Chapter 4

See Dr J. A. Paris,The Life of Sir Humphry Davy(1831), vol. ii. of which on pp. 450-456 gives a list of his publications. Dr John Davy,Memoirs of Sir Humphry Davy(1836); Collected Works (with shorter memoir, 1839);Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific(1858). T. E. Thorpe,Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher(1896).

1Edmund Davy (1785-1857) became professor of chemistry at Cork Institution in 1813, and at the Royal Dublin Society in 1826. His son, Edmund William Davy (born in 1826), was appointed professor of medicine in the Royal College, Dublin, in 1870.2Davy’s will directed that this service, after Lady Davy’s death, should pass to his brother, Dr John Davy, on whose decease, if he had no heirs who could make use of it, it was to be melted and sold, the proceeds going to the Royal Society “to found a medal to be given annually for the most important discovery in chemistry anywhere made in Europe or Anglo-America.” The silver produced £736, and the interest on that sum is expended on the Davy medal, which was awarded for the first time in 1877, to Bunsen and Kirchhoff for their discovery of spectrum analysis.

2Davy’s will directed that this service, after Lady Davy’s death, should pass to his brother, Dr John Davy, on whose decease, if he had no heirs who could make use of it, it was to be melted and sold, the proceeds going to the Royal Society “to found a medal to be given annually for the most important discovery in chemistry anywhere made in Europe or Anglo-America.” The silver produced £736, and the interest on that sum is expended on the Davy medal, which was awarded for the first time in 1877, to Bunsen and Kirchhoff for their discovery of spectrum analysis.

DAWARI,orDauri, a Pathan tribe on the Waziri border of the North-West Frontier Province of India. The Dawaris inhabit the Tochi Valley (q.v.), otherwise known as Dawar or Daur, and are a homogeneous tribe of considerable size, numbering 5200 fighting men. Though surrounded on all four sides by a Waziri population they bear little resemblance to Waziris. They are an agricultural and the Waziris a pastoral race, and they are much richer than their neighbours. They thrive on a rich sedimentary soil copiously irrigated in the midst of a country where cultivable land of any kind is scarce and water in general hardly to be obtained. But they pay a heavy tax in health and well-being for the possession of their fertile acres. Fevers and other ravaging diseases are bred in the wet sodden lands of the Tochi Valley, lying at the bottom of a deep depression exposed to the burning rays of the sun; and the effects of these ailments may be clearly traced in the drawn or bloated features and the shrunken or swollen limbs of nearly every Dawari that has passed middle life. They have an evil name for indolence, drug-eating and unnatural vices, and are morally the lowest of the Afghan races; but in spite of these defects, and of the contempt with which they are regarded by the other Afghan tribes, they have held their own for centuries against the warlike and hardy Waziris. The secret of this is that the Dawaris stand together, and the Waziris do not, while the weaker race is gifted with infinite patience and tenacity of purpose. With the advent of British government, however, the Dawaris are now secured in the possession of their ancestral lands.

See J. G. Lorimer,Grammar and Vocabulary of Waziri Pushtu(1902).

DAWES, HENRY LAURENS(1816-1903), American lawyer, was born at Cummington, Massachusetts, on the 30th of October 1816. After graduating at Yale in 1839, he taught for a time at Greenfield, Mass., and also editedThe Greenfield Gazette. In 1842 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law at North Adams, where for a time he conductedThe Transcript. He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1848-1849 and in 1852, in the state Senate in 1850, and in the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1853. From 1853 to 1857 he was United States district attorney for the western district of Massachusetts; and from 1857-1875 he was a Republican member of the national House of Representatives. In 1875 he succeeded Charles Sumner as senator from Massachusetts, serving until 1893. During this long period of legislative activity he served in the House on the committees on elections, ways and means, and appropriations, took a prominent part in the anti-slavery and reconstruction measures during and after the Civil War, in tariff legislation, and in the establishment of a fish commission and the inauguration of daily weather reports. In the Senate he was chairman of the committee on Indian affairs, and gave much attention to the enactment of laws for the benefit of the Indians. On leaving the Senate, in 1893, he became chairman of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes (sometimes called the Dawes Indian Commission), and served in this capacity for ten years, negotiating with the tribes for the extinction of the communal title to their land and for the dissolution of the tribal governments, with the object of making the tribes a constituent part of the United States.1Dawes died at Pittsfield, Mass., on the 5th of February 1903.

1The commission completed its labours on the 1st of July 1905, after having allotted 20,000,000 acres of land among 90,000 Indians and absorbed the five Indian governments into the national system. The “five tribes” were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Indians.

