AUTHORITIES. — T. F. Knox, Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen (London, 1882); A. Bellesheim, Wilhelm Cardinal Allen und die englischen Seminare auf dem Festlande (Mainz, 1885); First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douai (London, 1878); Nicholas Fitzherbert, De Antiquitate et continuatione religionis in Anglia et de Alani Cardinalis vita libellus (Rome, 1608); E. Taunton, History of the Jesuits in England (London, 1901); Teulet, vol. v.; the Spanish State Papers (Simancas), vols. iii. and iv.; a list of Allen's works is given in J. Gillow, Biographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. i., under his name. (E. TN.)
ALLEN, WILLIAM FRANCIS (1830-1889), American classical scholar, was born at Northborough, Massachusetts, on the 5th of September 1830. He graduated at Harvard College in 1851 and subsequently devoted himself almost entirely to literary work and teaching. In 1867 he became professor of ancient languages and history (afterwards Latin language and Roman history) in the university of Wisconsin. He died in December 1889. His contributions to classical literature chiefly consist of schoolbooks published in the Allen (his brother) and Greenough series. The Collection of Slave Songs (1867), of which he was joint-editor, was the first work of the kind ever published.
ALLEN, BOG OF, the name given to a congeries of morasses in Kildare, King's County, Queen's County and Westmeath, Ireland. Clane Bog, the eastern extremity, is within 17 m. of Dublin, and the morasses extend westward almost to the Shannon. Their total area is about 238,500 acres. They do not form one continuous bog, the tract of the country to which the name is given being intersected by strips of dry cultivated land. The rivers Brosna, Barrow and Boyne take their rise in these morasses, and the Grand and Royal canals cross them. The Bog of Allen has a general elevation of 250 ft. above sea level, and the average thickness of the peat of which it consists is 25 ft. It rests on a subsoil of clay and marl.
ALLENSTEIN, a garrison town of Germany, in the province of East Prussia, on the river Alle, 100 m. by rail N.E. from Thorn, and 30 m. from the Russian frontier. Pop. (1900) 24,295. It has a medieval castle, several churches, a synagogue and various industries—iron-foundries, saw-mills, brick-works, and breweries; also an extensive trade in cereals and timber.
ALLENTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Lehigh river, about 62 m. N.N.W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 25,228; (1900) 35,416, of whom 2994 were foreign-born, 1065 being of German birth; (1910) 51,913. It is served by the Central of New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley, the Perkiomen (of the Reading system) and the Philadelphia & Reading railways. The city is situated on high ground sloping gently towards the river and commanding diversified views of the surrounding country. Hamilton Street, the principal business thoroughfare, extends over 2 m. from E. to W., and in what was once the centre of the city is Centre Square, in which there is a monument to the memory of the soldiers and sailors who fell in the Civil War. Allentown is the seat of a state homoeopathic hospital for the insane, of the Allentown College for Women (Reformed Church, 1867), and of Muhlenberg College (1867), an Evangelical Lutheran institution which grew out of the Allentown Seminary (established in 1848 and incorporated as the ``Allentown Collegiate Institute and Military Academy'' in 1864); in 1907 the college had 191 students, of whom 109 were in the Allentown Preparatory School (1904), formerly the academic department of the college and still closely afliliated with it. The surrounding country is well adapted to agriculture, and slate, iron ore, cement rock and limestone are found in the vicinity. Allentown is an important manufacturing centre, and the value of its manufactured products increased 90.9% from 1890 to 1900, and of its factory product 13.2% between 1900 and 1905. In 1905 the city ranked sixth among the cities of the country in the manufacture of silk and silk goods, its most important industry. Other important manufactures are iron and steel, slaughtering and meat-packing products, boots and shoes, cigars, furniture, men's clothing, hosiery and knit goods, jute and jute goods, linen-thread, malt liquors, brick, cement, barbed wire, wire nails and planing-mill products. Allentown's total factory product in 1905 was valued at $16,966,550, of which $3,901,249, or 23%, was the value of silk and silk goods. The municipality owns and operates its water-works. Allentown was first settled in 1751; in 1762 it was laid out as a town by James Allen, the son of a chief-justice of the province, in honour of whose family the city is named; in 1811 it was incorporated as a borough and its name was changed to Northampton; in 1812 it was made the county-seat; in 1838 the present name was again adopted; and in 1867 the first city charter was secured. The silk industry was introduced in 1881.
ALLEPPI, or AULAPALAY, a seaport of southern India, in the state of Travancore, 33 m. south of Cochin, situated on a strip of coast between the sea and one of those backwaters that here form the chief means of inland communication. Pop. (1901) 24,918. There is a lighthouse, 85 ft. high, with a revolving white light visible 18 m. out at sea. Though the third town in the state in point of population, Alleppi is the first in commercial importance. It commands a fine harbour, affording safe anchorage for the greater part of the year. It was opened to foreign trade towards the latter end of the 18th century. The exports consist of coffee, pepper, cardamoms and coco-nuts. There are factories for coir-matting. The raja has a palace, and Protestant missionaries have a church.
ALLESTREE, or ALLESTRY, RICHARD (1619.-1681), royalist divine and provost of Eton College, son of Robert Allestree, and a descendant of an ancient Derbyshire family, was born at Uppington in Shropshire. He was educated at Coventry and later at Christ Church, Oxford, under Richard Busby. He entered as a commoner in 1636, was made student shortly afterwards, and took the degree of B.A. in 1640 and of M.A. in 1643. In 1642 he took up arms for the king under Sir John Biron. On the arrival of the parliamentary forces soon afterwards in Oxford he secreted the Christ Church valuables, and the soldiers found nothing in the treasury ``except a single groat and a halter in the bottom of a large iron chest.'' He escaped severe punishment only by the hasty retirement of the army from the town. He was present at the battle of Edgehill in October 1642, after which, while hastening to Oxford to prepare for the king's visit to Christ Church, he was captured by a troop of Lord Say's soldiers from Broughton House, being soon afterwards set free on the surrender of the place to the king's forces. In 1643 he was again under arms, performing ``all duties of a common soldier'' and ``frequently holding his musket in one hand and his book in the other.'' At the close of the Civil War, he returned to his studies, took holy orders, was made censor and became a ``noted tutor.'' But he still remained an ardent royalist. He voted for the university decree against the Covenant, and, refusing submission to the parliamentary visitors in 1648, he was expelled. He found a retreat as chaplain in the house of the Hon. Francis Newport, afterwards Viscount Newport, in whose interests he undertook a journey to France. On his return he joined two of his friends, Dolben and Fell, afterwards respectively archbishop of York and bishop of Oxford, then resident at Oxford, and later joined the household of Sir Antony Cope of Hanwell, near Banbury. He was now frequently employed in carrying despatches between the king and the royalists in England. In May 1659 he brought a command from Charles in Brussels, directing the bishop of Salisbury to summon all those bishops, who were then alive, to consecrate clergymen to various sees ``to secure a continuation of the order in the Church of England,'' then in danger of becoming extinct.1 While returning from one of these missions, in the winter before the Restoration, he was arrested at Dover and committed a prisoner to Lambeth Palace, then used as a gaol for apprehended royalists, but was liberated after confinement of a few weeks at the instance, among others, of Lord Shaftesbury. At the Restoration he became canon of Christ Church, D.D. and city lecturer at Oxford. In 1663 he was made chaplain to the king and regius professor of divinity. In 1665 he was appointed provost of Eton College, and proved himself a capable administrator. He introduced order into the disorganized finances of the college and procured the confirmation of Laud's decree, which reserved five of the Eton fellowships for members of King's College. His additions to the college buildings were less successful; for the ``Upper School,'' constructed by him at his own expense, was falling into ruin almost in his lifetime, and was replaced by the present structure in 1689. Allestree died on the 28th of January 1681, and was buried in the chapel at Eton College, where there is a Latin inscription to his memory. His writings are:—The Privileges of the Universily of Oxford in point of Visitation (1647)—a tract answered by Prynne in the University of Oxford's Plea Rejected; 18 sermons whereof 15 preached before the king . . . (1669); 40 sermons whereof 21 are now first published . . . (2 vols., 1684); sermons published separately including A Sermon on Acts xiii. 2, (1660); A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the Epistles of St Paul (joint author with Abraham Woodhead and Obadiah Walker, 1675, see edition of 1853 and preface by W. Jacobson). In the Cases of Conscience by J. Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln (1692), Allestree's judgment on Mr Cottington's Case of Divorce is included. A share in the composition, if not the sole authorship, of the books published under the name of the author of the Whole Duty of Man has been attributed to Allestree (Nichols's Anecdotes, ii. 603), and the tendency of modern criticism is to regard him as the author. His lectures, with which he was dissatisfied, were not published. Allestree was a man of extensive learning, of moderate views and a fine preacher. He was generous and charitable, of ``a solid and masculine kindness,'' and of a temper hot, but completely under control.
