c. 7 every lord of a fair entitled to exact tolls was bound to appoint

a clerk to collect and enter them. It was also this functionary's business to test measures and weights. Tolls, again, are sometimes held to include "stallage" and "picage," which mean respectively the price for permission to erect stalls and to dig holes for posts in the market grounds. But toll proper belongs to the lord of the market, whereas the other two are usually regarded as the property of the lord of the soil. The law also provided that stallage might be levied on any house situated in the vicinity of a market, and kept open for business during the legal term of the said market. Among modern statutes, one of the chief is the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act 1847, the chief purpose of which was to consolidate previous measures. By the act no proprietors of a new market were permitted to let stallages, take tolls, or in any way open their ground for business, until two justices of the peace certified to the completion of the fair or market. After the opening of the place for public use, no person other than a licensed hawker may sell anywhere within the borough, his own house or shop excepted, any articles in respect of which tolls are legally exigible in the market. A breach of this provision entails a penalty of forty shillings. Vendors of unwholesome meat are liable to a penalty of L5 for each offence; and the "inspectors of provisions" have full liberty to seize the goods and institute proceedings against the owners. They may also enter "at all times of the day, with or without assistance," the slaughter-house which the undertaker of the market may, by the special act, have been empowered to construct. For general sanitary reasons, persons are prohibited from killing animals anywhere except in these slaughter-houses. Again, by the Fairs Act 1873, times of holding fairs are determined by the secretary of state; while the Fairs Act 1871 empowers him to abolish any fair on the representation of the magistrate and with the consent of the owner. The preamble of the act states that many fairs held in England and Wales are both unnecessary and productive of "grievous immorality."

_The Fair Courts._--The piepowder courts, the lowest but most expeditious courts of justice in the kingdom, as Chitty calls them, were very ancient. The Conqueror's law _De Emporiis_ shows their pre-existence in Normandy. Their name was derived from _pied poudreux_, i.e. "dusty-foot."[1] The lord of the fair or his representative was the presiding judge, and usually he was assisted by a jury of traders chosen on the spot. Their jurisdiction was limited by the legal time and precincts of the fair, and to disputes about contracts, "slander of wares," attestations, the preservation of order, &c.

_Authorities._--See Herbert Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_ (1873), especially the columns and paragraphs on "Distribution"; Prescott's _History of Mexico_, for descriptions of fairs under the Aztecs; Giles Jacob's _Law Dictionary_ (London, 1809); Joseph Chitty's _Treatise on the Law of Commerce and Manufactures_, vol. ii. chap. 9 (London, 1824); Holinshed's and Grafton's _Chronicles_, for lists, &c., of English fairs; Meyer's _Das grosse Conversations-Lexicon_ (1852), under "Messen"; article "Foire" in Larousse's _Dictionnaire universelle du XIX^e siecle_ (Paris, 1866-1874), and its references to past authorities; and especially, the second volume, commercial series, of the _Encyclopedie methodique_ (Paris, 1783); M'Culloch's _Dictionary of Commerce_ (1869-1871); Wharton's _History of English Poetry_, pp. 185, 186 of edition of 1870 (London, Murray & Son), for a description of the Winchester Fair, &c.; a note by Professor Henry Morley in p. 498, vol. vii. _Notes and Queries_, second series; the same author's unique _History of the Fair of St Bartholomew_ (London, 1859); Wharton's _Law Lexicon_ (Will's edition, London, 1876); P. Huvelin's _Essai historique sur le droit des marches et des foires_ (Paris, 1897); _Report of the Royal Commission on Market Rights and Tolls_, vols. i. (1889), xiv. (1891); _Final Report_ (1891); Walford's _Fairs, Past and Present_ (1883); _The Law relating to Markets and Fairs_, by Pease and Chitty (London, 1899). (J. Ma.; Ev. C.*)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In Med. Lat. _pede-pulverosus_ meant an itinerant merchant or pedlar. In Scots borough law "marchand travelland" and "dusty fute" are identical.

FAIRBAIRN, ANDREW MARTIN (1838- ), British Nonconformist divine, was born near Edinburgh on the 4th of November 1838. He was educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Berlin, and at the Evangelical Union Theological Academy in Glasgow. He entered the Congregational ministry and held pastorates at Bathgate, West Lothian and at Aberdeen. From 1877 to 1886 he was principal of Airedale College, Bradford, a post which he gave up to become the first principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. In the transference to Oxford under that name of Spring Hill College, Birmingham, he took a considerable part, and he has exercised influence not only over generations of his own students, but also over a large number of undergraduates in the university generally. He was granted the degree of M.A. by a decree of Convocation, and in 1903 received the honorary degree of doctor of literature. He was also given the degrees of doctor of divinity of Edinburgh and Yale, and doctor of laws of Aberdeen. His activities were not limited to his college work. He delivered the Muir lectures at Edinburgh University (1878-1882), the Gifford lectures at Aberdeen (1892-1894), the Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale (1891-1892), and the Haskell lectures in India (1898-1899). He was a member of the Royal Commission of Secondary Education in 1894-1895, and of the Royal Commission on the Endowments of the Welsh Church in 1906. In 1883 he was chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. He is a prolific writer on theological subjects. He resigned his position at Mansfield College in the spring of 1909.

