GYPSUM GYR-FALCON. culture all over Europe, are their worst enemies. in the water of springs; it is scarcely more soluble Their forests are cut down, their heaths enclosed, the houses are pushed right into their commons; and the easy and remunerative belief in their secret arts is waning more and more. It is doubtful, indeed, whether they will, as a separate race, survive many more centuries in Europe. Their numbers at this moment are stated so very differently, that we would fain caution the reader against an implicit belief in the following figures, which we extract from the comparatively most reliable authorities in Hungary, 140,000; in Transylvania and the Principalities, 162,000; Spain, 40,000; England and Scotland, 18,000 (their chief families in these countries being the Royal Lees, the Stanleys, Coopers, Hernes, Smiths, Lovells, &c.); Poland, 2000; Russia, 10,000; Germany, France, and Italy, 40,000; Norway, 1500. Altogether, including those in Turkey and in Asia and Africa (their sojourn in Mexico is questionable), they are computed at about five millions (Rienzi). A small portion only of these occupies as a body fixed habitations in Hungary and Transylvania, where they are agriculturists and goldwashers; and in the Principalities, where they live in a kind of serfdom, and are divided into four different classes-Rudari or Aurari (gold-seekers), Ursari (bear-leaders), Lingurari (manufacturers of and dealers in wooden spoons, mouse-traps, &c.); and Lafessi (masons, smiths, tinkers, &c.). All the rest lead a roaming life, live in kennels and under tents from one end of the year to the other, gaining their scanty livelihood, like their forefathers, as best they can, fearing and detesting nothing so much as a fixed and continuous occupation, which would take them away from their free mountains, their plains and woods, the sun, the stars, and the winds.' The following is a specimen of their language in the form of a short improvised stanza : Poraquel luchipen abajo There runs a swine down yonder hill And as he runs, he crieth still: GYPSUM, a mineral consisting essentially of sulphate of lime and water, the proportions of its constituents being lime, 32-56; sulphuric acid, 46.51; water, 20-93. It is very widely diffused, occurs in great abundance in many parts of the world, and is found in rocks and strata geologically very different, as in transition rocks, in secondary and in tertiary formations. It often occurs in nests or kidney-shaped masses in clay or marl. It is found above chalk in many places, and large quantities of it are quarried in some parts of England from the red marl immediately above the great bed of rock-salt. It sometimes occurs in beds many feet thick. It is transparent or opaque, white, yellowish-white or gray, or even yellow, red, brown, or black, according to its purity of chemical composition or the quantity and nature of impurities present. It is also compact, fibrous, foliated, or earthy; sometimes crystallised in six-sided prisms or in lenses. Twin crystals are frequent. It is easily broken, scratched, and cut. Before the blowpipe, it becomes opaque, if not already so, and fuses into a white enamel. The water which it contains is driven off by a heat of about 272° F., and it is then easily reduced to powder, in which state it is well known as Plaster of Paris. Unburned G. is tough, and not easily reduced to powder. G. is soluble in cold water, to the extent of about one part in 461, and is a frequent ingredient in boiling water or in acids. To this solubility in water, although so slight, must be ascribed the value of G. as a manure; the further chemical explanation of which, however, still remains to be ascertained, although theories have been proposed by Sir Humphry Davy and by Liebig, the former supposing the G. to act chiefly by itself, becoming the nutriment of the crops to which it is most beneficially applied; the latter supposing it to act chiefly by fixing the ammonia of the atmosphere and conveying it to their roots. As a manure, G. is more extensively used in some parts of the continent of Europe and of North America than of Britain. In North America, it is reduced to a fine powder by mills, in order to be used as a manure, for much of its value depends on the fineness of trituration. To clover crops, the application of G. is particularly beneficial, and although it does not produce much benefit in its direct application to grain crops, yet in an alternation of wheat and clover, the crop of wheat is larger because of the liberal supply of this mineral manure to the clover. An excess of G., however, is prejudicial, as has been found in some parts of England, where the subsoil containing it in great quantity has been rashly brought up by the plough.