special letters, and thereafter examined and admitted by the lords of session. Since then the Court of Session has in Scotland exercised exclusive authority on the admission of notaries in all legal matters, spiritual and temporal. The position of notaries in Scotland is somewhat higher than it is in England.
In the United States, notaries are appointed by the governors of the states, and their authority to act is limited to the state to which they are appointed. They are state officers, and their duties in the main are attesting deeds and other instruments, and taking affidavits and depositions; all such documents which are intended to be used in the federal courts must have the notarial seal affixed. They also protest bills of exchange, and in some states they have the powers of a justice of the peace.
In France, notaries receive all acts and contracts to which the parties thereto must give or desire to give the authenticity attached to the acts of a public authority; they certify the date, preserve the originals and give copies or duplicates. Notaries are nominated by the president of the republic on the recommendation of the keeper of the seals. They cannot act as notaries and practise as advocates, or hold any magisterial office, nor must they engage in business. Notaries are divided into three classes: those of towns which have a court of appeal; those of towns which have a court of first instance; those of the other towns and communes. The first and second classes can practise wherever the jurisdiction of their courts extends; the third class only in their canton. They must obtain the sanction of the minister of justice should they desire to change from one district to another. They must serve an apprenticeship of six years (with exceptions) to a notary of the class to which they desire to belong. Every notary is bound in a certain sum fixed by the government as security for the due discharge of his duties. Since 1896 the remuneration of the more important classes of notaries has been regulated by law. Each district has a chamber of notaries, which exercises disciplinary powers over its members.
In Germany, notaries are appointed by the president of the courts of law and the minister of justice in their respective states; they carry on their profession for their own benefit, and do not, except in Württemberg, receive any fixed salary, but take fees from the parties they represent. They may not refuse their services, save on good and sufficient ground. In some German states, notably Saxe-Weimar and Hesse-Darmstadt, there are no notaries. In Württemberg, Baden, Bavaria, Alsace-Lorraine, Rhenish Prussia and Austria, they form a distinct class, while in the other German states they generally combine the notarial office with that of advocate. There is no code of rules for the whole empire, the new Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch leaving it to each state to frame its own regulations.
NOTE (Lat. nota, mark, sign, from noscere, to know), a mark, particularly a sign by which a musical sound (also called a note) is indicated in writing (see Musical Notation). The term is also applied to an abstract or memorandum of documents, speeches, &c. This appears to have been first in legal use, especially in the process of the transfer of land by fine and recovery (see Fine). Further extensions of this meaning are to an explanation, comment or addition, added in the margin or at the foot of the page to a passage in a book, &c., or to a communication in writing shorter or less formal than a letter.
The ordinary distinction between note and letter is reversed in diplomacy. Diplomatic notes are written communications exchanged between diplomatic agents or between them and the ministers of foreign affairs of the government to which they are accredited; they differ from ordinary letters in having a more formal character and in dealing with matters of more immediate and definite importance: e.g. the notification of adhesion to a treaty, of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations after a war, &c. Sometimes, by agreement, a mere exchange of notes has the force of a convention. Collective notes are those signed by the representatives of several powers acting in concert. Sometimes identical notes are substituted for collective, i.e. notes identical as to form and substance, but signed and delivered separately by the representatives of the several powers. Thus in 1822, at the congress of Verona, in order to overcome the objection of Great Britain to any interference of the European concert in Spain, identical notes were presented to the Spanish government instead of a collective note. Circular notes are those addressed by one power to the other powers generally, e.g. that addressed by Thiers (November 9, 1870), on the proposed armistice, to the representatives of the great powers accredited to the government of national defence. Confidential notes are directed to inspiring confidence by giving an explicit account of the views and intentions of the plenipotentiaries and their governments. Such a note was sent, for instance, by the plenipotentiaries of the allied powers at the conference of Poros, on the 8th of December 1828, to Capo d’Istria, the Greek president, to instruct him confidentially as to the results of their deliberations. The so-called notes verbales are unsigned, and are merely of the nature of memoranda (of conversations, &c.). Notes ad referendum are addressed by diplomatic agents to their own governments asking for fresh powers to deal with points not covered by their instructions, which they have had to “refer.” Diplomatic notes are usually written in the third person; but this rule has not always been observed (see P. Pradier-Fodéré, Cours de droit diplomatique, Paris, 1899; vol. ii. p. 524).
For notes of hand or promissory notes see Negotiable Instruments and Bill of Exchange, and for notes passing as currency see Banks and Banking, Bank-Notes and Post.
NOTHOMB, JEAN BAPTISTE, Baron (1805–1881), Belgian statesman and diplomat, was born at Messancy in Luxemburg on the 3rd of July 1805. He was educated at the Athenaeum of Luxemburg and the university of Liége. He was in Luxemburg when the revolution of August broke out, but was nominated a member of the commission appointed to draw up the constitution. He was a member of the national congress, and became secretary-general of the ministry of foreign affairs under Surlet de Chokier. He supported the candidature of the duke of Nemours, and joined in the proposal to offer the crown to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, being one of the delegates sent to London. When the Eighteen Articles were replaced by the Twenty-four less favourable to Belgium, he insisted on the necessity of compliance, and in 1839 he faced violent opposition to support the territorial cessions in Limburg and Luxemburg, which had remained an open question so long as Holland refused to acknowledge the Twenty-four Articles. His Essai historique et politique sur la révolution belge (1838) won for him the praise of Palmerston and the cross of the Legion of Honour from Louis Philippe. In 1837 he became minister of public works, and to him was largely due the rapid development of the Belgian railway system, and the increase in the mining industry. In 1840 he was sent as Belgian envoy to the Germanic confederation, and in 1841, on the fall of the Lebeau ministry, he organized the new cabinet, reserving for himself the portfolio of minister of the interior. In 1845 he was defeated, and retired from parliamentary life, but he held a number of diplomatic appointments before his death at Berlin on the 6th of September 1881.
See T. juste, Souvenirs du baron Nothomb (Brussels, 1882).
NOTICE, a term primarily meaning knowledge (Lat. notitia), as in “judicial notice”; thence it comes to signify the means of bringing to knowledge, as in “notice to quit”; at last it may be used even for the actual writing by which notice is given. The most important legal uses of the word are judicial notice and the equitable doctrine of notice. Judicial notice is the recognition by courts of justice of certain facts or events without proof. Thus in England the courts take judicial notice of the existence of states and sovereigns recognized by the sovereign of England, of the dates of the calendar, the date and place of the sittings of the legislature, &c. The equitable doctrine of notice is that a person who purchases an estate, although for valuable consideration, after notice of a prior equitable right, will not be enabled by getting in the legal estate to defeat that right. On the other hand, a purchaser for valuable consideration without notice of an adverse title is as a rule protected in his enjoyment of the property. Other common uses of the word are notice to quit, i.e. a notice required to be given by landlord to tenant, or by tenant to landlord in order to terminate a tenancy
