OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hudson, George

See also George Hudson on Wikipedia; George Hudson in the 9th Edition; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​HUDSON, GEORGE (1800–1871), English railway financier, known as the “railway king,” was born in York in March 1800. Apprenticed to a firm of linendrapers in that city, he soon became a successful merchant, and in 1837 was elected lord mayor of York. Having inherited, in 1827, a sum of £30,000, he invested it in North Midland Railway shares, and was shortly afterwards appointed a director. In 1833 he had founded and for some time acted as manager of the York Banking Company. He had for long been impressed with the necessity of getting the railway to York, and he took an active part in securing the passing of the York and North Midland Bill, and was elected chairman of the new company—the line being opened in 1839. From this time he turned his undivided attention to the projection of railways. In 1841 he initiated the Newcastle and Darlington line. With George Stephenson he planned and carried out the extension of the Midland to Newcastle, and by 1844 had over a thousand miles of railway under his control. In this year the mania for railway speculation was at its height, and no man was more courted than the “railway king.” All classes delighted to honour him, and, as if a colossal fortune were an insufficient reward for his public services, the richest men in England presented him with a tribute of £20,000. Deputy-lieutenant for Durham, and thrice lord mayor of York, he was returned in the Conservative interest for Sunderland in 1845, the event being judged of such public interest that the news was conveyed to London by a special train, which travelled part of the way at the rate of 75 m. an hour. Full of rewards and honours, he was suddenly ruined by the disclosure of the Eastern Railway frauds. Sunderland clung to her generous representative till 1859, but on the bursting of the bubble he had lost influence and fortune at a single stroke. His later life was chiefly spent on the continent, where he benefited little by a display of unabated energy and enterprise. Some friends gave him a small annuity a short time before his death, which took place in London, on the 14th of December 1871. His name has long been used to point the moral of vaulting ambition and unstable fortune. The “big swollen gambler,” as Carlyle calls him in one of the Latter-Day Pamphlets, was savagely and excessively reprobated by the world which had blindly believed in his golden prophecies. He certainly ruined scrip-holders, and disturbed the great centres of industry; but he had an honest faith in his own schemes, and, while he beggared himself in their promotion, he succeeded in overcoming the powerful landed interest which delayed the adoption of railways in England long after the date of their regular introduction into America.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Itinerarium

See also Itinerarium on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ITINERARIUM (i.e. road-book, from Lat. iter, road), a term applied to the extant descriptions of the ancient Roman roads and routes of traffic, with the stations and distances. It is usual to distinguish two classes of these, Itineraria adnotata or scripta and Itineraria picta—the former having the character of a book, and the latter being a kind of travelling map. Of the Itineraria Scripta the most important are: (1) It. Antonini (see Antonini Itinerarium), which consists of two parts, the ​one dealing with roads in Europe, Asia and Africa, and the other with familiar sea-routes—the distances usually being measured from Rome; (2) It. Hierosolymitanum or Burdigalense, which belongs to the 4th century, and contains the route of a pilgrimage from Bordeaux to Jerusalem and from Heraclea by Rome to Milan (ed. G. Parthey and M. Pinder, 1848, with the Itinerarium Antonini); (3) It. Alexandria containing a sketch of the march-route of Alexander the Great, mainly derived from Arrian and prepared for Constantius’s expedition in A.D. 340–345 against the Persians (ed. D. Volkmann, 1871). A collected edition of the ancient itineraria, with ten maps, was issued by Fortia d’Urban, Recueil des itinéraires anciens (1845). Of the Itineraria Picta only one great example has been preserved. This is the famous Tabula Peutingeriana, which, without attending to the shape or relative position of the countries, represents by straight lines and dots of various sizes the roads and towns of the whole Roman world (facsimile published by K. Miller, 1888; see also Map).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Itius Portus

