Generally, the term advocate is applied to a lawyer authorized to plead the cause of his clients before a court of law. It is only in Scotland that this word seems to denote a distinct class belonging to the legal profession, the advocates of Scotland being the pleaders before the supreme courts, and corresponding to the barristers of England and Ireland. These advocates all belong to the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, to whom the oral pleadings in the Court of Session is for the most part limited, while they are also competent to plead in all the inferior Scottish courts and in the House of Lords in cases of appeal from the Court of Session. The supreme judges in Scotland, as well as the sheriffs of the various counties, are always selected from among them. Candidates for admission must undergo two separate examinations, one in general scholarship and the other in law.
The Lord Advocate, called also the King's or Queen's Advocate, is the principal law officer of the crown in Scotland. He is the public prosecutor of crimes in the Supreme Court, and senior counsel for the crown in civil causes. Being appointed by the crown, he goes out of office with the administration to which he belongs. As public prosecutor he is assisted by the solicitor-general and by four junior counsel called advocates-depute. The lord-advocate and the solicitor-general, in addition to their official duties, accept of ordinary bar practice. Research Advocate
In English law, advowson is a light of presentation to a vacant benefice, or, in other words, a right of nominating a person to officiate in a vacant church. Those who have this right are styled patrons. Advowsons are of three kinds: presentative, collative, and donative: presentative, when the patron presents his clerk to the bishop of the diocese to be instituted; collative, when the bishop is the patron, and institutes or collates his clerk by a single act; donative, when a church is founded by the king, or any person licensed by him, without being subject to the ordinary, so that the patron confers the benefice on his clerk without presentation, institution, or induction. Research Advowson
Alphabet (from Alpha, and Beta, the two first letters of the Greek alphabet), is the series of characters used in writing a language, and intended to represent the sounds of which it consists.
The English alphabet, like most of those of modern Europe, is derived directly from the Latin, the Latin from the ancient Greek, and that from the Phoenician, which again is believed to have had its origin in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Hebrew alphabet also having the same origin. The names of the letters in Phoenician and Hebrew must have been almost the same, for the Greek names, which, with the letters, were borrowed from the former, differ little from the Hebrew. By means of the names we may trace the process by which the Egyptian characters were transformed into letters by the Phoenicians. Some Egyptian character would, by its form, recall the idea of a house, for example, in Phoenician or Hebrew beth. This character would subsequently come to be used wherever the sound b occurred. Its form might be afterwards simplified, or even completely modified, but the name would still remain, as beth still continues the Hebrew name for b, and beta the Greek. Our letter m, which in Hebrew was called mim, water, has still a considerable resemblance to the zigzag wavy line which had been chosen to represent water, as in the zodiacal symbol for Aquarius.
The letter o, of which the Hebrew name means eye, no doubt originally intended to represent that organ. While the ancient Greek alphabet gave rise to the ordinary Greek alphabet and the Latin, the Greek alphabet of later times furnished elements for the Coptic, the Gothic, and the old Slavic alphabets. The Latin characters are now employed by a great many nations, such as the Italian, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the English, the Dutch, the German, the Hungarian, the Polish, etc, each nation having introduced such modifications or additions as are necessary to express the sound of the language peculiar to it. The Greek alphabet originally possessed only sixteen letters, though the Phoenician had twenty-two.
The original Latin alphabet, as it is found in the oldest inscriptions, consisted of twenty-one letters; namely, the vowels a, e, i, o, and u (v), and the consonants b, c, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, x, z. The Anglo-Saxon alphabet had two characters for the digraph th, which were unfortunately not retained in later English; it had also the character ae. It wanted j, v, y (consonant), and z. The German alphabet consists of the same letters as the English, but the sounds of some of them are different.
Anciently certain characters called Runic were made use of by the Teutonic nations, to which some would attribute an origin independent of the Greek and Latin alphabets. While the alphabets of the west of Europe are derived from the Latin, the Russian, which is very complete, is based on the Greek, with some characters borrowed from the Armenian, etc. Among Asiatic alphabets, the Arabian (ultimately of Phoenician origin) has played a part analogous to that of the Latin in Europe, the conquests of Mohammedanism having imposed it on the Persian, the Turkish, the Hindustani, etc. The Sanskrit or Devanagari alphabet is one of the most remarkable alphabets of the world. As now used it has fourteen characters for the vowels and diphthongs, and thirty-three for the consonants, besides two other symbols. Our alphabet is a very imperfect instrument for what it has to perform, being both defective and redundant. An alphabet is not essential to the writing of a language, since ideograms or symbols may be used instead, as in Chinese.
