SOLITARY¹ IMPRISONMENT². The punishment of separate confinement³. This has been adopted in Pennsylvania, with complete success. Vide Penitentiary⁴.

SOLUTION, civil law. Payment.

2. By this term, is understood, every species of discharge or liberation, which is called satisfaction, and with which the creditor⁵ is satisfied. Dig. 46, 3, 54; Code 8, 43, 17; Inst. 3, 30. This term has rather a reference to the substance of the obligation, than to the numeration or counting of the money. Dig. 50, 16, 176. Vide Discharge of a contract.

SOLVENCY⁶. The state of a person who is able to pay all his debts; the opposite of insolvency⁷. (q. v.)

SOLVENT⁸. One who has sufficient to pay his debts, and all obligations. Dig. 50, 16, 114.

SOLVERE. To unbind; to untie⁹; to release; to pay; solvere dicimus eum qui fecit quod facere promisit. 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 807.

SOLVIT AD DIEM, pleading. The name of a plea to an action on a bond, or other obligation to pay money, by which the defendant¹⁰ pleads that he paid the money on the day it was due. Vide 1 Stra. 652; Rep. Temp. Hardw. 133; Com. Dig. Pleader, 2 W 29.

2. This plea ought to conclude with an averment, and not to the country. 1 Sid. 215; 12 John. R. 253; vide 2 Phil. Ev. 92; Coxe, R. 467.

SOLVITPOSTDIEM, pleading. The name of a special plea in bar to an action of debt on a bond, by which the defendant asserts that he paid the money after the day it became due. 1 Chit. Pl. 480, 555; 2 Phil. Ev. 93.

SOMNAMBULISM, med. juris. Sleep walking.

2. This is sometimes an inferior species of insanity¹¹, the patient being unconscious of what he is doing. A case is mentioned of a monk¹² who was remarkable¹³ for simplicity¹⁴, candor¹⁵ and probity¹⁶, while awake, but who during his sleep in the night, would steal, rob, and even plunder¹⁷ the dead. Another case is related of a pious¹⁸ clergyman, who during his sleep, would plunder even his own church. And a case occurred in Maine, where the somnambulist attempted to hang himself, but fortunately tied the rope to his feet, instead of his neck. Ray. Med. Jur. §294.

3. It is evident, that if an act should be done by a sleep walker, while totally unconscious of his act, he would not be liable to punishment, because the intention (q. v.) and will (q. v.) would be wanting. Take, for example, the following singular case: A monk late one evening, in the presence of the prior of the convent, while in a state of somnambulism, entered the room of the prior, his eyes open but fixed¹⁹, his features contracted into a frown, and with a knife in his hand. He walked straight up to the bed, as if to ascertain²⁰ if the prior were there, and then gave three stabs, which penetrated²¹ the bed clothes, and a mat which served for the purpose of a mattress²²; he returned. with an air of satisfaction, and his features relaxed. On being questioned the next day by the prior as to what he had dreamed the preceding night, the monk confessed he had dreamed that his mother had been murdered by the prior, and that her spirit had appeared to him and cried for vengeance²³, that he was transported with fury at the sight, and ran directly to stab the assassin; that shortly after be awoke covered with perspiration²⁴, and rejoiced to find it was only a dream. Georget, Des Maladies Mentales, 127.

4. A similar case occurred in England, in the last century. Two persons, who had been hunting in the day, slept together at night; one of them was renewing the chase in his dream, and, imagining himself present at the death of the stag, cried out aloud, "I'll kill him! I'll kill him!" The other, awakened²⁵ by the noise, got out of bed, and, by the light of the moon, saw the sleeper²⁶ give several deadly stabs, with a knife, on the part of the bed his companion had just quitted. Harvey's Meditations²⁷ on the Night, note 35; Guy, Med. Jur. 265.

SON, kindred. An immediate²⁸ male descendant. In its technical meaning in devises, this is a word of purchase, but the testator may make it a word of descent. Sometimes it is extended to more remote descendants.