AGDE—AGE. 
  
  
hundred years. After flowering, the plant always 
dies down to the ground, but the root continuing to 
live, sends up new shoots. The best known species 
is A. Americana, which was first brought from South 
America to Europe in 1561, and being easily propa- 
gated by suckers, is employed for fences in Italian 
Switzerland, and has become naturalised in Naples, 
Sicily, and the north of Africa. By maceration of 
the leaves, which are 5 to 7 feet long, are obtained 
coarse fibres, which are used in America, under the 
     
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American Aloe. 
name of maguey, for the manufacture of thread, 
twine, ropes, hammocks, &c. This fibre is also 
known as Pita Flax. It is now produced to some 
extent in the south of Europe. It is not very strong 
nor durable, and if exposed to moisture, it soon 
decays. The ancient Mexicans employed it for the 
preparation of a coarse kind of paper, and the 
Indians use it for oakum. The leaves, cut into 
slices, are used for feeding cattle—Another species, 
A. Mexicana, is particularly deseribed by Humboldt 
upon account of its utility. When the innermost 
leaves have been torn out, a juice continues to flow 
for a year or a year and a half, which, by inspissation, 
yields sugar ; and which, when diluted with water, 
and subjected to four or five days’ fermentation, 
becomes an agreeable but intoxicating drink, called 
pulque, to which the Mexican Indians not unfre- 
quently sacrifice both fortune and life, It is made 
likewise from A. Americana, and from several other 
species.—The roots of 4. saponaria are used in 
Mexico for washing, being a powerful detergent, and 
forming a lather with salt water as well as with 
fresh. The juice of the leaves, made into cakes, is 
used for the same purpose. 
AGDE, an ancient French town in the department 
of Herault, founded by the Greeks, and situated 
about a league from the Mediterranean Sea, on the 
left bank of a navigable stream. To thenorth, under 
the walls of the town, flows the Languedoc Canal. 
The mouth of the stream forms a harbour, which 
is entered by 400 vessels yearly. The coast-trade 
74 
  
  
of A., in particular, is very brisk, while it is also 
the entrepot for the traffic of the south and west 
of France. It has, besides, considerable intercourse 
with Italy, Spain, and Africa. It carries on a large 
and prosperous trade in wine, oil, salt, corn, timber, 
wool, silk, and cloth ; but the general aspect of the 
place is sombre and forbidding, on account of the 
black basalt of which the houses are built, whence it 
has popularly received the name of the Black Town. 
It possesses a Naval Academy, and is noted in history 
as the place at which Alaric, king of the Goths, con- 
vened a council. Pop., 9000. 
AGE. The legal divisions of human life, being 
sometimes arbitrary, and sometimes founded on 
nature, differ considerably in different countries. In 
England, the whole period previous to twenty-one 
years of A. is usually spoken of as infancy, a term 
which has a totally different signification in those 
countries that have followed the civil law. Bub 
notwithstanding this general division, which is 
common to both sexes, the ages of male and female 
are different for different purposes. ‘A male, ab 
twelve years old, may take the oath of allegiance ; 
at fourteen, is at years of discretion, and therefore 
may consent or disagree to marriage, may choose his 
guardian, may be an executor, although he cannot 
act until of age; and at twenty-one, is at his own 
disposal, and may alien and devise his lands, goods, 
and chattels. A female, also, at seven years of age, 
may be betrothed or given in marriage; at fourteen, 
is at years of legal discretion, and may choose a 
guardian; at seventeen, may be an executrix; and 
at twenty-one, may dispose of herself and her lands. 
So that full A. in male or female is twenty-one 
years, which A. is completed on the day preceding 
the anniversary of a person’s birth, who, till that 
time, is an infant, and so styled in law.’—(Kerr's 
Blackstone, vol. i. p. 493.) 
By the law of Scotland, again, life is divided into 
three periods—pupilarity, minority, and majority. 
The first extends from birth to the age of legal 
puberty, which is fourteen in males and twelve 
in females, at which ages they may respectively 
marry ; the second embraces the period from 
the termination of pupilarity till the attainment 
of majority, which takes place at the age of 
twenty-one in both sexes; and the third includes 
the whole of after-life. The term Minority, how- 
ever, is often applied to the whole period anterior 
to majority, and is thus equivalent to infancy 
or nonage in England. Infancy in Scotland can 
scarcely be said to possess a technical meaning; but 
when used at all, it is always in the sense of the 
Roman infantia, to indicate the period from birth 
till seven years of age, during which a child, 
unless in very unusual circumstances, is intrusted 
to the care of the mother. The office of tufory cor- 
responds in duration to pupilarity, that of curatory 
to minority. See Turor, CURATOR. By the Roman 
law, an approach to majority was held to modify 
the character of minority, and so of the other periods ; 
but this rule has not been followed by the law of 
Scotland ; and a youth who wants but a day of 
twenty-one, is as much incapacitated as if he were 
fifteen. In France, the marriageable A. is eighteen 
in males, and fifteen in females (Code Civile, 
art. 144), an arrangement which seems more reason- 
able than that which we have borrowed from the 
Romans, and which, however suitable it may have 
been to the climate of Italy, could never have been 
free from inconveniences in this country. Twenty- 
one is generally the age at which men are eligible for 
public offices; and at this age they may elect, and be 
elected members of parliament. But a man must be 
twenty-four before he can be admitted to priests’ 
orders, and thirty before he can be a bishop. In 
  
  
  
   
     
  
   
   
   
  
   
  
  
   
   
   
   
   
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
   
   
   
  
   
   
    
   
  
   
  
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
    
    
   
   
    
   
    
   
    
    
   
   
   
   
   
     
   
    
   
   
    
   
   
   
  
   
   
  
  
  
   
   
    
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