Commission, in Commerce. See Factorage.

COMMISSIONER, a person authorized by commission, letters patent, or other lawful warrant, to examine any matters, or execute any lawful commission.

Commissioner in the General Assembly of the church of Scotland. See Assembly (General).

Commissioners of the Customs. See Customs.

Commissioners of Excise. See Excise.

Commissioners of the Navy. See Navy.

Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. See Treasury and Exchequer.

Commissure, a term used by some authors for the small metates or interfaces of bodies; or the little clefts between the particles: especially when those particles are broadish and flat, and lie contiguous to one another, like thin plates and lamellae. The word literally signifies a joining or connecting of one thing to another.

Commissure, in Architecture, &c., denotes the joint of two stones, or the application of the surface of the one to that of the other. See Masonry.

Among anatomists, commissure is sometimes also used for a future of the cranium or skull. See Suture.

Commitment, in criminal law, is the sending to prison a person who hath been guilty of any crime. This takes place where the offence is not bailable, or the party cannot find bail; must be by proper warrant, containing the cause of the commitment; and continues till put an end to by the course of law (see Trial); imprisonment being intended only for safe custody, and not for punishment (see Arrestment and Bail). In this dubious interval between the commitment and trial, a prisoner ought to be used with the utmost humanity; and neither be loaded with needles fetters, nor subjected to other hardships than such as are absolutely requisite for the purpose of confinement only: though what are so requisite must too often be left to the direction of the gaolers, who are frequently a merciless race of men, and by being conversant in scenes of misery, Steeleed against any tender sensation.

Committee, one or more persons to whom the consideration or ordering of a matter is referred, either by some court, or by the consent of parties to whom it belongs.

Committee of Parliament, a certain number of members appointed by the house for the examination of a bill, making a report of an inquiry, proceedings of the house, &c. See Parliament.

Sometimes the whole house is resolved into a committee; on which occasion each person has a right to speak and reply as much and as often as he pleases: an expedient they usually have recourse to in extraordinary cases, and where any thing is to be thoroughly canvassed. When the house is not in a committee, each gives his opinion regularly, and is only allowed to speak once, unless to explain himself.

The standing committees, appointed by every new parliament, are those of privileges and elections, of religion, of grievances, of courts of justice, and of trade; though only the former act.

Commixtion, in Scots Law, is a method of acquiring property, by mixing or blending together different substances belonging to different proprietors. See Law Index.