OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Neff, Felix

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​NEFF, FELIX (1798–1829), Swiss Protestant divine and philanthropist, was born at Geneva on the 8th of October 1798. Originally a sergeant of artillery, he decided in 1819 to devote himself entirely to evangelistic work. He was ordained to the ministry in 1822, and soon afterwards settled in the valley of Freissinèires, where he laboured in the manner of J. F. Oberlin, being at one and the same time pastor, schoolmaster, engineer and agriculturist. He was so successful that he changed the character of the district and its inhabitants. In 1827, worn out by his labours, he was obliged to return to his native place, where he died two years later.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Negritos

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​NEGRITOS (Span. for “little negroes”), the name originally given by the Spaniards to the aborigines of the Philippine Islands. They are physical weaklings, of low, almost dwarf, stature, with very dark skin, closely curling hair, flat noses, thick lips and large clumsy feet. The term has, however, been more generally applied to one of the great ethnic groups into which the population of the East Indies is divided, and to an apparently kindred race in Africa (see Negro). A. de Quatrefages suggests that from the parent negroid stem were thrown off two negrito branches to the west and east, the Indo-Oceanic and African, and that the Akkas, Wochuas, Batwas and Bushmen of the Dark Continent are kinsmen of the Andaman Islanders, the Sakais of the Malay Peninsula and the Aetas of the Philippines. This view has found much acceptance among ethnologists. The result of Quatrefages’s theory would be to place the negrito races closest to the primitive human type, a conclusion apparently justified by their physical characteristics. The true negritos are always of little stature (the majority under 5 ft.), have rounded forms and their skull is brachycephalic or subbrachycephalic, that is to say, it is relatively short and broad and of little height. Their skin is dark brown or black, sometimes somewhat yellowish, their hair woolly (scanty on face and body), and they have the flat nose and thick lips and other physical features of the negro. Among peoples undoubtedly negrito are those of the Andaman Islands (q.v.), the Malay Peninsula (q.v.) and some of the Philippines (q.v.), the best types being the Sakais (q.v.), Mincopies and Aetas. The question of the so-called negrito races of India, the Oraons, Gonds, &c., is in much dispute, Quatrefages believing the Indian aborigines to have been negritos, while other ethnologists find the primitive people of Hindustan in the Dravidian races. Some authorities have placed the Veddahs of Ceylon among the negritos, but their straight hair and dolichocephalic skulls are sufficient arguments against their inclusion. The negrito is often confounded with the Papuan; but the latter, though possessing the same woolly hair and being of the same colour, is a large, often muscular man, with a long, high skull.
See A. de Quatrefages, Les Pygmées (Paris, 1887; Eng. trans. 1895); E. H. Man, The Aborigines of the Andaman Islands (London, 1885); Giglioli, Nuove notizie sui populi negroidi dell’ Asia e specialmente sui Negriti (Florence, 1879); Meyer, Album von Philippinen-Typen (Dresden, 1885); Blumentritt, Ethnographie der Philippinen (Gotha, 1892); A. B. Meyer, Die Negritos (Dresden, 1899); A. H. Keane, Ethnology; A. C. Haddon in Nature for September 1899.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Negotiable instrument

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​NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENT, in law, a document or other instrument purporting to represent so much money, and the property in which passes, like money, by mere delivery. Negotiable instruments arise in either of two ways: (1) by statute, (2) by custom of merchants. The most commonly recognized negotiable instruments are bills of exchange, promissory notes, bills of lading, foreign bonds and debentures payable to bearer. Negotiable instruments constitute an exception to the general rule that a man cannot give a better title than he has himself (see Bill of Exchange).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Massacre

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​MASSACRE, a wholesale indiscriminate killing of persons, and also, in a transferred sense, of animals. The word is adopted from the French; but its origin is obscure. The meaning and the old form macecle seem to point to it being a corruption of the Lat. macellum, butcher’s shop or shambles, hence meat market; this is probably from the root mac-, seen in μάχεσθαι, to fight, μάχαιρα, sword, and Lat. mactare, to sacrifice. Another derivation connects with the Old Low Ger. matsken, to cut in pieces; cf. mod. Ger. metzeln, to massacre.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Massagetae

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​MASSAGETAE, an ancient warlike people described by Herodotus (i. 203–216; iv. 22, 172) as dwelling beyond the Araxes (i.e. the Oxus) in what is now Balkh and Bokhara. It was against their queen Tomyris that Cyrus undertook the expedition in which according to one story he met his end. In their usages some tribes were nomads like the people of Scythia (q.v.), others with their community of wives and habit of killing and eating their parents recalled the Issedones (q.v.); while the dwellers in the islands of the river were fish-eating savages. Probably the name denoted no ethnic unity, but included all the barbarous north-eastern neighbours of the Persians. Herodotus says they only used gold and copper (or bronze), not silver or iron. Their lavish use of gold has caused certain massive ornaments from southern Siberia, now in the Hermitage at St Petersburg, to be referred to the Massagetae. (E. H. M.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Massa

