A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offices and duties vary greatly. Another official sometimes referred to. In the Holy Roman Empire a similar function was performed by the Amtmann. Bailiff was the term used by the Normans for what the Saxons had called a reeve: the officer responsible for executing the decisions of a court; the duty of the bailiff would thus include serving summonses and orders, executing all warrants issued out of the corresponding court. The district within which the bailiff operated was called his bailiwick to the present day. Bailiffs were outsiders and free men, that is, they were not from the bailiwick for which they were responsible. Throughout Norman England, the Saxon and Norman populations mixed, reeve came to be limited to shire-level courts, while bailiff was used in relation to the lower courts. Bailiff referred to the officer executing the decisions of manorial courts, the hundred courts. In Scotland a bailie was the chief officer of a barony, in the Channel Islands they were the principal civil officers.

With the introduction of justices of the peace, magistrates' courts acquired their own bailiffs. Courts were not only concerned with legal matters, decided administrative matters for the area within their jurisdiction. A bailiff of a manor, would oversee the manor's lands and buildings, collect its rents, manage its accounts, run its farms. In the 19th century, the administrative functions of courts were replaced by the creation of elected local authorities; the term bailiff is retained as a title by the chief officers of various towns and the keepers of royal castles, such as the High Bailiff of Westminster and the Bailiff of Dover Castle. In Scotland, bailie now refers to a municipal officer corresponding to an English alderman. In the 20th century, the court system in England was drastically re-organised, with the assize courts taking some of the powers of the shire courts, becoming the High Court of Justice; the High Court acquired the sheriffs, the county courts the bailiffs. Bailiffs were removable by the Lord Chancellor.

A bailiff could, for practical reasons, delegate his responsibilities, in regard to some particular court instruction, to other individuals. As the population expanded, the need for the services of a bailiff arose from financial disputes. By Shakespeare's time, they had acquired the nickname bum-bailiffs because they followed debtors closely behind them. To avoid confusion with their underlings, the County Courts Act 1888 renamed bailifs as high bailiffs; this act formally acknowledged right of the high bailiffs to appoint under-bailiffs as they wished, establishing that the high bailiffs retain ultimate responsibility for their actions. The High Bailiff became a purely ceremonial role, the court's clerk liaising with under-bailiffs directly; the Law of Distress Amendment Act 1888 enacts that no person may act as an under-bailiff to levy any distress for rent unless he is authorized by a county court judge to act as an under-bailiff. The County Courts Act 1888 restricted the hours an under-bailiff could execute a possession warrant, to only be between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m..

It limited the ability to bring a legal complaint against a bailiff. In the Channel Islands the Bailiff is the first civil officer in each of the two bailiwicks, he is appointed by the Crown, holds office until retirement. He presides as a judge in the Royal Court, takes the opinions of the jurats; the Bailiff in each island must, be a qualified lawyer. In England and Wales, there are a number of offices either formally titled, or referred to, as "bailiffs"; some of these bailiffs are concerned with executing the orders of the courts around the collection of debts, some exercise semi-official supervisory powers over certain activities. Those concerned with the execution of court orders are referred to as bailiffs, although reforms to the law in 2014 have renamed all these positions to alternative titles. With the 19th century renaming of bailiffs to high bailiff, their under-bailiffs came to be referred to as bailiffs themselves; the powers and responsibilities of these bailiffs depend on which type of court they take orders from.

In emulation of these responsibilities, a number of roles established by 19th century statute laws have been named bailiffs, despite not having a connection to a court. Civilian enforcement officers are employees of Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, can seize and sell goods to recover money owed under a fine and community penalty notice, execute warrants of arrest, committal and control (formally called distress or d

Zombia antillarum known as the zombie palm, is a species of palm tree and the only member of the genus Zombia. It is endemic to the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles. Found in dry, hilly areas of northern and southern Haiti and the northwest of the Dominican Republic, Z. antillarum is a short fan palm with clustered stems and a distinctive appearance caused by its persistent spiny leaf sheaths. Threatened by habitat destruction in Haiti, Z. antillarum is a popular ornamental species due to its distinctive appearance, low maintenance requirements and salt tolerance. Zombia antillarum is a small palm which grows in dense, multi-stemmed clumps with stems up to 3 metres tall and 5 centimetres in diameter. Individuals bear nine to 12 fan-shaped leaves; the leaf sheaths remain attached to the stem. The intervening tissue degrades, the woody vascular tissue splits, forming the spines which are characteristic of the species; the inflorescence, shorter than the leaves, bears bisexual flowers with 9–12 stamens and a single carpel.

