every person who objects to be sworn is allowed to affirm in
all places and for all purposes where an oath is required by
law. By an act of 1835 justices are permitted to take
affidavits in any matter by declaration, and a person making
a false affidavit in this way is liable to punishment. The
same act prohibited justices of peace from administering oaths
in any matter in which they had not jurisdiction as judges,
except when an oath was specially authorized by statute,
as in the bankruptcy law, and excepting criminal inquiries,
parliamentary proceedings and instances where oaths are required
to give validity to documents abroad. Scottish justices can
act in England and vice versa. The Oaths Act 1888 and
the Commissioner of Oaths Act 1889 consolidated all previous
enactments relating to oaths and gave the lord chancellor power
to appoint commissioners for oaths to take affidavits for all
purposes (see OATH.) Under the Debtors Act 1869 a plaintiff
may file an affidavit for the arrest of a debtor (affidavit
to hold to bail) when the debt amounts to L. 50 or upwards,
where it can be shown that the debtor's absence from the kingdom
would materially prejudice the prosecution of the action.
Affidavits may be made abroad before any British
ambassador, envoy, minister, charge d'affaires,
secretary of embassy or legation, consul or consular agent.
In the United States affidavit has the same meaning as in
England and its general uses are the same, but it is not
substituted for oral evidence in court to anything like
the extent to which that is done in the English courts of
chancery. The statutes of each state designate the persons
before whom affidavits may be made outside the state, and
special commissioners are appointed for that purpose by each
state. Affidavits made abroad must be made before such
commissioners or persons so designated, who are usually
diplomatic and consular officials, justices, notaries public
or mayors. ``Affidavit of documents'' is not generally
used in the United States; discovery is procured by motion.
AFFILIATION (from Lat. ad-filiare, to adopt as a son), in
law, the procedure by which the paternity of a bastard child
is determined, and the obligation of contributing to its
support enforced. In England a number of statutes on the
subject hnve been passed, the chief being the Bastardy Act
of 1845, and the Bastardy Laws Amendment Acts of 1872 and
1873. The mother of a bastard may summon the putative father
to petty sessions within twelve months of the birth (or at
any later time if he is proved to have contributed to the
child's support within twelve months after the birth), and
the justices, after hearing evidence on both sides, may,
if the mother's evidence be corroborated in some material
particular, adjudge the man to be the putative father of
the child, and order him to pay a sum not exceeding five
shillings a week for its maintenance, together with a sum for
expenses incidental to the birth, or the funeral expenses,
if it has died before the date of order, and the costs of the
proceedings. An order ceases to be valid after the child
reaches the age of thirteen, but the justices may in the
order direct the payments to be continued until the child
is sixteen years of age. An appeal to quarter sessions is
open to the defendant, and a further appeal on questions
of law to the King's Bench by rule nisi or certiorari.
Should the child afterwards become chargeable to the parish,
the sum due by the father may be received by the parish
officer. When a bastard child, whose mother has not obtained
an order, becomes chargeable to the parish, the guardians
may proceed against the putative father for a contribution.
Any woman who is single, a widow, or a married woman living
apart from her husband, may make an application for a
summons, and it is immaterial where the child is begotten,
provided it is born in England. An application for a summons
may be made before the birth of the child, but in this case
the statement of the mother must be in the form of a sworn
deposition. The defendant must be over fourteen years of
age. No agreement on the part of the woman to take a sum
down in discharge of the liability of the father is a bar to
the making of an affiliation order. In the case of twins it
is usual to make separate applications and obtain separate
summonses. The Summary Jurisdiction Act 1879 makes due
provision for the enforcement of an order of affiliation. In
the case of soldiers an affiliation order cannot be enforced
in the usual way, but by the Army Act 1881, if an order has
been made against a soldier of the regular forces, and a copy
of such order be sent to the secretary of state, he may order a
portion of the soldier's pay to be retained. There is no such
special legislation with regard to sailors in the royal navy.
In the British colonies, and in the states of the United
States (with the exception of California, Idaho, Missouri,
Oregon, Texas and Utah), there is some procedure (usually
termed filiation) akin to that described above, by means
of which a mother can obtain a contribution to the support
of her illegitimate child from the putative father. The
amount ordered to be paid may subsequently be increased or
diminished (1905; 94 N.Y. Supplt. 372). On the continent of
Europe, however, the legislation of the various countries
differs rather widely. France, Belgium, Holland, Italy,
Russia, Servia and the canton of Geneva provide no means
of inquiry into the paternity of an illegitimate child, and
consequently all support of the child falls upon the mother;
on the other hand, Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark
and the majority of the Swiss cantons provide for an inquiry
into the paternity of illegitimate children, and the law
casts a certain amount of responsibility upon the father.
Affiliation, in France, is a term applied to a species of
adoption by which the person adopted succeeds equally with
other heirs to the acquired, but not to the inherited, property
of the deceased. (See ADOPTION. Also BASTARD; POOR LAWS.)
