially the same or nearly the same as at present, among the Sax- ons ; and it is from this grand jury that some suppose the petit or trial jury to be derived ; and doubtless this is in some degree true. .11 SSIKl , De, a French family of natural phi- losophers who have been styled the " botanical dynasty " of France. The most celebrated are the following. I. Antoine, born in Lyons, July 8, 1686, died in Paris, April 22, 1758. He took the degree of M. D. at Montpellier, and went to Paris in 1708, where he commenced practice, was appointed professor of botany at the jardin du roi, entered the academy of sciences in 1711, and contributed several papers to its Memoires, the most curious of which is perhaps his Ee- eherehes physiques sur les purifications qui se trouvent en France de dinerses parties de plantes et d'animaitx etrangers. In the course of a journey through southern France and Spain he made a valuable collection of plants previously very imperfectly known. Among his published essays is a Discours sur les progres de la bota- nique (Paris, 1718). He edited Barrelier's post- humous work on the plants of France, Spain, and Italy, and published a new edition of Tour- nefort's Institutioncs Bei Herbaria, with an appendix (Lyons, 1719). His Traite des vertus des plantes, a synopsis of his lectures at the faculty of medicine, was published in 1772. II. Bernard, brother of the preceding, born in Lyons, Aug. 17, 1699, died in Paris, Nov. 6, 1777. In 1722 he was appointed assistant de- monstrator of botany at the jardin du roi. A man of contemplative disposition, abstemious habits, and no ambition, he never rose above this subordinate office, but gradually obtained the reputation of one of the first botanists in Europe. In 1725 he edited Tournefort's His- toire des plantes des environs de Paris, with additions and annotations, which were consid- ered so valuable that he was made a member of the academy of sciences, although he was only 26 years of age. To its Memoires he con- tributed very few papers, and these on subjects of secondary importance, but remarkable for precision, ingenuity, and thorough method. He devised a system of classification based upon the natural affinities of plants, and applied it in 1759 to the arrangement of a botanical garden at Trianon, which had been ordered by Louis XV. His catalogue has been regarded as the foundation of the " natural system," afterward expounded by his nephew Antoine Laurent. Linnffius entertained the highest opinion of his acquirements. III. Antoine Laurent, nephew of the preceding, born in Lyons, April 12, 1748, died in Paris, Sept. 17, 1836. . He was called to the metropolis in 1765 by his uncle Bernard, and studied medicine, but ultimately devoted himself to botany. As early as 1773 he pre- sented to the academy of sciences a Memoire sur lei renonculacees, in which the first prin- ciples of the " natural system " are clearly per- ceptible ; and the next year he reduced the system to practice in the replanting of the bo- tanical division in the jardin du roi. In 1778 he commenced the publication of his great work, Genera Plantarum seeundum Ordines Naturales disposita, juxta Meihodum in Horto Regio Pariaiensi exaratum, anno 1774, which was not completed till 1789. To bring together all those plants which are allied in all essential points of structure, and to take into account the true affinities of plants on a comparison of all their organs, is the leading feature of the " Jussieuan system," which has finally super- seded the artificial or sexual system of Linnasus. In 1790 he was elected a member of the muni- cipal council of Paris, and intrusted with the supervision of the hospitals and charities, which