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

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​CONSUMPTION (Lat. consumere), literally, the act of consuming or destroying. Thus the word is popularly applied to phthisis, a “wasting away” of the lungs due to tuberculosis (q.v.). In economics the word has a special significance as a technical term. It has been defined as the destruction of utilities, and thus opposed to “production,” which is the creation of utilities, a utility in this connexion being anything which satisfies a desire or serves a purpose. Consumption may be either productive or unproductive; productive where it is a means directly or indirectly to the satisfaction of any economic want, unproductive when it is devoted to pleasures or luxuries. Its place in the science of economics, and its close relation with production, are treated of in every text-book, but special reference may be made to W. Roscher, Nationalökonomie, 1883, and G. Schönberg, Handbuch d. polit. Ökonomie, 1890–1891.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Contango

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​CONTANGO, a Stock Exchange term for the rate of interest paid by a “bull” who has bought stock for the rise and does not intend to pay for it when the Settlement arrives. He arranges to carry over or continue his bargain, and does so by entering into a fresh bargain with his seller, or some other party,
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Consuetudinary

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​CONSUETUDINARY (Med. Lat. consuetudinarius, from consuetudo, custom), customary, a term used especially of law based on custom as opposed to statutory or written law. As a noun “consuetudinary” (Lat. consuetudinarius, sc. liber) is the name given to a ritual book containing the forms and ceremonies used in the services of a particular monastery, cathedral or religious order.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Contarini

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​CONTARINI, the name of a distinguished Venetian family, who gave to the republic eight doges and many other eminent citizens. The story of their descent from the Roman family of Cotta, appointed prefects of the Reno valley (whence Cotta Reni or Conti del Reno), is probably a legend. One Mario Contarini was among the twelve electors of the doge Paulo Lucio Anafesto in 697. Domenico Contarini, elected doge in 1043, subjugated rebellious Dalmatia and recaptured Grado from the patriarch of Aquileia. He died in 1070. Jacopo was doge from 1275 to 1280. Andrea was elected doge in 1367, and during his reign the war of Chioggia took place (1380); he was the first to melt down his plate and mortgage his property for the benefit of the state. Other Contarini doges were: Francesco (1623–1624), Niccolò (1630–1631), who built the church of the Salute, Carlo (1655–1656), during whose reign the Venetians gained the naval victory of the Dardanelles, Domenico (1659–1675) and Alvise (1676–1684). There were at one time no less than eighteen branches of the family; one of the most important was that of Contarini dallo Zaffo or di Giaffa, who had been invested with the countship of Jaffa in Syria for their services to Caterina Cornaro, queen of Cyprus; another was that of Contarini degli Scrigni (of the coffers), so called on account of their great wealth. Many members of the family distinguished themselves in the service of the republic, in the wars against the Turks, and no less than seven Contarini fought at Lepanto. One Andrea Contarini was beheaded in 1430 for having wounded the doge Francesco Foscari (q.v.) on the nose. Other members of the house were famous as merchants, prelates and men of letters; among these we may mention Cardinal Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542), and Marco Contarini (1631–1689), who was celebrated as a patron of music and collected at his villa of Piazzola a large number of valuable musical MSS., now in the Marciana library at Venice. The family owned many palaces in various parts of Venice, and several streets still bear its name.
See J. Fontana, “Sulla patrizia famiglia Contarini,” in Il Gondoliere (1843). (L. V.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Contat, Louise Françoise

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​CONTAT, LOUISE FRANÇOISE (1760–1813), French actress, made her début at the Comédie Française in 1766 as Atalide in Bajazet. It was in comedy, however, that she made her first success, as Suzanne in Beaumarchais’s Mariage de Figaro; and in several minor character parts, which she raised to the first importance, and as the soubrette in the plays of Molière and Marivaux, she found opportunities exactly fitted to her talents. She retired in 1809 and married de Parny, nephew of the poet. Her sister Marie Émilie Contat (1769–1846), an admirable soubrette, especially as the pert servant drawn by Molière and de Regnard, made her début in 1784, and retired in 1815.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asiento

