OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Auction Pitch

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​AUCTION PITCH, a card game which is a popular variation of All Fours (q.v.). The name is derived from the rule that the first card played, or pitched, is the trump suit, and that the eldest hand has the privilege of pitching it or of selling out to the highest bidder. A full pack is used, and the cards rank as in All Fours, namely from ace down to 2, ace being highest in cutting also. From four to seven may play, each player being provided with seven white counters, and also with red counters in case stakes are played for. Each player receives six cards in every deal, three at a time, no trump being turned. The object is to get rid of the white counters, one of which may be put into the pool either (1) for holding the highest trump played; (2) for having the lowest trump dealt to one; (3) for taking the Jack (knave) of trumps; or (4) for winning the game, namely the greatest number of pips that count. In case of a tie of pips no game is scored. If the eldest hand decides to pitch and not to sell out, he may do so, but is obliged to make four points or be set back that number. If he decides to sell, he says “I pass,” and the player at his left bids for the privilege of pitching the trump or passes, &c. When a bid has been made the rest must ​pass or bid higher, and the eldest hand must either accept a bid or undertake to make as many points as the bidder. If no bid is made he pitches the trump himself, without the obligation of making anything. The first card played is the trump suit, the winner of the trick leading again. In trumps a player must follow suit if he can, and the same rule applies in plain suits, excepting that a trump may be played at any time (“follow suit or trump”). In play the highest card wins the trick unless trumped. When the hand is played out each player puts a white counter into the pool for every point won, and the first player to get rid of all his seven white counters wins the pool and takes from it all the red counters, which represent cash. This ends the game. In case two players count out during the same deal, the bidder has the first right to the pool, the rule being “bidder counts out first.” If the two players who count out are neither of them bidder, then they go out in regular order, i.e. high first, then low, Jack and game. If a bidder fails to make his points he is set back that number. A revoke is punished by the offender being set back the number of points bid and forfeiting a red counter to the pool.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abednego

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​ABEDNEGO, the name given in Babylon to Azariah, one of the companions of Daniel (Dan. i. 7, &c.). It is probably a corruption, perhaps deliberate, of Abednebo, “servant of Nebo,” though G. Hoffmann thinks that the original form was Abednergo, for Abednergal, “servant of the god Nergal.” C. H. Toy compares Barnebo, “son of Nebo”; of which he regards Barnabas as a slightly disguised form (Jewish Encyclopaedia).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abeken, Heinrich

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​ABEKEN, HEINRICH (1809–1872), German theologian and Prussian official, was born at Berlin on the 8th of August 1809. He studied theology at Berlin and in 1834 became chaplain to the Prussian embassy in Rome. In 1841 he visited England, being commissioned by King Frederick William IV. to make arrangements for the establishment of the Protestant bishopric of Jerusalem. In 1848 he received an appointment in the Prussian ministry for foreign affairs, and in 1853 was promoted to be privy councillor of legation (Geheimer Legationsrath). He was much employed by Bismarck in the writing of official despatches, and stood high in the favour of King William, whom he often ​accompanied on his journeys as representative of the foreign office. He was present with the king during the campaigns of 1866 and 1870–71. In 1851 he published anonymously Babylon und Jerusalem, a slashing criticism of the views of the Countess von Hahn-Hahn (q.v.).
See Heinrich Abeken, ein schlichtes Leben in bewegter Zeit (Berlin, 1898), by his widow. This is valuable by reason of the letters written from the Prussian headquarters.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abel, Thomas

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​ABEL (better Abell), THOMAS (d. 1540), an English priest who was martyred during the reign of Henry VIII. The place and date of his birth are unknown. He was educated at Oxford and entered the service of Queen Catherine some time before 1528, when he was sent by her to the emperor Charles V. on a mission relating to the proposed divorce. On his return he was presented by Catherine to the living of Bradwell, in Essex, and remained to the last a staunch supporter of the unfortunate queen. In 1533, he published his Invicta Veritas (with the fictitious pressmark of Luneberge, to avoid suspicion), which contained an answer to the numerous tracts supporting Henry’s ecclesiastical claims. After an imprisonment of more than six years, Abel was sentenced to death for denying the royal supremacy in the church, and was executed at Smithfield on the 30th of July 1540. There is still to be seen on the wall of his prison in the Tower the symbol of a bell with an A upon it and the name Thomas above, which he carved during his confinement. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII.
See J. Gillow’s Bibl. Dictionary of Eng. Catholics, vol. i.; Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII., vols. iv.-vii. passim.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abecedarians

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​ABECEDARIANS, a nickname given to certain extreme Anabaptists (q.v.), who regarded the teaching of the Holy Spirit as all that was necessary, and so despised all human learning and even the power of reading the written word.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abel, Niels Henrik

