Chapter XIV: Part 14

The family is the unit of political society. The families are grouped in townships or otherwise (_qali_) under the lesser chiefs, who again owe allegiance to the supreme chief of the _matanitu_ or tribe. The chiefs are a real aristocracy, excelling the people in physique, skill, intellect and acquirements of all sorts; and the reverence felt for them, now gradually diminishing, was very great, and had something of a religious character. All that a man had belonged to his chief. On the other hand, the chief's property practically belonged to his people, and they were as ready to give as to take. In a time of famine, a chief would declare the contents of the plantations to be common property. A system of feudal service-tenures (_lala_) is the institution on which their social and political fabric mainly depended. It allowed the chief to call for the labour of any district, and to employ it in planting, house or canoe-building, supplying food on the occasion of another chief's visit, &c. This power was often used with much discernment; thus an unpopular chief would redeem his character by calling for some customary service and rewarding it liberally, or a district would be called on to supply labour or produce as a punishment. The privilege might, of course, be abused by needy or unscrupulous chiefs, though they generally deferred somewhat to public opinion; it has now, with similar customary exactions of cloth, mats, salt, pottery, &c. been reduced within definite limits. An allied custom, _solevu_, enabled a district in want of any particular article to call on its neighbours to supply it, giving labour or something else in exchange. Although, then, the chief is lord of the soil, the inferior chiefs and individual families have equally distinct rights in it, subject to payment of certain dues; and the idea of permanent alienation of land by purchase was never perhaps clearly realized. Another curious custom was that of _vasu_ (lit. nephew). The son of a chief by a woman of rank had almost unlimited rights over the property of his mother's family, or of her people. In time of war the chief claimed absolute control over life and property. Warfare was carried on with many courteous formalities, and considerable skill was shown in the fortifications. There were well-defined degrees of dependence among the different tribes or districts: the first of these, _bati_, is an alliance between two nearly equal tribes, but implying a sort of inferiority on one side, acknowledged by military service; the second, _qali_, implies greater subjection, and payment of tribute. Thus A, being bati to B, might hold C in qali, in which case C was also reckoned subject to B, or might be protected by B for political purposes.

The former religion of the Fijians was a sort of ancestor-worship, had much in common with the creeds of Polynesia, and included a belief in a future existence. There were two classes of gods--the first immortal, of whom Ndengei is the greatest, said to exist eternally in the form of a serpent, but troubling himself little with human or other affairs, and the others had usually only a local recognition. The second rank (who, though far above mortals, are subject to their passions, and even to death) comprised the spirits of chiefs, heroes and other ancestors. The gods entered and spoke through their priests, who thus pronounced on the issue of every enterprise, but they were not represented by idols; certain groves and trees were held sacred, and stones which suggest phallic associations. The priesthood usually was hereditary, and their influence great, and they had generally a good understanding with the chief. The institution of Taboo existed in full force. The _mbure_ or temple was also the council chamber and place of assemblage for various purposes.

The weapons of the Fijians are spears, slings, throwing clubs and bows and arrows. Their houses, of which the framework is timber and the rest lattice and thatch, are ingeniously constructed, with great taste in ornamentation, and are well furnished with mats, mosquito-curtains, baskets, fans, nets and cooking and other utensils. Their canoes, sometimes more than 100 ft. long, are well built. Ever excellent agriculturists, their implements were formerly digging sticks and hoes of turtlebone or flat oyster-shells. In irrigation they showed skill, draining their fields with built watercourses and bamboo pipes. Tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, yams, kava, taro, beans and pumpkins, are the principal crops.

Fijians are fond of amusements. They have various games, and dancing, story-telling and songs are especially popular. Their poetry has well-defined metres, and a sort of rhyme. Their music is rude, and is said to be always in the major key. They are clever cooks, and for their feasts preparations are sometimes made months in advance, and enormous waste results from them. Mourning is expressed by fasting, by shaving the head and face, or by cutting off the little finger. This last is sometimes done at the death of a rich man in the hope that his family will reward the compliment; sometimes it is done vicariously, as when one chief cuts off the little finger of his dependent in regret or in atonement for the death of another.

A steady, if not a very rapid, decrease in the native population set in after 1875. A terrible epidemic of measles in that year swept away 40,000, or about one-third of the Fijians. Subsequent epidemics have not been attended by anything like this mortality, but there has, however, been a steady decrease, principally among young children, owing to whooping-cough, tuberculosis and croup. Every Fijian child seems to contract yaws at some time in its life, a mistaken notion existing on the part of the parents that it strengthens the child's physique. Elephantiasis, influenza; rheumatism, and a skin disease, _thoko_, also occur. One per cent of the natives are lepers. A commission appointed in 1891 to inquire into the causes of the native decrease collected much interesting anthropological information regarding native customs, and provincial inspectors and medical officers were specially appointed to compel the natives to carry out the sanitary reforms recommended by the commission. A considerable sum was also spent in laying on good water to the native villages. The Fijians show no disposition to intermarry with the Indian coolies. The European half-castes are not prolific _inter se_, and they are subject to a scrofulous taint. The most robust cross in the islands is the offspring of the African negro and the Fijian. Miscegenation with the Micronesians, the only race in the Pacific which is rapidly increasing, is regarded as the most hopeful manner of preserving the native Fijian population. There is a large Indian immigrant population.