AUTHORITIES.---Saunders, Law and Practice of Orders
of Affiliation; Lushington, Law of Affiliation
and Bastardy; Little, Poor Law Statutes. (T. A. I.)
AFFINITY (Lat. affinitas, relationship by marriage, from
affinis, bordering on, related to; finis, border, boundary),
in law, as distinguished from consanguinity (q.v.), the
term applied to the relation which each party to a marriage,
the husband and wife, bears to the kindred of the other.
Affinity is usually described as of three kinds. (1) Direct:
that relationship which subsists between the husband and his
wife's relations by blood or between the wife and the husband's
relations by blood. The marriage having made them one person,
the blood relations of each are held as related by affinity in
the same degree to the one spouse as by consanguinity to the
other. But the relation is only with the married parties
themselves, and does not bring those in affinity with them in
affinity with each other; so a wife's sister has no affinity
to her husband's brother. This is (2) Secondary affinity.
(3) Collateral affinity is the relationship subsisting
between the husband and the relations of his wife's relations.
The subject is chiefly important from the matrimonial prohibitions
by which the canon law has restricted relations by affinity.
Taking the table of degrees within which marriage is prohibited
on account of consanguinity, the rule has been thus extended to
affinity, so that wherever relationship to a man himself would
be a bar to marriage, relationship to his deceased wife will
be the same bar, and vice versa on the husband's decease.
Briefly, direct affinity is a bar to marriage. This rule
has been founded chiefly on interpretations of the eighteenth
chapter of Leviticus. Formerly by law in England, marriages
within the degrees of affinity were not absolutely null, but
they were liable to be annulled by ecclesiastical process during
the lives of both parties; in other words, the incapacity was
only a canonical, not a civil, disability. By the Marriage
Act 1835 all marriages of this kind not disputed before the
passing of the act were declared absolutely valid, while all
subsequent to it were declared null. This rendered null in
England, and not merely voidable, a marriage with a deceased
wife's sister or niece. (See CONSANGUINITY; MARRIAGE.)
AFFINITY, CHEMICAL, the property or relation in virtue of which
dissimilar substances are capable of entering into chemical combination
with each other. (See CHEMISTRY; CHEMICAL ACTION; VALENCY.)
AFFIRMATION (from Lat. affirmare, to assert), the declaration
that something is true; in logic, a positive judgment,
the union of the subject and predicate of a proposition;
particularly, in law, the solemn declaration allowed to those
who conscientiously object to taking an oath. (See OATH.)
AFFRAY, in law, the fighting of two or more persons
in a public place to the terror (a l' effroi ) of the
lieges. The offence is a misdemeanour at English common
law, punishable by fine and imprisonment. A fight in private
is an assault and battery, not an affray. As those engaged
in an affray render themselves also liable to prosecution
for Assault (q.v.), Unlawful Assembly (see ASSEMBLY,
UNLAWFUL), or Riot (q.v.), it is for one of these offences
that they are usually charged. Any private person may, and
constables and justices must, interfere to put a stop to an
affray. In the United States the English common law as to
affray applies, subject to certain modifications by the statutes
of particular states (Bishop, Amer. Crim. Law, 8th ed.,
1892, vol. i. sec. 535). The Indian Penal Code (sect. 159)
adopts the English definition of affray, with the substitution
of ``actual disturbance of the peace'' for ``causing terror to
the lieges.'' The Queensland Criminal Code of 1899 (sect. 72)
defines affray as taking part in a fight in a public highway
or taking part in a fight of such a nature as to alarm the
public in any other place to which the public have access. This
definition is taken from that in the English Criminal Code Bill
of 1880, cl. 96. Under the Roman Dutch law in force in South
Africa affray falls within the definition of vis publica.
AFFRE, DENIS AUGUSTE (1793--1848), archbishop of Paris,
was born at St Rome, in the department of Tarn, on the 27th
of September 1793. He was educated for the priesthood at
St Sulpice, where in 1818 he became professor of dogmatic
theology. After filling a number of ecclesiastical offices,
he was elevated to the archbishopric of Paris in 1840. Though
opposed to the government of Louis Philippe, he took no part
in politics, but devoted himself to his pastoral work. His
episcopate, however, is chiefly remembered owing to its tragic
close. During the insurrection of June 1848 the archbishop
was led to believe that by his personal interference peace
might be restored between the soldiery and the insurgents.
Accordingly, in spite of the warning of General Cavaignac,
he mounted the barricade at the entrance to the Faubourg St
Antoine, bearing a green branch as sign of peace. He had spoken
only a few words, however, when the insurgents, hearing some
shots, and fancying they were betrayed, opened fire upon the
national guard, and the archbishop fell, struck by a stray
bullet. He was removed to his palace, where he died on the
27th of June 1848. Next day the National Assembly issued a
decree expressing their great sorrow on account of his death;
and the public funeral on the 7th of July was one of the most
