FIND'LAY. A city and county-seat of Han cock County. Ohio, 44 miles south of Toledo; on the Blanchard River, and on the Toledo and Ohio Central; the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton; the Cleveland. Cincinnati, Chicago and Saint Louis; the Lake Erie and Western, and other railroads (Map: Ohio, C 3). It is the centre of the oil and natural-gas fields of Ohio. hi the vicinity are beds of clay, stone for building, and lime, and deposits of sand and gravel. The manufacturing establishments are numerous. and include glass-factories, brick and tile works, foun dries and machine-shops. roiling-mills, boiler works, bridge-works, target-works, potteries, oil refinery, furniture. carriage, and nail factories. limekilns. etc. Findlay College (Church of God), opened in 1886, is situated here, and there are a public library, a city hospital, and an or phans' home. Settled in the en r 1 y part of the nineteenth century. Findlay was first incor porated in 1837. The government, under a revised charter of 1890. is vested in it mayor, chosen biennially, and a city council which elects, or eon the executive's nominations of, the majority of administrative officials. The city solicitor, water-works and cemetery trustees, and board of education are chosen by popular vote The city owns and operates its yvater•works. Population, in 1890, 18,553; in 1900, 17,1;13.
FINE (ff., Fr. fin, from bat. finis, end, sup plementary payment, fine). A lcirin of eoivvy once of lands at common law through the me dium of a fictitious suit. A fine is defined .by Coke as "an amicable composition and final agree ment by lea re and license of the King or his justiciaries;" and it was called a line because it put a termination (finis) to all litigation be tween the parties, and those claiming through them, in regard to all matters touching the suit. The proceedings in a fine were shortly as follows: The party to whom the land was to be conveyed commenced a fictitious suit against the vendor. But the ease was no sooner in court than the plaintiff asked leave to agree or settle with the defendant. This leave having been obtained, a covenant was entered into whereby the vendor or defendant, called the cogni.nr, recognized the right of the plaintiff, called the connizce, to the lands, of which he admitted that the plaintiff was wrongfully kept from the possession. These
proceedings, which at first were real, were after wards adopted universally without having a shadow of foundation in fact. The solemn farce having been completed, a note of the fine, being an abstract of the covenant, the names of the parties, and the parcels of the land, was entered on the rolls of the court: and the business was concluded by what was called the foot of the fine, setting forth the parties, the time and place of agreement, and before whom the fine was levied. The whole was embodied in indentures commenc ing kec est Mullis concordin. It was necessary that a fine should be levied openly in the Court of Common Pleas, or before the Chief Justice of that court, or before two or more commissioners, duly appointed. In order that a fine should have full effect, it was required to be levied with procht 7I1 a t` ion, i.e. open proclamation of the transaction in court. A fine so levied cut off the right even of strangers who failed to assert their claim dur ing the period allowed by law; hence an estate was said to be barred by fine and non-claim. A fine levied by a married woman had the effect of cutting off all right she might have in the lands, and was the only mode by which a married woman could convey her lands or her dower right in her husband's lands. Like the feotiment and the common recovery (q.v.), a fine was known as a to•tious conveyance; that is, it had the extraor dinary operation of conveying whatever estate it purported to convey, irrespective of whether the vendor was seised of the estate conveyed, or had any right to transfer it. The effect of such a tortions conveyance was to vest a defensible title in the vendee, leaving the person entitled to the possession to pursue his remedy by entry or ap propriate action.
The practice of conveying lands by fine, as well as the process of common recovery, was abolished by the Fines and Recoveries Act, 3 and 4 Will. IV., ch. 74. Both of these modes of conveyance were in use in the Colonial period of American history, but have become obsolete or have been abolished by statute. The fine was recognized and confirmed by legislative act in NOW York, and was not done away with until 1830. Sec