Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 32

Dutch _beer_, Ger. _Eber_), the name given to the un-castrated male of the domestic pig (q.v.), and to some wild species of the family _Suidae_ (see SWINE). The European wild boar (_Sus scrofa_) is distributed over Europe, northern Africa, and central and northern Asia. It has long been extinct in the British Isles, where it once abounded, but traces have been found of its survival in Chartley Forest, Staffords.h.i.+re, in an entry of 1683 in an account-book of the steward of the manor, and it possibly remained till much later in the more remote parts of Scotland and Ireland (J.E. Harting, _Extinct British Animals_, 1880). The wild boar is still found in Europe, in marshy woodland districts where there is plenty of cover, and it is fairly plentiful in Spain, Austria, Russia and Germany, particularly in the Black Forest.

From the earliest times, owing to its great strength, speed, and ferocity when at bay, the boar has been one of the favourite beasts of the chase. Under the old forest laws of England it was one of the "beasts of the forest," and, as such, under the Norman kings the unprivileged killing of it was punishable by death or the loss of a member. It was hunted in England and in Europe on foot and on horseback with dogs, while the weapon of attack was always the spear. In Europe the wild boar is still hunted with dogs, but the spear, except when used in emergencies and for giving the _coup de grace_, has been given up for the gun. It is also shot in great forest drives in Austria, Germany and Russia. The Indian wild boar (_Sus cristatus_) is slightly taller than _Sus scrofa_, standing some 30 to 40 in. at the shoulder. It is found throughout India, Ceylon and Burma. Here the horse and spear are still used, and the sport is one of the most popular in India. (See PIG-STICKING.)

The boar is one of the four heraldic beasts of venery, and was the cognizance of Richard III., king of England. As an article of food the boar's head was long considered a special delicacy, and its serving was attended with much ceremonial. At Queen's College, Oxford, the dish is still brought on Christmas day in procession to the high-table, accompanied by the singing of a carol.

BOARD (O. Eng. _bord_), a plank or long narrow piece of timber. The word comes into various compounds to describe boards used for special purposes, or objects like boards (drawing-board, ironing-board, sounding-board, chess-board, cardboard, back-board, notice-board, scoring-board). The phrase "to keep one's name on the boards," at Cambridge University, signifies to remain a member of a college; at Oxford it is "on the books." In bookbinding, pasteboard covers are called boards. Board was early used of a table, hence such phrases as "bed and board," "board and lodging"; or of a gaming-table, as in the phrase "to sweep the board," meaning to pocket all the stakes, hence, figuratively, to carry all before one. The same meaning leads to "Board of Trade," "Local Government Board," &c.

From the meaning of border or side, and especially s.h.i.+p's side, comes "sea-board," meaning sea-coast, and the phrases "aboard" (Fr. _abord_), "over-board," "by the board"; similarly "weather-board," the side of a s.h.i.+p which is to windward; "larboard and starboard" (the former of uncertain origin, Mid. Eng. _laddeboard_ or _latheboard_; the latter meaning "steering side," O. Eng. _steorbord_, the rudder of early s.h.i.+ps working over the steering side), signifying (to one standing at the stern and looking forward) the left and right sides of the s.h.i.+p respectively.

BOARDING-HOUSE, a private house in which the proprietor provides board and lodging for paying guests. The position of a guest in a boarding-house differs in English law, to some extent, on the one hand from that of a lodger in the ordinary sense of the term, and on the other from that of a guest in an inn. Unlike the lodger, he frequently has not the exclusive occupation of particular rooms. Unlike the guest in an inn, his landlord has no lien upon his property for rent or any other debt due in respect of his board (_Thompson v. Lacy_, 1820, 3 B.

and Ald. 283). The landlord is under an obligation to take reasonable care for the safety of property brought by a guest into his house, and is liable for damages in case of breach of this obligation (_Scarborough v. Cosgrove_, 1905, 2 K.B. 803). Again, unlike the innkeeper, a boarding-house keeper does not hold himself out as ready to receive all travellers for whom he has accommodation, for which they are ready to pay, and of course he is ent.i.tled to get rid of any guest on giving reasonable notice (see _Lamond v. Richard_, 1897, I Q.B. 541, 548). What is reasonable notice depends on the terms of the contract; and, subject thereto, the course of payment of rent is a material circ.u.mstance (see LANDLORD AND TENANT). Apparently the same implied warranty of fitness for habitation at the commencement of the tenancy which exists in the case of furnished lodgings (see LODGER AND LODGINGS) exists also in the case of boarding-houses; and the guest in a boarding-house, like a lodger, is ent.i.tled to all the usual and necessary conveniences of a dwelling-house.

