Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/265

 BALLISTA BALLOT 245 chased his claims on the Scottish throne for 5,000 marks, and an annuity of 2,000, and Balliol retired to Yorkshire. He left no issue. BALLISTA, a military engine of the Romans, used in the siege and defence of fortified places. Neither from the description of authors nor j from any carved or painted representation ex- ! tant although Trajan's column presents seve- ral specimens of these machines can any dis- I tinct understanding he had of the principle or process of working these primitive substitutes for artillery. They were all included under one general term of tormentum, which, as is shown hy its root torgitere, to twist, would imply that the propulsion was given by means of the torsion of ropes or fibres. Yet the use of the term is not decisive, since torquere came in time to signify simply to hurl a mis- sile by any means. Whatever may have been the method of its operation, the ballista was originally an engine for hurling stones with a parabolic ascent, in order to destroy the battlements of walls and the roofs of build- ings in their fall. The ordinary ballista threw stones of three various weights, according to which standard the power of the engines was rated, as our cannon are by their calibre ; these were, half a hundredweight, a hundred- weight, and three hundredweight which last appears to have been the maximum. Josephus mentions ballistae, the destructive power of which he records as very formidable, capable of throwing their missiles with execution to the distance of a quarter of a mile. Vitruvius also mentions smaller ballistse, which threw stones not exceeding two pounds in weight, and which seem to have been used as field ar- j tillery, and to have been plied from the rear, over the heads of the front ranks, into the enemy's lines. In the middle ages, ballista was the term applied to the crossbow, and in the reign of Henry III. of England there was an officer named ballistarius, the keeper of the i crossbows, whose pay was a shilling a day, and an attiliator ballistarum, whose duty it was to provide the harness and accoutrements of the crossbowmen. In the classics, however, the catapulta, not the ballista, is the large wall-crossbow, used in the place of cannon. BALLOON. See AERONAUTICS. BALLOT (Gr. fi&JOeiv, to throw), originally a little ball cast into a box as a mode of deciding anything; now more usually applied to suf- frage by written or printed ticket, in distinc- tion from mta voce announcement, or by hold- iiifr up the hand, or other visible demonstration. In Athens it was the common mode of voting in the assemblies of the people, and in the courts, at first by casting pebbles into boxes, and after- v;ird beans, white for the affirmative and black for the negative. If this mode of voting had secrecy specially in view, it accomplished it but imperfectly. The assemblies and courts were held in the daytime in public places, and the voters were separated from the popular audience only by a cordon of ropes. When, therefore, the voters went up to the boxes and deposited their ballots, it was possible to know how they voted. Complete secrecy might have been designed in the court of the Areop- agus, which made its decisions at night, and without the presence of an audience. Ostra- cism, which was a vote of the people for the ex- pulsion of a citizen for a fixed number of years, was done by writing the name of the obnox- ious party on a shell. It appears that the as- sembly of the people at Athens in a legislative capacity passed or rejected a law precisely as it was proposed, without amendment, as in mod- ern times in France and in some of our own states a proposed measure has sometimes been submitted to the people for their approval or rejection. At Kome secret voting by bal- lots or tickets was employed, the value of which was sometimes demonstrated by a re- sult different from what might have been expected from popular opinion as 'openly ex- pressed. Cicero, who did not favor the ballot, because of its tendency to diminish the power of the patricians, nevertheless admits that not- withstanding the laws had been prostrated, yet sometimes they would reappear in the silent suffrages of the people ("judiciis tacitis aut oeenltis de honore ntffragiis"). Pliny ob- jected to the ballot (taeita grtjfragiii), as afford- ing a screen to corruption ; but Gibbon attests its value. In modern times the ballot has been sometimes demanded for legislative bodies, but not often conceded, the prevailing view being that the action of such bodies ought as far as possible to be open to the observation and crit- icism of their constituents. It was in use in the Venetian senate, and during the reign of Charles II. was once adopted in Scotland for a short time. In many English corporate bodies, municipal as well as private, the ballot has long been in use ; and perhaps it was in imitation of their elections, rather than from any settled conviction of its importance to a free election by the people, that it came to be employed in the New England colonies. Once planted there, it has never been abandoned, but on the contrary the system of open voting which was established in some of the more southern colo- nies has gradually given way to it. The ballot in the United States is a written or printed ticket having upon it the names of the persons for whom the elector desires to vote for the several offices to be filled at that election, with the proper designation of the office for which each is named. This in some states is so folded as to conceal the written or printed matter, and delivered to an inspector, who immedi- ately deposits it in a sealed box, where it re- mains until the polls are closed, when a public cavassing of the ballots by the inspectors be- gins. In this mode complete secrecy is sought to be attained, and the courts have ruled that the elector cannot be compelled afterward in judicial proceedings to disclose how he voted. It being found that political managers some- times resorted to tickets of a peculiar color, or