Anarchists are a revolutionary sect or body setting forth as the social ideal the extreme form of individual freedom, and holding that all government is injurious and immoral, that the destruction of every social form now existing must be the first step to the creation of a new world (Anarchy). Their recognition as an independent sect may be dated from the secession of Bakunin and his followers from the Social Democrats at the congress of the Hague in 1872, since which they have maintained an active propaganda. Their principal journals have been La Revolte published in Paris, the Freiheit published in New York, Liberty published in Boston, and the Anarchist published in London. The Anarchist congress held at London in 1881 decided that all means were justifiable as against the organized forces of modern society. Research Anarchists
Assiento was the permission of the Spanish government to a foreign nation to import negro slaves from Africa into the Spanish colonies in America, for a limited time, on payment of certain duties. It was accorded to the Netherlands about 1552, to the Genoese in 1580, and to the French Guinea Company (afterwards the Assiento Company) in 1702. In 1713 the celebrated assiento treaty with Britain for thirty years was concluded at Utrecht. By this contract the British obtained the right to send yearly a ship of 500 tons, with all sorts of merchandise, to the Spanish colonies. This led to frequent abuses and contrabandtrade; acts of violence followed, and in 1739 a war broke out between the two powers. At the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, four years more were granted to the British; but in the Treaty of Madrid, two years later, 100,000 pounds sterling were promised for the relinquishment of the two remaining years, and the contract was annulled. Research Assiento
Bath is the immersion of the body in water, or an apparatus for this purpose. The use of the bath as an institution apart from occasional immersion in rivers or the sea, is, as might be anticipated, an exceedingly old custom. Homer mentions the bath as one of the first refreshments offered to a guest; thus, when Ulysses enters the palace of Circe, a bath is prepared for him, and he is anointed after it with costly perfumes. No representation, however, of a bath as we understand it is given upon the Greek vases, bathers being represented either simply washing at an elevated basin, or having water poured over them from above. In later times, rooms, both public and private, were built expressly for bathing, the public baths of the Greeks being mostly connected with the gymnasia. Apparently, by an inversion of the later practice, it was customary in the Homeric epoch to take first a cold and then a hot bath; but the Lacedemonians substituted the hot-air sudorific bath, as less enervating than warm water, and in Athens at the time of Demosthenes and Socrates the warm bath was considered by the more rigorous as an effeminate custom.
The fullest details we have with respect to the bathing of the ancients apply to its luxurious development under the Romans. Their bathing establishments consisted of four main sections: the undressing room, with an adjoining chamber in which the bathers were anointed; a cold room with provision for a cold bath; a room heated moderately to serve as a preparation for the highest and lowest temperatures; and the sweating-room, at one extremity of which was a vapour-bath and at the other an ordinary hot bath. After going through the entire course both the Greeks and Romans made use of strigils or scrapers, either of horn or metal, to remove perspiration, oil, and impurities from the skin. Connected with the bath were walks, covered race-grounds, tennis-courts, and gardens, the whole, both in the external and internal decorations, being frequently on a palatial scale. The group of the Laocoon and the Parnese Hercules were both found in the ruins of Roman baths.
With respect to modern baths, that commonly in use in Russia consists of a single hall, built of wood, in the midst of which is a powerful metal oven, covered with heated stones, and surrounded with broad benches, on which the bathers take their places. Cold water is then poured upon the heated stones, and a thick, hot steam rises, which causes the sweat to issue from the whole body. The bather is then gently whipped with wet birch rods, rubbed with soap, and washed with lukewarm and cold water; of the latter, some pailfuls are poured over his head; or else he leaps, immediately after this sweating-bath, into a river or pond, or rolls in the snow.
The Turks, by their religion, are obliged to make repeated ablutions daily, and for this purpose there is, in every city, a public bath connected with a mosque. A favourite bath among them, however, is a modification of the hot-air sudorific-bath of the ancients introduced under the name of Turkish Bath into other than Islamic countries. A regular accompaniment of this bath, when properly given, is the operation known as 'kneading,' or massage, generally performed at the close of the sweating process, after the final rubbing of the bather with soap, and consisting in a systematic pressing and squeezing of the whole body, stretching the limbs, and manipulating all the joints as well as the fleshy and muscular parts.