Fruit bear a single seed. The flowers and fruit are borne among the leaves due to the fact that the inflorescences are shorter than the leaves. Trees can produce 5000 seeds per year, predominantly in August; the species is believed to be wind pollinated. Zombia is a monotypic genus—it includes only one species, Z. antillarum. The earliest description of the species is found in the work of French physician and botanist Michel Étienne Descourtilz. In 1821 he placed it in the genus Chamaerops as C. antillarum. Italian naturalist Odoardo Beccari independently described the species in 1908, placing it in the genus Coccothrinax. Recognising that it was distinct enough to be placed in its own genus, American botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey erected the genus Zombia in 1931 to accommodate the species that Descourtilz had described; this generated the combination Z. antillarum. In selecting a name for the genus, Bailey noted that"it would be preferable if this endemic palm could bear a Latin name indicative of its nativity rather than an exotic binomial of no relation with its country and the people".

In 1941, another American botanist, Orator F. Cook, moved Beccari's C. anomala to a new genus, Oothrinax. This generated O. anomala. Since Descourtilz's description pre-dates that of Beccari, Zombia antillarum has priority over Oothrinax anomala. In addition, Cook's name is invalid. In the first edition of Genera Palmarum, Natalie Uhl and John Dransfield placed the genus in subfamily Coryphoideae, tribe Corypheae and subtribe Thrinacinae using Harold E. Moore's 1973 classification of the palm family. Subsequent phylogenetic analyses showed that the Old World and New World members of the Thrinacinae were not related; as a result and related genera were places in their own tribe, Cryosophileae. Within this tribe, Zombia appears to be most related to the genera Coccothrinax and Hemithrinax, the species Thrinax morrisii, with the remainder of the genus Thrinax being a sister taxon to this group; because of this, T. morrisii was moved to Leucothrinax. In 1960, Dominican botanist José de Jesús Jiménez Almonte described a variety of Z. antillarum, distinguished from the typical variety by its smaller, pear-shaped fruits with a "dirty yellow" colour.

He named this variety Z. antillarum var. gonzalezii. More recent workers have not considered this form distinctive enough to maintain it as a distinct variety. Ángela Cano and collaborators concluded that the ancestors of the Cryosophileae and its sister taxon, the tribe Sabaleae evolved in North America during the late Cretaceous and dispersed to South America by the Eocene before re-invading North and Central America during the Oligocene. They concluded that it was more probable that the ancestors of Zombia colonised the Caribbean from North or Central America rather than from South America. Zombia antillarum is called the Zombie palm or Zombi palm by horticulturists. Orator F. Cook coined the name "Haitian cactus palm" due to the spiny appearance of its trunk. In Haiti, it is known as latanye zombi, or latanye pikan, it is called latanier savanne or latanier marron. Latanye or latanier is a common term for fan palms in Haiti, so these names are not specific to this species. In the Dominican Republic, the species is called guanillo.

These are diminutives of guano, used for several species of Coccothrinax and Thrinax. In his 1821 description of the species, Descourtilz used the name latanier épineux. Zombia antillarum is endemic to the island of Hispaniola. In northern Haiti is grows along the tributaries of the Trois Rivières between Gros-Morne and Port-de-Paix, while in the south, it is found along the eastern edge of the Massif de la Hotte, between Miragoâne, Fond-des-Nègres and Fond-des-Blancs; the species occurs in northwestern parts of the Dominican Republic, between Dajabón, the Sierra de Yamasá, Puerto Plata and Gaspar Hernández. It grows in dry, hilly regions at low elevation on slopes and ridges, but is absent from valley bottoms. In the Dominican Republic, it is found from sea level up to 450 metres above sea level. Zombia antillarum is associated with serpent

Daniel F. Desdunes was a civil rights activist and musician in New Orleans and Omaha, Nebraska. Descended from a family of people of color free before the Civil War, in 1892 he volunteered to board a train car designated for whites in violation of the Louisiana 1890 Separate Car Act; this would be a test case to enable the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens to challenge the law in the courts. The train he boarded was an interstate train, the court found that the law did not apply to such cases, which were bound by federal law and regulation. Shortly another member of the Comité des Citoyens, Homer Plessy, was selected to board an intrastate train, he was arrested for refusing to leave the white car, what became known as Plessy vs Ferguson was litigated to the US Supreme Court. In the meantime, Desdunes became a musician, directing bands and minstrel shows and playing many instruments, including the coronet, the violin, the baritone horn, the trombone, he was known for many styles, including minstrel, jazz, gospel and marching.