DAWES, RICHARD(1708-1766), English classical scholar, was born in or near Market Bosworth. He was educated at the town grammar school under Anthony Blackwall, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which society he was elected fellow in 1731. His peculiar habits and outspoken language made him unpopular. His health broke down in consequence of his sedentary life, and it is said that he took to bell-ringing at Great St Mary’s as a restorative. He was a bitter enemy of Bentley, who he declared knew nothing of Greek except from indexes. In 1738 Dawes was appointed to the mastership of the grammar school, Newcastle-on-Tyne, combined with that of St Mary’s hospital. From all accounts his mind appears to have become unhinged; his eccentricities of conduct and continual disputes with his governing body ruined the school, and finally, in 1749, he resigned his post and retired to Heworth, where he chiefly amused himself with boating. He died on the 21st of March 1766. Dawes was not a prolific writer. The book on which his fame rests is hisMiscellanea critica(1745), which gained the commendation of such distinguished continental scholars as L. C. Valckenaer and J. J. Reiske. TheMiscellanea, which was re-edited by T. Burgess (1781), G. C. Harles (1800) and T. Kidd (1817), for many years enjoyed a high reputation, and although some of the “canons” have been proved untenable and few can be accepted universally, it will always remain an honourable and enduring monument of English scholarship.

See J. Hodgson,An Account of the Life and Writings of Richard Dawes(1828); H. R. Luard inDict. of Nat. Biog.; J. E. Sandys,Hist. of Classical Scholarship, ii. 415.

DAWISON, BOGUMIL(1818-1872), German actor, was born at Warsaw, of Jewish parents, and at the age of nineteen went on the stage. In 1839 he received an appointment to the theatre at Lemberg in Galicia. In 1847 he played at Hamburg with marked success, was from 1849 to 1854 a member of the Burg theatre in Vienna, and then became connected with the Dresden court theatre. In 1864 he was given a life engagement, but resigned his appointment, and after starring through Germany visited the United States in 1866. He died in Dresden on the 1st of February 1872. Dawison was considered in Germany an actor of a new type; a leading critic wrote that he and Marie Seebach “swept like fresh gales over dusty tradition, and brushing aside the monotony of declamation gave to their rôles more character and vivacity than had hitherto been known on the German stage.” His chief parts were Mephistopheles, Franz Moor, Mark Antony, Hamlet, Charles V., Richard III. and King Lear.

DAWKINS, WILLIAM BOYD(1838- ), English geologist and archaeologist, was born at Buttington vicarage near Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, on the 26th of December 1838. Educated at Rossall School and Oxford, he joined the Geological Survey in 1862, and in 1869 became curator of the Manchester museum, a post which he retained till 1890. He was appointed professor of geology and palaeontology in Owens College, Manchester, in 1874. He paid special attention to the question of the existence of coal in Kent, and in 1882 was selected by the Channel tunnel committee to make a special survey of the French and English coasts. He was also employed in the scheme of a tunnel beneath the Humber. His chief distinctions, however, were won in the realms of anthropology by his researches into the lives of the cave-dwellers of prehistoric times, labours which have borne fruit in his booksCave-hunting(1874);Early Man in Britain(1880);British Pleistocene Mammalia(1866-1887). He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867, and acted as president of the anthropological section of the British Association in 1882 and of the geological section in 1888.

DAWLISH,a watering-place in the Ashburton parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, on the English Channel, near the outflow of the Exe, 12 m. S. of Exeter by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 4003. It lies on a cove sheltered by two projecting headlands. A small stream which flows through the town is lined on both sides by pleasure-grounds. Dawlish owes its prosperity to the visitors attracted, in spring and early summer, by the warm climate and excellent bathing. An annual pleasure fair is held on Easter Monday, and a regatta in August or September. Until its sale in the 19th century, the site of Dawlish belonged to Exeter cathedral, having been given to the chapter by Leofric, bishop of Exeter, in 1050.

DAWN(the 16th-century form of the earlier “dawing” or “dawning,” from an old verb “daw,” O. Eng.dagian, to become day;cf.Dutchdagen, and Ger.tagen), the time when light appears (daws) in the sky in the morning. The dawn colours appear in the reverse order of the sunset colours and are due to the same cause. When the sun is lowest in both cases the colour is deep red; this gradually changes through orange to gold and brilliant yellow as the sun approaches the horizon. These colours follow each other in order of refrangibility, reproducing all the colours of the spectrum in order except the blue rays which are scattered in the sky. The colours of the dawn are purer and colder than the sunset colours since there is less dust and moisture in the atmosphere and less consequent sifting of light rays.

