| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 2 - "Camorra" to "Cape Colony"
Author: Various
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 2 - "Camorra" to "Cape Colony"" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
Article CANAAN, CANAANITES: "If (Egyptian) troops come this year,
lands and princes will remain to the king, my lord; but if troops
come not, these lands and princes will not remain to the king, my
lord." quotes added after 'lord'.
Article CANTATA: "... though at the same time not excludeing the
possibility of a brilliant climax in the shape of a light order of
fugue." 'excludeing' amended from 'exclude ing'.
Article CAPE COLONY: "In the western part of the colony the winter
is the rainy season, in the eastern part the chief rains come in
summer." 'in' amended from 'is'.
Article CAPE COLONY: "Agriculture and Allied Industries."
'Industries' amended from 'Industires'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME V, SLICE II
Camorra to Cape Colony
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
CAMORRA CANDYTUFT
CAMP CANE
CAMPAGNA DI ROMA CANEA
CAMPAIGN CANE-FENCING
CAMPAN, JEANNE LOUISE HENRIETTE CANEPHORAE
CAMPANELLA, TOMMASO CANES VENATICI
CAMPANIA CANGA-ARGUELLES, JOSÉ
CAMPANI-ALIMENIS, MATTEO CANGAS DE ONÍS
CAMPANILE CANGAS DE TINÉO
CAMPANULA CANGUE
CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER CANINA, LUIGI
CAMPBELL, BEATRICE STELLA CANINI, GIOVANNI AGNOLO
CAMPBELL, GEORGE CANIS MAJOR
CAMPBELL, JOHN CANITZ, FRIEDRICH RUDOLF LUDWIG
CAMPBELL, JOHN CAMPBELL CAÑIZARES, JOSÉ DE
CAMPBELL, JOHN FRANCIS CANNAE
CAMPBELL, JOHN McLEOD CANNANORE
CAMPBELL, LEWIS CANNES
CAMPBELL, REGINALD JOHN CANNIBALISM
CAMPBELL, THOMAS CANNING, CHARLES JOHN
CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, SIR HENRY CANNING, GEORGE
CAMPBELTOWN CANNIZZARO, STANISLAO
CAMPE, JOACHIM HEINRICH CANNOCK
CAMPECHE (state of Mexico) CANNON
CAMPECHE (city of Mexico) CANNON-BALL TREE
CAMPEGGIO, LORENZO CANNSTATT
CAMPER, PETER CANO, ALONZO
CAMPHAUSEN, OTTO VON CANO, MELCHIOR
CAMPHAUSEN, WILHELM CANOE
CAMPHORS CANON
CAMPHUYSEN, DIRK RAFELSZ CANONESS
CAMPI, GIULIO CANONIZATION
CAMPILLO, JOSÉ DEL CANON LAW
CAMPINAS CANOPUS
CAMPING OUT CANOPY
CAMPION, EDMUND CANOSA
CAMPION, THOMAS CANOSSA
CAMPISTRON, JEAN GALBERT DE CANOVA, ANTONIO
CAMPOAMOR Y CAMPOOSORIO, RAMON DE CANOVAS DEL CASTILLO, ANTONIO
CAMPOBASSO CANROBERT, FRANÇOIS CERTAIN
CAMPODEA CANT, ANDREW
CAMPOMANES, PEDRO RODRIGUEZ CANT
CAMPOS, ARSENIO MARTINEZ DE CANTABRI
CAMPOS CANTABRIAN MOUNTAINS
CÂMPULUNG CANTACUZINO
CAMUCCINI, VINCENZO CANTAGALLO
CAMULODUNUM CANTAL
CAMUS, ARMAND GASTON CANTARINI, SIMONE
CAMUS, CHARLES ÉTIENNE LOUIS CANTATA
CAMUS, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH DES CANTEEN
CAMUS DE MÉZIÈRES, NICOLAS LE CANTEMIR
CANA CANTERBURY, CHARLES MANNERS-SUTTON
CANAAN, CANAANITES CANTERBURY
CANACHUS CANTHARIDES
CANADA CANTICLES
CANAL CANTILEVER
CANAL DOVER CANTILUPE, THOMAS DE
CANALE ANTONIO CANTILUPE, WALTER DE
CANALIS CANTO
CANANDAIGUA CANTON, JOHN
CANARD CANTON (city of China)
CANARY CANTON (Illinois, U.S.A.)
CANARY ISLANDS CANTON (New York, U.S.A.)