_Trade, Administration, &c._--The principal industries are the cultivation of sugar and fruits and the manufacture of sugar and copra, and these three are the chief articles of export trade, which is carried on almost entirely with Australia and New Zealand. The fruits chiefly exported are bananas and pineapples. There are also exported maize, vanilla and a variety of fruits in small quantities; pearl and other shells and beche-de-mer. There is a manufacture of soap from coconut oil; a fair quantity of tobacco is grown, and among other industries may be included boat-building and saw-milling. Regular steamship communications are maintained with Sydney, Auckland and Vancouver. Good bridle-tracks exist in all the larger islands, and there are some macadamized roads, principally in Viti Levu. There is an overland mail service by native runners. The export trade is valued at nearly L600,000 annually, and the imports at L500,000. The annual revenue of the colony is about L140,000 and the expenditure about L125,000. The currency and weights and measures are British. Besides the customs and stamp duties, some L18,000 of the annual revenue is raised from native taxation. The seventeen provinces of the colony (at the head of which is either a European or a _roko tui_ or native official) are assessed annually by the legislative council for a fixed tax in kind. The tax on each province is distributed among districts under officials called _bulis_, and further among villages within these districts. Any surplus of produce over the assessment is sold to contractors, and the money received is returned to the natives.

Under a reconstruction made in 1904 there is an executive council consisting of the governor and four official members. The legislative council consists of the governor, ten official, six elected and two native members. The native chiefs and provincial representatives meet annually under the presidency of the governor, and their recommendations are submitted for sanction to the legislative council. Suva and Levuka have each a municipal government, and there are native district and village councils. There is an armed native constabulary; and a volunteer and cadet corps in Suva and Levuka.

The majority of the natives are Wesleyan Methodists. The Roman Catholic missionaries have about 3000 adherents; the Church of England is confined to the Europeans and _kanakas_ in the towns; the Indian coolies are divided between Mahommedans and Hindus. There are public schools for Europeans and half-castes in the towns, but there is no provision for the education of the children of settlers in the out-districts. By an ordinance of 1890 provision was made for the constitution of school boards, and the principle was first applied in Suva and Levuka. The missions have established schools in every native village, and most natives are able to read and write their own language. The government has established a native technical school for the teaching of useful handicrafts. The natives show themselves very slow in adopting European habits in food, clothing and house-building.

_History._--A few islands in the north-east of the group were first seen by Abel Tasman in 1643. The southernmost of the group, Turtle Island, was discovered by Cook in 1773. Lieutenant Bligh, approaching them in the launch of the "Bounty," 1789, had a hostile encounter with natives. In 1827 Dumont d'Urville in the "Astrolabe" surveyed them much more accurately, but the first thorough survey was that of the United States exploring expedition in 1840. Up to this time, owing to the evil reputation of the islanders, European intercourse was very limited. The labours of the Wesleyan missionaries, however, must always have a prominent place in any history of Fiji. They came from Tonga in 1835 and naturally settled first in the eastern islands, where the Tongan element, already familiar to them, preponderated. They perhaps identified themselves too closely with their Tongan friends, whose dissolute, lawless, tyrannical conduct led to much mischief; but it should not be forgotten that their position was difficult, and it was mainly through their efforts that many terrible heathen practices were stamped out.

About 1804 some escaped convicts from Australia and runaway sailors established themselves around the east part of Viti Levu, and by lending their services to the neighbouring chiefs probably led to their preponderance over the rest of the group. Na Ulivau, chief of the small island of Mbau, established before his death in 1829 a sort of supremacy, which was extended by his brother Tanoa, and by Tanoa's son Thakombau, a ruler of considerable capacity. In his time, however, difficulties thickened. The Tongans, who had long frequented Fiji (especially for canoe-building, their own islands being deficient in timber), now came in larger numbers, led by an able and ambitious chief, Maafu, who, by adroitly taking part in Fijian quarrels, made himself chief in the Windward group, threatening Thakombau's supremacy. He was harassed, too, by an arbitrary demand for L9000 from the American government, for alleged injuries to their consul. Several chiefs who disputed his authority were crushed by the aid of King George of Tonga, who (1855) had opportunely arrived on a visit; but he afterwards, taking some offence, demanded L12,000 for his services. At last Thakombau, disappointed in the hope that his acceptance of Christianity (1854) would improve his position, offered the sovereignty to Great Britain (1859) with the fee simple of 100,000 acres, on condition of her paying the American claims. Colonel Smythe, R.A., was sent out to report on the question, and decided against annexation, but advised that the British consul should be invested with full magisterial powers over his countrymen, a step which would have averted much subsequent difficulty.

Meanwhile Dr B. Seemann's favourable report on the capabilities of the islands, followed by a time of depression in Australia and New Zealand, led to a rapid increase of settlers--from 200 in 1860 to 1800 in 1869. This produced fresh complications, and an increasing desire among the respectable settlers for a competent civil and criminal jurisdiction. Attempts were made at self-government, and the sovereignty was again offered, conditionally, to England, and to the United States. Finally, in 1871, a "constitutional government" was formed by certain Englishmen under King Thakombau; but this, after incurring heavy debt, and promoting the welfare of neither whites nor natives, came after three years to a deadlock, and the British government felt obliged, in the interest of all parties, to accept the unconditional cession now offered (1874). It had besides long been thought desirable to possess a station on the route between Australia and Panama; it was also felt that the Polynesian labour traffic, the abuses in which had caused much indignation, could only be effectually regulated from a point contiguous to the recruiting field, and the locality where that labour was extensively employed. To this end the governor of Fiji was also created "high commissioner for the western Pacific." Rotumah (q.v.) was annexed in 1881.

