Pairing Off

A legislative practice, said to have originated in the time of Cromwell, whereby legislators of opposite opinions agree not to vote on a given measure. Usually resorted to in order to relieve a member from the necessity of remaining constantly present to await a vote.

Members of a legislative assembly lose their votes upon any question, unless they are themselves present when the question is put; voting by proxy is not allowed in these bodies. Hence, when a member wishes to absent himself from the house, and at the same time is anxious not to diminish the strength of his party by the loss of his vote during his absence, he seeks out some member of the opposite party who is also anxious to absent himself, and by mutual agreement the two (or " pair " of) members arrange to be absent at the same time, the effect of which, of course, is, that on all questions which occur during their absence a vote is neutralized on each side; and thus the relative numbers on any given division are precisely the same as if both members were under this arrangement are thence said to "pair off" upon any question in which a division of the house takes place during their absence. PAIS; PAYS. Originally, the country, the neighborhood, the people of the vicinage. The early idea of trial by jury wag, that, in the first instance and for the determination of matters of fact, private controversies and trials for crime should be submitted to the decision of persons selected from the neighborhood where the controversy arose or the parties resided or the crime was perpetrated. Hence these matters were said to be tried per pays, — by the country. And the prisoner, when asked how he would be tried, was expected to answer, by God and my country; God and my neighbors. Likewise matter of a nature proper to be determined by the neighborhood tribunal, in distinction from questions of pure law, which must await final decision by the judges, was called matter in pais; and an estoppel raised by such matters, not by a record or deed, was called an estoppel in pais. These last expressions are still current.