See also Itius Portus on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ITIUS PORTUS, the name given by Caesar to the chief harbour which he used when embarking for his second expedition to Britain in 54 B.C. (De bello Gallico, v. 2). It was certainly near the uplands round Cape Grisnez (Promuntorium Itium), but the exact site has been violently disputed ever since the renaissance of learning. Many critics have assumed that Caesar used the same port for his first expedition, but the name does not appear at all in that connexion (B. G. iv. 21-23). This fact, coupled with other considerations, makes it probable that the two expeditions started from different places. It is generally agreed that the first embarked at Boulogne. The same view was widely held about the second, but T. Rice Holmes in an article in the Classical Review (May 1909) gave strong reasons for preferring Wissant, 4 m. east of Grisnez. The chief reason is that Caesar, having found he could not set sail from the small harbour of Boulogne with even 80 ships simultaneously, decided that he must take another point for the sailing of the “more than 800” ships of the second expedition. Holmes argues that, allowing for change in the foreshore since Caesar’s time, 800 specially built ships could have been hauled above the highest spring-tide level, and afterwards launched simultaneously at Wissant, which would therefore have been “commodissimus” (v. 2) or opposed to “brevissimus traiectus” (iv. 21).
See T. R. Holmes in Classical Review (May 1909), in which he partially revises the conclusions at which he arrived in his Ancient Britain (1907), pp. 552-594; that the first expedition started from Boulogne is accepted, e.g. by H. Stuart Jones, in English Historical Review (1909), xxiv. 115; other authorities in Holmes’s article.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ithaca (New York)

See also Ithaca, New York on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ITHACA, a city and the county-seat of Tompkins county, New York, U.S.A., at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, 60 m. S.W. of Syracuse. Pop. (1890) 11,079, (1900) 13,136, of whom 1310 were foreign-born, (1910 census) 14,802. It is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and the Lehigh Valley railways and by inter-urban electric line; and steamboats ply on the lake. Most of the city is in the level valley, from which it spreads up the heights on the south, east and west. The finest residential district is East Hill, particularly Cornell and Cayuga Heights (across Fall Creek from the Cornell campus). Renwick Beach, at the head of the lake, is a pleasure resort. The neighbouring region is one of much beauty, and is frequented by summer tourists. Near the city are many waterfalls, the most notable being Taughannock Falls (9 m. N.), with a fall of 215 ft. Through the city from the east run Fall, Cascadilla and Six Mile Creeks, the first two of which have cut deep gorges and have a number of cascades and waterfalls, the largest, Ithaca Fall in Fall Creek, being 120 ft. high. Six Mile Creek crosses the south side of the city and empties into Cayuga Inlet, which crosses the western and lower districts, often inundated in the spring. The Inlet receives the waters of a number of small streams descending from the south-western hills. Among the attractions in this direction are Buttermilk Falls and ravine, on the outskirts of the city, Lick Brook Falls and glen and Enfield Falls and glen, the last 7 m. distant. Fall Creek furnishes good water-power. The city has various manufactures, including fire-arms, calendar clocks, traction engines, electrical appliances, patent chains, incubators, autophones, artesian well drills, salt, cement, window glass and wall-paper. The value of the factory product increased from $1,500,604 in 1900 to $2,080,002 in 1905, or 38.6%. Ithaca is also a farming centre and coal market, and much fruit is grown in the vicinity. The city is best known as the seat of Cornell University (q.v.). It has also the Ezra Cornell Free Library of about 28,000 volumes, the Ithaca Conservatory of Music, the Cascadilla School and the Ithaca High School. Ithaca was settled about 1789, the name being given to it by Simeon De Witt in 1806. It was incorporated as a village in 1821, and was chartered as a city in 1888. At Buttermilk Falls stood the principal village of the Tutelo Indians, Coreorgonel, settled in 1753 and destroyed in 1779 by a detachment of Sullivan’s force.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Item

See also Item on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ITEM (a Latin adverb meaning “also,” “likewise”), originally used adverbially in English at the beginning of each separate head in a list of articles, or each detail in an account book or ledger or in a legal document. The word is thus applied, as a noun, to the various heads in any such enumeration and also to a piece of information or news.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Italic

