WAPPING OLD STAIRS. An English song, of a sailor and his sweetheart, by John Percy, written in the latter part of the eighteenth century and sung to an old English air. The last stanza was added by James Powell.
WAR. All definitions of war, in the sense of international law. may be said to agree in one fundamental essential, that war is a public and State act as distinguished them the acts of private individuals. The Supreme Court of the United States, in an oft-quoted sentence, laid down the following definition; "Every contention by force between two nations in external mat ters, under the authority of their respective governments, is not only war, but public war." (Bas vs. Tingy, 4 Dallas 37.) A more elaborate definition, in the nature of a description, is found in the following: "It is it contest," says Bynkers hock. "carried on between independent per sons for the sake of asserting their rights." Where society does not exist—where there is no such institution as that which we call govern meat—these individuals, being strictly independ ent persons, may carry on war against each other. But whenever men are formed into a so cial body, war cannot exist between individu als. The use of force among them is not war, hut a trespass, cognizable by the nninivipal law. If war, then, to be the act of a nation, whatever is done in the prosecution of it, must either expressly or implicitly be under the national authority, whatever private benefits result from it must be from a national grant. "War," says Vattel, "is that state in which a nation proseentes its right by force." The right of snaking war belongs to the sovereign power. In dividuals cannot control operations of war, nor commit any hostility (except in self-defense), without the sovereign's order. "The generals," adds that writer. "the officers, the soldiers, the partisans, and those who fit out private ships of war, having all commissions from the sovereign, make war by virtue of a particular order. And the necessity of a particular order is so thor oughly established, that even after a declaration of war between two nations, if the peasants them selves commit any hostilities, the enemy, instead of sparing them, hangs them up as so many rob bers or banditti." (United States s's. The
tire," 24 Fed. Cas. 755.) These statements ap ply to hostilities between sovereign and inde pendent nations, but they fail to include armed contention between different parts of the same nation as in the case of the Civil War in the United States. A third decision, arising out of the circumstances of the Civil War. will supple ment and complete the fundamental conception of war. "That they (the Confederates) were liable to be regarded as 'enemies' is undoubtedly true. This implies the existence of 'war.' lint every forcible contest between two governments, de facto or de jure, is war. War is an existing fact and not a legislative decree. Congress alone may have power to 'declare' it beforrhund, and thus cause or commence it. But it may be initiated by other nations, or by traitors, and then it exists, whether there is a declaration of it or not. It may be prosecuted without any declaration; or Congress may, as in the Mexi can War, declare its previous existence. In either case it is the fart that makes 'enemies,' and not any legislative act." (Dole es. Merchants' Mutual Marine Ins. Co., 51 Maine, 465.) .\ mere insurrection. however, is not war: to entitle the armed forces to the rights and privileges of bel ligerents it would seem that they should pos sess at least the power to make the issue doubt ful, and that the Government which they serve insist be organized so as to be in a position to meet the ditties necessarily resting upon bellig erents, namely to maintain law and order within the regions subjected to their control, and to carry on war on a lorge scale on land or sea. If these elements are absent, the uprising is treated as a rebellion. and rebels as such have no rights. The parties to a civil war, such as the Civil If'ar in the United States. have equal claim to the protection accorded by the modern law of war.