[1] About 200 species of these have been described, and perhaps 150
may really exist.
[2] The earliest published description seems to be that of Gesner in
1555 (_Orn._ p. 234), but he had not seen the bird, an account of
which was communicated to him by Raphael Seiler of Augsburg, under
the name of _Suckeruogele_.
[3] See also _The Canary Book_, by Robert L. Wallace; _Canaries and
Cage Birds_, by W.A. Blackston; and Darwin's _Animals and Plants
under Domestication_, vol. i. p. 295. An excellent monograph on the
wild bird is that by Dr Carl Bolle (_Journ. fur Orn._, 1858, pp.
125-151).
[4] This fanciful trivial name was given by Linnaeus on the
supposition (which later observations do not entirely confirm) that
in Sweden the hens of the species migrated southward in autumn,
leaving the cocks to lead a celibate life till spring. It is certain,
however, that in some localities the sexes live apart during the
winter.
[5] This call-note, which to many ears sounds like "pink" or "spink,"
not only gives the bird a name in many parts of Britain, but is also
obviously the origin of the German _Fink_ and the English _Finch_.
The similar Celtic form _Pinc_ is said to have given rise to the Low
Latin _Pincio_, and thence come the Italian _Pincione_, the Spanish
_Pinzon_, and the French _Pinson_.
[6] This is especially the ease with _F. teydea_ of the Canary
Islands, which from its dark colouring and large size forms a kind of
parallel to the Azorean _Pyrrhula murina_.
FINCHLEY, an urban district in the Hornsey parliamentary division of
Middlesex, England, 7 m. N.W. of St Paul's cathedral, London, on a
branch of the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1891) 16,647; (1901) 22,126.
A part, adjoining Highgate on the north, lies at an elevation between
300 and 400 ft., while a portion in the Church End district lies lower,
in the valley of the Dollis Brook. The pleasant, healthy situation has
caused Finchley to become a populous residential district. Finchley
Common was formerly one of the most notorious resorts of highwaymen near
London; the Great North Road crossed it, and it was a haunt of Dick
Turpin and Jack Sheppard, and was still dangerous to cross at night at
the close of the 18th century. Sheppard was captured in this
neighbourhood in 1724. The Common has not been preserved from the
builder. In 1660 George Monk, marching on London immediately before the
Restoration, made his camp on the Common, and in 1745 a regular and
volunteer force encamped here, prepared to resist the Pretender, who was
at Derby. The gathering of this force inspired Hogarth's famous picture,
the "March of the Guards to Finchley."
FINCK, FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON (1718-1766), Prussian soldier, was born at
Strelitz in 1718. He first saw active service in 1734 on the Rhine, as a
member of the suite of Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. Soon
after this he transferred to the Austrian service, and thence went to
Russia, where he served until the fall of his patron Marshal Munnich put
an end to his prospects of advancement. In 1742 he went to Berlin, and
Frederick the Great made him his aide-de-camp, with the rank of major.
Good service brought him rapid promotion in the Seven Years' War. After
the battle of Kolin (June 18th, 1757) he was made colonel, and at the
end of 1757 major-general. At the beginning of 1759 Finck became
lieutenant-general, and in this rank commanded a corps at the disastrous
battle of Kunersdorf, where he did good service both on the field of
battle and (Frederick having in despair handed over to him the command)
in the rallying of the beaten Prussians. Later in the year he fought in
concert with General Wunsch a widespread combat, called the action of
Korbitz (Sept. 21st) in which the Austrians and the contingents of the
minor states of the Empire were sharply defeated. For this action
Frederick gave Finck the Black Eagle (Seyfarth, _Beilagen_, ii.
621-630). But the subsequent catastrophe of Maxen (see SEVEN YEARS' WAR)
abruptly put an end to Finck's active career. Dangerously exposed, and
with inadequate forces, Finck received the king's positive order to
march upon Maxen (a village in the Pirna region of Saxony).
Unfortunately for himself the general dared not disobey his master, and,
cut off by greatly superior numbers, was forced to surrender with some
11,000 men (21st Nov. 1759). After the peace, Frederick sent him before
a court-martial, which sentenced him to be cashiered and to suffer a
term of imprisonment in a fortress. At the expiry of this term Finck
entered the Danish service as general of infantry. He died at Copenhagen
in 1766.
