FIERI FECI, practice. The return which the sheriff, or other proper officer, makes to certain writs¹, signifying, "I have caused to be made."

2. When the officer has made this return, a rule may be obtained upon him, after the return day, to pay the money into court, and if he withholds² payment, an action of debt may be had on the return, or assumpsit for money had and received may be sustained against him. 3 Johns. R. 183.

FIFTEENTH, Eng. law. The name of a tax levied³ by authority of parliament for the use of the king, which consisted of one-fifteenth part of the goods of those who are subject to it. T. L

FIGURES, Numerals. They are either Roman, made with letters of the Alphabet, for example, MIDCCLXXVI; or they are Arabic, as follows, 1776.

2. Roman figures may be used in contracts and law proceedings⁴, and they will be held valid⁵; but Arabic figures, probably owing to the case with which they may be counterfeited⁶, or. altered, have been holden not to be sufficient to express the sum due on a contract; but, it seems, that if the amount payable⁷ and due on a promissory note be expressed in figures or ciphers⁸, it will be valid. Story on Bills, §42, note; Story, Prom. Notes, §21. Indictments⁹ have been set aside because the day or year was expressed in figures. 13 Vin Ab. 210; 1 Ch. Rep. 319; S. C. 18 Eng. Com. Law Rep. 95.

3. Bills of exchange, promissory notes, cheeks and agreements of every description, are usually dated with Arabic figures; it is, however, better to date deeds and other formal instruments, by writing the words at length. Vide l Ch. Cr. L. 176; 1 Verm. R. 336; 5 Toull. n. 336; 4 Yeates, R. 278; 2 John. R. 233; 1 How. Mis. 256; 6 Blackf., 533.

FIGURES OF SPEECH. By figures of speech is meant that manner of speaking or writing, which has for its object to give to our sentiments and, thoughts a greater force, more vivacity¹⁰ and agreeableness.

2. This subject belongs more particularly to grammar and rhetoric¹¹, but the law has its figures also. Sometimes fictions come in aid of language, when found insufficient¹² by the law; language, in its turn, by means of tropes and figures, sometimeslends to fictions a veil behind which they are hidden; sometimes the same denominations¹³ are preserved to things which have ceased to be the same, and which have been changed; at other times they lend to things denominations which supposed them to have been modified.

3. In this immense subject, it will not be expected that examples should be here given of every kind of figures; the principal only will be noticed. The law is loaded with abstract ideas; abstract in itself, it has often recourse to metaphors¹⁵, which, as it were, touch our senses. The inventory¹⁶ is faithful, a defect is covered, an account is liquidated¹⁷, a right is open or closed, an obligation is extinguished, &c. But the law has metaphors which are properly its own; as civil fruits, &c. The state or condition of a man who has been deprived by the law of almost all his social prerogatives¹⁸ or rights, has received the metaphorical¹⁹ name of civil death. Churches being called the houses of God, formerly²⁰ were considered an asylum²¹, because to seize a person in the house of another was considered a wrong. Mother country, is applied²² to the country from which people emigrate to a colony; though this pretended analogy is very different in many points, yet this external ornament²³ of the idea soon became an integral part of the idea; and on the faith of this metaphor¹⁴, this pretended filiation became the source whence flowed the duties which bound the colonies to the metropolis²⁴ or mother country.

4. In public speaking, the use of figures, when natural and properly selected, is of great force; such Ornaments²⁵ impress upon the mind of the bearers the ideas which the speaker desires to convey, fix their attention and disposes them to consider favorably the subject of inquiry²⁶. See 3 Bouv. Inst. n. 3243.

FILACER, FILAZIER, or FILZER, English law. An officer of the court of common pleas, so called because he files those writs on which he makes out process. FILE, practice. A thread, string, or wire, upon which writs and other exhibits in courts and offices are fastened or filed. for the more safe keeping and ready turning to the same. The papers put together in order, and tied in bundles, are also called a file.

2. A paper is said to be filed, when it is delivered to the proper officer, and by him received to be kept on file. 13 Vin. Ab. 211.