COMPIÈGNE owner of land generally takes the highest rent he can obtain. In short, the industrial world is a world of conflicting or competing interests. As we have said, this system of competition is an outcome of modern freedom, and the rise of it may be historically traced. In medieval times the relations of men were fixed by custom or authority. But the restraints of custom and authority were felt to be vexatious, oppressive, and injurious, and in the various spheres of human activity, in religion, politics, and economics, the free individuality of men sought and found wider room to develop itself. This great movement began with the revival of learning, the discovery of America, and the Protestant Reformation, and has been continued through the revolutions of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. In the industrial sphere it means that whereas in former times a man's calling, place of residence, and the remuneration of his industry were fixed for him, he is now at liberty to decide them for himself as best he can. Each man is free to do the best he can for himself, but as he finds numerous individuals who exercise the same freedom within a limited field, there arises the prevailing system of competition. No one conversant with the facts will deny that the system of free competition has been attended with enormous progress, and that it has acted as a powerful stimulus to human energy and the spirit of improvement. But the development of the system has brought with it most important limitations, some of which may be noted. While such a system must always be limited by law and justice, and the necessities of political union, legislation has been obliged to provide special safeguards against the evils of competition, notably in the English Factory Acts. The English trades-unions are an attempt to regulate competition in the interest of labour. Employers' combinations have a like object in the interest of the capitalist. In America especially the development of trusts' tends to make competition a dead letter. These trusts are combinations of capitalists with a view to regulating prices. The protective system of countries like France, Germany, and the United States is intended to maintain native industries against British competition. Lately France and Germany have imposed duties on cereals in order to protect their agriculture against American competition. It should be noted also that even yet custom is largely influential in many spheres, and that not a few of the evils of competition are mitigated by the kindly feeling which prevails in all the relations of life. Employers do not generally bring wages down to the lowest level attainable by competition. Thus in actual experience the competitive system is modified by a great variety of influences. On the other hand, the 'sweating system,' by which starvation wages are given for long hours of hard work, is rendered possible by the keen competition of many, otherwise unemployed, for such unremunerative labour. Competition for situations in the public service is very different from the system above described. Competition as applied to the public service is regulated by the state. The salaries in the various grades, and the conditions of employment, are fixed by authority. The chief material stimulus is the hope of promotion. See CIVIL SERVICE. For the advantages and disadvantages of competitive examinations in education, see EDUCATION; also the Nineteenth Century, the Universal Review, &c., for 1888. Compiègne, a quiet and old-fashioned but picturesque town in the French department of Dise, on the river Oise, a little below its junction with the Aisne, 52 miles NNE. of Paris by rail. Of its churches three deserve notice, St Germain Its (15th century), St Antoine (12th century), and St Jacques (13th century). The hôtel-de-ville is a late Gothic edifice with a fine central belfry. But the chief pride of Compiègne is its palace, built anew by Louis XV., and splendidly fitted up by Napoleon, who often occupied it. façade towards the forest is 624 feet long. From the gardens an arbour walk, 1600 yards long, leads towards the beautiful forest of Compiègne, which was a favourite hunting-ground of many of the kings of France. It extends to over 30,000 acres, and contains some fine oak timber. The inhabitants of Compiègne manufacture canvas, cordage, and sugar. Pop. (1872) 11,859; (1891) 12,353. Compiègne is mentioned in the times of Clovis under the name of Compendium. It was at the siege of this town, in 1430, that the Maid of Orleans was captured; and here, in 1810, Napoleon first met Maria Louisa of Austria, on occasion of their marriage. Complement of an angle is what it lacks to make up 90°; of an arc, to make up a quadrant; and hence, in Astronomy, the complement of a star is its zenith-distance. In Music, two intervals, which together make up an octave, are called complementary (see INVERSION). In Arithmetic, if any number is subtracted from the next higher power of ten, the result is its complement. Thus 7 and 3 are complementary; so are 63 and 37; 881 and 119; and 14384386 is the complement to 8.5615614. In Chromatics, red is the complement of green, orange of blue, and yellow of violet. Complexion. See SKIN. Compline. See BREVIARY. Complutensian Bible. See ALCALA DE HENARES and XIMENES. Compony, or GOBONY. See BORDURE. Compositæ. This is the richest of all natural orders in species, these numbering about 10,000; it is also the most widely distributed through all regions of the globe, although most abundant in temperate and subtropical climates; and, furthermore, the richest in individuals, it having been reckoned that about every tenth plant on the earth's surface is a composite. The rationale of this may be