He left a work called _Gedanken uber militarische Gegenstande_
(Berlin, 1788). See _Denkwurdigkeiten der militarischen Gesellschaft_,
vol. ii. (Berlin, 1802-1805), and the report of the Finck
court-martial in _Zeitschrift fur Kunst, Wissenschaft und Geschichte
des Krieges_, pt. 81 (Berlin, 1851). There is a life of Finck in MS.
in the library of the Great General Staff.
FINCK, HEINRICH (d. c. 1519), German musical composer, was probably born
at Bamberg, but nothing is certainly known either of the place or date
of his birth. Between 1492 and 1506 he was a musician in, and later
possibly conductor of the court orchestra of successive kings of Poland
at Warsaw. He held the post of conductor at Stuttgart from 1510 till
about 1519, in which year he probably died. His works, mostly part songs
and other vocal compositions, show great musical knowledge, and amongst
the early masters of the German school he holds a high position. They
are found scattered amongst ancient and modern collections of songs and
other musical pieces (see R. Eitner, _Bibl. der Musiksammelwerke des 16.
und 17. Jahrh._, Berlin, 1877). The library of Zwickau possesses a work
containing a collection of fifty-five songs by Finck, printed about the
middle of the 16th century.
FINCK, HERMANN (1527-1558), German composer, the great-nephew of
Heinrich Finck, was born on the 21st of March 1527 in Pirna, and died at
Wittenberg on the 28th of December 1558. After 1553 he lived at
Wittenberg, where he was organist, and there, in 1555, was published his
collection of "wedding songs." Few details of his life have been
preserved. His theoretical writing was good, particularly his
observations on the art of singing and of making ornamentations in song.
His most celebrated work is entitled _Practica musica, exempla variorum
signorum, proportionum, et canonum, judicium de tonis ac quaedam de arte
suaviter et artificiose cantandi continens_ (Wittenberg, 1556). It is of
great historic value, but very rare.
FINDEN, WILLIAM (1787-1852), English line engraver, was born in 1787. He
served his apprenticeship to one James Mitan, but appears to have owed
far more to the influence of James Heath, whose works he privately and
earnestly studied. His first employment on his own account was engraving
illustrations for books, and among the most noteworthy of these early
plates were Smirke's illustrations to Don Quixote. His neat style and
smooth finish made his pictures very attractive and popular, and
although he executed several large plates, his chief work throughout his
life was book illustration. His younger brother, Edward Finden, worked
in conjunction with him, and so much demand arose for their productions
that ultimately a company of assistants was engaged, and plates were
produced in increasing numbers, their quality as works of art declining
as their quantity rose. The largest plate executed by William Finden was
the portrait of King George IV. seated on a sofa, after the painting by
Sir Thomas Lawrence. For this work he received two thousand guineas, a
sum larger than had ever before been paid for an engraved portrait.
Finden's next and happiest works on a large scale were the "Highlander's
Return" and the "Village Festival," after Wilkie. Later in life he
undertook, in co-operation with his brother, aided by their numerous
staff, the publication as well as the production of various galleries of
engravings. The first of these, a series of landscape and portrait
illustrations to the life and works of Byron, appeared in 1833 and
following years, and was very successful. But by his _Gallery of British
Art_ (in fifteen parts, 1838-1840), the most costly and best of these
ventures, he lost the fruits of all his former success. Finden's last
undertaking was an engraving on a large scale of Hilton's "Crucifixion."
The plate was bought by the Art Union for L1470. He died in London on
the 20th of September 1852.
FINDLATER, ANDREW (1810-1885), Scottish editor, was born in 1810 near
Aberdour, Aberdeenshire, the son of a small farmer. By hard study in the
evening, after his day's work on the farm was finished, he qualified
himself for entrance at Aberdeen University, and after graduating as
M.A. he attended the Divinity classes with the idea of entering the
ministry. In 1853 he began that connexion with the firm of W. & R.
Chambers which gave direction to his subsequent activity. His first
engagement was the editing of a revised edition of their _Information
for the People_ (1857). In this capacity he gave evidence of qualities
and acquirements that marked him as a suitable editor for _Chambers's
Encyclopaedia_, then projected, and his was the directing mind that gave
it its character. Many of the more important articles were written by
him. This work occupied him till 1868, and he afterwards edited a
revised edition (1874). He also had charge of other publications for the
same firm, and wrote regularly for the _Scotsman_. In 1864 he was made
LL.D. of Aberdeen University. In 1877 he gave up active work for
Chambers, but his services were retained as consulting editor. He died
in Edinburgh on the 1st of January 1885.