At the time of the British annexation the islands were suffering from commercial depression, following a fall in the price of cotton after the American Civil War. Coffee, tea, cinchona and sugar were tried in turn, with limited success. The coffee was attacked by the leaf disease; the tea could not compete with that grown by the cheap labour of the East; the sugar machinery was too antiquated to withstand the fall in prices consequent on the European sugar bounties. In 1878 the first coolies were imported from India and the cultivation of sugar began to pass into the hands of large companies working with modern machinery. With the introduction of coolies the Fijians began to fall behind in the development of their country. Many of the coolies chose to remain in the colony after the termination of their indentures, and began to displace the European country traders. With a regular and plentiful supply of Indian coolies, the recruiting of _kanaka_ labourers practically ceased. The settlement of European land claims, and the measures taken for the protection of native institutions, caused lively dissatisfaction among the colonists, who laid the blame of the commercial depression at the door of the government; but with returning prosperity this feeling began to disappear. In 1900 the government of New Zealand made overtures to absorb Fiji. The Aborigines Society protested to the colonial office, and the imperial government refused to sanction the proposal.

See Smyth, _Ten Months in the Fiji Islands_ (London, 1864); B.
Seemann, _Flora Vitiensis_ (London, 1865); and _Viti: Account of a
Government Mission in the Vitian or Fijian Islands_ (1860-1861); W.T.
Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_ (London, 1866); H. Forbes, _Two
Years in Fiji_ (London, 1875); Commodore Goodenough, _Journal_
(London, 1876); H.N. Moseley, _Notes of a Naturalist in the
"Challenger"_ (London, 1879); Sir A.H. Gordon, _Story of a Little War_
(Edinburgh, privately printed, 1879); J.W. Anderson, _Fiji and New
Caledonia_ (London, 1880); C.F. Gordon-Cumming, _At Home in Fiji_
(Edinburgh, 1881); John Horne, _A Year in Fiji_ (London, 1881); H.S.
Cooper, _Our New Colony, Fiji_ (London, 1882); S.E. Scholes, _Fiji and
the Friendly Islands_ (London, 1882); Princes Albert Victor and George
of Wales, _Cruise of H. M. S. "Bacchante"_ (London, 1886); A. Agassiz,
_The Islands and Coral Reefs of Fiji_ (Cambridge, Mass., U.S., 1899);
H.B. Guppy, _Observations of a Naturalist in the Pacific_ (1896-1899),
vol. i.; _Vanua Levu, Fiji_ (Phys. Geog. and Geology) (London, 1903);
Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_ (folk-lore, &c.) (London, 1904);
B. Thomson, _The Fijians_ (London, 1908).

FILANDER, the name by which the Aru Island wallaby (_Macropus brunii_) was first described. It occurs in a translation of C. de Bruyn's _Travels_ (ii. 101) published in 1737.

FILANGIERI, CARLO (1784-1867), prince of Satriano, Neapolitan soldier and statesman, was the son of Gaetano Filangieri (1752-1788), a celebrated philosopher and jurist. At the age of fifteen he decided on a military career, and having obtained an introduction to Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, was admitted to the Military Academy at Paris. In 1803 he received a commission in an infantry regiment, and took part in the campaign of 1805 under General Davoust, first in the Low Countries, and later at Ulm, Maria Zell and Austerlitz, where he fought with distinction, was wounded several times and promoted. He returned to Naples as captain on Massena's staff to fight the Bourbons and the Austrians in 1806, and subsequently went to Spain, where he followed Jerome Bonaparte in his retreat from Madrid. In consequence of a fatal duel he was sent back to Naples; there he served under Joachim Murat with the rank of general, and fought against the Anglo-Sicilian forces in Calabria and at Messina. On the fall of Napoleon he took part in Murat's campaign against Eugene Beauharnais, and later in that against Austria, and was severely wounded at the battle of the Panaro (1815). On the restoration of the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV. (I.), Filangieri retained his rank and command, but found the army utterly disorganized and impregnated with Carbonarism. In the disturbances of 1820 he adhered to the Constitutionalist party, and fought under General Pepe (q.v.) against the Austrians. On the reestablishment of the autocracy he was dismissed from the service, and retired to Calabria where he had inherited the princely title and estates of Satriano. In 1831 he was recalled by Ferdinand II. and entrusted with various military reforms. On the outbreak of the troubles of 1848 Filangieri advised the king to grant the constitution, which he did in February 1848, but when the Sicilians formally seceded from the Neapolitan kingdom Filangieri was given the command of an armed force with which to reduce the island to obedience. On the 3rd of September he landed near Messina, and after very severe fighting captured the city. He then advanced southwards, besieged and took Catania, where his troops committed many atrocities, and by May 1849 he had conquered the whole of Sicily, though not without much bloodshed. He remained in Sicily as governor until 1855, when he retired into private life, as he could not carry out the reforms he desired owing to the hostility of Giovanni Cassisi, the minister for Sicily. On the death of Ferdinand II. (22nd of May 1859) the new king Francis II. appointed Filangieri premier and minister of war. He promoted good relations with France, then fighting with Piedmont against the Austrians in Lombardy, and strongly urged on the king the necessity of an alliance with Piedmont and a constitution as the only means whereby the dynasty might be saved. These proposals being rejected, Filangieri resigned office. In May 1860, Francis at last promulgated the constitution, but it was too late, for Garibaldi was in Sicily and Naples was seething with rebellion. On the advice of Liborio Romano, the new prefect of police, Filangieri was ordered to leave Naples. He went to Marseilles with his wife and subsequently to Florence, where at the instance of General La Marmora he undertook to write an account of the Italian army. Although he adhered to the new government he refused to accept any dignity at its hands, and died at his villa of San Giorgio a Cremano near Naples on the 9th of October 1867.

