PASSPORT, a printed permission signed by the secretary of state of the home department of a country, or some other constituted authority, which allows a subject of that country to leave it and go abroad. When he has obtained this, the bearer must have his passport signed by the minister or agent of the state to which he intends to proceed. A foreigner who wishes to leave a country where he has been residing, generally obtains his passport from the minister or agent or consul of his own state. Such a document states the name, surname, age, and profession of the bearer, and serves as a voucher of his cha racter and nation, and entitles him to the protection of the authorities of other countries through which he may pass, and which are at peace with his own. On arriving at the outports or frontier towns of a foreign state, every traveller is obliged to show his passport, which is examined by the proper authorities and signed, or vis6d, before he is allowed to proceed on his journey. This ceremony is sometimes re peated at every garrison town which he passes on the road. Even the natives of most European states cannot travel twenty miles through their own country without being furnished with a passport. In Great Britain passports to foreign countries are granted by the secretary of state for F6reign Affairs, by whom also agents are appointed at many of the British porta, who are authorised to grant passports to British subjects.
The system of passports is old. The only civilised countries in which passports are not required are the British Islands and the United States of North America; and the natives of those two countries, accustomed to the freedom of unobstructed locomotion, find the regu lations as to passports when they travel on the continent of Europe to be rather irksome. The practice has been defended on the plea that it prevents improper and dangerous persons from introducing or con cealing themselves ; but numerous instances have proved that persons, however obnoxious, who have money and friends, can evade such restrictions. That every state may admit or refuse admittance to foreigners, as it thinks fit, cannot be questioned; and in times of war especially, some sort of restriction may be required for the safety of the country ; but the present system of passports, as enforced in many European states in time of profound peace, is both illiberal and puerile. It is a ohcck upon travellers, to whom it causes much trouble and loss of time, while the advantages supposed to result from it are at least very dubious. It has been compared to spiders' webs, in which flies are caught, but which larger insects or birds easily carry off along with them. In Turkey a passpoit is called a FIRHAN.