Attilly, a village in France. See Scarpe, Battle of the.
Attleborough, a manufacturing town of the United States, in Massachusetts. Pop. 19,731.
At´tock, a town and fort in Rawal Pindi district, Punjab, overhanging the Indus at the point where it is joined by the Kabul River. It is at the head of the steam navigation of the Indus, and is connected with Lahore by railway. It is an important post on the military road to the frontier. Pop. 2822.
Attor´ney, a person appointed to do something for and in the stead and name of another. An attorney may have general powers to act for another; or his power may be special, and limited to a particular act or acts. A special attorney is appointed by a deed called a power or letter of attorney, specifying the acts which he is authorized to do. An attorney at law is a person qualified to appear for another before a court of law to prosecute or defend any action on behalf of his client. The term in England was formerly applied especially to those practising before the supreme courts of common law at Westminster, and corresponded to the term solicitor used in courts of Chancery; but this distinction was abolished in 1873, and solicitor is now the regular term for all such legal agents. In the United States the term is in common use, and is wide enough to include what in England would be called barristers (or counsel), in Scotland advocates, having indeed the general sense of lawyer. In America women are admitted as attorneys.
Attorney-General, in England and Ireland, the first law-officer and legal adviser of the Crown, acting on its behalf in its revenue and criminal proceedings, carrying on prosecutions in crimes that have a public character, guarding the interests of charitable endowments, and granting patents. He is ex officio the leader of the bar, and, as a member of Parliament, has charge of all Government measures on legal questions. The Solicitor-General holds a similar position, and may act in his place. In Scotland the Attorney-General is called Lord-Advocate. There are also Attorneys-General in the colonies. In the United States he is head of the Department of Justice. The individual States have also an Attorney-General.
Attrac´tion, the tendency of all material bodies, whether masses or particles, to approach each other, to unite, and to remain united. Newton was the first to adopt the theory of a universal attractive force, and to determine its laws. When bodies tend to come together from sensible distances the tendency is termed either the attraction of gravitation, magnetism, or electricity, according to circumstances; when the attraction operates at insensible distances it is known as adhesion with respect to surfaces, as cohesion with respect to the particles of a body, and as affinity when the particles of different bodies tend together. It is by the attraction of gravitation that all bodies fall to the earth when unsupported.—Bibliography: Newton, Principia; Thomson and Tait, Natural Philosophy; Laplace, Mécanique Céleste; Poynting, The Mean Density of the Earth.
Attrek. See Atrek.
At´tribute, in philosophy, a quality or property of a substance, as whiteness or hardness. A substance is known to us only as a congeries of attributes.
In the fine arts an attribute is a symbol regularly accompanying and marking out some personage. Thus the caduceus, purse, winged hat, and sandals are attributes of Mercury, the trampled dragon that of St. George.
Attwood, George, F.R.S., an English mathematician, born 1746, died 1807, best known by his invention, called after him Attwood's Machine, for verifying the laws of falling bodies. It consists essentially of a freely-moving pulley over which runs a fine cord with two equal weights suspended from the ends. A small additional weight is laid upon one of them, causing it to descend with uniform acceleration. Means are provided by which the added weight can be removed at any point of the descent, thus