Public baths were common in Europe during the late 19th century, but the first English public baths and wash-houses of the kind common in all cities during the late 19th century were established in Liverpool and near the London docks in 1844. In 1846 an act was passed for their encouragement, and a Baths and Wash-houses Act of 1878 authorized the establishment of cheap swimming-baths.
The principal natural warm baths in England are at Bath in Somersetshire (the hottest), and Brixton and Matlock in Derbyshire. The temperature of the Bath springs ranges from 109 to 117 degrees, while that of the Buxton and Matlockwaters scarcely exceeds 82 degrees. The baths of Harrogate, which are strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, are also of great repute for the cure of obstinate cutaneous diseases, indurations of the glands, etc. The most celebrated natural hot baths in Europe are those of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the various Baden in Germany; Toeplitz, in Bohemia; Bagnieres, Bareges, and Dax, in the south of France; and Spa, in Belgium. Besides the various kinds of water-bath with or without medication or natural mineral ingredients, there are also milk, oil, wine, earth, sand, mud, and electric baths, smoke-baths and gas-baths; but these are as a rule only indulged after specific prescription.
The practice of bathing as a method of cure in cases of disease falls under the head of hydrotherapathy; in the 19th century it was advised that even when bathing was employed simply for pleasure or purification due regard should be paid to the physiological condition of the bather. During the Victorian era in Britain writers were concerned about the potential dangers of bathing, and one warned:
'in many cases cold bathing should be avoided altogether, especially by those who have any tendency to spitting of blood or consumption, by gouty people, or by those who have any latent visceral disease or apoplectic tendency. Wherever the bath is followed by shivering instead of by a healthy reactionary glow, it is undesirable; and a cold bath in the morning after any debauchery or excess in eating or drinking on the previous evening is exceedingly imprudent. Delicate persons and children ought not to bathe in the sea before ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, and in no case should bathing be indulged after a long fast. In cold streams and rivers additional precautions should be taken, the cold plunge, when heated or fatigued, being frequently attended with fatal results. Even warm baths are not wholly free from danger; apoplexy and death having been known to follow a hot bath when entered with a full stomach. As a rule the temperature should not exceed 105 degrees, and they should not be too long continued. Frequent indulgence in them has an enervating effect, though the majority of people need as yet no renewal of Hadrian's prohibitive legislation in this matter.'
The eminent author, George Black, in 1892, while generally encouraging bathing, and describing bathing as 'likely to be of excellent use and efficacy both in the prevention and cure of disease.' Also went on to warn:
'Baths should never be taken immediately after a meal, nor when the body is very much exhausted by fatigue or excitement of any kind, nor during nor just before menstruation; and they should be sparingly and guardedly used by pregnant women.' Research Bath
Bonjour La Classe was a British BBC situation comedytelevision show written by Paul Smith and Terry Kyan, starring Nigel Planer and Nicholas Woodeson, about a French-teacher and his problems at a secondary school. Bonjour La Classe was aired during 1993. Research Bonjour La Classe
The ISO (International Standards Organisation) assigns a two character code to each country name. These codes are used by Internet 'whois' databases (these two character abbreviations are the whois country codes) and also other applications.
