MANSFIELD, a city and the county-seat of Richland county, Ohio, U.S.A., about 65 m. S.W. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890), 13,473; (1900), 17,640, of whom 1781 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 20,768. It is served by the Pennsylvania (Pittsburg, Ft Wayne & Chicago division), the Erie, and the Baltimore & Ohio railways. It is built on an eminence (1150 ft.), and has two public parks, a substantial court-house, a soldiers’ and sailors’ memorial building, a public library, a hospital and many fine residences. It is the seat of the Ohio state reformatory. Mansfield has an extensive trade with the surrounding agricultural country, but its largest interests are in manufactures. The total factory product in 1905 was valued at $7,353,578. There are natural gas wells in the vicinity. The waterworks and the sewage disposal plant are owned and operated by the municipality. Mansfield was laid out in 1808, and was named in honour of Lieut.-Colonel Jared Mansfield (1759-1830), United States surveyor of Ohio and the North-west Territory in 1803-1812, and professor of natural and experimental philosophy at West Point from 1812 to 1828. Mansfield was incorporated as a village in 1828 and was first chartered as a city in 1857. It was the home of John Sherman from 1840 until his death.
MANSION (through O. Fr. mansion, mod. maison, from Lat. mansio, dwelling-place, stage on a journey; manere, to remain), a term applied in early English use to the principal house of the lord of a manor. By the Settled Land Act 1890, § 10, subsec. 2, repealing § 15 of the act of 1882, “the principal mansion house ... on any settled land shall not be sold or exchanged or leased by the tenant for life without the consent of the trustees of the settlement or an order of the court.” The principles guiding an English court of law for making or refusing such an order are laid down in In re the Marquess of Ailesbury’s Settled Estate (1892), 1 Ch. 506, 546; A.C. 356. In general usage, the term “mansion” is given to any large and important house in town or country; and “mansion house” to the official residence, when provided, of the mayor of a borough, particularly to that of the lord mayors of London and Dublin. From the general meaning of a conspicuously large dwelling-place comes the modern employment of the term “mansions,” in London and elsewhere, for large buildings composed of “flats.”
MANSLAUGHTER (O. Eng., mannslaeht, from mann, man, and slaeht, act of slaying, sleán, to slay, properly to smite; cf. Ger. schlagen, Schlacht, battle), a term in English law signifying “unlawful homicide without malice aforethought” (Stephen, Digest of the Criminal Law, Art. 223). The distinction between manslaughter and murder and other forms of homicide is treated under [Homicide].
MANSON, GEORGE (1850-1876), Scottish water-colour painter, was born in Edinburgh on the 3rd of December 1850. When about fifteen he was apprenticed as a woodcutter with W. & R. Chambers, with whom he remained for over five years, diligently employing all his spare time in the study and practice of art, and producing in his morning and evening hours water-colours of much delicacy and beauty. In 1871 he devoted himself exclusively to painting. His subjects were derived from humble Scottish life—especially child-life, varied occasionally by portraiture, by landscape, and by views of picturesque architecture. In 1873 he visited Normandy, Belgium and Holland; in the following year he spent several months in Sark; and in 1875 he resided at St Lô, and in Paris, where he mastered the processes of etching. Meanwhile in his water-colour work he had been adding more of breadth and power to the tenderness and richness of colour which distinguished his early pictures, and he was planning more complex and important subjects. But his health had been gradually failing, and he was ordered to Lympstone in Devonshire, where he died on the 27th of February 1876.
A volume of photographs from his water-colours and sketches, with a memoir by J. M. Gray, was published in 1880. For an account of Manson’s technical method as a wood engraver see P. G. Hamerton’s Graphic Arts, p. 311.
MANṢŪR (Arab. “victorious”), a surname (laqab) assumed by a large number of Mahommedan princes. The best known are: (1) Abū Ja’far ibn Mahommed, second caliph of the Abbasid house, who reigned A.D. 754-775 (see [Caliphate]: § C, §2); (2) Abū Tāhir Isma’il ibn al-Qāim, the third Fatimite caliph of Africa (946-953) (see [Fatimites]); (3) Abū Yūsuf Ya ‘qūb ibn Yūsuf, often described as Jacob Almanzor, of the Moorish dynasty of the Almohades, conqueror of Alfonso III. in the battle of Alarcos (1195); (4) Ibn Abī ‘Āmir Mahommed, commonly called Almanzor by European writers, of an ancient but not illustrious Arab family, which had its seat at Torrox near Algeciras. The last-named was born A.D. 939, and began life as a lawyer at Cordova. In 967 he obtained a place at the court of Ḥakam II., the Andalusian caliph, and by an unusual combination of the talents of a courtier with administrative ability rapidly rose to distinction, enjoying the powerful support of Ṣubḥ, the favourite of the caliph and mother of his heir Hishām. The death of Ḥakam (976) and the accession of a minor gave fresh scope to his genius, and in 978 he became chief minister. The weak young caliph was absorbed in exercises of piety, but at first Manṣūr had to share the power with his father-in-law Ghālib, the best general of Andalusia, and with the mother of Hishām. At last a rupture took place between the two ministers. Ghālib professed himself the champion of the caliph and called in the aid of the Christians of Leon; but Manṣūr, anticipating the struggle, had long before remodelled the army and secured its support. Ghālib fell in battle (981); a victorious campaign chastised the Leonese; and on his return to Cordova the victor assumed his regal surname of al-Manṣūr billah, and became practically sovereign of Andalusia. The caliph was a mere prisoner of state, and Manṣūr ultimately assumed the title as well as the prerogatives of king (996). Unscrupulous in the means by which he rose to power, he wielded the sovereignty nobly. His strict justice and enlightened administration were not less notable than the military prowess by which he is best known. His arms were the terror of the Christians, and raised the Moslem power in Spain to a pitch it had never before attained. In Africa his armies were for a time hard pressed by the revolt of Zīrī, viceroy of Mauretania, but before his death this enemy had also fallen. Mansūr died at Medinaceli on the 10th of August 1002, and was succeeded by his son Mozaffar.