intends to practise in London or the provinces. Solicitors now have a right to practise in any court, i.e. in every division of the High Court, in every inferior court, in the ecclesiastical courts (as proctors), in the court of appeal, in the privy council and in the House of Lords. Their right of audience, however, is restricted. They may appear as advocates in most of the inferior courts, as before justices, magistrates, coroners, revising barristers and county courts. They have no right of audience, however, in the Mayor’s court, London, nor in the High Court of Justice, privy council or House of Lords, where, from time immemorial, the right has pertained to the bar, but they have right of audience in chambers and certain bankruptcy matters. Since the Conveyancing Act 1881 solicitors may do all kinds of conveyancing, which formerly was considered the exclusive business of the bar. The Conveyancing Act 1881 having made great changes in the practice of conveyancing, it became necessary to place the remuneration of solicitors upon a new basis. This was done by the Solicitors Remuneration Act, passed on the same day as the Conveyancing Act. It provides for the framing of general orders, fixing the principles of remuneration with reference inter alia to the skill and responsibility involved, not, as was generally the case before, with reference simply to the length of the documents perused or prepared. A solicitor is not responsible for statements made by him in his professional capacity as an advocate, and all communications which pass between a solicitor and his client are privileged, so also is any information or document which he has obtained in his professional capacity on behalf of his client. The relation of solicitor and client disqualifies the former from dealing with his client on his own behalf, while it gives him a lien, on professional services, over the deeds, &c, of the client in his possession. A solicitor’s remuneration is minutely arranged by statute and he has no power of recovering more from his client than his statutory charges, and he is liable to be sued for damages for negligence in his client’s behalf. Certain personal privileges belong to a solicitor. He is free from serving on juries, nor need he, against his will, serve as a mayor, alderman, sheriff, overseer or churchwarden.
In Scotland solicitors in the Supreme Court are not, as in England, the only persons entitled to act as law agents. They share the privilege with writers to the signet in the Supreme Court, with agents at law and procurators in the inferior courts. They were formed into a society in 1784 and incorporated in 1796, and are usually recognized as members of the College of Justice. This difference is, however, now of little importance, as by the Law Agents Act 1873 any person duly admitted a law agent is entitled to practise before any court in Scotland. In the United States the term solicitor is used in some states in the sense of a law agent practising before a court of equity.
Many of the great public offices in England and the United States have their solicitors. In England the treasury solicitor fills an especially important position. He is responsible for the enforcement of payments due to the treasury, and conducts generally its legal business. The office of king’s proctor is also combined with that of treasury solicitor. Under his powers as king’s proctor the treasury solicitor acts as administrator of the personal estate of an intestate which has lapsed to the crown, and intervenes in cases of divorce where collusion is alleged (see under Proctor). Under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1884 he also acted as director of public prosecutions, and was sometimes called Crown Solicitor. By the Prosecution of Offences Act 1908 the office of director of public prosecutions was separated from that of treasury solicitor and made a separate appointment. In Ireland, solicitors called crown solicitors are attached to each circuit, their duty being to prepare the case for the crown in all criminal prosecutions. In the United States the office of solicitor to the treasury was created by Act of Congress in 1830. His principal duties are to take measures for protecting the revenue and to deal with lands acquired by the United States by judicial process or vested in them by security for payment of debts.
See E. B. V. Christian, A Short History of Solicitors; Cordery on Solicitors; and A. P. Poley, Law Affecting Solicitors.
SOLICITOR-GENERAL, in England, one of the law officers of the crown, appointed by letters patent. He is always a member of the House of Commons and of the political party in power, changing with it. His duties are practically the same as those of the attorney-general (q.v.), to whom he is subordinate, and whose business and authority would devolve upon him in case of a vacancy in the office. He receives a salary of £6000 a year, in addition to fees for any litigious business he may conduct on behalf of the crown. The position of the solicitor-general for Scotland in the main corresponds with that of the English solicitor-general. He is next in rank to the lord-advocate. In the United States the office of solicitor-general was created by Act of Congress in 1870.
SOLINGEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine Province, on a height above the Wupper, 13 m. S.E. of Düsseldorf, and 20 m. N.E. of Cologne by rail. Pop. (1905), 49,018. Solingen is one of the chief seats of the German iron and steel industry, its speciality consisting in all kinds of cutlery, Solingen sword-blades have been celebrated for centuries, and are widely used outside Germany, while bayonets, knives, scissors, surgical instruments, files, steel frames and the like are also produced in enormous quantities. These articles are largely made by the workmen at their own homes and supplied to the depots of the large dealers; there are about 20,000 workers in steel in Solingen and the vicinity. Solingen received its municipal charter in 1374. Sword-blades have been made here since the early middle ages, and tradition affirms that the art was introduced during the Crusades by smiths from Damascus.
SOLINUS, GAIUS JULIUS, Latin grammarian and compiler, probably flourished during the first half of the 3rd century a.d. He was the author of Collectanea rerum memorabilium, a description of curiosities in a chorographical framework. Adventus, to whom it is dedicated, is identified with Oclatinius Adventus, consul A.D. 218. It contains a short description of the ancient world, with remarks on historical, social, religious and natural history questions. The greater part is taken from Pliny’s Natural History and the geography of Pomponius Mela. According to Mommsen, Solinus also used a chronicle (possibly by Cornelius Bocchus) and a Chorographia pliniana, an epitome of Pliny’s work with additions made about the time of Hadrian. Schanz, however, suggests the Roma and Pratum of Suetonius. The Collectanea was revised in the 6th century under the title of Polyhistor (subsequently taken for the author’s name). It was popular in the middle. ages, hexameter abridgments being current under the names of Theodericus and Petrus Diaconus.
The commentary by Saumaise in his Plinianae exercitationes (1689) is indispensable; best edition by Mommsen (1895), with valuable introduction on the MSS., the authorities used by Solinus, and subsequent compilers. See also Teuffel, Hist. Of Roman Literature (Eng. trans., 1900), 389; and Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur (1904), iv. 1. There is an old English translation by A. Golding (1587).
SOLIPSISM (Lat. solus, alone, ipse, self), a philosophical term, applied to an extreme form of subjective idealism which denies that the human mind has any valid ground for believing in the existence of anything but itself. “It may best be defined, perhaps, as the doctrine that all existence is experience, and that there is only one experient. The Solipsist thinks that he is the one!” (Schiller). It is presented as a solution of the problem of explaining the nature of our knowledge of the external world. We cannot know things-in-themselves: they exist for us only in our cognition of them, through the medium of sense-given data. In F. H. Bradley’s words (Appearance and Reality): “I cannot transcend experience, and experience is my experience. From this it follows that nothing beyond myself exists; for what is experience is its (the self’s) states.”
See Idealism; also F. C. S. Schiller, Mind, New Series (April 1909).
SOLÍS, ANTONIO DE (1610–1686), Spanish dramatist and historian, was born in 1610 at Alcala de Henares (less probably, Plasencia), and studied law at Salamanca, where he produced a comedy entitled Amor y obligación, which was acted in 1627. He became secretary to the count of Oropesa, and in 1654 he was appointed secretary of state as well as private secretary to Philip IV. Later he obtained the lucrative post of chronicler of the Indies, and, on taking orders in 1667, severed his connexion with the stage. He died at Madrid on the 19th of April 1686. Of his ten extant plays, two have some place in the history of the drama. El Amor al uso was adapted by Scarron and again by Thomas Corneille as L’Amour à la mode, while La Gitanilla de Madrid, itself founded on the novela of Cervantes, has been utilized directly or indirectly by P. A. Wolff, Victor Hugo and Longfellow. The titles of the remaining seven are Triunfos de amor y fortuna, Euridice y Orfeo, El Alcázar del secreto, Las Amazonas, El Doctor Carlino, Un Bobo hace ciento, and Amparar el enemigo. Amor y obligación survives in a manuscript at the Biblioteca Nacional. The
