CABELL-CABINDA Ca'bell, James Lawrence, American sanitarian: b. Nelson County, Va., 26 Aug. 1813; d. Overton, Va., 13 Aug. 1889. He was graduated at the University of Virginia in 1833, where he later filled the chair of anatomy. During the Civil War he had charge of military hospitals for the Confederate government. He devised measures to check the yellow fever epidemic at Memphis and was president of the National Board of Health from 1879 till his death. Cabell, William, American statesman: b. Licking Hole, Va., 13 March 1730; d. Union Hill, Va., 23 March 1798. He was a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia upon the outbreak of the Revolution; took an active part in the affairs of the new nation, and before the adoption of the Federal Constitution was presiding magistrate for the United States in Virginia. Cabell, William Lewis, American soldier and lawyer: b. Danville, Va., 1 Jan. 1827. He graduated at West Point 1850, and served in the 7th Infantry 1858. In 1858 he was attached to Gen. Harney's staff in the Utah expedition. Between 1859-69 he was chiefly engaged in constructing forts in the country occupied by the Comanches, Kiowas, and other savage tribes. Resigning in 1861 he entered the Confederate service and rose to the rank of brigadier-general. While on a raid into Kansas in 1864 he was captured and held prisoner of war until 28 April 1865. Since 1872 he has practised law at Dallas, Texas, being four times mayor of the city. He was a United States marshal, 1885-9. Cabello. See PORTO CABELLO. Ca'ber, the undressed stem of a tree, 20 or more feet long, used for trial of strength in Scottish athletic games. It is held upright against the chest, by the smaller end, and tossed so as to strike the ground with the heavier end and turn over. The contestant making the farthest toss with the straightest fall is winner. Cabes, kä'běs, or Gabes, Africa, a town and port of the French protectorate of Tunis. It stands at the foot of the Jebel Hamarra, on the right bank of the Wad-er-rif, near the head of the Gulf of Cabes, and may be said to consist of several villages. It has some export trade in dates, henna, etc. The Gulf of Cabes (Syrtis Minor) has at its entrance the islands of Kerkenna and Jerba. Its chief seaport is Sfax. Pop. of Cabes, 13,000. Cabet, Etienne, ã-të-ěn kä-bā, French communist: b. Dijon, 2 Jan. 1788; d. St. Louis, Mo., 9 Nov. 1856. He was brought up for the bar, and was appointed attorney-general of Corsica, from which office, however, he was soon dismissed. He was sent to the chamber of deputies in July 1831, and there made himself so obnoxious to the government by his violent speeches, and at the same time by his inflammatory pamphlets and a journal entitled 'La Populaire, that he was indicted for treason, and rather than subject himself to the imprisonment to which he was sentenced, withdrew for five years to England. While there he published the Voyages en Icarie, in which he elaborated his scheme of communism, which from 1842 to 1848 passed through five editions. On 2 Feb. 1848, a band of Icarians left France for the Red River in Texas, where Cabet had secured a tract of 400,000 acres of land, the free use of which was open to the settlers, under condition that before their departure they should deposit all their funds in the hands of Cabet, who assumed the financial and general control of the expedition. But the expedition turned out badly, and lawsuits were instituted against Cabet; and on 30 Sept. 1849, after he had left France for Texas, he was found guilty by default of swindling his disciples, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Meanwhile, with his colony of Icarians much reduced in number, he took up his abode at Nauvoo, on the Mississippi, in May 1850, and soon after returned to Paris. There, after a protracted trial, his innocence was fully established, 26 July 1851, by the court of appeal, and the judgment against him cancelled. He returned to Nauvoo, where he continued to preside over his colony; but many disappointments and cares embittered his life and accelerated his death. In justice to Cabet it should be said that the highest moral tone prevailed in Nauvoo, and whatever may be the politico-economical objections to his system, the colony presented, as far as the conduct of the settlers was concerned, a model of purity and industry. Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Nuñez, äl'bär noon'yĕth kä-ba'tha da bä'ka, Spanish explorer: b. 1507 (?); d. about 1564. He was second in command in the ill-fated expedition of Pánfilo de Narvaez to Florida in 1528. After the loss of their commander, Cabeza de Vaca, with a few survivors, landed west of the mouth of the Mississippi, and after eight years of wandering and captivity among the Indians, reached a Spanish colony on the Pacific. He returned to Spain, and in 1540 was appointed Governor of La Plata. He explored Paraguay, but became unpopular with the colonists, and after a defeat by the Indians was arrested on the charge of one of his subordinates, returned to Spain (1544), found guilty, and banished to Africa. Eight years later he was pardoned and made judge of the Supreme Court at Seville. He has left an account of his travels and explorations in Shipwrecks of Alvar Nuñez' and Commentaries." distinct fishes, Cabezon, a name applied to three or four the West Indies to Brazil, and belonging to the 1. Larimus breviceps, occurring in seas from family of croakers, or Scianida. It reaches a length of 10 inches. 