The Division Of Chittagong lies at the north-east corner of the Bay of Bengal, extending northward along the left bank of the Meghna. It consists of the districts of Chittagong, the Hill Tracts, Noakhali and Tippera. Its area covers 11,773 sq. m.; the population in 1901 was 4,737,731.
CHITTUR, a town of British India, in the North Arcot district of Madras, with a station on the South Indian railway. Pop. (1901) 10,893. Formerly a military cantonment, it is now only the civil headquarters of the district. It has an English church, mission chapel, and Roman Catholic chapel, a high school, and several literary institutes.
CHITTY, SIR JOSEPH WILLIAM (1828-1899), English judge, was born in London. He was the second son of Thomas Chitty (himself son and brother of well-known lawyers), a celebrated special pleader and writer of legal text-books, in whose pupil-room many distinguished lawyers began their legal education. Joseph Chitty was educated at Eton and Balliol, Oxford, gaining a first-class in Literae Humaniores in 1851, and being afterwards elected to a fellowship at Exeter College. His principal distinctions during his school and college career had been earned in athletics, and he came to London as a man who had stroked the Oxford boat and captained the Oxford cricket eleven. He became a member of Lincoln’s Inn in 1851, was called to the bar in 1856, and made a queen’s counsel in 1874, electing to practise as such in the court in which Sir George Jessel, master of the rolls, presided. Chitty was highly successful in his method of dealing with a very masterful if exceedingly able judge, and soon his practice became very large. In 1880 he entered the house of commons as liberal member for Oxford (city). His parliamentary career was short, for in 1881 the Judicature Act required that the master of the rolls should cease to sit regularly as a judge of first instance, and Chitty was selected to fill the vacancy thus created in the chancery division. Sir Joseph Chitty was for sixteen years a popular judge, in the best meaning of the phrase, being noted for his courtesy, geniality, patience and scrupulous fairness, as well as for his legal attainments, and being much respected and liked by those practising before him, in spite of a habit of interrupting counsel, possibly acquired through the example of Sir George Jessel. In 1897, on the retirement of Sir Edward Kay, L.J., he was promoted to the court of appeal. There he more than sustained—in fact, he appreciably increased—his reputation as a lawyer and a judge, proving himself to possess considerable knowledge of the common law as well as of equity. He died in London on the 15th of February 1899. He married in 1858 Clara Jessie, daughter of Chief Baron Pollock, and left children who could thus claim descent from two of the best-known English legal families of the 19th century.
See E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904).
CHIUSI (anc. Clusium), a town of Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Siena, 55 m. S.E. by rail from the town of Siena, and 26 m. N.N.W. of Orvieto. Pop. (1901) 6011. It is situated on a hill 1305 ft. above sea-level, and is surrounded by medieval walls, in which, in places, fragments of the Etruscan wall are incorporated. The cathedral of S. Mustiola is a basilica with a nave and two aisles, with eighteen columns of different kinds of marble, from ancient buildings. It has been restored and decorated with frescoes in modern times. The campanile belongs to the 13th century. The place was devastated by malaria in the middle ages, and did not recover until the Chiana valley was drained in the 18th century. For the catacombs see [Clusium].
CHIVALRY (O. Fr. chevalerie, from Late Lat. caballerius), the knightly class of feudal times, possessing its own code of rules, moral and social (see [Knighthood and Chivalry]). The primary sense in the middle ages is “knights” or “fully armed and mounted fighting men.” Thence the term came to mean that gallantry in battle and high sense of honour in general expected of knights. Thus “to do chivalry” was a medieval phrase for “to act the knight.” Lastly, the word came to be used in its present very general sense of “courtesy.” In English law chivalry meant the tenure of land by knights’ service. It was a service due to the crown, usually forty days’ military attendance annually. The Court of Chivalry was a court instituted by Edward III., of which the lord high constable and earl marshal of England were joint judges. When both sat the court had summary criminal jurisdiction as regards all offences committed by knights, and generally as to military matters. When the earl marshal alone presided, it was a court of honour deciding as to precedence, coats of arms, &c. This court sat for the last time in 1737. The heraldic side of its duties are now vested in the earl marshal as head of the Heralds’ College.