HALF SEAL. A seal used in the English chancery for the sealing of commissions to delegates appointed upon any appeal, either in ecclesiastioal or marine¹ causes.

HALF YEAR, In the computation of time, a half year consists of one hundred and eighty-two days. Co. Litt. 135 b; Rev². Stat., of N. Y. part 1, c. 19, t. 1. §3.

HALL. A public building used either for the meetings of corporations, courts, or employed to some public uses; as the city hall, the town hall. Formerly³ this word denoted the chief mansion⁴ or habitation.

HALLUCINATION, med. jur. It is a species of mania⁵, by which "an idea reproduced by the memory is associated and embodied⁶ by the imagination." This state of mind is sometimes called delusion⁷ or waking dreams.

2. An attempt has been made to distinguish hallucinations from illusions; the former are said to be dependent on the state of the intellectual organs and, the latter, on that of those of sense. Ray, Med. Jur. §99; 1 Beck, med. Jur. 538, note. An instance is given of a temporary hallucination in the celebrated⁸ Ben Johnson, the poet. He told a friend of his that he had spent many a night in looking at his great toe, about which he had seen Turks and Tartars, Romans and Carthagenians, fight, in his imagination. 1 Coll. on Lun. 34. If, instead of being temporary, this affection of his mind had been permanent, he would doubtless have been considered insane. See, on the subject of spectral⁹ illusions, Hibbert, Alderson and Farrar's Essays; Scott on Demonology, &c.; Bostock's Physiology¹⁰, vol. 3, p. 91, 161;1 Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, 159.

HALMOTE. The name of a court among the Saxons. It had civil and criminal jurisdiction¹¹.

HAMESUCKEN, Scotch¹² law. The crime of hamesucken consists in "the felonious seeking and invasion of a person in his dwelling¹³ house." 1 Hume,312; Burnett, 86; Alison's Princ. of the Cr. Law of Scotl. 199.

2. The mere¹⁴ breaking into a house, without personal violence, does not constitute the offence, nor does the violence without an entry with intent to, commit an assault. It is the combination of both which completes the crime. 1. It is necessary that the invasion of the house should have proceeded from forethought malice¹⁵; but it is sufficient, if, from any illegal motive¹⁶, the violence has been meditated¹⁷, although it may not have proceeded from the desire of wreaking¹⁸ personal revenge, properly so called.2. The place where the assault was committed must have been the proper dwelling house of the party injured, and not a place of business, visit, or occasional residence. 3. the offence maybe committed equally in the day as in the night, and not only by effraction of the building by actual force but by an entry obtained by fraud, with the intention of inflicting¹⁹ personal violence, followed by its perpetration. 4. But unless the injury to the person be of a grievous and material, character, it is not hamesucken, though the other requisites²⁰ to the crime have occurred. When this is the case, it is immaterial whether the violence be done lucri causä, or from personal spite. 5. The punishment of hamesucken in aggravated²¹ cases of injury, is death in cases of inferior atrocity²², an arbitrary punishment. Alison's Pr. of Cr. Law of Scotl. ch. 6; Ersk. Pr. L. Scotl. 4, 9, 23. This term wag formerly used in England instead of the now modern term burglary. 4 Bl. Com. 223.

HAMLET, Eng. law. A small village; a part or member of a vill.

HANAPER OFFICE, Eng.law. This is the name of one of the offices belonging to the English court of chancery. 3 Bl. Com. 49.

HAND. That part of the human body at the end of the arm.

2. Formerly the hand was considered as the symbol of good faith, and some contracts derive²³ their names from the fact that the hand was used in making them; as handsale, (q. v.) mandatum, (q. v.) which comes from ä manu datä. The hand is still used for various legal or forensic²⁴ purposes. When a person is accused of a crime and he is arraigned²⁵, and he is asked to hold up his right hand; and when one is sworn as a witness, he is required to lay his right hand on the Bible, or to hold it up.

3. Hand is also the name of a measure of length used in ascertaining²⁶ the height of horses. It is four inches long. See Measure: Ell.

4. In a figurative sense, by hand is understood a particular form of writing; as if B writes a good hand. Various kinds of hand have been used, as, the secretary hand, the Roman hand, the court hand, &c. Wills and contracts may be written in any of these, or any other which is intelligible²⁷.