2. Scorpanichthys marmoratus, a member of the Cottida, or sculpins. It is found from Puget Sound to San Diego, reaches a length of 30 inches, and is a common food-fish, but its flesh is coarse and tough. 3. The smooth cabezon (Leptocottus armatus), also a sculpin of the Pacific coast. 4 Porichthys notatus, a member of the Batrachoidide, found from Puget Sound to Lower California, which reaches a length of 15 inches and is sometimes called "singing-fish." Cabillonum. See CHALON-SUR-SAÔNE. Cabinda, ka-ben'da, or Kabinda, Africa, Portuguese seaport and territory, north of the mouth of the Congo. The territory is bounded by the Atlantic on the west, the Congo Free State on the south, and French Congo on the CABINET north. The inhabitants are governed by numerous petty chiefs. The town, situated about 40 miles north of the Congo estuary, carries on a considerable trade and has shown marked growth since the introduction of a high tariff in the Congo State. Its people are noted for their ship-building and other handicrafts. Pop. 10,000. Cabinet, a collective name popularly given to the leading officers of state in a number of constitutional governments, acting as a body of advisers to the head of the state, and in some as the chief executive council and controller of they are all of one political party. Even here, however, the difference between the systems is strongly marked. The premier in a "Cabinet government" has very little liberty of selection. His ministers must be able debaters first and able men of affairs next, and successful politicians besides. If they cannot defend their policy effectively on the floor in Parliament, tical incapacity may render all defense of no the government may be turned out; and pracavail. But men of such varied powers and success are never very plentiful, and the premier can do little more than allot offices among a small group whom he finds to his hand. On the contrary, the United States Cabinet official need cal failure the President can dismiss him or not speak in public, and even if he is a practiallow him to resign without affecting his own tenure of office. The President, therefore, may fill such a post with a totally unknown man, in reliance on his unproved ability, without been eminently successful. As to party, the serious risk, and some such appointments have premier's action is equally compulsory, since his majority would vote down a party opponent's measure at once; while the President, having no legislation to carry through, and secure his place, can exercise a somewhat wider independence, though personal feeling and party limits. legislation as well. The uniform name, however, implies a uniformity of nature which does not exist. The status and functions of different cabinets are widely divergent. The earliest one, that of England, is of a type exactly opposite to the next oldest, that of the United States; and all others are based on one of these two forms. Those of other constitutional monarchies in Europe, that of Japan, and that of the republic of France, are of the English type; those of Switzerland and the Latin-American republics are of ours. The English cabinet is to all intents and purposes a committee of the legislative body, in which its members have seats, before which they expound and defend the legislative measures they prepare, and to which they are directly responsible. They confine busi-urgency usually keep the selections within the ness mainly to measures of their own drafting, dictate its order, and carry on all the executive work of the State besides; they are, in fact, "the government," in current phrase. They act as a body, each minister supporting the proposals agreed on by the majority, or else retiring, and all resigning in a body if their proposals are voted down. They have even gained the immense power of being able to dissolve their own head body, the Parliament, and ordering a new election to test the sense of the people; a result due to their being the agents of the new sovereign, the Parliament, as they were of the older one, the monarch. When the power of proroguing Parliament was taken from the monarch, it was naturally given, not to Parliament itself, but to its deputies. This system was called by Walter Bagehot "Cabinet Government" specifically, as opposed to presidential government of fixed tenure; and his classification has been universally accepted. The American group is not, properly speaking, a cabinet at all, in the sense of a unified body. It does not act as a unit, and has no responsibility as a unit. Cabinet here is merely a popular name for the group of heads of the chief departments, whom the President consults by individuals or collectively at will, or not at all. Their