Cured By Verdict

The expression "cured by verdict" signifies that the court will, after a verdict, presume or intend that the particular thing which appears to be defectively or imperfectly stated or omitted in the pleadings, was duly proved at the trial, the intendment arising not merely from the verdict but from the united effect of the verdict and the issue on which it was given, but the particular thing presumed must always be such as may be implied from the allegations by a fair and reasonable intendment. 240 111. 265. CURFEW (French, couvre, to cover, and feu, fire). This is generally supposed to be an institution of William the Conqueror, who required, by ringing of the bell at eight o'clock in the evening, that all lights and fires in dwellings should then be extinguished. But the custom is evidently older than the Norman; for we find an order of King Alfred that the inhabitants of Oxford should, at the ringing of that bell, cover up their fires and go to bed. And there is evidence that the same practice prevailed at this period in France, Normandy, Spain, and probably in most of the other countries of Europe. Henry, Hist. Brit. vol. 3, 567. It was doubtless intended, as a precaution against fires, which were very frequent and destructive when most houses were built of wood. That it was not intended as a badge of infamy is evident from the fact that the law was of equal obligation upon the nobles of the court and upon the native-born serfs. And yet we find the name "curfew law" employed as a by-word denoting the most odious tyranny. It appears to have met with" so much opposition that in 1103 we find Henry I. repealing the enactment of his father on the subject; and Blackstone says that, though it is mentioned a century afterwards, it is rather spoken of as a time of night, than as a still subsisting custom. Shakespeare frecfuently refers to it in the same sense. This practice is still pursued in many parts of England and in this country, as a very convenient mode of apprising people of the time of night.