COROT, ko-ro, Jean-Baptiste-Camille, French landscape painter: b. Paris, 28 July 1796; d. there, 22 Feb. 1875. Against the wishes of his family he studied art, first under Michallon, next under Victor Bertin, and then passed a year or two in Italy. In 1827 he first exhibited in the Salon, but it was not till nearly 20 years afterward that his genius in landscape painting was generally recognized. The last 25 years of his life were spent in affluent circumstances (his professional income being immense, and his father's death having brought him a large fortune) and in the happiness engendered by success. In 1867 he was made an officer of the Legion of Honor. Skilful as a figure-painter, it was in landscape that Corot excelled. He was a diligent student of nature, whose aspect he idealized on canvas with no profusion of color, but in sober tints of brown, pale-green and silver-grays. He was pre-eminently successful in painting scenes in the faint lights of dawn and twilight, behind a transparent veil of mist, the early rays glinting through dense foliage, mirrored in sparkling water. There is a sameness in Corot's work which forbids him the very highest rank, but within his own province he was inimitable. Among his works may be mentioned 'Danse des nymphes) (1851); Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (1853); Morning) (1855); Evening' (1855); Sunset (1857); Orpheus (1861); Rest (1861); (Solitude) (1866); Landscape with Figures (1870); 'Pleasures of Evening' (1875); and 'Danse des amours.' The Boston Art Museum contains his 'Dante and Virgil'; the Metropolitan Museum in New York his 'Ville d'Avray,' and there are various other works by him in public and private American galleries. Consult Blanc, Les artistes de mon temps' (1879); Bigot, Ch., 'Peintres français contemporains: Corot' (Paris 1888); Claretie, Jules, Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains: Corot' (ib. 1884); Moore, Geo., Ingres and Corot in Modern Painting (London 1893); Geoffroy, A., Corot and Millet? (New York 1903); Gensel, Corot and Troyon' (Bielefeld 1906); Meynell, 'Corot and his Friends (New York 1910); Rousseau, Camille Corot (ib. 1884); Robaut, Alfred, 'L'oeuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré précédé de l'histoire de Corot et de ses œuvres (Paris 1905); Roger-Milès, 'Les artistes célèbres' (ib. 1891); Thomson, D. C., 'Life of Corot' (London 1892); Stranahan, 'History of French Painting) (1899); Muther, 'History of Modern Painting' (London 1907); Van Dyke, 'Modern French Masters' (New COROZAL, Porto Rico, a municipal district of the department of Bayamon about 16 miles (direct) southwest of San Juan. It was much damaged by a hurricane in 1899. Pop. 11,508. COROZO-NUT. See VEGETABLE IVORY. CORPORAL, in the army, a non-commissioned officer with rank under that of a sergeant. He has charge of small bodies of men, places and relieves sentinels, etc. In the British army there are also soldiers distinguished by the designation of lance-corporal, who are privates acting as corporals but receiving only privates' pay. In the British household cavalry the sergeants are called corporals of horse and the sergeants-major, corporals major. This is a survival of the organization of the 16th and 17th century cavalry. In the United States army a corporal is the lowest non-commissioned officer. His especial duty is to place and relieve sentinels. The corporal wears chevrons on his sleeve as a mark of his rank, the lance-corporal one only. A ship's corporal is an officer who has the charge of setting and relieving the watches and sentries and in general assists the master of arms. two CORPORAL, the linen cloth laid on the altar, on which the sacred vessels are set during the consecration of the elements of bread and wine in the Mass or Holy Communion. It is to be distinguished from the veil, which is used to cover the chalice and paten, and the palla or pall (q.v.). Both corporal and palla must be blessed and when not in use are carried in the burse, a square pocket of cardboard covered with silk; none except those in holy orders being allowed to touch them when they are in use. CORPORAL, The Little. A term of affection applied to Napoleon Bonaparte by the soldiers of his Grande Armée, who always remembered that he began his career as a souslieutenant in Corsica. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, punishment applied to the body of the offender. In its connection with civil government it technically includes flogging, imprisonment and the death penalty, but in common parlance its meaning is more restricted and refers only to flogging or whipping of the body. Various extreme and cruel methods of punishment once in vogue have been discontinued in Christian nations, but 2 CORPORAL TRIM - CORPORATIONS, HISTORY OF are still practised in Oriental countries and among uncivilized races. The practice is supported by the argument that whipping which produces stinging but transient pain, without mangling the body and without such public disgrace as to destroy the sense of shame, is an efficient corrective for those cruel or brutal or intractable offenders, such as wife- and childbeaters and "white slavers," who are insensible to the punishment of confinement or other ordinary penalties. Corporal punishment at the hands of public officers as a punishment for crime is usually inflicted by flogging in prison or at the public whipping post. It still survives in England and in many American States as a means of discipline of convicts confined in prisons. Corporal punishment was once considered indispensable in school discipline and was very severe in form in the schools of Europe before the advent of the Innovators (q.v.). Since that period its moral and even its immediate practical benefits have been increasingly questioned, and its practice has gradually lessened. American schools have gone farther in this respect than those of Europe. This form of punishment is forbidden by the school law of New Jersey, and to a greater or less degree is restricted in many municipalities of the other States. See BASTINADO; CANG; FLOGGING; TORTURE. Bibliography.- Mann, 'School Punishment'; Painter, History of Education'; Rein, 'Outlines of Pedagogics'; White, School Management'; Wines, F. H., 'Punishment and Reformation (New York 1910); Saleilles, Individualization of Punishment' (translated from the second French edition by R. S. Jastrow, Boston 1911); Ives, History of Penal Methods) (New York 1914). CORPORAL TRIM, a servant of Uncle Toby in Sterne's Tristram Shandy.' He is an old soldier and performs his duties in strictest military fashion. CORPORATE EXISTENCE, Tests of. See CORPORATIONS, LEGAL. CORPORATE FUNDS. See CORPORATIONS, LEGAL. CORPORATE LIABILITIES. See CORPORATIONS, LEGAL. CORPORATE RIGHTS. See CORPORATIONS, LEGAL. CORPORATION NUMBERS. See CORPORATIONS, LEGAL. CORPORATION See SCHOOLS. SCHOOLS CORPORATION, and NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CORPORATION SCHOOLS, THE. CORPORATIONS, History of.- The origin of corporations is lost in antiquity. The word "corporation" comes from Latin corporo, from a Sanskrit root signifying "to form into a body." "This masterpiece of juristic ingenuity is usually attributed to the Romans." Yet they are said to have existed in Greece (594 B.C.), in Phoenicia (900 B.C.) and possibly in Babylonia (2200 B.C.). A recent definition is: A corporation is "an association of persons to whom the sovereign has offered a franchise to become an artificial juridical person with a name of its own under which they can act and contract, sue and be sued, and who have accepted the offer and effected an organization in substantial conformity with its terms." The prominent ideas are association, franchise and person,so related that the association "is converted by the franchise" into a new person, characterized by unity and continuity. "Groups" of persons or things are as old as human history. Wolfpack, deer-herd, bee-swarm, must have been among the most vivid of man's pre-human experiences. Hunting-pack, totem-group, familygroup, war-host were the earliest and most important of human experiences. "Man did not make society. Society made man." The primitive fundamental personal conception is "our" or "we," in which "my" and "I" are included but not distinguished. The "group" is the "entity," which includes the individual, as a part of it." The family was a permanent body, with perpetual succession, including both the living and the dead, forming one individuality, distinct from its members. Radin says this is the datum to begin with, and its corporate character was "much more clearly apprehended than the conception of detached individuals.” Primitive society was organized along three lines: (1) Kinship, natural, involuntary, as tribe, clan, family; (2) Totemistic, artificial, as phratry, age-grade, etc.; (3) Ceremonial, quasivoluntary, conventional, as secret societies, etc. All these were continuous units with distinctive names, usually with religious significance. In Solon's times (c. 594 B.C.) there were "demos,» "phratries," "orgeones," "gens" and "clans." So, too, as early as the 8th century B.C., there were many "clanless" people, who were organized for Dionysos worship, on the model of the existing corporate bodies, such as clan, phratry, etc. The Greek terms were "thiasos"band of initiated religious followers; "orgeones" a fraternity of worshippers and celebrants; "eranos," a festal band of collecta; "koinon❞ -things had in common; and "synods" — a meeting together. The first three were used disjunctively and last two collectively, but interchangeably. In Latin, collegium, a group of colleagues, is the oldest term; corpus, a whole composed of parts, is next in frequency of use, and interchangeable with collegium. Sodales, a group of companions, was used for official brotherhoods. Universitas, a later term, signified "turned into one, all together, collectively." In all these words there is the idea of a unity in the possession of something, as, e.g., a religious rite or a slave. In the earliest history the "outward sign of all corporate organization was community of rites," carrying with it the idea of continuity and permanency of association. Societas, on the other hand, was used for a temporary association. This idea of permanence persists throughout corporate history. With Ulpian (220 A.D.), "whether the individuals all remain, or are all changed, the corporation remains," or Bracton (1260 A.D.), a corporation is as a flock of sheep, "always the same flock, though the sheep successively depart"; or Blackstone (1765), "all the individual members that have existed, or that shall ever exist, are but one person in the law, a person that never dies, as the river Thames is the same river though the parts are changing every instant." In 1691 it was said that "the whole frame and essence" of a corporation consist in the franchises which constitute this body politic. Comyns (c. 1740) says "A corporation is a CORPORATIONS, HISTORY OF franchise created by the King." A franchise, capacity is a franchise." The Continental doc- Solon (c. 600 B.C.) and the The Carolingians prohibited guilds, unless authorized, on the Continent, while the Canonists, especially Innocent IV (1243-54 A.D.), evolved the doctrine that the corporation must be the creature of the state. As Maitland says: "Into its nostrils the state must breathe the breath of fictitious life, for otherwise it would be no animated body, but individualistic dust." These views found their way into English law by 1376, when "None but the King can make a corporation," which is still the rule. Although this "right to be a corporation" in recent times is now extended to all who comply with a few general provisions, and not by special grant to only a few persons, this has not changed the legal nature of the grant. The effect of such a grant is to convert the group of persons to whom the grant is made into "a legal or juristic person," for the purposes specified, and give them a different legal status from what they otherwise would have. "Persona» signified the mask an actor wore to indicate his part in a play, and in law a "person" is a subject of legal rights and obligations, and could be applied to either human beings or things. Amos says this idea had been applied to corporations long before Justinian (527-65 A.D.), but Pollock and Maitland say it is not so plainly written in the Roman law books that the Glossators (11001250) or Bracton's master, Azo (c. 1230), grasped it. This corporate personality is often said to be invisible, incorporcal, intangible, immortal, existing only in contemplation of law, a mystical body not found in the world of sense, an impalpable and intangible creation of human thought, a figure of speech, an abstraction, a fiction, a mere name. On the other hand it is said it "is no fiction, no symbol, no piece of State's machinery, no collective name for individuals, but a living organism, with body and members, and a will of its own, as visible as an army, and as real 3 as any aggregate of men, a corpus corporatum, a body made up of several bodies." These are different sides of the same thing. A natural person is a natural organism, a physical body and a legal conception. A corporation is a conventional organism, a physical body and a legal conception. From the earliest times Greek and Roman corporations are found in possession of property, stated to be that of the corpus, and not of the members jointly. When they died no action de commune dividendo arose. In Rome what the corporation owed the members did not owe, nor the reverse; the agent or slave of the corporation was not that of the members; its property was liable for its debts, but not for theirs, nor theirs for its; a member could be its debtor or creditor. What the greater part did was done by all; it took three persons to make a corporation but if reduced to one person, the corporation continued (stet nomen universitas); it was doubtful if a municipal body could be guilty of deceit (municipes dolo facere non possunt); a slave of the corporation could be required to testify against the members for he does not belong to them but to it (nec plurium servus corporis); and a municipality stood in the place of a