cards are dealt to each, the thirteenth being turned up for trumps. The non-dealer may propose or beg if he does not like his hand. If the dealer refuses the elder hand scores a point, if he consents he gives and takes three more cards, the seventh being turned up for trumps, which must be of a different suit from the original trump card; otherwise six more cards are dealt out, and so on till a fresh trump suit appears. The non-dealer then leads; the other must trump or follow suit, or forfeit a point. Jack may be played to any trick. Each pair of cards is a trick, and is collected by the winner. A fresh deal may be claimed if the dealer exposes one of his adversary’s cards, or if he gives himself or his adversary too few or too many. In that case the error must be discovered before a card is played (see also Auction Pitch).
ALLIA (mod. Fosso Bettinia), a small tributary of the river Tiber, joining it on the left (east) bank, about 11 m. N. of Rome. It gave its name to the terrible defeat which the Romans suffered at the hands of the Gauls on the 18th of July 390 B.C. Livy (v. 37) and Diodorus (v. 114) differ with regard to the site of the battle, the former putting it on the left, the latter on the right bank of the Tiber. Mommsen and others support Diodorus, but the question still remains open.
See T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, iii. 24.
ALLIANCE, a city of Stark county, Ohio, U. S. A., on the
Mahoning river, about 57 m. S.E. of Cleveland, about 1080 ft.
above the sea, and about 505 ft. above the level of Lake Erie.
Pop. (1890) 7607; (1900) 8974, of whom 1029 were foreign born;
(1910, census) 15,083. It is served by the Pennsylvania
and the Lake Erie, Alliance & Wheeling railways, and by an
electric line connecting with Canton and Salem. The city is the
seat of Mount Union College (Methodist Episcopal), opened in
1846 as a preparatory school and having in 1907 a library of
about 10,000 volumes, a collegiate department (opened in 1858),
a normal department (1858), a school of music (1855), a commercial
school (1868), a faculty of 29 teachers, and an enrolment
of 524 students, of whom 274 were women. Among the manufactures
of Alliance are structural iron, steel castings, pressed
sheet steel, gun carriages, boilers, travelling cranes, pipe organs,
street-car indicators, sashes and doors, and account registers and
other material for file and cabinet-bookkeeping. The municipality
owns and operates its water-works. Alliance was first settled in
1838, when it was laid out as a town and was named Freedom;
it was named Alliance in 1851, was incorporated as a village in
1854, and became a city of the second class in 1888.
ALLIANCE, in international law, aleague between independent
states, defined by treaty, for the purpose of combined action,
defensive or offensive, or both. Alliances have usually been
directed to specific objects carefully defined in the treaties.
Thus the Triple Alliance of 1688 between Great Britain, Sweden
and the Netherlands, and the Grand Alliance of 1689 between
the emperor, Holland, England, Spain and Saxony, were both
directed against the power of Louis XIV. The Quadruple or
Grand Alliance of 1814, defined in the treaty of Chaumont,
between Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, had for its
object the overthrow of Napoleon and his dynasty, and the
confining of France within her traditional boundaries. The
Triple Alliance of 1882 between Germany, Austria and Italy was
ostensibly directed to the preservation of European peace against
any possible aggressive action of France or Russia; and this led
in turn, some ten years later, to the Dual Alliance between
Russia and France, for mutual support in case of any hostile
action of the other powers. Occasionally, however, attempts
have been made to give alliances a more general character.
Thus the “Holy Alliance” (q.v.) of the 26th of September 1815
was an attempt, inspired by the religious idealism of the emperor
Alexander I. of Russia, to find in the “sacred precepts of the
Gospel” a common basis for a general league of the European
governments, its object being, primarily, the preservation of
peace. So, too, by Article VI. of the Quadruple Treaty signed at
Paris on the 20th of November 1815—which renewed that of
Chaumont and was again renewed, in 1818, at Aix-la-Chapelle—the
scope of the Grand Alliance was extended to objects of
common interest not specifically defined in the treaties. The
article runs:—“In order to consolidate the intimate tie which
unites the four sovereigns for the happiness of the world, the
High Contracting Powers have agreed to renew at fixed intervals,
either under their own auspices or by their respective ministers,
meetings consecrated to great common objects and to the
examination of such measures as at each one of these epochs
shall be judged most salutary for the peace and prosperity of
the nations and the maintenance of the tranquillity of Europe.”
It was this article of the treaty of the 20th of November 1815, rather than the “Holy Alliance,” that formed the basis of the serious effort made by the great powers, between 1815 and 1822, to govern Europe in concert, which will be found outlined in the article on the history of Europe. In general it proved that an alliance, to be effective, must be clearly defined as to its objects, and that in the long run the treaty in which these objects are defined must—to quote Bismarck’s somewhat cynical dictum—“be reinforced by the interests” of the parties concerned. Yet the “moral alliance” of Europe, as Count Nesselrode called it, though it failed to secure the permanent harmony of the powers, was an effective instrument for peace during the years immediately following the downfall of Napoleon; and it set the precedent for those periodical meetings of the representatives of the powers, for the discussion and settlement of questions of international importance, which, though cumbrous and inefficient for constructive work, have contributed much to the preservation of the general peace (see Europe: History). (W. A. P.)
ALLIARIA OFFICINALIS, also known botanically as Sisymbrium Alliaria, and popularly as garlic-mustard, Jack-by-the-hedge, or sauce-alone, a common hedge-bank plant belonging to the natural order Cruciferae. It is a rankly scented herb, 2 to 3 ft. high, with long-stalked, coarsely-toothed leaves, and small white flowers which are succeeded by stout long four-sided pods. It is widely spread through the north temperate region of the Old World.
ALLIBONE, SAMUEL AUSTIN (1816–1889), American author
and bibliographer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on
the 17th of April 1816, of French Huguenot and Quaker ancestry.
He was privately educated and for many years was engaged in
mercantile business in his native city. He, however, devoted
himself chiefly to reading and to bibliographical research;
acquired a very unusual knowledge of English and American
literature, and is remembered as the compiler of the well-known
Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American
Authors (3 vols.: vol. i. 1854, vols. ii. and iii. 1871). To this,
two supplementary volumes, edited by John Foster Kirk, were
added in 1891. From 1867 to 1873, and again in 1877–1879,
Allibone was book editor and corresponding secretary of the
American Sunday School Union; and from 1879 to 1888 he was
librarian of the Lenox Library, New York City. He died at
Lucerne, Switzerland, on the 2nd of September 1889. In addition
to his Critical Dictionary he published three large anthologies
and several religious tracts.
See the “Memoir” by S. D. M‘Connell, an address delivered before the Historical Society of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1890).
ALLIER (anc. Elaver), a river of central France flowing into the Loire. It rises in the department of Lozère, among the Margeride mountains, a few miles east of the town of Mende. The upper course of the Allier separates the mountains of the Margeride from those of the Velay and lies for the most part through deep gorges. The river then traverses the plains of Langeac and Brioude, and receives the waters of the Alagnon some miles above the town of Issoire. Swelled by torrents from the mountains of Dore and Dôme, it unites with the river Dore at its entrance to the department to which it gives its name. It then flows through a wide but shallow channel, joining the Sioule some distance above Moulins, the chief town on its banks. It soon after becomes the boundary line between the departments of Cher and Nièvre, and reaches the Loire 4 m. west of Nevers, after a course of 269 m. Its basin has an area of 6755 sq. m. The Allier is classed as navigable for the last 154 m. of its course, but there is little traffic on it.