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​ASIENTO, or Assiento (from the verb asentar, to place, or establish), a Spanish word meaning a farm of the taxes, or contract. The farmer or contractor is called an asentista. The word acquired a considerable notoriety in English and American history, on account of the “Asiento Treaty” of 1713. Until 1702 the Spanish government had given the contract for the supply of negroes to its colonies in America to the Genoese. But after the establishment of the Bourbon dynasty in 1700, a French company was formed which received the exclusive privilege of the Spanish-American slave trade for ten years—from September 1702 to 1712. When the peace of Utrecht was signed the British government insisted that the monopoly should be given to its own subjects. By the terms of the Asiento treaty signed on the 16th of March 1713, it was provided that British subjects should be authorized to introduce 144,000 slaves in the course of thirty years, at the rate of 4800 per annum. The privilege was to expire on the 1st of May 1743. British subjects were also authorized to send one ship of 500 tons per annum, laden with manufactured goods, to the fairs of Porto Bello and La Vera Cruz. Import duties were to be paid for the slaves and goods. This privilege was conveyed by the British government to the South Sea Company, formed to work it. The privilege, to which an exaggerated value was attached, formed the solid basis of the notorious fit of speculative fever called the South Sea Bubble. Until 1739 the trade in blacks went on without interruption, but amid increasingly angry disputes between the Spanish and the British governments. The right to send a single trading ship to the fairs of Porto Bello or La Vera Cruz was abused. Under pretence of renewing her provisions she was followed by tenders which in fact carried goods. Thus there arose what was in fact a vast contraband trade. The Spanish government established a service of revenue boats (guarda costas) which insisted on searching all English vessels approaching the shores of the Spanish colonies. There can be no doubt that the smugglers were guilty of many piratical excesses, and that the guarda costas often acted with violence on mere suspicion. After many disputes, in which the claims of the British government were met by Spanish counter claims, war ensued in 1739. When peace was made at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 Spain undertook to allow the asiento to be renewed for the four years which were to run when war broke out in 1739. But the renewal for so short a period was not considered advantageous, and by the treaty of El Retiro of 1750, the British government agreed to the recession of the Asiento treaty altogether on the payment by Spain of £100,000.
A very convenient account of the Asiento Treaty, and of the trade which arose under it, will be found in Malachy Postlethwayt’s Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (London, 1751), s.v.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asisium

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​ASISIUM (mod. Assisi), an ancient town of Umbria, in a lofty situation about 15 m. E.S.E. of Perusia. As an independent community it had already begun to use Latin as well as Umbrian in its inscriptions (for one of these recording the chief magistrates—marones—see C.I.L. xi. 5390). It became a municipium in 90 B.C., but, though numerous inscriptions (C.I.L. xi. 5371-5606) testify to its importance in the Imperial period, it is hardly mentioned by our classical authorities. Scanty traces of the ancient city walls may be seen; within the town the best-preserved building is the so-called temple of Minerva, with six Corinthian columns of travertine, now converted into a church, erected by Gaius and Titus Caesius in the Augustan era. It fronted on to the ancient forum, part of the pavement of which, with a base for the equestrian statues of Castor and Pollux (as the inscription upon it records) has been laid bare beneath the present Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. The remains of the amphitheatre, in opus reticulatum, may be seen in the north-east corner of the town; and other ancient buildings have been discovered. Asisium was probably the birthplace of Propertius. (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Askabad

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​ASKABAD, or Askhabad, a town of Russian central Asia, capital of the Transcaspian province, 345 m. by rail S.E. of Krasnovodsk and 594 from Samarkand, situated in a small oasis at the N. foot of the Kopet-dagh range. It has a public library and a technical railway school; also cotton-cleaning works, tanneries, brick-works, and a mineral-water factory. The trade is valued at £250,000 a year. The population, 2500 in 1881, when the Russians seized it, was 19,428 in 1897, one-third Persians, many of them belonging to the Babi sect.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Askaules

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​ASKAULES (Gr. ἀσκαύλης [?] from ἀσκός, bag, αὐλός, pipe), probably the Greek word for bag-piper, although there is no documentary authority for its use. Neither it nor ἄσκαυλος (which would naturally mean the bag-pipe) has been found in Greek classical authors, though J. J. Reiske—in a note on Dio Chrysostom, Orat. lxxi. ad fin., where an unmistakable description of the bag-pipe occurs (“and they say that he is skilled to write, to work as an artist, and to play the pipe with his mouth, on the bag placed under his arm-pits”)—says that ἀσκαύλης was the Greek word for bag-piper. The only actual corroboration of this is the use of ascaules for the pure Latin utricularius in Martial x. 3. 8. Dio Chrysostom flourished about A.D. 100; it is therefore only an assumption that the bag-pipe was known to the classical Greeks by the name of ἄσκαυλος. It need not, however, be a matter of surprise that among the highly cultured Greeks such an instrument as the bag-pipe should exist without finding a place in literature. It is significant that it is not mentioned by Pollux (Onomast. iv. 74) and Athenaeus (Deipnos. iv. 76) in their lists of the various kinds of pipes.
See articles Aulos and Bag-pipe; art. “Askaules” in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asmara