AUTHORITIES.—-Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (edited by Bliss), iii. 1269; W.ood's Fasti, i. 480, 514, ii. 57, 241, 370; Richard Allestree, 40 sermons, with biographical preface by Dr John Fell (2 vols., 1684); Sufferings of the Clergy, by John Walker; Architectural History of Eton and Cambridge, by R. Willis, i. 420; Hist. of Eton College, by Sir H. C. Maxwell-Lyte; Hist. of Eton College, by Lionel Cust (1899); Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2807 f. 197 b. For Allestree's authorship of the Whole Duty of Man, see Rev. F. Barham, Journal of Sacred Literature, July 1864, and C. E. Doble's articles in the Academy, November 1884. (P. C. Y.)
1 Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2807 f. 197 b; Li/e of Dr John Barwick, ed. by G. F. Barwick (1903), pp. 107, 129, 134.
ALLEY (from the Fr: allee, a walk), a narrow passageway between two buildings available only for foot passengers or hand-carts, sometimes entered only at one end and known as a ``blind alley,'' or cul-de-sac. The name is also given to the long narrow enclosures where bowls or skittles are played.
ALLEYN, EDWARD (1566-1626), English actor and founder of Dulwich College, was born in London on the 1st of September 1566, the son of an innkeeper. It is not known at what date he began to act, but he certainly gained distinction in his calling while a young man, for in 1586 his name was on the list of the earl of Worcester's players, and he was eventually rated by common consent as the foremost actor of his time. Ben Jonson, a critic little prone to exalt the merits of men of mark among his contemporaries, bestowed unstinted praise on Alleyn's acting (Epigrams, No. 89). Nash expresses in prose, in Pierce Penniless, his admiration of him, while Heywood calls him ``inimitable,'' ``the best of actors,'' ``Proteus for shapes and Roscius for a tongue.'' Alleyn inherited house property in Bishopsgate from his father. His marriage on the 22nd of October 1592 with Joan Woodward, stepdaughter of Philip Henslowe, brought him eventually more wealth. He became part owner in Henslowe's ventures, and in the end sole proprietor of several play-houses and other profitable pleasure resorts. Among these were the Rose Theatre at Bankside, the Paris Garden and the Fortune Theatre in St Luke's—the latter occupied by the earl of Nottingham's company, of which Alleyn was the head. He filled, too, in conjunction with Henslowe, the post of ``master of the king's games of bears, bulls and dogs.'' On some occasions he directed the sport in person, and Stow in his Chronicles gives an account of how Alleyn baited a lion before James I. at the Tower.
Alleyn's connexion with Dulwich began in 1605, when he bought the manor of Dulwich from Sir Francis Cation. The landed property, of which the entire estate had not passed into Alleyn's hands earlier than 1614, stretched from the crest of that range of Surrey hills on whose summit now stands the Crystal Palace, to the crest of the parallel ridge, three miles nearer London, known in its several portions as Herne Hill, Denmark Hill and Champion Hill. Alleyn acquired this large property for little more than L. 10,000. He had barely got full possession, however, before the question how to dispose of it began to occupy him. He was still childless, after twenty years of wedded life. Then it was that the prosperous player—the man ``so acting to the life that he made any part to become him'' (Fuller, Worthies)—began the task of building and endowing in his own lifetime the College of God's Gift at Dulwich. All was completed in 1617 except the charter or deed of incorporation for setting his lands in mortmain. Tedious delays occurred in the Star Chamber, where Lord Chancellor Bacon was scheming to bring the pressure of kingly authority to bear on Alleyn with the aim of securing a large portion of the proposed endowment for the maintenance of lectureships at Oxford and Cambridge. Alleyn finally carried his point and the College of God's Gift at Dulwich was founded, and endowed under letters patent of James I., dated the 21st of June 1619. The building had been already begun in 1613 (see DULWICH.) Alleyn was never a member of his own foundation, but he continued to the close of his life to guide and control its affairs under powers reserved to himself in the letters patent. His diary shows that he mixed much and intimately in the life of the college. Many of the jottings in that curious record of daily doings and incidents favour the inference that he was a genial, kind, amiable and religious man. His fondness for his old profession is indicated by the fact that he engaged the boys in occasional theatrical performances. At a festive gathering on the 6th of January 1622 ``the boyes play'd a playe.''
Alleyn's first wife died in 1623. The same year he married Constance, daughter of John Donne, the poet and dean of St Paul's. Alleyn died in November 1626 and was buried in the chapel of the college which he had founded. His gravestone fixes the day of his death as the 21st, but there are grounds for the belief that it was the 25th. A portrait of the actor is preserved at Dulwich. Alleyn was a member of the corporation of wardens of St Saviour's, Southwark, in 1610, and there is a memorial window to him in the cathedral.
ALL FOURS, a card game (known also in America as Seven Up, Old Sledge or High-Low-Jack) usually played by two players, though four may play. A full pack is used and each player receives seven counters. Four points can be scored, one each for high, the highest trump out, for low, the lowest trump dealt, for Jack, the knave of trumps, and for game, the majority of pips in the cards of the tricks that a player has won. Ace counts 4, King 3, Queen 2, Knave 1, and ten 10 points. Low is scored by the person to whom it is dealt; High of course wins a trick; Jack is scored by the player who finally has it among his tricks. If Jack is turned up the dealer scores the point. A player who plays a high or low trump is entitled to ask if they are High or Low. The game is 10 or 11 points. Six cards are dealt to each, the thirteenth being turned up for trumps. The non-dealer may propose or beg if he does not like his hand. If the dealer refuses the elder hand scores a point; if he consents he gives and takes three more cards, the seventh being turned up for trumps, which must be of a different suit from the original trump card; otherwise six more cards are dealt out, and so on till a fresh trump suit appears. The non-dealer then leads; the other must trump or follow suit, or forfeit a point. Jack may be played to any trick. Each pair of cards is a trick, and is collected by the winner. A fresh deal may be claimed if the dealer exposes one of his adversary's cards, or if he gives himself or his adversary too few or too many. In that case the error must be discovered before a card is played (see also AUCTION PITCH.)
ALLIA (mod. Fosso Bettinia), a small tributary of the river Tiber, joining it on the left (east) bank, about 11 m. N. of Rome. It gave its name to the terrible defeat which the Romans suffered at the hands of the Gauls on the 18th of July 390 B.C. Livy (v. 37) and Diodorus (v. 114) differ with regard to the site of the battle, the former putting it on the left, the latter on the right bank of the Tiber. Mommsen and others support Diodorus, but the question still remains open.
See T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, iii. 24.
ALLIANCE, a city of Stark county, Ohio, U. S. A., on the Mahoning river, about 57 m. S.E. of Cleveland, about 1080 ft. above the sea, and about 505 ft. above the level of Lake Erie. Pop. (1890) 7607; (1900) 8974, of whom 1029 were foreign-born: (1906, estimate) 9796. It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Lake Erie, Alliance & Wheeling railways, and by an electric line connecting with Canton and Salem. The city is the seat of Mount Union College (Methodist Episcopal), opened in 1846 as a preparatory school and having in 1907 a library of about 10,000 volumes, a collegiate department (opened in 1858), a normal department (1858), a school of music (1855), a commercial school (1868), a faculty of 29 teachers, and an enrolment of 524 students, of whom 274 were women. Among the manufactures of Alliance are structural iron, steel castings, pressed sheet steel, gun carriages, boilers, travelling cranes, pipe organs, street-car indicators, sashes and doors, and account registers and other material for file and cabinet-bookkeeping. The municipality owns and operates its water-works. Alliance was first settled in 1838, when it was laid out as a town and was named Freedom; it was named Alliance in 1851, was incorporated as a village in 1854, and became a city of the second class in 1888.
