recommending and shaping legislation respecting the judicial establishment and procedure. They also serve a useful purpose in instituting or promoting proceedings to discipline or expel unworthy attorneys from the bar. There is an American Bar Association, founded in 1878, composed of over 3500 members of different states of like character and position. Some of these associations publish annually a volume of transactions. The rights, duties and liabilities of counsellor-at-law are stated under Attorney. As members of the bar of the state in which they practise they are subject to its laws regulating such practice, e.g. in some states they are forbidden to advertise for divorce cases (New York Penal Code [1902] § 148a) (1905, People v. Taylor [Colorado], 75 Pac. Rep. 914). It is common throughout the United States for lawyers to make contracts for “contingent fees,” i.e. for a percentage of the amount recovered. Such contracts are not champertous and are upheld by the courts, but will be set aside if an unconscionable bargain be made with the client (Deering v. Scheyer [N.Y.], 58 App. D. 322). So also by the U.S. Supreme Court (Wright v. Tebbets, 91 U.S. 252; Taylor v. Benis, 110 U.S. 42). The reason for upholding such contracts is that otherwise poor persons would often fail of securing or protecting their property or rights. In fact such contracts are seldom set aside, though no doubt the practice is capable of abuse.
BARA BANKI, a town and district of British India in the Fyzabad division of the United Provinces. The town, which forms one municipality with Nawabganj, the administrative headquarters of the district, is 17 m. E. of Lucknow by railway. The population of Bara Banki alone in 1901 was 3020. There is some trade in sugar and cotton.
The district has an area of 1758 sq. m. It stretches out in a level plain interspersed with numerous jhils or marshes. In the upper part of the district the soil is sandy, while in the lower part it is clayey and produces finer crops. The principal rivers are the Gogra, forming the northern boundary, and the Gumti, flowing through the middle of the district. In 1856 it came, with the rest of Oudh, under British rule. During the Sepoy war of 1857–1858 the whole of the Bara Banki talukdars joined the mutineers, but offered no serious resistance after the capture of Lucknow. The cultivators are still, for the most part, tenants-at-will, rack-rented and debt-ridden. In 1901 the population was 1,179,323, showing an increase of 4% in the decade. The principal crops are rice, wheat, pulse and other food-grains, sugar-cane and opium. Both the bordering rivers are navigable; and the district is traversed by two lines of the Oudh and Rohilkhand railway, with branches. Trade in agricultural produce is active.
BARABOO, a city and the county-seat of Sauk county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., about 37 m. N.W. of Madison, on the Baraboo river, a tributary of the Wisconsin. Pop. (1890) 4605; (1900) 5751, of whom 732 were foreign-born; (1905) 5835; (1910) 6324. The city is served by the Chicago & North-Western railway, which maintains here an engine house and extensive machine shops, and of which it is a division headquarters. Baraboo has an attractive situation on a series of hills about 1000 ft. above sea-level. In the vicinity are Devil’s Lake (3 m. S.) and the famous Dells of the Wisconsin river (near Kilbourn, about 12 m. N.), two summer resorts with picturesque scenery. The principal public buildings are the court-house (in a small public park), the public library and a high school. Dairying and the growing of small fruits are important industries in the surrounding region; and there is a large nursery here. Stone quarried in the vicinity is exported, and the city is near the centre of the Sauk county iron range. Among the manufactures are woollen goods, towels, canned fruit and vegetables, dairy products, beer, and circus wagons (the city is the headquarters of the Ringling and the Gollmar circuses). The first permanent settlement here was made in 1839. Baraboo was named in honour of Jean Baribault, an early French trapper, and was chartered as a city in 1882.
BARABRA, a name for the complex Nubian races of the Egyptian Sudan, whose original stock is Hamitic-Berber, long modified by negro crossings. The word is variously derived from Berberi, i.e. people of Berber, or as identical with Barabara, figuring in the inscription on a gateway of Tethmosis I. as the name of one of the 113 tribes conquered by him. In a later inscription of Rameses II. at Karnak (c. 1300 B.C.) Beraberata is given as that of a southern conquered people. Thus it is suggested that Barabra is a real ethnical name, confused later with Greek and Roman barbarus, and revived in its proper meaning subsequent to the Moslem conquest. A tribe living on the banks of the Nile between Wadi Haifa and Assuan are called Barabra. (See further Nubia.)
BARACALDO, a river-port of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Biscay; on the left bank of the river Nervion or Ansa (in Basque, Ibaizabal), 5 m. by rail N.W. of Bilbao. Pop. (1900) 15,013. Few Spanish towns have developed more rapidly than Baracaldo, which nearly doubled its population between 1880 and 1900. During this period many immigrant labourers settled here; for the ironworks and dynamite factory of Baracaldo prospered greatly, owing to the increased output of the Biscayan mines, the extension of railways in the neighbourhood, and the growth of shipping at Bilbao. The low flat country round Baracaldo is covered with maize, pod fruit and vines.
BARACOA, a seaport city of N.E. Cuba, in Santiago province. Pop. (1907) 5633. The town lies under high hills on a small circular harbour accessible to small craft. The country round about is extremely rugged. The hill called the “Anvil of Baracoa” (about 3000 ft.) is remarkable for its extremely regular formation. It completely dominates the city’s background, and is a well-known sailors’ landmark. The town is the trading centre of a large plantation region behind it and is the centre of the banana and cocoanut export trade. There is a fort dating from the middle of the 18th century. Baracoa is the oldest town in Cuba, having been settled by Diego Velazquez in 1512. It held from its foundation the honours of a city. From 1512 to 1514 it was the capital of the island, and from 1518 to 1522 its church was the cathedral of the island’s first diocese. Both honours were taken from it to be given to Santiago de Cuba; and for two centuries after this Baracoa remained an obscure village, with little commerce. In the 16th century it was repeatedly plundered by pirates until it came to terms with them, gave them welcome harbourage, and based a less precarious existence upon continuous illicit trade. Until the middle of the 18th century Baracoa was almost without connexion with Havana and Santiago. In the wars of the end of the century it was a place of deposit for French and Spanish corsairs. At this time, too, about 100 fugitive immigrant families from Santo Domingo greatly augmented its industrial importance. In 1807 an unsuccessful attack was made upon the city by an English force. In 1826 the port was opened to foreign commerce.
BARAHONA DE SOTO, LUIS (1535?–1595), Spanish poet, was born about 1535 at Lucena (Cordova), was educated at Granada, and practised as a physician at Cordova. His principal poem is the Primera parte de la Angélica (1586), a continuation of the Orlando furioso; the second part was long believed to be lost, but fragments of it have been identified in the anonymous Diálogos de la monteria, first printed in 1890; the Diálogos also embody fragments of a poem by Barahona entitled Los Principios del mundo, and many graceful lyrics by the same writer have been published by Francisco Rodriguez Marín. Cervantes describes Barahona as “one of the best poets not only in Spain, but in the whole world”; this is friendly hyperbole. Nevertheless Barahona has high merits: poetic imagination, ingenious fancy, and an exceptional mastery of the methods transplanted to Spain from Italy. His Angélica has been reproduced in facsimile (New York, 1904) by Archer M. Huntington.
See F. Rodriguez Marín, Luis Barahona de Solo, estudio biográfico, bibliografico, y critico (Madrid. 1903); Diálogos de la monteria, edited by F. R. de Uhagón (Madrid, 1890). (J. F.-K.)
BARANTE, AMABLE GUILLAUME PROSPER BRUGIÉRE, Baron de (1782–1866), French statesman and historian, the son of an advocate, was born at Riom on the 16th of June 1782. At the age of sixteen he entered the École Polytechnique at