Filangieri was a very distinguished soldier, and a man of great ability; although he changed sides several times he became really attached to the Bourbon dynasty, which he hoped to save by freeing it from its reactionary tendencies and infusing a new spirit into it. His conduct in Sicily was severe and harsh, but he was not without feelings of humanity, and he was an honest man and a good administrator.

His biography has been written by his daughter Teresa Filangieri
Fieschi-Ravaschieri, _Il Generale Carlo Filangieri_ (Milan, 1902), an
interesting, although somewhat too laudatory volume based on the
general's own unpublished memoirs; for the Sicilian expedition see V.
Finocchiaro, _La Rivoluzione siciliana del 1848-49_ (Catania, 1906,
with bibliography), in which Filangieri is bitterly attacked; see also
under NAPLES; FERDINAND IV.; FRANCIS I.; FERDINAND II.; FRANCIS II.
(L. V.*)

FILANGIERI, GAETANO (1752-1788), Italian publicist, was born at Naples on the 18th of August 1752. His father, Caesar, prince of Arianiello, intended him for a military career, which he commenced at the early age of seven, but soon abandoned for the study of the law. At the bar his knowledge and eloquence early secured his success, while his defence of a royal decree reforming abuses in the administration of justice gained him the favour of the king, Charles, afterwards Charles III. of Spain, and led to several honourable appointments at court. The first two books of his great work, _La Scienza della legislazione_, appeared in 1780. The first book contained an exposition of the rules on which legislation in general ought to proceed, while the second was devoted to economic questions. These two books showed him an ardent reformer, and vehement in denouncing the abuses of his time. He insisted on unlimited free trade, and the abolition of the medieval institutions which impeded production and national well-being. Its success was great and immediate not only in Italy, but throughout Europe at large. In 1783 he married, resigned his appointments at court, and retiring to Cava, devoted himself steadily to the completion of his work. In the same year appeared the third book, relating entirely to the principles of criminal jurisprudence. The suggestion which he made in it as to the need for reform in the Roman Catholic church brought upon him the censure of the ecclesiastical authorities, and it was condemned by the congregation of the Index in 1784. In 1785 he published three additional volumes, making the fourth book of the projected work, and dealing with education and morals. In 1787 he was appointed a member of the supreme treasury council by Ferdinand IV., but his health, impaired by close study and over-work in his new office, compelled his withdrawal to the country at Vico Equense. He died somewhat suddenly on the 21st of July 1788, having just completed the first part of the fifth book of his _Scienza_. He left an outline of the remainder of the work, which was to have been completed in six books.

_La Scienza della legislazione_ has gone through many editions, and
has been translated into most of the languages of Europe. The best
Italian edition is in 5 vols. 8vo. (1807). The Milan edition (1822)
contains the _Opusculi scelti_ and a life by Donato Tommasi. A French
translation appeared in Paris in 7 vols. 8vo. (1786-1798); it was
republished in 1822-1824, with the addition of the _Opuscles_ and
notes by Benjamin Constant. _The Science of Legislation_ was
translated into English by Sir R. Clayton (London, 1806).

FILARIASIS, the name of a disease due to the nematode _Filaria sanguinis hominis_. A milky appearance of the urine, due to the presence of a substance like chyle, which forms a clot, had been observed from time to time, especially in tropical and subtropical countries; and it was proved by Dr Wucherer of Bahia, and by Dr Timothy Lewis, that this peculiar condition is uniformly associated with the presence in the blood of minute eel-like worms, visible only under the microscope, being the embryo forms of a _Filaria_ (see NEMATODA). Sometimes the discharge of lymph takes place at one or more points of the surface of the body, and there is in other cases a condition of naevoid elephantiasis of the scrotum, or lymph-scrotum. More or less of blood may occur along with the chylous fluid in the urine. Both the chyluria and the presence of filariae in the blood are curiously intermittent; it may happen that not a single filaria is to be seen during the daytime, while they swarm in the blood at night, and it has been ingeniously shown by Dr S. Mackenzie that they may be made to disappear if the patient sits up all night, reappearing while he sleeps through the day.

Sir P. Manson proved that mosquitoes imbibe the embryo filariae from the blood of man; and that many of these reach full development within the mosquito, acquiring their freedom when the latter resorts to water, where it dies after depositing its eggs. Mosquitoes would thus be the intermediate host of the filariae, and their introduction into the human body would be through the medium of water (see PARASITIC DISEASES).

FILDES, SIR LUKE (1844- ), English painter, was born at Liverpool, and trained in the South Kensington and Royal Academy schools. At first a highly successful illustrator, he took rank later among the ablest English painters, with "The Casual Ward" (1874), "The Widower" (1876), "The Village Wedding" (1883), "An Al-fresco Toilette" (1889); and "The Doctor" (1891), now in the National Gallery of British Art. He also painted a number of pictures of Venetian life and many notable portraits, among them the coronation portraits of King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1879, and academician in 1887; and was knighted in 1906.

See David Croal Thomson, _The Life and Work of Luke Fildes, R.A._
(1895).

