807, 52 N. K&B 623.—Law of the staple. w administered in the court of the mayor of the staple; the law-merchant. 4 Inst. 235. STAPLE.< Laws of war. This term denotes a branch of ublic international law, and comprises the ody of rules and principles observed by civilized nations for the regulation of matters inherent in, or incidental to, the conduct of a public war; such, for example, as the relations of neutrals and belligerents, blockades, captures, prizes, truces and armistices, capitulations, prisoners, and declarations of war and peace.—Laws of Wisby. See WIsBy, Laws OF.—Law reports. Published volumes containing the reports of cases argued and adjudged in the courts of law.—Law spiritual. The ecclesiastical law, or law Christian. Co. Litt 344.—Law worthy. Being entitled to, or having the benefit and protection of, the law.— Local law. A law which, instead of relating to and binding all persons, corporations, or institutions to which it may be applicable, within the whole territorial jurisdiction of the lawmaking power, is limited in its operation to certain districts of such territory or to certain individual persons or corporations. See GENEBR- AL LAW.—Personal law, as opposed to territorial law, is the law applicable to persons not subject to thé law of the territory in ‘which they reside. It is only by permission of the territorial law that personal law can exist at the present day; e. g., it applies to British subjects resident in the Levant and in other Mohammedan and barbarous countries. Under the Roman Empire, it had a very wide application. Brown.