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​ABEL, NIELS HENRIK (1802–1829), Norwegian mathematician, was born at Findöe on the 25th of August 1802. In 1815 he entered the cathedral school at Christiania, and three years later he gave proof of his mathematical genius by his brilliant solutions of the original problems proposed by B. Holmboë. About this time, his father, a poor Protestant minister, died, and the family was left in straitened circumstances; but a small pension from the state allowed Abel to enter Christiania University in 1821. His first notable work was a proof of the impossibility of solving the quintic equation by radicals. This investigation was first published in 1824 and in abstruse and difficult form, and afterwards (1826) more elaborately in the first volume of Crelle’s Journal. Further state aid enabled him to visit Germany and France in 1825, and having visited the astronomer Heinrich Schumacher (1780–1850) at Hamburg, he spent six months in Berlin, where he became intimate with August Leopold Crelle, who was then about to publish his mathematical journal. This project was warmly encouraged by Abel, who contributed much to the success of the venture. From Berlin he passed to Freiberg, and here he made his brilliant researches in the theory of functions, elliptic, hyperelliptic and a new class known as Abelians being particularly studied. In 1826 he moved to Paris, and during a ten months’ stay he met the leading mathematicians of France; but he was little appreciated, for his work was scarcely known, and his modesty restrained him from proclaiming his researches. Pecuniary embarrassments, from which he had never been free, finally compelled him to abandon his tour, and on his return to Norway he taught for some time at Christiania. In 1829 Crelle obtained a post for him at Berlin, but the offer did not reach Norway until after his death near Arendal on the 6th of April.
The early death of this talented mathematician, of whom Legendre said “quelle tête celle du jeune Norvegien!”, cut short a career of extraordinary brilliance and promise. Under Abel’s guidance, the prevailing obscurities of analysis began to be cleared, new fields were entered upon and the study of functions so advanced as to provide mathematicians with numerous ramifications along which progress could be made. His works, the greater part of which originally appeared in Crelle’s Journal, were edited by Holmboë and published in 1839 by the Swedish government, and a more complete edition by L. Sylow and S. Lie was published in 1881.
For further details of his mathematical investigations see ​the articles Groups, Theory of, and Functions of Complex Variables.
See C. A. Bjerknes, Niels Henrik Abel: Tableau de sa vie et son action scientifique (Paris, 1885); Lucas de Peslouan, Niels Henrik Abel (Paris, 1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abel, Karl Friedrich

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​ABEL, KARL FRIEDRICH (1725–1787), German musician, was born in Köthen in 1725, and died on the 20th of June 1787 in London. He was a great player on the viola da gamba, and composed much music of importance in its day for that instrument. He studied under Johann Sebastian Bach at the Leipzig Thomasschule; played for ten years (1748–1758) under A. Hasse in the band formed at Dresden by the elector of Saxony; and then, going to England, became (in 1759) chamber-musician to Queen Charlotte. He gave a concert of his own compositions in London, performing on various instruments, one of which, the pentachord, was newly invented. In 1762 Johann Christian Bach, the eleventh son of Sebastian, came to London, and the friendship between him and Abel led, in 1764 or 1765, to the establishment of the famous concerts subsequently known as the Bach and Abel concerts. For ten years these were organized by Mrs Cornelys, whose enterprises were then the height of fashion. In 1775 the concerts became independent of her, and were continued by Abel unsuccessfully for a year after Bach’s death in 1782. At them the works of Haydn were first produced in England. After the failure of his concert undertakings Abel still remained in great request as a player on various instruments new and old, but he took to drink and thereby hastened his death. He was a man of striking presence, of whom several fine portraits, including two by Gainsborough, exist.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abduction

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​ABDUCTION (Lat. abductio, abducere, to lead away), a law term denoting the forcible or fraudulent removal of a person, limited by custom to the case where a woman is the victim. In the case of men or children, it has been usual to substitute the term kidnapping (q.v.). The old English laws against abduction, generally contemplating its object as the possession of an heiress and her fortune, have been repealed by the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which makes it felony for any one from motives of lucre to take away or detain against her will, with intent to marry or carnally know her, &c., any woman of any age who has any interest in any real or personal estate, or is an heiress presumptive, or co-heiress, or presumptive next of kin to any one having such an interest; or for any one to cause such a woman to be married or carnally known by any other person; or for any one with such intent to allure, take away, or detain any such woman under the age of twenty-one, out of the possession and against the will of her parents or guardians. By s. 54, forcible taking away or detention against her will of any woman of any age with like intent is felony. The same act makes abduction without even any such intent a misdemeanour, where an unmarried girl under the age of sixteen is unlawfully taken out of the possession and against the will of her parents or guardians. In such a case the girl’s consent is immaterial, nor is it a defence that the person charged reasonably believed that the girl was sixteen or over. The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 made still more stringent provisions with reference to abduction by making the procuration or attempted procuration of any virtuous female under the age of twenty-one years a misdemeanour, as well as the abduction of any girl under eighteen years of age with the intent that she shall be carnally known, or the detaining of any female against her will on any premises, with intent to have, or that another person may have, carnal knowledge of her. In Scotland, where there is no statutory adjustment, abduction is similarly dealt with by practice.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abel