functions are advisory only, and the President is under no obligation to take their advice; they are responsible only to him, and can be dismissed by him at any time. They have nothing to do with legislation, and by law are prohibited from being members of the legislative body. Obviously, their position resembles much more that of the advisers of an autocrat than of an all-powerful entity like the English government; but the former are never styled a Cabinet. The resemblances of the types are mainly confined to two: the ministers who form the Cabinet are selected by the actual head of the state, whose assistants they are to be, whether he is prime minister or president; and The British cabinet, a shortened name for "cabinet council"- that is, a council held in the king's cabinet, or private room-gained its name under Charles I., about 1630-40, when it was merely a committee of the privy council to expedite business; and all through that and the next century it was steadily drawing power to itself. But the kings did not give up their control over the power of appointing the great officers of state without a long and bitter struggle; and it was not till George III.'s insanity loosened his hand that it can be said to have won the final victory. Even then, and during the early 19th century, its unity had by no means become so rigid as now; during the latter there were many instances of members of the cabinet opposing the measures of the majority, and even of the premier, and still retaining their places in it. But by the 'thirties it had pretty much settled into its present constitution and rules. An important change was made in 1782, just after the American Revolution, when its honorary members were dropped, and the membership confined to "efficient" members,officers of state so important that they cannot be excluded from it, or personalities so power ful that vanished offices are kept constructively alive to make place for them. There is no absolute limit to the number of members, but custom dictates not less than II, and the necessity of coming to some agreement and transacting business prohibits its being much in excess of 15. The premier assigns the offices, and almost invariably takes for himself the control of finances or foreign relations—that is, first lord of the treasury or secretary of state for foreign affairs. There are also the four other chief secretaries of state- for war, for home affairs, for the colonies, and for India; the chancellor of the exchequer, the first lord of the admiralty, the lord privy seal, the lord president of the privy council, and the lord chancellor; the chief secretary for Ireland, the CABINET ORGAN-CABLE postmaster-general, the president of the board of trade, and the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (one of the defunct posts used to give an able man a place in the cabinet). Other officers can be called in if desired. The prime minister presides, but has no added authority; if he is a strong man, however, no member would remain in the cabinet if steadily opposed to his general policy. All the cabinet's deliberations are secret; no minutes are taken, and it would be a gross breach of faith to reveal the struggles of opinion within it which result in an agreement on a line of policy. The American Cabinet, or "President's Cabinet," has, of course, grown with the growth of the departments. There were but four Cabinet officers at the outset, the secretaries of state, of war, and of the treasury, with the attorneygeneral. Of these, following the English tradition, in which from necessity, foreign affairs had held the highest place, the secretaryship of state was regarded as the most important and honorable, and its incumbent was considered to be in the line of succession for the presidency, as for several administrations proved to be the case. John Quincy Adams was the last of these, and he appointed his chief rival, Henry Clay, secretary of state with the presidential succession in view. The same notion has lingered to our own day, and caused the secretary of state to be termed the "premier" of an administration; in itself an absurd and meaningless term, but with color given to it by the preference for this post among some of the ablest party leaders ambitious of the presidency. The next officer added was the secretary of the navy, whose office was created in 1798. In 1829 the postmastergeneral was raised to the Cabinet, though the office had existed 35 years, in 1849 the secretaryship of the interior was created and made of Cabinet rank; in 1889 was added the secretary of agriculture, and in 1903 the secretary of commerce and labor. In accordance with Congressional action in 1886 the Cabinet officers rank in order of succession to the presidency, as follows: Secretary of state, secretary of war, secretary of the treasury, attorneygeneral, postmaster-general, secretary of the navy, secretary of the interior, secretary of agriculture, and secretary of commerce and labor. It will be noted that after the original four the others are named in order of the creation of their departments, not of their elevation to Cabinet rank. The term "cabinet" is sometimes used of the heads of our State departments advisory to the governor; but this is even less defensible than our national term, as the officers are elected by the people on the same ticket with the governor, and he has no power of appointment or dismissal. The municipal officers accessory to a mayor are sometimes so called; which has justification in the fact that some of them are appointed by him. See U. S.