He performed under the direction of Perry George Lowery in P. T. Wright's Nashville Students and under Harry Prampin in Lash E. Gideon's Grand Afro American Mastodon Minstrels and Gideon's Big Minstrel Carnival. In 1904 Desdunes moved to Omaha, which had become a destination for African Americans from the South during the Great Migration to northern cities. There his band became a fixture in civic life, he led the Boys Town Band at Father Flanagan's Boys Town, he was described as the "father of negro musicians of Omaha" in Harrison J. Pinkett's 1937 manuscript, "An Historical Sketch of the Omaha Negro." Daniel Desdunes was born in about 1870 to Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes and Mathilde. His siblings were Agnes, Louise and Wendelle. Rodolphe was a customs agent, civil rights activist, journalist and poet. In 1879, Rodolphe started a relationship with Clementine Walker, born in 1860 and daughter of John and Ophelia Walker. Rodolphe and Clementine had at least four children together: Mary Celine, John Alexander and Oscar.

Clementine died September 23, 1893. Mary Celine became known as Mamie Desdunes and was a blues pianist. Clementine lived near Jelly Roll Morton's godmother and Jérémie and Henriette Desdunes were neighbors of Morton's mother. From this proximity, Morton learned the song he recorded as "Mamie's Blues" or "2:19 Blues" and attributed to Mamie, singing, "Can’t give a dollar, give a lousy dime,/ I wanna feed that hungry man of mine." Other associates of Mamie included performer Bunk Johnson and promoters Hattie Rogers and Lulu White. Mamie was born March 25, 1879, married George Degay in 1898, died of tuberculosis on December 4, 1911. Oscar was a musician and played with his nephew Clarence's band, the Joyland Revellers, after Clarence's death in 1933. Rodolphe had three other daughters by Clementine, named Edna and Jeanne. Daniel F. Desdunes attended public schools in New Orleans and went to Straight University, a black college. After college he worked as a house music teacher. In 1895, Desdunes married Victoria Oliver.

They had a son, Clarence, on February 17, 1896, Victoria died shortly afterward. Desdunes married a second time to Madia Dodd. Desdunes lived in New Orleans for most of the 1890s, although he called Chicago home for part of 1899. In 1904 he moved to Omaha. Madia died March 3, 1930 while visiting her sister, Geneva Mabry in Brooklyn, NY, her funeral was at St. Philip's Episcopal in Omaha and her burial was at Forest Lawn. In 1890, the Separate Car Act was passed by the Louisiana State Legislature, segregating public transportation. Aristide and Daniel Desdunes, Louis Martinet, Eugene Luscy, Paul Bonseigneur, L. J. Joubert, P. B. S. Pinchback, Caesar Antoine, Homer Plessy and other leaders, free men of color before the Civil War formed the Comité des Citoyens to organize black civil rights efforts. Rodolphe enlisted his eldest son, to violate the act in order to challenge it in court. On February 24, 1892, Daniel boarded a train bound for Alabama. While stopped at the corner of Elysian Fields and Claiborne in New Orleans, Daniel was arrested.

However, Judge John Howard Ferguson ruled that the Separate Car Act could not be enforced for interstate travel because the constitution only granted authority only to the federal government to regulate inter-state travel and commerce. The Comité challenged the law again, with a case of intrastate travel. Plessy volunteered to break the law; when the case, Plessy vs. Ferguson reached the U. S. Supreme Court in 1896, the court ruled that it was legitimate for a state to establish "separate but equal" facilities, Plessy's rights had not been violated. Albion Tourgee and James C. Walker were the lead defense counsel team in both cases. About that time the Crusader both disbanded. In the early 1890s, Desdunes was performing with cornetist Sylvester Coustaut. Desdunes played violin and baritone horn for the band he co-led, known as the Coustaut-Desdunes Band. In the band were violinist O'Neill Levasseur and George Filhe; the band focused on schottishes. In the decade, Desdunes joined the fraternal organization the Société des Jeunes Amis, with Philip Nickerson, the son of Professor William Nickerson.

He performed with traveling minstrel shows as early as 1894. In the late 1890s Desdunes was performing with P. G. Lowery in the P. T. Wright-led Nashville Students. By the spring of 1897, Desdunes w