-G., deprived of its water by burning, and reduced to powder, forms a paste which almost immediately sets, or becomes firm and solid, when mixed with its own bulk of water; hence the great use of Plaster of Paris for making casts and cornices. But if the G. is burned at too great a heat, it refuses to set, and the powder of the mineral called Anhydrite, which is an anhydrous sulphate of lime, has not the property of setting.-One of the finest varieties of uncrystallised and untransparent G. is Alabaster (q. v.).-Satin Spar is a beautiful fibrous variety of G., exhibiting a fine play of light, and employed for necklaces, inlaid-work, and other ornamental purposes, but having the disadvantage of being easily scratched. GYRATION, CENTRE OF. See CENTRE OF GYRATION. GYR-FALCON, or JER-FALCON (Falco gyrfalco or F. Islandicus), a species of Falcon (q. v.) of large size, the female, which is the largest, GYRINUS GYULA. brown centre, until aged birds are almost pure white. It is rarely seen in Britain, and very rarely in the southern parts of the island, but inhabits all the very cold northern parts of the world. It was formerly in high esteem for falconry, and was procured at great expense from Iceland and Norway. It is sometimes called ICELAND FALCON, and sometimes GREENLAND FALCON. GYRI'NUS, a Linnæan genus of coleopterous insects, now constituting a family, Gyrinida, closely allied to Dytiscida, or Water Beetles (see DYTISCUS), but differing in having the antennæ very short, the two fore-legs long and stretching forward like Gyrinus natator. arms, the other legs very short and comparatively broad. The eyes are divided by horny processes, so that each of them almost becomes two. The body is oval, as in the Dytiscidae. The Gyrinida are very generally characterised by metallic brilliancy of colour. They are mostly small insects. They fly well, swim and dive well, spend the winter in the mud at the bottom of ponds, and in spring and summer may be seen swimming very actively on the surface of the water, ready to dive on the slightest alarm. In diving, they carry down with them a bright bubble of air. They generally swim in little parties, seeming to chase each other in circles, whence their French name, Tourniquets, and 174 their English name, Whirligigs. They feed on smaller aquatic animals, which they seize in their gyrations. They deposit their eggs on the leaves of aquatic plants. Their larvæ are aquatic, having their bodies composed of thirteen deeply divided rings, of which three bear the feet, and the rest bear filaments probably serving as organs of respiration. The most common British species is Gyrinus natator, a smooth shining blackish insect, three lines long. GY'ROMANCY (gyros, a circle, and manteia, prophecy) was a method of divination by means of a circle, and was generally performed in the following manner: the soothsayer described a circle, and marked it all round with letters; then he commenced to walk round the circle, repeating his incantations, and at the places where he stopped the letters were carefully noted, and by the interpretation put upon these letters, the answer of the god was obtained. GYRO'PHORA. See TRIPE DE ROCHE. GY'ROSCOPE, an instrument invented by M. Foucault to render palpable to the eye the earth's rotation. Its success depends on the principle, that if a mass be set in rotation freely in space, it will, unless disturbed or constrained, preserve absolutely the plane of its rotation, and will, to effect this, even overcome slight obstacles. In the gyroscope, a heavy ring of metal is almost freely suspended by mechanical contrivances, after having communicated to it a very rapid motion, and to maintain itself in the plane of its rotation, while the earth in revolving on its axis turns round the whole mechanism, it causes a graduated slip to move round under a telescope placed in position, and so renders the earth's motion palpable to the eye. See GYROSCOPE in SUPP., Vol. X. GYU'LA, a town of Hungary, in the county of Bekes, is situated on the White Körös, which divides it into the German and Hungarian quarters, 30 miles north of the town of Arad. The trade is chiefly in cattle. Pop. (1869) 18,495. H H THE eighth letter in the English avenues of trees. Pop. (1872) 32,156. H. is the alphabet, belongs to the order of seat of government for the province, and the see gutturals, and is a mere attenuation of a Catholic bishop. Among its 13 churches, the of the sound indicated by the Greek principal is that known as De Groote or St Bavo's x and the German (and Scotch) ch. Kerk, which was built in the 15th c., is the largest The tendency of guttural sounds to in Holland, and is specially noted for its lofty tower become lighter and lighter, and at and its famous organ, constructed by Müller of last disappear, is strikingly