-CABINET OFFICERS, etc. Cabinet Organ, a small portable reed organ or harmonium, designed for domestic use or for very small churches or schools. Cabi'ri. See CABEIRI." Cable, George Washington, American novelist and miscellaneous writer: b. New Orleans, La., 12 Oct. 1844. His father died when he was 14 years of age, and he had to leave school and seek employment as a clerk in order to support his mother and sisters. In 1863 he joined the Confederate army as soldier in a cavalry regiment, and served till the conclusion of the Civil War, when he returned to New Orleans and again took to commercial life. But in 1879, being by this time a practised writer, and having had considerable success with his literary ventures, he decided to devote himself entirely to authorship. In 1884 he took up his residence in Massachusetts, where he has originated a system of "home culture clubs." His first important book, 'Old Creole Days' (1879), appeared originally in Scribner's Magazine'; and since its publication he has written The Grandissimes (1880); (Madame Delphine' (1881); The Creoles of Louisiana' 1884), a history; Dr. Sevier) (1884); The Silent South' (1885), a plea for the negro; 'Bonaventure) (1888); The Negro Question (1888); Strange True Stories of Louisiana' (1889); John March' (1894); Strong Hearts'; 'The Cavalier' (1901); Bylow Hill (1902). For most readers the chief interest of Mr. Cable's novels lies in their excellent descriptions of Creole life, a subject which he may be said to have introduced into literature. His pictures of negro life are equally effective, and he handles dialect in a masterly manner. Cable, Ransom R., American railroad manager: b. Athens, Ohio, 1834. He had allife removed to Rock Island, Ill., where he was most no educational advantages, and early in at first in the coal, flour, and lumber business, but later came to be wholly identified with Illinois railroads, and particularly the Chicago, R. 1. & P. Ry. He was elected a director in 1877, and was successively vice-president, general manager, and in 1898, chairman of the board of directors. Cable, a large rope or iron chain. The term cable is most frequently used in its nautical sense to describe the means by which a ship is connected with her anchor. The large ropes used for towing, or for making a vessel fast to a buoy or pier, are commonly known as hawsers. The term cable is also applied to the large suspensory ropes (usually of twisted or parallel wire) from which suspension bridges are hung, and to the endless ropes used to operate the kind of street cars commonly called cable cars or grip cars. Rope cables are made of hemp, manila, or other fibre, or of wire, twisted into a line of great compactness and strength. The circumference of hemp rope varies from about 3 to 26 inches. A certain number of yarns are laid up left-handed to form a strand; three strands laid up righthanded make a hawser; and three hawsers laid up left-handed make a cable. The strength of a hemp cable of 18 inches circumference is about 60 tons, and for other dimensions the strength is taken to vary according to the cube of the diameter. Wire rope has within recent years largely taken the place of hemp for towlines and hawsers on board ship. These usually consist of six strands, laid or spun around a hempen core, each strand consisting of six wires laid the contrary way around a smaller hempen core. The wires are galvanized or coated with a preservative composition. Wire ropes are usually housed on board ship CABLES by winding them round a special reel or drum. Hemp cables, moreover, have for long been almost wholly superseded by chain cables; the introduction of steam on board ship having brought in its train the powerful steam windlass wherewith to manipulate the heaviest chains and anchors required. Chain cables are made in links, the length of each being generally about 6 diameters of the iron of which it is made, and the breadth. about 31⁄2 diameters. There are two distinct kinds of chain cables - the stud-like chain, which has a tie or stud welded from side to side, and the short-link or unstudded chain. The cables for use in the mercantile service are made in 15-fathom lengths, but in government contracts chain cables are required to be made in 121⁄2-fathom len ths, with one swivel in the middle of every alternate length, and one joining-shackle in each length. Besides the ordinary links and joining-shackles, there are end-links, splicing-tails, mooring-swivels, and bending-swivels. The sizes of chain cables are denoted by the thickness of rod iron selected for the links. The following table gives certain ascertained quantities