CANCALE CANTON (Ohio, U.S.A.)
CANCEL CANTON (country division)
CANCELLI CANTONMENT
CANCER, LUIS CANTÙ, CESARE
CANCER (astronomy) CANUSIUM
CANCER (disease) CANUTE
CANCRIN, FRANZ LUDWIG VON CANUTE VI.
CANDELABRUM CANVAS
CANDIA CANVASS
CANDIDATE CANYNGES, WILLIAM
CANDLE CANYON
CANDLEMAS CANZONE
CANDLESTICK CAPE BRETON
CANDLISH, ROBERT SMITH CAPE COAST
CANDOLLE, AUGUSTIN PYRAME DE CAPE COLONY
CANDON
CAMORRA, a secret society of Naples associated with robbery, blackmail
and murder. The origin of the name is doubtful. Probably both the word
and the association were introduced into Naples by Spaniards. There is a
Spanish word _camorra_ (a quarrel), and similar societies seem to have
existed in Spain long before the appearance of the Camorra in Naples. It
was in 1820 that the society first became publicly known. It was
primarily social, not political, and originated in the Neapolitan
prisons then filled with the victims of Bourbon misrule and oppression,
its first purpose being the protection of prisoners. In or about 1830
the Camorra was carried into the city by prisoners who had served their
terms. The members worked the streets in gangs. They had special methods
of communicating with each other. They mewed like cats at the approach
of the patrol, and crowed like cocks when a likely victim approached. A
long sigh gave warning that the latter was not alone, a sneeze meant he
was not "worth powder and shot," and so on. The society rapidly extended
its power, and its operations included smuggling and blackmail of all
kinds in addition to ordinary road-robberies. Its influence grew to be
considerable. Princes were in league with and shared the profits of the
smugglers: statesmen and dignitaries of the church, all classes in fact,
were involved in the society's misdeeds. From brothels the Camorra drew
huge fees, and it maintained illegal lottery offices. The general
disorder of Naples was so great and the police so badly organized that
merchants were glad to engage the Camorra to superintend the loading and
unloading of merchandise. Being non-political, the government did not
interfere with the society; indeed its members were taken into the
police service and the Camorra sometimes detected crimes which baffled
the authorities. After 1848 the society became political. In 1860, when
the constitution was granted by Francis II., the _camorristi_ then in
gaol were liberated in great numbers. The association became
all-powerful at elections, and general disorder reigned till 1862.
Thereafter severe repressive measures were taken to curtail its power.
In September 1877 there was a determined effort to exterminate it:
fifty-seven of the most notorious camorristi being simultaneously
arrested in the market-place. Though much of its power has gone, the
Camorra has remained vigorous. It has grown upwards, and highly-placed
and well-known camorristi have entered municipal administrations and
political life. In 1900 revelations as to the Camorra's power were made
in the course of a libel suit, and these led to the dissolution of the
Naples municipality and the appointment of a royal commissioner. A
government inquiry also took place. As the result of this investigation
the Honest Government League was formed, which succeeded in 1901 in
entirely defeating the Camorra candidates at the municipal elections.
The Camorra was divided into classes. There were the "swell mobsmen,"
the camorristi who dressed faultlessly and mixed with and levied fines
on people of highest rank. Most of these were well connected. There were
the lower order of blackmailers who preyed on shopkeepers, boatmen, &c.;
and there were political and murdering camorristi. The ranks of the
society were largely recruited from the prisons. A youth had to serve
for one year an apprenticeship so to speak to a fully admitted
camorrista when he was sometimes called _picciotto d' honore_, and after
giving proof of courage and zeal became a _picciotto di sgarro_, one,
that is, of the lowest grade of members. In some localities he was then
called _tamurro_. The initiatory ceremony for full membership is now a
mock duel in which the arm alone is wounded. In early times initiation
was more severe. The camorristi stood round a coin laid on the ground,
and at a signal all stooped to thrust at it with their knives while the
novice had at the same time to pick the coin up, with the result that
his hand was generally pierced through in several places. The noviciate
as _picciotto di sgarro_ lasted three years, during which the lad had to
work for the camorrista who had been assigned to him as master. After
initiation there was a ceremony of reception. The camorristi stood round
a table on which were a dagger, a loaded pistol, a glass of water or
wine supposed to be poisoned and a lancet. The _picciotto_ was brought
in and one of his veins opened. Dipping his hand in his own blood, he
held it out to the camorristi and swore to keep the society's secrets
and obey orders. Then he had to stick the dagger into the table, cock
the pistol, and hold the glass to his mouth to show his readiness to die
for the society. His master now bade him kneel before the dagger, placed
his right hand on the lad's head while with the left he fired off the
pistol into the air and smashed the poison-glass. He then drew the
dagger from the table and presented it to the new comrade and embraced
him, as did all the others. The Camorra was divided into centres, each
under a chief. There were twelve at Naples. The society seems at one
time to have always had a supreme chief. The last known was Aniello
Ansiello, who finally disappeared and was never arrested. The chief of
every centre was elected by the members of it. All the earnings of the
centre were paid to and then distributed by him. The camorristi employ a
whole vocabulary of cant terms. Their chief is _masto_ or _si masto_,
"sir master." When a member meets him he salutes with the phrase _Masto,
volite niente?_ ("Master, do you want anything?"). The members are
addressed simply as _si_.