DAWSON, GEORGE(1821-1876), English nonconformist divine, was born in London on the 24th of February 1821, and was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and at the university of Glasgow. In 1843 he accepted the pastorate of the Baptist church at Rickmansworth, and in 1844 a similar charge at Mount Zion, Birmingham, where he attracted large congregations by his eloquence and his unconventional views. Desiring freedom from any definite creed, he left the Baptist church and became minister of the “Church of the Saviour,” a building erected for him by his supporters. Here he exercised a stimulating and varied ministry for nearly thirty years, gathering round him a congregation of all types and especially of such as found the dogmas of the age distasteful. He had much sympathy with the Unitarian position, but was not himself a Unitarian. Indeed he had no fixed standpoint, and discussed truths and principles from various aspects. His sermons, though not particularly speculative, were unconventional and quickening. He was the friend of Carlyle and Emerson, and did much to popularize their teachings, his influence being conspicuous, especially in his demand for a high ethical standard in everyday life and his insistence on the Christianization of citizenship. He was warmly supported by Dr R. W. Dale, and by J. T. Bunce, editor ofThe Birmingham Daily Post. Both Dawson and Dale were disqualified as ministers from seats on the town council, but both served on the Birmingham school board. Dawson also lectured on English literature at the Midland Institute and helped to found the Shakespeare Memorial library in Birmingham. He died suddenly at King’s Norton on the 30th of November 1876. Four volumes ofSermons, two ofPrayersand two ofBiographical Lectureswere published after his death.

SeeLifeby H. W. Crosskey (1876) and an article by R. W. Dale inThe Nineteenth Century(August 1877).

DAWSON, SIR JOHN WILLIAM(1820-1899), Canadian geologist, was bom at Pictou, Nova Scotia, on the 30th of October 1820. Of Scottish descent, he went to Edinburgh to complete his education, and graduated at the university in 1842, having gained a knowledge of geology and natural history from Robert Jameson. On his return to Nova Scotia in 1842 he accompanied Sir Charles Lyell on his first visit to that territory. Subsequently he was appointed to the post of superintendent of education (1850-1853); at the same time he entered zealously into the geology of the country, making a special study of the fossil forests of the coal-measures. From these strata, in company with Lyell (during his second visit) in 1852, he obtained the first remains of an “air-breathing reptile” namedDendrerpeton. He also described the fossil plants of the Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous rocks of Canada for the Geological Survey of that country (1871-1873). From 1855 to 1893 he was professor of geology and principal of M’Gill University, Montreal, an institution which under his influence attained a high reputation. He was elected F.R.S. in 1862. When the Royal Society of Canada was constituted he was the first to occupy the presidential chair, and he also acted as president of the British Association at its meeting at Birmingham in 1886, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Sir William Dawson’s name is especially associated with theEozoon canadense, which in 1864 he described as an organism having the structure of a foraminifer. It was found in the Laurentian rocks, regarded as the oldest known geological system. His views on the subject were contested at the time, and have since been disproved, the so-called organism being now regarded as a mineral structure. He was created C.M.G. in 1881, and was knighted in 1884. In his books on geological subjects he maintained a distinctly theological attitude, declining to admit the descent or evolution of man from brute ancestors, and holding that the human species only made its appearance on this earth within quite recent times. Besides many memoirs in the Transactions of learned societies, he publishedAcadian Geology: The geological structure, organic remains and mineral resources of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island(1855; ed. 3, 1878);Air-breathers of the Coal Period(1863);The Story of the Earth and Man(1873; ed. 6, 1880);The Dawn of Life(1875);Fossil Men and their Modern Representatives(1880);Geological History of Plants(1888);The Canadian Ice Age(1894). He died on the 20th of November 1899.

His son,George Mercer Dawson(1849-1901), was born at Pictou on the 1st of August 1849, and received his education at M‘Gill University and the Royal School of Mines, London, where he had a brilliant career. In 1873 he was appointed geologist and naturalist to the North American boundary commission, and two years later he joined the staff of the geological survey of Canada, of which he became assistant director in 1883, and director in 1895. He was in charge of the Canadian government’s Yukon expedition in 1887, and his name is permanently written in Dawson City, of gold-bearing fame. As one of the Bering Sea Commissioners he spent the summer of 1891 investigating the facts of the seal fisheries on the northern coasts of Asia and America. For his services there, and at the subsequent arbitration in Paris, he was made a C.M.G. He was elected F.R.S. in 1891, and in the same year was awarded the Bigsby medal by the Geological Society of London. He was president of the Royal Society of Canada in 1893. He died on the 2nd of March 1901. He was the author of many scientific papers and reports, especially on the surface geology and glacial phenomena of the northern and western parts of Canada.