The law of the United States is similar to English law.

Under the French Code Civil, claims for subsistence furnished to a debtor and his family during the last year of his life by boarding-house keepers (_maitres de pension_) are privileged over the generality of moveables, the privilege being exerciseable after legal expenses, funeral expenses, the expenses of the last illness, and the wages of servants for the year elapsed and what is due for the current year (art.

2101 (5)). Keepers of taverns (_aubergistes_) and hotels (_hoteliers_) are responsible for the goods of their guests--the committal of which to their custody is regarded as a deposit of necessity (_depot necessaire_). They are liable for the loss of such goods by theft, whether by servants or strangers, but not where the loss is due to _force majeure_ (arts. 1952-1954). Their liability for money and bearer securities not actually deposited is limited to 1000 francs (law of 18th of April 1889). These provisions are reproduced in substance in the Civil Codes of Quebec (arts. 1814, 1815, 1994, 2006) and of St Lucia (art. 1889). In Quebec, boarding-house keepers have a lien on the goods of their guests for the value or price of any food or accommodation furnished to them, and have also a right to sell their baggage and other property, if the amount remains unpaid for three months, under conditions similar to those imposed on innkeepers in England (art. 1816 A; and see INNS AND INNKEEPERS); also in the Civil Code of St Lucia (arts. 1578, 1714, 1715) (A. W. R.)

BOARDING-OUT SYSTEM, in the English poor law, the boarding-out of orphan or deserted children with suitable foster-parents. The practice was first authorized in 1868, though for many years previously it had been carried out by some boards of guardians on their own initiative.

Boarding-out is governed by two orders of the Local Government Board, issued in 1889. The first permits guardians to board-out children within their own union, except in the metropolis. The second governs the boarding-out of children in localities outside the union. The sum payable to the foster-parents is not to exceed 4s. per week for each child. The system has been much discussed by authorities on the administration of the poor law. It has been objected that few working-men with an average-sized family can afford to devote such an amount for the maintenance of each child, and that, therefore, boarded-out children are better off than the children of the independent (Fawcett, _Pauperism_). Working-cla.s.s guardians, also, do not favour the system, being suspicious as to the disinterestedness of the foster-parents. On the other hand, it is argued that from the economic and educational point of view much better results are obtained by boarding-out children; they are given a natural life, and when they grow up they are without effort merged in the general population (Mackay, _Hist. Eng. Poor Law_). See also POOR LAW.

The "boarding-out" of lunatics is, in Scotland, a regular part of the lunacy administration. It has also been successfully adopted in Belgium.

(See INSANITY.)

BOARDMAN, GEORGE DANA (1801-1831), American Baptist missionary, was born at Livermore, Me., and educated at Waterville College and Andover Theological Seminary. In 1825 he went to India as a missionary, and in 1827 to Burma, where his promising work among the Karens was cut short by his early death. His widow married another well-known Burmese missionary, Adoniram Judson.

His son, GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, the younger (1828-1903), made the voyage from Burma to America alone when six years of age. He graduated in 1852 at Brown University, and from the Newton Theological Inst.i.tution in 1855. He held Baptist pastorates at Rochester (1856-1864), and at Philadelphia, and was president of the American Baptist Missionary Union, 1880-1884. At Philadelphia he is said to have taken his congregation through every verse of the New Testament in 643 Wednesday evening lectures, which occupied nearly eighteen years, and afterwards to have begun on the Old Testament in similar fas.h.i.+on. Among his published works are _Studies in the Model Prayer_ (1879), and _Epiphanies of the Risen Lord_ (1879).

BOASE, HENRY SAMUEL (1799-1883), English geologist, the eldest son of Henry Boase (1763-1827), banker, of Madron, Cornwall, was born in London on the 2nd of September 1799. Educated partly at Tiverton grammar-school, and partly at Dublin, where he studied chemistry, he afterwards proceeded to Edinburgh and took the degree of M.D. in 1821.

He then settled for some years as a medical pract.i.tioner at Penzance; there geology engaged his particular attention, and he became secretary of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall. The results of his observations were embodied in his _Treatise on Primary Geology_ (1834), a work of considerable merit in regard to the older crystalline and igneous rocks and the subject of mineral veins. In 1837 he removed to London, where he remained for about a year, being elected F.R.S. In 1838 he became partner in a firm of bleachers at Dundee. He retired in 1871, and died on the 5th of May 1883.

