PROGRESSION. That state of a business which is neither the commencement nor the end. Some act done after the matter has commenced and before it is completed. Plowd. 343. Vide Consummation; Inception.

PROHIBITION, practice. The name of a writ issued by a superior court, directed to the judge and parties of a suit in an inferior court, commanding them to cease from the prosecution of the same, upon a suggestion that the cause originally, or some collateral matter arising therein, does not belong to that jurisdiction, but to the cognizance of some other court. 3 Bl. Com. 112; Com. Dig. h. t.; Bac. Ab. h. t. Saund. Index, h. t.; Vin. Ab. h. t.; 2 Sell. Pr. 308; Ayliffe's Parerg. 434; 2 Hen. Bl.

2. The writ of prohibition may also be issued when, having jurisdiction, the court has attempted to proceed by rules differing from those which ought to be observed; Bull. N. P. 219; or when, by the exercise of its jurisdiction, the inferior court would defeat a legal right. 2 Chit. Pr. 355.

PROHIBITIVE IMPEDIMENTS, canon law. Those impediments to a marriage which are only followed by a punishment, but do not render the marriage null. Bowy. Alod. Civ. Law, 44.

PROJET. In international law, the draft of a proposed treaty or convention is called a projet.

PROLES. Progeny, such issue as proceeds from a lawful marriage; and, in its enlarged sense, it signifies any children.

PROLETARIUS, civil law. One who has no property to be taxed; and paid a tax only on account of his cliildren, proles; a person of mean or common extraction. The word has become Frenchified, proletaire signifying one of the common people.

PROLICIDE, med. jurisp. Medical jurists have employed this word to designate the destruction of the human divided the subject into foeticide, (q. v.) or the destruction of the foetus in utero; and infanticide, (q. v.) or the destruction of the new-born infant. Ryan, Med. Jur. 137.

PROLYTAE, Rom. civil law. The term used to denominate students of law during the fifth and last year of their studies. They were left during this year, very much to their own direction, and took the name (prolytoi) Prolytae omnino soluti. They studied chiefly the code and the imperial constitutions. See Dig. Proef. Prim. Const. 2; Calvini Lex ad Voc.

PROLIXITY. The unnecessary and superfluous statement of facts in pleading or in evidence. This will be rejected as impertinent. 7 Price, 278, n.