ALLIANCE, in international law, a league between independent states, defined by treaty, for the purpose of combined action, defensive or offensive, or both. Alliances have usually been directed to specific objects carefully defined in the treaties. Thus the Triple Alliance of 1688 between Great Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands, and the Grand Alliance of 1689 between the emperor, Holland, England, Spain and Saxony, were both directed against the power of Louis XIV. The Quadruple or Grand Alliance of 1814, defined in the treaty of Chaumont, between Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, had for its object the overthrow of Napoleon and his dynasty, and the confining of France within her traditional boundaries. The Triple Alliance of 1882 between Germany, Austria and Italy was ostensibly directed to the preservation of European peace against any possible aggressive action of France or Russia; and this led in turn, some ten years later, to the Dual Alliance between Russia and France, for mutual support in case of any hostile action of the other powers. Occasionally, however, attempts have been made to give alliances a more general character. Thus the ``Holy Alliance'' (q.v.) of the 26th of September 1815 was an attempt, inspired by the religious idealism of the emperor Alexander I. of Russia, to find in the ``sacred precepts of the Gospel'' a common basis for a general league of the European governments, its object being, primarily, the preservation of peace. So, too, by Article VI. of the Quadruple Treaty signed at Paris on the 20th of November 1815—which renewed that of Chaumont and was again renewed, in 1818, at Aix-la-Chapelle—the scope of the Grand Alliance was extended to objects of common interest not specifically defined in the treaties. The article runs:—``In order to consolidate the intimate tie which unites the four sovereigns for the happiness of the world, the High Contracting Powers have agreed to renew at fixed intervals, either under their own auspices or by their respective ministers, meetings consecrated to great common objects and to the examination of such measures as at each one of these epochs shall be judged most salutary for the peace and prosperity of the nations and the maintenance of the tranquillity of Europe.''
It was this article of the treaty of the 20th of November 1815, rather than the ``Holy Alliance,'' that formed the basis of the serious effort made by the great powers, between 1815 and 1822, to govern Europe in concert, which will be found outlined in the article on the history of Europe. In general it proved that an alliance, to be effective, must be clearly defined as to its objects, and that in the long run the treaty in which these objects are defined must—-to quote Bismarck's somewhat cynical dictum —``be reinforced by the interests'' of the parties concerned. Yet the ``moral alliance'' of Europe, as Count Nesselrode called it, though it failed to secure the permanent harmony of the powers, was an effective instrument for peace during the years immediately following the downfall of Napoleon; and it set the precedent for those periodical meetings of the representatives of the powers, for the discussion and settlement of questions of international importance, which, though cumbrous and inefficient for constructive work, have contributed much to the preservation of the general peace (see EUROPE: History.) (W. A. P.)
ALLIARIA OFFICINALIS, also known botanically as Sisymbrium Alliaria, and popularly as garlic-mustard, Jack-by-the-hedge, or sauce-alone, a common hedge-bank plant belonging to the natural order Cruciferae. It is a rankly scented herb, 2 to 3 ft. high, with long-stalked, coarsely-toothed leaves, and small white flowers which are succeeded by stout long four-sided pods. It is widely spread through the north temperate region of the Old World.
ALLIBONE, SAMUEL AUSTIN (1816-1889), American author and bibliographer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 17th of April 1816, of French Huguenot and Quaker ancestry. He was privately educated and for many years was engaged in mercantile business in his native city. He, however, devoted himself chiefly to reading and to bibliographical research; acquired a very unusual knowledge of English and American literature, and is remembered as the compiler of the well-known Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors (3 vols.: vol. i. 1854, vols. ii. and iii. 1871). To this, two supplementary volumes, edited by John Foster Kirk, were added in 1891. From 1867 to 1873, and again in 1877-1879, Allibone was book editor and corresponding secretary of the American Sunday School Union; and from 1879 to 1888 he was librarian of the Lenox Library, New York City. He died at Lucerne, Switzerland, on the 2nd of September 1889. In addition to his Critical Dictionary he published three large anthologies and several religious tracts.
See the ``Memoir'' by S. D. M`Connell, an address delivered before the Historical Society of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1890).
ALLIER (anc. Elaver), a river of central France flowing into the Loire. It rises in the department of Lozere, among the Margeride mountains, a few miles east of the town of Mende. The upper course of the Allier separates the mountains of the Margeride from those of the Velay and lies for the most part through deep gorges. The river then traverses the plains of Langeac and Brioude, and receives the waters of the Alagnon some miles above the town of Issoire. Swelled by torrents from the mountains of Dore and Dome, it unites with the river Dore at its entrance to the department to which it gives its name. It then flows through a wide but shallow channel, joining the Sioule some distance above Moulins, the chief town on its banks. It soon after becomes the boundary line between the departments of Cher and Nievre, and reaches the Loire 4 m. west of Nevers, after a course of 269 m. Its basin has an area of 6755 sq. m. The Allier is classed as navigable for the last 154 m. of its course, but there is little traffic on it.
ALLIER, a department of central France, formed in 1790 from the old province of Bourbonnais. Pop. (1906) 417,961. Area, 2849 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the department of Nievre, E. by Saone-et-Loire, from which it is divided by the river Loire, S.E. by Loire, S. by Puy-de-Dome, S.W. by Crouse and N.W. by Cher. Situated on the northern border of the Central Plateau, the department slopes from south to north. Its highest altitudes are found in the south-east, in the Bois-Noirs, where one point reaches 4239 ft., and in the Monts de la Madeleine. Plains alternating with forests occupy the northern zone of the department, while the central and western regions form an undulating and well-watered plateau. Entering the department in the south, and, like the other chief rivers, flowing almost due north, the Allier drains the central district, receiving on its left the Sioule. East of the Allier is the Bebre, which joins the Loire within the limits of the department; and on the west the Cher, with its tributary the Aumance. Rigorous and rainy in the south-east, the climate elsewhere is milder though subject to sudden variations. Agriculturally the department is flourishing, the valleys of the Allier and the Sioule known as the Limagne Bourbonnaise comprising its most fertile portion. Wheat, oats, barley and other cereals are grown and exported, and owing to the abundance of pasture and forage, sheep and cattle-rearing are actively carried on. Potatoes and mangels yield good crops. Wines of fair quality are grown in the valley of the Sioule; walnuts, chestnuts, plums, apples and pears are principal fruits. Goats, from the milk of which choice cheese is made, and pigs are plentiful. A large area is under forests, the oak, beech, fir, birch and hornbeam being the principal trees. The mineral waters at Vichy (q.v.), Neris, Theneuille, Cusset and Bourbon l'Archambault are in much repute. The mineral wealth of the department is considerable, including coal as well as manganese and bituminous schist; plaster, building stone and hydraulic lime are also produced. Manufactories of porcelain, glass and earthenware are numerous. Montlucon and Commentry are ironworking centres. There are flour mills, breweries and saw-mills; and paper, chemicals, wooden shoes, wool and woollen goods are produced. Besides the products of the soil Allier exports coal, mineral waters and cattle for the Paris market. Building materials, brandy and coal are among the imports. The railways belong chiefly to the Orleans and Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean companies. The lateral canal of the Loire, the Berry Canal and the canal from Roanne to Digoin together traverse about 57 m. in the department. Allier is divided into the arrondissements of Moulins, Gannat, Lapalisse and Montlucon (29 cantons, 321 communes). It forms the diocese of Moulins and part of the ecclesiastical province of Bourges, and falls within the academie (educational division) of Clermont-Ferrand and the region of the XIII. army-corps. Its court of appeal is at Riom. Moulins, the capital, Montlucon and Vichy, are the principal towns. Souvigny possesses the church of a famous Cluniac priory dating from the 1ith-12th and 15th centuries, and containing the splendid tombs (15th century) of Louis II. and Charles I. of Bourbon. At St Menoux, Ebreuil and Gannat there are fine Romanesque churches. Huriel has a church of the 11th century and a well-preserved keep, the chief survival of a medieval castle. St Pourcain-sur-Sioule has a large church, dating from the 11th to the 18th centuries. The castle of Bourbon l'Archambault, which belonged to the dukes of Bourbon, dates from the 13th and 15th centuries. The Romanesque churches of Veauce and Ygrande, and the chateaus of Veauce and Lapalisse, are also of interest, the latter belonging to the family of Chabannes.