See Monnier, _La Camorra_ (Florence, 1863); Umilta, _Camorra et Mafia_
(Neuchâtel, 1878); Alongi, _La Camorra_ (1890); C.W. Heckethorn
_Secret Societies of All Ages_ (London, 1897); Blasio, _Usi e costumi
dei Camorriste_ (Naples, 1897).
CAMP (from Lat. _campus_, field), a term used more particularly in a
military sense, but also generally for a temporarily organized place of
food and shelter in open country, as opposed to ordinary housing (see
CAMPING-OUT). The shelter of troops in the field has always been of the
greatest importance to their well-being, and from the earliest times
tents and other temporary shelters have been employed as much as
possible when it is not feasible or advisable to quarter the troops in
barracks or in houses. The applied sense of the word "camp" as a
military post of any kind comes from the practice which prevailed in the
Roman army of fortifying every encampment. In modern warfare the word is
used in two ways. In the wider sense, "camp" is opposed to "billets,"
"cantonments" or "quarters," in which the troops are scattered amongst
the houses of towns or villages for food and shelter. In a purely
military camp the soldiers live and sleep in an area of open ground
allotted for their sole use. They are thus kept in a state of
concentration and readiness for immediate action, and are under better
disciplinary control than when in quarters, but they suffer more from
the weather and from the want of comfort and warmth. In the restricted
sense "camp" implies tents for all ranks, and is thus opposed to
"bivouac," in which the only shelter is that afforded by improvised
screens, &c., or at most small _tentes d'abri_ carried in sections by
the men themselves. The weight of large regulation tents and the
consequent increase in the number of horses and vehicles in the
transport service are, however, disadvantages so grave that the
employment of canvas camps in European warfare is almost a thing of the
past. If the military situation permits, all troops are put into
quarters, only the outpost troops bivouacking. This course was pursued
by the German field armies in 1870-1871, even during the winter
campaign.
Circumstances may of course require occasionally a whole army to
bivouac, but in theatres of war in which quarters are not to be depended
upon, tents must be provided, for no troops can endure many successive
nights in bivouac, except in summer, without serious detriment to their
efficiency. In a war on the Russo-German frontier, for instance,
especially if operations were carried out in the autumn and winter,
tents would be absolutely essential at whatever cost of transport. In
this connexion it may be said that a good railway system obviates many
of the disadvantages attending the use of tents. For training purposes
in peace time, _standing camps_ are formed. These may be considered
simply as temporary barracks. An _entrenched camp_ is an area of ground
occupied by, or suitable for, the camps of large bodies of troops, and
protected by fortifications.
_Ancient Camps._--English writers use "camp" as a generic term for any
remains of ancient military posts, irrespective of their special age,
size, purpose, &c. Thus they include under it various dissimilar things.
We may distinguish (1) Roman "camps" (_castra_) of three kinds, large
permanent fortresses, small permanent forts (both usually built of
stone) and temporary earthen encampments (see ROMAN ARMY); (2)
Pre-Roman; and (3) Post-Roman camps, such as occur on many English
hilltops. We know far too little to be able to assign these to their
special periods. Often we can say no more than that the "camp" is not
Roman. But we know that enclosures fortified with earthen walls were
thrown up as early as the Bronze Age and probably earlier still, and
that they continued to be built down to Norman times. These consisted of
hilltops or cliff-promontories or other suitable positions fortified
with one or more lines of earthen ramparts with ditches, often attaining
huge size. But the idea of an artificial elevation seems to have come in
first with the Normans. Their _mottes_ or earthen mounds crowned with
wooden palisades or stone towers and surrounded by an enclosure on the
flat constituted a new element in fortification and greatly aided the
conquest of England. (See CASTLE.)