See also Italic on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ITALIC, i.e. Italian, in Roman archaeology, history and law, a term used, as distinct from Roman, of that which belongs to the races, languages, &c., of the non-Roman parts of Italy (see Italy, Ancient Languages and Peoples). In architecture the Italic order is another name for the Composite order (see Order). The term was applied to the Pythagorean school of philosophy in Magna Graecia, and to an early Latin version of the Bible, known also as Itala, which was superseded by the Vulgate, but its special technical use is of a particular form of type, in which the letters slope to the right. This is used, in present-day printing, chiefly to emphasize words or phrases, to indicate words or sentences in a foreign language, or to mark the titles of books, &c. It was introduced by the Aldine Press (see Manutius and Typography).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jephson, Robert

See also Robert Jephson on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​JEPHSON, ROBERT (1736–1803), British dramatist, was born in Ireland. After serving for some years in the British army, he retired with the rank of captain, and lived in England, where he was the friend of Garrick, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, Burney and Charles Townshend. His appointment as master of the horse to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland ​took him back to Dublin. He published, in the Mercury newspaper a series of articles in defence of the lord-lieutenant’s administration which were afterwards collected and issued in book form under the title of The Bachelor, or Speculations of Jeoffry Wagstaffe. A pension of £300, afterwards doubled, was granted him, and he held his appointment under twelve succeeding viceroys. From 1775 he was engaged in the writing of plays. Among others, his tragedy Braganza was successfully performed at Drury Lane in 1775, Conspiracy in 1796, The Law of Lombardy in 1779, and The Count of Narbonne at Covent Garden in 1781. In 1794 he published an heroic poem Roman Portraits, and The Confessions of Jacques Baptiste Couteau, a satire on the excesses of the French Revolution. He died at Blackrock, near Dublin, on the 31st of May 1803.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jerkin

See also Jerkin on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​JERKIN, a short close-fitting jacket, made usually of leather, and without sleeves, the typical male upper garment of the 16th and 17th centuries. The origin of the word is unknown. The Dutch word jurk, a child’s frock, often taken as the source, is modern, and represents neither the sound nor the sense of the English word. In architecture the term “jerkin-roofed” is applied, probably with some obscure connexion with the garment, to a particular form of gable end, the gable being cut off half way up the roof and sloping back like a “hipped roof” to the edge.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jephthah

See also Jephthah on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​JEPHTHAH, one of the judges of Israel, in the Bible, was an illegitimate son of Gilead, and, being expelled from his father’s house by his lawful brethren, took refuge in the Syrian land of Tob, where he gathered around him a powerful band of homeless men like himself. The Ammonites pressing hard on his countrymen, the elders of Gilead called for his help, which he consented to give on condition that in the event of victory he should be made their head (Judg. xi. 1-xii. 7). His name is best known in history and literature in connexion with his vow, which led to the sacrifice of his daughter on his successful return. The reluctance shown by many writers in accepting the plain sense of the narrative on this point proceeds to a large extent on unwarranted assumptions as to the stage of ethical development which had been reached in Israel in the period of the judges, or at the time when the narrative took shape. The annual lamentation of the women for her death suggests a mythical origin (see Adonis). Attached to the narrative is an account of a quarrel between Jephthah and the Ephraimites. The latter were defeated, and their retreat was cut off by the Gileadites, who had seized the fords of the Jordan. As the fugitives attempted to cross they were bidden to say “shibbōleth” (“flood” or “ear of corn”), and those who said “sibbōleth” (the Ephraimites apparently being unused to sh), were at once put to death. In this way 42,000 of the tribe were killed.
The loose connexion between this and the main narrative, as also the lengthy speech to the children of Ammon (xi. 14-27), which really relates to Moab, has led some writers to infer that two distinct heroes and situations have been combined. See further the commentaries on the Book of Judges (q.v.), and Cheyne, Ency. Bib., art. “Jephthah.” (S. A. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jerahmeel