FILE. 1. A bar of steel having sharp teeth on its surface, and used for abrading or smoothing hard surfaces. (The O. Eng. word is _feol_, and cognate forms appear in Dutch _vijl_, Ger. _Feile_, &c.; the ultimate source is usually taken to be an Indo-European root meaning to mark or scratch, and seen in the Lat. _pingere_, to paint.) Some uncivilized tribes polish their weapons with such things as rough stones, pieces of shark skin or fishes' teeth. The operation of filing is recorded in 1 Sam. xiii. 21; and, among other facts, the similarity of the name for the filing instrument among various European peoples points to an early practice of the art. A file differs from a _rasp_ (which is chiefly used for working wood, horn and the like) in having its teeth cut with a chisel whose straight edge extends across its surface, while the teeth of the rasp are formed by solitary indentations of a pointed chisel. According to the form of their teeth, files may be _single-cut_ or _double-cut_; the former have only one set of parallel ridges (either at right angles or at some other angle with the length); the latter (and more common) have a second set cut at an angle with the first. The double-cut file presents sharp angles to the filed surface, and is better suited for hard metals. Files are classed according to the fineness of their teeth (see TOOL), and their shapes present almost endless varieties. Common forms are--the _flat_ file, of parallelogram section, with uniform breadth and thickness, or tapering, or "bellied"; the _four-square_ file, of square section, sometimes with one side "safe," or left smooth; and the so-called _three-square_ file, having its cross section an equilateral triangle, the _half-round_ file, a segment of a circle, the _round_ or _rat-tail_ file, a circle, which are generally tapered. The _float_ file is like the _flat_, but single-cut. There are many others. Files vary in length from three-quarters of an inch (watchmakers') to 2 or 3 ft. and upwards (engineers'). The length is reckoned exclusively of the spike or tang which enters the handle. Most files are tapered; the _blunt_ are nearly parallel, with larger section near the middle; a few are parallel. The _rifflers_ of sculptors and a few other files are curvilinear in their central line.

In manufacturing files, steel blanks are forged from bars which have been sheared or rolled as nearly as possible to the sections required, and after being carefully annealed are straightened, if necessary, and then rendered clean and accurate by grinding or filing. The process of cutting them used to be largely performed by hand, but machines are now widely employed. The hand-cutter, holding in his left hand a short chisel (the edge of which is wider than the width of the file), places it on the blank with an inclination from the perpendicular of 12 deg. or 14 deg., and beginning near the farther end (the blank is placed with the tang or handle end towards him) strikes it sharply with a hammer. An indentation is thus made, and the steel, slightly thrown up on the side next the tang, forms a ridge. The chisel is then transferred to the uncut surface and slid away from the operator till it encounters the ridge just made; the position of the next cut being thus determined, the chisel is again struck, and so on. The workman seeks to strike the blows as uniformly as possible, and he will make 60 or 80 cuts a minute. If the file is to be single-cut, it is now ready to be hardened, but if it is to be double-cut he proceeds to make the second series or course of cuts, which are generally somewhat finer than the first. Thus the surface is covered with teeth inclined towards the point of the file. If the file is flat and is to be cut on the other side, it is turned over, and a thin plate of pewter placed below it to protect the teeth. Triangular and other files are supported in grooves in lead. In cutting round and half-round files, a straight chisel is applied as tangent to the curve. The round face of a half-round file requires eight, ten or more courses to complete it. Numerous attempts were made, even so far back as the 18th century, to invent machinery for cutting files, but little success was attained till the latter part of the 19th century. In most of the machines the idea was to arrange a metal arm and hand to hold the chisel with a hammer to strike the blow, and so to imitate the manual process as closely as possible. The general principle on which the successful forms are constructed is that the blanks, laid on a moving table, are slowly traversed forward under a rapidly reciprocating chisel or knife.

The filing of a flat surface perfectly true is the test of a good filer; and this is no easy matter to the beginner. The piece to be operated upon is generally fixed about the level of the elbow, the operator standing, and, except in the case of small files, grasping the file with both hands, the handle with the right, the farther end with the left. The great point is to be able to move the file forward with pressure in horizontal straight lines; from the tendency of the hands to move in arcs of circles, the heel and point of the file are apt to be alternately raised. This is partially compensated by the bellied form given to many files (which also counteracts the frequent warping effect of the hardening process, by which one side of a flat file may be rendered concave and useless). In bringing back the file for the next thrust it is nearly lifted off the work. Further, much delicacy and skill are required in adapting the pressure and velocity, ascertaining if foreign matters or filings remain interposed between the file and the work, &c. Files can be cleaned with a piece of the so-called _cotton-card_ (used in combing cotton wool) nailed to a piece of wood. In _draw-filing_, which is sometimes resorted to to give a neat finish, the file is drawn sideways to and fro over the work. New files are generally used for a time on brass or cast-iron, and when partially worn they are still available for filing wrought iron and steel.

