CHEATING, “the fraudulently obtaining the property of another by any deceitful practice not amounting to felony, which practice is of such a nature that it directly affects, or may directly affect, the public at large” (Stephen, Digest of Criminal Law, chap. xl. §367). Cheating is either a common law or statutory offence, and is punishable as a misdemeanour. An indictment for cheating at common law is of comparatively rare occurrence, and the statutory crime usually presents itself in the form of obtaining money by false pretences (q.v.). The word “cheat” is a variant of “escheat,” i.e. the reversion of land to a lord of the fee through the failure of blood of the tenant. The shortened form “cheater” for “escheator” is found early in the legal sense, and chetynge appears in the Promptorium Parvulorum, c. 1440, as the equivalent of confiscatio. In the 16th century “cheat” occurs in vocabularies of thieves and other slang, and in such works as the Use of Dice-Play (1532). It is frequent in Thomas Harman’s Caveat or Warening for ... Vagabones (1567), in the sense of “thing,” with a descriptive word attached, e.g. smeling chete = nose. In the tract Mihil Mumchance, his Discoverie of the Art of Cheating, doubtfully attributed to Robert Greene (1560-1592), we find that gamesters call themselves cheaters, “borrowing the term from the lawyers.” The sense development is obscure, but it would seem to be due to the extortionate or fraudulent demands made by legal “escheators.”
CHEBICHEV, PAFNUTIY LVOVICH (1821-1894), Russian mathematician, was born at Borovsk on the 26th of May 1821. He was educated at the university of Moscow, and in 1859 became professor of mathematics in the university of St Petersburg, a position from which he retired in 1880. He was chosen a correspondent of the Institute of France in 1860, and succeeded to the high honour of associé étranger in 1874. He was also a foreign member of the Royal Society of London. After N.I. Lobachevskiy he probably ranks as the most distinguished mathematician Russia has produced. In 1841 he published a valuable paper, “Sur la convergence de la serié de Taylor,” in Crelle’s Journal. His best-known papers, however, deal with prime numbers; in one of these (“Sur les nombres premiers,” 1850) he established the existence of limits within which must be comprised the sum of the logarithms of the primes inferior to a given number. Another question to which he devoted much attention was that of obtaining rectilinear motion by linkage. The parallel motion known by his name is a three-bar linkage, which gives a very close approximation to exact rectilinear motion, but in spite of all his efforts he failed to devise one that produced absolutely true rectilinear motion. At last, indeed, he came to the conclusion that to do so was impossible, and in that conviction set to work to find a rigorous proof of the impossibility. While he was engaged on this task the desired linkage, which moved the highest admiration of J.J. Sylvester, was discovered and exhibited to him by one of his pupils, named Lipkin, who, however, it was afterwards found, had been anticipated by A. Peaucellier. Chebichev further constructed an instrument for drawing large circles, and an arithmetical machine with continuous motion. His mathematical writings, which account for some forty entries in the Royal Society’s catalogue of scientific papers, cover a wide range of subjects, such as the theory of probabilities, quadratic forms, theory of integrals, gearings, the construction of geographical maps, &c. He also published a Traité de la théorie des nombres. He died at St Petersburg on the 8th of December 1894.
CHEBOYGAN, a city and the county-seat of Cheboygan county, Michigan, U.S.A., on South Channel (between Lakes Michigan and Huron), at the mouth of Cheboygan river, in the N. part of the lower peninsula. Pop. (1890) 6235; (1900) 6489, of whom 2101 were foreign-born; (1904) 6730; (1910) 6859. It is served by the Michigan Central and the Detroit & Mackinac railways, and by steamboat lines to Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Sault Ste Marie, Green Bay and other lake ports; and is connected by ferry with Mackinac and Pointe aux Pins. During a great part of the year small boats ply between Cheboygan and the head of Crooked Lake, over the “Inland Route.” Cheboygan is situated in a fertile farming region, for which it is a trade centre, and it has lumber mills, tanneries, paper mills, boiler works, and other manufacturing establishments. The water-works are owned and operated by the municipality. The city, at first called Duncan, then Inverness, and finally Cheboygan, was settled in 1846, incorporated as a village in 1871, reincorporated in 1877, and chartered as a city in 1889.
CHECHENZES, Tchetchen, or Khists (Kisti), the last being the name by which they are known to the Georgians, a people of the eastern Caucasus occupying the whole of west Daghestan. They call themselves Nakhtche, “people.” A wild, fierce people, they fought desperately against Russian aggression in the 18th century under Daûd Beg and Oman Khan and Shamyl, and in the 19th under Khazi-Mollah, and even now some are independent in the mountain districts. On the surrender of the chieftain Shamyl to Russia in 1859 numbers of them migrated into Armenia. In physique the Chechenzes resemble the Circassians, and have the same haughtiness of carriage. They are of a generous temperament, very hospitable, but quick to revenge. They are fond of fine clothes, the women wearing rich robes with wide, pink silk trousers, silver bracelets and yellow sandals. Their houses, however, are mere hovels, some dug out of the ground, others formed of boughs and stones. Before their subjection to Russia they were remarkable for their independence of spirit and love of freedom. Everybody was equal, and they had no slaves except prisoners of war. Government in each commune was by popular assembly, and the administration of justice was in the hands of the wronged. Murder and robbery with violence could be expiated only by death, unless the criminal allowed his hair to grow and the injured man consented to shave it himself and take an oath of brotherhood on the Koran. Otherwise the law of vendetta was fully carried out with curious details. The wronged man, wrapped in a white woollen shroud, and carrying a coin to serve as payment to a priest for saying the prayers for the dead, started out in search of his enemy. When the offender was found he must fight to a finish. A remarkable custom among one tribe is that if a betrothed man or woman dies on the eve of her wedding, the marriage ceremony is still performed, the dead being formally united to the living before witnesses, the father, in case it is the girl who dies, never failing to pay her dowry. The religion of the Chechenzes is Mahommedanism, mixed, however, with Christian doctrines and observances. Three churches near Kistin in honour of St George and the Virgin are visited as places of pilgrimage, and rams are there offered as sacrifices. The Chechenzes number upwards of 200,000. They speak a distinct language, of which there are said to be twenty separate dialects.
See Ernest Chanter, Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase (Lyon, 1885-1887); D.G. Brinton, Races of Man (1890); Hutchinson, Living Races of Mankind (London, 1901).