BOAT (O. Eng. _bat_; the true etymological connexion with Dutch and Ger.

_boot_, Fr. _bateau_, Ital. _battello_ presents great difficulties; Celtic forms are from O. Eng.), a comparatively small open craft for conveyance on water, usually propelled by some form of oar or sail.

The origin of the word "boat" is probably to be looked for in the A.S.

_bat_ = a stem, a stick, a piece of wood. If this be so, the term in its inception referred to the material of which the primitive vessel was constructed, and in this respect may well be contrasted with the word "s.h.i.+p," of which the primary idea was the _process_ by which the material was fas.h.i.+oned and adapted for the use of man.

We may a.s.sume that primitive man, in his earliest efforts to achieve the feat of conveying himself and his belongings by water, succeeded in doing so--(1) by fastening together a quant.i.ty of material of sufficient buoyancy to float and carry him above the level of the water; (2) by scooping out a fallen tree so as to obtain buoyancy enough for the same purpose. In these two processes is to be found the genesis of both boat and s.h.i.+p, of which, though often used as convertible terms, the former is generally restricted to the smaller type of vessel such as is dealt with in this article. For the larger type the reader is referred to s.h.i.+P.

Great must have been the triumph of the man who first discovered that the rushes or the trunks he had managed to tie together would, propelled by a stick or a branch (cf. _ramus_ and _remus_) used as pole or paddle, convey him safely across the river or lake, which had hitherto been his barrier. But use multiplies wants, discovers deficiencies, suggests improvements. Man soon found out that he wanted to go faster than the raft would move, that the water washed over and up through it, and this need of speed, and of dry carrying power, which we find operative throughout the history of the boat down to the present day, drove him to devise other modes of flotation as well as to try to improve his first invention.

The invention of the hollowed trunk, of the "dug-out" (monoxylon), however it came about, whenever and wherever it came into comparison with the raft, must have superseded the latter for some purposes, though not by any means for all. It was superior to the raft in speed, and was, to a certain extent, water-tight. On the other hand it was inferior in carrying power and stability. But the two types once conceived had come to stay, and to them severally, or to attempts to combine the useful properties of both, may be traced all the varieties of vessel to which the name of boat may be applied.

The development of the raft is admirably ill.u.s.trated in the description, given us by Homer in the Odyssey, of the construction by the hero Ulysses of a vessel of the kind. Floating timber is cut down and carefully shaped and planed with axe and adze, and the timbers are then exactly fitted face to face and compacted with trenails and dowels, just as the flat floor of a lump or lighter might be fas.h.i.+oned and fitted nowadays. A platform is raised upon the floor and a bulwark of osiers contrived to keep out the wash of the waves (cf. _infra_, Malay boats).

It seems as if the poet, who was intimately acquainted with the sea ways of his time, intended to convey the idea of progress in construction, as ill.u.s.trated by the technical skill of his hero, and the use of the various tools with which he supplies him.

On the other hand the dug-out had its limitations. The largest tree that could be thrown and scooped out afforded but a narrow s.p.a.ce for carrying goods, and presented problems as to stability which must have been very difficult to solve. The shaping of bow and stern, the bulging out of the sides, the flattening of the bottom, the invention of a keel piece, the attempt to raise the sides by building up with planks, all led on towards the idea of constructing a boat properly so called, or perhaps to the invention of the canoe, which in some ways may be regarded as the intermediate stage between dug-out and boat.

Meanwhile the raft had undergone improvements such as those which Homer indicates. It had arrived at a floor composed of timbers squared and shaped. It had risen to a platform, the prototype of a deck. It was but a step to build up the sides and turn up the ends, and at this point we reach the genesis of ark and punt, of sanpan and junk, or, in other words, of all the many varieties of flat-bottomed craft.

When once we have reached the point at which the improvements in the construction of the raft and dug-out bring them, as it were, within sight of each other, we can enter upon the history of the development of boats properly so called, which, in accordance with the uses and the circ.u.mstances that dictated their build, may be said to be descended from the raft or the dug-out, or from the attempt to combine the respective advantages of the two original types.

Uses and circ.u.mstances are infinite in variety and have produced an infinite variety of boats. But we may safely say that in all cases the need to be satisfied, the nature of the material available, and the character of the difficulties to be overcome have governed the reason and tested the reasonableness of the architecture of the craft in use.

It is not proposed in this article to enter at any length into the details of the construction of boats, but it is desirable, for the sake of clearness, to indicate certain broad distinctions in the method of building, which, though they run back into the far past, in some form or other survive and are in use at the present day.

