Close by is the remount depôt, established in 1828, where Australian horses are acclimatized and trained for artillery and cavalry use in southern India.
HOTCH-POT, or Hotch-potch (from Fr. hocher, to shake;
used as early as 1292 as a law term, and from the 15th century
in cookery for a sort of broth with many ingredients, and so
used figuratively for any heterogeneous mixture), in English law,
the name given to a rule of equity whereby a person, interested
along with others in a common fund, and having already received
something in the same interest, is required to surrender what
has been so acquired into the common fund, on pain of being
excluded from the distribution. “It seemeth,” says Littleton,
“that this word hotch-pot is in English a pudding; for in a
pudding is not commonly put one thing alone, but one thing
with other things together.” The following is an old example
given in Coke on Littleton: “If a man seized of 30 acres
of land in fee hath issue only two daughters, and he gives with
one of them 10 acres in marriage to the man that marries her,
and dies seized of the other 20; now she that is thus married,
to gain her share of the rest of the land, must put her part
given in marriage into hotch-pot; i.e. she must refuse to take
the profits thereof, and cause her land to be so mingled with the
other that an equal division of the whole may be made between
her and her sister, as if none had been given to her; and thus
for her 10 acres she shall have 15, or otherwise the sister will
have the 20.” In the common law this seems to have been
the only instance in which the rule was applied, and the reason
assigned for it is that, inasmuch as daughters succeeding to lands
take together as coparceners and not by primogeniture, the
policy of the law is that the land in such cases should be equally
divided. The law of hotch-pot applies only to lands descending
in fee-simple. The same principle is noticed by Blackstone
as applying in the customs of York and London to personal
property. It is also expressly enacted in the Statute of Distributions
(§ 5) that no child of the intestate, except his heir-at-law,
who shall have any estate in land by the settlement of the
intestate, or who shall be advanced by the intestate in his
lifetime by pecuniary portion equal to the distributive shares
of the other children, shall participate with them in the surplus;
but if the estate so given to such child by way of advancement
be not equivalent to their shares, then such part of the surplus as
will make it equal shall be allotted to him. It has been decided
that this provision applies only to advancements by fathers, on
the ground that the rule was founded on the custom of London,
which never affected a widow’s personal estate. The heir-at-law
is not required to bring any land which he has by descent or
otherwise from the deceased into hotch-pot, but advancements
made to him out of the personal property must be brought
in. The same principle is to be found in the collatio bonorum
of the Roman law: emancipated children, in order to share
the inheritance of their father with the children unemancipated,
were required to bring their property into the common fund.
It is also found in the law of Scotland.
HÔTEL-DE-VILLE, the town hall of every French municipality.
The most ancient example still in perfect preservation
is that at St-Antonin (Tarn-et-Garonne) dating from the middle
of the 12th century. Other fine town halls are those of Compiègne,
Orléans, Saumur, Beaugency and St Quentin. The
Hôtel de Ville in Paris built in the 16th century was burnt by
the Commune in 1871 and has since been rebuilt on an extended
site, the central portion of the main front being a reproduction
of the old design. There is only one town hall in a French town,
those erected for the mayors of the different arrondissements
in Paris being called mairies.
HÔTEL-DIEU, the name given to the principal hospital in
any French town. The Hôtel-Dieu in Paris was founded in the
year A.D. 660, has been extended at various times, and was
entirely rebuilt between 1868–1878. One of the most ancient
in France is at Angers, dating from 1153. The Hôtel-Dieu of
Beaune (Côte-d’Or), founded 1443, is one of the most interesting,
as it retains the picturesque disposition of its courtyard, with
covered galleries on two storeys and large dormer windows;
and the great hall of the Hôtel-Dieu at Tonnerre, Yonne (1338),
nearly 60 ft. wide and over 300 ft. long, is still preserved as part
of the chief hospital of the town.
HOTHAM, SIR JOHN (d. 1645), English parliamentarian,
belonged to a Yorkshire family, and fought on the continent
of Europe during the early part of the Thirty Years’ War. In
1622 he was made a baronet, and he was member of parliament
for Beverley in the five parliaments between 1625 and 1640,
being sheriff of Yorkshire in 1635. In 1639 he was deprived
by the king of his office of governor of Hull, and joining the
parliamentary party refused to pay ship-money. In January
1642 Hotham was ordered by the parliament to seize Hull,
where there was a large store of munitions of war; this was
at once carried out by his son John. Hotham took command
of Hull and in April 1642 refused to admit Charles I. to the
town. Later he promised his prisoner, Lord Digby, that he
would surrender it to the king, but when Charles appeared
again he refused a second time and drove away the besiegers.
Meanwhile the younger Hotham was taking an active part in
the Civil War in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, but was soon at
variance with other parliamentary leaders, especially with the
Fairfaxes, and complaints about his conduct and that of his
troops were made by Cromwell and by Colonel Hutchinson.
Soon both the Hothams were corresponding with the earl of
Newcastle, and the younger one was probably ready to betray
Hull; these proceedings became known to the parliament,
and in June 1643 father and son were captured and taken to
London. After a long delay they were tried by court-martial,
were found guilty and were sentenced to death. The younger
Hotham was beheaded on the 2nd of January 1645, and in
spite of efforts made by the House of Lords and the Presbyterians
to save him, the elder suffered the same fate on the following
day. Sir John Hotham had two other sons who were persons
of some note: Charles Hotham (1615–c. 1672), rector of Wigan,
a Cambridge scholar and author of Ad philosophiam Teutonicam
Manuductio (1648); and Durant Hotham (1617–1691), who
wrote a Life of Jacob Boehme (1654).
HOTHAM, WILLIAM HOTHAM, 1st Baron (1736–1813),
British Admiral, son of Sir Beaumont Hotham (d. 1771), a
lineal descendant of the above Sir John Hotham, was educated
at Westminster School and at the Royal Naval Academy,
Portsmouth. He entered the navy in 1751, and spent most of his
midshipman’s time in American waters. In 1755 he became
lieutenant in Sir Edward Hawke’s flagship the “St George,” and
he soon received a small command, which led gradually to higher
posts. In the “Syren” (20) he fought a sharp action with the
French “Télémaque” of superior force, and in the “Fortune”
sloop he carried, by boarding, a 26-gun privateer. For this
service he was rewarded with a more powerful ship, and from
1757 onwards commanded various frigates. In 1759 his ship
the “Melampe,” with H.M.S. “Southampton,” fought a spirited
action with two hostile frigates of similar force, one of which
became their prize. The “Melampe” was attached to Keppel’s
squadron in 1761, but was in the main employed in detached
duty and made many captures. In 1776, as a commodore,
Hotham served in North American waters, and he had a great
share in the brilliant action in the Cul de Sac of St Lucia (Dec.
15th, 1778). Here he continued till the spring of 1781, when he
was sent home in charge of a large convoy of merchantmen.
Off Scilly Hotham fell in with a powerful French squadron,
against which he could effect nothing, and many of the merchantmen
went to France as prizes. In 1782 Commodore Hotham
was with Howe at the relief of Gibraltar, and at the time of the
Spanish armament of 1790 he flew his flag as rear-admiral
of the red. Some time later he was made vice-admiral. As
Hood’s second-in-command in the Mediterranean he was engaged
against the French Revolutionary navy, and when his chief
retired to England the command devolved upon him. On March
12th, 1794 he fought an indecisive fleet action, in which the brunt
of the fighting was borne by Captain Horatio Nelson, and some
months later, now a full admiral, he again engaged, this time
under conditions which might have permitted a decisive victory;