DAWSON CITY,orDawson, the capital of the Yukon territory, Canada, on the right bank of the Yukon river, and in the middle of the Klondyke gold region, of which it is the distributing centre. It is situated in beautiful mountainous country, 1400 ft. above the sea, and 1500 m. from the mouth of the Yukon river. It is reached by a fleet of river steamers, and has telegraphic communication. Founded in 1896, its population soon reached over 20,000 at the height of the gold rush; in 1901 it was officially returned as 9142, and is now not more than 5000. The temperature varies from 90° F. in summer to 50° below zero in winter. It possesses three opera-houses and numerous hotels, and is a typical mining town, though even at first there was much less lawlessness than is usually the case in such cities.

DAX,a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Landes, 92 m. S.S.W, of Bordeaux, on the Southern railway between that city and Bayonne. Pop. (1906) 8585. The town lies on the left bank of the Adour, a stone bridge uniting it to its suburb of Le Sablar on the right bank. It has remains of ancient Gallo-Roman fortifications, now converted into a promenade. The most remarkable building in the town is the church of Notre-Dame, once a cathedral; it was rebuilt from 1656 to 1719, but still preserves a sacristy, a porch and a fine sculptured doorway of the 13th century. Thechurch of St Vincent, to the south-west of the town, derives its name from the first bishop, whose tomb it contains. The church of St Paul-lès-Dax, a suburb on the right bank of the Adour, belongs mainly to the 15th century, and has a Romanesque apse adorned with curious bas-reliefs. On a hill to the west of Dax stands a tower built in memory of the sailor and scientist Jean Charles Borda, born there in 1733; a statue was erected to him in the town in 1891. Dax, which is well known as a winter resort, owes much of its importance to its thermal waters and mud-baths (the deposit of the Adour), which are efficacious in cases of rheumatism, neuralgia and other disorders. The best-known spring is the Fontaine Chaude, which issues into a basin 160 ft. wide in the centre of the town. The principal of numerous bathing establishments are the Grands Thermes, the Bains Salés, adjoining a casino, and the Baignots, which fringe the Adour and are surrounded by gardens. Dax has a sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a communal college, a training college and a library. It has salt workings, tanneries, saw-mills, manufactures of soap and corks; commerce is chiefly in the pine wood, resin and cork of the Landes, in mules, cattle, horses and poultry.

Dax (Aquae Tarbellicae,Aquae Augustae, laterD’Acqs) was the capital of the Tarbelli under the Roman domination, when its waters were already famous. Later it was the seat of a viscounty, which in the 11th century passed to the viscounts of Béarn, and in 1177 was annexed by Richard Cœur de Lion to Gascony. The bishopric, founded in the 3rd century, was in 1801 attached to that of Aire.

DAY, JOHN(1574-1640?), English dramatist, was born at Cawston, Norfolk, in 1574, and educated at Ely. He became a sizar of Caius College, Cambridge, in 1592, but was expelled in the next year for stealing a book. He became one of Henslowe’s playwrights, collaborating with Henry Chettle, William Haughton, Thomas Dekker, Richard Hathway and Wentworth Smith, but his almost incessant activity seems to have left him poor enough, to judge by the small loans, of five shillings and even two shillings, that he obtained from Henslowe. The first play in which Day appears as part-author isThe Conquest of Brute, with the finding of the Bath(1598), which, with most of his journeyman’s work, is lost. A drama dealing with the early years of the reign of Henry VI.,The Blind Beggar of Bednal Green(acted 1600, printed 1659), written in collaboration with Chettle, is his earliest extant work. It bore the sub-title ofThe Merry Humor of Tom Strowd, the Norfolk Yeoman, and was so popular that second and third parts, by Day and Haughton, were produced in the next year.The Ile of Guls(printed 1606), a prose comedy founded upon Sir Philip Sidney’sArcadia, contains in its light dialogue much satire to which the key is now lost, but Mr Swinburne notes in Manasses’s burlesque of a Puritan sermon a curious anticipation of the eloquence of Mr Chadband inBleak House. In 1607 Day produced, in conjunction with William Rowley and George Wilkins,The Travailes of the Three English Brothers, which detailed the adventures of Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley.

