faithful service." He died in Washington, District of Columbia, Sept. 27, 1863.

ABERYSTWYTH. The University College of Wales has been established at Aberystwyth as one of the colleges composing the University of Wales. Previously, and for many years, maintained by voluntary donations, it has since 1886 been in receipt of an annual government grant of twenty thousand dollars. In addition to the ordinary courses in art and science, the college possesses a department of agriculture and a normal department. Co-education exists, 145 of the 350 students in 1895 being women. See ABERYSTWYTн, Vol. I, p. 48.

ABEYANCE, in law, is the condition of property, real or personal, when no person exists in whom the title is vested. The law requires that a freehold shall never be in abeyance if it can be prevented, and will adopt almost any pretext to vest the title in some existing person to prevent its remaining in abeyance. It is asserted by some that there is no such thing as an estate in abeyance. Titles of honor and of dignity are in abeyance when it is uncertain who shall enjoy them. The title to personal property may also be in abeyance, as in replevin suits, where the ownership of property is in dispute, and the property itself is in the custody of the law pending its delivery to the successful claimant. In such case the title is said to be in abeyance until the determination of the suit.

ABGILLUS, JOHN, son of a Frisian king, was converted to Christianity and accompanied the emperor Charlemagne on some of his expeditions. His ascetic life gained for him the appellation of prester or priest, thus occasionally causing him to be confounded with the Mongolian Prester John of the eleventh century.

ABHORRERS AND AND PETITIONERS, the names given to two political factions in the reign of Charles II, king of England (1679-80). In some principles they were the germs of the present Whigs and Tories. The origin of the factions was when Lord Shaftesbury procured, by intrigue, a host of petitions from the rural districts, asking the king and Parliament to set aside, not only the succession of James, the brother of the king, but also his daughter, Mary, who was a Protestant, and married to William, Prince of Orange, and to fix the succession on the Duke of Monmouth, one of the king's illegitimate children. A strong party objected to this A strong party objected to this injustice, and obtained numerous counter-petitions, declaring the signers' "abhorrence" of Shaftesbury's scheme.

ABIATHAR. See ISRAEL, Vol. XIII, p. 404. ABIB, the Jewish month Nisan. See CALENDAR, Vol. IV, p. 678.

ABICH, WILHELM HERMANN, a German geologist and traveler, was born in Berlin, Dec. 11, 1806. He studied natural science at Berlin, became professor at Dorpat in 1842, fellow of the St. Petersburg Academy in 1853, and after 1877 lived at Vienna. He explored the Caucasus region, the Armenian highlands and northern Persia, and his published works are invaluable geological and mineralogical memoirs on these countries. He died at Graz, July 2, 1886.

See FIR, Vol. IX, p. 222.

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ABIES. ABIGAIL, the wife of Nabal, the rich churl of Carmel, and after his death the wife of David, king of Israel. When David marched against Nabal she met him with a present, and calling herself “his handmaid" (1 Sam. xxv. 3), she, while averting Nabal's punishment, was the cause of her name being used as a modern synonym for a serving or waiting woman. Another notable instance of the name in a similar character is in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of The Scornful Lady. The mother of Amasa and sister of David also bore this name. Abigail Hill (or Abigail Earwig, as her enemies called her) was the waiting-woman who supplanted Sarah Jennings, the first Duchess of Marlborough, in the favor of Anne, queen of England, and in so doing gave a further lease of life to the use of this synonym. ABILENE, a tetrarchy and district of Syria, in the political geography of the ancients. It was situate to the eastward of Antilibanus.

ABILENE, the county seat of Dickinson County, Kansas, on Smoky Hill River, about 85 miles W. of Topeka. It was formerly an important shipping center for cattle. It is a railroad center for the Santa Fé, Rock Island, and Union Pacific railroads. Population 1895, 3,400.

ABILENE, capital of Taylor County, Texas, about 200 miles to the N.W. of Austin. Population 1890, 3,194.

ABINGDON, a town of Knox County, in the northwest portion of Illinois, at the intersection of the Galesburg division of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and Iowa Central railroads. Abingdon is 85 miles N.E. of Quincy and 10 miles S. of Galesburg. It is the seat of Abingdon Normal and Hedding colleges, and is in the midst of a fertile agricultural district. Population 1896, 2,000.

