Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/254

 246 FITZWILLIAM FIXTURE suicide in a fit of mental aberration, brought on by overtaxing his brain in the performance of his duties. He was the author of several works, the most important of which was the second volume of the " Narrative of the Sur- veying Voyages of H. M. S. Adventure and Beagle, between the years 1826 and 1836" (London, 1839), the first volume being by Capt. King, and the third by Darwin. FITZWILLIAM, William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, fourth earl of that name in the peerage of Ire- land, and second in that of England, an Eng- lish statesman, born May 30, 1748, died Feb. 8, 1833. He opposed the ministry of Lord North in the American war of independence, but did not take office when his uncle, the marquis of Rockingham, formed a new cabinet in 1782. Although a political friend of Fox, he abandoned him upon hearing his eulogies of French revolutionary principles, and took office as president of the council, July 11, 1794, when the duke of Portland became the nominal head of the cabinet. In 1795 he was lord lieu- tenant of Ireland, in the height of the disturb- ances which then agitated that country ; but was recalled after a few months, against the decided wishes, it is said, of the Irish people, for having supported a bill presented by Grat- tan in favor of Catholic emancipation. He was president of the council for a short time in 1806, on the death of Mr. Pitt, but his liberal views kept him out of office during the greater part of his career. FIUME (Illyrian, RjeTca; Lat. Vitopolis, after- ward Fanum Sancti Viti ad Flumen ; Germ. St. Veit am Flaum), a royal Hungarian city and free port, situated in a valley on the gulf of Quarnero, at the mouth of the Fiumara, 38 m. S. E. of Trieste; pop. in 1869, 18,809, of whom 14,039 belong to the city proper. The old part of the town, on the slope of the hill, is poor-looking and gloomy; the new part, which stretches along the coast, is well built, cheerful, and neatly paved. It has a provincial and district court, a chamber of commerce and industry, two gymnasia, a naval academy, and many remarkable buildings, including churches, the government house, the city hall, a market hall with colonnades, a nunnery, a hospital, and the casino, which contains concert and ball rooms, and a theatre. In the vicinity is an ancient castle. The harbor admits only small vessels, larger ones anchoring in the gulf at a distance of 3 m. The products consist chiefly of linen, woollens, leather, earthenware, sugar, wax, beer, and rosoglio; the exports, mostly the produce of Hungary, are wheat, wine, tobacco, hemp, timber, rags, &c. There are extensive sugar refineries, mills, tanneries, and paper manufactories ; but the principal in- dustry is ship building, from 20 to 30 sailing vessels being annually built. It is connected with the interior by two railways. Fiume be- came a free port in 1722, and is now one of the most important seaports of the Austro-Hunga- rian empire. In 1869 the entrances were 2,739 vessels of 135,484 tons. Vitopolis is men- tioned as a flourishing town of Liburnia under the Roman emperors. Subsequently the town several times changed its rulers, until in 1471 it was incorporated with the dominions of the house of Hapsburg. Maria Theresa in 1776 united it with Hungary as a corpus separatum. From 1809 to 1814 it was occupied by the French. In 1814 it fell again to Austria, and in 1822 it was once more united with Hungary. In consequence of the revolution of 1848-' 9 it was united with the crownland of Croatia, but in 1870 it was made an independent district, with a royal governor of its own, directly under the central government of Hungary. FIXTURE, a word of frequent use, and in regard to which some little confusion exists, because the exact legal definition is precisely opposed to the meaning commonly given to the word. A fixture, in law, is a personal chattel in some way annexed to the realty, but such, or so annexed, that he who put it there may take it away. We apprehend that the common meaning of the word is, a thing so fixed to the realty that it cannot be taken away. That is, an ornament, or utensil, or addition of any kind, is commonly called a fixture, if so affixed to the land (or to the house) that the owner of the land necessarily owns the thing, and it cannot be removed without his permission. Kent uses the word in both senses, but rather inclines to the common meaning ; and for convenience, through this article, we shall mean by fixtures things so fastened to the land (or to a house which is fastened to the land) that they cannot be removed against the will of the owner of the land. The first remark to be made is, that the whole modern law, which permits a great number of things to be attached to the land and thence removed by the occupier without reference to the will of the owner of the land, is in derogation of the common law. That originally regarded land as almost everything, and personals as of little value ; and it was a nearly invariable rule that anything which was once attached or annexed to the land, or made a component part of anything so annexed, became at once the property of the owner of the land. This is certainly not the law now in England or the "United States. Whether a thing was a fixture or not, was formerly made to depend almost entirely upon the intention with which it was put up or annexed ; and this was gathered from slight indications. Thus, the same thing was a fixture if nailed on that remained personal property if screwed on, be- cause the use of screws, which can be unscrew- ed, indicated the intention of removing it. In- tention still remains a very important test ; but another has come to l}e of almost equal value, viz., the capability of removal without injury to the premises, or the possibility of taking the thing away and restoring the premises to the same order and condition in which they were before it was annexed. The earliest re- laxations from the ancient rule were made in