ALLIES, THOMAS WILLIAM (1813-1903), English historical writer, was born at Midsomer Norton, near Bristol, on the 12th of February 1813. He was educated at Eton and at Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in 1833. In 1840 Bishop Blomfield of London appointed him his examining chaplain and presented him to the rectory of Launton, Oxfordshire, which he resigned in 1850 on becoming a Roman Catholic. Allies was appointed secretary to the Catholic poor school committee in 1853, a position which he occupied till 1890. He died in London on the 17th of June 1903. Allies was one of the ablest of the English churchmen who joined the Church of Rome in the early period of the Oxford movement, his chief work, The Formation of Christendom (London, 8 vols., 1865-1895) showing much originality of thought and historical knowledge. His other writings: St Peter, his Name and Office (1852); The See of St Peter, the Rock of the Church (1850); Per Crucem ad Lucem (2 vols., 1879), have gone through many editions and been translated into several languages.
See his autobiography, A Life's Decision (1880); and the study of his daughier, Mary H. Allies, Thomas Allies, the Story of a Mind (London, 1906), which contains a full bibliography of his works.
ALLIFAE (mod. Alife), a town of the Samnites, 15 m. N.W. of Telesia, and 17 m. E.N.E. of Teanum. The site of the Samnite city, which in the 4th century B.C. had a coinage of its own, is not known; the Roman town lay in the valley of the Vulturnus, and its walls (4th century) enclose a circuit of 1 1/2 m., in which are preserved remains of large baths ( Thermae Herculis) and a theatre.
ALLIGATOR (Spanish el lagarto, ``the lizard''), an animal so closely allied to the crocodile that some naturalists have classed them together as forming one genus. It differs from the true crocodile principally in having the head broader and shorter, and the snout more obtuse; in having the fourth, enlarged tooth of the under jaw received, not into an external notch, but into a pit formed for it within the upper one; in wanting a jagged fringe which appears on the hind legs and feet of the crocodile; and in having the toes of the hind feet webbed not more than half way to the tips. Alligators proper occur in the fluviatile deposits of the age of the Upper Chalk in Europe, where they did not die out until the Pliocene age; they are now restricted to two species, A. mississippiensis or lucius in the southern states of North America up to 12 ft. in length, and the small A. sinensis in the Yang-tse-kiang. In Central and South America alligators are represented by five species of the genus Caiman, which differs from Alligator by the absence of a bony septum between the nostrils, and the ventral armour is composed of overlapping bony scutes, each of which is formed of two parts united by a suture. C. sclerops, the spectacled alligator, has the widest distribution, from southern Mexico to the northern half of Argentina, and grows to a bulky size. The largest, attaining an enormous bulk and a length of 20 ft., is the C. niger, the jacare-assu or large caiman of the Amazons. The names ``alligator'' and ``crocodile'' are often confounded in popular speech; and the structure and habits of the two animals are so similar that both are most conveniently considered under the heading CROCODILE.
ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM (1824-1889), Irish man of letters and poet, was born at Ballyshannon, Donegal, on the 19th of March 1824 (or 1828, according to some authorities), and was the son of the manager of a local bank. He obtained a post in the custom-house of his native town and filled several similar situations in Ireland and England until 1870, when he had retired from the service, and became sub-editor of Fraser's Magazine, which he edited from 1874 to 1879. He had published a volume of Poems in 1850, followed by Day and Night Songs, a volume containing many charming lyrics, in 1855. Allingham was on terms of close friendship with D. G. Rossetti, who contributed to the illustration of the Songs. His Letters to Allingham (1854-1870) were edited by Dr Birkbeck Hill in 1897. Lawrence Bloomfield, a narrative poem illustrative of Irish social questions, appeared in 1864. Allingham married in 1874 Helen Paterson, known under her married name as a water-colour painter. He died at Hampstead on the 18th of November 1889. Though working on an unostentatious scale, Allingham produced much excellent lyrical and descriptive poetry, and the best of his pieces are thoroughly national in spirit and local colouring.
William Allingham: a Diary (1907), edited by Mrs Allingham and D. Radford, contains many interesting reminiscences of Tennyson, Carlyle and other famous contemporaries.
ALLISON, WILLIAM BOYD (1829-1908), American legislator, was born at Perry, Ohio, on the 2nd of March 1829. Educated at Allegheny and Western Reserve Colleges, he studied law, and practised in Ohio until 1857. In that year he settled in Dubuque, Iowa, where he took a prominent part in Republican politics; and in 1860 he was a delegate to the national convention at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. In 1861 he was appointed a member of the staff of Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood (1813-1894), and was of great service in the work of equipping and organizing the Iowa volunteers. From 1863 until 1871 he served with distinction in the House of Representatives; in 1873 he was elected to the United States Senate, and re-elected in 1878, 1884, 1890, 1896 and 1902. Here he became one of the highest authorities on questions connected with finance, and from 1877 he was a member of the Senate committee on finance. In 1881-1893, and again from 1895, he was chairman of the committee on appropriations, in which position he had great influence. He declined offers of the secretaryship of the treasury made to him by Presidents Garfield and Harrison. He was a prominent candidate for the presidential nomination in the Republican national conventions of 1888 and 1896. In 1892 he was chairman of the American delegation to the International Monetary Conference at Brussels. He died at Dubuque, Iowa, on the 4th of August 1908.
ALLITERATION (from Lat. ad, to, and littera, letter), the commencing of two or more words, in close juxtaposition, with the same sound. As Milton defined rhyme to be ``the jingling sound of like endings,'' so alliteration is the jingle of like beginnings. All language has a tendency to jingle in both ways, even in prose. Thus in prose we speak of ``near and dear,'' ``high and dry,'' ``health and wealth.'' But the initial form of jingle is much more common—``safe and sound,'' ``thick and thin,'' ``weal or woe,'' ``fair or foul,'' ``spick and span,'' ``fish, flesh, or fowl,'' ``kith and kin.'' The poets of nearly all times and tongues have not been slow to seize upon the emphasis which could thus be produced.
Although mainly Germanic in its character, alliterationwas known to the Latins, especially in early times, andCicero blames Ennius for writing ``O Tite tute, Tati,tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti.'' Lucretius did not disdainto employ it as an ornament. We read in Shakespeare:—``Full fathom five thy father lies:Of his bones are corals made.''In Pope:—``Here files of pins extend their shining rows,Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.',In Gray:—``Weave the warp and weave the woof,The winding-sheet of Edward's race.''In Coleridge:-``The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,The furrow followed free:We were the first that ever burstInto that silent sea.''Churchill describes himself, in his Prophecy of Famine, as one``Who often, but without success, had prayedFor apt alliteration's artful aid,''—an example which is itself a proof of his failure; foralliteration is never effective unless it runs upon consonants.