ABINGDON, an historical town of Virginia, county seat of the first county named in honor of Washington, is agreeably situated near Walker's Mountain, in the extreme southwest part of the state. There are stations of the Norfolk and Western and Virginia Western railways here. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic academy and convent, the library of the Maury Literary Society, Stonewall Jackson Institute, Abingdon Male Academy, and Martha Washington College for Girls. Deposits of gypsum, salt and iron ore are found here. During the Civil War Abingdon furnished quantities of salt to the Confederacy. Population 1895, about 1,700.

ABINGER, SIR JAMES SCARLETT, BARON, a distinguished English jurist, was born in Jamaica in 1769. He was attorney-general in 1827 and 1829, and in 1834 he was appointed chief baron of the court of exchequer. He died at Bury St. Edmunds, April 7, 1844.

ABINGTON, a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, distant about 20 miles S. E. of Boston, on the Plymouth branch of the Old Colony railroad. The principal industries are the manufacture of machinery and boots and shoes. Population 1895, 4,207.

ABLAUT, a German technical term in scientific grammar, best rendered into English by the expression, vowel gradation, such as takes place in the verb

28

sing, sang, sung. A kindred expression, umlaut, or mutation, is used to denote the changes of the vowel in the formation of the plural of a word; as in cow, kine; louse, lice, and similar words. ABNAKIS, an Indian family. See ABENAKIS, in these Supplements.

ABNEY, WILLIAM DE WIVELESLIE, an English soldier and scientist, born at Derby in 1843. Entering the royal engineer corps, he rose to the rank of captain, and was for some time instructor in chemistry to the Royal Engineers at Chatham. Captain Abney was one of the scientific observers of the transit of Venus in 1874. He wrote PHOTOGRAPHY, Vol. XVIII, pp. 821–40, in this ENCY

CLOPEDIA.

ÅBO, TREATY OF PEACE OF, a treaty signed at Åbo, Aug. 17, 1743, between Russia and Sweden. By its terms Russia obtained the southern portion of Finland as far as the river Kymen, and secured the election of an ally as prince royal of Sweden. ÅBO-BJÖRNEBORG, a län or province of Russian Finland, containing some 9,335 square miles, and situate on the Gulf of Bothnia. The chief town

of the province is Åbo. Population of the province 1895, 399,534. See RUSSIA, Vol. XXI, p. 69.

ABOLITIONIST. While popularly and primarily meaning one who sought the abolition of all human slavery, and in this sense used as long ago as 1790 by one of the earliest Abolitionists, Thomas Clarkson, the term Abolitionist, in the United States, must be considered as more often referring to the members of a semi-political party, to a certain extent composed of Republicans, and in contradistinction to the Southern Democrats, who, to a man, were apologists of slaveholding. While this anomaly of a semi-political party, which nominated no candidate for office, and yet was sufficiently powerful to influence elections, is unquestionably attributable to the agitation started by William Lloyd Garrison in 1829, seconded as it was so ably by the silvery eloquence of Wendell Phillips, and supported by a rapidly growing New England party, the term soon became an opprobrious epithet, in the mouth of a Southerner, wherewith to stigmatize the entire Northern population who differed from him in regard to politics, and, above all, in relation to the burning question of the future of the slavery question. Even in the ranks of the Abolitionists themselves were differences and divisions. One section timorously, and a trifle tentatively, contented themselves with a mild and general denunciation of slavery as an abstract question. The extreme wing and the more powerful portion of the Abolitionist party, under the impassioned eloquence of Wendell Phillips, hesitated not to denounce even the constitution itself as the bulwark of slavery. In point of fact there never was a time when the entirety of America had acquiesced in slavery. The Quakers had long been its unalterable opponents, and the virulence of the struggle increased when the anti-slavery agitator could point to the English colonies as an evidence of the benefits accruing from the emancipation of the African slave, and in so doing could, and did, cast a reflection on the tardiness and anomalous in

