DICKSON, SIR ALEXANDER (1777-1840), British artillerist, entered the Royal Military Academy in 1793, passing out as second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in the following year. As a subaltern he saw service in Minorca in 1798 and at Malta in 1800. As a captain he took part in the unfortunate Montevideo Expedition of 1806-07, and in 1809 he accompanied Howorth to the Peninsular War as brigade-major of the artillery. He soon obtained a command in the Portuguese artillery, and as a lieutenant-colonel of the Portuguese service took part in the various battles of 1810-11. At the two sieges of Budazoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, the Salamanca forts and Burgos, he was entrusted by Wellington (who had the highest opinion of him) with most of the detailed artillery work, and at Salamanca battle he commanded the reserve artillery. In the end he became commander of the whole of the artillery of the allied army, and though still only a substantive captain in the British service he had under his orders some 8000 men. At Vitoria, the Pyrenees battles and Toulouse he directed the movements of the artillery engaged, and at the end of the war received handsome presents from the officers who had served under him, many of whom were his seniors in the army list. He was at the disastrous affair of New Orleans, but returned to Europe in time for the Waterloo campaign. He was present at Quatre Bras and Waterloo on the artillery staff of Wellington’s army, and subsequently commanded the British battering train at the sieges of the French fortresses left behind the advancing allies. For the rest of his life he was on home service, principally as a staff officer of artillery. He died, a major-general and G.C.B., in 1840. A memorial was erected at Woolwich in 1847. Dickson was one of the earliest fellows of the Royal Geographical Society.
His diaries kept in the Peninsula were the main source of information used in Duncan’s History of the Royal Artillery.
DICKSON, SIR JAMES ROBERT (1832-1901), Australian statesman, was born in Plymouth on the 30th of November 1832. He was brought up in Glasgow, receiving his education at the high school, and became a clerk in the City of Glasgow Bank. In 1854 he emigrated to Victoria, but after some years spent in that colony and in New South Wales, he settled in 1862 in Queensland, where he was connected with many important business enterprises, among them the Royal Bank of Queensland. He entered the Queensland House of Assembly in 1872, and became minister of works (1876), treasurer (1876-1879, and 1883-1887), acting premier (1884), but resigned in 1887 on the question of taxing land. In 1889 he retired from business, and spent three years in Europe before resuming political life. He fought for the introduction of Polynesian labour on the Queensland sugar plantations at the general election of 1892, and was elected to the House of Assembly in that year and again at the elections of 1893 and 1896. He became secretary for railways in 1897, minister for home affairs in 1898, represented Queensland in the federal council of Australia in 1896 and at the postal conference at Hobart in 1898, and in 1898 became premier. His energies were now devoted to the formation of an Australian commonwealth. He secured the reference of the question to a plebiscite, the result of which justified his anticipations. He resigned the premiership in November 1899, but in the ministry of Robert Philp, formed in the next month, he was reappointed to the offices of chief secretary and vice-president of the executive council which he had combined with the office of premier. He represented Queensland in 1900 at the conference held in London to consider the question of Australian unity, and on his return was appointed minister of defence in the first government of the Australian Commonwealth. He did not long survive the accomplishment of his political aims, dying at Sydney on the 10th of January 1901, in the midst of the festivities attending the inauguration of the new state.