The Parliament of Beesis the work on which Day’s reputation chiefly rests. This exquisite and unique drama, or rather masque, is entirely occupied with “the doings, the births, the wars, the wooings” of bees, expressed in a style at once most singular and most charming. The bees hold a parliament under Prorex, the Master Bee, and various complaints are preferred against the humble-bee, the wasp, the drone and other offenders. This satirical allegory of affairs ends with a royal progress of Oberon, who distributes justice to all. The piece contains much for which parallel passages are found in Dekker’sWonder of a Kingdom(1636) and Samuel Rowley’s (or Dekker’s)Noble Soldier(printed 1634). There is no earlier known edition ofThe Parliament of Beesthan that in 1641, but a persistent tradition has assigned the piece to 1607. In 1608 Day published two comedies,Law Trickes, or Who Would have Thought it?andHumour out of Breath. The date of his death is unknown, but an elegy on him by John Tatham, the city poet, was published in 1640. The six dramas by John Day which we possess show a delicate fancy and dainty inventiveness all his own. He preserved, in a great measure, the dramatic tradition of John Lyly, and affected a kind of subdued euphuism.The Maydes Metamorphosis(1600), once supposed to be a posthumous work of Lyly’s, may be an early work of Day’s. It possesses, at all events, many of his marked characteristics. His prosePeregrinatic Scholastica or Learninges Pilgrimage, dating from his later years, was printed by Mr A. H. Bullen from a MS. of Day’s. Considerations partly based on this work have suggested that he had a share in the anonymousPilgrimage to Parnassusand theReturn from Parnassus. The beauty and ingenuity ofThe Parliament of Beeswere noted and warmly extolled by Charles Lamb; and Day’s work has since found many admirers.

His works, edited by A. H. Bullen, were printed at the Chiswick Press in 1881. The same editor includedThe Maydes Metamorphosisin vol. i. of hisCollection of Old Plays.The Parliament of BeesandHumour out of Breathwere printed inNero and other Plays(Mermaid Series, 1888), with an introduction by Arthur Symons. An appreciation by Mr A. C. Swinburne appeared inThe Nineteenth Century(October 1897).

DAY, THOMAS(1748-1789), British author, was born in London on the 22nd of June 1748. He is famous as the writer ofSandford and Merton(1783-1789), a book for the young, which, though quaintly didactic and often ridiculous, has had considerable educational value as inculcating manliness and independence. Day was educated at the Charterhouse and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and became a great admirer of J. J. Rousseau and his doctrine of the ideal state of nature. Having independent means he devoted himself to a life of study and philanthropy. His views on marriage were typical of the man. He brought up two foundlings, one of whom he hoped eventually to marry. They were educated on the severest principles, but neither acquired the high quality of stoicism which he had looked for. After several proposals of marriage to other ladies had been rejected, he married an heiress who agreed with his ascetic programme of life. He finally settled at Ottershaw in Surrey and took to farming on philanthropic principles. He had many curious and impracticable theories, among them one that all animals could be managed by kindness, and while riding an unbroken colt he was thrown near Wargrave and killed on the 28th of September 1789. His poemThe Dying Negro, published in 1773, struck the keynote of the anti-slavery movement. It is also obvious from his other works, such asThe Devoted Legions(1776) andThe Desolation of America(1777), that he strongly sympathized with the Americans during their War of Independence.

DAY(O. Eng.dæg, Ger.Tag; according to theNew English Dictionary, “in no way related to the Lat.dies”), in astronomy, the interval of time in which a revolution of the earth on its axis is performed. Days are distinguished as solar, sidereal or lunar, according as the revolution is taken relatively to the sun, the stars or the moon. The solar day is the fundamental unit of time, not only in daily life but in astronomical practice. In the latter case, being determined by observations of the sun, it is taken to begin with the passage of the mean sun over the meridian of the place, or at mean noon, while the civil day begins at midnight. A vigorous effort was made during the last fifteen years of the 19th century to bring the two uses into harmony by beginning the astronomical day at midnight. In some isolated cases this has been done; but the general consensus of astronomers has been against it, the day as used in astronomy being only a measure of time, and having no relation to the period of daily repose. The time when the day shall begin is purely a matter of convenience. The present practice being the dominant one from the time of Ptolemy until the present, it was felt that the confusion in the combination of past and present astronomical observations, and the doubts and difficulties in using the astronomical ephemerides, formed a decisive argument against any change.

The question of a possible variability in the length of the day is one of fundamental importance. One necessary effect of the tidal retardation of the earth’s rotation is gradually to increase this length. It is remarkable that the discussion ofancient eclipses of the moon, and their comparison with modern observations, show only a small and rather doubtful change, amounting perhaps to less than one-hundredth of a second per century. As this amount seems to be markedly less than that which would be expected from the cause in question, it is probable that some other cause tends to accelerate the earth’s rotation and so to shorten the day. The moon’s apparent mean motion in longitude seems also to indicate slow periodic changes in the earth’s rotation; but these are not confirmed by transits of Mercury, which ought also to indicate them. (SeeMoonandTides.)

(S. N.)