justice of his own ideal republic. The fiery and impassioned utterances of the Abolitionist school soon began to bear fruit. Stung to the quick, the Southern slaveholder, and the Southwestern sympathizer with slavery, or anything to antagonize the North, soon began the series of outrages on Abolitionists, destined to turn the flood of sympathy in favor of the negro's freedom. The murder of Lovejoy, the protomartyr of the cause, at Alton, in 1839, the savage penalties inflicted on escaping slaves, or those who aided their efforts, culminated, as a natural sequence, in the election of the champion of the Republican party, Abraham Lincoln. Then the question of the future of slavery had to be referred to the arbitrament of the God of battles, in case of

mattox.

any opposition to the freely expressed intention of secession. With the first shot against Sumter the fanatic of the Free-Soil movement, John Brown, became the martyr of freedom's cause, and his name the battle-cry that rang from Manassas to AppoSept. 22, 1862, as a warning to the Southern states Lincoln issued his famous proclamation of in rebellion, and on Jan. 1, 1863, in its operation it removed the bonds from every slave. As a matter of interest, one may draw the comparison, that, while the British could effect the peaceful emancipation of 770,280 slaves in the West Indies at a cost of $150,000,000, the freedom of the American negro cost the nation the enormous sum of $7,000,000,000 and the lives of a million of its best men, and this without the slaveholder receiving a solitary cent as compensation for his loss.

ABOU-GIRGEH, a village on the west bank of the Nile, about 100 miles S. of Cairo, inhabited by fellahs, who are engaged in agriculture. Population in 1896, about 3,000.

ABOUSAMBUL, same as ABU-SIMBEL. See Vol. I, p. 61; also ARCHITECTURE, Vol. II, p. 388.

ABOUT, EDMOND FRANÇOIS VALENTIN, a French novelist, journalist and playwright; born at Dieuze, Feb. 14, 1828; educated in Paris. He spent two years at Athens, returning to Paris in 1853 to commence a journalistic career. His first literary ven

ture was a satire on the customs and domestic manners of the modern Greeks, which owed much of its domestic popularity to the annoyance it caused the subjects of his witticisms. His first novel, Tolla Feraldi, was published in the pages of the Revue des Deux Mondes. Les Mariages de Paris was first published in the columns of the Moniteur du Soir. Other books followed rapidly. In 1868, About was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor, possibly as a reward for his inspired Question Romaine (1860). He acted as war correspondent for Le Soir in the Franco-Prussian war. About's many novels and short stories are characterized by a droll fantastic humor, and evince considerable ingenuity in serio-comical plots and situations. In 1884 he was elected a member of the French Academy, but died before taking his seat, Jan. 17, 1885.

ABOVILLE, FRANÇOIS MARIE, COMTE D', a French soldier, who rendered service to America in the war of the Revolution. Born at Brest, in 1730, his early history is obscure. He came to the aid of

the colonists with Rochambeau, and was director of the artillery at the siege of Yorktown. Returning to France at the close of the Revolution, he became, governor of Brest in 1807. He was an adherent of the Bourbons, and was created a peer of France. He died Nov. 1, 1819.

ABRAHAM, PLAINS OR HEIGHTS OF, an elevated plateau immediately to the southwest of the city of Quebec, Canada, above the river St. Lawrence. It was the scene, Sept. 13, 1759, of a decisive battle between the forces of the English and colonial troops, under General James Wolfe (q. v., Vol. XXIV, p. 630), and the French and Indians under the Marquis de Montcalm. Wolfe, thrice wounded, died in the moment of victory, his opponent, mortally injured on the field, expiring in the city of Quebec. The result of the battle was the fall of the city, and, ultimately, the loss to the French of the whole of Canada.

ABRAHAMITES, a small sect of Bohemian deists whose most noticeable peculiarity was that they rejected all the doctrines of the church, professing to follow the religion of the patriarch Abraham before his circumcision. They obtained a shortlived prominence near Pardubitz, whence they were expelled in 1783. The term is also used of a branch of the Paulicians, of whom Abraham of Antioch was the leader.