FINDLAY, SIR GEORGE (1829-1893), English railway manager, was of pure
Scottish descent, and was born at Rainhill, in Lancashire, on the 18th
of May 1829. For some time he attended Halifax grammar school, but left
at the age of fourteen, and began to learn practical masonry on the
Halifax railway, upon which his father was then employed. Two years
later he obtained a situation on the Trent Valley railway works, and
when that line was finished in 1847 went up to London. There he was for
a short time among the men employed in building locomotive sheds for the
London & North-Western railway at Camden Town, and years afterwards,
when he had become general manager of that railway, he was able to point
out stones which he had dressed with his own hands. For the next two or
three years he was engaged in a higher capacity as supervisor of the
mining and brickwork of the Harecastle tunnel on the North Staffordshire
line, and of the Walton tunnel on the Birkenhead, Lancashire & Cheshire
Junction railway. In 1850 the charge of the construction of a section of
the Shrewsbury & Hereford line was entrusted to him, and when the line
was opened for traffic T. Brassey, the contractor, having determined to
work it himself, installed him as manager. In the course of his duties
he was brought for the first time into official relations with the
London & North-Western railway, which had undertaken to work the
Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford line, and he ultimately passed into the
service of that company, when in 1862, jointly with the Great Western,
it leased the railway of which he was manager. In 1864 he was moved to
Euston as general goods manager, in 1872 he became chief traffic
manager, and in 1880 he was appointed full general manager; this last
post he retained until his death, which occurred on the 26th of March
1893 at Edgware, Middlesex. He was knighted in 1892. Sir George Findlay
was the author of a book on the _Working and Management of an English
Railway_ (London, 1889), which contains a great deal of information,
some of it not easily accessible to the general public, as to English
railway practice about the year 1890.
FINDLAY, JOHN RITCHIE (1824-1898), Scottish newspaper owner and
philanthropist, was born at Arbroath on the 21st of October 1824, and
was educated at Edinburgh University. He entered first the publishing
office and then the editorial department of the _Scotsman_, became a
partner in the paper in 1868, and in 1870 inherited the greater part of
the property from his great uncle, John Ritchie, the founder. The large
increase in the influence and circulation of the paper was in a great
measure due to his activity and direction, and it brought him a fortune,
which he spent during his lifetime in public benefaction. He presented
to the nation the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, opened in
Edinburgh in 1889, and costing over L70,000; and he contributed largely
to the collections of the Scottish National Gallery. He held numerous
offices in antiquarian, educational and charitable societies, showing
his keen interest in these matters, but he avoided political office and
refused the offer of a baronetcy. The freedom of Edinburgh was given him
in 1896. He died at Aberlour, Banffshire, on the 16th of October 1898.
FINDLAY, a city and the county-seat of Hancock county, Ohio, U.S.A., on
Blanchard's Fork of the Auglaize river, about 42 m. S. by W. of Toledo.
Pop. (1890) 18,553; (1900) 17,613, (1051 foreign-born); (1910) 14,858.
It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the
Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Ohio
Central railways, and by three interurban electric railways. Findlay
lies about 780 ft. above sea-level on gently rolling ground. The city is
the seat of Findlay College (co-educational), an institution of the
Church of God, chartered in 1882 and opened in 1886; it has collegiate,
preparatory, normal, commercial and theological departments, a school of
expression, and a conservatory of music, and in 1907 had 588 students,
the majority of whom were in the conservatory of music. Findlay is the
centre of the Ohio natural gas and oil region, and lime and building
stone abound in the vicinity. Among manufactures are refined petroleum,
flour and grist-mill products, glass, boilers, bricks, tile, pottery,
bridges, ditching machines, carriages and furniture. The total value of
the factory product in 1905 was $2,925,309, an increase of 73.6% since
1900. The municipality owns and operates the water-works. Findlay was
laid out as a town in 1821, was incorporated as a village in 1838, and
was chartered as a city in 1890. The city was named in honour of Colonel
James Findlay (c. 1775-1835), who built a fort here during the war of
1812; he served in this war under General William Hull, and from 1825 to
1833 was a Democratic representative in Congress.
FINE, a word which in all its senses goes back to the Lat. _finire_, to
bring to an end (_finis_). Thus in the common adjectival meanings of
elegant, thin, subtle, excellent, reduced in size, &c., it is in origin
equivalent to "finished." In the various substantival meanings in law,
with which this article deals, the common idea underlying them is an end
or final settlement of a matter.