CAMPAGNA DI ROMA, the low country surrounding the city of Rome, bounded
on the N.W. by the hills surrounding the lake of Bracciano, on the N.E.
by the Sabine mountains, on the S.E. by the Alban hills, and on the S.W.
by the sea. (See LATIUM, and ROME (province).)
CAMPAIGN, a military term for the continuous operations of an army
during a war or part of a war. The name refers to the time when armies
went into quarters during the winter and literally "took the field" at
the opening of summer. The word is also used figuratively, especially in
politics, of any continuous operations aimed at a definite object, as
the "Plan of Campaign" in Ireland during 1886-1887. The word is derived
from the Latin _Campania_, the plain lying south-west of the Tiber, c.f.
Italian, _la Campagna di Roma_, from which came two French forms: (1)
_Champagne_, the name given to the level province of that name, and
hence the English "champaign," a level tract of country free from woods
and hills; and (2) _Campagne_, and the English "campaign" with the
restricted military meaning.
CAMPAN, JEANNE LOUISE HENRIETTE (1752-1822), French educator, the
companion of Marie Antoinette, was born at Paris in 1752. Her father,
whose name was Genest, was first clerk in the foreign office, and,
although without fortune, placed her in the most cultivated society. At
the age of fifteen she could speak English and Italian, and had gained
so high a reputation for her accomplishments as to be appointed reader
to the three daughters of Louis XV. At court she was a general
favourite, and when she bestowed her hand upon M. Campan, son of the
Secretary of the royal cabinet, the king gave her an annuity of 5000
_livres_ as dowry. She was soon afterwards appointed first lady of the
bedchamber by Marie Antoinette; and she continued to be her faithful
attendant till she was forcibly separated from her at the sacking of the
Tuileries on the 20th of June 1792. Madame Campan survived the dangers
of the Terror, but after the 9th Thermidor finding herself almost
penniless, and being thrown on her own resources by the illness of her
husband, she bravely determined to support herself by establishing a
school at St Germain. The institution prospered, and was patronized by
Hortense de Beauharnais, whose influence led to the appointment of
Madame Campan as superintendent of the academy founded by Napoleon at
Écouen for the education of the daughters and sisters of members of the
Legion of Honour. This post she held till it was abolished at the
restoration of the Bourbons, when she retired to Mantes, where she spent
the rest of her life amid the kind attentions of affectionate friends,
but saddened by the loss of her only son, and by the calumnies
circulated on account of her connexion with the Bonapartes. She died in
1822, leaving valuable _Mémoires sur la vie privée de Marie Antoinette,
suivis de souvenirs et anecdotes historiques sur les règnes de Louis
XIV.-XV._ (Paris, 1823); a treatise _De l'Éducation des Femmes_; and one
or two small didactic works, written in a clear and natural style. The
most noteworthy thing in her educational system, and that which
especially recommended it to Napoleon, was the place given to domestic
economy in the education of girls. At Écouen the pupils underwent a
complete training in all branches of housework.
See Jules Flammermont, _Les Mémoires de Madame de Campan_ (Paris,
1886), and histories of the time.
CAMPANELLA, TOMMASO (1568-1639), Italian Renaissance philosopher, was
born at Stilo in Calabria. Before he was thirteen years of age he had
mastered nearly all the Latin authors presented to him. In his fifteenth
year he entered the order of the Dominicans, attracted partly by reading
the lives of Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, partly by his love of
learning. He took a course in philosophy in the convent at Morgentia in
Abruzzo, and in theology at Cosenza. Discontented with this narrow
course of study, he happened to read the _De Rerum Natura_ of Bernardino
Telesio, and was delighted with its freedom of speech and its appeal to
nature rather than to authority. His first work in philosophy (he was
already the author of numerous poems) was a defence of Telesio,
_Philosophia sensibus demonstrata_ (1591). His attacks upon established
authority having brought him into disfavour with the clergy, he left
Naples, where he had been residing, and proceeded to Rome. For seven
years he led an unsettled life, attracting attention everywhere by his
talents and the boldness of his teaching. Yet he was strictly orthodox,
and was an uncompromising advocate of the pope's temporal power. He
returned to Stilo in 1598. In the following year he was committed to
prison because he had joined those who desired to free Naples from
Spanish tyranny. His friend Naudée, however, declares that the
expressions used by Campanella were wrongly interpreted as
revolutionary. He remained for twenty-seven years in prison. Yet his
spirit was unbroken; he composed sonnets, and prepared a series of
works, forming a complete system of philosophy. During the latter years
of his confinement he was kept in the castle of Sant' Elmo, and allowed
considerable liberty. Though, even then, his guilt seems to have been
regarded as doubtful, he was looked upon as dangerous, and it was
thought better to restrain him. At last, in 1626, he was nominally set
at liberty; for some three years he was detained in the chambers of the
Inquisition, but in 1629 he was free. He was well treated at Rome by the
pope, but on the outbreak of a new conspiracy headed by his pupil,
Tommaso Pignatelli, he was persuaded to go to Paris (1634), where he was
received with marked favour by Cardinal Richelieu. The last few years of
his life he spent in preparing a complete edition of his works; but only
the first volume appears to have been published. He died on the 21st of
May 1639.