seen in trac- Amsterdam, which, till recently, was the largest of ing the history of the letter h. The form its kind, having 5000 pipes, 60 stops, and 4 rows of of the character corresponds to the Phoe- keys. Before the church stands the marble statue nician or Hebrew cheth (m) and the Greek of Laurens Coster (q. v.), to whom his countrymen eta (H, probably at one time pronounced heta), ascribe the invention of printing. Among the which denoted originally the syllable che. The buildings worthy of note, we may instance the Greeks dropped the guttural part of the sound, town-hall, with its fine carvings, formerly the resiand took the character to mark the vowel e, dence of the Counts of Holland; the palace of the while in the Latin alphabet it was taken to mark states-general; the prison; and the Teyler Instituthe (faint aspirated) guttural. That the sound of h tion, which is endowed with ample funds for the in Latin must have been faint, is proved by the poor, and has numerous scientific and antiquarian fact, that many words were written indifferently collections. H. has a good gymnasium, numerous with or without an h; as honustus or onustus; academical, scientific, and benevolent institutions, aheneus or aeneus. In the languages derived from and is also the head-quarters of the Society of the Latin, the force of h has almost disappeared. National Education, which has here its school for It is retained in French as a character, but is teachers. Although H. is no longer celebrated, scarcely heard in pronunciation. The Italian lan- as in former times, for its flourishing trade, it guage altogether ignores the character. In Spanish, still possesses extensive refineries of salt, tanneries, it has taken the place in many cases of the Latin foundries for type of Greek and Hebrew, and f, as hijo Lat. filius, a son; humoso = fumosus, various manufactories of silk, linen, and thread, smoky. and carries on an extensive trade in flowers and seeds, sending its tulips, hyacinths, and other bulbs to every part of Europe. H. was a flourishing town as early as the 12th c., when it took an important part in the wars between the Hollanders and West Frisians. At the close of the 15th c., it lost all its privileges, and suffered severely during the revolt of the peasantry; and in the following century, during the war of independence, The natural tendency in English, as in other it sided with the allies, and underwent a seven tongues, is to attenuate the sound of h, and alto-months' siege in 1572-1573, which is unparalleled gether eliminate it. This tendency is strongest among the illiterate, who are unrestrained by the presence of the written character; and accordingly to drop one's h's' (e. g., am for ham) is a sign of the want of education and of vulgarity. The perversity of putting h where it ought not to be (e. g., heggs for eggs), is not easily accounted for. In the languages of the Gothic stock, h often represents the hard guttural sound of k or c. See letter C. This substitution, and the subsequent disappearing of h, especially before r and, have completely disguised the relationship of many words which are yet of the same root: e. g., Eng. raw; Ang.-Sax. hreaw; Lat. cru-or, blood, cru-dus, bloody, raw. The Germans use the letter H, in their musical notation, for the same note which we call B, while they call our B flat simply B; possibly from the flat seventh being more nearly related to C, as a fundamental note, than B natural the sharp seventh is, which they designate H. Thus, in the annals of history for the heroism evinced by the citizens, and for the atrocities which, in violation of their faith, the Spaniards perpetrated after the surrender of the city. HAARLEM LAKE, which is now drained (see POLDER), lay between the towns of Haarlem, Leyden, and Amsterdam, and communicated with the Zuider Zee by a narrow strait called 'Het Y.' Before its thorough drainage (1839-1852), it embraced the four ponds of Haarlem, Leyden, Spieger, and Helle, which, in consequence of an irruption of the sea in the 16th c., when several villages were destroyed, had merged into one vast sheet of water, and in the course of time encroached so far upon the adjacent land as ultimately to cover an area of more than 60,000 acres. The depth did not exceed 15 feet, more than half of which was composed of mud and clay, from which the Dutch prepared a kind of brick known as 'klinkers,' which were used for purposes of paving. The waters of the lake frequently rose during storms to an alarming height, necessitating an enormous annual outlay in keeping the dams and sluices in repair. In consequence of the damage done to the cities of Amsterdam and HABAKKUK-HABEAS CORPUS. cum, &c.; Latin, Ambacum, Ambacuc, and Abacuc), the eighth of the twelve minor prophets. No