A fine, in the ordinary sense, is a pecuniary penalty inflicted for the
less serious offences. Fines are necessarily discretionary as to amount;
but a maximum is generally fixed when the penalty is imposed by statute.
And it is an old constitutional maxim that fines must not be
unreasonable. In Magna Carta, c. 111, it is ordained "_Liber homo non
amercietur pro parvo delicto nisi secundum modum ipsius delicti, et pro
magno delicto secundum magnitudinem delicti._"
The term is also applied to payments made to the lord of a manor on the
alienation of land held according to the custom of the manor, to
payments made by a lessee on a renewal of a lease, and to other similar
payments.
Fine also denotes a fictitious suit at law, which played the part of a
conveyance of landed property. "A fine," says Blackstone, "may be
described to be an amicable composition or agreement of a suit, either
actual or fictitious, by leave of the king or his justices, whereby the
lands in question become or are acknowledged to be the right of one of
the parties. In its original it was founded on an actual suit commenced
at law for the recovery of the possession of land or other
hereditaments; and the possession thus gained by such composition was
found to be so sure and effectual that fictitious actions were and
continue to be every day commenced for the sake of obtaining the same
security." Freehold estates could thus be transferred from one person to
another without the formal delivery of possession which was generally
necessary to a feoffment. This is one of the oldest devices of the law.
A statute of 18 Edward I. describes it as the most solemn and
satisfactory of securities, and gives a reason for its name--"Qui quidem
finis sic vocatur, eo quod finis et consummatio omnium placitorum esse
debet, et hac de causa providebatur." The action was supposed to be
founded on a breach of covenant: the defendant, owning himself in the
wrong,[1] makes overtures of compromise, which are authorized by the
_licentia concordandi_; then followed the concord, or the compromise
itself. These, then were the essential parts of the performance, which
became efficient as soon as they were complete; the formal parts were
the _notes_, or abstract of the proceedings, and the _foot_ of the fine,
which recited the final agreement. Fines were said to be of four kinds,
according to the purpose they had in view, as, for instance, to convey
lands in pursuance of a covenant, to grant revisionary interest only,
&c. In addition to the formal record of the proceedings, various
statutes required other solemnities to be observed, the great object of
which was to give publicity to the transaction. Thus by statutes of
Richard III. and Henry VII. the fine had to be openly read and
proclaimed in court no less than sixteen times. A statute of Elizabeth
required a list of fines to be exposed in the court of common pleas and
at assizes. The reason for these formalities was the high and important
nature of the conveyance, which, according to the act of Edward I. above
mentioned, "precludes not only those which are parties and privies to
the fine and their heirs, but all other persons in the world who are of
full age, out of prison, of sound memory, and within the four seas, the
day of the fine levied, unless they put in their claim on the foot of
the fine within a year and a day." This barring by _non-claim_ was
abolished in the reign of Edward III., but restored with an extension of
the time to five years in the reign of Henry VII. The effect of this
statute, intentional according to Blackstone, unintended and brought
about by judicial construction according to others, was that a
tenant-in-tail could bar his issue by a fine. A statute of Henry VIII.
expressly declares this to be the law. Fines, along with the kindred
fiction of recoveries, were abolished by the Fines and Recoveries Act
1833, which substituted a deed enrolled in the court of chancery.
Fines are so generally associated in legal phraseology with recoveries
that it may not be inconvenient to describe the latter in the present
place. A recovery was employed as a means for evading the strict law of
entail. The purchaser or alienee brought an action against the
tenant-in-tail, alleging that he had no legal title to the land. The
tenant-in-tail brought a third person into court, declaring that he had
warranted his title, and praying that he might be ordered to defend the
action. This person was called the _vouchee_, and he, after having
appeared to defend the action, takes himself out of the way. Judgment
for the lands is given in favour of the plaintiff; and judgment to
recover lands of equal value from the vouchee was given to the
defendant, the tenant-in-tail. In real action, such lands when recovered
would have fallen under the settlement of entail; but in the fictitious
recovery the vouchee was a man of straw, and nothing was really
recovered from him, while the lands of the tenant-in-tail were
effectually conveyed to the successful plaintiff. A recovery differed
from a fine, as to _form_, in being an action carried through to the
end, while a fine was settled by compromise, and as to effect, by
barring all reversions and remainders in estates tail, while a fine
barred the issue only of the tenant. (See also EJECTMENT; PROCLAMATION.)