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​MASSA, a town of Tuscany, Italy, the joint capital with Carrara of the province of Massa and Carrara, and sharing with it the episcopal see, 20 m. S.E. of Spezia by rail, 246 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 10,559 (town); 26,118 (commune). The Palazzo Ducale (now the prefecture) was erected in 1701, and was a summer residence of Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Baciocchi, princess of Lucca, who caused the ancient cathedral opposite to be destroyed. The hills round the town yield marble, and there is a narrow-gauge railway to the Marina d’Avenza, where the marble is shipped.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Massa Marittima

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​MASSA MARITTIMA, a town and episcopal see of the province of Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy, 24 m. N.N.W. of Grosseto direct and 16 m. by rail N.E. of Follonica (which is 28 m. N.W. of Grosseto on the main coast railway), 1444 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), (town) 9219; (commune) 17,519. It has a cathedral of the 13th century containing a Romanesque font (1267 with a cover of 1447) and a Gothic reliquary (1324) of the saint Cerbone, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. The battlemented municipal palace of the 13th century is picturesque. There are mineral springs, mines of iron, mercury, lignite and copper, with foundries, ironworks and olive-oil mills. At Follonica on the coast, but in this commune, are the furnaces in which are smelted the iron ore of Elba.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Giraldi, Giovanni Battista

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​GIRALDI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1504–1573), surnamed Cynthius, Cinthio or Cintio, Italian novelist and poet, born at Ferrara in November 1504, was educated at the university of his native town, where in 1525 he became professor of natural philosophy, and, twelve years afterwards, succeeded Celio Calcagnini in the chair of belles-lettres. Between 1542 and 1560 he acted as private secretary, first to Ercole II. and afterwards to Alphonso II. of Este; but having, in connexion with a literary quarrel in which he had got involved, lost the favour of his patron in the latter year, he removed to Mondovi, where he remained as a teacher of literature till 1568. Subsequently, on the invitation of the senate of Milan, he occupied the chair of rhetoric at Pavia till 1573, when, in search of health, he returned to his native town, where on the 30th of December he died. Besides an epic entitled Ercole (1557), in twenty-six cantos, Giraldi wrote nine tragedies, the best known of which, Orbecche, was produced in 1541. The sanguinary and disgusting character of the plot of this play, and the general poverty of its style, are, in the opinion of many of its critics, almost fully redeemed by occasional bursts of genuine and impassioned poetry; of one scene in the third act in particular it has even been affirmed that, if it alone were sufficient to decide the question, the Orbecche would be the finest play in the world. Of the prose works of Giraldi the most important is the Hecatommithi or Ecatomiti, a collection of tales told somewhat after the manner of Boccaccio, but still more closely resembling the novels of Giraldi’s contemporary Bandello, only much inferior in workmanship to the productions of either author in vigour, liveliness and local colour. Something, but not much, however, may be said in favour of their professed claim to represent a higher standard of morality. Originally published at Monteregale, Sicily, in 1565, they were frequently reprinted in Italy, while a French translation by Chappuys appeared in 1583 and one in Spanish in 1590. They have a peculiar interest to students of English literature, as having furnished, whether directly or indirectly, the plots of Measure for Measure and Othello. That of the latter, which is to be found in the Hecatommithi (iii. 7), is conjectured to have reached Shakespeare through the French translation; while that of the former (Hecat. viii. 5) is probably to be traced to Whetstone’s Promos and Cassandra (1578), an adaptation of Cinthio’s story, and to his Heptamerone (1582), which contains a direct English translation. To Giraldi also must be attributed the plot of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Custom of the Country.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Giraldi, Giglio Gregorio