person (persone vice fungitur). Such is the summary of the Digest provisions (c. 528 A.D.). These were not wholly clear to Middle Age lawyers. The churchmen knew Saint Paul's "We are baptized to form one Body." Church was litrally "the Lord's house," but ecclesia was the assembly of its members. Universitas signified a group, or association. From the 2d century church property had been under the control of the bishop. Early form books of the 7th century suggested grants could be "to the church, built in honor of Saint Paul, to the monastery called X, where A is abbot." Gradually legists began to draw distinctions between universitas and other co-owners. The Canonists caught the idea and applied it to the church: "The Ecclesia is an Universitas, and the Universitas is a persona." This was fully worked out by Innocent IV (1243-54) and Bartolus (1314-57). These general ideas were worked out anew Roman municipia were numerous over the 4 CORPORATIONS, HISTORY OF magistrates, senate, assembly and "citizens," and were centres of local self-government. The Saxon invaders frequently used them for camps, but there seems to be no continuity of organization. The "burh" - the fort on the hill, surrounded by hedge or wall, at a cross roads or river ford, where defense was needed, a natural place for trade, an asylum for the tribe and administrative centre for a district,- with all sorts of persons and all kinds of tenure, with a reeve to collect dues, rents, fines,- was the land community on its way to corporate existence. As early as the 10th century it had pleas of life, liberty and land, and numerous local customs, and there was such a place in nearly every shire in Domesday survey, upon which a separate or special return was made. From Norman times, the "farm" of the borough had been rendered by the sheriff of the county. But the king was willing to accept a "composition," and the "burgesses," wishing to have the amount fixed, raised money to buy a "charter" granting this privilege and confirming their customs. In 1130 Lincoln did this, and perhaps this had been done much earlier. In 1161-89 Henry II delivered "my borough of Cambridge" to "my burgesses of Cambridge," to render same "farm" as before. John, in 1201, did the same to them and "their heirs, to hold in inheritance of us." Edward II (1313) confirmed them to them and "their heirs and successors"; and in 1382 Richard II confirmed a plea saying that the borough of Cambridge was "one body and one community incorporate in itself." After this numerous confirmations of the charters were made until finally in 1605 James I by charter declared the borough of Cambridge "shall be made and shall be one body corporate and politic in deed, fact and name by the name of the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses of the borough of Cambridge.» As early as 1311 a borough is called a "corps"; in 1346 the "Commonalty of London" can sue "as a single person," and by 1391 they were "as perpetual as men of religion," while by 1430 "the Commonalty and bailiffs of Ipswich are by this name a person and an entire corps." That the minority should be bound by the will of the majority probably was taken from the church's doctrine of the major pars in church assemblies and the original practice of the Teutonic town-meeting. The franchises of the boroughs were various privileges of jurisdiction, tenure, official, self-government, taxation, by-laws, mercantile trading, etc., as well as providing in their own way for the "farm" of the borough. "Gild" (geld) signifies worship, feast, contribution. Roman trade gilds, collegia opificum, attributed to Numa (c. 700 B.C.) were numerous,--44 kinds were known to exist in Imperial Rome, and included weavers, fullers, dyers, shoemakers, doctors, teachers, painters, flute players, smiths, goldsmiths and tanners. .Smiths are the only ones mentioned in the Roman inscriptions in England. Although they existed in nearly every municipality of the empire, it is doubtful if they survived the barbarian invasion, and became continuous with the Middle Age gilds. They are mentioned about 800 A.D. in the Carolingian Capitularies, as Conspirations. They existed before the Norman conquest, in England, and soon afterward were widely spread trade organizations supervising the trade, conditions, processes, prices, material, tools, labor, hours, wages, apprentices, workmanship, weights and measures, in the trading towns. There were religious, merchant and craft,- the members being bound together by social, religious, commercial or other mutual interests. They were closely identified, perhaps officially, with the towns, and were organized in a similar way with governors and associates, wardens, aldermen, assistants, and held periodical