Legal Aspects.—In law, a day may be either adies naturalisor natural day, or adies artificialisor artificial day. A natural day includes all the twenty-four hours from midnight to midnight. Fractions of the day are disregarded to avoid dispute, though sometimes the law will consider fractions, as where it is necessary to show the first of two acts. In cases where action must be taken for preserving or asserting a right, a day would mean the natural day of twenty-four hours, but on the other hand, as in cases of survivorship, for testamentary or other purposes, it would suffice if a person survived for even the smallest portion of the last day necessary.

When a statute directs any act to be done within so many days, these words meanclear days,i.e.a number of perfect intervening days, not counting the terminal days: if the statute says nothing about Sunday, the days mentioned mean consecutive days and include Sundays. Under some statutes (e.g.the Parliamentary Elections Act 1868, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883) Sundays and holidays are excluded in reckoning days, and consequently all the Sundays, &c., of a prescribed sequence of days would be eliminated. So also, by custom, the word “day” may be understood in some special sense. In bills of lading and charter parties, when “days” or “running days” are spoken of without qualification, they usually mean consecutive days, and Sundays and holidays are counted, but when there is some qualification, as where a charter party required a cargo “to be discharged in fourteen days,” “days” will meanworking days. Working days, again, vary in different ports, and the custom of the port will decide in each case what are working days. In English charter parties, unless the contrary is expressed, Christmas day and other recognized holidays are included as working days. Aweather working day, a term sometimes used in charter parties, means a day when work is not prevented by the weather, and unless so provided for, a day on which work was rendered impossible by bad weather would still be counted as a working day.Lay days, which are days given to the charterer in a charter party either to load or unload without paying for the use of the ship, are days of the week, not periods of twenty-four hours.

Days of Grace.—When a bill of exchange is not payable at sight or on demand, certain days (called days of grace, from being originally a gratuitous favour) are added to the time of payment as fixed by the bill, and the bill is then due and payable on the last day of grace. In the United Kingdom, by the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, three days are allowed as days of grace, but when the last day of grace falls on Sunday, Christmas day, Good Friday or a day appointed by royal proclamation as a public fast or thanksgiving day, the bill is due and payable on the preceding business day. If the last day of grace is a bank holiday (other than Christmas day or Good Friday), or when the last day of grace is a Sunday, and the second day of grace is a bank holiday, the bill is due and payable on the succeeding business day. Days of grace (dies non) are in existence practically among English-speaking peoples only. They were abolished by the French Code (Code de Commerce, Liv. i. tit. 8, art. 135), and by most, if not all, of the European codes since framed.

Civil Days.—An artificial or civil day is, to a certain extent, difficult to define; it “may be regarded as a convenient term to signify all the various kinds of ‘day’ known in legal proceedings other than the natural day.” (Ency. English Law, tit. “Day”). The Jews, Chaldeans and Babylonians began the day at the rising of the sun; the Athenians at the fall; the Umbri in Italy began at midday; the Egyptians and Romans at midnight; and in England, the United States and most of the countries of Europe the Roman civil day still prevails, the day usually commencing as soon as the clock begins to strike 12P.M.of the preceding day.

In England the period of the civil day may also vary under different statutes. In criminal law the day formerly commenced at sunrise and extended to sunset, but by the Larceny Act 1861 the day is that period between six in the morning and nine in the evening. The same period of time comprises a day under the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885 and the Public Health (London) Act 1891, but under the Public Health (Scotland) Act 1897 “day” is the period between 9A.M.and 6P.M.By an act of 1845, regulating the labour of children in print-works, “day” is defined as from 6A.M.to 10P.M.Daytime, within which distress for rent must be made, is from sunrise to sunset (Tultonv.Darke, 1860, 2 L.T. 361). An obligation to pay money on a certain day is theoretically discharged if the money is paid before midnight of the day on which it falls due, but custom has so far modified this that the law requires reasonable hours to be observed. If, for instance, payment has to be made at a bank or place of business, it must be within business hours.

When an act of parliament is expressed to come into operation on a certain day, it is to be construed as coming into operation on the expiration of the previous day (Interpretation Act 1889, § 36; Statutes [Definition of Time] Act 1880).

Under the orders of the supreme court the word “day” has two meanings. For purposes of personal service of writs, it means any time of the day or night on week-days, but excludes the time from twelve midnight on Saturday till twelve midnight on Sunday. For purposes of service not required to be personal, it means before six o’clock on any week-day except Saturday, and before 2P.M.on Saturday.

Closed Days,i.e.Sunday, Christmas day and Good Friday, are excluded from all fixtures of time less than six days: otherwise they are included, unless the last day of the time fixed falls on one of those days (R.S.C., O. lxiv.).

