This patch was created originally for the  benefit  of  "abiword".  It
prevented an "abiword" run-time abort related  to  the  assertion that
appears below.

--- cairo-1.14.6.old/src/cairo.c
+++ cairo-1.14.6/src/cairo.c
@@ -302,7 +302,7 @@
     if (cr == NULL || CAIRO_REFERENCE_COUNT_IS_INVALID (&cr->ref_count))
 	return;
 
-    assert (CAIRO_REFERENCE_COUNT_HAS_REFERENCE (&cr->ref_count));
+    if (!CAIRO_REFERENCE_COUNT_HAS_REFERENCE (&cr->ref_count)) return;
 
     if (! _cairo_reference_count_dec_and_test (&cr->ref_count))
 	return;