815 



CASH-CREDIT. 



CASSATION. 



646 



Carnot are entirely open both in front and rear; the mortars or 

 howitzers being masked by a wall over which the line of fire is to be 

 directed. 



The term casemate is also applied to the shell-proof vaults of stone 

 or brick constructed in fortresses to protect the troops, provisions, and 

 ammunition. These are usually formed on the fronts which are least 

 exposed to the enemy, and within the masses of the ramparts either of 

 the bastions or curtains in order that they may be sufficiently protected 

 from the effect of shells falling on them ; attention should also be paid 

 in constructing them that their interiors be dry and well ventilated. 

 For the latter purpose, they may have perforations in the front walls ; 

 and to render them waterproof, the upper surf ace of the vault is usually 

 covered with cement. That surface is in the form of two inclined 

 planes meeting in a ridge over the crown, and the ridge as well as the 

 gutter between every two casemates, is o... vered with lead. Drains are 

 formed in these gutters to carry off the lain ; to facilitate the descent 

 of which into them, courses of dry bricks or beds of gravel are laid on 

 the exteriors of the vaults ; over these is a covering of clay and earth, 

 terminating above in a level surface. (Colonel Pasley's ' Elementary 

 Fortification,' vol. ii. p. 367.) It was from the humidity as well as 

 from the crowded state of the casemates at St. Philip's Fort in Minorca, 

 and the consequent sickness among the troops, that the governor of 

 that post was compelled to surrender it when it was besieged by the 

 Spaniards in 1782. 



When casemates are built for troops, they should be 16 feet wide, in 

 order to allow room for a double row of beds with a passage along the 

 middle ; and on the nances of the vault (the weakest part) the brick 

 work should be about three feet thick. Those at Gibraltar are from 

 16 to 18 feet wide in the interior, and 16 feet high from the floor to 

 the crown of the arch, which is semicircular, and they are from 40 to 

 100 feet long; some of them have air-holes in front, with chimneys 

 through the roof, and the back walls have doors and windows which 

 my be kept open while the firing is continued. The vaults of the 

 casemates on the western heights at Dover are parabolical ; the whole 

 interior height is 17 feet, the breadth 18 feet, and the rise of the curve 

 is 9 feet from the springing courses. 



CASH-CREDIT. [BANK; BANKING.] 



CASHMERE, or CACHEMERE, a peculiar textile fabric formed of 

 the fine downy wool found about the roots of the hair of the Tibet 

 goat. [GOAT, NATURAL HISTORY DIVISION.] It is so called from 

 the original seat of the manufacture, in the valley of Cashmere, in the 

 north-west of India. Shawls of exceedingly delicate quality are the 

 principal articles manufactured of this material ; but a cloth woven in 

 imitation of them is also made. There has been some discussion 

 among persons engaged in the cloth manufacture whether the two 

 names Ctutimere and Kerieyniert are merely two forms of spelling the 

 same name, or whether they relate to two distinct kinds of fabric. It 

 is now (upposed that Casrimere was a corruption of Cashmere, and was 

 the name given to the cloth woven in imitation of Cashmere shawls; 

 whereas Kentymere took its name from the village of Kersey in 

 Suffolk. 



An interesting description of the manufacture of Cashmere or Kash- 

 mir shawls is given in Vigne's ' Travels in Kashmir,' from which it 

 appears that the thread in dipped in rice-water before weaving, by 

 which process it is made stronger, the stiffness thus imparted being 

 subsequently removed by washing. Of the actual process of weaving 

 we find no satisfactory account. The needle is occasionally used in the 

 production of the patterns ; but Vigne observes, that " if the pattern 

 be worked with the needle the shawl is far inferior, in every respect, to 

 those in which the pattern is woven in," and that " an excellent pair 

 (the shawls being always made in pairs) of the former description may 

 be purchased in Kashmir for 150 rupees (about 1W.), whereas an equally 

 good pair of the usuleh (the real), or the latter kind, could not be pro- 

 cured for less than 700 or 800 rupees." The process is exceedingly 

 slow, the weaving of a pair of shawls, or, as some writers have it, of a 

 single shawl, often employing three men with a clumsy old-fashioned 

 loom for a period of six months ; and owing to the numerous heavy 

 duties charged upon the shawls between leaving the loom and reaching 

 a purchaser in this country, the price of real Cashmere shawls of the 

 best quality is very high. They have frequently been sold in London 

 at from 1 00 to 400 guineas each ; and in one instance, when the 

 import duty, which has since been greatly reduced, amounted to 80 per 

 : nt. mi the value, as much as 500 guineas was demanded for a single 

 shawl. 



