The Iles Glorieuses, three islets 160 m. N.E. of Mayotte, with a population of some 20 souls engaged in the collection of guano and the capture of turtles, were in 1892 annexed to France and placed under the control of the administrator of Mayotte.
See Notice sur Mayotte et les Comores, by Emile Vienne, one of the memoirs on the French colonies prepared for the Paris Exhibition of 1900; Le Sultanat d’Anjouan, by Jules Repiquet (Paris, 1901), a systematic account of the geography, ethnology and history of Johanna; Les colonies françaises (Paris, 1900), vol. ii. pp. 179-197, in which the story of the archipelago is set forth by various writers; an account of the islands by A. Voeltzkow in the Zeitschrift of the Berlin Geog. Soc. (No. 9, 1906), and Carte des Iles Comores, by A. Meunier (Paris, 1904).
COMPANION (through the O. Fr. compaignon or compagnon, from the Late Lat. companio,—cum, with, and panis, bread,—one who shares meals with another; the word has been wrongly derived from the Late Lat. compagnus, one of the same pagus or district), a mess-mate or “comrade” (a term which itself has a similar origin, meaning one who shares the same camera or room). “Companion” is particularly used of soldiers, as in the expression “companion in arms,” and so is the title of the lowest rank in a military or other order of knighthood; the word is also used of a person who lives with another in a paid position for the sake of company, and is looked on rather as a friend than a servant; and of a pair or match, as of pictures and the like. Similar in ultimate origin but directly adapted from the Fr. chambre de la compagne, and Ital. camera della compagna, the storeroom for provisions on board ship, is the use of “companion” for the framed windows over a hatchway on the deck of a ship, and also for the hooded entrance-stairs to the captain’s cabin.
COMPANY, one of a number of words like “partnership,” “union,” “gild,” “society,” “corporation,” denoting—each with its special shade of meaning—the association of individuals in pursuit of some common object. The taking of meals together was, as the word signifies (cum, with, panis, bread,) a characteristic of the early company. Gild had a similar meaning: but this characteristic, though it survives in the Livery company (see [Livery Companies]), has in modern times disappeared. The word “company” is now monopolized—in British usage—by two great classes of companies—(1) the joint stock company, constituted under the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908, which consolidated the various acts from 1862 to 1907, and (2) the “public company,” constituted under a special act to carry on some work of public utility, such as a railway, docks, gasworks or waterworks, and regulated by the Companies Clauses Acts 1845 and 1863.
1. Joint Stock Companies.
The joint stock company may be defined as an association of persons incorporated to promote by joint contributions to a common stock the carrying on of some commercial enterprise. Associations formed not for “the acquisition of gain” but to promote art, science, religion, charity or some other useful or philanthropic object, though they may be constituted under the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908, seldom call themselves companies, but adopt some name more appropriate to express their objects, such as society, club, institute, college or chamber. The joint stock company has had a long history which can only be briefly sketched here. The name of “joint stock company” is—or was—used to distinguish such a company from the “regulated company,” which did not trade on a joint stock but was in the nature of a trade gild, the members of which had a monopoly of foreign trade with particular countries or places (see Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. i. pt. iii.).
The earliest kind of joint stock company is the chartered (see [Chartered Companies]). The grant of a charter is one of the exclusive privileges of the crown, and the crown has from time to time exercised it in furtherance of trading enterprise. Examples of such grants are the Merchant Adventurers of England, chartered by Richard II. (1390); the East India Co., chartered by Queen Elizabeth (1600); the Bank of England, chartered by William and Mary (1694); the Hudson’s Bay Co.; the Royal African Co.; the notorious South Sea Co.; and in later times the New Zealand Co., the North Borneo Co., and the Royal Niger Co. Chartered companies had, however, several disadvantages. A charter was not easily obtainable. It was costly. The members could not be made personally liable for the debts of the company: and once created—though only for defined objects—such a company was invested with entire independence and could not be kept to the conditions imposed by the grant, which was against public policy. A new form of commercial association was wanted, free from these defects, and it was found in the common law company—the lineal ancestor of the modern trading company. The common law company was not an incorporated association: it was simply a great partnership with transferable shares. Companies of this kind multiplied rapidly towards the close of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, but they were regarded with strong disfavour by the law, for reasons not very intelligible to modern notions; the chief of these reasons being that such companies purported to act as corporate bodies, raised transferable stock, used charters for purposes not warranted by the grant, and were—or were supposed to be—dangerous and mischievous, tending (in the words of the preamble of the Bubble Act) to “the common grievance, prejudice and inconvenience of His Majesty’s subjects or great numbers of them in trade, commerce or other lawful affairs.” They were too often—and this no doubt was the real ground of the prejudice against them—utilized by unprincipled persons to promote fantastic and often fraudulent schemes. Matthew Green, in his poem “The Spleen,” notes how
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