account whatever is contained in the book itself either of the events of his life, or even the date when he lived; and the numberless conjectures that have been made respecting him are unworthy of notice. In turning to the book itself, we find him, first of all, bewailing the general corruption of his people, and prophesying the speedy vengeance of God by the hand of the Chaldeans. These, however, shall, when they have fulfilled the divine wrath, perish suddenly themselves, because of their own iniquities; and the prophet winds up with thanks for this just retribution. It is evident from this that H. must have lived at a late period, about the time of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion; but whether he wrote, as the rabbinical traditions suppose-at the time of Manassel, or as others (Keil, Davidson, Delitzsch) assume, at the early time of Josiah, or, finally, in the days of Jehoiakim, according to Ewald, Rosenmüller, Knobel, Meyer, De Wette, Hitzig, Stähelin, are points upon which we cannot enter. We must not omit to mention here, that the various chapters have also been supposed to have been written under different successive kings (Rosenmüller, Kalminsky, &c.); but the unity of the whole book is so obvious, that this notion has been almost unanimously rejected. Leyden by an overflow of the lake in 1836, the person detaining him in custody, by which he was government entered into an agreement with a com- enjoined to bring up the body of the prisoner, with pany of English engineers to drain it. This under- the warrant of commitment, that the court might taking was effected by several gigantic steam- judge of its sufficiency, and remand the party, admit engines, by which the water was pumped up into a him to bail, or discharge him, according to the canal, which had been dug round the circumference nature of the charge. This writ issued of right, and of the former area of the lake, and connected with could not be refused by the court.' The Great various inlets of the sea. By these means the bed Charter, as Professor Creasy sums up this part of of the lake was left dry, except channels for the its substance, 'contained two great principles. First, purpose of drainage, and a space of more than that no man shall be imprisoned on mere general 50,000 acres of good land reclaimed and thoroughly grounds of suspicion, or for an indefinite period, at drained. This has now been divided into farms, and the discretion or caprice of the executive power; but is under tillage. Pop. (1870) 11,272, with 2 Dutch that imprisonment shall be only inflicted as the Reformed, 2 Dissenting churches, and 3 R. C. chapels. result of a legal trial and sentence, or for the purHABA'KKUK (Greek forms, Ambakoum, Aba-pose of keeping in safe custody, when necessary, an accused tried on that charge. Secondly, that, as a general person on a definite charge, until he can be rule, every person accused of a criminal offence shall have the question of his guilt or innocence determined by a free jury of his fellow-countrymen, and not by any nominee of the government.' And Blackstone, with great spirit, thus discourses on the social and political effects of this feature of the British constitution (1 Bl. Com. 135): Of great importance to the public is the preservation of this personal liberty, for if once it were left in the power of any, the highest, magistrate to imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought proper, there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities. Some have thought that unjust attacks, even upon life or property, at the arbitrary will of the magistrate are less dangerous to the commonwealth, than such as are made upon the personal liberty of the subject. To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of of the person by secretly hurrying him to jail, where tyranny throughout the kingdom; but confinement his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dansometimes, when the state is in real danger, even gerous engine of arbitrary government. And yet, Critics have, in all times, been unanimous in theirness of our constitution is, that it is not left to the this may be a necessary measure. But the happipraise of the style of this prophetic composition. executive power to determine when the danger of It ranks, indeed, for grandeur and sublimity of the state is so great as to render this measure expeconception, for vigour and fervour of expression, dient, for it is the parliament only or legislative for gorgeousness of imagery, for melody of language, power that, whenever it sees proper, can authorise among the very first productions of sacred literature. the crown, by suspending the Habeas Corpus Act It is more especially the peculiar strophic arrange for a short and limited