ABRAHAM-MEN. At first this term only referred to a lunatic mendicant from Bethlehem Hospital, in London. Here the wards were named in honor of various saints and patriarchs. The inmates of the Abraham ward were allowed liberty on certain days, and used the opportunity to beg for themselves and fellows. Their badges and the name of the ward soon obtained for them a familiar name, which, as success begat imitation, was applied to every sturdy vagrant who suffered from or simulated insanity. ABRAHAMSON, WERNER, Danish poet and critic. See Denmark, Vol. VII, p. 91.

ABRANTES, DUC D'. See JUNOT, Vol. XIII,

ABROLHOS (Port. Open your eyes), a group of small islets off the coast of Western Australia, about 100 miles N. of Perth, and between 28° and 29° S. lat. They are separated from the mainland by the Ceelvink Channel.

ABROLHOS ROCKS, a cluster of reefs and low, rock-bound islets in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Brazil, and immediately east of Caravellas. They are situated about 710 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, in lat. 17° 58' S., long. 38° 42' W. ABRUZZI E MOLISE, Italian province. See ABRUZZO, Vol. I, p. 56; also MOLISE, Vol. XVI, p. 631.

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ABSCOND. To abscond is to depart clandestinely from one's usual place of residence, or to lie concealed, with the intent to avoid legal process. An absconding debtor is one who departs from the state or from his usual abode, or who secretes or conceals himself, with the intent to hinder and delay or defraud his creditors. The statutes of the various states usually define who shall be treated as absconding debtors, but generally it is not necessary that the debtor should depart from the state, but it is essential only that there be a concealment beyond the reach of the process of the court, with the intent to delay or defraud creditors.

ABSECON OR ABSECOM, the name of a bay, an inlet and a village on the coast of New Jersey, northeast of Atlantic City. Here is a lighthouse for the protection of the numerous vessels making the port of New York from the southward. The inhabitants of the village are mostly fishermen. Population 1895, 522.

ABSENTEE, a term applied, by way of reproach, to landlords deriving their income in rent from estates in one country, but residing and expending the income in another. It was first, and is still in the main, used in relation to the Irish landlords, for whom the capitals of Europe have long held attractions superior to those of their own country. The objection to absenteeism is far from a fanciful grievance. Its tendency and result is to place agents and bailiffs in the place of the landlord, with interests inimical to those of the tenant. The needs of a tenant receive but slight attention at the hands of a bailiff, whose main object is the remittance of as much rent as possible to the absentee landlord. The question of absenteeism has become one of moment in the United States, where tracts of lands, in some cases larger than whole European principalities, have been purchased by alien capitalists. Several of the states have found it advisable to regulate alien ownership by legislation. See also IRELAND, Vol. XIII, p. 229.

ABSOLUTISM, a form of government in which the executive power is not controlled or limited by any constitutional restrictions. On the downfall of the feudal system in Europe the golden era of absolutism ensued. Based on the subordination of the church and nobility, and supported by large revenues and a numerous standing army, the ruler argued on the assumption of divine right much in the strain of Louis XIV's L'état, c'est moi (I am the state), for Louis was the representative absolute monarch.

ABSOROKAS.

Supplements.

See CROW INDIANS, in these

275.

by all green parts of the plant, but chiefly by the

with reinforcements. On Sunday, March 1, 1896, the Abyssinians attacked the Italian troops, and after severe fighting succeeded in putting the entire force to flight. The invader's loss was over 3,000 men, including a number of officers. Nothing seemed to interpose between the Abyssinians and a triumphant march to the sea except the panic-stricken and scanty garrisons of a few fortified posts. In Italy | rioting and a change of the ministry were the natural consequences of the horror excited by the news of defeat. Reinforcements were hurried to the aid of the beleaguered garrisons. In view of the uneasiness in the Soudan, it was feared that Menelek and the Mahdi would move in conjunction against Egypt, and Moslem and Christian thus combine in a holy war against the English occupation. To counteract this and keep the Mahdi's savage hordes occupied, it was decided that the troops of the Khedive, supported by British soldiery as soon as the cool season set in, should occupy Dongola and slowly advance toward Khartum. The English advance was supplemented by Indian soldiery drawn from the East Indian forces, and inured to the heat of an African desert campaign. The Italian complication was ended in the autumn of 1896 by a new treaty under which Italy withdrew her claim to a protectorate over Abyssinian states. The subjoined table gives an estimate of the extent and population of the political divisions of Abyssinia.