American Practice.—In the United States a day is the space of time between midnight and midnight. The law pays no regard to fractions of a day except to prevent injustice. A “day’s work” is by statute in New York fixed at eight hours for all employees except farm and domestic servants, and for employees on railroads at ten hours (Laws 1897, ch. 415). In the recording acts relating to real property, fractions of a day are of the utmost importance, and all deeds, mortgages and other instruments affecting the property, take precedence in the order in which they were filed for record. Days of grace are abolished in many of the seventeen states in which the Negotiable Instruments law has been enacted. Sundays and public holidays are usually excluded in computing time if they are the last day within which the act was to be done. General public holidays throughout the United States are Christmas, Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November) and Independence (July 4th) days and Washington’s birthday (February 22nd). The several states have also certain local public holidays. (See alsoMonth;Time.)

(T. A. I.)

DAYLESFORD,a town of Talbot county, Victoria, Australia, 74 m. by rail N.W. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 3384. It lies on the flank of the Great Dividing Range, at an elevation of 2030 ft. On Wombat Hill are beautiful public gardens commanding extensive views, and a fine convent of the Presentation Order. Much wheat is grown in the district, and gold-mining, both quartz and alluvial, is carried on. Daylesford has an important mining school. Near the town are the Hepburn mineral springs and a number of beautiful waterfalls, and 6 m. from it is Mount Franklin, an extinct volcano.

DAYTON,a city of Campbell county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the S. bank of the Ohio river, opposite Cincinnati, and adjoining Bellevue and Newport, Ky. Pop. (1890) 4264; (1900) 6104 including 655 foreign-born and 63 negroes; (1910) 6979. It is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio railway at Newport, of which it is a suburb, largely residential. It has manufactories of watch-casesand pianos, and whisky distilleries. In the city is the Speers Memorial hospital. Dayton was settled and incorporated in 1849.

DAYTON,a city and the county-seat of Montgomery county, Ohio, U.S.A., at the confluence of Wolf Creek, Stillwater river and Mad river with the Great Miami, 57 m. N.N.E. of Cincinnati and about 70 m. W.S.W. of Columbus. Pop. (1890) 61,220; (1900) 85,333; (1910) 116,577. In 1900 there were 10,053 foreign-born and 3387 negroes; of the foreign-born 6820 were Germans and 1253 Irish. Dayton is served by the Erie, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, and the Dayton & Union railways, by ten interurban electric railways, centring here, and by the Miami & Erie Canal. The city extends more than 5 m. from E. to W., and 3½ m. from N. to S., lies for the most part on level ground at an elevation of about 740 ft. above sea-level, and numerous good, hard gravel roads radiate from it in all directions through the surrounding country, a fertile farming region which abounds in limestone, used in the construction of public and private buildings. Among the more prominent buildings are the court-house—the portion first erected being designed after the Parthenon—the Steele high school, St Mary’s college, Notre Dame academy, the Memorial Building, the Arcade Building, Reibold Building, the Algonquin Hotel, the post office, the public library (containing about 75,000 volumes), the Young Men’s Christian Association building and several churches. At Dayton are the Union Biblical seminary, a theological school of the United Brethren in Christ, and the publishing house of the same denomination. By an agreement made in 1907 the school of theology of Ursinus College (Collegeville, Pennsylvania; the theological school since 1898 had been in Philadelphia) and the Heidelberg Theological seminary (Tiffin, Ohio) united to form the Central Theological seminary of the German Reformed Church, which was established in Dayton in 1908. The boulevard and park along the river add attractiveness to the city. Among the charitable institutions are the Dayton state hospital (for the insane), the Miami Valley and the St Elizabeth hospitals, the Christian Deaconess, the Widows’ and the Children’s homes, and the Door of Hope (for homeless girls); and 1 m. W. of the city is the central branch of the National Home for disabled volunteer soldiers, with its beautifully ornamented grounds, about 1 sq. m. in extent. The Mad river is made to furnish good water-power by means of a hydraulic canal which takes its water through the city, and Dayton’s manufactures are extensive and varied, the establishments of the National Cash Register Company employing in 1907 about 4000 wage-earners. This company is widely known for its “welfare work” on behalf of its operatives. Baths, lunch-rooms, rest-rooms, clubs, lectures, schools and kindergartens have been supplied, and the company has also cultivated domestic pride by offering prizes for the best-kept gardens, &c. From April to July 1901 there was a strike in the already thoroughly unionized factories; complaint was made of the hectoring of union men by a certain foreman, the use in toilet-rooms of towels laundered in non-union shops (the company replied by allowing the men to supply towels themselves), the use on doors of springs not union-made (these were removed by the company), and especially the discharge of four men whom the company refused to reinstate. The company was victorious in the strike, and the factory became an “open shop.” In addition to cash registers, the city’s manufactured products include agricultural implements, clay-working machinery, cotton-seed and linseed oil machinery, filters, turbines, railway cars (the large Barney-Smith car works employed 1800 men in 1905), carriages and wagons, sewing-machines (the Davis Sewing Machine Co.), automobiles, clothing, flour, malt liquors, paper, furniture, tobacco and soap. The total value of the manufactured product, under the “factory system,” was $31,015,293 in 1900 and $39,596,773 in 1905. Dayton’s site was purchased in 1795 from John Cleves Symmes by a party of Revolutionary soldiers, and it was laid out as a town in 1796 by Israel Ludlow (one of the owners), by whom it was named in honour of Jonathan Dayton (1760-1824), a soldier in the War of Independence, a member of Congress from New Jersey in 1791-1799, and a United States senator in 1799-1805. It was made the county-seat in 1803, was incorporated as a town in 1805, grew rapidly after the opening of the canal in 1828, and in 1841 was chartered as a city.