In the English language there are twenty-six letters, A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y and Z, these twenty-six letters occur in use most disproportionately. At the start of the 20th century the proportion of use was as follows, but this will vary as new words, particularly scientific names are added to the English language:
E - 1000 , T - 770, A - 728, I - 704, S - 680, O - 672, N - 670, H - 540, R - 528, D - 392, L - 360, U - 296, C - 280, M - 272, F - 236, W - 190, Y - 184, P - 168, G - 168, B - 158, V - 120, K - 88, J - 55, Q - 50, X - 46, Z - 22
However, as an initial letter, the proportionate use was very different, with the most popular initial letters being:
S - 1194, C - 937, P - 804, A - 574, T - 571, D - 505, B - 463, M - 439, F - 388, I - 377, E- 340, H - 308, L - 298 and R - 291.
The most commonly occurring end letters are R, S, T, and D. Research Alphabet
Areopagus was the oldest of the Athenian courts of justice, an assembly having a position indeed more august than an ordinary court, and in its best days exercising a general supervision over public morals. It obtained its name from its place of meeting, on the Hill of Ares, near the Acropolis or citadel of Athens. It existed from very remote times, and the crimes tried before it were wilful murder, poisoning, robbery, and arson, while it had under its control also dissoluteness of morals, and innovations in the state and in religion. Its meetings were held in the open air, and its members were selected from those who had held the office of archon. The tribunal latterly lost much of its powers, but it continued to exist in name at least as late as the time of Cicero or later, having had an existence of seven or eight hundred years. Research Areopagus
In the East Indies, attar is a general term for a perfume made from flowers. In Europe the term is generally used only of the attar or otto of roses, an essential oil made from Rosacentifolia, the hundred-leaved or cabbage-rose, Rosa damascena or damask-rose, Rosa moschdta or musk-rose, etc, 100,000 roses yielding only 180 grains of attar. Cashmere, Shiraz, and Damascus are celebrated for its manufacture, and there are extensive rose farms in the valley of Kezanlik in Roumelia and at Ghazipur in Benares. The oil is at first greenish, but afterwards it presents various tints of green, yellow, and red. It is concrete at all ordinary temperatures, but becomes liquid about 84 degrees Fahrenheit. It consists of two substances, a hydrocarbon and an oxygenated oil, and is frequently adulterated with the oils of rhodium, sandal-wood, and geranium, with the addition of camphor or spermaceti. Research Attar
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
The Bill of Rights was a statute embodied in the declaration of Rights presented by both houses of the Convention to the Prince and Princess of Orange in 1689. After declaring the late King James II to have done various acts contrary to the laws of the realm, and to have abdicated the government, the Bill of Rights proceeds to enact in detail the celebrated declaration as to the rights and liberties of the English people. It was laid down that the crown had no power to suspend or dispense with the ordinary laws, or form judicial courts, or levy money without parliamentary sanction. The raising or keeping of a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless with the consent of Parliament was declared to be unlawful. Freedom of election for members of Parliament, freedom of speech in debate, and the right of the subject to petition the crown were alike maintained. A clause also stated that if any king or queen should embrace the Roman Catholic religion, or intermarry with a Roman Catholic, their subjects should be absolved of their allegiance.
In America, the first Bill of Rights was the Declaration of Rights which accompanied the VirginiaConstitution of 1776, and was largely the work of ColonelGeorge Mason who based it upon the English Bill of Rights. The American Constitution of 1787 was strongly criticised for not including and statements of individual rights, and accordingly the first ten amendments of the US Constitution were made to include statements of individual rights in the nature of a Bill of Rights. Research Bill of Rights
The blind are those who want, or are deficient in, the sense of sight. Blindness may vary in degree from the slightest impairment of vision to total loss of sight; it may also be temporary or permanent. It is caused by defect, disease, or injury to the eye, to the optic nerve, or to that part of the brain connected with it. Old age is sometimes accompanied with blindness, occasioned by the drying up of the humours of the eye, or by the opacity of the cornea, the crystalline lens, etc. The blind are often distinguished for a remarkable mental activity, and a wonderful development of the intellectual powers. Their touch and hearing, particularly, become very acute.