time, to imprison suspected ment of the second chapter, with its awful four 'woes' denounced against the Chaldeans, and above persons, without giving any reason for so doing.' all, that matchless Pindaric Ode,' as Ewald calls 31 Ch. II. c. 2, therefore did not introduce any new The Habeas Corpus Act, which was passed in the third chapter, which have challenged universal principle, but merely defined with greater precision and detail the appropriate remedies, in consequence of the frivolous objections made by the judges in the preceding reign. The substance of these details is as follows: Where any person is committed and charged with crime, the lord chancellor or any of the judges may, unless there has been great delay in application, issue the writ, and order the person to be brought up and discharged with or without bail. The writ is to be obeyed more or less promptly according to the distance, but in no case must the delay exceed twenty days. Any officer or keeper neglecting to deliver a copy of the warrant of commitment, or shifting the prisoner to another custody without cause, shall forfeit £100, and for the second offence £200, and be disabled to hold office. No person once delivered by habeas corpus shall be recommitted for the same offence under a penalty of £500. Every person committed for treason or felony may insist on being tried at the next assizes, or admitted to bail, unless the crown witnesses cannot be ready in that time; and if not tried at the second assizes or attention and admiration. HA'BEAS CO'RPUS, WRIT OF, a writ directed by courts of law or equity to produce the body of a person illegally detained, and to state the reasons of such detention, so that the court may judge of their sufficiency. This writ is one of the chief guards of English liberty, and the envy of foreign nations, being one of the best securities against tyranny ever devised. It is often erroneously supposed that this efficacious protection of personal freedom was first bestowed by the statute of 31 Ch. II. c. 2, called the Habeas Corpus Act. But the true foundation of that act, as well as of many other cardinal principles of the English constitution, is to be found in the Great Charter, or Magna Charta, of which Hallam (1 Const. Hist. 16) observes: No freeman could be detained in prison except upon a criminal charge on conviction, or for a civil debt. In the former case, it was always in his power to demand of the Court of King's Bench a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, directed to the HABENDUM-HABIT. sessions, he shall be discharged from the imprisonment. The prisoner may apply either to the Court of Chancery, or to the Courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, or Exchequer, and any judge denying such writ is liable to a fine of £500. The writ may be applied for by persons confined in any part of England, or Jersey and Guernsey. Indeed, it was recently held, in the case of Anderson the fugitive slave, that this writ could be applied for by a person confined in Canada or any other of the colonies, even though there were courts established there which had previously been applied to, and had the power to issue the writ, but refused to do so. judges of the Queen's Bench, on examining the authorities, held that this prerogative power had always been inherent in the English court in favour of British subjects wherever imprisoned, except in a foreign country, and had never been taken away by express statute. There has now, however, been passed a statute (25 Vict.) depriving the English courts of this jurisdiction over the colonies, whenever local courts exist by which such a jurisdiction can be exercised. The HABE'RE FA'CIAS POSSESSIO'NEM, in English Law, is the name of the writ which issues after a successful plaintiff has recovered judgment in an action of ejectment. He then calls on the sheriff, by this writ, to put him in possession of the land or premises, and the sheriff executes it by breaking open the doors, if necessary, and then delivering over the possession to the plaintiff. Habere facias seisinam is a similar writ, now superseded by the last. of a jacket without sleeves. The HABIT. This familiar word applies to a certain portion of our acquired powers or aptitudes. Common usage does not very closely define the kind or extent of acquisitions intended by it. Habits may be either intellectual or moral. We speak of a habit of talking or writing, as well as of a habit of early rising, or of truthfulness. As the Habeas Corpus Act extended only to cases principle of the human constitution on which the where persons are imprisoned on criminal or sup-growth of habit depends, when generalised to the posed criminal charges, the other cases being left to the operation of the common