In grammar, a diminutive is a word having a special affix which conveys the idea of littleness, and all other ideas connected with this, as tenderness, affection, contempt, etc. The opposite of diminutive is augmentative. In Latin, diminutives almost always ended in lus, la, or lum; as Tulliola, meum corculum, little Tullia, my dear or little heart; homunculus, a manikin. The Italian is particularly rich in diminutives and augmentatives, such compound diminutives as fratellinucciettinetto (a diminutive of frate, brother) being sometimes employed. Among English diminutive affixes are kin, as in manikin, a little man: pipkin, a little pipe: ling, as in gosling, a little goose; darling, that is, dearling, or little dear; and et, as in pocket, from poke, a bag or pouch; tablet, a little table. Diminutives are also formed, in colloquial and familiar language, by adding y or ie to the names, as Charley, Mousie, etc. Research Diminutive
In literature, fable is a term applied originally to every imaginative tale, but confined in modern use to short stories, either in prose or verse, in which animals and sometimes inanimate things are feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions for the purpose of inculcating a moral lesson in a pleasant and pointed manner. The fable consists properly of two parts - the symbolical representation and the application, or the instruction intended to be deduced from it, which latter is called the moral of the tale, and must be apparent in the fable itself. The oldest fables are supposed to be the oriental; among these the Indian fables of Pilpay or Bidpai, and the fables of the Arabian Lokman, are celebrated. Amongst the Greeks, AEsop is the master of a simple but very effective style of fable. The fables of Phaedrus are a second-rate Latin version of those of AEsop. In modern times Gellert and Lessing among the Germans, Gay among the English, the Spanish Yriarte, and the Russian Ivan Kriloff, are celebrated. The first place, however, amongst modern fabulists belongs to the French writerLa Fontaine. Research Fable
Femgerichte (Fehmgerichte or Vehmgerichte) were criminal courts of Germany in the middle ages, which took the place of the regular administration of justice (then fallen into decay), especially in criminal cases. These courts originated and had their chief jurisdiction in Westphalia, and their proceedings were conducted with the most profound secrecy. They seem to have been a survival of old territorial jurisdictions which, on the general distraction and lawlessness prevalent after the fall of Henry the Lion in 1182, acquired an extensive and tremendous authority. In process of time, however, they degenerated, and no longer confined themselves to law and precedent, so that the secrecy in which they enveloped themselves only served as a cloak to their criminal purposes.
The flagrant abuse of their power brought about their fall. In 1461 various princes and cities of Germany, as well as the Swiss confederates, united in a league against them, but their influence was not entirely destroyed until an amended form of trial and penal judicature was introduced. The last Femgericht was held at Zeil in 1568.
The president of the secret tribunal was called the Freigraf, and was generally a prince or count. His associates, who concurred in and executed the sentence, were called Freischoffen. These were scattered through all the provinces of Germany, and recognized one another by certain signs and watchwords. They acknowledged the emperor as their superior, and for this reason generally made him one of their number at his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. The assemblies of the tribunal were open or secret. The former were held by day in the open air; the latter by night, in a forest or in concealed and subterranean places. In these different cases the circumstances of judgment and the process of trial were different. The crimes of which the secret tribunal usurped cognizance were heresy, sorcery, rape, theft, robbery, and murder.
The accusation was made by one of the Freischoffen, who, without further proof, declared upon oath that the accused had committed the crime. The accused was now thrice summoned to appear before the secret tribunal, and the citation was secretly affixed to the door of his dwelling or some neighbouring place; the accuser remained unknown. If, after the third summons, the accused did not appear, he was once more cited in a solemn session of the court, and if still contumacious, was given over to the Freischoffen. The first Freischoffe who met him was bound to execute the decree of the court. A dagger was left by the corpse to show that it was not a murder, but a punishment inflicted by one of the Freischoifen. How many judicial murders were perpetrated in this manner from revenge, interested motives, or malice, may well be imagined. Research Femgerichte
The Ignorantines were a religious congregation of the Roman Catholic Church devoted to the gratuitous education of children. The movement was founded about 1683 by the Abbe de La Salle. The statutes of the order, approved by Benedict XIII. in 1725, imposed on its members vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. In 1789 the order counted 1000 members, and possessed 121 houses. They were forced to quit France, but were recalled by Bonaparte in 1806. They were later to be met with in various countries. In France the law of 1882 banished them from the public schools. Research Ignorantines
La Leche League International is an organisation of women who offer information and encouragement to mothers who want to breast-feed their babies. The league provides counselling and education to parents and professionals through meetings, seminars, and publications. Its publications include a book called The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. The league also distributes brochures on childbirth, child care, and related subjects. It directs group discussions for mothers who are breast-feeding and other interested women. Research La Leche League International More information about La Leche League International
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
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