meetings for feasts, admission of members, electing officers and passing or revising ordinances. It was once supposed that the grant to citizens of a town to have a "gild merchant" was equivalent to incorporating the town. While the "gild merchant" finally broke up into, or was displaced by, many craft gilds in the 15th and 16th centuries, the "organization" was largely adopted by the regulated companies. Company (cum, panis), a bread breaking together, has much of the idea of the gild. In the 13th century gilds or companies for carrying on foreign trade sought recognition. The Brotherhood of Saint Thomas à Becket was founded in 1216 or 1248 by John of Brabant, as a gild of English Merchant Traders, and afterward as the Merchant Adventurers, with a monopoly of trading in wools and woolen goods, received additional grants in 1407, 1505 and 1564. In 1282 a gild of German traders obtained an exclusive right to trade in London. In 1391 Richard II granted to the communitas of English merchants trading in Prussia the ight to meet, elect a governor to rule over the traders, do justice and settle disputes between them. Henry IV, during the next 20 years, gave similar privileges to many other companies, and in 1490 Henry VII made the English merchants at Pisa a corporation. While it was not till about 1600 that English companies were incorporated in England, they had long before had substantially the powers of such under their gild organization. The members, instead of trading with a joint stock, traded separately on their own individual capital, subject to the regulations of the gild or corporation; hence the name regulated company. The great trading and colonizing corporations of the 16th and 17th centuries were of this kind. Two The joint stock plan was the result of a combination between this regulated company and the continental idea of a joint stock. There were stringent laws against usury. Perhaps to evade these, the device of commenda,- similar to that of the Babylonian law, was resorted to all over Europe in the Middle Ages. parties, one with money and one without, together undertook to engage in trade and share profits; the one with money stayed at home but let his partner have the money to trade on abroad, the latter to have one-fourth of the profits after the expenses were paid. Later both would contribute the funds and one do the trading, and still later several might contribute the money, and the others do the trading; this differed from the Societas, in which each was supposed to be the agent of the others. In the commenda, only the active parties were liable. As early as 1346, various parties loaned money to Genoa, for conquest purposes, and she gave the shareholders an interest in the conquered lands. In 1407 the bank of Genoa took over the state loans, and issued a con CORPORATIONS, HISTORY OF solidated stock divided into shares, to those who had put up the money, and these were given the right to do a banking business (1408), and later (1453) to administer the colonies. In the 15th and 16th centuries these ideas began to be utilized in England for foreign trade. The Genoese Cabots probably were instrumental in introducing them. The Russia Company was incorporated with a joint stock, and shares, in 1553, as were many others soon afterward, including the Levant (1581), East India (1600), Hudson's Bay (1670), Royal Africa (1672). At first joint stocks were only for particular transactions, and it was not till 1657 that the East India Company had a permanent joint stock. In 1694, the group of persons who loaned money to the government was incorporated as the Bank of England, with a joint stock, based upon the "credit fund" of the state, upon which it was to pay interest, and which the bank could use as a basis of credit for doing an ordinary banking business. It seemed possible to extend this idea to trading purposes, so the South Sea Company was incorporated in 1711 to take over the floating debt of the state (£9,000,000), on which 6 per cent interest was paid, issue shares therefor, and use this as a "credit fund" to borrow money for trading with Peru. Later the English debt had increased to £31,000,000 by 1720. The Bank of England and the South Sea Company bid against one another for the privilege of acquiring this as a credit fund for enlarging their business, the latter by a bid of £7,000,000 bonus, and accepting 5 per cent interest, and bribes, secured the privilege. The shares immediately rose enormously in value, and wild speculation began. In 1692, stock quotations began to be published; stock exchanges developed; stock jobbing began; all sorts of schemes,- for "perpetual motion," to "import jackasses from Spain," an "undertaking to be revealed," were promoted; unincorporated stock