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​ASMARA, the capital of the Italian colony of Eritrea, N.E. Africa. It is built on the Hamasen plateau, near its eastern edge, at an elevation of 7800 ft., and is some 40 m. W.S.W. in a direct line of the seaport of Massawa. Pop. (1904) about 9000, including the garrison of 300 Italian soldiers, and some 1000 native troops. The European civil population numbers over 500; the rest of the inhabitants are chiefly Abyssinians. There is a small Mahommedan colony. The town is strongly fortified. The European quarter contains several fine public buildings, including the residence of the governor, club house, barracks and hospital. Fort Baldissera is built on a hill to the south-west of the town and is considered impregnable.
Asmara, an Amharic word signifying “good pasture place,” is a town of considerable antiquity. It was included in the maritime province of northern Abyssinia, which was governed by a viceroy who bore the title of Bahar-nagash (ruler of the sea). By the Abyssinians the Hamasen plateau was known as the plain of the thousand villages. Asmara appears to have been one of the most prosperous of these villages, and to have attained commercial importance through being on the high road from Axum to Massawa. When Werner Munzinger (q.v.) became French at Massawa, he entered into a scheme for annexing the Hamasen (of which Asmara was then the capital) to France, but the outbreak of the war with Germany in 1870 brought the project to nought (cf. A. B. Wylde, Modern Abyssinia, 1901). In 1872 Munzinger now in Egyptian service, annexed Asmara to the khedivial dominions, but in 1884, owing to the rise of the mahdi, Egypt evacuated her Abyssinian provinces and Asmara was chosen by Ras Alula, the representative of the negus Johannes (King John), as his headquarters. Shortly afterwards the Italians occupied Massawa, and in 1889 Asmara (see Abyssinia: History). In 1900 the seat of government was transferred from Massawa to Asmara, which in its modern form is the creation of the Italians. It is surrounded by rich agricultural lands, cultivated in part by Italian immigrants, and is a busy trading centre. A railway from Massawa to Asmara was completed as far as Ghinda, at the foot of the plateau, in 1904. At Medrizien, 6 m. north of Asmara, are gold-mines which have been partially worked.
See G. Dainelli, In Africa. Lettere dall’ Eritrea (Bergamo, 1908); R. Perini, Di qua dal Mareb (Florence, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Asmodeus

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​ASMODEUS, or Ashmedai, an evil demon who appears in later Jewish tradition as “king of demons.” He is sometimes identified with Beelzebub or Apollyon (Rev. ix. 11). In the Talmud he plays a great part in the legends concerning Solomon. In the apocryphal book of Tobit (iii. 8) occurs the well-known story of his love for Sara, the beautiful daughter of Raguel, whose seven husbands were slain in succession by him on their respective bridal nights. At last Tobias, by burning the heart and liver of a fish, drove off the demon, who fled to Egypt. From the part played by Asmodeus in this story, he has been often familiarly called the genius of matrimonial unhappiness or jealousy, and as such may be compared with Lilith. Le Sage makes him the principal character in his novel Le Diable boiteux. Both the word and the conception seem to have been derived originally from the Persian. The name has been taken to mean “covetous.” It is in any case no doubt identical with the demon Aēshma of the Zend-Avesta and the Pahlavi texts. But the meaning is not certain. It is generally agreed that the second part of the name Asmodeus is the same as the Zend daēwa, dēw, “demon.” The first part may be equivalent to Aēshma, the impersonation of anger. But W. Baudissin (Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie) prefers to derive it from ish, to drive, set in motion; whence ish-mīn, driving, impetuous.
The legend of Asmodeus is given fully in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, s.v. See also the articles in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Biggar