2. A string or thread (through the Fr. _fil_ and _file_, from Lat. _filum_, a thread); hence used of a device, originally a cord, wire or spike on which letters, receipts, papers, &c., may be strung for convenient reference. The term has been extended to embrace various methods for the preservation of papers in a particular order, such as expanding books, cabinets, and ingenious improvements on the simple wire file which enable any single document to be readily found and withdrawn without removing the whole series. From the devices used for filing the word is transferred to the documents filed, and thus is used of a catalogue, list, or collection of papers, &c. File is also employed to denote a row of persons or objects arranged one behind the other. In military usage a "file" is the opposite of a "rank," that is, it is composed of a (variable) number of men aligned from front to rear one behind the other, while a rank contains a number of men aligned from right to left abreast. Thus a British infantry company, in line two deep, one hundred strong, has two ranks of fifty men each, and fifty "files" of two men each. Up to about 1600 infantry companies or battalions were often sixteen deep, one front rank man and the fifteen "coverers" forming a file. The number of ranks and, therefore, of men in the file diminished first to ten (1600), then to six (1630), then to three (1700), and finally to two (about 1808 in the British army, 1888 in the German). Denser formations when employed have been formed, not by altering the order of men within the unit, but by placing several units, one closely behind the other ("doubling" and "trebling" the line of battle, as it used to be called). In the 17th century a file formed a small command under the "file leader," the whole of the front rank consisting therefore of old soldiers or non-commissioned officers. This use of the word to express a unit of command gave rise to the old-fashioned term "file firing," to imply a species of fire (equivalent to the modern "independent") in which each man in the file fired in succession after the file leader, and to-day a corporal or sergeant is still ordered to take one or more files under his charge for independent work. In the above it is to be understood that the men are facing to the front or rear. If they are turned to the right or left so that the company now stands two men broad and fifty deep, it is spoken of as being "in file." From this come such phrases as "single file" or "Indian file" (one man leading and the rest following singly behind him).[1] The use of verbs "to file" and "to defile," implying the passage from fighting to marching formation, is to be derived from this rather than from the resemblance of a marching column to a long flexible thread, for in the days when the word was first used the infantry company whether in battle or on the march was a solid rectangle of men, a file often containing even more men than a rank.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This may also be understood as meaning simply "a single file,"
but the explanation given above is more probable, as it is
essentially a marching and not a fighting formation that is expressed
by the phrase.

FILE-FISH, or TRIGGER-FISH, the names given to fishes of the genus _Balistes_ (and _Monacanthus_) inhabiting all tropical and subtropical seas. Their body is compressed and not covered with ordinary scales, but with small juxtaposed scutes. Their other principal characteristics consist in the structure of their first dorsal fin (which consists of three spines) and in their peculiar dentition. The first of the three dorsal spines is very strong, roughened in front like a file, and hollowed out behind to receive the second much smaller spine, which, besides, has a projection in front, at its base, fitting into a notch of the first. Thus these two spines can only be raised or depressed simultaneously, in such a manner that the first cannot be forced down unless the second has been previously depressed. The latter has been compared to a trigger, hence the name of Trigger-fish. Also the generic name _Balistes_ and the Italian name of "Pesce balistra" refer to this structure. Both jaws are armed with eight strong incisor-like and sometimes pointed teeth, by which these fishes are enabled, not only to break off pieces of madrepores and other corals on which they feed, but also to chisel a hole into the hard shells of Mollusca, in order to extract the soft parts. In this way they destroy an immense number of molluscs, and become most injurious to the pearl-fisheries. The gradual failure of those fisheries in Ceylon has been ascribed to this cause, although evidently other agencies must have been at work at the same time. The _Monacanthi_ are distinguished from the _Balistes_ in having only one dorsal spine and a velvety covering of the skin. Some 30 different species are known of _Balistes_ and about 50 of _Monacanthus_. Two species (_B. maculatus_ and _capriscus_), common in the Atlantic, sometimes wander to the British coasts.

FILELFO, FRANCESCO (1398-1481), Italian humanist, was born in 1398 at Tolentino, in the March of Ancona. When he appeared upon the scene of human life, Petrarch and the students of Florence had already brought the first act in the recovery of classic culture to conclusion. They had created an eager appetite for the antique, had disinterred many important Roman authors, and had freed Latin scholarship to some extent from the barbarism of the middle ages. Filelfo was destined to carry on their work in the field of Latin literature, and to be an important agent in the still unaccomplished recovery of Greek culture. His earliest studies in grammar, rhetoric and the Latin language were conducted at Padua, where he acquired so great a reputation for learning that in 1417 he was invited to teach eloquence and moral philosophy at Venice. According to the custom of that age in Italy, it now became his duty to explain the language, and to illustrate the beauties of the principal Latin authors, Cicero and Virgil being considered the chief masters of moral science and of elegant diction. Filelfo made his mark at once in Venice. He was admitted to the society of the first scholars and the most eminent nobles of that city; and in 1419 he received an appointment from the state, which enabled him to reside as secretary to the consul-general (_baylo_) of the Venetians in Constantinople. This appointment was not only honourable to Filelfo as a man of trust and general ability, but it also gave him the opportunity of acquiring the most coveted of all possessions at that moment for a scholar--a knowledge of the Greek language. Immediately after his arrival in Constantinople, Filelfo placed himself under the tuition of John Chrysoloras, whose name was already well known in Italy as relative of Manuel, the first Greek to profess the literature of his ancestors in Florence. At the recommendation of Chrysoloras he was employed in several diplomatic missions by the emperor John Palaeologus. Before very long the friendship between Filelfo and his tutor was cemented by the marriage of the former to Theodora, the daughter of John Chrysoloras. He had now acquired a thorough knowledge of the Greek language, and had formed a large collection of Greek manuscripts. There was no reason why he should not return to his native country. Accordingly, in 1427 he accepted an invitation from the republic of Venice, and set sail for Italy, intending to resume his professorial career. From this time forward until the date of his death, Filelfo's history consists of a record of the various towns in which he lectured, the masters whom he served, the books he wrote, the authors he illustrated, the friendships he contracted, and the wars he waged with rival scholars. He was a man of vast physical energy, of inexhaustible mental activity, of quick passions and violent appetites; vain, restless, greedy of gold and pleasure and fame; unable to stay quiet in one place, and perpetually engaged in quarrels with his compeers.

