D'ABERNON, EDGAR VINCENT, 1st Baron (1857–), English politician, was born at Slinfold, Sussex, Aug. 19 1857, the youngest son of Sir Frederick Vincent, 11th Bart., of Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. He was educated at Eton, and was intended for the diplomatic service, being in 1877 head of the examination list for the appointment of student dragoman at Constantinople. The same year, however, he entered the army, but in 1880 was appointed private secretary to Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, at that time commissioner for Eastern Rumelia. The following year he became a member of the commission for the evacuation of territory ceded to Greece by Turkey, and in 1882 was sent to Constantinople as the representative of Great Britain, Holland and Belgium on the council of the Ottoman public debt, of which in 1883 he became president. In 1883 he was sent to Cairo as financial adviser to the Egyptian Government, remaining there until 1889, when he returned to Constantinople as governor of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, a post which he resigned in 1897. In 1887 he received the K.C.M.G. Sir Edgar Vincent entered Parliament in 1899 as Conservative member for Exeter, but lost this seat in 1906. He unsuccessfully contested Colchester in 1910. In 1914 he was raised to the peerage as Baron D'Abernon, and became very prominent during the World War as chairman of the Central Liquor Control Board. In 1920 he was appointed ambassador to Germany. Lord D'Abernon published in 1881 a Grammar of Modern Greek, which was adopted for use by the university of Athens. He married in 1890 Lady Helen Venetia Duncombe, daughter of the 1st Earl of Feversham.
DAHN, JULIUS SOPHUS FELIX (1834–1912), German historian, jurist and poet (see 7.734), published his complete works of fiction, both in prose and verse, in 1903. The final volume of Die Könige der Germanen appeared in 1911. He died at Breslau Jan. 3 1912.
DAHOMEY (see 7.734). An estimate made in 1918 put the population at slightly over 900,000, of whom 65% lived in the coast and adjacent regions. Upper Dahomey, two-thirds in area of the whole colony, has no more than 12 inhabitants per sq. m., compared with 50 per sq. m. in Lower Dahomey. Porto Novo (seat of Government and chief business centre) had about 25,000 inhabitants, including some 400 Europeans. Whydah and Abomey each had a population of 12,000 odd. In all there were over 700 Europeans in Dahomey. There arc large numbers of mulattoes in the coast towns, chiefly employed as clerks.
Trade and Communications.—The French devoted much attention to the development of the natural resources of the country and in opening communications. The metre gauge railway from Kotonu (the ocean port of Porto Novo) which runs parallel to the Nigerian frontier reached Save, 162 m. inland, in 1912. Thence a metalled road (nearly 300 m. long), with substantial bridges was built to the Niger at Madekali, just W. of the British (Nigerian) frontier. Along this Route de l'Est a motor wagon service for passengers, mails and goods was opened in 1012. From Pahu, 16 m. from Kotonu, a branch line (20 m. long) runs W. to Whydah and Segborue. The line from Porto Novo to Sakete, near the Nigerian border, was in 1914 extended to Pobe (total length 47 m.). On the Togoland side there is a good metalled road connecting with the middle Niger regions. In the coast region a mail steamer service was opened in 1912 along the lagoons between Porto Novo and Lagos.
Cocoa plantations were largely developed from 1912, and the coconut palm—for the copra trade—introduced in the lagoon districts, while in central Dahomey cotton plantations met with success. Maize is largely grown for export, and there are considerable herds of cattle in the north. But palm oil remains the chief source of wealth of the country; oil palms cover about 600,000 ac. The volume of trade increased during 1905–12 from 1,075,000 to 2,530,000. The trade for 1916 was valued at 1,446,000; in 1918 at 2,332,000 (evenly distributed between imports and exports). The increase in 1918 was largely due to higher prices. Palm kernels and palm oil are the chief exports; maize, cotton, dried fish, copra, shea nuts and shea butter rank next in value. Cotton goods, gin and trade spirits are the chief imports.
Before the war Hamburg took nearly all the palm kernels; during and since the war the kernels have gone mainly to Liverpool. In 1913 Germany had 49.28% of the total trade, France 26.47, the United Kingdom 23.74; the elimination of Germany told mostly in favour of the United Kingdom. The colony is self-supporting; in 1919 the budget balanced at 237,000. Nearly half the revenue is derived from a poll tax on the natives.
History.—In 1911 the French deposed the chief, a member of the old royal family, whom they had installed at Abomey. He had been intriguing against French rule. His territory was divided among a number of petty chiefs placed under the direct control of the resident at Abomey, and the whole country became the colony of Dahomey and its dependencies. From that time little trouble was experienced in the native administration. In Sept. 1912 a Franco-German convention approved the delimitation of the Dahomey-Togoland frontier which had been made by boundary commissions. Less than two years later, on the outbreak of the World War (Aug. 1914), small columns of French troops entered Togoland and cooperated with the British in its conquest. The energetic action of M. C. Noufflard (the Lt.-Gov.) and of Commandant Mariox (senior military officer) and Capt. Costaing helped to bring the conflict to a speedy close and to keep Dahomey itself peaceful. The natives of Dahomey furnished contingents for the Cameroon campaign and for Europe.
See Dahomey (1920), a useful handbook issued by the British Foreign Office; A. Le Herisse, L'Ancien royaume du Dahomey (1911); P. Sprigade, "Die franzosische Kolonie Dahome" in Mitt. deutschen Schutzgebieten (1918); L'Afrique Française (Paris, monthly). (F. R. C.)
DAIL EIREANN: see Ireland, section Political History.
DAMROSCH, WALTER JOHANNES (1862–), American musician and conductor, was born at Breslau, Germany, Jan. 30 1862. He came to America in 1871 and ten years later began his career as conductor in Newark, N.J. In 1894 he founded the Damrosch Opera Co. for producing Wagner. In 1896 he produced, as director of the Oratorio Symphony Societies, Wagner's Parsifal in concert form for the first time in the United States. Since 1903 he has been director of the New York Symphony Orchestra. He is the composer of The Scarlet Letter (1894); Cyrano (1913); and music for Euripides's Medea, Iphigenia in Tauris (Berkeley, 1915) and Sophocles's Electro (New York, 1917). At the request of Gen. Pershing he reorganized the bands of the A.E.F. in 1918.
His brother, Frank Heino Damrosch, was born at Breslau June 22 1859. He was conductor in Denver, Newark, Bridgeport. and New York (the Oratorio Society 1898–1912). From 1905 he was director of the Institute of Musical Art.
DANCING (see 7.794). The years 1910–20 saw a remarkable revival of the love of all kinds of dancing in England and America. On the one hand the organization popularly known as the Russian Ballet has put new life into stage dancing, while on the other the Americans are responsible for a reawakening of the love of dancing in the ballroom. At the end of the 19th century the ballet in England had become a spectacular show of very little artistic significance; the standard of dancing technique was of the lowest and, except in the case of one or two dancers such as Adeline Genée, it is doubtful whether stage dancing could be called an art at all. In the ballroom, dancing had become a rather perfunctory social function, practised without any particular skill or regard for steps.
Classical Dancing.—The revolution in stage dancing was started in England by Serge Diaghilieff's company of Russian dancers, but no account of modern stage dancing would be complete without some reference to the so-called "Classical Dancing" which came into vogue at the beginning of the 20th century and had such an influence on all the stage dancing of a later date. Classical dancing was a revolt against the form and style of the stage ballet as it then existed. It was an attempt to rescue the art from the artificiality of the older ballet, and bring beauty of line and movement into prominence, instead of the technical skill of the steps alone. In addition to this, classical