DEACON(Gr.διάκονος, minister, servant), the name given to a particular minister or officer of the Christian Church. The status and functions of the office have varied in different ages and in different branches of Christendom.

(a)The Ancient Church.—The office of deacon is almost as old as Christianity itself, though it is impossible to fix the moment at which it came into existence. Tradition connects its origin with the appointment of “the Seven” recorded in Acts vi. This connexion, however, is questioned by a large and increasing number of modern scholars, on the ground that “the Seven” are not called deacons in the New Testament and do not seem to have been identified with them till the time of Irenaeus (A.D.180). The first definite reference to the diaconate occurs in St Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (i. 1), where the officers of the Church are described as “bishops and deacons”—though it is not unlikely that earlier allusions are to be found in 1 Cor. xii. 28 and Romans xii. 7. In the pastoral epistles the office seems to have become a permanent institution of the Church, and special qualifications are laid down for those who hold it (1 Tim. iii. 8). By the time of Ignatius (A.D.110) the “three orders” of the ministry were definitely established, the deacon being the lowest of the three and subordinate to the bishop and the presbyters. The inclusion of deacons in the “three orders” which were regarded as essential to the existence of a true Church sharply distinguished them from the lower ranks of the ministry, and gave them a status and position of importance in the ancient Church.

The functions attaching to the office varied at different times. In the apostolic age the duties of deacons were naturally vague and undefined. They were “helpers” or “servants” of the Church in a general way and served in any capacity that was required of them. With the growth of the episcopate, however, the deacons became the immediate ministers of the bishop. Their duties included the supervision of Church property, the management of Church finances, the visitation of the sick, the distribution of alms and the care of widows and orphans. They were also required to watch over the souls of the flock and report to the bishop the cases of those who had sinned or were in need of spiritual help. “You deacons,” says the Apostolical Constitutions (4th century), “ought to keep watch over all who need watching or are in distress, and let the bishop know.” With the growth of hospitals and other charitable institutions, however, the functions of deacons became considerably curtailed. The social work of the Church was transferred to others, and little by little the deacons sank in importance until at last they came to be regarded merely as subordinate officers of public worship, a position which they hold in the Roman Church to-day, where their duties are confined to such acts as the following:—censing the officiating priest and the choir, laying the corporal on the altar, handing the paten or cup to the priest, receiving from him the pyx and giving it to the subdeacon, putting the mitre on the archbishop’s head (when he is present) and laying his pall upon the altar.

(b)The Church of England.—The traditionary position of the diaconate as one of the “three orders” is here maintained. Deacons may conduct any of the ordinary services in the church, but are not permitted to pronounce the absolution or consecrate the elements for the Eucharist. In practice the office has become a stepping-stone to the priesthood, the deacon corresponding to the licentiate in the Presbyterian Church. Candidates for the office must have attained the age of twenty-three and must satisfy the bishop with regard to their intellectual, moral and spiritual fitness. The functions of the office are defined in the Ordinal—“to assist the priest in divine service and specially when he ministereth the Holy Communion, to read Holy Scriptures and Homilies in the church, to instruct the youth in the catechism, to baptize in the absence of the priest, to preach if he be admitted thereto by the bishop, and furthermore to searchfor the sick, poor and impotent people and intimate their estates and names to the curate.”

(c)Churches of the Congregational Order.—In these (which of course include Baptists) the diaconate is a body of laymen appointed by the members of the church to act as a management committee and to assist the minister in the work of the church. There is no general rule as to the number of deacons, though the traditionary number of seven is often kept, nor as to the frequency of election, each church making its own arrangements in this respect. The deacons superintend the financial affairs of the church, co-operate with the minister in the various branches of his work, assist in the visitation of the sick, attend to the church property and generally supervise the activities of the church.

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