GIARD1NO 



3520 



Gaetano Giardino, 

 Italian soldier 



contempt. The word, the English 

 form of which is adapted from 

 Italian giaurro, is said to be a 

 corruption of Arabic Kyafir, un- 

 believer. Byron's poem The Giaour 

 appeared in 1813. Pron. jowr. 



Giardino, GAETANO. Italian 

 soldier. At the outbreak of the 

 Great War he was chief of staff to 

 the 4th corps 

 and was soon 

 promoted 

 major-general. 

 His career at 

 the front was 

 successful and 

 in June, 1917, 

 he became 

 corps com- 

 mander, but 

 the same 

 month was appointed minister of 

 war. In Feb., 1918, he was ap- 

 pointed to the supreme inter-allied 

 council at Versailles, where he re- 

 mained until April. 



Giarre. Town of Sicily, in the 

 prov. of Catania. It stands on the 

 E. slope of Mt. Etna, 8 m. N. of 

 Acireale and 40 m. by rly. S.W. of 

 Messina, a junction for the rly. 

 running W. One mile E. of the 

 town is Riposto, its port, from 

 whence it exports the wine for 

 which it is celebrated. Pop. 21 ,611. 

 Giaveno. Town of Italy, in the 

 prov. of Turin. It stands on the 

 river Sangone, at an alt. of 1 ,660 ft., 

 17 m. by rly. W.S. W. of Turin, with 

 which it is also connected by tram- 

 way. It has cotton and jute 

 spinning mills and paper factories, 

 while there is trade in coal, wood, 

 fruit, mushrooms, potatoes, and 

 wine. Pop. 11,756. 



Gibara OR JTBARA. City of Cuba. 

 It is 80 m. N.W. of Santiago de 

 Cuba, with which it has rly. con- 

 nexion. It has a sheltered harbour 

 protected by an old fort, and is 

 the port for a large district pro- 

 ducing maize, sugar, bananas, 

 coconuts, tobacco, coffee, and 

 timber. Pop. 6,175. 



Gibb, SIR GEORGE STEGMANN (b. 

 1850). British rly. manager. The 

 son of a civil engineer, he was born 

 ,,.. ,,,,.,_ at Aberdeen, 

 April 20, 1850 

 Educated at, 

 the grammar 

 school and uni- 

 versity there, 

 he became a 

 solicitor. In 

 1877 he joined 

 the G.W.R. as 

 assistant so- 

 licitor and in 

 1882 became 

 solicitor at 

 York to the N.E.R.,'of which in 

 1891 he was made manager. In 

 1906 he became managing director 



Sir George Gibb, 



British railway 



manager 



Jtussell 



of the Metropolitan District Rly. 

 and the allied Underground Elec- 

 tric Rlys. Co. of London. His next 

 move was to the Road Board, of 

 which he became chairman in 1910. 

 In 1919 he resigned, and was made 

 consulting general manager of the 

 N.E.R. 



Gibbet (Fr. gibet, crooked 

 stick). Type of gallows having a 

 projecting bar, and used principally 

 tor hanging malefactors in chains 

 as a warning to passers-by, hence 

 the term " to gibbet." These gib- 

 bets or gallows were at one time 

 very common, and the name still 

 survives in Gallows Hill. See Gal- 

 lows ; Hanging. 



Gibbon (Hylobatea). Smallest 

 of the anthropoid or man-like 

 apes. Rarely more than 3 ft. high, 

 it is readily distinguished from 

 the other anthropoids the gorilla, 

 the chimpanzee, and the orang- 

 utan by its small slender build, 

 its remarkably long arms, and by 

 small naked callosities on the 

 buttocks. It is the only anthro- 

 poid that walks on its hind legs 

 without difficulty, either balancing 

 itself by holding its long arms out- 

 stretched or by clasping its hands 

 behind the neck. 



There are several species, all of 

 them found in Malay and the 

 surrounding countries. In colour 

 they vary from black to grey, and 

 some individuals tend to become 

 lighter as they grow older. They 

 live in the trees, and are by far the 

 most agile of the anthropoids, 

 leaping through the air with such 

 speed as to catch birds on the 



Gibbon. Specimen of the Silver Gibbon 



Gambier Ballon, F.Z.S. 



wing. Their food consists of fruit 

 and young shoots, insects, and the 

 eggs and nestlings of birds. In the 

 forests they are extremely noisy, 

 uttering mournful cries in the 

 morning and evening. In cap- 



tivity they are gentle and easily 

 tamed, and have been known to 

 change colour. See Monkey. 



Gibbon, EDWARD (1737-94). 

 English historian. The eldest son 

 of Edward Gibbon, an M.P. in the 

 time of Sir Robert Walpole, he was 

 born at Putney, April 27, 1737. 

 Both his grandfathers were mer- 

 chants in London, and he was 

 brought up in surroundings of 

 comfort and ease. At seven he had a 

 private tutor, at nine he went to a 

 school at Kingston, and at eleven 

 he went to Westminster. There he 

 learned a good deal, but he owed 

 more to an aunt, Catherine Porten, 

 who took charge of him after his 

 mother's death in 1747. 



In 1752, after two years spent 

 under tutors, for his health was not 

 equal to the regular life of West- 

 minster, he went to Oxford, enter- 

 ing Magdalen College ; but his 

 knowledge was of an unusual 

 kind, and he did not trouble to 

 turn his abilities into the conven- 

 tional channels. He occupied him- 

 self mainly with gaieties, and pro- 

 nounced his period of residence 

 wholly unprofitable, but in 1753 

 he joined the Roman Church. 

 His angered father took him away 

 from Oxford and sent him to 

 Lausanne, where for five years he 

 lived with a Calvinist pastor. 

 There he read widely and steadilv, 

 his retentive memory serving him 

 well. In 1758 he returned to Eng- 

 land, and lived for a time at his 

 father's house at Buriton in Hamp- 

 shire. In 1761 he published in 

 French his first book, An Essay on 

 the Study of Literature. In 1763 

 he set out upon a tour of Europe. 

 Part of his time was passed in Italy, 

 and in Rome the idea of the Decline 

 and Fall came to him. 



In 1765 Gibbon returned home 

 from Italy, and during the next 

 five years he wrote on miscel- 

 laneous subjects. He kept his 

 great idea, however, constantly in 

 mind, but he did not actually begin 

 work on it until, after his father's 

 death in 1770, he moved from 

 Buriton to London. In 1772 he 

 began to write, and in Feb., 1776, 

 the first volume of the Decline and 

 Fall was published. It was an 

 instant and complete success, and 

 he continued, pausing only in 1779 

 to reply, in a Vindication, to those 

 who had criticised chapters 15 and 

 16 on Christianity. In 1774 he had 

 been returned to the House of 

 Commons for Liskeard, and in 1780 

 he was returned for Lymington. 

 In 1783, having resigned his seat, 

 he joined a Swiss friend, Georges 

 Deyverdun, at Lausanne, and there 

 he lived until 1793. The earlier 

 part of this time he spent on his 

 history, which he finished on 



