also characteristic of the Pliocene of India and Burma (H. sivalensis and H. iravadicus), and of Algeria, Egypt and southern Europe (H. hipponensis).
For the ancestral genera of the hippopotamus line, see Artiodactyla. (R. L.*)
HIPPURIC ACID (Gr. ἵππος, horse, οὖρον, urine), benzoyl
glycocoll or benzoyl amidoacetic acid, C9H9NO3 or
C6H5CO·NH·CH2·CO2H, an organic acid found in the urine of
horses and other herbivorae. It is excreted when many aromatic
compounds, such as benzoic acid and toluene, are taken internally.
J. v. Liebig in 1829 showed that it differed from benzoic
acid, and in 1839 determined its constitution, while in 1853
V. Dessaignes (Ann. 87, p. 325) synthesized it by acting with
benzoyl chloride on zinc glycocollide. It is also formed by
heating benzoic anhydride with glycocoll (Th. Curtius, Ber., 1884,
17, p. 1662), and by heating benzamide with monochloracetic
acid. It crystallizes in rhombic prisms which are readily soluble
in hot water, melt at 187° C. and decompose at about 240° C. It
is readily hydrolysed by hot caustic alkalis to benzoic acid and
glycocoll. Nitrous acid converts it into benzoyl glycollic acid,
C6H5CO·O·CH2·CO2H. Its ethyl ester reacts with hydrazine to
form hippuryl hydrazine, C6H5CO·NH·CH2·CO·NH·NH2, which
was used by Curtius for the preparation of azoimide (q.v.).
HIPURNIAS, a tribe of South American Indians, 2000 or 3000
in number, living on the river Purus, western Brazil. Their
houses are long, low and narrow: the side walls and roof are one,
poles being fixed in the ground and then bent together so as to
meet and form a pointed arch for the cross-sections. They use
small bark canoes. Their chief weapons are poisoned arrows.
They have a native god called Guintiniri.
HIRA, the capital of an Arabian kingdom, founded in the 2nd
century A.D., on the western edge of Irak, was situated at 32°
N., 44° 20′ E., about 4 m. S.E. of modern Nejef, by the Sa’ade
canal, on the shore of the Bahr Nejef or Assyrium Stagnum.
Its kings governed the western shore of the lower Euphrates and
of the Persian Gulf, their kingdom extending inland to the confines
of the Nejd. This Lakhmid kingdom was more or less
dependent, during the four centuries of its existence, on the
Sassanian empire, to which it formed a sort of buffer state
towards Arabia. After the battle of Kadesiya and the founding
of Kufa by the Arabs, Hira lost its importance and fell into
decay. The ruin mounds covering the ancient site, while extensive,
are insignificant in appearance and give no indications
of the existence of important buildings.
HIRADO, an island belonging to Japan, 1912 m. long and 6 m.
wide, lying off the west coast of the province of Hizen, Kiushiu,
in 33° 15′ N. and 129° 25′ E. It is celebrated as the site of the
original Dutch factory—often erroneously written Firando—and
as the place where one of the finest blue-and-white porcelains
of Japan (Hiradoyaki) was produced in the 17th and 18th
centuries. The kilns are still active.
HIRE-PURCHASE AGREEMENT, in the law of contract, a
form of bailment of goods, on credit, which has extended very
considerably of late years. Originally applied to the sale of
the more expensive kinds of goods, such as pianos and articles
of furniture, the hire-purchase agreement has now been extended
to almost every description. The agreement is usually in writing,
with a stipulation that the payments to purchase shall be by
weekly, monthly or other instalments. The agreement is virtually
one to purchase, but in order that the vendor may be able to
recover the goods at any time on non-payment of an instalment,
it is treated as an agreement to let and hire, with a provision
that when the last instalment has been paid the goods shall
become the property of the hirer. A clause provides that in
case of default of any instalment, or breach of any part of the
agreement, all previous payments shall be forfeited to the lender,
who can forcibly recover the goods. Such agreements, therefore,
do not pass the property in the goods, which remains in the
lender until all the instalments have been paid. But the terms
of the agreement may sometimes purposely obscure the nature
of the transaction between the parties, where, for example, the
hire-purchase is merely to create a security for money. In such
a case a judge will look to the true nature of the transaction.