broadly seen (at least if we grant an individual constitution and structure especially well adapted to both vegetation and reproduction), for we can see that the consequent great number of healthy individuals must be associated with active local competition and survival of the fittest, and with distribution of these over a wide area; while this again is at least one condition of considerable differentiation of varieties, and so ultimately of species. While popularly a daisy or dandelion is regarded as a simple flower, the roughest examination suffices to analyse this into an orderly assemblage, technically a capitulum of small but distinct florets; hence the beginner is apt, without more ado, to refer all similar aggregates, say a head of Scabious (Dipsacaceae) or Seapink (Plumbaginaceae) to the Compositæ. We find, however, such aggregates arising in all alliances, and naturally so; racemes, spikes, or umbels of flowers wholly distinct in structure may all be shortened down into heads or capitula, since reproductive development is tending everywhere to check vegetative growth. We are thus led to inquire of what forms are the composites to be regarded as the reduced members, and the evidence of comparative anatomy goes to prove their relationship to Campanulacea and their irregular forms the Lobeliaceae; in a word, to view the yellow tubular' florets of our daisy as a head of tiny bells, while the white strap-shaped or ligulate' ones of its ray, like all those of a dande lion, resemble the flowers of lobelia. 394 COMPOSITE COMPOSITION For detailed information, see systematic works such as Luerssen, Med. Pharm. Botanik; Baillon, Histoire des Plantes; or Engler's Pflanzen-familien. Composite Order. See COLUMN. In shortening down, or less figuratively, in arrest- yield dyestuffs; from the seed of others-e.g. suning the inflorescence into a head, the bract of each flower, a bland oil is expressed, while many are of separate flower remains in place; and in a Zinnia, time-honoured repute for their medicinal properties or sunflower, we find each floret with its separate-e.g. chamomile, arnica, wormwood, elacampane, bract throughout the whole capitulum; in most &c. A still greater number-e.g. headed by cases, however, these disappear. Those of the dahlias and sunflowers, asters and chrysanthemums outermost florets, however, together with the im- -are esteemed ornaments of our flower-gardens, mediately lower leaves of the flower-axis (which particularly in the latter part of summer and in bear no florets, and are thus in strictness not autumn. Being mostly herbs, or rarely shrubs, entitled to their common name of bracts) become the order is quite unimportant as regards timber; usually crowded into an involucre. This subserves the Siriehout (Tarchonanthus camphoratus), a small in bud the protective purposes of a calyx to the tree of the Cape of Good Hope, is, however, closewhole inflorescence at once, and thus the calyx of grained and beautiful. the separate florets becomes unnecessary. In its place we find at most a circle of fine downy hairs, which may be characteristically serrated or feathered, and which only reach full development and usefulness when the fruit has to be distributed. On account of its merely epidermic nature and late appearance, its calycine nature has been denied, and the term pappus substituted; the evolutionist need, however, feel little hesitation in regarding the pappus as simply representing the epidermic fringe of a reduced calyx, nor is verificatory evidence wanting. The stamens grow upon the united corolla and themselves unite by the anthers, thus forming a ring or rather pollen-bearing tube, up through which the style grows, all much as in bells. The style bears two stigmas, indicating an originally twocarpelled arrangement, but the ovary is one-celled, and contains only a single ascending ovule. The ovary hardens as a nutlet, which is commonly floated away upon the wind when ripe by help of its pappus; it may be anchored where it descends by its minute grappling-hooks or serrations. In this way it is conveyed to new soil, it may be at a great distance, an obvious advantage, alike to the species or the individual, when germination takes place. The classification of so many closely related genera and species into larger groups is one of the most difficult problems of the systematist, and all attempts must as yet be admitted to be largely artificial. The method of Jussieu is to separate (1) those in which the florets are all tubular, as in the thistles (even though the outer be enlarged as in corn-flowers-see CENTAURY), as Cynarocephala; (2) those in which, while the inner florets are tubular, the outer are ligulate as in daisy, sunflower, &c., as Corymbiferæ, and (3) those in which all the florets are ligulate, as in dandelion or chicory, as Cichoracea. The more recent method of De Candolle is now more generally adopted: his distinctions are (1) Tubuliflora, including those which have mainly tubular florets, although the ray be ligulate, thus abandoning the attempt to separate the first two divisions of Jussieu; (2) Liguliflora, with florets all ligulate, corresponding to Cichoraceae; (3) Labiatiflora, with florets all bi-labiate, a small South American group. But while this last group has unquestionable distinctness, the value of both preceding classifications in other respects is shown to be somewhat superficial by the familiar fact that in cultivation tubular florets tend to become ligulate (in inaccurate popular phrase, double). Thus we see the wild daisy, dahlia, chrysanthemum, &c., alike practically passing into the ligulate group on cultivation. Although many composites are cultivated and useful plants, none attain the highest economic importance: