Kings ii. 21 sqq.). Abner was indignant at the deserved rebuke,
and immediately opened negotiations with David, who welcomed
him on the condition that his wife Michal should be restored to
him. This was done, and the proceedings were ratified by a
feast. Almost immediately after, however. Joab, who had
been sent away, perhaps intentionally returned and slew
Abner at the gate of Hebron. The ostensible motive for the
assassination was a desire to avenge Asahel, and this would
be a sufficient justification for the deed according to the
moral standard of the time. The conduct of David after the
event was such as to show that he had no complicity in the
act, though he could not venture to punish its perpetrators
(2 Sam. iii. 31-39; cp. 1 Kings ii. 31 seq.). (See DAVID.)
1 The object of the story of the encounter is to explain the name
Helkath-hazzurim, the meaning of which is doubtful (Ency. Bib. col.
2006; Batten in Zeit. f. alt-test. Wissens. 1906, pp. 90 sqq.).
ABO (Finnish Turku), a city and seaport, the capital
of the province of Abo-Bjorneborg, in the grand duchy of
Finland, on the Aura-joki, about 3 m. from where it falls
into the gulf of Bothnia. Pop. (1810) 10,224; (1870) 19,617;
(1904) 42,639. It is 381 m. by rail from St Petersburg
via Tavastehus, and is in regular steamer communication
with St Petersburg, Vasa, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Hull.
It was already a place of importance when Finland formed
part of the kingdom of Sweden. When the Estates of Finland
seceded from Sweden and accepted the Emperor Alexander of
Russia as their grand duke at the Diet of Borga in 1809,
Abo became the capital of the new state, and so remained
till 1819 when the seat of government was transferred to
Helsingfors. In November 1827 nearly the whole city was burnt
down, the university and its valuable library being entirely
destroyed. Before this calamity Abo contained 1110 houses
and 13,000 inhabitants; and its university had 40 professors,
more than 500 students, and a library of upwards of 30,000
volumes, together with a botanical garden, an observatory and
a chemical laboratory. The university has since been removed
to Helsingfors. Abo remains the ecclesiastical capital of
Finland, is the seat of the Lutheran archbishop and contains a
fine cathedral dating from 1258 and restored after the fire of
1827. The cathedral is dedicated to St Henry, the patron saint
of Finland, an English missionary who introduced Christianity
into the country in the 12th century. Abo is the seat of the
first of the three courts of appeal of Finland. It has two high
schools, a school of commerce and a school of navigation. The
city is second only to Helsingfors for its trade; sail-cloth,
cotton and tobacco are manufactured, and there are extensive
saw-mills. There is also a large trade in timber and a
considerable butter export. Ship-building has considerably
developed, torpedo-boats being built here for the Russian
navy. Vessels drawing 9 or 10 feet come up to the town,
but ships of greater draught are laden and discharged at its
harbour (Bornholm, on Hyrvinsala Island), which is entered
yearly by from 700 to 800 ships, of about 200,000 tons.
ABO-BJORNEBORG, a province occupying the S.W. corner of
Finland and including the Aland islands. It has a total
area of 24,171 square kilometres and a population (1900) of
447,098, of whom 379,622 spoke Finnish and 67,260 Swedish;
446,900 were of the Lutheran religion. The province occupies
a prominent position in Finland for its manufacture of cottons,
sugar refinery, wooden goods, metals, machinery, paper, &c.
Its chief towns are: Abo (pop. 42,639), Bjorneborg (16,053),
Raumo (5501), Nystad (4165), Mariehamn (1171), Nadendal (917).
ABODE (from ``abide,'' to dwell, properly ``to wait for'', to
bide), generally, a dwelling. In English law this term has a
more restricted meaning than domicile, being used to indicate
the place of a man's residence or business, whether that be
either temporary or permanent. The law may regard for certain
purposes, as a man's abode, the place where he carries on
business, though he may reside elsewhere) so that the term
has come to have a looser significance than residence,
which has been defined as ``where a man lives with his family
and sleeps at night'' (R. v. Hammond, 1852, 17 Q.B.
772). In serving a notice of action, a solicitor's place of
business may be given as his abode (Roberts v. Williams,
1835, 5 L.J.M.C. 23), and in more recent decisions it
has been similarly held that where a notice was required
to be served under the Public Health Act 18l5, either
personally or to some inmate of the owner's or occupier's
``place of abode,'' a place of business was sufficient.
ABOMASUM (caillette), the fourth or rennet stomach of
Ruminantia. From the omasum the food is finally deposited
in the abomasum, a cavity considerably larger than either the
second or third stomach, although less than the first. The base
of the abomasum is turned to the omasum. It is of an irregular
conical form. It is that part of the digestive apparatus
which is analogous to the single stomach of other Mammalia, as
the food there undergoes the process of chymification, after
being macerated and ground down in the three first stomachs.
ABOMEY, capital of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey, West
Africa, now included in the French colony of the same name.
