Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/32

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PROBOSCIDIANS PROCESS shows plainly that these requirements were not followed, the presumption of a valid exe- cution furnished by the recital of them is over- set ; but if the subscribing witnesses have lost all recollection of the particulars of the transaction, the formal execution will gener- ally be presumed and the will admitted to probate. Failure of memory on the part of one of the witnesses may often be supplied by the evidence of another or of the rest of them. In affixing his name, an attesting witness is regarded as certifying the capacity of the testator. His subsequent attempt to impeach the instrument by declaring that the testator did not execute the will with an intelligent and disposing mind is justly open to suspicion. Evidence of this character is not to be en- tirely rejected, though it avails little without the support of other testimony. When 30 years have passed since the death of the testa- tor, a will is said to prove itself ; the subscri- bing witnesses being presumed dead, the bare production of the instrument suffices. The will must however have come from a custody which forbids question of its genuineness, and be in other respects free from suspicion, or the genuineness must in some way be proved. Wills alleged to have been lost, destroyed, or mislaid, may be admitted to probate on proof of those facts, and on clear and satisfactory evidence of their contents. For a noted in- stance of this, see GAINES, MYKA CLARK. PROBOSCIDIANS, a division of the old order of pachyderms, elevated by Owen into an order by themselves. They include the living elephant and the fossil mammoth and masto- don. They are characterized by the prolonga- tion of the nose into a cylindrical trunk or proboscis, at the extremity of which are the nostrils. The proboscis is very flexible and sensitive, terminating in a finger-like prehen- sile lobe. Prof. Cope in the summer of 1872 discovered in the eocene of Wyoming several proboscidians, of the genus eobcuileut, largo and robust, seeming to connect the, elephant with the rhinoceros and dinotherium. (See "American Naturalist" for December, 1872.) PUOKI'S, Harms Anrflins, a Roman emperor, born in Sirmium, Pnnnonia, about A. D. 280, assassinated there in 282. While he was very young the emperor Valerian raised him to the rank of tribune. Ho commanded successively the 3d and 10th legions, and served in Africa and Pontus, on the Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates, and the Nile. Under Aurelian he reconquered Egypt, which had fallen into the hands of Zenobia; and the emperor Tacitus made him commander-in-chief in the eastern provinces. On the death of the emperor in 276 the armies of the East forced him to as- sume the imperial purple, and the death of his rival Florianns soon left him at the head of the Roman world. He recovered 70 towns from the Germans, destroyed 400,000 of the invaders, and drove the remainder across the Rhine. Penetrating into Germany, he exacted a heavy tribute of grain, cattle, and horses, and a resti- tution of the property carried away from the Roman provinces, and made a levy of 16,000 recruits for the Roman army. He built a stone wall from the neighborhood of Neustadt and Ratisbon on the Danube to Wimpfen on the Neckar, and thence to the Rhine, nearly 200 m. He secured the frontier of Rheetia, crushed the power of the Sarmatians, admitted the Goths to an alliance, and took several castles from the Isaurians. He suppressed the rebel- lion of Saturninus, the commander of the east- ern army, and the revolt of Bonosus and Pro- culus in the West, and returning to Rome cele- brated a triumph. To maintain the discipline of his troops, he constantly employed them in active labor, and the hills of Gaul and Panno- nia by their toil were enriched with vineyards. This system irritated the soldiers, and finally an unguarded remark, that the establishment of universal peace would render a standing army unnecessary, excited an insurrection in his camp near Sirmium, and Probus fled to a tower ; but the troops forced his retreat, and put him to death. He was succeeded by Carus. PROCESS, in law, a term which, in a large sense, signifies the whole proceedings in any action, civil or criminal, real or personal, from the beginning to the end. In a narrower and more technical sense, the term is applied to different stages of the procedure ; as is seen in the terms original process, which includes those precepts or writs by which one is called into court ; final process, or the forms of pro- cedure by which judgment is carried into exe- cution ; and mesne process, which covers the proceedings between the other two, and em- braces all proceedings properly so called, nil writs for compelling the attendance of jurors or witnesses, and for other collateral purposes. Mesne and final process are sometimes collec- tively described by the term judicial process, because proceedings in these stages of an ac- tion were authorized immediately by the courts, and issued under the hands and seals of their presiding judges. Original process, on the other hand, was so called because it was found- ed on the original writ, which, issuing out of chancery, and bearing the teste of the sovereign, conferred jurisdiction on the court to which it was addressed, and founded its authority over the matter in controversy. In the strict technical sense, process is the means employed for bringing the defendant into court to answer to the action. The first step therefore in the ancient procedure was to give the defendant notice of the issue and pendency of the origi- nal writ. This notice was given ordinarily by summons, which was a warning to the party to appear at the return of the writ, and was served upon him by the sheriff or some of his messengers. If the defendant disregarded this monition, the next step was a writ of attach- ment, bidding the sheriff to take certain of his goods to be forfeited if he failed to appear, or to take the pledges of certain sureties of the