When Filelfo arrived at Venice with his family in 1427, he found that the city had almost been emptied by the plague, and that his scholars would be few. He therefore removed to Bologna; but here also he was met with drawbacks. The city was too much disturbed with political dissensions to attend to him; so Filelfo crossed the Apennines and settled in Florence. At Florence began one of the most brilliant and eventful periods of his life. During the week he lectured to large audiences of young and old on the principal Greek and Latin authors, and on Sundays he explained Dante to the people in the Duomo. In addition to these labours of the chair, he found time to translate portions of Aristotle, Plutarch, Xenophon and Lysias from the Greek. Nor was he dead to the claims of society. At first he seems to have lived with the Florentine scholars on tolerably good terms; but his temper was so arrogant that Cosimo de' Medici's friends were not long able to put up with him. Filelfo hereupon broke out into open and violent animosity; and when Cosimo was exiled by the Albizzi party in 1433, he urged the signoria of Florence to pronounce upon him the sentence of death. On the return of Cosimo to Florence, Filelfo's position in that city was no longer tenable. His life, he asserted, had been already once attempted by a cut-throat in the pay of the Medici; and now he readily accepted an invitation from the state of Siena. In Siena, however, he was not destined to remain more than four years. His fame as a professor had grown great in Italy, and he daily received tempting offers from princes and republics. The most alluring of these, made him by the duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, he decided on accepting; and in 1440 he was received with honour by his new master in the capital of Lombardy.

Filelfo's life at Milan curiously illustrates the multifarious importance of the scholars of that age in Italy. It was his duty to celebrate his princely patrons in panegyrics and epics, to abuse their enemies in libels and invectives, to salute them with encomiastic odes on their birthdays, and to compose poems on their favourite themes. For their courtiers he wrote epithalamial and funeral orations; ambassadors and visitors from foreign states he greeted with the rhetorical lucubrations then so much in vogue. The students of the university he taught in daily lectures, passing in review the weightiest and lightest authors of antiquity, and pouring forth a flood of miscellaneous erudition. Not satisfied with these outlets for his mental energy, Filelfo went on translating from the Greek, and prosecuted a paper warfare with his enemies in Florence. He wrote, moreover, political pamphlets on the great events of Italian history; and when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, he procured the liberation of his wife's mother by a message addressed in his own name to the sultan. In addition to a fixed stipend of some 700 golden florins yearly, he was continually in receipt of special payments for the orations and poems he produced; so that, had he been a man of frugal habits or of moderate economy, he might have amassed a considerable fortune. As it was, he spent his money as fast as he received it, living in a style of splendour ill befitting a simple scholar, and indulging his taste for pleasure in more than questionable amusements. In consequence of this prodigality, he was always poor. His letters and his poems abound in impudent demands for money from patrons, some of them couched in language of the lowest adulation, and others savouring of literary brigandage.

During the second year of his Milanese residence Filelfo lost his first wife, Theodora. He soon married again; and this time he chose for his bride a young lady of good Lombard family, called Orsina Osnaga. When she died he took in wedlock for the third time a woman of Lombard birth, Laura Magiolini. To all his three wives, in spite of numerous infidelities, he seems to have been warmly attached; and this is perhaps the best trait in a character otherwise more remarkable for arrogance and heat than for any amiable qualities.

On the death of Filippo Maria Visconti, Filelfo, after a short hesitation, transferred his allegiance to Francesco Sforza, the new duke of Milan; and in order to curry favour with this parvenu, he began his ponderous epic, the _Sforziad_, of which 12,800 lines were written, but which was never published. When Francesco Sforza died, Filelfo turned his thoughts towards Rome. He was now an old man of seventy-seven years, honoured with the friendship of princes, recognized as the most distinguished of Italian humanists, courted by pontiffs, and decorated with the laurel wreath and the order of knighthood by kings. Crossing the Apennines and passing through Florence, he reached Rome in the second week of 1475. The terrible Sixtus IV. now ruled in the Vatican; and from this pope Filelfo had received an invitation to occupy the chair of rhetoric with good emoluments. At first he was vastly pleased with the city and court of Rome; but his satisfaction ere long turned to discontent, and he gave vent to his ill-humour in a venomous satire on the pope's treasurer, Milliardo Cicala. Sixtus himself soon fell under the ban of his displeasure; and when a year had passed he left Rome never to return. Filelfo reached Milan to find that his wife had died of the plague in his absence, and was already buried. His own death followed speedily. For some time past he had been desirous of displaying his abilities and adding to his fame in Florence. Years had healed the breach between him and the Medicean family; and on the occasion of the Pazzi conspiracy against the life of Lorenzo de' Medici, he had sent violent letters of abuse to his papal patron Sixtus, denouncing his participation in a plot so dangerous to the security of Italy. Lorenzo now invited him to profess Greek at Florence, and thither Filelfo journeyed in 1481. But two weeks after his arrival he succumbed to dysentery, and was buried at the age of eighty-three in the church of the Annunziata.