DICOTYLEDONS, in botany, the larger of the two great classes of angiosperms, embracing most of the common flower-bearing plants. The name expresses the most universal character of the class, the importance of which was first noticed by John Ray, namely, the presence of a pair of seed-leaves or cotyledons, in the plantlet or embryo contained in the seed. The embryo is generally surrounded by a larger or smaller amount of foodstuff (endosperm) which serves to nourish it in its development to form a seedling when the seed germinates; frequently, however, as in pea or bean and their allies, the whole of the nourishment for future use is stored up in the cotyledons themselves, which then become thick and fleshy. In germination of the seed the root of the embryo (radicle) grows out to get a holdfast for the plant; this is generally followed by the growth of the short stem immediately above the root, the so-called “hypocotyl,” which carries up the cotyledons above the ground, where they spread to the light and become the first green leaves of the plant. Protected between the cotyledons and terminating the axis of the plant is the first stem-bud (the plumule of the embryo), by the further growth and development of which the aerial portion of the plant, consisting of stem, leaves and branches, is formed, while the development of the radicle forms the root-system. The size and manner of growth of the adult plant show a great variety, from the small herb lasting for one season only, to the forest tree living for centuries. The arrangement of the conducting tissue in the stem is characteristic; a transverse section of the very young stem shows a number of distinct conducting strands—vascular bundles—arranged in a ring round the pith; these soon become united to form a closed ring of bast and wood, separated by a layer of formative tissue (cambium). In perennials the stem shows a regular increase in thickness each year by the addition of a new ring of wood outside the old one—for details of structure see [Plants]: Anatomy. A similar growth occurs in the root. This increase in the diameter of stem and root is correlated with the increase in leaf-area each season, due to the continued production of new leaf-bearing branches. A characteristic of the class is afforded by the complicated network formed by the leaf-veins,—well seen in a skeleton leaf, from which the soft parts have been removed by maceration. The parts of the flower are most frequently arranged in fives, or multiples of fives; for instance, a common arrangement is as follows,—five sepals, succeeded by five petals, ten stamens in two sets of five, and five or fewer carpels; an arrangement in fours is less frequent, while the arrangement in threes, so common in monocotyledons, is rare in dicotyledons. In some orders the parts are numerous, chiefly in the case of the stamens and the carpels, as in the buttercup and other members of the order Ranunculaceae. There is a very wide range in the general structure and arrangement of the parts of the flower, associated with the means for ensuring the transference of pollen; in the simplest cases the flower consists only of a few stamens or carpels, with no enveloping sepals or petals, as in the willow, while in the more elaborate type each series is represented, the whole forming a complicated structure closely correlated with the size, form and habits of the pollinating agent (see [Flower]). The characters of the fruit and seed and the means for ensuring the dispersal of the seeds are also very varied (see [Fruit]).
DICTATOR (from the Lat. dictare, frequentative of dicere, to speak). In modern usage this term is loosely used for a personal ruler enjoying extraordinary and extra-constitutional power. The etymological sense of one who “dictates”—i.e. one whose word (dictum) is law (from which that of one who “dictates,” i.e. speaks for some writer to record, is to be distinguished)—has been assisted by the historical use of the term, in ancient times, for an extraordinary magistrate in the Roman commonwealth. It is unknown precisely how the Roman word came into use, though an explanation of the earlier official title, magister populi, throws some light on the subject. That designation may mean “head of the (infantry) host” as opposed to his subordinate, the magister equitum, who was “head of the cavalry.” If this explanation be accepted, emphasis was thus laid in early times on the military aspect of the dictatorship, and in fact the office seems to have been instituted for the purpose of meeting a military crisis such as might have proved too serious for the annual consuls with their divided command. Later constitutional theory held that the repression of civil discord was also one of the motives for the institution of a dictatorship. Such is the view expressed by Cicero in the De legibus (iii. 3, 9) and by the emperor Claudius in his extant Oratio (i. 28). This function of the office, although it may not have been contemplated at first, is attested by the internal history of Rome. In the crisis of the agitation that gathered round the Licinian laws (367 b.c.) a dictator was appointed, and in 314 b.c. we have the notice of a dictator created for purposes of criminal jurisdiction (quaestionibus exercendis). The dictator appointed to meet the dangers of war, sedition or crime was technically described as “the administrative dictator” (rei gerundae causa). Minor, or merely formal, needs of the state might lead to the creation of other types of this office. Thus we find dictators destined to hold the elections, to make out the list of the senate, to celebrate games, to establish festivals, and to drive the nail into the temple of Jupiter—an act of natural magic which was believed to avert pestilence. These dictators appointed for minor purposes were expected to retire from office as soon as their function was completed. The “administrative dictator” held office for at least six months.