In philosophy, Campanella was, like Giordano Bruno (q.v.), a follower of
Nicolas of Cusa and Telesio. He stands, therefore, in the uncertain
half-light which preceded the dawn of modern philosophy. The sterility
of scholastic Aristotelianism, as he understood it, drove him to the
study of man and nature, though he was never entirely free from the
medieval spirit. Devoutly accepting the authority of Faith in the region
of theology, he considered philosophy as based on perception. The prime
fact in philosophy was to him, as to Augustine and Descartes, the
certainty of individual consciousness. To this consciousness he assigned
a threefold content, power, will and knowledge. It is of the present
only, of things not as they are, but merely as they seem. The fact that
it contains the idea of God is the one, and a sufficient, proof of the
divine existence, since the idea of the Infinite must be derived from
the Infinite. God is therefore a unity, possessing, in the perfect
degree, those attributes of power, will and knowledge which humanity
possesses only in part. Furthermore, since community of action
presupposes homogeneity, it follows that the world and all its parts
have a spiritual nature. The emotions of love and hate are in
everything. The more remote from God, the greater the degree of
imperfection (i.e. _Not-being_) in things. Of imperfect things, the
highest are angels and human beings, who by virtue of the possession of
reason are akin to the Divine and superior to the lower creation. Next
comes the mathematical world of space, then the corporeal world, and
finally the empirical world with its limitations of space and time. The
impulse of self-preservation in nature is the lowest form of religion;
above this comes animal religion; and finally rational religion, the
perfection of which consists in perfect knowledge, pure volition and
love, and is union with God. Religion is, therefore, not political in
origin; it is an inherent part of existence. The church is superior to
the state, and, therefore, all temporal government should be in
subjection to the pope as the representative of God.
In natural philosophy Campanella, closely following Telesio, advocates
the experimental method and lays down heat and cold as the fundamental
principles by the strife of which all life is explained. In political
philosophy (the _Civitas Solis_) he sketches an ideal communism,
obviously derived from the Platonic, based on community of wives and
property with state-control of population and universal military
training. In every detail of life the citizen is to be under authority,
and the authority of the administrators is to be based on the degree of
knowledge possessed by each. The state is, therefore, an artificial
organism for the promotion of individual and collective good. In
contrast to More's _Utopia_, the work is cold and abstract, and lacking
in practical detail. On the view taken as to his alleged complicity in
the conspiracy of 1599 depends the vexed question as to whether this
system was a philosophic dream, or a serious attempt to sketch a
constitution for Naples in the event of her becoming a free city. The
_De Monarchia Hispanica_ contains an able account of contemporary
politics especially Spanish.
Thus Campanella, though neither an original nor a systematic thinker, is
among the precursors, on the one hand, of modern empirical science, and
on the other of Descartes and Spinoza. Yet his fondness for the
antithesis of Being and Not-being (_Ens_ and _Non-ens_) shows that he
had not shaken off the spirit of scholastic thought.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For his works see Quétif-Echard, appendix to E.S.
Cypriano, _Vita Campanellae_ (Amsterdam, 1705 and 1722); Al.
d'Ancona's edition, with introduction (Turin, 1854). The most
important are _De sensu rerum_ (1620); _Realis philosophiae
epilogisticae partes IV._ (with _Civitas Solis_) (1623); _Atheismus
triumphatus_ (1631); _Philos. rationalis_ (1637); _Philos. universalis
seu metaph._ (1637); _De Monarchia Hispanica_ (1640). For his life,
see Cypriano (above); M. Baldachini, _Vita e filos. di Tommaso
Campanella_ (Naples, 1840-1853, 1847-1857); Dom. Berti, _Lettere
inedite di T. Campanella e catalogo dei suoi scritti_ (1878); and
_Nuovi documenti di T.C._ (1881); and especially L. Amabile, _Fra T.