It is 70 m. N. by rail of the seaport of Kotonu, and has
a population of about 15,000. Abomey is built on a rolling
plain, 800 ft. above sea-level, terminating in short bluffs to
the N.W., where it is bounded by a long depression. The town
was surrounded by a mud wall, pierced by six gates, and was
further protected by a ditch 5 ft. deep, filled with a dense
growth of prickly acacia, the usual defence of West African
strongholds. Within the walls, which had a circumference of
six miles, were villages separated by fields, several royal
palaces, a market-place and a large square containing the
barracks. In November 1892, Behanzin, the king of Dahomey,
being defeated by the French, set fire to Abomey and fled
northward. Under French administration the town has been
rebuilt, placed (1905) in railway communication with the coast,
and given an ample water supply by the sinking of artesian wells.
ABOMINATION (from Lat. ab, from, and ominare, to forebode),
anything contrary to omen, and therefore regarded with aversion;
a word used often in the Bible to denote evil doctrines
or ceremonial practices which were impure. An incorrect
derivation was ab homine (i.e. inhuman), and the spelling of the
adjective ``abominable'' in the first Shakespeare folio is always
``abhominable.'' Colloquially ``abomination'' and ``abominable''
are used to mean simply excessive in a disagreeable sense.
ABOR HILLS, a tract of country on the north-east frontier of
India, occupied by an independent tribe called the Abors. It
lies north of Lakhimpur district, in the province of eastern
Bengal and Assam, and is bounded on the east by the Mishmi Hills
and on the west by the Miri Hills, the villages of the tribe
extending to the Dibong river. The term Abor is an Assamese
word, signifying ``barbarous'' or ``independent,'' and is applied
in a general sense by the Assamese to many frontier tribes;
but in its restricted sense it is specially given to the above
tract. The Abors, together with the cognate tribes of Miris,
Daphlas and Akas, are supposed to be descended from a Tibetan
stock. They are a quarrelsome and sulky race, violently divided
in their political relations. In former times they committed
frequent raids upon the plains of Assam, and have been the
object of more than one retaliatory expedition by the British
government. In 1893-94 occurred the first Bor Abor expedition.
home military police sepoys were murdered in British territory,
and a force of 600 troops was sent, who traversed the Abor
country, and destroyed the villages concerned in the murder
and all other villages that opposed the expedition. A second
expedition became necessary later on, two small patrols having
been treacherously murdered; and a force of 100 British troops
traversed the border of the Abor country and punished the tribes,
while a blockade was continued against them from 1894 to 1900.
See Colonel Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal, 1872.
ABORIGINES,
a mythical people of central Italy, connected in legendary
history with Aeneas, Latinus and Evander. They were supposed
to have descended from their mountain home near Reate (an
ancient Sabine town) upon Latium, whence they expelled the
Siceli and subsequently settled down as Latini under a King
Latinus (Dion Halic. i. 9. 60). The most generally accepted
etymology of the name (ab origine), according to which they
were the original inhabitants ( = Gk. autochthones) of the
country, is inconsistent with the fact that the oldest authorities
(e.g. Cato in his Origines) regarded them as Hellenic
immigrants, not as a native Italian people. Other explanations
suggested are arborigines, ``tree-born,'' and aberrigines,
``nomads.'' Historical and ethnographical discussions have
led to no result; the most that can be said is that, if not
a general term, ``aborigines'' may be the name of an Italian
stock, about whom the ancients knew no more than ourselves`
In modern times the term ``Aborigines'' has been extended in
signification, and is used to indicate the inhabitants found in a
country at its first discovery, in contradistinction to colonies or
new races, the time of whose introduction into the country is known.
The Aborigines' Protection Society was founded in 1838 in
England as the result of a royal commission appointed at
the instance of Sir T. Fowell Buxton to inquire into the
treatment of the indigenous populations of the various British
colonies. The inquiry revealed the gross cruelty and injustice
with which the natives had been often treated. Since its
foundation the society has done much to make English colonization
a synonym for humane and generous treatment of savage races.
ABORTION (from Lat. aboriri, to fail to be born, or perish),
in obstetrics, the premature separation and expulsion of the
contents of the pregnant uterus. It is a common terminology to
call premature labour of an accidental type a ``miscarriage,',
in order to distinguish ``abortion', as a deliberately induced
act, whether as a medical necessity by the accoucheur, or as
a criminal proceeding (see MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE); otherwise
the term ``abortion'' would ordinarily be used when occurring
before the eighth month of gestation, and ``premature labour''
subsequently. As an accident of pregnancy, it is far fram
uncommon, although its relative frequency'' as compared
with that of completed gestation, has been very differently
estimated by accoucheurs. It is more liable to occur in
the earlier than in the later months of pregnancy, and
it would also appear to occur more readily at the periods
corresponding to those of the menstrual discharge. It may
be induced by numerous causes, both of a local and general
nature. Malformations of the pelvis, accidental injuries
and the diseases and displacements to which the uterus is
liable, on the one hand; and, on the other, various morbid
conditions of the ovum or placenta leading to the death of
the foetus, are among the direct local causes. The general
causes embrace certain states of the system which are apt to
exercise a more or less direct influence upon the progress of
utero-gestation. The tendency to recurrence in persons who