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​ABEL (Hebrew for breath), the second son of Adam, slain by Cain, his elder brother (Gen. iv. 1-16). The narrative in Genesis which tells us that “the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect,” is supplemented by the statement of the New Testament, that “by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain” (Heb. xi. 4), and that Cain slew Abel “because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous” (1 John iii. 12). See further under Cain. The name has been identified with the Assyrian ablu, “son,” but this is far from certain. It more probably means “herdsman” (cf. the name Jabal), and a distinction is drawn between the pastoral Abel and the agriculturist Cain. If Cain is the eponym of the Kenites it is quite possible that Abel was originally a South Judaean demigod or hero; on this, see Winckler, Gesch. Israels, ii. p. 189; E. Meyer, Israeliten, p. 395. A sect of Abelitae, who seem to have lived in North Africa, is mentioned by Augustine (De Haeresibus, lxxxvi.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abel, Sir Frederick Augustus, Bart.

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​ABEL, SIR FREDERICK AUGUSTUS, Bart. (1827–1902), English chemist, was born in London on the 17th of July 1827. After studying chemistry for six years under A. W. von Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry (established in London in 1845), he became professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy in 1851, and three years later was appointed chemist to the War Department and chemical referee to the government. During his tenure of this office, which lasted until 1888, he carried out a large amount of work in connexion with the chemistry of explosives. One of the most important of his investigations had to do with the manufacture of gun-cotton, and he developed a process, consisting essentially of reducing the nitrated cotton to fine pulp, which enabled it to be prepared with practically no danger and at the same time yielded the product in a form that increased its usefulness. This work to an important extent prepared the way for the “smokeless powders” which came into general use towards the end of the 19th century; cordite, the particular form adopted by the British government in 1891, was invented jointly by him and Professor James Dewar. Our knowledge of the explosion of ordinary black powder was also greatly added to by him, and in conjunction with Sir Andrew Noble he carried out one of the most complete inquiries on record into its behaviour when fired. The invention of the apparatus, legalized in 1879, for the determination of the flash-point of petroleum, was another piece of work which fell to him by virtue of his official position. His first instrument, the open-test apparatus, was prescribed by the act of 1868, but, being found to possess certain defects, it was superseded in 1879 by the Abel close-test instrument (see Petroleum). In electricity Abel studied the construction of electrical fuses and other applications of electricity to warlike purposes, and his work on problems of steel manufacture won him in 1897 the Bessemer medal of the Iron and Steel Institute, of which from 1891 to 1893 he was president. He was president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (then the Society of Telegraph Engineers) in 1877. He became a member of the Royal Society in 1860, and received a royal medal in 1887. He took an important part in the work of the Inventions Exhibition (London) in 1885, and in 1887 became organizing secretary and first director of the Imperial Institute, a position he held till his death, which occurred in London on the 6th of September 1902. He was knighted in 1891, and created a baronet in 1893.
Among his books were—Handbook of Chemistry (with C. L. Bloxam), Modern History of Gunpowder (1866), Gun-cotton (1866), On Explosive Agents (1872), Researches in Explosives (1875), and Electricity applied to Explosive Purposes (1884). He also wrote several important articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Attock

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​ATTOCK, a town and fort of British India, in the Rawalpindi district of the Punjab, 47 m. by rail from Peshawar, and situated on the eastern bank of the Indus. Pop. (1901) 2822. The place is of both political and commercial importance, as the Indus is here crossed by the military and trade route through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. Alexander the Great, Tamerlane and Nadir Shah are believed to have successively crossed the Indus at or about this spot in their respective invasions of India. The river runs past Attock in a deep rapid channel about 200 yds. broad, but is easily crossed in boats or on inflated skins of oxen. The rocky gorges through which it flows, with a distant view of the Hindu Kush, form some of the finest scenery in the world. In 1883 an iron girder bridge of five spans was opened, which carries the North-Western railway to Peshawar, and has also a subway for wheeled traffic and foot passengers. The fort of Attock was built by the emperor Akbar in 1581, on a low hillock beside the river. The walls are of polished stone, and the whole structure is handsome; but from a military point of view it is of little importance, being commanded by a hill, from which it is divided only by a ravine. On the opposite side of the river is the village of Khairabad, with a fort, also erected by Akbar according to some, or by Nadir Shah according to others. The military importance of Attock has diminished, but it still has a small detachment of British troops.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Attornment