If it is not a real letting and hiring, the agreement will require
registration under the Bills of Sale Acts. If the agreement
contains words to the effect that a person has “bought or agreed
to buy” goods, the transaction comes under the Factors Act
1889, and the person in possession of the goods may dispose
of them and give a good title. The doctrine of reputed ownership,
by which a bankrupt is deemed the reputed owner of goods in
his apparent possession, has been somewhat modified by trade
customs, in accordance with which property is frequently let
out on the hire-purchase system (see Bankruptcy).
HIRING (from O. Eng. hýrian, a word common to many Teutonic
languages cf. Ger. heuern, Dutch huren, &c.), in law, a contract
by which one man grants the use of a thing to another in return
for a certain price. It corresponds to the locatio-conductio of
Roman law. That contract was either a letting of a thing
(locatio-conductio rei) or of labour (locatio operarum). The
distinguishing feature of the contract was the price. Thus the
contracts of mutuum, commodatum, depositum and mandatum,
which are all gratuitous contracts, become, if a price is fixed,
cases of locatio-conductio. In modern English law the term can
scarcely be said to be used in a strictly technical sense. The
contracts which the Roman law grouped together under the
head of locatio-conductio—such as those of landlord and tenant,
master and servant, &c.—are not in English law treated as cases
of hiring but as independent varieties of contract. Neither
in law books nor in ordinary discourse could a tenant farmer
be said to hire his land. Hiring would generally be applied to
contracts in which the services of a man or the use of a thing
are engaged for a short time.
Hiring Fairs, or Statute Fairs, still held in Wales and some parts of England, were formerly an annual fixture in every important country town. These fairs served to bring together masters and servants. The men and maids seeking work stood in rows, the males together and the females together, while masters and mistresses walked down the lines and selected those who suited them. Originally these hiring-fairs were always held on Martinmas Day (11th of November). Now they are held on different dates in different towns, usually in October or November. In Cumberland the men seeking work stood with straws in their mouths. In Lincolnshire the bargain between employer and employed was closed by the giving of the “fasten-penny,” the earnest money, usually a shilling, which “fastened” the contract for a twelvemonth. Some few days after the Statute Fair it was customary to hold a second called a Mop Fair or Runaway Mop. “Mop” (from Lat. mappa, napkin, or small cloth) meant in Old English a tuft or tassel, and the fair was so called, it is suggested, in allusion to tufts or badges worn by those seeking employment. Thus the carter wore whipcord on his hat, the cowherd a tuft of cow’s hair, and so on. Another possible explanation would be to take the word “mop” in its old provincial slang sense of “a fool,” mop fair being the fools’ fair, a sort of last chance offered to those who were too dull or slovenly-looking to be hired at the statute fair. Perhaps “runaway” suggests the idea of those absent through drunkenness, or those who simply feared to face the ordeal of the larger hiring and so ran away.
HIROSAKI, a town of Japan in the province of Michmoku
or Rikuchiu, north Nippon, 22 m. S.W. of Aomori by rail. Pop.
about 37,000. The fine isolated cone of Iwakisan, a mountain
of pilgrimage, rises to the west. Hirosaki is a very old place,
formerly residence of a great daimio (or daimyo) and capital of
a vast principality, and still the seat of a high court with jurisdiction
over the surrounding districts of Aomori and Akita.
Like most places in north Nippon, it is built with continuous
verandas extending from house to house, and affording a
promenade completely sheltered from the snows of winter.
Apples of fine flavour grow in the district, which also enjoys
some reputation for its peculiar green lacquer-ware.
HIROSHIGE (1797–1858), Japanese artist, was one of the
principal members of that branch of the Ukiyo-ye or Popular
School of Painting in Japan, a school which chiefly made
