steamers from New York. It contains several handsome streets, and has extensive cotton, woollen, and calico-printing factories, as well as ironworks. Pop. 129,828.
Falmouth, a seaport and municipal borough of England, in Cornwall, 250 miles W.S.W. of London. There is a good harbour there, with a fine roadstead affording excellent refuge for shipping. Falmouth was at one time an important packet station, but is now chiefly a port of call, its principal trade being in supplies and stores for shipping. Falmouth and Penryn together give name to a parliamentary division of the county, returning one member to Parliament. Pop. 13,318.
False Imprisonment, the unlawful imprisonment or detention of any person. Every confinement of the person is imprisonment, whether in a common prison or a private house, or even by forcibly detaining one in the streets or highways. The law punishes false imprisonment as a crime, besides giving reparation to the party injured, through an action of trespass.
False Personation (English law). All forms of false personation, for the purpose of obtaining the property of others, are made penal by express statute. To personate the owner of any share, stock, or annuity, &c., is felony, and renders the offender liable to penal servitude for life, or to a modified term of penal servitude or imprisonment. The false personation of voters at an election is a misdemeanour punishable with imprisonment and hard labour, for a term not exceeding two years.
Falset´to (It.) applies, in singing, to the notes above the natural compass of the voice. It is also called the head or throat voice, in contradistinction to the chest voice, which is the natural one. The falsetto voice is produced by tightening the ligaments of the glottis.
False Weights and Measures. The using of false weights and measures is an offence at law punishable by fine. By various British statutes standards are provided for weights and for measures of capacity or dimension, and all contracts of sale, &c., are referred to such standards unless there is a special agreement to the contrary. See Weights and Measures.
Fal´ster, an island belonging to Denmark, situated at the entrance of the Baltic, east of Laaland, from which it is separated only by a narrow strait; flat, well watered, and wooded; productive in grain, pulse, potatoes, and, above all, fruit; area, 183 sq. miles. The principal town is Nykjöbing. Pop. 37,460.
Falun, or Fahlun (fä´lu¨n), a town of Sweden, on Lake Runn, 130 miles north-west of Stockholm. It has an excellent mining-school, museums, and mineralogical collections. Within the town boundary is the famous Falun copper-mine, formerly the richest in Sweden, and worked for 500 years. Pop. 11,966.
Fama Clamo´sa ('a clamant report'), in the ecclesiastical law of Scotland, is a public report imputing immoral conduct to a clergyman, licentiate, or office-bearer of the Church. When the fama has become so notorious that it cannot be overlooked, the presbytery, after due inquiry, and if no particular party comes forward to institute a process, usually appear as accusers themselves.
Famagos´ta, or Famagusta, a seaport on the east coast of Cyprus. It is of remote antiquity, was an important place during the Middle Ages under the Lusignan kings of Cyprus and the Venetians, but, after being captured by the Turks in 1571, it declined. It has improved under the British, and has got a new harbour. Pop. 5327.