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​ATTORNMENT (from Fr. tourner, to turn), in English real property law, the acknowledgment of a new lord by the tenant on the alienation of land. Under the feudal system, the relations of landlord and tenant were to a certain extent reciprocal. So it was considered unreasonable to the tenant to subject him to a new lord without his own approval, and it thus came about that alienation could not take place without the consent of the tenant. Attornment was also extended to all cases of lessees for life or for years. The necessity for attornment was abolished by an act of 1705. The term is now used to indicate an acknowledgment of the existence of the relationship of landlord and tenant. An attornment-clause, in mortgages, is a clause whereby the mortgagor attorns tenant to the mortgagee, thus giving the mortgagee the right to distrain, as an additional security.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Attleborough

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​ATTLEBOROUGH, a township of Bristol county, in south-east Massachusetts, U.S.A. Pop. (1890) 7577; (1900) 11,335, of whom 3237 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 16,215 It is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by inter-urban electric lines. It has an area of 28 sq. m. The population is largely concentrated in and about the village which bears the name of the township. In Attleborough are the Attleborough Home Sanitarium, and a public library (1885). The principal manufactures of the township are jewelry, silverware, cotton goods, cotton machinery, coffin trimmings, and leather. In 1905 the total value of the township’s factory products was $10,050,384, of which $5,544,285 was the value of jewelry, Attleborough ranking fourth among the cities of the country in this industry, and producing 10·4% of the total jewelry product of the United States. Attleborough was incorporated in 1694, though settled soon after 1661 (records since 1672) as part of Rehoboth. In 1887 the township was divided in population, wealth and area by the creation of the township of North Attleborough—pop. (1890) 6727; (1900) 7253, of whom 1786 were foreign-born; (1905, state census) 7878. This township produced manufactured goods in 1900 to the value of $3,990,731, jewelry valued at $2,785,567; it maintains the Richards memorial library.
See J. Daggett, A Sketch of the History of Attleborough to 1887 (Boston, 1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aubade

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​AUBADE (a French word from aube, the dawn), the dawn-song of the troubadours of Provence, developed by the Minnesingers (q.v.) of Germany into the Tagelied, the song of the parting at dawn of lovers at the warning of the watchman. In France in modern times the term is applied to the performance of a military band in the early morning in honour of some distinguished person.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Attwood, Thomas (composer)

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​ATTWOOD, THOMAS (1765–1838), English composer, the son of a coal merchant who had musical tastes, was born in London on the 23rd of November 1765. At the age of nine he became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, where he remained for five years. In 1783 he was sent to study abroad at the expense of the prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), who had been favourably impressed by his skill at the harpsichord. After spending two years at Naples, Attwood proceeded to Vienna, where he became a favourite pupil of Mozart. On his return to London in 1787 he held for a short time an appointment as one of the chamber musicians to the prince of Wales. In 1796 he was chosen organist of St Paul’s, and in the same year he was made composer to the Chapel Royal. His court connexion was further confirmed by his appointment as musical instructor to the duchess of York, and afterwards to the princess of Wales. For the coronation of George IV. he composed the anthem, “The King shall rejoice,” a work of high merit. The king, who had neglected him for some years on account of his connexion with the princess of Wales, now restored him to favour, and in 1821 appointed him organist to his private chapel at Brighton. Soon after the institution of the Royal Academy of Music in 1823, Attwood was chosen one of the professors. He was also one of the original members of the Philharmonic Society, founded in 1813. He wrote the anthem, “O Lord, grant the King a Long Life,” which was performed at the coronation of William IV., and he was composing a similar work for the coronation of Queen Victoria when he died at his house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, on the 24th of March 1838. He was buried under the organ in St Paul’s cathedral. His services and anthems ​were published in a collected form after his death by his pupil Walmisley. Of his secular compositions several songs and glees are well known and popular. The numerous operas which he composed in early life are now practically forgotten. Of his songs the most popular was “The Soldier’s Dream,” and the best of his glees were “In peace Love tunes the shepherd’s reed,” and “To all that breathe the air of Heaven.” Attwood was a friend of Mendelssohn, for whom he professed an admiration at a time when the young German’s talent was little appreciated by the majority of English musicians.