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 In France and Germany, countries which may be said to have embodied the Roman law in their jurisprudence, adoption is regulated according to the principles of Justinian, though with several more or less important modifications, rendered necessary by the usages of these countries respectively. Under French law the rights of adoption can be exercised only by those who are over fifty years of age, and who, at the time of adoption, have neither children nor legitimate descendants. They must also be fifteen years older than the person adopted. In German law the person adopting must either be fifty years of age, or at least eighteen years older than the adopted, unless a special dispensation is obtained. If the person adopted is a legitimate child, the consent of his parents must be obtained; if illegitimate, the consent of the mother. Both in Germany and France the adopted child remains a member of his original family, and acquires no rights in the family of the adopter other than that of succession to the person adopting.

In the United States adoption is regulated by the statutes of the several states. Adoption of minors is permitted by statute in many of the states. These statutes generally require some public notice to be given of the intention to adopt, and an order of approval after a hearing before some public authority. The consequence commonly is that the person adopted becomes, in the eyes of the law, the child of the person adopting, for all purposes. Such an adoption, if consummated according to the law of the domicile, is equally effectual in any other state into which the parties may remove. The relative status thus newly acquired is ubiquitous. (See Whitmore, Laws of Adoption; Ross v. Ross, 129 Massachusetts Reports, 243.)

The part played by the legal fiction of adoption in the constitution of primitive society and the civilization of the race is so important, that Sir Henry S. Maine, in his Ancient Law, expresses the opinion that, had it never existed, the primitive groups of mankind could not have coalesced except on terms of absolute superiority on the one side and absolute subjection on the other. With the institution of adoption, however, one people might feign itself as descended from the same stock as the people to whose sacra gentilicia it was admitted; and amicable relations were thus established between stocks which, but for this expedient, must have submitted to the arbitrament of the sword with all its consequences.

ADORATION (Lat. ad, to, and os, mouth; i.e. “carrying to one’s mouth”), primarily an act of homage or worship, which, among the Romans, was performed by raising the hand to the mouth, kissing it and then waving it in the direction of the adored object. The devotee had his head covered, and after the act turned himself round from left to right. Sometimes he kissed the feet or knees of the images of the gods themselves, and Saturn and Hercules were adored with the head bare. By a natural transition the homage, at first paid to divine beings alone, came to be paid to monarchs. Thus the Greek and Roman emperors were adored by bowing or kneeling, laying hold of the imperial robe, and presently withdrawing the hand and pressing it to the lips, or by putting the royal robe itself to the lips. In Eastern countries adoration has ever been performed in an attitude still more lowly. The Persian method, introduced by Cyrus, was to bend the knee and fall on the face at the prince’s feet, striking the earth with the forehead and kissing the ground. This striking of the earth with the forehead, usually a fixed number of times, is the form of adoration usually paid to Eastern potentates to-day. The Jews kissed in homage. Thus in 1 Kings xix. 18, God is made to say, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” And in Psalms ii. 12, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.” (See also Hosea xiii. 2.) In England the ceremony of kissing the sovereign’s hand, and some other acts which are performed kneeling, may be described as forms of adoration. Adoration is applied in the Roman Church to the ceremony of kissing the pope’s foot, a custom which is said to have been introduced by the popes following the example of the emperor Diocletian. The toe of the famous statue of the apostle in St Peter’s, Rome, shows marked wear caused by the kisses of pilgrims. In the Roman Church a distinction is made between Latria, a worship due to God alone, and Dulia or Hyperdulia, the adoration paid to the Virgin, saints, martyrs, crucifixes, &c. (See further .)

ADORF, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, 3 m. from the Bohemian frontier, at an elevation of 1400 ft. above the sea, on the Plauen–Eger and Aue–Adorf lines of railway. Pop. 5000. It has lace, dyeing and tanning industries, and manufactures of toys and musical instruments; and there is a convalescent home for the poor of the city of Leipzig.

ADOUR (anc. Aturrus or Adurus, from Celtic dour, water), a river of south-west France, rising in the department of Hautes Pyrénées, and flowing in a wide curve to the Bay of Biscay. It is formed of several streams having their origin in the massifs of the Pic d’Arbizon and the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, but during the first half of its course remains an inconsiderable river. In traversing the beautiful valley of Campan it is artificially augmented in summer by the waters of the Lac Bleu, which are drawn off by means of a siphon, and flow down the valley of Lesponne. After passing Bagneres de Bigorre the Adour enters the plain of Tarbes, and for the remainder of its course in the department of Hautes Pyrénées is of much less importance as a waterway than as a means of feeding the numerous irrigation canals which cover the plains on each side. Of these the oldest and most important is the Canal d’Alaric, which follows the right bank for 36 m. Entering the department of Gers, the Adour receives the Arros on the right bank and begins to describe the large westward curve which takes it through the department of Landes to the sea. In the last-named department it soon becomes navigable, namely, at St Sever, after passing which it is joined on the left by the Larcis, Gabas, Louts and Luy, and on the right by the Midouze, which is formed by the union of the Douze and the Midour, and is navigable for 27 m.; now taking a south-westerly course it receives on the left the Gave de Pau, which is a more voluminous river than the Adour itself, and flowing past Bayonne enters the sea through a dangerous estuary, in which sandbars are formed, after a total course of 208 m., of which 82 are navigable. The mouth of the Adour has repeatedly shifted, its old bed being represented by the series of étangs and lagoons extending northward as far as the village of Vieux Boucau, 22 m. north of Bayonne, where it found a new entrance into the sea at the end of the 14th century. Its previous mouth had been 10 m. south of Vieux Boucau. The present channel was constructed by the engineer Louis de Foix in 1579. There is a depth over the bar at the entrance of 10 to 16 ft. at high tide. The area of the basin of the Adour is 6565 sq. m.

ADOWA (properly ), the capital of Tigré, northern Abyssinia, 145 m. N.E. of Gondar and 17 m. E. by N. of Axum, the ancient capital of Abyssinia. Adowa is built on the slope of a hill at an elevation of 6500 ft., in the midst of a rich agricultural district. Being on the high road from Massawa to central Abyssinia, it is a meeting-place of merchants from Arabia and the Sudan for the exchange of foreign merchandise with the products of the country. During the wars between the Italians and Abyssinia (1887–96) Adowa was on three or four occasions looted and burnt; but the churches escaped destruction. The church of the Holy Trinity, one of the largest in Abyssinia, contains numerous wall-paintings of native art. On a hill about 2 m. north-west of Adowa are the ruins of Fremona, the headquarters of the Portuguese Jesuits who lived in Abyssinia during the 16th and 17th centuries. On the 1st of March 1896, in the hills north of the town, was fought the battle of Adowa, in which the Abyssinians inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italian forces (see, History, and , History).

ADRA (anc. Abdera), a seaport of southern Spain, in the province of Almeria; at the mouth of the Rio Grande de Adra, and on the Mediterranean Sea. Pop. (1900) 11,188. Adra is the port of shipment for the lead obtained near Berja, 10 m; north-east; but its commercial development is retarded by the lack of a railway. Besides lead, the exports include grapes,