As thus far considered, alliteration is a device wholly dependent on the poet's fancy. He may use it or not, or use it much or little, at his pleasure. But there is an extensive range of Teutonic poetry whose metrical laws are entirely based on alliteration. This, for example, is the principle on which Icelandic verse is founded; and we have a yet nearer interest in it, because it furnishes the key to Anglo-Saxon and a large portion of early English verse. For a specimen take the following lines, the spelling modernized, from the beginning of Piers the Plowman:— ``But in a May morning | on Malvern hills, Me befel a ferly | of fairy methought; I was weary of wandering | and went me to rest Under a broad bank | by a burn-side; And as I lay and leaned | and looked on the waters, I slumbered in a sleeping | it sounded so merry.'' The rule of this verse is indifferent as to the number of syllables it may contain, but imperative as to the number of accented ones. The line is divided in the middle by a pause, and each half ought to contain two accented syllables. Of the four accented syllables, the first three should begin with the same letter; the fourth is free and may start with any letter. Those who wish for a more minute analysis of the laws of alliterative verse, as practised by the Anglo-Saxon and early English poets, may consult an exhaustive essay on the subject by Professor W. W. Skeat, prefixed to vol. iii. of Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript; only the reader must be on his guard against an error which pervades it, and which this able writer seems to have derived from Rask. The question arises—What is the nature of the cadence in alliterative verse? Now all metrical movement is of two kinds, according as the beat or emphasis begins the movement or ends it. If the beat is initial, we say in classical language that the movement is trochaic or dactylic, according to the number of its syllables; and if the beat is final, we in like manner say that the movement is iambic or anapaestic. Skeat and many others object with some reason to use the classical terms, and therefore brushing them aside, let us put the question in the simplest form—Has the movement of alliterative verse got the initial or the final beat? In the middle of the 18th century Bishop Percy decided this question with sufficient accuracy, though he mixed up his statement with a blunder which it is not easy to account for. He points out how the poets began to introduce rhyme into alliterative verse, until at length rhyme came to predominate over alliteration, and ``thus was this kind of metre at length swallowed up and lost in the common burlesque Alexandrine or anapaestic verse, as ``A cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall.'' Percy made a serious mistake when he gave the name of Alexandrine to anapaestic verse; but he is quite right in his general statement that alliterative verse became lost in a measure the movement of which had the final beat. Conybeare has stated the fact still more accurately. ``In the Saxon poetry a trochaic character is predominant. In Piers the Plowman there is a prevailing tendency to an anapaestic cadence.'' It is the result of a change in the language—the loss of inflexion. Take the word man. The genitive in Saxon would be mannes, a trochee; in English, of man, an iambus. The tendency of the language was thus to pass from a metrical movement, in which the beat was initial, to one in which it was final. It may therefore be quite right to speak of Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry as trochaic or dactylic, and quite wrong to apply the same terms to the cadence of our later alliterative verse. And this is precisely the error into which Skeat has fallen. He says—``Lines do not always begin with a loud syllable, but often one or two and sometimes (in early English especially) even three soft syllables precede it. These syllables are necessary to the sense, but not to the scanision of the line.'' That is just the point at issue. By leaving out of account the light syllable or syllables at the beginning of a line, and taking his start from the first syllable that has the alliterative beat, Skeat may certainly prove that all the later alliterative poetry has a movement of initial beat. But English ears will not submit to this rule. It is those light syllables of no account which have altered the rhythm of English descant from one of initial to one of final beat.
ALLIUM (Lat. for ``garlic''), a genus of plants, natural order Liliaceae, with about 250 species (seven of which occur in Britain), found in Central and South Europe, North Africa, the dry country of West and Central Asia, and North and Central America. The plants are bulbous herbs, with flat or rounded radical leaves, and a central naked or leafy stem, bearing a head or umbel of small flowers, with a spreading or bell-shaped white, pink, red, yellow or blue perianth. Several species afford useful foods, such as onion (Allium Cepa), leek (A. Porrum), shallot or eschallot (A. ascalonicum), garlic (A. sativum), and chives (A. schoenoprasum.) A few species are cultivated as border plants; such are A. Moly, an old garden plant with bright yellow flowers, and A. neapolitanum, the well-known white-flowered species, both natives of southern Europe.
ALLIX, PIERRE (1641-1717), French Protestant divine, was born at Alencon. He was pastor first at St Agobile in Champagne, and then at Charenton, near Paris. The revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 compelled him to take refuge in London, where, under the sanction of James II., he opened a church for the French exiles. His reputation for learning was such as to obtain for him, soon after his arrival, the degree of doctor of divinity from both universities, and in 1690 he received from Bishop Burnet the more substantial honour of the treasurership and a canonry in Salisbury Cathedral. He died at London in March 1717. The works of Allix, which are numerous, are chiefly of a controversial and apologetic character, and must be used with caution. In opposition to Bossuet he published Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont (1690), and Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses (1692), with the idea of showing that the Albigenses were not Manichaeans, but historically identical with the Waldenses.
ALLMAN, GEORGE JAMES (1812-!898), British biologist, was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1812, and received his early education at the Royal Academical Institution, Belfast. For some time he studied for the Irish bar, but ultimately gave up law in favour of natural science. In 1843 he graduated in medicine at Dublin, and in the following year was appointed professor of botany in that university, succeeding his namesake, William Allman (1776-1846). This position he held for about twelve years until he removed to Edinburgh as regius professor of natural history. There he remained till 1870, when considerations of health induced him to resign his professorship and retire to Dorsetshire, where he devoted himself to his favourite pastime of horticulture. The scientific papers which came from his pen are very numerous. His most important work was upon the gymnoblastic hydrozoa, on which he published in 1871-1872, through the Ray Society, an exhaustive monograph, based largely on his own researches and illustrated with drawings of remarkable excellence from his own hand. Biological science is also indebted to him for several convenient terms which have come into daily use, e.g. endoderm and ectoderm for the two cellular layers of the body-wall in Coelenterata. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1854, and received a Royal medal in 1873. For several years he occupied the presidential chair of the Linnaean society, and in 1879 he presided over the Sheffield meeting of the British Association. He died on the 24th of November 1898 at Parkstone, Dorsetshire.
ALLOA, a municipal and police burgh and seaport of Clackmannanshire, Scotland. It is situated on the north bank of the Forth, 32 m. from Edinburgh by the North British railway via the Forth Bridge, and 28 m. from Leith by steamer. Pop. (1891) 12,643; (1901) 14,458. The Caledonian railway enters the town from the south-west by a bridge across the river, and also owns a ferry to South Alloa, on the opposite shore, in Stirlingshire. Between Alloa and Stirling the stream forms the famous ``links,'' the course being so sinuous that whereas by road the two towns are but 6 1/2 m. apart, the distance between them by river is nearly 12 m.
For its size and population the town enjoys unusual prosperity, in consequence of its several flourishing industries. Its manufactures of yarn are on the largest scale, the spinning mills often working night and day for many months together. There are also numerous breweries, and Alloa ale has always been famous. The great distillery at Carsebridge yields an immense supply of yeast as well as whisky. Other thriving trades include the glass-works on the shore, pottery-works in the ``auld toon,'' dye-works and a factory for the making of electrical appliances. There is a good deal of shipbuilding, some ironfounding and a brass foundry. The chief article of export is coal from the neighbouring collieries, the other leading exports being ale, whisky, glass and manufactured goods. The imports comprise timber, grain, iron, linseed and flax. The docks, accessible only at high water, include a wet basin and a dry dock. Amongst the principal buildings are the fine Gothic parish church, with a spire 200 ft. high; the town hall, including the free public library, from designs by Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., the gift of Mr J. Thomson Paton; the county and municipal buildings; handsome public baths and gymnasium, presented to the town by Mr David Thomson; the accident hospital; the fever hospital; the museum of the Natural Science and Archaeological Society; the academy, the burgh school and a secondary school with the finest technical equipment in Scotland, given by Mr A. Forrester Paton. There is a public park, besides bowling-greens and cricket and football fields. The old burying-ground was the kirkyard of the former parish church, the tower of which still exists, but a modern cemetery has been formed in Sunnyside. The town owns the water-supply, gas-works and electric-lighting.
Alloa Park, the seat of the earl of Mar and Kellie, is in the immediate vicinity, and in its grounds stand the ruins of Alloa Tower, an ancient structure 89 ft. high, with walls 11 ft. thick, which was built about 1315, and was once the residence of the powerful family of Erskine, descendants of the earl of Mar. The earl who promoted the Jacobite rising in 1715 was born here. Many of the Scots princes received their education as wards of the Lords Erskine and the earls of Mar, the last to be thus educated being Henry, the eldest son of James VI.
ALLOBROGES (in Gr. usually 'Allobriges), a Celtic tribe in the north of Gallia Narbonensis, inhabiting the low ground called the ``island'' between the Rhodanus, the Isara and the Graian Alps, corresponding to the modern Dauphine and Savoy. If the name is rightly interpreted as meaning ``aliens,'' they would seem to have driven out the original inhabitants. Their chief towns were Vienna (Vienne), Genava (Geneva) and Cularo (afterwards Gratianopolis, whence Grenoble). The Allobroges first occur in history as taking part with Hannibal in the invasion of Italy. After the subjugation of the Salluvii (Salyes) by the Romans in 123 B.C., having given shelter to their king Tutomotulus and refused to surrender him, the Allobroges were attacked and finally defeated (August 8, 121) at the junction of the Rhodanus and Isara by Q. Fabius Maximus (afterwards Allobrogicus). But they still remained hostile to Rome, as is shown by the conduct of their ambassadors in the Catilinarian conspiracy (63; see CATILINE); two years later a revolt under Catugnatus was put down by Gaius Pomptinus at Solonium. Under Augustus they were included in Gallia Narbonensis; later, in the Viennensis.
