Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/176

ASSAULT. lines of the Confederate army at Cold Harbor (1864), in the Civil War, General Grant lost some 8000 men in about fifteen minutes. All the great losses suffered by the British in the Boer War of 1899-1902 were inllieted during the time taken in covering the ground that separated tliem from tlie line of kopje.i, under whose pro- tection the Boers were fighting. See Attack.

ASSAULT AND BAT'TERY (Fr. batterie, from batire, to beat, batter). An infringement of the common-law right to personal safety and freedom. The words 'assault' and 'battery' are commonly used together, for the reason that the two ofi'enses which they indicate are usually committed together. But the offenses are sepa- rate and distinct.

An assault is an attempt or offer to inflict bodily injury upon another, accompanied by such ' circumstances as denote, at the time, an intention, coupled with the present ability, to do violence to the person. Battery is the actual infliction of threatened violence, the consum- mation of an assault. Here words of abuse will not constitute an assault; nor will a threat or offer to do violence, when it clearly appears that he who makes the threat or offer has no inten- tion or no present ability to carry it into execu- tion. But an actual intent or an actual present ability to injure the person is not necessary. It is sufficient that these are apparent and that the circumstances are such as to cause the per- son threatened to believe, on reasonable grounds, that such apparent intent and ability are real. Thus the pointing of an unloaded gun at a per- son who is ignorant of the fact that it is not loaded, the circumstances indicating an inten- tion to shoot, will amount to an assault. The least touching of another's person in anger or willfully or negligently, whether with the hand or with" a stone or other weapon, is a battery. To use. or to attempt or ofl'er to use. violence upon the body of another is in some cases justi- fiable. Thus' a father or a schoolmaster may chastise a child, within proper bounds and in the process of rightful discipline. So a person is justified in using all necessary means, even though obliged to resort to force, to protect and defend his person, the person of his servant, or of one of liis family, or his real or personal property. The force employed in defense, how- ever, must be no greater than the emergency re- quires ; for any excess of violence the person using it will be responsible, as for an assault and battery.

Assault and battery are both civil and criminal offenses. As civil wrongs they are classified under the head of torts, and subject the wrong-doer to an action for damages; and as crimes, under that of misdemeanors. Certain criminal assaults are known as aggravated assaults, and are followed by a more severe punishment. Such are assaults with intent to kill or with intent to commit rape, and assaults u]Kin magistrates in courts of justice, with knowledge of the official character of the persons assaulted. See the authorities referred to under Chiminai, Law; and Torts.

ASSAYE, ;is-si'. A village in the northwest of Hyderabad, southern India, latitude '20° 18' N., aiid longitude 7!>° 55' E., 4,3 miles northeast of Aurangabad (Slap: India, C 4). It claims notice chiefly as the scene of the first great vic- toi-y of the Duke of Wellington, then Major- General Wellesley, won on September '23, 1803. The British troops in action were about 950i), while the JIahrattas, under Scindia and the Ra- jah of Berar, numliered 50,000, of whom i 0,000 were conunanded by I'rench officers. Ninety- eight pieces of cannon, seven standards, all the baggage, and a large part of the ammimition of the JIahrattas fell into the hands of the con- querors, whose casualties numbered 15G0 in killed and wounded. The loss of their opponents was 12,000.

ASSAY'ING (OF. assai, Lat. exagium, a weighing, weight; exigere, to drive out, ex- amine, from ex, out -p agere, to drive, lead, guide; cf. exanien, for exagmen, and e!^'tct). In its widest meaning, the term includes all those operations of analytical chemistry which have for their object the determination of the value of ores and their metallurgical products. In its more limited meaning, assaying is the process employed in determining the pro- portion of pure metal in coins, silver and gold plate, jewelry and other commercial alloys of the precious metals. In Great Britain each article of gold or silver is assayed at the Gold- smith's Hall previously to being sold, to deter- mine its standard of purity, and at the various mints of the United States and foreign govern- ments, the bullion received for coinage is assayed for a similar purpose. Two general methods are employed for assaying metals and metal-bearing ores, which are commonly known as the wet method and tlie dry method. To the drj' method belongs fire-assaying, and to the wet method belongs gravimetric analysis and volumetric analy- sis, including colorimetrie determinations. Any attempt to define or explain these methods of analysis without technicalities, understood only by the chemist, is always somewhat disappoint- ing, but the following definitions will give a general notion of what is meant in each ease. FlKE-ASSAY determinations involve the separa- tion of the metal sought from the other constitu- ents of the ore by the aid of heat and suitable fluxes, and its estimation by weighing in a state of purity. To illustrate, if the object is the determination of lead in an ore, the ore is mixed in a crucible with suitable fluxes and fused; the lead is returned to the metallic state, in whicii condition it is readily detached from the slag for weighing, the various non-metallic elements present in the original ore combining with the materials in the flux and forming new substances.

GRA^METRIC DETERMINATIONS involve the sep- aration of the substance sought from the other constituents of the ore, and its estimation by weighing the substance either in a state of purity or as a constituent of a chemical com- pound whose com|)osition is accurately known. To illustrate, if the ol)jcct is the determination of lime in a mineral, the latter may be treated in such a manner that the ultimate product of the treatment is pure lime, which can be weighed direct; or the treatmyit may be such that the product is calcium sulphate, whose weight may be determined, and as this salt is of invariable composition the contained lime can be readily calculated.

Volumetric DETERMINATIONS are those which involve the separation of the substance to he determined from all interfering constituents of the