Besides the chiefs and their retainers summoned in time of war, the king maintains a permanent army of Wottoader, or "mercenaries," most of whom are now armed with rifles instead of the national weapons, shield and lance.

There is comparatively little land under tillage, pasturage being the chief pursuit of the people, who raise large herds of cattle, as well as sheep and goats. Wild indigo, coffee, cotton, the sugar-cane, date-palm, and vine thrive well in many districts, but are nowhere extensively cultivated. The forests abound in valuable trees. The chief exports are skins, ivory, butter, gums, mules, forwarded mainly through Massowah, the exchanges of which port rose from $200,000 in 1861 to $1,400,000 in 1881. Besides Maria Theresa pieces, bales of cloth and salt are still used as currency. Towns are numerous, but are all of small size, scarcely any with a population of over 5,000. The most important, politically and commercially, are: Gondar, capital of Amhara, 5,000; Adua, capital of Tigré, 3,000; Aksum, ancient capital of the Ethiopian empire,

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31 5,000; Antalo, former capital of Tigré, 1,000; Ankober, former capital of Shoa, 7,000; Licheh, present capital of Shoa, 3,000; Debra-Tabor, Magdala, and Makallé, occasional royal residences; Besso and Sokoto, 1,500, important trading-centers; Amba-Mariam, 4,000; Mahdera-Mariam, 4,000.

ACACIANS, a sect of the Arians (q. v., Vol. II, pp. 537, 538), named after Acacius, bishop of Casarea, who flourished from 340-365 A.D. The principal item of belief in which they differed from the Arians and Semi-Arians was that they held that Christ was like the Father, but not of the same substance. The heresy of the Acacians was condemned in two councils of the early Church-at Sardica in 346, and at the Council of Seleucia in 359.

ACADEMY, THE FRENCH, an association of French men of letters, having its origin in Paris, in 1629, in the informal meeting weekly of a few men of letters for the purpose of improving the French language and regulating literary taste. It was formally established by Cardinal Richelieu on Jan. 2, 1635. It now consists of 40 members, familiarly known as the Forty Immortals. Its officers include a director and a chancellor selected by lot, and a permanent secretary elected by vote. The Academy meets twice weekly, at the Palais Mazarin, 23 Quai Conti, Paris. The present immortals are as follows (three seats, being those made vacant by the death of Alexander Dumas, fils, Jean Baptiste Leon Say and Jules François Simon, being at present unoccupied):

THE IMMORTALS:

Ernest Wilfred Gabriel Baptiste Legouvé. Jacques Victor Albe, Duc de Broglie. Emile Ollivier.

Henri Eugène Orléans, Duc d'Aumale.

Alfred Jean François Mézières.

Marie Louis Antoine Gaston Boissier.

Victorien Sardou.

Edmund Armand, Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier.
Aimé Joseph Edmund Rousse.

René François Armand Sully-Prudhomme.
Charles Victor Cherbuliez.
Adolphe Louis Albert Perraud.
Édouard Jules Henri Pailleron.
Francis Edouard Joachim Coppée.
Joseph Louis François Bertrand.
Ludovic Halévy.

Aimé Marie Edouard Hervé.
Vallery Clément Octave Gréard.
Othénin P. de Cléron, Comte d'Haussonville.
Jules Arnaud Arsène Claretie.
Henri Meilhac.

Eugène Marie Melchior, Vicomte de Vogué.
Charles Louis de Saulces de Freycinet.
Louis Marie Julien Viaud (Pierre Loti).
Ernest Lavisse.

Paul Challemel-Lacour. (died Oct. 26, 1896).
Vicomte Henri de Bornier.
Paul Louis Thureau-Dangin.
Marie Ferdinand Brunetière.
Albert Sorel.

José Maria de Heredia.
Paul Bourget.
Henry Houssaye.