| HELDER | HELENA | 617 |
way of testamentary disposition; and it is by descent when, by reason of his dying intestate, it passes to such relative or relatives as by law are designated to succeed to his real property in that contingency. The word heir is sometimes used in a popular sense as signifying any one to whom property of any description is to pass on the death of its owner, whether by conveyance or by operation of law; and when it is thus employed in wills or other instruments, the law seeks to give effect to the instrument according to the real intent of the party, though the word is misapplied. In a legal sense no one is heir to personal property, and though the law in this country usually gives the real and personal property of an intestate to the same persons, the latter goes first to the administrator, through whom it is distributed after debts are paid. In the Roman civil law, the word hæres, which we translate heir, meant one called to the succession, by blood, devise, or bequest, and whether the property to which he succeeded was fixed or movable.—An heir apparent is one who must be the heir if he survive the owner, as the eldest son in England, or all the children in the United States. But the phrase “heir apparent” is not strictly applicable here. In England, the birth of a younger son cannot affect the rights of inheritance of the eldest son, for they are fixed, and he alone can be heir by descent. But in this country the younger son has an equal right with an elder son; and therefore the exclusive right of inheritance can never be fixed in any children living.—An heir presumptive is one who, if things do not change, will be the heir at the death of the owner, as the elder son of a deceased brother in England, or all the children of a brother in the United States, where the owner has no children; for they will be heirs if he dies without issue. As an heir presumptive may lose his heirship by a change of circumstances, he does not become an heir apparent so long as this change is legally probable, although physically or naturally impossible.
HELDER, The, a fortified seaport town of Holland, at the N. extremity of the province of North Holland, 40 m. N. W. of Amsterdam; pop. in 1871, 17,296. From an obscure fishing village Napoleon I. converted this place into a fortress of the first rank, capable of containing garrison of 10,000 men. Its batteries command at once the entrance to the Zuyder Zee and that of the harbor of the ship canal at Nieuwe Diep. It is connected with Amsterdam by a canal 50 m. long, 125 ft. broad, and 21 ft. deep. The port and coasts are protected from the aggressions of the ocean by dikes, one of which is 6 m. long and 40 ft. broad, and has excellent road on its summit.
HELEN (Gr. Ἑλένη; Lat. Helena), in Greek legends, the wife of Menelaus, and the most beautiful woman of her time. Her parentage is variously assigned to Jupiter and Leda, the wife of King Tyndareus, to Jupiter and Nemesis, and to Tyndareus and Leda. Before Helen was 10 years of age she was carried off by Theseus, who concealed her at Aphidnæ, under the care of his mother Æthra. Her brothers Castor and Pollux released her, and carried her back to Sparta with Æthra as her slave. She now had suitors from all parts of Greece, among whom was Ulysses. By the advice of this hero Tyndareus left the choice to Helen, and she accepted Menelaus, to whom she bore Hermione, and according to some Nicostratus also. Three years after this marriage she was seduced by Paris, the son of Priam, and fled with him to Troy. The Grecian princes, in accordance with an oath which they had taken when suitors together at the court of Tyndareus, took up arms to restore to Menelaus his wife, and the Trojan war was the consequence. Paris was killed during the siege, and Helen then married Deiphobus, another son of Priam; but when the city was taken, she treacherously introduced the Greeks into his chamber in order to appease Menelaus. She returned to Sparta, and received her first husband's forgiveness. The accounts of her death differ. According to one, after the death of Menelaus, she was driven into exile by Nicostratus and Megapenthes, and retired to Rhodes, where the queen of that island, Polyxo, whose husband Tlepolemus had been killed in the Trojan war, caused her to be seized while bathing, tied to a tree, and strangled. The Rhodians commemorated the murder by a temple raised to Helena Dendritis, or Helen tied to a tree. The Spartans honored her as a goddess, and built a temple to her at Therapne, which had the power of conferring beauty upon all ugly women who entered it.
HELENA, a town and the capital of Phillips co., Arkansas, on the right bank of the Mississippi river, about 100 m. E. by S. of Little Rock, and 80 m. below Memphis, Tenn.; pop. in 1870, 2,249, of whom 1,109 were colored. It is the terminus of the Arkansas Central, the Helena and Iron Mountain, and the Mobile and Northwestern railroads, is rapidly improving, and is an important commercial point. It contains a court house, a jail, two daily and three weekly newspapers, four schools, and seven churches.—In the summer of 1863 Helena was held by a Union force of about 4,000, commanded by Gen. Prentiss, strongly intrenched, the river also being commanded by a gunboat. On July 4 an unsuccessful attempt to seize the place was made by a confederate force of about 7,600, under Gen. Holmes. The confederate loss in the engagement was officially reported as 173 killed, 687 wounded, and 776 missing, in all 1,636; but Gen. Prentiss reported that he had buried 300 confederate dead and made 1,100 prisoners. The entire loss of the Union force did not exceed 250 in killed and wounded, with no prisoners.
HELENA, a town and the capital of Lewis and Clarke co., Montana, on the W. side of the valley of Prickly Pear and Ten Mile creeks, at the foot of the Rocky mountains, 15 m. W. of the