yet the artichoke, and Jerusalem artichoke, salsafy, lettuce, endive, &c., are familiar inmates of the kitchen-garden, while chicory is extensively cultivated as a substitute for coffee, and even sometimes, as well as Jerusalem artichoke, for the purpose of feeding domestic animals. A very few, like safflower and saw-wort, Composition. Under the title Composition and Resolution of Velocity and Forces, we deal with one of the fundamental problems in mechanics -viz. to compound two velocities (or forces) into a single velocity (or force) which shall be their equivalent. We shall consider it as applied to velocities in the first place. If a point is moving with two independent velocities in any direction, it moves in some one definite direction with a definite speed. This single velocity (for the term includes the idea of direction as well as speed) is equivalent to the two component velocities, and is termed their resultant. A good example is afforded by a ball thrown up in a moving railway carriage; it partakes of the train's motion horizontally, while it also simultaneously moves vertically upwards. When the two components are in the same straight line, their resultant is in all cases equal to their algebraic sum. In the case of velocities in different directions, the magnitude and direction of their resultant is obtained by the following theorem, known as the Parallelogram of Velocities: If a point A move with two velocities, represented in magnitude and direction by AP and AQ respectively, their resultant will be similarly represented by AR, the diagonal of the parallelogram of which AP and AQ are conterminous sides. For, let the point move along AQ with velocity AQ, and let the page be in motion in the direction AP with velocity AP. After a unit of time R has elapsed, the point will have moved from A to Q along AQ, but, owing to the motion of the page, the line AQ will have moved into the position PR, so that the point will really be at R; hence its motion has been in the direction AR, with a velocity whose magnitude is represented by AR. Similarly, we may compound any number of velocities in one plane into a single resultant. In the case where three components are not coplanar, a corresponding theorem, the Parallelepiped of Velocities, is used to find the resultant. The resolution of velocities is exactly the converse problem; for where a directed length such as AR can be made the diagonal of a parallelogram, then the conterminous sides are the components. Of course, in this manner, an infinite number of pairs of components can be obtained, each having the given velocity as their resultant. But the resolutions usually required are those in which the components are at right angles. Since forces can be graphically represented in the same manner as velocities, all that has been said of velocities applies equally well to forces; and obvious changes in the terminology at once give COMPOSITION the means of compounding and resolving forces. See DYNAMICS, KINEMATICS, STATICS. Composition, in Bankruptcy, a certain percentage which creditors agree to receive from a bankrupt in lieu of full payment of his debts, and the acceptance of which operates as a discharge to the bankrupt. See BANKRUPTCY. Compos Mentis. See INSANITY. Compostella. See SANTIAGO DE COMPO STELLA. were Composts are a kind of Manure (q.v.), consisting of mixtures of substances adapted to the fertilisation of the soil, which being allowed to ferment, and undergo chemical changes for a considerable time in heaps, become more valuable than they were at first, or ever could have been if applied separately. Composts were formerly made of farm-yard manure, and earth or lime in addition. Road-scrapings, peat-moss, leaves, and clearings of ditches also formed materials for the purpose. By allowing these to lie for six months in heaps of from three to four feet in depth, food was prepared for plants. The mass was usually applied to the turnip-crop, and when artificial manures unknown, considerable benefit arose from such dressings. The use of guano and other light manures has superseded in a great measure the necessity of this laborious process, and composts for the turnips or barley-crops are now little used. The wonderful effects that have resulted from the application of small doses of artificial manures have impressed farmers in general with the truth that the most energetic elements bear a small proportion in weight to the whole mass of farm-yard dung or composts, and that the mixing of manures in heaps with earth does not so much add to its virtues as to repay the labour expended in the process. More care is now rightly bestowed in preserving manure from washings by rain. Composts formed of leaves, ditch-scourings, road-scrapings, or any earthy substance containing a large percentage of vegetable matter, with the addition of lime, may still be used with benefit for pastures that are deteriorating, or where the soil is stiff. Indeed there should still be a compost-heap at every farm. Wherever tidy and careful management prevails, there is a good deal of road-scrapings, ditch-scour ings, and other rubbish to be disposed of, and the compost-heap is a handy and useful receptacle for all such matter. The value of well-made compost for the top-dressing of pasture-land is greater than is generally understood or acknowledged, and it can be carted out and spread at odd times when there is a lull in the more urgent farm-work. Where moss prevails, lime should enter largely as a component. On the other hand, where the soil is of a strong and clayey nature, earthy substances containing vegetable matter in larger proportions should be used. Vegetable matter has the effect of imparting a softness to the surface that is