See also Jerahmeel on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​JERAHMEEL, (Heb. “May God pity”), in the Bible, a clan which with Caleb, the Kenites and others, occupied the southern steppes of Palestine, probably in the district around Arad, about 17 m. S. of Hebron. It was on friendly terms with David during his residence at Ziklag (1 Sam. xxx. 29), and it was apparently in his reign that the various elements of the south were united and were reckoned to Israel. This is expressed in the chronicler’s genealogies which make Jerahmeel and Caleb descendants of Judah (see David; Judah).
On the names in 1 Chron. ii. see S. A. Cook, Ency. Bib., col. 2363 seq. Peleth (v. 33) may be the origin of the Pelethites (2 Sam. viii. 18; xv. 18; xx. 7), and since the name occurs in the revolt of Korah (Num. xvi. 1), it is possible that Jerahmeel, like Caleb and the Kenites, had moved northwards from Kadesh. Samuel (q.v.) was of Jerahmeel (1 Sam. i. 1; Septuagint), and the consecutive Jerahmeelite names Nathan and Zabad (1 Chron. ii. 36) have been associated with the prophet and officer (Zabud, 1 Kings iv. 5) of the times of David and Solomon respectively. The association of Samuel and Nathan with this clan, if correct, is a further illustration of the importance of the south for the growth of biblical history (see Kenites and Rechabites). The Chronicles of Jerahmeel (M. Gaster, Oriental Translation Fund, 1899) is a late production containing a number of apocryphal Jewish legends of no historical value. (S. A. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jerdan, William

See also William Jerdan on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​JERDAN, WILLIAM (1782–1869), Scottish journalist, was born on the 16th of April 1782, at Kelso, Scotland. During the years between 1799 and 1806 he spent short periods in a country lawyer’s office, a London West India merchant’s counting-house, an Edinburgh solicitor’s chambers, and held the position of surgeon’s mate on board H.M. guardship “Gladiator” in Portsmouth Harbour, under his uncle, who was surgeon. He went to London in 1806, and became a newspaper reporter. He was in the lobby of the House of Commons on the 11th of May 1812 when Spencer Perceval was shot, and was the first to seize the assassin. By 1812 he had become editor of The Sun, a semi-official Tory paper; he occasionally inserted literary articles, then quite an unusual proceeding; but a quarrel with the chief proprietor brought that engagement to a close in 1817. He passed next to the editor’s chair of the Literary Gazette, which he conducted with success for thirty-four years. Jerdan’s position as editor brought him into contact with many distinguished writers. An account of his friends, among whom Canning was a special intimate, is to be found in his Men I have Known (1866). When Jerdan retired in 1850 from the editorship of the Literary Gazette his pecuniary affairs were far from satisfactory. A testimonial of over £900 was subscribed by his friends; and in 1853 a government pension of 100 guineas was conferred on him by Lord Aberdeen. He published his Autobiography in 1852–1853, and died on the 11th of July 1869.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jerba

See also Djerba on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​JERBA, an island off the coast of North Africa in the Gulf of Gabes, forming part of the regency of Tunisia. It is separated from the mainland by two narrow straits, and save for these channels blocks the entrance to a large bight identified with the Lake Triton of the Romans. The western strait, opening into the Gulf of Gabes, is a mile and a half broad; the eastern strait is wider, but at low water it is possible to cross to the mainland by the Tarik-el-Jemil (road of the camel). The island is irregular in outline, its greatest length and breadth being some 20 m., and its area 425 sq. m. It contains neither rivers nor springs, but is supplied with water by wells and cisterns. It is flat and well wooded with date palms and olive trees. Pop. 35,000 to 40,000, the bulk of the inhabitants being Berbers. Though many of them have adopted Arabic a Berber idiom is commonly spoken. An affinity exists between the Berbers of Jerba and the Beni Mzab. About 3000 Jews live apart in villages of their own, and some 400 Europeans, chiefly Maltese and Greeks, are settled in the island. Jerba has a considerable reputation for the manufacture of the woollen tissues interwoven with silk which are known as burnous stuffs; a market for the sale of sponges is held from November till March; and there is a considerable export trade in olives, dates, figs and other fruits. The capital, trading centre and usual landing-place are at Haumt-es-Suk (market quarter) on the north side of the island (pop. 2500). Here are a medieval fort, built by the Spaniards in 1284, and a modern fort, garrisoned by the French. Gallala, to the south, is noted for the manufacture of a kind of white pottery, much prized. At El Kantara (the bridge) on the eastern strait, and formerly connected with the mainland by a causeway, are extensive ruins of a Roman city—probably those of Meninx, once a flourishing seaport.
Jerba is the Lotophagitis or Lotus-eaters’ Island of the Greek and Roman geographers, and is also identified with the Brachion of Scylax. The modern name appears as early as the 4th century in Sextus Aurelius Victor. In the middle ages the possession of Jerba was contested by the Normans of Sicily, the Spaniards and the Turks, the Turks proving victorious. In 1560 after the destruction of the Spanish fleet off the coast of the island by Piali Pasha and the corsair Dragut the Spanish garrison at Haumt-es-Suk was exterminated, and a pyramid, 10 ft. broad at the base and 20 ft. high, was built of their skulls and other bones. In 1848 this pyramid was pulled down at the instance of the Christian community, and the bones were buried in the Catholic cemetery. In general, from the Arab invasion in the 7th century Jerba shared the fortunes of Tunisia.
See H. Barth, Wanderungen durch die Küstenl. des Mittelmeeres (Berlin, 1849); and H. von Maltzan, Reise in Tunis und Tripolis (Leipzig, 1870).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jeremy, Epistle of