Filelfo deserves commemoration among the greatest humanists of the Italian Renaissance, not for the beauty of his style, not for the elevation of his genius, not for the accuracy of his learning, but for his energy, and for his complete adaptation to the times in which he lived. His erudition was large but ill-digested; his knowledge of the ancient authors, if extensive, was superficial; his style was vulgar; he had no brilliancy of imagination, no pungency of epigram, no grandeur of rhetoric. Therefore he has left nothing to posterity which the world would not very willingly let die. But in his own days he did excellent service to learning by his untiring activity, and by the facility with which he used his stores of knowledge. It was an age of accumulation and preparation, when the world was still amassing and cataloguing the fragments rescued from the wrecks of Greece and Rome. Men had to receive the very rudiments of culture before they could appreciate its niceties. And in this work of collection and instruction Filelfo excelled, passing rapidly from place to place, stirring up the zeal for learning by the passion of his own enthusiastic temperament, and acting as a pioneer for men like Poliziano and Erasmus.

All that is worth knowing about Filelfo is contained in Carlo de' Rosmini's admirable _Vita di Filelfo_ (Milan, 1808); see also W. Roscoe's _Life of Lorenzo de' Medici_, Vespasiano's _Vite di uomini illustri_, and J.A. Symonds's _Renaissance in Italy_ (1877). (J. A. S.)

A complete edition of Filelfo's Greek letters (based on the Codex
Trevulzianus) was published for the first time, with French
translation, notes and commentaries, by E. Legrand in 1892 at Paris
(C. xii. of _Publications de l'ecole des lang. orient._). For further
references, especially to monographs, &c., on Filelfo's life and work,
see Ulysse Chevalier, _Repertoire des sources hist.,
bio-bibliographie_ (Paris, 1905), s.v. _Philelphe, Francois_.

FILEY, a seaside resort in the Buckrose parliamentary division of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, 9-1/2 m. S.E. of Scarborough by a branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3003. It stands upon the slope and summit of the cliffs above Filey Bay, which is fringed by a fine sandy beach. The northern horn of the bay is formed by Filey Brigg, a narrow and abrupt promontory, continued seaward by dangerous reefs. The coast-line sweeps hence south-eastward to the finer promontory of Flamborough Head, beyond which is the watering-place of Bridlington. The church of St Oswald at Filey is a fine cruciform building with central tower, Transitional Norman and Early English in date. There are pleasant promenades and good golf links, also a small spa which has fallen into disuse. Filey is in favour with visitors who desire a quiet resort without the accompaniment of entertainment common to the larger watering-places. Roman remains have been discovered on the cliff north of the town; the site was probably important, but nothing is certainly known about it.

FILIBUSTER, a name originally given to the buccaneers (q.v.). The term is derived most probably from the Dutch _vry buiter_, Ger. _Freibeuter_, Eng. _freebooter_, the word changing first into _fribustier_, and then into Fr. _flibustier_, Span. _filibustero_. _Flibustier_ has passed into the French language, and _filibustero_ into the Spanish language, as a general name for a pirate. The term "filibuster" was revived in America to designate those adventurers who, after the termination of the war between Mexico and the United States, organized expeditions within the United States to take part in West Indian and Central American revolutions. From this has sprung the modern use of the word to imply one who engages in private, unauthorized and irregular warfare against any state. In the United States it is colloquially applied to legislators who practise obstruction.

FILICAJA, VINCENZO DA (1642-1707), Italian poet, sprung from an ancient and noble family of Florence, was born in that city on the 30th of December 1642. From an incidental notice in one of his letters, stating the amount of house rent paid during his childhood, his parents must have been in easy circumstances, and the supposition is confirmed by the fact that he enjoyed all the advantages of a liberal education, first under the Jesuits of Florence, and then in the university of Pisa.

At Pisa his mind became stored, not only with the results of patient study in various branches of letters, but with the great historical associations linked with the former glory of the Pisan republic, and with one remarkable institution of which Pisa was the seat. To the tourist who now visits Pisa the banners and emblems of the order of St Stephen are mere matter of curiosity, but they had a serious significance two hundred years ago to the young Tuscan, who knew that these naval crusaders formed the main defence of his country and commerce against the Turkish, Algerine and Tunisian corsairs. After a five years' residence in Pisa he returned to Florence, where he married Anna, daughter of the senator and marquis Scipione Capponi, and withdrew to a small villa at Figline, not far from the city. Abjuring the thought of writing amatory poetry in consequence of the premature death of a young lady to whom he had been attached, he occupied himself chiefly with literary pursuits, above all the composition of Italian and Latin poetry. His own literary eminence, the opportunities enjoyed by him as a member of the celebrated Academy Della Crusca for making known his critical taste and classical knowledge, and the social relations within the reach of a noble Florentine so closely allied with the great house of Capponi, sufficiently explain the intimate terms on which he stood with such eminent men of letters as Magalotti, Menzini, Gori and Redi. The last-named, the author of _Bacchus in Tuscany_, was not only one of the most brilliant poets of his time, and a safe literary adviser; he was the court physician, and his court influence was employed with zeal and effect in his friend's favour. Filicaja's rural seclusion was owing even more to his straitened means than to his rural tastes. If he ceased at length to pine in obscurity, the change was owing not merely to the fact that his poetical genius, fired by the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks in 1683, poured forth the right strains at the right time, but also to the influence of Redi, who not only laid Filicaja's verses before his own sovereign, but had them transmitted with the least possible delay to the foreign princes whose noble deeds they sung. The first recompense came, however, not from those princes, but from Christina, the ex-queen of Sweden, who, from her circle of savants and courtiers at Rome, spontaneously and generously announced to Filicaja her wish to bear the expense of educating his two sons, enhancing her kindness by the delicate request that it should remain a secret.