particularly conducive to the free growth of pastures. Compost made of turf, leaves, earth, and bone-dust is used with great benefit by gardeners for vines and fruit-trees which are injured by too concentrated manures. Compound (corruption of Portuguese campenha, yard or court) is the usual name in India for the inclosure in which a house stands, with its outhouses, yard, and garden. Compound Animals. See COLONIAL ANI MALS. Compounding of Felony, in England, is the offence of taking value for forbearing to prosecute a felony, and is punishable with fine and imprisonment. The offence is also known as agreement not to prosecute, and is equally committed COMPRESSED-AIR MOTORS 395 where the agreement is only to show favour to the person accused. It practically amounts to misprision of felony. Compounding of informations upon penal statutes, and compounding of misdemeanours, without order or consent of the court, are punishable in a lighter degree, and that whether any offence has been committed or not. But in misdemeanours affecting some private rights, the court will often permit the prosecutor to accept pecuniary amends, and withdraw the prosecution. Advertising a reward for stolen property, coupled with words implying that no questions will be asked, or that no prosecution will be instituted, or that a pawnbroker returning the property will be paid what he has advanced on it, is punishable by a fine of £50 each on the advertiser, publisher, and printer. And any one taking money or reward for restoring a stolen dog is liable to imprisonment for eighteen months. Compound Interest. See INTEREST. riveted iron plates in which two or more persons Compressed-air Bath, a strong chamber of can sit, and into which air is driven by a steamengine to any required pressure, as notified by the attached barometers. The inflow of fresh air and the escape of the foul air are regulated by valves. Patients remain in the bath from one to three hours, and the pressure is generally increased to an atmosphere and a half. Another appliance for mask tightly covering mouth and nose, and conusing either compressed or rarefied air consists of a nected by a tube and suitable valves with some form of air-cistern in which the pressure can be varied as desired. By this appliance patients can either inspire compressed or rarefied air, or can breathe out into either of these. Practically only the first and fourth of these possible methods are used. Treatment by Aerotherapeutics has long been a favourite study, but the results have varied much, and have lacked exactness. The general effects of compressed air are to lessen the frequency of the movements of the chest, and of the heart or pulse beats, while allowing the absorption of more oxygen, and increasing the blood-tension. Rarefied air produces the opposite effects. Many diseased conditions therefore should benefit by this treatment, especially asthma, chronic bronchitis, and catarrh under compressed air, and emphysema by rarefied air; while in the treatment generally we have a useful system of lung gymnastics, which increase the power of the respiratory muscles and the vital capacity of the lungs. One mode of Compressed-air Motors. employing air as a motive power has been described under AIR-ENGINE (q.v.). Another obvious way is to compress the air and then apply it in the manner of high-pressure steam. But the great loss of power, due principally to the dissipation of the heat which results from the high compression of the air, will always render the employment of such a motive power very wasteful. There are, however, many conditions under which the use of compressed air is convenient and advantageous. The air-gun, although more a toy than a useful weapon, is one of the oldest examples of a compressed-air motor. Partly by compression and worked in connection with central post-offices for partly by exhaustion of air, pneumatic tubes are the transmission of letters and messages to and from various districts in large cities. In boring in mines, and in blasting and tunnelling operations, compressed air is an exceedingly useful agent, the power being easily carried by tubes into confined areas where the air when liberated, after it performs its primary duty, is of great value for aiding the ventilation of the spaces (see BORING). In the application of automatic brakes to passenger trains, 396 COMPRESSION COMRIE thus compressed, the mercury column ascends in the stem, and when the pressure is relieved the index is left at that point to which the mercury rose under the highest pressure applied. The actual amount of compression, and the original volume, as well as the pressure, being known, the compressibility can be thereby calculated, a correction being finally added for the compression of the glass piezometer itself. From experiments made with such apparatus, the following conclusions (see Report on some of the Physical Properties of Fresh Water and Sea-water, by Professor P. G. Tait; Challenger Expedition Commission Reports, Physics and Chemistry, part iv.) seem now to be well established regarding the compressibility of liquids, more especially of water. The compressibility of water decreases as both the temperature and pressure are raised; under moderate pressures (e.g. one or two atmospheres) it has a point of minimum value about 60° C., while its actual value at 10° C. and at a pressure of one ton per square inch is very nearly water; the ratio of the compressibility of the former to the latter being 915. Solutions of common salt are less compressible as they are stronger; the compressibility falling off uniformly with increased strength. Both sea-water and salt solutions diminish in compressibility with temperature and pressure in the same manner as fresh