The tying of trunks together to form a raft is still not unknown in the lumber trade of the Danube or of North America, nor was it in early days confined to the raft. It extended to many boats properly so called, even to many of those built by the Vikings of old. It may still be seen in the Madras surf boats, and in those constructed out of driftwood by the inhabitants of Easter Island in the south Pacific. Virgil, who was an archaeologist, represents Charon's boat on the Styx as of this construction, and notes the defect, which still survives, in the craft of the kind when loaded--

"Gemuit sub pondere cymba Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paludem!"

_Aen._ vi. 303.

Next to the raft, and to be counted in direct descent from it, comes the whole cla.s.s of flat-bottomed boats including punts and lighters. As soon as the method of constructing a solid floor, with trenails and dowels, had been discovered, the method of converting it into a water-tight box was pursued, sides were attached plank fas.h.i.+on, with strong knees to stiffen them, and cross pieces to _yoke_ or _key_ (cf. [Greek: zugon, klaeis]) them together. These thwarts once fixed naturally suggested seats for those that plied the paddle or the oar. The ends of the vessel were shaped into bow or stern, either turned up, or with the side planking convergent in stem or stern post, or joined together fore and aft by bulkheads fitted in, while interstices were made water-tight by caulking, and by smearing with bitumen or some resinous material.

The evolution of the boat as distinct from the punt, or flat-bottomed type, and following the configuration of the dug-out in its length and rounded bottom, must have taxed the inventive art and skill of constructors much more severely than that of the raft. It is possible that the coracle or the canoe may have suggested the construction of a framework of sufficient stiffness to carry a water-tight wooden skin, such as would successfully resist the pressure of wind and water. And in this regard two methods were open to the builder, both of which have survived to the present day: (1) the construction first of the sh.e.l.l of the boat, into which the stiffening ribs and cross ties were subsequently fitted; (2) the construction first of a framework of requisite size and shape, on to which the outer skin of the boat was subsequently attached.

Further, besides the primitive mode of tying the parts together, two main types of build must be noticed, in accordance with which a boat is said to be either carvel-built or clinker-built. (1) A boat is carvel-built when the planks are laid edge to edge so that they present a smooth surface without. (2) A boat is clinker-built when each plank is laid on so as to overlap the one below it, thus presenting a series of ledges running longitudinally.

The former method is said to be of Mediterranean, or perhaps of Eastern origin. The latter was probably invented by the old Scandinavian builders, and from them handed down through the fis.h.i.+ng boats of the northern nations to our own time.

Ancient boats.

The accounts of vessels used by the Egyptians and Phoenicians generally refer to larger craft which naturally fall under the head of s.h.i.+P (q.v.). The Nile boats, however, described by Herodotus (ii. 60), built of acacia wood, were no doubt of various sizes, some of them quite small, but all following the same type of construction, built up brick fas.h.i.+on, the blocks being fastened internally to long poles secured by cross pieces, and the interstices caulked with papyrus. The ends rose high above the water, and to prevent hogging were often attached by a truss running longitudinally over crutches from stem to stern.

The a.s.syrian and Babylonian vessels described by Herodotus (i. 194), built up of twigs and boughs, and covered with skins smeared with bitumen, were really more like huge coracles and hardly deserve the name of boats.

The use of boats by the Greeks and Romans is attested by the frequent reference to them in Greek and Latin literature, though, as regards such small craft, the details given are hardly enough to form the basis of an accurate cla.s.sification.

We hear of small boats attendant on a fleet ([Greek: kelaetion], Thuc.

i. 53), and of similar craft employed in piracy (Thuc. iv. 9), and in one case of a sculling boat, or pair oar ([Greek: akation amphaerikon], Thuc. iv. 67), which was carted up and down between the town of Megara and the sea, being used for the purpose of marauding at night. We are also familiar with the pa.s.sage in the Acts (xxvii.) where in the storm they had hard work "to come by the boat"; which same boat the sailors afterwards "let down into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the fores.h.i.+p," and would have escaped to land in her themselves, leaving the pa.s.sengers to drown, if the centurion and soldiers acting upon St Paul's advice had not cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off.

There can be little doubt that boat races were in vogue among the Greeks (see Prof. Gardner, _Journal of h.e.l.lenic Studies_, ii. 91 ff.), and probably formed part of the Panathenaic and Isthmian festivals. It is, however, difficult to prove that small boats took part in these races, though it is not unlikely that they may have done so. The testimony of the coins, such as it is, points to galleys, and the descriptive term ([Greek: neon amilla]) leads to the same conclusion.