REGULUS

In Chemistry. The old chemists designated several of the brittle or inferior metals by this term, when freed from impurities and obtained in their metallic state: it is thus that they speak of regulns of anlimony, of bismuth, . REIIABILITATION, in Foreign Criminal Law, is the reinstatement of a criminal in his personal rights which he has lost by a judicial sentence. Thus, in Scotland, a pardon from the king is said to rehabilitate a witne labouring under infamia juris. In France, persons condemned to imprisonment or compulsory labour may demand their rehabilitation five years after the expiration of their penalty: the demand is considered by the cour royale of the district, and pronounced upon by the king in his privy council. Various singular forms were attached to the proce of rehabilitation in ancient times. There are extant letters of Charles VI. given in 1.383, permitting a criminal whose hand had been cut off for homicide to replace it by another made in such fashion as he may choose. [s. 1052]