Page:EB1911 - Volume 04.djvu/939

 exceeding one mile or a period of ten minutes is eightpence, and for every additional quarter mile or period of 2 minutes twopence is paid. A driver required to wait may demand a reasonable sum as a deposit and also payment of the sum which he has already earned. The London Cab Act 1896 (by which for the first time legal sanction was given to the word “cab”) made an important change in the law in the interest of cab drivers. It renders liable to a penalty on summary conviction any person who (a) hires a cab knowing or having reason to believe that he cannot pay the lawful fare, or with intent to avoid payment; (b) fraudulently endeavours to avoid payment; (c) refuses to pay or refuses to give his address, or gives a false address with intent to deceive. The offences mentioned (generally known as “bilking”) may be punished by imprisonment without the option of a fine, and the whole or any part of the fine imposed may be applied in compensation to the driver.

Strictly speaking, it is an offence for a cab to ply for hire when not waiting on an authorized “standing,” but cabs passing in the street for this purpose are not deemed to be “plying for hire.” These stands for cabs are appointed by the commissioner of police or the home secretary. “Privileged cabs” is the designation given to those cabs which by virtue of a contract between a railway company and a number of cab-owners are alone admitted to ply for hire within a company’s station, until they are all engaged, on condition (1) of paying a certain weekly or annual sum, and (2) of guaranteeing to have cabs in attendance at all hours. This system was abolished by the act of 1907, but the home secretary was empowered to suspend or modify the abolition if it should interfere with the proper accommodation of the public.

At one time there was much discussion in England as to the desirability of legalizing on cabs the use of a mechanical fare-recorder such as, under the name of taximeter or taxameter, is in general use on the continent of Europe. It is now universal on hackney carriages propelled by mechanical means, and it has also extended largely to those drawn by animal power. A taximeter consists of a securely closed and sealed metal box containing a mechanism actuated by a flexible shaft connected with the wheel of the vehicle, in the same manner as the speedometer on a motor car. It has, within plain view of the passenger, a number of apertures in which appear figures showing the amount payable at any time. A small lever, with a metal flag, bearing the words “for hire” stands upright upon it when the cab is disengaged. As soon as a passenger enters the cab the lever is depressed by the driver and the recording mechanism starts. At the end of the journey the figures upon the dials show exactly the sum payable for hire; this sum is based on a combination of time and distance.

CABAL (through the Fr. cabale from the Cabbala or Kabbalah, the theosophical interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures), a private organization or party engaged in secret intrigues, and applied also to the intrigues themselves. The word came into common usage in English during the reign of Charles II. to describe the committee of the privy council known as the “Committee for Foreign Affairs,” which developed into the cabinet. The invidious meaning attached to the term was stereotyped by the coincidence that the initial letters of the names of the five ministers, Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale, who signed the treaty of alliance with France in 1673, spelled cabal.

CABALLERO, FERNÁN (1796–1877), the pseudonym adopted from the name of a village in the province of Ciudad Real by the Spanish novelist Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl de Faber y Larrea. Born at Morges in Switzerland on the 24th of December 1796, she was the daughter of Johan Nikolas Böhl von Faber, a Hamburg merchant, who lived long in Spain, married a native of Cadiz, and is creditably known to students of Spanish literature as the editor of the Floresta de rimas antiguas castellanas (1821–1825), and the Teatro español anterior á Lope de Vega (1832). Educated principally at Hamburg, she visited Spain in 1815, and, unfortunately for herself, in 1816 married Antonio Planells y Bardaxi, an infantry captain of bad character. In the following year Planells was killed in action, and in 1822 the young widow married Francisco Ruiz del Arco, marqués de Arco Hermoso, an officer in one of the Spanish household regiments. Upon the death of Arco Hermoso in 1835, the marquesa found herself in straitened circumstances, and in less than two years she married Antonio Arrón de Ayala, a man considerably her junior. Arrón was appointed consul in Australia, engaged in business enterprises and made money; but unfortunate speculations drove him to commit suicide in 1859. Ten years earlier the name of Fernán Caballero became famous in Spain as the author of La Gaviola. The writer had already published in German an anonymous romance, Sola (1840), and curiously enough the original draft of La Gaviota was written in French. This novel, translated into Spanish by José Joaquín de Mora, appeared as the feuilleton of El Heraldo (1849), and was received with marked favour. Ochoa, a prominent critic of the day, ratified the popular judgment, and hopefully proclaimed the writer to be a rival of Scott. No other Spanish book of the 19th century has obtained such instant and universal recognition. It was translated into most European languages, and, though it scarcely seems to deserve the intense enthusiasm which it excited, it is the best of its author’s works, with the possible exception of La Familia de Alvareda (which was written, first of all, in German). Less successful attempts are Lady Virginia and Clemencia; but the short stories entitled Cuadros de Costumbres are interesting in matter and form, and Una en otra and Elia ó la España treinta años ha are excellent specimens of picturesque narration. It would be difficult to maintain that Fernán Caballero was a great literary artist, but it is certain that she was a born teller of stories and that she has a graceful style very suitable to her purpose. She came into Spain at a most happy moment, before the new order had perceptibly disturbed the old, and she brought to bear not alone a fine natural gift of observation, but a freshness of vision, undulled by long familiarity. She combined the advantages of being both a foreigner and a native. In later publications she insisted too emphatically upon the moral lesson, and lost much of her primitive simplicity and charm; but we may believe her statement that, though she occasionally idealized circumstances, she was conscientious in choosing for her themes subjects which had occurred in her own experience. Hence she may be regarded as a pioneer in the realistic field, and this historical fact adds to her positive importance. For many years she was the most popular of Spanish writers, and the sensation caused by her death at Seville on the 7th of April 1877 proved that her naïve truthfulness still attracted readers who were interested in records of national customs and manners.

CABANEL, ALEXANDRE (1823–1889), French painter, was born at Montpellier, and studied in Paris, gaining the Prix de Rome in 1845. His pictures soon attracted attention, and by his “Birth of Venus” (1863), now in the Luxembourg, he became famous, being elected that year to the Institute. He became the most popular portrait painter of the day, and his pupils included a number of famous artists.

CABANIS, PIERRE JEAN GEORGE (1757–1808), French physiologist, was born at Cosnac (Corrèze) on the 5th of June 1757, and was the son of Jean Baptiste Cabanis (1723–1786), a lawyer and agronomist. Sent at the age of ten to the college of Brives, he showed great aptitude for study, but his independence of spirit was so excessive that he was almost constantly in a state of rebellion against his teachers, and was finally dismissed from the school. He was then taken to Paris by his father and left to carry on his studies at his own discretion for two years. From 1773 to 1775 he travelled in Poland and Germany, and on his return to Paris he devoted himself mainly to poetry. About this time he ventured to send in to the Academy a translation of the passage from Homer proposed for their prize, and, though his attempt passed without notice, he received so much encouragement from his friends that he contemplated translating the whole of the Iliad. But at the