The act for the regulation of pawnbrokers in Ireland is the 28 Geo. III., c. 43 (lriah statute). It requires pawnbrokers to take out licences and to give securities; appoints, the marshal of the city of Dublin corporation registrar of licences; directs returns to bo made to him upon oath, of sums lent ; and allows the registrar a foe of one shilling on each return. The Act requires the returns to be laid before parliament ; but this is not done, and in some other particulars the statute is but imperfectly observed.
PAX, an ecclesiastical instrument of ancient ueo in the Roman Catholic church. St Paul, In several of his epistles, commands the professors of the Christian religion to "salute each other with a holy kiss." That this was literally practised in the first ages of the church, we learn from the apoetolical constitutions, together with some par ticuLars respecting the method of performing this ceremony. " Let the bishop salute the church, and say, The peace of God be with you all : and let the, people answer, And with thy spick. Then let the deacon say to all, Salute one another with a holy kiss, and let the clergy kiss the bishop, and the laymen the laymen, and the women the women." (LI. viii., c. 11, spud Coteller, p. 345.) The custom of giving the kiss of peace before the communion, in the more solemn service of the Roman Catholic Church called the high Mass, is still kept up among the officiating clergy, as well as among the men and women of the different religious orders. So also it appears to have been practised by the laity during the middle ages ; while the men and women were separated from each other. hut when the sexes began to be mixed together in the leas solemn service called the Low Mass, which began to take place in the 12th or 13th century, a sense of decorum dictated to the bishops the use of an instru ment called sometimes a i'ar, sometimes Tabula- Paris, and some times O,.eunatcrinm, which the priest kissed first, then the clerk, and
Lastly the people who assisted at the service, one after another, instead of the former Idea.
Among the constitutions of Walter do Grey, archbishop of York in 1250, an osculatorium was one of the regular ecclesiastical ornaments, or rather implements, ordered to be provided in every parish church.
It was usually in the form of a metallic plate or tablet, with a support at the lack, and had a representation of the crucifixion in front, either In relief or engraved. The magnificent pax of silver, engraved in niollo, by Finiguerra, is still preserved at Florence. In the South Kensington Museum is a remarkably fine pax of Italian work of near the close of the 15th century. The central plate is of bronze, on which is a representation in relief, attributed to Botticelli, of the Virgin under a canopy, surrounded by angels. This is set in a gilt mounting, enriched with silver filagree work ; while the support is ornamented with three small niello plates. Many others are extant, which are admirable examples of the metallic art of the time.
The general disuse of this pLste in modern times is attributed by Le Brun (' Explication Litterale, &c., de la 3Iesae,' tom. i., p. 595) to certain jealousies which were found to arise among Individuals, about priority in having it presented to them.
The use of the Pax Will not among the ceremonies which were first abrogated at the Refonnstion in England : on the contrary, it was enforced by the ecclesiastical commissioners of Edward VI., and ren dered more ostensible than it had been, as appears by the following injunction, published in the deanery of Doncaster, hn 1548 :—" The clerk shall bring clown the pale, and standing without the church door, shall say loudly to the people these words: This Ls the token of joyful peace, which is between God and man's conscience,'" &o.