The peculiar softness of Cashmere shawls appears to be in some 

 degree attributable to the process of washing to which they are sub- 

 jected after weaving. " The best water for this use," observes Vigne, 

 " is found in the canal between the lake and the floodgates at the 

 Drogjun." " Some ruins, in large limestone blocks, are lying on the 

 washing-place, and in one of these is a round hole, about a foot and a 

 half in diameter and a foot in depth ; in this the shawl is placed, and, 

 water being poured over it, it is stamped on by the naked feet for 

 about five minutes, and then taken into the canal, by a man standing 

 in the water : one end is gathered up in his hand, and the shawl swung 

 round and beaten with great force upon a flat stone, being dipped into 

 the canal between every three and four strokes." The shawls, i. 

 coloured, are then dried in the Rhode, as the hot <iun would injure th. 

 colours, and about ten days afterwards the same process is repeate 



though for a less time. White shawls, however, after being treated in 

 like manner, are spread in the sun, and bleached by sprinkling water 

 upon them ; and the alternate washing and beating, and drying and 

 bleaching in the sun, are repeated three times, soap being occasionally 

 used in the second washing and stamping. " There is something in the 

 water of the canal," observes the same authority, " which certainly 

 communicates to the shawl a softness which cannot be given to those 

 manufactured at any place in the plains of Hindustan." " At the same 

 time," he adds, " those made in Paris or at Norwich would be, I think, 

 as soft, were it not for the greater closeness of texture, consequent on 

 their being made by a machine instead of the hand." " For the same 

 reason," he proceeds, " it is well known that the calico made in India 

 is much softer, and is much more durable, than that made in England." 

 The water is readily found near the surface of the ground, is bad 

 tasted, and, Vigne believes, brackish. Old shawls that require cleaning, 

 and sometimes also new ones, are washed by means of the freshly- 

 gathered root of a parasitical plant called tritz. A pound of this is 

 bruised and mixed with about three pints of water, to which is added a 

 piece of pigeon's dung, equal in size to a turkey's egg, beaten up in 

 about an equal quantity of water. The shawl is saturated with this 

 liquor, stamped upon, washed with the hand, and then steeped in the 

 canal. By a peculiar process, a fine pale yellow colour is given to the 

 shawls by the fumes of sulphur. A cloth called siling is manufactured 

 from the shawl wool in Yarkund and China, which resembles a coarse 

 English kerseymere in texture. 



Various attempts have been made to naturalise the Cashmere shawl 

 goat in this and other European countries, but as the peculiarities of 

 its wool appear to be dependent upon climate, the perfect success of 

 any such attempt is problematical. The wool itself has also been 

 imported as a raw material ; and the late Dr. Ure gave an account of 

 the various plans adopted in France for working both the imported 

 wool and that produced in France from a breed of Tibet goats imported 

 in 1819, into shawls in imitation of those of Cashmere, in which plans 

 the Jacquard loom has been employed to great advantage. In the 

 shawl manufacture in Scotland, attempts have more than once been 

 made to introduce either the real Cashmere wool itself or some effective 

 substitute for it. In the year 1830, at which time the weaving of 

 shawls from Cashmere yarn imported from France had become an 

 important branch of manufacture, a premium of 300?. was offered by 

 the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures 

 in Scotland, to the person who should first establish the spinning o 

 Cashmere wool upon the French principle. In consequence of this 

 offer, Captain C. S. Cochrane devoted himself to the subject, and having 

 succeeded, after some difficulty, in obtaining a knowledge of the secret, 

 he patented the plan, and subsequently sold liis patent to the Messrs. 

 Holdsworth of Glasgow, who established the manufacture successfully, 

 and obtained the offered reward in 1832. Judging from an experiment 

 recently (1858) made with the alpaca, there is a possibility that the 

 Cashmere goat may one day be introduced in Australia. 



The various woven goods called " Cashmeres," like " alpacas " and 

 " merinos," too frequently have little or no claim to the designation ; 

 they are imitations, ingenious enough if they were but called by their 

 right names. 



CASK-MAKING. [COOPERAGE.] 



CASSATIO'N, " the reversal of a judicial sentence," is a French law 

 word, derived from " cassare," which, in the barbarous Latin of the 

 lower ages, was synonymous with " irritum reddere," in which sense, 

 as Ducange shows, it frequently occurs in ancient royal edicts ; thus 

 we find it in a charter of Offa, king of the Mercians, A.D. 790 ; and in 

 the ' Life of Canute, king of the Obroditse,' c. 4, 8. 17, it also appears 

 as a technical term, signifying to cancel or annul ; and was applied as 

 well to the annulling of private deeds, such as wills, as of municipal 

 charters and corporate statutes, see Ducange, sub verb, cassare (2). 

 But the word is of still older date than the documents Ducange refers 

 to ; for it appears in several places in the Theodosian Code, in the sense 

 of annulling and abrogating. 



The origin of this institution, like most of those which date from 

 the middle ages, is involved in much obscurity, but the different stages 

 through which it went may be briefly noticed. 



1. During the whole period when trial by battle was in vogue, there 

 was but one mode of appeal against the decisions of a judge, being that 

 of challenging such judge to single combat ; whilst a direct appeal to 

 the suzerain, or feudal chief, was allowed in one case only, that of a 

 denial of a hearing, but 



2. When the system of judicial combats, or trial by battle, was 

 abolished by Saint Louis (A.D. 1260), a change with regard to appeals 

 was introduced, and not only was permission then given to the unsuc- 

 cessful party to appeal to a superior judge, but he was enabled to 

 demand from the judge or judges by whom his cause had in the first 

 instance been heard, an amendment of his or their decision ; hence, in 

 process of time, not only was the power of appeal affirmed, but the 

 mode became altered until 



3. At the commencement of the 14th century, the hearing of appeals 

 and the power of judging " en dernier ressort," was lost by the royal 

 judges, and became vested in the parliament, from whose decisions 

 there was no appeal ; though 



4. Provision had been made and sanctioned by royal authority, 

 between the years 1302 and 1344, to meet the case of errors or ambi- 