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​GIRALDI, GIGLIO GREGORIO [Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus] (1479–1552), Italian scholar and poet, was born on the 14th of June 1479, at Ferrara, where he early distinguished himself by his talents and acquirements. On the completion of his literary course he removed to Naples, where he lived on familiar terms with Jovianus Pontanus and Sannazaro; and subsequently to Lombardy, where he enjoyed the favour of the Mirandola family. At Milan in 1507 he studied Greek under Chalcondylas; and shortly afterwards, at Modena, he became tutor to Ercole (afterwards Cardinal) Rangone. About the year 1514 he removed to Rome, where, under Clement VII., he held the office of apostolic protonotary; but having in the sack of that city (1527), which almost coincided with the death of his patron Cardinal Rangone, lost all his property, he returned in poverty once more to Mirandola, whence again he was driven by the troubles consequent on the assassination of the reigning prince in 1533. The rest of his life was one long struggle with ill-health, poverty and neglect; and he is alluded to with sorrowful regret by Montaigne in one of his Essais (i. 34), as having, like Sebastian Castalio, ended his days in utter destitution. He died at Ferrara in February 1552; and his epitaph makes touching and graceful allusion to the sadness of his end. Giraldi was a man of very ​extensive erudition; and numerous testimonies to his profundity and accuracy have been given both by contemporary and by later scholars. His Historia de diis gentium marked a distinctly forward step in the systematic study of classical mythology; and by his treatises De annis et mensibus, and on the Calendarium Romanum et Graecum, he contributed to bring about the reform of the calendar, which was ultimately effected by Pope Gregory XIII. His Progymnasma adversus literas et literatos deserves mention at least among the curiosities of literature; and among his other works to which reference is still occasionally made are Historiae poëtarum Graecorum ac Latinorum; De poëtis suorum temporum; and De sepultura ac vario sepeliendi ritu. Giraldi was also an elegant Latin poet.
His Opera omnia were published at Leiden in 1696.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Giottino

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​GIOTTINO (1324–1357), an early Florentine painter. Vasari is the principal authority in regard to this artist; but it is not by any means easy to bring the details of his narrative into harmony with such facts as can now be verified. It would appear that there was a painter of the name of Tommaso (or Maso) di Stefano ​termed Giottino; and the Giottino of Vasari is said to have been born in 1324, and to have died early, of consumption, in 1357,—dates which must be regarded as open to considerable doubt. Stefano, the father of Tommaso, was himself a celebrated painter in the early revival of art; his naturalism was indeed so highly appreciated by contemporaries as to earn him the appellation of “Scimia della Natura” (ape of nature). He, it seems, instructed his son, who, however, applied himself with greater predilection to studying the works of the great Giotto, formed his style on these, and hence was called Giottino. It is even said that Giottino was really the son (others say the great-grandson) of Giotto. To this statement little or no importance can be attached. To Maso di Stefano, or Giottino, Vasari and Ghiberti attribute the frescoes in the chapel of S. Silvestro (or of the Bardi family) in the Florentine church of S. Croce; these represent the miracles of Pope S. Silvestro as narrated in the “Golden Legend,” one conspicuous subject being the sealing of the lips of a malignant dragon. These works are animated and firm in drawing, with naturalism carried further than by Giotto. From the evidence of style, some modern connoisseurs assign to the same hand the paintings in the funeral vault of the Strozzi family, below the Cappella degli Spagnuoli in the church of S. Maria Novella, representing the crucifixion and other subjects. Vasari ascribes also to his Giottino the frescoes of the life of St Nicholas in the lower church of Assisi. This series, however, is not really in that part of the church which Vasari designates, but is in the chapel of the Sacrament; and the works in that chapel are understood to be by Giotto di Stefano, who worked in the second half of the 14th century—very excellent productions of their period. They are much damaged, and the style is hardly similar to that of the Sylvester frescoes. It might hence be inferred that two different men produced the works which are unitedly fathered upon the half-legendary “Giottino,” the consumptive youth, solitary and melancholic, but passionately devoted to his art. A large number of other works have been attributed to the same hand; we need only mention an “Apparition of the Virgin to St Bernard,” in the Florentine Academy; a lost painting, very popular in its day, commemorating the expulsion, which took place in 1343, of the duke of Athens from Florence; and a marble statue erected on the Florentine campanile. Vasari particularly praises Giottino for well-blended chiaroscuro.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Overmantel

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​OVERMANTEL, the name given to decorative cabinet work, or joinery, applied to the upper part of a fireplace. The overmantel is derived from the carved panelling formerly applied to chimney-pieces of importance, but the word is now generally restricted to a movable fitment, often consisting of a series of shelves and niches for the reception of ornaments.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oversoul

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​OVERSOUL (Ger. Überseele), the name adopted by Emerson to describe his conception of that transcendent unity which embraces subject and object, mind and matter, and in which all the differences in virtue of which particular things exist are absorbed. The idea is analogous to the various doctrines of the absolute, and to the ἰδέα of Plato.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Overt Act

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​OVERT ACT (O. Fr. overt, from ouvrir, to open), in law, an open act, one that can be clearly proved by evidence, and from which criminal intent can be inferred, as opposed to a mere intention in the mind to commit a crime (see Intent). The term is more particularly employed in cases of treason (q.v.), which must be demonstrated by some overt or open act.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Overdoor

