persons, not being clerks or servants, to which the name embezzlement is not uncommonly applied. The act makes the offence of fraudulently misappropriating property entrusted to a person by another, or received by him on behalf of another a misdemeanour punishable by penal servitude for a term not exceeding seven years, or to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding two years. So also trustees fraudulently disposing of trust property, and directors of companies fraudulently appropriating the company’s property or keeping fraudulent accounts, or wilfully destroying books or publishing fraudulent statements, are misdemeanants punishable in the same way.
In the United States the law of embezzlement is founded mainly on the English statute passed in 1799, but the statutes of most states are so framed that larceny includes embezzlement. The latter is sometimes denominated statutory larceny. The punishment varies in the different states, otherwise there is little substantive difference in the laws of the two countries.
Statutes have been passed in some states providing that one indicted for larceny may be convicted of embezzlement. But it is doubtful whether such statutes are valid where the constitution of the state provides that the accused must be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. (See also Larceny.)
EMBLEM (Gr. ἔμβλημα, something put in or inserted, from
ἐμβάλλειν, to throw in), a word originally applied in Greek and
Latin (emblema) to a raised or inlaid ornament on vases and other
vessels, &c., and also to mosaic or tessellated work. It is in
English confined to a symbolical representation of some object,
particularly when used as a badge or heraldic device.
EMBLEMENTS (from O. Fr. emblavence de bled, i.e. corn
sprung up above ground), a term applied in English law to the
corn and other crops of the earth which are produced annually,
not spontaneously, but by labour and industry. Emblements
belong therefore to the class of fructus industriales, or “industrial
growing crops” (Sale of Goods Act 1893, § 62). They include
not only corn and grain of all kinds, but everything of an artificial
and annual profit that is produced by labour and manuring,
e.g. hemp, flax, hops, potatoes, artificial grasses like clover,
but not fruit growing on trees, which come under the general
rule quicquid plantatur solo, solo cedit. Emblements are included
within the definition of goods in s. 62 of the Sale of Goods Act
1893. Where an estate of uncertain duration terminates unexpectedly
by the death of the tenant, or some other event due
to no fault of his own, the law gives to the personal representative
the profits of crops of this nature as compensation for the tilling,
manuring and sowing of the land. If the estate, although of
uncertain duration, is determined by the tenant’s own acts,
the right to emblements does not arise. The right to emblements
has become of no importance in England since 1851,
when it was provided by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1851 (s. 1)
that any tenant at rack-rent, whose lease was determined by
the death or cesser of the estate, of a landlord entitled only for
his life, or for any other uncertain interest, shall, instead of
emblements, be entitled to hold the lands until the expiration
of the current year of his tenancy. The right to emblements still
exists, however, in favour of (a) a tenant not within the Landlord
and Tenant Act 1851, whose estate determines by an event
which could not be foreseen, (b) the executor, as against the heir
of the owner in fee of land in his own occupation, (c) an execution
creditor under a writ directing seizure of goods and chattels.
A person entitled to emblements may enter upon the lands after
the determination of the tenancy for the purpose of cutting
and carrying away the crops. Emblements are liable to distress
by the landlord for arrears of rent, or rent during the period of
holding on under the act of 1851 (the Distress for Rent Act 1737;
see Bullen on Distress, 4th ed., 1893).
The term “emblements” is unknown in Scots law, but the heir or representative of a life-rent tenant, a liferenter of lands, has an analogous right to reap the crop (on paying a proportion of the rent) and a right to recompense for labour in tilling the ground. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1851 (s. 1) was in force in Ireland till 1860, when it was replaced by the Land Act 1860, which gave to the tenant an almost identical right to emblements (s. 34).
In the United States the English common law of emblements has been generally preserved. In North Carolina there has been legislation on the lines of the English Landlord and Tenant Act 1851. In some states the tenant is entitled to compensation also from the person succeeding to the possession.
Under the French Code Civil, the outgoing tenant is entitled to convenient housing for the consumption of his fodder and for the harvests remaining to be got in (art. 1777). The same rule is in force in Belgium (Code Civil, art. 1777); and in Holland (Civil Code, art. 1635) and Spain (art. 1578). Similar rights are secured to the tenant under the German Civil Code (arts. 592 et seq.). French law is in force in Mauritius. The common law of England and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1851 (14 & 15 Vict., c. 25, s. 1) are in force in many of the British colonies acquired by settlement. In other colonies they have been recognized by statute (e.g. Victoria, Landlord and Tenant Act 1890, No. 1108, ss. 45-48: Tasmania, Landlord and Tenant Act 1874, 38 Vict. No. 12).
Authorities.—English Law: Fawcett on the Law of Landlord and Tenant (3rd ed., London, 1905); Foà, Landlord and Tenant (4th ed., London, 1907). Scots Law: Bell’s Principles (10th ed., Edinburgh, 1899). Irish Law: Noland and Kanes, Statutes relating to the Law of Landlord and Tenant in Ireland (10th ed.), by Kelly (Dublin, 1898). American Law: Stimson, American Statute Law (Boston, 1886); Bouvier, Law Dictionary, ed. by Rawle (Boston and London, 1897); Ruling Cases (London and Boston, 1894–1901), tit. “Emblements” (American Notes). (A. W. R.)
EMBOSSING, the art of producing raised portions or patterns
on the surface of metal, leather, textile fabrics, cardboard, paper
and similar substances. Strictly speaking, the term is applicable
only to raised impressions produced by means of engraved dies
or plates brought forcibly to bear on the material to be embossed,
by various means, according to the nature of the substance
acted on. Thus raised patterns produced by carving, chiselling,
casting and chasing or hammering are excluded from the range
of embossed work. Embossing supplies a convenient and expeditious
medium for producing elegant ornamental effects in
many distinct industries; and especially in its relations to paper
and cardboard its applications are varied and important. Crests,
monograms, addresses, &c., are embossed on paper and envelopes
from dies set in small handscrew presses, a force or counter-die
being prepared in leather faced with a coating of gutta-percha.
The dies to be used for plain embossing are generally cut deeper
than those intended to be used with colours. Colour embossing
is done in two ways—the first and ordinary kind that in which the
ink is applied to the raised portion of the design. The colour
in this case is spread on the die with a brush and the whole
surface is carefully cleaned, leaving only ink in the depressed
parts of the engraving. In the second variety—called cameo
embossing—the colour is applied to the flat parts of the design
by means of a small printing roller, and the letters or design in
relief is left uncoloured. In embossing large ornamental designs,
engraved plates or electrotypes therefrom are employed, the
force or counterpart being composed of mill-board faced with
gutta-percha. In working these, powerful screw-presses, in
principle like coining or medal-striking presses, are employed.
Embossing is also most extensively practised for ornamental
purposes in the art of bookbinding. The blocked ornaments on
cloth covers for books, and the blocking or imitation tooling on
the cheaper kinds of leather work, are effected by means of
powerful embossing or arming presses. (See Book-binding.)
For impressing embossed patterns on wall-papers, textiles of
various kinds, and felt, cylinders of copper, engraved with the
patterns to be raised, are employed, and these are mounted in
calender frames, in which they press against rollers having
a yielding surface, or so constructed that depressions in the
engraved cylinders fit into corresponding elevations in those
against which they press. The operations of embossing and
colour printing are also sometimes effected together in a modification
of the ordinary cylinder printing machine used in calico-printing,
in which it is only necessary to introduce suitably
engraved cylinders. For many purposes the embossing rollers
must be maintained at a high temperature while in operation;
and they are heated either by steam, by gas jets, or by the