See A. Desjardins, Geographie historique de la Gaule romaine, ii. (1876-1893); . E. Herzog, Galliae Narbonensis Historia (Leipzig, 1864); Mommsen, Hist. of Rome (Eng. trans.). bk. iii. ch. 4, iv. ch. 5; T. R. Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of Gaul (1899): G. Long in Smith's Dict. of Greek anid Roman Geography: M. Ihm in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie, i. 2 (1894); A. Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz; and bibliography in La grande encyclopedie (s.v.).
ALLOCATUR (from med. Lat. allocatur, it is allowed), in law, a certificate given by a taxing master, at the termination of an action, for the allowance of costs.
ALLOCUTION (Lat. allocutio, an address), a name given to the formal addresses made by the pope to the College of Cardinals and through them to the church generally. They are usually called forth by ecclesiastical or political circumstances, and aim at safeguarding papal principles and claims. They are published by being affixed to the door of St Peter's Church.
ALLODIUM, or ALODIUM, a legal term for lands which are the absolute property of their owner, and not subject to any service or acknowledgment to a superior. It is thus the opposite of fe-odum or fief. The proper derivation of the word has been much discussed and is still doubtful, though it is probably compounded of all, whole or entire, and odh, property. Allodial tenure seems to have been common throughout northern Europe. It exists in Orkney and Shetland, but is unknown in England, the feudal system having been made universal by William the Conqueror.
ALLOMEROUS (Gr. allos, other meros, part), the quality of bodies (e.g. mineral) by virtue of which they can change their elements and proportions while preserving their form.
ALLON, HENRY (1818-1892), English Nonconformist divine, was born on the 13th of October 1818 at Welton near Hull in Yorkshire. Under Methodist influence he decided to enter the ministry, but, developing Congregational ideas, was trained at Cheshunt College. In 1844 he became co-pastor with the Rev. Thomas Lewis of Union Chapel, Islington. In 1852, on the death of Lewis, Allon became sole pastor, and this position he held with increasing influence till his death in 1892. Union Chapel, originally founded by evangelical members of the Church of England and Nonconformists acting in harmony, became during Anon's co-pastorate definitely Congregational in principle and fellowship, and exercised an ever-expanding influence. His chief service to Nonconformity was in connexion with the improvement of congregational worship, and especially the service of praise. In 1852 Dr. H. J. Gauntlett became organist at Union of this class, Allon published the original edition of his well-known Congregational Psalmist. For many years his collection of hymns, chants and anthems was used in hundreds of churches throughout England. In 1860 Allon began to write, at first chiefly for the Patriot, then under the editorship of T. C. Turbeville. In 1864, at the age of forty-five, he was elected chairman of the Congregational Union, and in 1866 he undertook the editorship of the British Quarterly Review with H. R. Reynolds, the principal of Cheshunt. In 1877 he became sole editor, and in that capacity came into touch with such men as W. E. Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, F. D. Maurice and Dean Stanley. The magazine was discontinued in 1886. In 1871 he received the degree of D.D. from the university of Yale, U.S.A. In 1874 the congregation at Islington decided to erect new buildings. The church, which was built at a cost of L. 50,000, was specially adapted for congregational worship and was mentioned by an architectural journal as one of the hundred remarkable buildings of the century. The church had in its Yarious departments about 300 teachers in charge of more than 3000 children, and was in its organization one of the earliest instances of the type known as the institutional church. In 1881. on the occasion of the jubilee of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, Allon was again elected chairman. In were A Memoir of James Sherman (1863); the Sermons of Thomas Binney, with a biographical and critical sketch (1869); The Vision of God and other sermons (1876); The Indwelling Christ (1892). Allon was a man of sound judgment, strong will, great moral courage and personal kindness. His acquaintance with literature was wide, his own style lucid and decisive. In social and political affairs he was a convinced individualist. Both as leader of Union Chapel and in denominational affairs his courage and discretion, his simple faith, combined with a broad-minded symoathy with the intellectual movements of the time, made his ministry a widespread influence for good. (D. MN.)
ALLONGE (from Fr. alloinger, to draw out), a slip of paper affixed to a negotiable instrument, as a bill of exchange, for the purpose of receiving additional indorsements for which there may not be sufficient space on the bill itself. An indorsement written on the allonge is deemed to be written on the bill itself. An allonge is more usually met with in those countries where the Code Napoleon is in force, as the code requires every indorsement to express the consideration. Under English law, as the simple signature of the indorser on the bill, without additional words, is sufficient to operate as a negotiation, an allonge is seldom necessary.
ALLOPHANE, one of the few minerals known only in the amorphous state. It is a glassy substance, usually occurring as thin encrustations with a mammillary surface; occasionally, however, it is earthy and pulverulent. The colour varies considerably. from colourless to yellow, brown, blue or green. Specimens of a brilliant sky-blue colour, such as those found formerly in Wheal Haniblyn, near Bridestowe in Devonshire, and in Sardinia, are specially attractive in appearance; the colour is here due to the presence of the copper mineral chrysocolla. The hardness is 3, and the specific gravity 1.9. Chemically, it is a hydrous aluminium silicate, Al2SiO5.5H2O. Allophane is always of secondary origin, resulting from the decomposition of various aluminous silicates, such as felspar. It is often found copper and iron. It was first observed in 1809 in marl at Grafenthal, near Saalfield in Thuringia; and has been found in lines fissures and funnel-shaped cavities. The name allophane was given by F. Stromeyer in 1816, from the Gr. allos, another, and faino, to appear, in allusion to the fact that the mineral crumbles and changes in appearance when heated before the blowpipe. Other names for the species are riemannite and elhuyarite, whilst closely allied minerals are carolathine, samoite and schrotterite (opal-allophane).
ALLORI, ALESSANDRO (1535—1607), Italian painter of the Florentine school, was brought up and trained in art by his uncle, Angelo Bronzino (q.v.) whose name he sometimes assumed in his pictures. Visiting Rome in his nineteenth year, he carefully studied the works of Michelangelo; but the influence of that great master can only be traced in the anatomical correctness of his drawing of nude figures. He was successful as a portrait painter. His son CRISTOFANO ALLORI (1577-1621), born at Florence, received his first lessons in painting from his father, but becoming dissatisfied with the hard anatomical drawing and cold colouring of the latter, he entered the studio of Gregorio Pagani (1558-1605) who was one of the leaders of that later Florentine school which endeavoured to unite the rich colouring of the Venetians with the correct drawing of Michelangelo's disciples. Allori became one of the foremost of this school. His pictures are distinguished by their close adherence to nature and the delicacy and technical perfection of their execution. His technical skill is proved by the fact that several copies he made after Correggio have been taken to be duplicates by Correggio himself. His extreme fastidiousness limited his power of production, though the number of his works is not so small as is sometimes asserted. Several specimens are to be seen at Florence and elsewhere. The finest of all his works is his ``Judith and Holofernes,'' in the Pitti Palace. The model for the Judith was his mistress, the beautiful Mazzafirra, who is also represented in his Magdalene; and the head of Holofernes is generally supposed to represent himself.
ALLOTMENT from O. Fr. a and loter, to divide by lot), the act of allotting; a share or portion assigned. In England, the term denotes a portion of land assigned on partition or under an inclosure award (see COMMONS); also a division of land into small portions for cultivation by a labourer or artisan at a small rent (see ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINOS). In company law, ``allotment'' is the appropriation to an applicant by a resolution of the directors of a certain number of shares in response to an application. The document sent to such an applicant, which announces the number of shares assigned and concludes the contract, is called a letter of allotment or allotment certificate. A letter of allotment in England requires a sixpenny stamp if the value of the shares amounts to L. 5 or over, and a penny stamp if less than L. 5. (See COMPANY.)