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​OVERDOOR, the name given to any ornamental moulding placed over a door. The overdoor is usually architectural in form, but is sometimes little more than a moulded shelf for the reception of china or curiosities.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Overstone, Samuel Jones Loyd, 1st Baron

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​OVERSTONE, SAMUEL JONES LOYD, 1st Baron (1796–1883), English banker, the only son of the Rev. Lewis Loyd, a Welsh dissenting minister, was born on the 25th of September 1796. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. His father, who had married a daughter of John Jones, a banker of Manchester, had given up the ministry to take a partnership in his father-in-law’s bank, and had afterwards founded the London branch of Jones, Loyd & Co., afterwards incorporated in the London and Westminster Bank. Loyd, who had joined his father in the banking business, succeeded to it on the latter’s retirement in 1844. He conducted the business so successfully that on his death he left personal property of over £2,000,000. He sat in parliament as liberal member for Hythe from 1819 to 1826, and unsuccessfully contested Manchester in 1832. As early as 1832 he was recognized as one of the foremost authorities on banking, and he enjoyed much influence with successive ministries and chancellors of the exchequer. He was created Baron Overstone in 1850. He died in London on the 17th of November 1883, leaving one daughter, who married Robert James Loyd-Lindsay, afterwards Lord Wantage.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mills, John

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​MILLS, JOHN (d. 1736), English actor, was a member of the company at Drury Lane from 1695 almost uninterruptedly to the time of his death, playing and creating hundreds of parts. He was at his best in tragedy. His wife was an actress, and their son William—“the younger Mills”—was also an actor of some merit.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mills, Roger Quarles

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​MILLS, ROGER QUARLES (1832–), American legislator, was born in Todd county, Kentucky, on the 30th of March 1832. He went to Texas in 1839, studied law, and was admitted to the bar by a special act of the legislature before he was twenty-one. He entered the Confederate army in 1861, took part as a private in the battle of Wilson’s Creek, and as colonel commanded the Tenth Texas Infantry at Arkansas Post, Chickamauga (where he commanded a brigade during part of the battle), Missionary Ridge and Atlanta. He served in the national House of Representatives as a Democrat from 1873 to 1892 and in the Senate from 1892 to 1899. He made the tariff his special study, and was long recognized as the leading authority in Congress. As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives in 1887–1889 during President Cleveland’s first administration, he led the fight for reform. From his committee he reported in April 1888 the “Mills Bill,” which provided for a reduction of the duties on sugar, earthenware, glassware, plate glass, woollen goods and other articles, the substitution of ad valorem for specific duties in many cases, and the placing of lumber (of certain kinds), hemp, wool, flax, borax, tin plates, salt and other articles on the free list. This bill was passed by the Democratic House on the 21st of July, and was then so amended by a Republican Senate as to be unacceptable to the house. The tariff thus became the chief issue in the presidential campaign of 1888. In 1891 Mills was a candidate in the Democratic caucus for Speaker of the house, but was defeated by Charles F. Crisp (1845–1896) of Georgia. During the free silver controversy he adhered to the Cleveland section of the Democratic party, and failed to be re-elected when his term in the Senate expired in 1899. He then retired to Corsicana, Texas, where he engaged in business and the practice of law.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Milligan, William

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​MILLIGAN, WILLIAM (1821–1892), Scottish theologian, was born on the 15th of March 1821, the eldest son of the Rev. George Milligan and his wife Janet Fraser. He was educated at the High School, Edinburgh, and, from the age of fourteen, at the university of St Andrews, where he graduated in 1839. In 1843 at the disruption he took the side of those who remained in the Establishment, and in 1844 became minister of Cameron in Fifeshire. In 1845, his health having given way, he went to Germany, and studied at the university of Halle. After his return to Scotland and his resumption of his clerical duties he began to write articles on Biblical and critical subjects for various reviews. This led to his appointment in 1860 to the professorship of Biblical criticism in the university of Aberdeen. In 1870 he was appointed one of the committee for the revision of the translation of the New Testament. His fervent piety, and his wide interest in educational and social questions, extended his influence far beyond the circle of theologians. His contributions to periodical literature for many years were numerous and valuable; but his reputation chiefly rests on his works on the Resurrection (1890) and Ascension of our Lord (1892), his Baird lectures (1886) on the Revelation of St John, and his Discussions (1893) on that book. All these volumes are distinguished by great learning and acuteness, as well as by breadth and originality of view. He died on the 11th of December 1892.