water. It has also been proved that the maximum-density point of water is lowered by pressure; the actual amount of this lowering being 3°1 C. per ton compressed air has also been found to be the most convenient power (see BRAKES). Air compressed and stored in a reservoir under the vehicle has also been proposed as a motive power for tramway cars. In a different direction the agency of compressed air is important in the artificial production of cold for chilling-houses for meat-preservation on land, and for frozen-meat chambers for preserving fresh meat on board vessels (see REFRIGERATION). Compression and Compressibility. When a body is subjected to the action of any force which causes it to occupy less volume, it is said to be compressed, and the diminution of volume is termed compression. The term compressibility is frequently used to signify that property of bodies whereby they yield to that particular form of stress known as pressure; but more strictly it is employed to denote the measure of this property as possessed by different substances. Under the same pressure it is obvious that the same volume of various substances will diminish by different amounts; and, to measure this change, the compressibility Sea-water is less compressible than fresh is defined to be the ratio of the amount of compression per unit volume to the compressing force applied. It thus may be determined by measuring the amount of compression of a known volume when under a certain pressure; dividing this by the product of the original volume and the pressure gives the average compressibility (per unit pressure) of the substance throughout the range of pressure employed. The unit of pressure generally used is one atmosphere, which is defined in this country as being the weight of a column of mercury, one square inch in section, 29.905 inches in height, at the temperature of 0° C., and weighed at sea-level in the latitude of London. Its actual value in pounds-weight per square inch is nearly 147; so that 152.3 atmospheres of pressure is equivalent to a pressure of one ton per square inch. In gases the relation between pressure and volume is given by Boyle's Law (see GASES)-viz. the volume of a given mass of gas is inversely proportional to its pressure. From this it follows that the compressibility is inversely proportional to the pressure-i.e. the diminution of volume due to a given increment of pressure is correspondingly small as the pressure is great. The behaviour of a gas under pressure is closely related to the proximity of its temperature to the critical point (see CRITICAL TEMPERATURE); for if below this temperature the gas can, and if above it, cannot be liquefied by pressure alone. It is only since 1877 that liquefaction has been effected in those gases formerly termed permanent. A B From the first attempts to compress liquids it was concluded that they were incompressible, but Canton in 1762, by a comparatively simple experiment, showed that the compressibility of water though small is quite appreciable, and that it is less at higher than at lower temperatures. The measurement of the compressibility of liquids is usually made in a glass vessel (see fig.) termed a piezometer. A tube, ABCD, open at one end, D, is bent upon itself between C and D, widened at one end into a cylindrical bulb, AB, and at the other into a cistern, D. The liquid experimented on fills the bulb and stem to C, from which point to D, mercury fills the tube. On the surface of the mercury at C an index floats. The instrument is placed in a larger and much stronger vessel containing water to which pressure (measured by an attached gauge) is applied. The contents of the piezometer being i.e. water under a pressure of one ton per sq. in. has its maximum density point at 0.9, instead of at 4°, as under ordinary atmospheric pressure. much smaller than that of either liquids or gases. The compressibility of solids is generally very It is best measured by noting the shortening of a rod or fibre of the material tested while subjected to hydrostatic pressure; the linear compressibility thus obtained is, to a sufficient degree of approximation, one-third the cubical compressibility. For glass it is 00000265 per atmosphere. Compulsion. The effect of compulsion on the validity of obligations and payments, and on criminal responsibility, is noticed under CONTRACT, CRIME, FORCE AND FEAR, and DURESS. Compurgators were twelve persons whom Anglo-Saxon law permitted the accused to call in proof of his innocency, and who joined their oaths to his. They were persons taken from the neighbourhood, or otherwise known to the accused. It was rather in the character of witnesses than of jurymen that they acted, though the institution has been spoken of as the Anglo-Saxon jury; what they swore to was not so much their knowledge, as with the rank of the parties and the nature of the their belief. The number of compurgators varied accusation, but was usually twelve. The system of compurgators was adopted even in civil actions for debt. Compurgation, which was a custom common to most of the Teutonic races, fell into disuse after the conquest; but the ceremony of what was called canonical purgation of clerks-convict, was not abolished in England till the reign of Elizabeth. See (under Jury) JURY TRIAL. Comrie, a pleasant and sheltered village of Perthshire, on the Earn, 7 miles W. of Crieff. It has often been visited by earthquakes, notably in the October of 1839 and January of 1876. These are apparently due to its geological position on the great line of fault between the Highlands and the Lowlands. Here George Gilfillan was born in 1813. The Free church, built in 1879-81, cost over £10,000. The railway hither was opened in 1893. Pop. 870. |