Allotment note is a writing by a seaman authorising his employers to make an allotment of part of his wages, while he is on a voyage, in favour either of a ``near'' relative (wife, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, child, grandchild, brother or sister of the seaman), or of a savings bank. Every allotment note must be in a form sanctioned by the Board of Trade.
ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS. As the meaning of these terms in agricultural tenure varies in different localities, it may be as well to say at once that for the present purpose they are definable as pieces of land detached from cottages, and hired or owned by labouring men to supplement their main income. We do not include any farm, however small, from which the occupier derives his entire support by dairying, market-gardening, or other form of la petite culture. So, also, no account is taken of the tiny garden plot, used for growing vegetables for the table and simple flowers, which is properly an appurtenance of the cottage. Clearing away what is extraneous, the essential point round which much controversy has raged is the labourer's share in the land. The claim advanced depends upon tradition. In agriculture, the oldest of all industries, a cash payment is not even now regarded as discharging the obligations between master and servant. Mr Wilson Fox, in reporting to the Board of Trade on the earnings of agricultural labourers in Great Britain, gives, as a typical survival of an old custom, the case of a shepherd whose total income was calculated at L. 60 a year, but who got only L. 16 in money, the rest being made up by rights of grazing live-stock, growing crops on his master's land, and kindred privileges. That is exactly in the spirit that used to pervade agriculture, and doubtless had its origin in the manorial system. If we turn back to the 13th century, from Walter of Henley's Husbandry it will be seen that practically there were only two classes engaged in agriculture, and corresponding with them were two kinds of land. There were, on the one hand, the employer, the lord, and his demesne land; on the other, the villeins and the land held in villenage. Putting aside for the moment any discussion of the exact degree of servitude, it will be seen that the essence of the bargain was that the villein should be permitted to cultivate a virgate of land for his own use in return for service rendered on the home farm. This is not altered by the fact that the conditions approached those of slavery, that the villeins were adscripti glebae, that in some cases their wives and sons were bequeathed by deed to the service of religious houses, and that in many other respects their freedom was limited. Out of this, in the course of centuries, was developed the system prevailing to-day. Lammas lands are indeed a survival from it. There are in the valley of the Lea, and close to London, to take one example, lands allotted annually in little strips till the crops are carried, when, the day being fixed by a reeve, the land becomes a common pasture till the spring closing takes place once more. Perhaps the feature of this old system that bears most directly on the question of allotments was the treatment of the waste of the manor. The lord, like his tenants, was limited by custom as regards the number of beasts he could graze on it. After the havoc of the Black Death in 1349, many changes were necessitated by the scarcity and dearness of labour. It became less unusual for land to be let and for money payment to be accepted instead of services. There was a great demand for wool, and to conduct sheep-farming on a large scale necessitated a re-arrangement of the manor and the enclosure of many common fields under the statute of Merton and the statute of Westminster the Second. Nevertheless, up to the 18th century, a vast proportion of agricultural land was technically waste, on which rights of common were exercised by yeomen, some of whom had acquired holdings by the ordinary methods of purchase or inheritance, while others had merely squatted and built a house on the waste. It is to this period that belongs a certain injustice to which the peasantry were subject. No reasonable doubt can be entertained of the necessity of enclosure. Husbandry, after long stagnation, was making great advance; and among others, Arthur Young raised his voice against the clumsy inconvenient common fields that were the first to be enclosed. Between 1709 and 1797 no fewer than 3110 acts, affecting, as far as can be calculated, about 3,000,000 acres, were put into operation. They seem mostly to have been directed to the common fields. In the first half of the 19th century the movement went on apace. In a single year, 1801, no fewer than 119 acts were passed; and between 1801 and 1842 close on 2000 acts were passed—-many of them expressly directed to the enclosure of wastes and commons. The same thing continued till 1860. It touched the peasant directly and indirectly. The enclosure of the common fields proved most hurtful to the small farmer; the enclosure of the waste injured the labourer by depriving him, without adequate compensation, of such useful privileges as the right to graze a cow, a pig, geese or other small animals. It also discouraged him by tending to the extinction of small tenancies and freeholds that were no longer workable at a profit when common rights ceased to go with them. The industrious labourer could previously nourish a hope of bettering his condition by obtaining a small holding. Yet though the labourer suffered, impartial study does not show any intentional injustice. He held a very weak position when those interested in a common affixed to the church door a notice that they intended to petition. As Mr Cowper (afterwards Lord Mount Temple) said in the House of Commons on the 13th of March 1844, ``the course adopted had been to compensate the owner of the cottage to whom the common right belonged, forgetting the claims of the occupier by whom they were enjoyed''; and in the same debate Sir Robert Peel pointed out that not only the rights of the tenant, but those of his successors ought to have been studied. The course adopted divorced the labourer from the soil.
Parliament, as a matter of fact, had from a very early period recognized the wisdom of contenting the peasant. In the 14th century the labourer lived in rude abundance. Next century a rural exodus began, owing to the practice of enclosing the holdings and turning them into sheep walks. In 1487 an act was passed enjoining landlords to ``keep up houses of husbandry,'' and attach convenient land to them. Within the next hundred years a number of similar attempts were made to control what we may call the sheep fever of the time. Then we arrive at the reign of Elizabeth and the famous Small Holdings Act passed in 1597—an anticipation of the three-acres-and-a-cow policy advocated towards the end of the 19th century. It required that no person shall ``build, convert or ordain any cottage for habitation or dwelling for persons engaged in husbandry'' unless the owner ``do assign and lay to the same cottage or building four acres of ground at the least.'' It also provided against any ``inmate or under-sitter'' being admitted to what was sacred to one family. This measure was not conceived in the spirit of modern political economy, but it had the effect of staying the rural exodus. It was repealed in 1775 on the ground that it restricted the building of cottages. By that time the modern feeling in favour of allotments had begun to ripen, and it was contended that some compensation should be made to the labourers for depriving them of the advantages of the waste. Up to then the English labouring rustic had been very well off. Food was abundant and cheap, so were clothes and boots; he could graze his cow or pig on the common, and also obtain fuel from it. Now he fell on evil days. Prices rose, wages fell, privileges were lost, and in many cases he had to sell the patch of land whose possession made all the difference between hardship and comfort. All this was seen plainly enough both by statesmen and private philanthropists. One of the first experiments was described by Sir John Sinclair in a note to the report of a select committee of the House of Commons on waste lands in 1795. About 1772 the lord of the manor of some commonable lands near Tewkesbury had with great success set out 25 acres in allotments for the use of some of the poor. Sir John was very much struck with the result, and so heartily applauded the idea that the committee recommended that any general enclosure bill should have a clause in it providing for ``the accommodation of land.'' Sir Thomas Bernard and W. Wilberforce took an active part in advocating the principle of allotments, on the ground, to summarize their argument in language employed later by a witness before the House of Commons, that ``it keeps the cottagers buoyant and makes them industrious.'' In 1806, at the suggestion of the rector, a clause assigning an allotment of half an acre to every cottage was inserted in an enclosure bill Wiltshire. This was done, ``and the example was followed by nearly every adjoining parish in that part of Wiltshire. Passing over several praiseworthy establishments of allotments by private persons, we come to 1819, when parliament passed an act akin in spirit to several that came into existence during the later portion of the Victorian era. It empowered the churchwardens and overseers of any parish, with the consent of the vestry, to purchase or hire land not exceeding 25 acres, and to let it in portions to ``any poor and industrious inhabitant of the parish.'' This was amended in 1831 by an act extending the quantity of land enable the same authorities to enclose from any waste or common, land not exceeding 50 acres to be devoted to the same purpose. This was followed next year by an act relating to fuel, and in 1834 the Poor Law Commissioners reported favourably on the principle of granting allotments. In 1843 an important inquiry into the subject was made by a committee of the House of Commons, which produced a number of valuable suggestions. One consequence was the bill of 1845, brought into parliament by Mr Cowper. It passed the House of Commons; and there Mr Bright made a remark that probably summarized a general opinion, since it never came to a third reading in the House of Lords. He said that ``the voluntary system of arrangement would do all the good that was expected to accrue from the allotment system.''
