Assessed Taxes, taxes charged upon persons by means of a schedule or paper sent to each, and strictly including such taxes as the income-tax, the house-tax, local rates, &c. In Britain the so-called assessed taxes include those upon servants, carriages, dogs, armorial bearings, &c., though these are really excise licence duties.
Asses´sor, a person appointed to ascertain and fix the amount of taxes, rates, &c.; or a
person who sits along with the judges in certain courts, and assists them with his professional knowledge.
As´sets (Fr. assez, enough), property or goods available for the payment of a bankrupt or deceased person's obligations. Assets are personal or real, the former comprising all goods, chattels, &c., devolving upon the executor as saleable to discharge debts and legacies. In commerce and bankruptcy the term is often used as the antithesis of 'liabilities', to designate the stock in trade and entire property of an individual or an association.—Intangible (or fictitious) assets are those not represented by any existing value, e.g. goodwill; liquid assets are cash, investments, or other immediately available funds.
Asside´ans, Haside´ans, or Hasidim ('the pious'), one of the two great sects into which, after the Babylonish captivity, the Jews were divided with regard to the observance of the law—the Hasidim accepting it in its later developments, the Zadikim professing adherence only to the law as given by Moses. See Pharisees, Talmudists, Rabbinists.
Assien´to, the permission of the Spanish Government to a foreign nation to import negro slaves from Africa into the Spanish colonies in America, for a limited time, on payment of certain duties. It was accorded to the Netherlands about 1552, to the Genoese in 1580, and to the French Guinea Company (afterwards the Assiento Company) in 1702. In 1713 the celebrated Assiento Treaty with Britain for thirty years was concluded at Utrecht. By this contract the British obtained the right to send yearly a ship of 500 tons, with all sorts of merchandise, to the Spanish colonies. This led to frequent abuses and contraband trade; acts of violence followed, and in 1739 a war broke out between the two Powers. At the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, four years more were granted to the British; but by the Treaty of Madrid, two years later, £100,000 sterling were promised for the relinquishment of the two remaining years, and the contract was annulled.
Assignats (a˙s-ē-nya˙), the name of the national paper currency in the time of the French Revolution. Assignats to the value of 400,000,000 francs were first struck off by the Constituent Assembly, with the approbation of the king, 19th April, 1790, to be redeemed with the proceeds of the sale of the confiscated goods of the Church. On the 27th Aug. of the same year Mirabeau urged the issuing of 2,000,000,000 francs of new assignats, which caused a dispute in the Assembly. Vergasse and Dupont, who saw that the plan was an invention of Clavière for his own enrichment, particularly distinguished themselves as the opponents of the scheme. Mirabeau's exertions, however, were seconded by Péthion, and 800,000,000 francs more were issued. They were increased by degrees to 45,578,000,000, and their value rapidly declined. In the winter of 1792-3 they lost 30 per cent, and, in spite of the law to compel their acceptance at their nominal value, they continued to fall, till in the spring of 1796 they had sunk to one three hundred and forty-fourth their nominal value. This depreciation was due partly to the want of confidence in the stability of the Government, partly to the fact that the coarsely-executed and easily-counterfeited assignats were forged in great numbers. They were withdrawn by the Directory from the currency, and at length redeemed by mandats at one-thirtieth of their nominal value.
Assignee´, a person appointed by another to transact some business, or exercise some particular privilege or power. Formerly the persons appointed under a commission of bankruptcy, to manage the estate of the bankrupt on behalf of the creditors, were so called, but now they are called trustees.
Assign´ment is a transfer by deed of any property, or right, title, or interest in property, real or personal. Assignments are usually given for leases, mortgages, and funded property.
Assiniboi´a, the smallest of the four districts into which that portion of the north-western territories of Canada now forming the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta was divided in 1882. It lay on the west of Manitoba, with Saskatchewan on the north and Alberta on the west, the United States on the south. The name is now given to an electoral district of the province of Saskatchewan. The region contains much good wheat land. Regina was the capital, as it now is of the new province.