As early as 1260 an asylum for the blind (L'hospice des Quinze-Vingts) was founded in Paris by St Louis for the relief of the Crusaders who lost their sight in Egypt and Syria; but the first institution for the instruction of the blind was the idea of Valentin Hauy, brother of the celebrated mineralogist. In 1784 he opened an institution in which the blind were instructed not only in appropriate mechanical employments, as spinning, knitting, making ropes or fringes, and working in paste-board, but also in music, in reading, writing, ciphering, geography, and the sciences. For instruction in reading he procured raised letters of metal; for writing he used particular writing-cases, in which a frame, with wires to separate the lines, could be fastened upon the paper; for ciphering there were movable figures of metal, and ciphering-boards in which the figures could be fixed; for teaching geographymaps were prepared upon which mountains, rivers, cities, and the boundaries of countries were indicated to the sense of touch in various ways, etc.
Similar institutions were soon afterwards founded in Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dresden, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, Vienna, and in many towns of the United States. By 1900 there were comparatively few large cities that did not possess a school or institution of some kind for the blind.
At the start of the 20th century the attitude towards the blind was rather patronising, and one source may be quoted as saying 'the occupations in which the blind are found capable of engaging are such as the making of baskets and other kinds of wicker-work, brushmaking, rope and twine making, the making of mats and matting, knitting, netting, fancy work of various kinds, cutting fire-wood, the sewing of sacks and bags; the carving of articles in wood, etc'. However, it was also recognised that more skilled tasks could also be performed by blind persons, and the same source notes that 'Piano-tuning is also successfully carried on by some, and the cleaning of clocks and watches has even been occasionally practised by them'.
Around 1900 an impetus was given, in Britain, to the higher education of the blind by the formation of the British and Foreign Blind Association, the establishment of a college for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen at Worcester, and the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind, Upper Norwood.
Various systems were devised for the purpose of teaching the blind to read, some of which consisted in the use of the ordinary Roman alphabet, with more or less modification, and some of which employ types quite arbitrary in form. In all systems the characters rise above the surface of the paper so as to be felt by the fingers. The type adopted by Hauy was the script or italic form of the Roman letter. This was introduced into England by Sir C. Lowther, who printed the Gospel of St. Matthew in 1832 with type obtained from Paris. Before this Gall of Edinburgh made use of an embossed alphabet based on the ordinary Roman small letters, in which all curves were replaced by angular lines, and in 1834 he published the Gospel of St John in this character. Subsequently he introduced various improvements, and in particular the letters were produced with serrated surfaces, thus giving greater distinctness. Alston of Glasgow, Howe of Boston, and others also used the Roman form; but the former (who was the first to print the whole Bible, in 1840) adopted the Roman capitals, while the latter adopted the small letters, printing in this type the Bible and many other books. Of alphabets deviating entirely or nearly so from the Roman letter, one consists of a stenographic shorthand invented by Lucas of Bristol; another was a phonetic shorthand devised by Frere of London. In Dr. Moon's alphabet some of the characters are Roman, others are based on or suggested by the Roman characters. The Braille system, widely adopted by the laye 20th century, is one in which the letters are formed by a combination of dots. Dr. Moon's system from its simplicity and the size of its characters is in very general use in books for the blind. There are also systems by which the blind are enabled to write, and the writing may be either in relief so as to be read by the blind, or in characters that may be read by those who see. Research Blind
Brown is a colour which may be regarded as a mixture of red and black, or of red, black, and yellow. There are various brown pigments, mostly of mineral origin, as bistre, umber, cappagh brown, etc. Brown as a colour is associated with the earth and with soil. With ordinary or working activities or people. Brown is a drab, peasant or poor colour. Brown is also associated with wood and with trees. With honesty and unpretentiousness.
Almond - A rich pale brown colour.
Bisque - A pale, yellowish-brown colour like baked biscuit.
Burnt sienna - A rich reddish brown, earthy colour.
Butterscotch - A pale yellowish-brown colour.
Chocolate - A rich dark brown colour.
Hazel - A greenish-brown usually associated with the colour of eyes.
The BSA A10 Golden Flash was a popular British motorbike produced between 1950 and 1961. The BSA A10 Golden Flash was powered by a four-stroke, twin-cylinder 650cc engine. BSA A10 Golden Flash motorcycles were the 'standard' British motorbike of the 1950's, bought by ordinary young men when they were single, and often fitted with a side-car after the owner got married and started a family. Research BSA A10 Golden Flash
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Abbreviations
Research Advocate