law, which was found defective, the statute 56 Geo. III. c. 100 was passed, which extended the writ to other cases. Under this last act, any person confined or restrained of his liberty (otherwise than for criminal matters, and except persons imprisoned under a judgment or decree for debt), may apply to any judge of the common law courts for a habeas corpus, on shewing by affidavit that there is a reasonable and probable ground for complaint. The result is, that in all cases whatever where a person, whether man, woman, or child, is illegally confined in England, the remedy is for some friend to apply for a habeas corpus, which, on a good prima facie case, will be issued to the person who so illegally confines the applicant; and if such person refuses to make a proper return-that is, shew good legal grounds for what is done-he will be committed for contempt. If the party is confined under recognised authority, as a child by a parent, these facts must be stated. If the party is confined under some legal authority, then the warrant of commitment must be produced, and the rule is that such warrant must set forth the subject matter, and the jurisdiction of the judge or justice who so committed the party, so that the legality of the imprisonment may be judged of. The Habeas Corpus Act does not extend to Scotland, but in that country similar redress is provided to the subject under the Wrongous Imprisonment Act, 1701, c. 6 (q. v.), which is often called the Scotch Habeas Corpus Act. Habeas corpus is also the formal commencement of several other legal writs in English law of a kindred nature to that last mentioned, and which is strictly called the writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. Thus, the habeas corpus ad respondendum is a writ issued by a common law court to bring up a prisoner to serve him with a writ in another action. So a habeas corpus ad satisfaciendum is a similar writ to take the prisoner in execution for another cause of action. Habeas corpus ad testificandum is the writ by which a prisoner is brought up by the jailer to give evidence as a witness in a court of justice. HABEʼNDUM, in English Law, is the name given to a clause in a deed of grant or lease, in which clause the kind and nature of the estate is described, and it is stated for how long the estate is to be held. 220 utmost, may be called the power of retentiveness, or of plastic growth, and is one of the foundations of the intellect, inasmuch as memory and all the other intellectual faculties involve it in a greater or less degree. See INTELLECT, and ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. Education of every kind must proceed upon this property, and should be conducted in conformity with its exact nature and laws. The maxims that govern the formation of habits are the same as the principles of mental acquirement in every shape. Some of the most important of these may be indicated here. 1. It should be understood, at the outset, that all persons are not alike susceptible of the growth of new powers, or of the process of education; nor is the same person equally susceptible as regards all subjects. The consequence is, that a much greater amount of practice is necessary in one case than in another; iteration being the mode of supplying the defective cohesiveness of the system. 2. However common the remark, that youth is the season for improvement, it may be doubted if we generally appreciate to the full degree the superior plasticity of early years, and the gradual decrease of the property as life advances. The as yet unoccupied state of the infant mind must be taken into account along with the very great energy of the principle of growth, which gives a firmness and security of hold to early impressions beyond everything that is communicated in later life. We see this in the impossibility of eradicating a provincial accent after one has grown to maturity; so the opinions and sentiments contracted in youth can seldom be changed in middle or advanced life. 3. In acquiring habits, the favourable disposition of the mind is of the greatest importance. Liking, taste, or predilection for the task concentrates all the energies of the system upon the work, and favours to the utmost the cementing process. A strong natural liking will often compensate for want of natural aptitude, by making the most of what power there is. 4. In the default of natural liking for the subject, the attention may be secured to a certain extent by pains and penalties; but as these waste and enfeeble the powers of life altogether, there is a loss on the whole, although there may be a gain in the particular case. The education of the young cannot be conducted wholly on the principle of fascination; but if pain has to be frequently or systematically 177 |