Campanella_ (3 vols., Naples, 1882). For his philosophy H. Ritter,
_History of Philos._; M. Carrière, _Philos. Weltanschauung d.
Reformationszeit_, pp. 542-608; C. Dareste, _Th. Morus et Campanella_
(Paris, 1843); Chr. Sigwart, _Kleine Schriften_, i. 125 seq.; and
histories of philosophy. For his political philosophy, A. Calenda,
_Fra Tommaso Campanella e la sua dottrina sociale e politica di fronte
al socialismo moderno_ (Nocera Inferiore, 1895). His poems, first
published by Tobias Adami (1622), were rediscovered and printed again
(1834) by J.G. Orelli; the sonnets were rendered into English verse by
J.A. Symonds (1878). For a full bibliography see _Dict. de théol.
cath._, col. 1446 (1904).
CAMPANIA, a territorial division of Italy. The modern district (II.
below) is of much greater extent than that known by the name in ancient
times.
I. _Campani_ was the name used by the Romans to denote the inhabitants
first of the town of Capua and the district subject to it, and then
after its destruction in the Hannibalic war (211 B.C.), to describe the
inhabitants of the Campanian plain generally. The name, however, is
pre-Roman and appears with Oscan terminations on coins of the early 4th
(or late 5th) century B.C. (R.S. Conway, _Italic Dialects_, p. 143),
which were certainly struck for or by the Samnite conquerors of
Campania, whom the name properly denotes, a branch of the great
Sabelline stock (see SABINI); but in what precise spot the coins were
minted is uncertain. We know from Strabo (v. 4. 8.) and others that the
Samnites deprived the Etruscans of the mastery of Campania in the last
quarter of the 5th century; their earliest recorded appearance being at
the conquest of their chief town Capua, probably in 438 B.C. (or 445,
according to the method adopted in interpreting Diodorus xii. 31; on
this see under CUMAE), or 424 according to Livy (iv. 37). Cumae was
taken by them in 428 or 421, Nola about the same time, and the Samnite
language they spoke, henceforward known as Oscan, spread over all
Campania except the Greek cities, though small communities of Etruscans
remained here and there for at least another century (Conway, op. cit.
p. 94). The hardy warriors from the mountains took over not merely the
wealth of the Etruscans, but many of their customs; the haughtiness and
luxury of the men of Capua was proverbial at Rome. This town became the
ally of Rome in 338 B.C. (Livy viii. 14) and received the _civitas sine
suffragio_, the highest status that could be granted to a community
which did not speak Latin. By the end of the 4th century Campania was
completely Roman politically. Certain towns with their territories
(Neapolis, Nola, Abella, Nuceria) were nominally independent in alliance
with Rome. These towns were faithful to Rome throughout the Hannibalic
war. But Capua and the towns dependent on it revolted (Livy
xxiii.-xxvi.); after its capture in 211 Capua was utterly destroyed, and
the jealousy and dread with which Rome had long regarded it were both
finally appeased (cf. Cicero. _Leg. Agrar._ ii. 88). We have between
thirty and forty Oscan inscriptions (besides some coins) dating,
probably, from both the 4th and the 3rd centuries (Conway, _Italic
Dialects_, pp. 100-137 and 148), of which most belong to the curious
cult described under JOVILAE, while two or three are curses written on
lead; see OSCA LINGUA.
See further Conway, op. cit. p. 99 ff.; J. Beloch, _Campanien_ (2nd
ed.), c. "Capua"; Th. Mommsen, _C.I.L._ x. p. 365. (R. S. C.)
The name Campania was first formed by Greek authors, from Campani (see
above), and did not come into common use until the middle of the 1st
century A.D. Polybius and Diodorus avoid it entirely. Varro and Livy use
it sparingly, preferring _Campanus ager_. Polybius (2nd century B.C.)
