Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/38

 26 ASSAULT Mongols, captured Roknedin, the last of the grand masters, in his castle of Maimundis. Roknedin and his whole race were condemned to massacre; 12,000 captives were assembled and slaughtered at once ; troops went through the provinces to execute the sentence, and many of the castles were demolished. In 1270 Sultan Bibars overthrew their authority in Syria. For about a century longer the Ismaelians were numerous in Persia, but with diminished power. Assassins are said to remain still in some parts of the Lebanon and Persia, but only as a heret- ical sect of Islamism, and they seem to have lost all remembrance of their former power and murderous tactics. Some of their doc- trines and practices are also traced in those of the Druses. The Persian Ismaelians con- sider their grand master as an incarnation of the Deity. A few years- since the fact of the existence of the order in India, widely dif- fused, was disclosed through a suit brought in the English courts for the possession of its rec- ords by a person claiming to be grand master. ASSAULT, any wilful and unlawful attempt or offer, with force or violence, to do a corpo- ral hurt to another. In New York it has been added to a definition of substantially the same import, that the assault may consist of any act tending to such corporal injury, accompanied with such circumstances as denote at the time an intention coupled with the present ability of using actual violence against the person. But this illustration is not quite correct, for to cover the cases of pointing firearms, though they are not loaded, at persons, the ability to do the injury need not be actual, hut it is suf- ficient if it be only apparent. Nor need there be an actual intention to do the violent act ; for if the assaulter causes it to be believed that lie has such an intent, though he has not in fact, the assault may be committed. There must be some exhibition or threatening appear- ance of force, and this must ordinarily be of physical force. A threat alone is not an as- sault; yet such threat, spoken under circum- stances which of themselves, so to speak, im- port restraint or force, may constitute the offence. One who, having an open knife in his hand, and being within striking distance of another, demanded with threatening words the surrender of a certain paper, was held guilty of an assault. Force may be exhibited by the raising of the hand or a weapon as if to strike, or to hurl something ; or by the point- ing of a gun or pistol within the range of the arm, as if to shoot with it, and even though it is not loaded, if it is reasonably supposed to be loaded by the person assaulted ; or by wilfully riding a horse so near a foot passenger, or driv- ing or attempting to drive a carriage against the carriage of another, or even by driving it toward the other, so as in any of these cases to excite reasonable fear of injury; or by pursu- ing another with a dangerous weapon, and coming so near him that he may reasonably apprehend danger. But an assault may be ASSAYING committed, even though the violent show of force is not actually within reaching distance, provided it be so near as to excite a fear of im- mediate harm in a person of fair firmness. Thus, where one was approaching another with clenched fist, as if to hit him, but was stopped by bystanders just before he got near enough to do so, he was held guilty of an assault. The force, and thus the assault, may exist to the eye of the law, even though it is not apparent on the face of the facts, and where from the submission or consent of the victim it seems that it could not have existed. This is illustrated by those cases in which schoolmasters or physicians have, by virtue of the authority or the trust reposed in them in these relations, induced young girls to submit to indecent maltreatment. In such cases the consent is regarded by the law as neither in- telligent nor voluntary. Further, the force must be unlawful. Therefore it is not an as- sault when a father or a schoolmaster, for good reasons, chastises a child within proper limits. Certain assaults are described as aggravated assaults. Such are assaults upon magistrates in courts of justice, or against other officers of the law. But it seems that to constitute such an offence, the person assaulted must be known to be such an official, or there must be grounds upon which it can fairly be presumed that he was known to be so. Assault is a mis- demeanor; that is to say, it is of an inferior degree of criminality, and is ordinarily punish- able by fine or imprisonment, or by both. Assault must be distinguished from battery. The words are commonly used together, for the reason that the two offences are usually committed together ; but they are in fact dis- tinct and separate. Battery is the actual in- fliction of the threatened violence. But the law will not permit even the threat of it, and therefore makes that a substantial offence, namely, an assault. (See BATTERY.) ASSAY'E, or Assye, a village of Hindostan, in the Nizam's dominions, 43 m. N. E. of Aurung- abad, near which in September, 1803, the duke of Wellington (then Gen. Wellesley), with 2,000 British troops and 2,500 sepoys, defeated the much more numerous combined force of Scindia and the rajah of Nagpoor. ASSAYING (old Fr. asaier, mod. Fr. essayer, to try), the chemical examination of an ore, a metal, or an alloy, to determine the proportions of its ingredients. The assay of a gold ore, to obtain the amount of gold present, consists of several operations. Fifty grammes of the ore are mixed with 80 grms. of oxide of lead, 20 of carbonate of soda, 4 of charcoal dust, and 12 of powdered glass. If the ore contains much silica, the glass may be left out ; if much sul- phur, 2 grms. of nails should be added. The mixture is placed in a Hessian sand crucible, covered by a layer of salt, and heated in a fur- nace for half an hour at a gentle heat, and then for half an hour at a white heat. When this , crucible is taken out of the furnace and allowed