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​BIGGAR, a police burgh of Lanarkshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 1366. It is situated about 10 m. S.E. of Carstairs Junction (Caledonian railway), where the lines from Edinburgh and Glasgow connect. Lying on Biggar Water and near the Clyde, in a bracing, picturesque, upland country, Biggar enjoys great vogue as a health and holiday resort. It was the birthplace of Dr John Brown, author of Rab and his Friends, whose father was secession minister in the town. It was created a burgh of barony in 1451 and a police burgh in 1863. St Mary’s church was founded in 1545 by Lord Fleming, the head of the ruling family in the district, whose seat, Boghall Castle, however, is now a ruin. John Gledstanes, great-grandfather of W. E. Gladstone, was a burgess of Biggar, and lies in the churchyard. Easter Gledstanes, the seat of the family from the 13th to the 17th century, and the estate of Arthurshiels, occupied by them for nearly a hundred years more, are situated about 31/2 m. to the north-west of the burgh. On the top of Quothquan Law (1097 ft.), about 3 m. west is a rock called Wallace’s Chair, from the tradition that he held a council there prior to the battle of Biggar in 1297. Lamington, nearly 6 m. south-west, is well situated on the Clyde. It is principally associated with the family of the Baillies, of whom the most notable were Cuthbert Baillie (d. 1514), lord high treasurer of Scotland, William Baillie, Lord Provand (d. 1593), the judge, and William Baillie (fl. 1648), the general whose strategy in opposition to the marquess of Montrose was so diligently stultified by the committee of estates. The ancient church of St Ninian’s has a fine Norman doorway. Lamington Tower was reduced to its present fragmentary condition in the time of Edward I., when William Heselrig, the sheriff, laid siege to it. The defenders, Hugh de Bradfute and his son, were slain, and his daughter Marion—the betrothed, or, as some say, the wife of William Wallace—was conveyed to Lanark, where she was barbarously executed because she refused to reveal the whereabouts of her lover. Wallace exacted swift vengeance. He burnt out the English garrison and killed the sheriff.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bigot

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​BIGOT, one obstinately and intolerantly holding particular religious opinions, who refuses to listen to reason and is ready to force others to agree with him; hence also applied to one who holds similar views on any subject. The early meaning of the word in English, at the end of the 16th century, was that of a religious hypocrite. The origin is obscure; it appears in French, in the forms bigot or bigos, in the 12th century romance of Girard of Roussillon, where it is applied to certain tribes of southern Gaul, and in the Roman du Rou of Wace (d. 1175?) as an abusive name given by the French to the Normans:
* “Moult on Franchois Normans laidis
* et de meffais et de mesdis.
* Souvent lor dient reproviers,
* et claiment Bigos et Draschiers.”
To this use has been attached the absurd origin from “ne se, bi god,” the words in which, according to the 12th century chronicle, Rollo, duke of the Normans, refused to kiss the foot of Charles III., the Simple, king of the West Franks. The word may have some connexion with a corruption of Visigoth, a suggestion to which the use in the Girard romance lends colour. The meaning changed in French to that of “religious hypocrite” through the application, in the feminine bigote, to the members of the religious sisterhoods called Beguines (q.v.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Big Rapids

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​BIG RAPIDS, a city and the county-seat of Mecosta county, Michigan, U.S.A., on both sides of the Muskegon river, 56 m. N. by E. of Grand Rapids, in the west central portion of the lower peninsula. Pop. (1890) 5303; (1900) 4686, of whom 881 were foreign-born; (1910, U.S. census) 4519. It is served by the Père Marquette and the Grand Rapids & Indiana railways. Big Rapids is the seat of the Ferris Institute (opened 1884, incorporated 1894), a large private co-educational school, founded by W. N. Ferris. The river, which falls 16 ft. within the city limits, is dammed a short distance south of the city, and 16,000 horse-power is generated, part of which is transmitted to the city. The principal manufactures are lumber and furniture, and saw-filing and filing-room machinery. Big Rapids, named from the falls of the Muskegon here, was settled in 1854, was platted in 1859 and was chartered as a city in 1869.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bignon, Jérôme

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​BIGNON, JÉRÔME (1589–1656), French lawyer, was born at Paris in 1589. He was uncommonly precocious, and under his father’s tuition had acquired an immense mass of knowledge before he was ten years of age. In 1600 was published a work by him entitled Chorographie, ou description de la Terre Sainte. The great reputation gained by this book introduced the author to Henry IV., who placed him for some time as a companion to the duc de Vendôme, and made him tutor to the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII. In 1604 he wrote his Discours de la ville de Rome, and in the following year his Traité sommaire de l’élection du pape. He then devoted himself to the study of law, wrote in 1610 a treatise on the precedency of the kings of France, which gave great satisfaction to Henry IV., and in 1613 edited, with learned notes, the Formulae of the jurist Marculfe. In 1620 he was made advocate-general to the grand council, and shortly afterwards a councillor of state, and in 1626 he became advocate-general to the parlement of Paris. In 1641 he resigned his official dignity, and in 1642 was appointed by Richelieu to the charge of the royal library. He died in 1656.