uses the phrase [Greek: ta pedia ta kata Kapuen] to express the district
bounded on the north by the mountains of the Aurunci, on the east by the
Apennines of Samnium, on the south by the spur of these mountains which
ends in the peninsula of Sorrento, and on the south and west by the sea,
and this is what Campania meant to Pliny and Ptolemy. But the
geographers of the time of Augustus (in whose division of Italy
Campania, with Latium, formed the first region) carried the north
boundary of Campania as far south as Sinuessa, and even the river
Volturnus, while farther inland the modern village of San Pietro in Fine
preserves the memory of the north-east boundary which ran between
Venafrum and Casinum. On the east the valley of the Volturnus and the
foot-hills of the Apennines as far as Abellinum formed the boundary;
this town is sometimes reckoned as belonging to Campania, sometimes to
Samnium. The south boundary remained unchanged. From the time of
Diocletian onwards the name Campania was extended much farther north,
and included the whole of Latium. This district was governed by a
_corrector_, who about A.D. 333 received the title of _consularis_. It
is for this reason that the district round Rome still bears the name of
Campagna di Roma, being no doubt popularly connected with Ital. _campo_,
Lat. _campus_. This district (to take its earlier extent), consisting
mainly of a very fertile plain with hills on the north, east and south,
and the sea on the south and west, is traversed by two great rivers, the
Liris and Volturnus, divided by the Mons Massicus, which comes right
down to the sea at Sinuessa. The plain at the mouth of the former is
comparatively small, while that traversed by the Volturnus is the main
plain of Campania. Both of these rivers rise in the central Apennines,
and only smaller streams, such as the Sarnus, Sebethus, Savo, belong
entirely to Campania.
The road system of Campania was extremely well developed and touched all
the important towns. The main lines are followed (though less
completely) by the modern railways. The most important road centre of
Campania was Capua, at the east edge of the plain. At Casilinum, 3 m. to
the north-west, was the only bridge over the Volturnus until the
construction of the Via Domitiana; and here met the Via Appia, passing
through Minturnae, Sinuessa and Pons Campanus (where it crossed the
Savo) and the Via Latina which ran through Teanum Sidicinum and Cales.
At Calatia, 6 m. south-east of Capua, the Via Appia began to turn east
and to approach the mountains on its way to Beneventum, while the Via
Popillia went straight on to Nola (whence a road ran to Abella and
Abellinum) and thence to Nuceria Alfaterna and the south, terminating
at Regium. From Capua itself a road ran north to Vicus Dianae, Caiatia
and Telesia, while to the south the so-called Via Campana (there is up
ancient warrant for the name) led to Puteoli, with a branch to Cumae,
Baiae and Misenum; there was also connexion between Cumae, Puteoli and
Neapolis (see below), and another road to Atella and Neapolis. Neapolis
could also be reached by a branch from the Via Popillia at Suessula,
which passed through Acerrae. From Suessula, too, there was a short cut
to the Via Appia before it actually entered the mountains. Dornitian
further improved the communications of this district with Rome, by the
construction of the Via Domitiana, which diverged from the Via Appia at
Sinuessa, and followed the low sandy coast; it crossed the river
Volturnus at Volturnum, near its mouth, by a bridge, which must have
been a considerable undertaking, and then ran, still along the shore,
past Liternum to Cumae and thence to Puteoli. Here it fell into the
existing roads to Neapolis, the older Via Antiniana over the hills, at
the back, and the newer, dating from the time of Agrippa, through the
tunnel of Pausilypon and along the coast. The mileage in both cases was
reckoned from Puteoli. Beyond Naples a road led along the coast through
Herculaneum to Pompeii, where there was a branch for Stabiae and
Surrentum, and thence to Nuceria, where it joined the Via Popillia. From
Nuceria, which was an important road centre, a direct road ran to
Stabiae, while from Salernum, 11 m. farther south-east but outside the
limits of Campania proper, a road ran due north to Abellinum and thence
to Aeclanum or Beneventum. Teanum was another important centre: it lay
at the point where the Via Latina was crossed at right angles by a road
leaving the Via Appia at Minturnae, and passing through Suessa Aurunca,
while east of Teanum it ran on to Allifae, and there fell into the road
from Venafrum to Telesia. Five miles north of Teanum a road branched off
to Venafrum from the straight course of the Via Latina, and rejoined it
near Ad Flexum (San Pietro in Fine). It is, indeed, probable that the
original road made the detour by Venafrum, in order to give a direct
communication between Rome and the interior of Samnium (inasmuch as
roads ran from Venafrum to Aesernia and to Telesia by way of Allifae),
and Th. Mommsen (_Corp. Inscrip. Lat._ x., Berlin, 1883, p. 699) denies
the antiquity of the short cut through Rufrae (San Felice a Ruvo),
though it is shown in Kiepert's map at the end of the volume, with a
milestone numbered 93 upon it. This is no doubt an error bofh in placing
and in numbering, and refers to one numbered 96 found on the road to
Venafrum; but it is still difficult to believe that the short cut was
not used in ancient times. The 4th and 3rd century coins of Telesia,
Allifae and Aesernia are all of the Campanian type.
