KIDDERMINSTER. 480 KIDNEY. supply, markets, free library, baths and wash- houses, ceuielery, and sewage farm. The United JStatcs is represented by a consular agent. Kid- derminster dates from the Conquest, and was incorporated in i(!37. Population, in 1891, 24,- 800; in 1901, 24,700. KIDDERMINSTER, or INGRAIN, CAB- PET. See Cabpet. KIDNAPPED. A novel by Robert Louis Stevenson (1S86). The story, laid in 1751, gives the advendires of iiavid Balfuur, wlio wa.s kid- napped by his uncle and sliippcd to America to be sold. On the voyage he fell in with some Jacobites, which led to stirring scenes and ad- ventures. The author considered this his best v/ork. KIDNAPPING (from kidnap, originally slang, from li<l, slang for child + mip, variant of nab). The oliense of wrongfully taking and con- veying away a person against his will, either by force, fraud or intimidation, or detaining liim with intent to do so. As the origin of the word indicates, it was originally applied only to the abdui'tion of children, hut very early in the Kng- lish law it was employed to designate the same offense in regard to adults. Blackstone, in his Commentiiricn, defines it as "the forcible abduc- tion or stealing away of a. man, woman, or child from their own country, and sending them into another." The t<>rm is used in a broader sense an the common law of to-daj-, and if a jjerson is taken out of his way for any distance in his own country or lr)calily. the person so constraining him is guilty of the crime. In nearly all of the Tnited States the crime ia defined and regnhited by statute to-day. Merely enticing a competent adult person away is not suflicient to constitute the crime. There must be an abduction against nis will, cither actually or construetivi-ly. Kor example, inducing a laborer to go to a far-away island to work, by holding out extravagant ))romises which the employer does not intend to fulfill, does not come within the scope of this crime: but getting a sailor in- toxicated and taking him aboard a strange ship, with design to detain him until the vessel was under way, and then to persuade or coerce him to serve as a seaman, was held to constitut*" kidnap- ping in New York. The crime is also committed if the consent to such removal and concealment is induced by fraud, or if the victim is legally incompetent to give a valid consent, as in case of a child of tender years, or a feeble-minded per- son. The essential elements of kidnapping and of false imprisonment are about the same, except that the former includes, in addition to a de- tention, the act or intention of carrying away the victim to another place, usually for the purpose ni avoiding discovery. Many of the United States have materially increased their statutory penalties for the crime, and the pen- alty now varies from ten to twenty-five years' imprisonment. Of course if one person has a legal right to the custody of the person of another, he may detain or take him away to any place in his discretion. ■within the proper limits, even though the person thus subject to his control objects to the exercise of this riglit. Where two persons have equal rights to the custody of the person of another, it is not culpable for one surreptitiously to take the dependent person from the other. Thus where hu.sband and wife have separated without a legal decree, one may take their children from the other by any peaceable means, even though it be by trick or deception. The laws of the United States make it a felony to kidnap a person in another country and bring him Here to hold in confinement, or for any in- voluntarj' service. The term abduction as a legal offense is usually restricted to the kidnap- ping of a woman for the purpose of marriage or sexual intercourse. Sec Anni'CTiON; F.m.sk Im- prisonment; Slavery. Consult the authorities referred t« under Ckiminal Law. KIDNEY. One of a pair of glan<ls found in the body of every vertebrate (and represented by a similar organ in many invertebrates), whose function is to elaborate and eliminate urine, and thereby excrete wa.ste organic prmluets of destroyed tissue and nutritive changes. In the human being the kidneys are placed in the back part of the abdominal cavity, behind the perito- neum, imbedded in fat which, together with their bhx)d-vessels, keeps them in jKisition. One is sit- uated on each side of the spinal column, extend- ing from about the eleventh rib to the neighbor- hood of the crest of the ilium. Above each one is the pyramidal suprarenal capsule (q.v.). The kidney is of the shape of a plump Lima bean, with a concave notch at one side, the hilnm. It is of a dark-red color, firm, dense, but somewhat KTDNET. c, cortex ; m., medulla; p.m., pyramid of Malpighi ; p., a papilla; la., the calyx; pel., pelvis; i., the iiilundibulum; r.u., renal artery; s.r.a., small branch of the renal artery j u., ureter. brittle. It is a little over four inches long, about two inches wide, and one inch thick, and varies in weight from four to six ounces, the female kid- ney being slightlv smaller than the male. The organ is covered by a thin but tough fibrous en- velope (tunica propria). The hilum leads down into a cavity, the sinus, in which lie the renal vessels, nerves, and duct. The duct is continu- ous with the ureter (which is the canal which
