or limitation; the latter, the more usual modes of acquiring title, as alienation by gift or sale, exchange, inheritance, and transfer by will (qq.v.). In the English and American law of real property the whole subject is dealt with under the head of title (q.v. ). Consult: Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England; Kent, Commentaries on American Law.
ACQUIT'TAL (O. F. aquiter, from Lat. ad, to + quietare, to quiet). In criminal law, the judicial discharge of the accused. It may result from some technical defect in the proceedings, or from a verdict in the accused's favor on the merits. In the former case, it is not a bar to a second prosecution for the same offense; in the latter case, it is a bar, as well by common law as, in this country, by constitutional provision. See Autrefois Acquit and Jeopardy.
ACRA'NIA (Gk. d, a, priv. -f upavlov, kran-
ion, skull). A group of vertebrates having
no skull or heart, and represented only by the
lancelets. See Amphionus.
ACRA'SIA (Gk. ἀκρασία, akrasia, intemperance). A beautiful enchantress in Spenser's Faerie Queen. Her name denotes her character. She dwells in a "Bower of Bliss," on a floating island of sensuous delight, and the fairy queen sends Sir Guyon to make an end of her seductive abode.
ACRA'TES (Gk. ἀκρατής, akratēs, intemperate). A male character in Spenser's Faerie Queen, typifying intemperance in the pursuit of pleasure.
A'CRE. A word identical with Lat. ager, Gk. ἀγρός, agros, a field, and the Ger. Acker, which means both a field and a measure of land. Most nations have some measure nearly corresponding; originally, perhaps, the quantity which one could plow in a day; uniformity, therefore, is not to be looked for.
The English statute acre consists of 4840 square yards. The chain with which land is measured is 22 yards long, and a square chain will contain 22 X 22, or 484 yards; so that 10 square chains make an acre. The acre is divided into 4 roods, a rood into 4 perches, and a perch contains 30¼ square yards. The Scotch acre is larger than the English, and the Irish than the Scotch. One hundred and twenty-one Irish acres = 196 English nearly; 48 Scotch acres = 61 English. The following table shows the values of the more important corresponding measures compared with the English acre. The German Morgen below are becoming obsolete. The German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Spain, and Portugal have adopted the French metrical system.
English acre 1.00 Scotch " 1.27 Irish " 1.62 Austria, joch 1.42 Baden, morgen 0.89 Belgium, hectare (French) 2.47 Denmark, tönde land 5.05 France, hectare (=100 ares).... 2.47 France, arpent (common) 0.99 Holland, " 2.10 Naples, moggia 0.83 Portugal, geira 1.43 Prussia, little morgen 0.63 Prussia, great morgen 1.40 Russia, desyatina 2.70 Saxony, morgen 1.36 Spain, fanegada 1.06 Sweden, tunne land 1.13 Switzerland, faux 1.62 " Geneva, arpent 1.27 Tuscany, saccata 1.22 United States, English acre 1.00 Württemberg, morgen 2.40 Roman jugerum (ancient) 0.66 Greek plethron (ancient) 0.23
ACRE, a'ker or a'ker,
or St. Jean d'Acre. A seaport on the coast of Syria, a few miles north of Mount Carmel. It has about 7000 inhabitants. The harbor is partly choked with sand, yet is one of the best on this coast. Acre is the Accho of the Bible, and has been known at different periods as Acco, Akka, Acon, Accaron, and in Roman times Ptolemaïs. It is first mentioned in a dispatch sent by King Burraburiash of Babylon to Amenhotep IV. (1400 B.C.?). It was taken by the Assyrians under Sennacherib and given by Esarhaddon to the King of Tyre, with which it came subsequently into the possession of the Seleucid kings of Syria. The Romans made it a colony. In 638 the town was captured by the Arabs. In 1104 it was taken by the Crusaders; in 1187 it was recaptured by the sultan Saladin, and in 1191 fell once more into the hands of the Crusaders, and became the seat of a bishop and of the Order of St. John. It was the last stronghold of the Crusaders in Palestine, being surrendered to the Saracens in 1291, after an obstinate defense by the crusading orders. In 1517 it was captured by the Turks. In 1799 it was besieged by the French under Napoleon Bonaparte for sixty-one days, but was successfully defended by the garrison, aided by a body of English sailors and marines under Sir Sidney Smith. In 1832 it was stormed by Ibrahim Pasha, son of the viceroy of Egypt, and continued in his possession till it was bombarded and taken in 1840 by a combined English, Austrian, and Turkish fleet. See Egypt; Seleucidæ.
A'CRES, Bob. A character in Sheridan's Rivals. He appears as a somewhat rustic gentleman, of bombastic manners and ludicrous cowardice, noted particularly for what he calls his "oath referential or sentimental swearing."
ACRI, a'kre.
A city in Calabria, southern Italy, 13 miles northeast of Cosenza (Map: Italy, L 8), The neighboring country is beautiful, healthful, and fertile, and produces oil, wine, fruit, and cotton. Pop., about 4000.
ACRID'IDÆ. See Grasshopper.
ACROBAT (Gk. one walking on tiptoe, from ἄκρος, akros, highest, + βαίνειν, bainein, to go). The presence of the word in very early times in most European languages may be taken to indicate the remote origin of the exercise which called the term into use. Originally it was doubtless used to denote the acrobatic feats of the rope-dancers, but in the course of centuries its meaning has extended so that it includes many things which were unknown to the Greeks and Romans as familiarly as were the rope-dancers, who, as Terence in his prologue to Hecyra complains, distracted the attention of the public from his play; and so does history repeat itself, a writer in the Tatler expresses his surprise at finding so small an audience at the opera, because the rope-dancer was not in the bill that night. The most recent celebrated
