descent; but after the political equalization of the two orders the name was applied to the lower classes of the population without reference to their descent. Under the empire the word is regularly used of the city proletariate, or of the commons as distinct from knights and senators.
PLEDGE,[1] or Pawn, in law “a bailment of personal property
as a security for some debt or engagement” (Story on Bailments,
§ 286). The term is also used to denote the property which
constitutes the security. Pledge is the pignus of Roman law,
from which most of the modern law on the subject is derived.
It differs from hypothec and from the more usual kind of mortgage
in that the pledge is in the possession of the pledgee, it
also differs from mortgage in being confined to personal property
A mortgage of personal property in most cases takes the name
and form of a bill of sale. The chief difference between Roman
and English law is that certain things, e.g. wearing apparel,
furniture and instruments of tillage, could not be pledged in
Roman law, while there is no such restriction in English law.
In the case of a pledge, a special property passes to the pledgee,
sufficient to enable him to maintain an action against a wrongdoer,
but the general property, that is the property subject to
the pledge, remains in the pledgor. As the pledge is for the
benefit of both parties, the pledgee is bound to exercise only
ordinary care over the pledge. The pledgee has the right of
selling the pledge if the pledgor make default in payment at
the stipulated time. No right is acquired by the wrongful sale
of a pledge except in the case of property passing by delivery,
such as money or negotiable securities. In the case of a wrongful
sale by a pledgee, the pledgor cannot recover the value of the
pledge without a tender of the amount due.
The law of Scotland as to pledge generally agrees with that of England, as does also that of the United States. The main difference is that in Scotland and in Louisiana a pledge cannot be sold unless with judicial authority. In some of the American states the common law as it existed apart from the Factors’ Acts is still followed; in others the factor has more or less restricted power to give a title by pledge.
See also Factor and Pawnbroking.
PLEHVE, VIATSCHESLAF KONSTANTINOVICH (1846–1904),
Russian statesman, was born of Lithuanian stock in 1846. He
was educated at Warsaw and studied law at the university in
St Petersburg before he entered the bureaucracy in the department
of justice, in which he rose rapidly to be assistant solicitor-general
in Warsaw, then solicitor-general in St Petersburg, and
in 1881 director of the state police. As assistant to the minister
of the interior he attracted the attention of Alexander III. by
the skill he showed in investigating the circumstances of the
assassination of Alexander II. He received the title of secretary
of state in 1894, became a member of the council of the empire,
and in 1902 succeeded Sipiaguine as minister of the interior.
Plehve carried out the “russification” of the alien provinces
within the Russian Empire, and earned bitter hatred in Poland,
in Lithuania and especially in Finland. He despoiled the
Armenian Church, and was credited with being accessory to the
Kishinev massacres. His logical mind and determined support
of the autocratic principle gained the tsar’s entire confidence.
He opposed commercial development on ordinary European
lines on the ground that it involved the existence both of a
dangerous proletariat and of a prosperous middle class equally
inimical to autocracy. He was thus a determined opponent
of M. de Witte’s policy. An attempt was made on his life early
in 1904, and he was assassinated on the 28th of July of the same
year by a bomb thrown under his carriage as he was on his way
to Peterhof to make his report to the tsar; the assassin, Sasonov,
was a member of the fighting organization of the socialist
revolutionary party.
PLEIAD (Gr. Πλειάς), in Greek literature, the name given (by analogy from Pleiades, below) by the Alexandrian critics
to seven tragic poets who flourished during the reign of Ptolemy
Philadelphus (285–247 B.C.). In French literature, in addition
to the Pleiad of Charlemagne, there were two famous groups of
the kind. The first, during the reign of Henri III. (1574–1589),
the chief member of which was Pierre de Ronsard, sought to
improve the French language and literature by enthusiastic
imitation of the classics; the second, under Louis XIII. (1610–1643),
consisted of authors who excelled in the composition of
Latin verse.
PLEIADES, in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleïone, and sisters of the Hyades. Owing to their grief
at the death of their sisters or at the sufferings of their father,
they were changed into stars. In another account, the Pleiades
and their mother met the hunter Orion in Boeotia, and the sight
of them inflamed his passion. For five years he pursued them
through the woods, until Zeus translated them all—Pleione and
her daughters, Orion, and his dog—to the sky. The Pleiades
rose in the middle of May and set at the end of October, and their
connexion with spring and autumn explains the legend. As
bringers of the fertilizing rains of spring, which have their origin
in the west, they are the daughters of Atlas, as the forerunners
of the storms of autumn, they are represented as being driven
onward by Orion in pursuit. The word is probably connected
with πλείων, either in the sense of “many in number,” since
the stars formed a close group, resembling a bunch of grapes
(hence sometimes called βότρυς), or as “more in number” than
their sisters. Others derive the name from πλεῖν (to sail),
because navigation began at the time of their rising. They are
probably alluded to in Homer (Odyssey, xii. 62) as the doves
(πελείαδες) who brought ambrosia from the west to Zeus. One
of these doves was always lost during the passage of the Planciae
(wandering rocks), referring to the fact that one of the seven
Pleiades was always invisible. This was Merope, who hid her
light from shame at having had intercourse with a mortal,
Sisyphus. All the Pleiades became the ancestresses of divine
or heroic families. They were called Vergiliae (probably connected
with ver, spring) by the Romans.
See Hesiod, Works and Days, 383; Apollodorus iii. 10; Diod. Sic. iii. 60; Theocrltus xiii. 25; Hyginus, Astronom. ii. 21; Ovid, Fasti, 1v. 169, v. 599.
PLEIADES, Atlantides or Vergiliae, in astronomy, a group of stars situated in the constellation Taurus. They are supposed to be referred to in the Old Testament (Job. ix. 9, xxxviii. 31). This group is particularly rich in bright stars, and is full of nebulosity, but there are fewer faint stars than in equal areas of the surrounding sky; the central star is Alcyone (3rd magnitude); Pleione and Atlas are also of the 3rd magnitude.
PLEISTOCENE, in geology, the epoch which succeeded the Pliocene, it is the last of the Tertiary periods, and hence the lower subdivision of the quaternary or modern era The name was introduced by Sir C. Lyell in 1839 (from Gr. πλεῖστον, most, and καινός, recent), the rocks of this period containing a higher percentage of living forms than the youngest of the Tertiary formations. By many writers “Pleistocene” has been regarded as synonymous with “Glacial Period” or the “Diluvium” of some geologists. In the northern hemisphere the protracted period of glaciation, with its predominating influence upon modern topography and faunal distribution, was undoubtedly the outstanding feature of the time. The phenomena of the Glacial period (q.v.), which was by no means strictly limited to the northern latitudes, are dealt with under that head, but there are certain other characteristics of the Pleistocene period which bear no direct relationship to glaciation, and these will be dealt with here.
The gradual inception of colder conditions in the northern hemisphere which lead up to the more extreme conditions of glaciation clearly began in the latter part of the Pliocene period, and the effects of this cooling are seen not only in northern Europe and America but as far south as the Mediterranean. The result of this is that there is a certain indefiniteness as to the exact base line to be adopted for the Pleistocene formations; thus the Forest Bed of Cromer and certain beds in Sicily and Italy are by some authors placed in this period and by others
- ↑ The word “pledge” is adapted from the O. Fr. plege, mod. pleige, security, hostage, Med. Lat. plivium. This is a formation form Med. Lat. plevire or plebire, to undertake or engage for someone, cf. “replevin”; it is now considered to be a word of Teutonic origin and connected with Ger pflegen and “ plight.”
