1874 by an Austrian archaeological expedition. In 1888 interesting details as to the Boeotian cult of the Cabeiri were obtained by the excavations of their temple in the neighbourhood of Thebes, conducted by the German archaeological institute. The two male deities worshipped were Cabeiros and a boy: the Cabeiros resembles Dionysus, being represented on vases as lying on a couch, his head surrounded with a garland of ivy, a drinking cup in his right hand; and accompanied by maenads and satyrs. The boy is probably his cup-bearer. The Cabeiri were held in even greater esteem by the Romans, who regarded themselves as descendants of the Trojans, whose ancestor Dardanus (himself identified in heroic legend with one of the Cabeiri) came from Samothrace. The identification of the three Capitoline deities with the Penates, and of these with the Cabeiri, tended to increase this feeling.
See C. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus (1829); F. G. Welcker, Die Aeschylische Trilogie und die Kabirenweihe zu Lemnos (1824); J. P. Rossignol, Les Métaux dans l’antiquité (1863), discussing the gods of Samothrace (the Dactyli, the Cabeiri, the Corybantes, the Curetes, and the Telchines) as workers in metal, and the religious origin of metallurgy; O. Rubensohn, Die Mysterienheiligtümer in Eleusis und Samothrake (1892); W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der Mythologie (s.v. “Megaloi Theoi”); L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie (4th ed., appendix); and the article by F. Lenormant in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités.
CABER TOSSING (Gaelic cabar, a pole or beam), a Scottish athletic exercise which consists in throwing a section of a trunk of a tree, called the “caber,” in such a manner that it shall turn over in the air and fall on the ground with its small end pointing in the direction directly opposite to the “tosser.” Tossing the caber is usually considered to be a distinctly Scottish sport, although “casting the bar,” an exercise evidently similar in character, was popular in England in the 16th century but afterwards died out. The caber is the heavy trunk of a tree from 16 to 20 ft. long. It is often brought upon the field heavier than can be thrown and then cut to suit the contestants, although sometimes cabers of different sizes are kept, each contestant taking his choice. The toss is made after a run, the caber being set up perpendicularly with the heavy end up by assistants on the spot indicated by the tosser, who sets one foot against it, grasps it with both hands, and, as soon as he feels it properly balanced, gives the word to the assistants to let go their hold. He then raises the caber and gets both hands underneath the lower end. “A practised hand, having freed the caber from the ground, and got his hands underneath the end, raises it till the lower end is nearly on a level with his elbows, then advances for several yards, gradually increasing his speed till he is sometimes at a smart run before he gives the toss. Just before doing this he allows the caber to leave his shoulder, and as the heavy top end begins to fall forward, he throws the end he has in his hands upwards with all his strength, and, if successful, after the heavy end strikes the ground the small end continues its upward motion till perpendicular, when it falls forward, and the caber lies in a straight line with the tosser” (W. M. Smith). The winner is he who tosses with the best and easiest style, according to old Highland traditions, and whose caber falls straightest in a direct line from him. In America a style called the Scottish-American prevails at Caledonian games. In this the object is distance alone, the same caber being used by all contestants and the toss being measured from the tosser’s foot to the spot where the small end strikes the ground. This style is repudiated in Scotland. Donald Dinnie, born in 1837 and still a champion in 1890, was the best tosser of modern times.
See W. M. Smith, Athletics and Athletic Sports in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1891).
CABET, ÉTIENNE (1788–1856), French communist, was born at Dijon in 1788, the son of a cooper. He chose the profession of advocate, without succeeding in it, but ere long became notable as the persevering apostle of republicanism and communism. He assisted in a secondary way in the revolution of 1830, and obtained the appointment of procureur-général in Corsica under the government of Louis Philippe; but was dismissed for his attack upon the conservatism of the government, in his Histoire de la révolution de 1830. Elected, notwithstanding, to the chamber of deputies, he was prosecuted for his bitter criticism of the government, and obliged to go into exile in England in 1834, where he became an ardent disciple of Robert Owen. On the amnesty of 1839 he returned to France, and attracted some notice by the publication of a badly written and fiercely democratic history of the Revolution of 1789 (4 vols., 1840), and of a social romance, Voyage en Icarie, in which he set forth his peculiar views. These works met with some success among the radical working-men of Paris. Like Owen, he sought to realize his ideas in practice, and, pressed as well by his friends, he made arrangements for an experiment in communism on American soil. By negotiations in England favoured by Owen, he purchased a considerable tract of land on the Red river, Texas, and drew up an elaborate scheme for the intending colony, community of property being the distinctive principle of the society. Accordingly in 1848 an expedition of 1500 “Icarians” sailed to America; but unexpected difficulties arose and the complaints of the disenchanted settlers soon reached Europe. Cabet, who had remained in France, had more than one judicial investigation to undergo in consequence, but was honourably acquitted. In 1849 he went out in person to America, but on his arrival, finding that the Mormons had been expelled from their city Nauvoo (q.v.), in Illinois, he transferred his settlement thither. There, with the exception of a journey to France, where he returned to defend himself successfully before the tribunals, he remained, the dictator of his little society. In 1856, however, he withdrew and died the same year at St Louis.
See Communism. Also Félix Bonnaud, Cabet et son œuvre, appel à tous les socialistes (Paris, 1900); J. Prudhommeaux, Icaria and its Founder, Étienne Cabet (Nîmes, 1907).
CABIN, a small, roughly built hut or shelter; the term is particularly applied to the thatched mud cottages of the negro slaves of the southern states of the United States of America, or of the poverty-stricken peasantry of Ireland or the crofter districts of Scotland. In a special sense it is used of the small rooms or compartments on board a vessel used for sleeping, eating or other accommodation. The word in its earlier English forms was cabane or caban, and thus seems to be an adaptation of the French cabane; the French have taken cabine, for the room on board a ship, from the English. In French and other Romanic languages, in which the word occurs, e.g. Spanish cabaña, Portuguese cabana, the origin is usually found in the Medieval Latin capanna. Isidore of Seville (Origines, lib. xiv. 12) says:—Tugurium (hut) parva casula est, quam faciunt sibi custodes vinearum, ad tegimen seu quasi tegurium. Hoc rustici Capannam vocant, quod unum tantum capiat (see Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. Capanna). Others derive from Greek κάπη, crib, manger. Skeat considers the English word was taken from the Welsh caban, rather than from the French, and that the original source for all the forms was Celtic.
CABINET, a word with various applications which may be traced to two principal meanings, (1) a small private chamber, and (2) an article of furniture containing compartments formed of drawers, shelves, &c. The word is a diminutive of “cabin” and therefore properly means a small hut or shelter. This meaning is now obsolete; the New English Dictionary quotes from Leonard Digges’s Stratioticos (published with additions by his son Thomas in 1579), “the Lance Knights encamp always in the field very strongly, two or three to a Cabbonet.” From the use both of the article of furniture and of a small chamber for the safe-keeping of a collection of valuable prints, pictures, medals or other objects, the word is frequently applied to such a collection or to objects fit for such safe-keeping. The name of Cabinet du Roi was given to the collection of prints prepared by the best artists of the 17th century by order of Louis XIV. These were intended to commemorate the chief events of his reign, and also to reproduce the paintings and sculptures and other art treasures contained in the royal palaces. It was begun in 1667 and was placed under the superintendence of Nicholas Clement (1647 or 1651–1712), the royal librarian. The collection was published in 1727. The plates are now in the Louvre. A “cabinet” edition