At this point in the history of the movement it may be as well to cause and ask what was the net result of so much legislation and benevolent action. Messrs Tremenheere and Tufnall, who prefixed an admirable epitome of what had been done to the report of the commission ``appointed to inquire into the employment of women, young persons and children in agriculture'' (1867), expressed considerable disappointment. Between 1710 and 1867, 7,660,413 statute acres were added to the cultivated area of England and Wales, or about one-third of the area in cultivation at the latter date; and of this total, 484,893 acres were enclosed between 1845 and 1867. Of the latter, only 2119 acres were assigned as public allotments for gardens to the labouring poor. It was found to be the case, as it is now, that land was taken up more readily when offered privately and voluntarily than when it came through offcial sources. Meanwhile competent and thoughtful men saw well that the sullen discontent of the peasantry continued, in Lord Bacon's phrase, to threaten ``the might and manhood of the kingdom.'' It had existed since the beginning of the Napoleonic wars, and had become more articulate with the spread of education. We shall see a consciousness of its presence rehected in the minds of statesmen and politicians as we briefly examine the later phase of the movement. This found expression in the clauses against enclosure introduced by Lord Beaconsheld in 1876, and gave force to the three-acres-and-a-cow agitation, of which the more prominent leaders were Joseph Arch and Jesse Collings. In 1882 the Allotments Extension Act was passed, the object of which was to let the parishioners have charity land in allotments, provided it or the revenue from it was not used for apprenticeshio, ecclesiastical or educational purposes. A committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1885 to inquire into the housing of the working classes, reported strongly in favour of allotments, and this was followed in 1887 by the Allotments Act—-the first measure in which the principle of compulsory acquisition was admitted in regard to other than charity lands. Its administration was first given to the sanitary authority, but passed to the district councils when these bodies were established in 1894. the local body is empowered to hire or purchase suitable land, and if they do not find any in the market they are to petition the county council, which after due inquiry may issue a provisional order compeihng owners to sell land, and the Local Government Board may introduce a bill into parliament to confirm the order. It was found that the sanitary authority did not carry out the scheme, and in 1890 another act was passed for the purpose of allowing applicants for allotments, when the sanitary authority failed to provide land, to appeal to the county council. Judging from the evidence laid before the commission on agricultural depression (1894), the act of 1887 was not a conspicuous success. Most of the witnesses reported in such terms as these—-``the Allotments Act has been quite inoperative in Cornwall''; ``the act has been a dead letter in the district (Wigtownshire)''; ``the Allotments Act has not been in operation in Flintshire''; ``nothing has been done in the district of Pembrokeshire under the act.'' No evidence whatever was adduced to show that in a single district a different state of things had to be recorded. From a return presented by the Local Government Board to parliament in 1896 we learn that eighty-three rural sanitary authorities had acquired land for allotment prior to the 28th of December 1894, the date at which these authorities ceased to exist under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1894. Land was acquired by compulsory purchase in only one parish; by purchase or agreement in eighteen parishes; by hire by agreement in 132 parishes. The total acreage dealt with was 1836 acres 1 rood 34 poles, and the total number of tenants 4711. The number of county councils that up to the same date had acquired land was twelve, and they had done so by compulsory purchase in one parish, by purchase or agreement in five parishes, by hire by agreement in twenty-four parishes. The total area dealt with was only 413 acres 1 rood 5 poles, and the total number of tenants 825.The complete totals affected at the date of the return (August 21, 1895) by the acts, therefore, were 2249 acres 2 roods 29 poles, and 5536 tenants. A considerable extension has taken place since.
The Small Holdings Act introduced by Mr Henry Chaplin, and passed by parliament in 1892 was an attempt to appease the rural discontent that had been seething for some time past and was silently but most eloquently expressed in a steady migration from the villages. The object of this measure was to help the deserving labouring man to acquire a small holding, that is to say, a portion of land not less than one acre or more than fifty acres in extent and of an annual value not exceeding L. 50. It is not necessary here to describe the legal steps by which this was to be accomplished. The essence of the bargain was that a fifth of the purchase money should be paid down, and the remainder in half-yearly instalments spread over a period not exceeding fifty years. But if the local authority thought fit a portion of the purchase money, not exceeding one-fourth. might remain unpaid, and be secured by a perpetual rent charge upon the holding. It cannot be said that this act has attained the object for which it was drawn up. From a return made to the House of Commons in 1895 it was shown that eight county councils had acquired land under the Small Holdings Act, which amounted in the aggregate to 483 acres. A further return was made in 1903, which showed that the total quantity of land acquired from the commencement of the act up to the end of 1902 was only 652 acres.
It is, however, an English characteristic to prefer private to public arrangements, and probably a very great majority of the allotments and small holdings cultivated in 1907 were due to individual initiative. There are no means of arriving at the exact figures, but data exist whereby it is at least possible to form some rough idea of them. It is not the custom to give in the annual agricultural returns any statement of the manner in which land is held, and the information is to be found in the returns presented to parliament from time to time. From the following table, which includes both the holdings owned and tenanted, it will be seen that between 1895 and 1904 the tendency was for the holdings to decrease in number; while the holdings of from 50 to 300 acres slightly increased, those from 5 to 50 acres were almost stationary, and there was a decrease in those between 1 and 5 acres.
1895. 1904. Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent. 1 to 5 acres 117,968 22.68 110,974 21.69 5 to 50 '' 235,481 45.28 232,470 45.44 50 to 300 '' 147,870 28.43 150,050 29.33 Above 300 '' 18,787 3.61 18,084 3.54
These figures become doubly instructive when considered in connexion with the decline of the strictly rural population. It will, therefore, be useful to place beside them a summary published in a report on the decline of rural population in Great Britain issued by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1906.
Class. 1881. 1891. 1901. Increase (+) or Decrease (-)1881-1891. 1891-1901.No. No. No. No. No.Farmers andGraziers 279,126 277,943 277,694 -1,183 -249Farm Bailiffsand Foremen 22,895 21,453 27,317 -1,442 +5,864Shepherds 33,125 31,686 35,022 -1,439 +3,336AgriculturalLabourers 983,919 866,543 689,292 -117,376 -177,251
These figures must of course be approximate. The effect of recent development in methods of travelling and the growing custom for townsmen either to live wholly in the country or to take week-end cottages, has made it impossible to draw a strict line of demarcation between rural and urban populations. Still they are near enough for practical purposes, and they amply justify the efforts of those who are trying to stay the rural exodus.
While legislation had not, up to 1908, achieved any noteworthy result in the creation of small holdings, and still left doubts as to the practicability of re-creating the English yeoman by act of parliament, many successful efforts have been made by individuals. One of the most interesting is that of the earl of Carrington at Sleaford in Lincolnshire. In this case the most noteworthy feature is that between the landlord and the tenants there is a body called the South Lincolnshire Small Holdings Association, which took 650 acres from Lord Carrington on a twenty years' lease. These acres used to be let to four or five tenants. They were in 1905 divided among one hundred and seventy tenants. The Small Holders' Association guaranteed the rent, which works out at about 33s. per acre, to Lord Carrington. They let the men on yearly tenancy have it at about 40s. an acre, the difference being used to meet the expenses of dividing the lands into small holdings, maintaining drains, fences and roads connected with them, and other unavoidable outlays. In this way the landlord is assured of his rent, and the association has lost nothing, as the men were very punctual in their payments. But very great care was bestowed in choosing the men for the holdings. They were in a sense picked men, but men must be picked to work the business satisfactorily. Lincolnshire is pre-eminently a county of small holdings, and the labouring residents in it have been accustomed to the management of them from their infancy onwards. Here as elsewhere the provision of suitable houses formed a difficulty, some of the tenants having to walk several miles to their holdings. Lord Carrington availed himself as much as possible of the buildings that existed, dividing the old farm houses so as to make them suitable for the small tenants. At Cowbit farm, many of the ordinary labourers' cottages, which were put up at a cost of about L. 300 a pair, have by the addition of little dairies and other alterations been made suitable for the tenants. From facts collected on the spot we have come to the conclusion that on the small holdings a good tenant makes an average profit of about L. 4 an acre, but on an allotment cultivated by means of the spade it would probably be at the rate of over L. 6 an acre. Lord Carrington was also successful in establishing small holdings on the Humberston estate in North Lincolnshire and on his Buckinghamshire estate, near Aylesbury. At Newport Pagnell the attempt failed because the demand was artificial, the ground arable, and the men not capable of dealing with it.