See also Epistle of Jeremy on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​JEREMY, EPISTLE OF, an apocryphal book of the Old Testament. This letter purports to have been written by Jeremiah to the exiles who were already in Babylon or on the way thither. The author was a Hellenistic Jew, and not improbably a Jew of Alexandria. His work, which shows little literary skill, was written with a serious practical purpose. He veiled his fierce attack on the idol gods of Egypt by holding up to derision the idolatry of Babylon. The fact that Jeremiah (xxix. 1 sqq.) was known to have written a letter of this nature naturally suggested to a Hellenist, possibly of the 1st century B.C. or earlier, the idea of a second epistolary undertaking, and other passages of Jeremiah’s prophecy (x. 1–12; xxix. 4–23) may have determined also its general character and contents.
The writer warned the exiles that they were to remain in captivity for seven generations; that they would there see the worship paid to idols, from all participation in which they were to hold aloof; for that idols were nothing save the work of men’s hands, without the powers of speech, hearing or self-preservation. They could not bless their worshippers even in the smallest concerns of life; they were indifferent to moral qualities, and were of less value than the commonest household objects, and finally, “with rare irony, the author compared an idol to a scarecrow (v. 70), impotent to protect, but deluding to the imagination” (Marshall).
The date of the epistle is uncertain. It is believed by some scholars to be referred to in 2 Macc. ii. 2, which says that Jeremiah charged the exiles “not to forget the statutes of the Lord, neither to be led astray in their minds when they saw images of gold and silver and the adornment thereof.” But the reference is disputed by Fritzsche, Gifford, Shürer and others. The epistle was included in the Greek canon. There was no question of its canonicity till the time of Jerome, who termed it a pseudepigraph.
See Fritzsche, Handb. zu den Apok., 1851; Gifford, in Speaker’s Apoc. ii. 286–303; Marshall, in Hastings’ Dict. Bible, ii. 578–579. (R. H. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Municipality

See also Municipality on Wikipedia; Municipality in the 9th edition; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​MUNICIPALITY, a modern term (derived from Lat. municipium; see below), now used both for a city or town which is organized for self-government under a municipal corporation, and also for the governing body itself. Such a corporation in Great Britain consists of a head as a mayor or provost, and of superior members, as aldermen and councillors, together with the simple corporators, who are represented by the governing body; it acts as a person by its common seal, and has a perpetual succession, with power to hold lands subject to the restrictions of the Mortmain laws; and it can sue or be sued. Where necessary for its primary objects, every corporation has power to make by-laws and to enforce them by penalties, provided they are not unjust or unreasonable or otherwise inconsistent with the objects of the charter or other instrument of foundation.
See Borough, Commune, Corporation, Local Government, Finance, &c., and for details of the functions of the municipal government see the sections under the general headings of the different countries and the sections on the history of these countries.