concerning the cables in ordinary use: Thickness Weight of Iron of Stay-pin Breaking Weight per Fathom 1⁄2 in. 1⁄2 oz. I 3% 131⁄2 lbs. 24 12 121 2 215 272 22000 40 888 120 6 tons that practical telegraphy across the Atlantic Ocean was established. Early Cables. The first under-water cables were short ones laid across rivers; later the English Channel was electrically "bridged" in this manner. In 1852 Dover and Ostend were connected by a cable 75 miles long and containing six wires. In 1854 Sweden and Denmark, Italy and Corsica, and Corsica and Sardinia were linked. In the same year the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company was incorporated, mainly through the efforts of Cyrus W. Field and Peter Cooper, of New York, for the purpose of laying a cable between Newfoundland and Ireland, a distance of about 2,000 miles. It received a charter from the Newfoundland legislature, with an exclusive right for 50 years to establish a telegraph between the American continent and Europe via Newfoundland. In 1856 Cape Ray and Cape Breton were united, as well as Prince Edward's Island and New Brunswick. The same year Mr. Field organized the Atlantic Telegraph Company. It was supported by both the United States and British governments, but the results of its efforts were discouraging for several years. In August 1857 an attempt was made to lay a cable by the American frigate Niagara and the British ship-of-war Agamemnon, but about 300 miles from the Irish coast the cable parted, owing to a strain caused by a sudden dip of the seabottom. In 1858 the same two ships, each with half the cable on board, steamed to a point in the Atlantic midway between Valentia, Ireland, and Heart's Content, Trinity Bay, Newfoundsite directions, safely landed the ends at their land, spliced the cable, and, steering in oppodestinations on 5 August. The cable was 2,500 miles in length, weighed about one ton per mile, and cost $1,256,250. It was composed of seven copper wires encased in gutta-percha, which in turn was surrounded by a covering of hemp saturated with oil, pitch, and beeswax; the whole being protected by an outer sheath composed of 18 strands of seven iron wires each. cable was practically useless. The current was Despite the success in laying, however, the so weak that a message of 90 words from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan took 67 minutes to transmit, and after a few more messages the cable ceased to transmit signals. Two more cables were laid in this year to connect Great Britain with the Continent,-one to Holland and the other to Hanover; and 1859 saw, among other cable connections, the joining of England with Denmark and France, and of Malta with Sicily. In 1860 a cable was laid between France and Algiers, and in 1861 Malta was connected with Alexandria, and Batavia with Singapore. Failures were met with in attempts to lay cables through the Red Sea Until the discovery of gutta-percha such and from Falmouth to Gibraltar, and these, communication was impossible, as water is so with the ill-success of the Atlantic cable, caused good a conductor of electricity that the sub- great disappointment to the promoters of the mersion of current-carrying wires was de- latter enterprise. Capital seemed to have made pendent upon complete insulation. In this gum, up its mind that a successful cable across the however, such a perfect insulator was found Atlantic was impossible. In 1865, however, anthat submarine communication all over the other cable of 2,300 miles, and weighing 4,000 world became merely a question of time, ex- tons, was shipped on the Great Eastern, and was perience, and necessity. In 1843 Prof. S. F. B. successfully paid out for 1,065 miles from ValenMorse suggested electrical communication be- tia, when it broke, and was abandoned after vain tween the United States and Great Britain, but attempts to grapple the lost end. The following it was not until more than 20 years had passed year the Great Eastern sailed with a lighter Compared with the strength of hempen cable, a chain cable of one inch diameter of rod is equivalent to a hemp cable 101⁄2 inches in circumference; 1/4 inches, to 131⁄2 inches; 11⁄2 inches, to 16 inches; 134 inches, to 18 inches; and 2 inches, to 24 inches. In navigation a cable's length is a nautical measure of distance equaling 120 fathoms, or 720 feet, by which the distances of ships in a fleet are frequently estimated. This term is often misunderstood. In all marine charts a cable is deemed 607.56 feet, or one tenth of a sea mile. In rope-making the cable varies from 100 to 115 fathoms; cablet, 120 fathoms; hawser-laid, 130 fathoms, as determined by the British admiralty in 1830. According to Ure a cable's length is 100 to 140 fathoms in the merchant service. The wire rope used for submarine telegraphy is also called a cable. See CABLES, SUBMARINE. Cables, Submarine, specially constructed ropes of wire, hemp, and gutta-percha, or other water-proofing and protecting materials, laid on ocean or river beds for the purpose of providing means of electrical communication across large bodies of water. |