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 theatres. In twenty-five years Offenbach produced no less than sixty-nine complete dramatic works, some of which were in three or even in four acts. Among the latest of these were Le Docteur Ox, founded on a story by Jules Verne, and La Boîte au lait, both produced in 1877, and Madame Favart (1879). Offenbach died at Paris on the 5th of October 1880.

 OFFENBACH, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Hesse, on the left bank of the Main, 5 m. S.E. of Frankfort-on-Main, with which it is connected by the railway to Bebra and by a local electric line. Pop. (1905) 58,806, of whom about 20,000 were Roman Catholics and 1400 Jews. The most interesting building in the town is the Renaissance château of the counts of Isenburg. Offenbach is the principal industrial town of the duchy, and its manufactures are of the most varied description. Its characteristic industry, however, is the manufacture of portfolios, pocket-books, albums and other fancy goods in leather. The earliest mention of Offenbach is in a document of 970. In 1486 it came into the possession of the counts of Isenburg, who made it their residence in 1685, and in 1816, when their lands were mediatized, it was assigned to Hesse. It owes its prosperity in the first place to the industry of the French Protestant refugees who settled here at the end of the 17th, and the beginning of the 18th century, and in the second place to the accession of Hesse to the German Zollverein in 1828.

 OFFENBURG, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, 27 m. by rail S.W. of Baden, on the river Kinzig. Pop. (1905) 15,434. It contains a statue of Sir Francis Drake, a mark of honour due to the fact that Drake is sometimes regarded as having introduced the potato into Europe. The chief industries of the town are the making of cotton, linen, hats, malt, machinery, tobacco and cigars and glass. Offenburg is first mentioned about 1100. In 1223 it became a town; in 1248 it passed to the bishop of Strassburg; and in 1289 it became an imperial free city. Soon, however, this position was lost, but it was regained about the middle of the 16th century, and Offenburg remained a free city until 1802, when it became part of Baden. In 1632 it was taken by the Swedes, and in 1689 it was destroyed by the French.

 OFFERTORY (from the ecclesiastical Lat. offertorium, Fr. offertoire, a place to which offerings were brought), the alms of a congregation collected in church, or at any religious service. Offertory has also a special sense in the services of both the English and Roman churches. It forms in both that part of the Communion service appointed to be said or sung, during the collection of alms, before the elements are consecrated. In music, an offertory is the vocal or instrumental setting of the offertory sentences, or a short instrumental piece played by the organist while the collection is being made.

 OFFICE (from Lat. officium, “duty,” “service,” a shortened form of opifacium, from facere, “to do,” and either the stem of opes, “wealth,” “aid,”  or opus, “work”), a duty or service, particularly the special duty cast upon a person by his position; also a ceremonial duty, as in the rites paid to the dead, the “last offices.” The term is thus especially used of a religious service, the “daily office” of the English Church or the “divine office” of the Roman Church (see ). It is also used in this sense of a service for a particular occasion, as the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, &c. From the sense of duty or function, the word is transferred to the position or place which lays on the holder or occupier the performance of such duties. This leads naturally to the use of the word for the buildings or the separate rooms in which the duties are performed, and for the staff carrying on the work or business in such offices. In the Roman curia the department of the Inquisition is known as the Holy Office, in full, the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (see and ).

Offices of Profit.—The phrase “office of profit under the crown” is used with a particular application in British parliamentary practice. The holders of such offices of profit have been subject in regard to the occupation of seats in the House of Commons to certain disabilities which were in their origin due to the fear of the undue influence exercised by the crown during the constitutional struggles of the 17th century. Attempts to deal with the danger of the presence of “place-men” in the House of Commons were made by the Place Bills introduced in 1672–1673, 1694 and 1743. The Act of Settlement 1700 (§ 3) laid it down that no person who has an office or place of profit under the king or receives a pension from the crown shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons. This drastic clause, which would have had the disastrous effect of entirely separating the executive from the legislature, was repealed and the basis of the present law was laid down in 1706 by 6 Anne (c. 41). This first disqualifies (§ 24) from membership all holders of “new offices,” i.e. those created after October 1705; secondly (§ 25) it renders void the election of a member who shall accept any office of profit other than “new offices” but allows the member to stand for re-election. The disqualification attaching to many “new offices” has been removed by various statutes, and by § 52 of the Reform Act 1867 the necessity of re-election is avoided when a member, having been elected subsequent to the acceptance of any office named in a schedule of that act, is transferred to any other office in that schedule. The rules as to what offices disqualify from membership or render re-election necessary are exceedingly complicated, depending as they do on a large number of statutes (see Erskine May, Parliamentary Practice, 11th ed., pp. 632-645, and Rogers, On Elections, vol. ii., 1906). The old established rule that a member, once duly elected, cannot resign his seat is evaded by the acceptance of certain minor offices (see ).

 OFFICERS. Historically the employment of the word “officer” to denote a person holding a military or naval command as representative of the state, and not as deriving his authority from his own powers or privileges, marks an entire change in the character of the armed forces of civilized nations. Originally signifying an official, one who performs an assigned duty (Lat. officium), an agent, and in the 15th century actually meaning the subordinate of such an official (even to-day a constable is so called), the word seems to have acquired a military significance late in the 16th century. It was at this time that armies, though not yet “standing,” came to be constituted almost exclusively of professional soldiers in the king’s pay. Mercenaries, and great numbers of mercenaries, had always existed, and their captains were not feudal magnates. But the bond between mercenaries and their captains was entirely personal, and the bond between the captain and the sovereign was of the nature of a contract. The non-mercenary portion of the older armies was feudal in character. It was the lord and not a king’s officer who commanded it, and he commanded in virtue of his rights, not of a warrant or commission.

European history in the late 15th century is the story of the victory of the crown over the feudatories. The instrument of the crown was its army, raised and commanded by its deputies. But these deputies were still largely soldiers of fortune and, in the higher ranks, feudal personages, who created the armies themselves by their personal influence with the would-be soldier or the unemployed professional fighting man. Thus the first system to replace the obsolete combination of feudalism and “free companies” was what may be called the proprietary system. Under this the colonel was the proprietor of his regiment, the captain the proprietor of his company. The king accepted them as his officers, and armed them with authority to raise men, but they themselves raised the men as a rule from experienced soldiers who were in search of employment, although, like