companies, as well as incorporated ones with ill-defined purposes, arose on every hand, a water company went to dealing in forfeited lands,- a banking partnership bought a charter of 1691 to make hollow sword blades. All this speculation led to the panic of 1720. To meet this the Bubble Act of 1720 was passed, forbidding the creation of joint stock companies, or transferable shares, unless they were incorporated, but making no adequate provision for the regulation of those incorporated. This was repealed in 1825, and the Crown was authorized to incorporate companies, making the members individually liable for the corporate debts. In 1834 such joint stock companies were to sue and be sued in the name of an officer. In 1844, a general act was passed enabling companies to be formed by a "Certificate of Incorporation" without special charter from king or Parliament, but with individual membership liable to creditors if the corporation's property was insufficient to meet its obligations. In 1855, 1856, laws enabled the formation of companies under Act of 1844, with limited liability, of members, and in 1862 these acts were superseded by the "Companies Act," which with the amendments made since is the basis of existing English Corporation Law. The colonial charter to Raleigh (1589) and to Virginia (1609-12) were for joint stock corporations, as was the Plymouth (1623), and Massachusetts Bay (1628), the seat of the latter being transferred to America. The grants to colonial proprietors, 1621 (New Scotland), 1629 (Carolina), 1632 (Maryland), 1634 (New Albion), 1681 (Pennsylvania), contained clauses broad enough to authorize the proprietors to create corporations, and in 1682, Penn incorporated the Free Society of Traders. Similar powers were conferred upon the royal governors, but when Governor Seymour incorporated Annapolis (1708), the legislature protested. Other governors disclaimed such power. The concessions to the proprietors in Carolina and New Jersey (1665) authorized the legislatures to create municipal corporations. There was much doubt about the power of the legislatures in other colonies to do so. Harvard College was authorized by an Act of 1642, but without an incorporating clause, which was not inserted till 1650, and then not published with the other laws. In 1652 a water company with quasi-corporate powers was authorized by the Massachusetts legislature. In 1649 the English Parliament incorporated the President and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England; in 1701 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and in 1709 the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. In 1693 William and Mary College in Virginia was chartered by the English sovereigns. The Bubble Act of 1720 was extended to the colonies in 1741, but without apparent effect. The constitutions of Pennsylvania (1776) and Vermont (1786, 1793), conferred power to create corporations on the legislatures, and when Governor Livingston of New Jersey undertook to incorporate a Baptist church in 1778, the legislature objected and he acquiesced. In 1781 the Congress of the Confederation incorporated the United States Bank, although the Articles of Confederation were silent as to such power. So it became the rule that the power to create corporations was vested in the legislature, and not in the executive side of our governments, State and National. According to Davis, there were 335 charters granted in the United States to the year 1800; by United States, 2; Maine, 23; New Hampshire, 32; Vermont, 20; New York, 28; New Jersey, 13; Pennsylvania, 23; Delaware, 3; Maryland, 21; Virginia, 22; North Carolina, 11; South Carolina, 10; Georgia, 1. Of these 34 were banking; 33 insurance; 75 inland navigation; 73 tollbridge; 72 turnpike; 32 water supply; 4 dock; 8 manufacturing and 5 miscellaneous. Since that time, nearly every enterprise requiring large capital, and many others, are carried on by corporations. "They engage in commerce; build and sail ships; cover our navigable streams with steamers; construct houses; bring the products of earth and sea to market; light our streets and buildings; open and work mines; carry water into our cities; build railroads and cross mountains and deserts with them; erect churches, colleges, lyceums and theatres; set up manufactories, and keep the spindle and shuttle in motion; establish banks for savings; insure against accidents on land and sea; give policies on life; make money exchanges in all parts of the world; publish newspapers and books, and send news by lightning across the continent and under the ocean. Indeed there is nothing which is lawful to be done to feed and clothe our people, to beautify and adorn their dwellings, to relieve the sick, to help the |