PAROL LEASES. An agreement made verbally, not in writing, between the parties, by which one of them leases to the other a certain estate.

2. By the English statute¹ of frauds of 29 Car. III, c. 3, s. 1, 2, and 3, it is declared, that "all leases, estates, or terms of years, or any uncertain interest in lands, created by livery only, or by parol, And not put in writing, and signed by the party, should have the force and effect of leases or estates at will only, except leases not exceeding the term of three years, whereupon the rent reserved during the term shall amount to two third parts of the full improved value of the thing demised²." "And that no lease or estate, either of freehold or term of years, should be assigned, granted, or surrendered, unless in writing." The principles of this statute have been adopted with some modifications³, in nearly all the states of the Union. 4 Kent, Com. 95; 1 Hill. Ab. 130

PAROLE, international law. The agreement of persons who have been taken by an enemy that they will not again take up arms against those who captured them, either for a limited time, or during the continuance of the war. Vattel, liv. 3, c. 8, §151.

PARRICIDE⁴, civil law. One who murders his father; it is applied⁵, by extension, to one who murders his mother, his brother, his sister, or his children. The crime committed by such person is also called parricide. Merl. Rep. mot Parricide; Dig. 48, 9, 1, 1. 3, 1. 4.

2. This offence is defined almost in the same words in the penal⁶ code of China. Penal Laws of China, B. 1, s. 2, §4.

3. The criminal was punished by being scourged⁷, and afterwards sewed in a sort of sack, with a dog, a cock, a viper⁸, and an ape, and then thrown into the sea, or into a river; or if there were no water, he was thrown in this manner to wild beasts. Dig. 48, 9, 9; C. 9, 17, 1, 1. 4, 18, 6; Bro. Civ; . Law, 423; Wood's Civ. Law, B. 3, c. 10, s. 9.

4. By the laws of France parricide is the crime of him who murders his father or mother, whether they, be the legitimate⁹, natural or adopted parents of the individual, or the murder of any other legitimate ascendant. Code Penal, art. 297. This crime is there punished by the criminal's being taken to the place of execution without any other garment than his shirt, barefooted, and with his head covered with a black veil. He is then exposed on the scaffold while an officer of the court reads his sentence to the spectators; his right hand is then cut off, and he is immediately put to death. Id. art. 13.

5. The common law does not define this crime, and makes no difference between its punishment, and the punishment of murder. 1 Hale's P. C. 380; Prin. Penal Law, c. 18, §8, p. 243; Dalloz, Dict. mot Homicide.

PARSON, eccles. law. One who has full possession of all the rights of a parochial church.

2. He is so called because by his person the church, which is an invisible body, is represented: in England he is himself a body corporate¹⁰ it order to protect and defend the church (which he personates) by a the minority, if required to bring Story on Partn. §489. 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 1217. 398; 5 Com. Dig. 346.