Among his works are:--_Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History_ (1876); _Studies in the Life of Christ_ (1881); _Religion in History and in Modern Life_ (1884; rev. 1893); _Christ in Modern Theology_ (1893); _Christ in the Centuries_ (1893); _Catholicism Roman and Anglican_ (1899); _Philosophy of the Christian Religion_ (1902); _Studies in Religion and Theology_ (1909).

FAIRBAIRN, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1789-1874), Scottish engineer, was born on the 19th of February 1789 at Kelso, Roxburghshire, where his father was a farm-bailiff. In 1803 he obtained work at three shillings a week as a mason's labourer on the bridge then being built by John Rennie at Kelso; but within a few days he was incapacitated by an accident. Later in the same year, his father having been appointed steward on a farm connected with Percy Main Colliery near North Shields, he obtained employment as a carter in connexion with the colliery. In March 1804 he was bound an apprentice to a millwright at Percy Main, and then found time to supplement the deficiencies of his early education by systematic private study. It was at Percy Main that he made the acquaintance of George Stephenson, who then had charge of an engine at a neighbouring colliery. For some years subsequent to the expiry of his apprenticeship in 1811, he lived a somewhat roving life, seldom remaining long in one place and often reduced to very hard straits before he got employment. But in 1817 he entered into partnership with a shopmate, James Lillie, with whose aid he hired an old shed in High Street, Manchester, where he set up a lathe and began business. The firm quickly secured a good reputation, and the improvements in mill-work and water-wheels introduced by Fairbairn caused its fame to extend beyond Manchester to Scotland and even the continent of Europe. The partnership was dissolved in 1832.

In 1830 Fairbairn had been employed by the Forth and Clyde Canal Company to make experiments with the view of determining whether it were possible to construct steamers capable of traversing the canal at a speed which would compete successfully with that of the railway; and the results of his investigation were published by him in 1831, under the title _Remarks on Canal Navigation_. His plan of using iron boats proved inadequate to overcome the difficulties of this problem, but in the development of the use of this material both in the case of merchant vessels and men-of-war he took a leading part. In this way also he was led to pursue extensive experiments in regard to the strength of iron. In 1835 he established, in connexion with his Manchester business, a shipbuilding yard at Millwall, London, where he constructed several hundred vessels, including many for the royal navy; but he ultimately found that other engagements prevented him from paying adequate attention to the management, and at the end of fourteen years he disposed of the concern at a great loss. In 1837 he was consulted by the sultan of Turkey in regard to machinery for the government workshops at Constantinople. In 1845 he was employed, in conjunction with Robert Stephenson, in constructing the tubular railway bridges across the Conway and Menai Straits. The share he had in the undertaking has been the subject of some dispute; his own version is contained in a volume he published in 1849, _An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges_. In 1849 he was invited by the king of Prussia to submit designs for the construction of a bridge across the Rhine, but after various negotiations, another design, by a Prussian engineer, which was a modification of Fairbairn's, was adopted. Another matter which engaged much of Fairbairn's attention was steam boilers, in the construction of which he effected many improvements. Amid all the cares of business he found time for varied scientific investigation. In 1851 his fertility and readiness of invention greatly aided an inquiry carried out at his Manchester works by Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and J.P. Joule, at the instigation of William Hopkins, to determine the melting points of substances under great pressure; and from 1861 to 1865 he was employed to guide the experiments of the government committee appointed to inquire into the "application of iron to defensive purposes." He died at Moor Park, Surrey, on the 18th of August 1874. Fairbairn was a member of many learned societies, both British and foreign, and in 1861 served as president of the British Association. He declined a knighthood, in 1861, but accepted a baronetcy in 1869.

His youngest brother, SIR PETER FAIRBAIRN (1799-1861), founded a large machine manufacturing business in Leeds. Starting on a small scale with flax-spinning machinery, he subsequently extended his operations to the manufacture of textile machinery in general, and finally to that of engineering tools. He was knighted in 1858.

See _The Life of Sir William Fairbairn_, partly written by himself and edited and completed by Dr William Pole (1877).