Of the harbours of Campania, Puteoli was by far the most important from
the commercial point of view. Its period of greatest comparative
importance was the 2nd-1st century B.C. The harbours constructed by
Augustus by connecting the Lacus Avernus and Lacus Lucrinus with the
sea, and that at Misenum (the latter the station of one of the chief
divisions of the Roman navy, the other fleet being stationed at
Ravenna), were mainly naval. Naples also had a considerable trade, but
was less important than Puteoli.
The fertility of the Campanian plain was famous in ancient as in modern
times;[1] the best portion was the Campi Laborini or Leborini (called
Phlegraei by the Greeks and Terra di Lavoro in modern times, though the
name has now extended to the whole province of Caserta) between the
roads from Capua to Puteoli and Cumae (Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ xviii. III).
The loose black volcanic earth (_terra pulla_) was easier to work than
the stiffer Roman soil, and gave three or four crops a year. The spelt,
wheat and millet are especially mentioned, as also fruit and vegetables;
and the roses supplied the perfume factories of Capua. The wines of the
Mons Massicus and of the Ager Falernus (the flat ground to the east and
south-east of it) were the most sought after, though other districts
also produced good wine; but the olive was better suited to the slopes
than to the plain, though that of Venafrum was good.
The Oscan language remained in use in the south of Campania (Pompeii,
Nola, Nuceria) at all events until the Social War, but at some date soon
after that Latin became general, except in Neapolis, where Greek was the
official language during the whole of the imperial period.
See J. Beloch, _Campanien_ (2nd ed., Breslau, 1890); Conway, _Italic
Dialects_, pp. 51-57; Ch. Hulsen in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyklopadie_,
iii. (Stuttgart, 1899), 1434.
II. Campania in the modern sense includes a considerably larger area
than the ancient name, inasmuch as to the _compartimento_ of Campania
belong the five provinces of Caserta, Benevento, Naples, Avellino and
Salerno.
It is bounded on the north by the provinces of Rome, Aquila (Abruzzi)
and Campobasso (Molise), on the north-east by that of Foggia (Apulia),
on the east by that of Potenza (Basilicata) and on the south and west by
the Tyrrhenian Sea. The area is 6289 sq. m. It thus includes the whole
of the ancient Campania, a considerable portion of Samnium (with a part
of the main chain of the Apennines) and of Lucania, and some of _Latium
adjectum_, consisting thus of a mountainous district, the greater part
of which lies on the Mediterranean side of the watershed, with the
extraordinarily fertile and populous Campanian plain (Terra di Lavoro,
with 473 inhabitants to the square mile) between the mountains and the
sea. The principal rivers are the Garigliano or Liri (anc. Liris), which
rises in the Abruzzi (105 m. in length); the Volturno (94 m. in length),
with its tributary the Calore; the Sarno, which rises near Sarno and
waters the fertile plain south-east of Vesuvius; and the Sele, whose
main tributary is the Tanagro, which is in turn largely fed by another
Calore. The headwaters of the Sele have been tapped for the great
aqueduct for the Apulian provinces.
The coast-line begins a little east of Terracina at the lake of Fondi
with a low-lying, marshy district (the ancient _Ager Caecubus_),
renowned for its wine (see FONDI). The mountains (of the ancient
Aurunci) then come down to the sea, and on the east side of the extreme
promontory to the south-east is the port of Gaeta, a strongly fortified
naval station. The east side of the Gulf of Gaeta is occupied by the
marshes at the mouth of the Liri, and the low sandy coast, with its
unhealthy lagoons, continues (interrupted only by the Monte Massico,
which reaches the sea at Mondragone) past the mouth of the Volturno, as
far as the volcanic district (no longer active) with its several extinct
craters (now small lakes, the Lacus Avernus, &c.) to the west of Naples,
which forms the north-west extremity of the Bay of Naples. Here the
scenery completely changes: the Bay of Naples, indeed, is one of the
most beautiful in the world. The island of Procida lies 2½ m. south-west
of the Capo Miseno, and 3 m. south-west of Procida is that of Ischia. In
consequence of the volcanic character of the district there are several
important mineral springs which are used medicinally, especially at
Pozzuoli, Castellammare di Stabia, and on the island of Ischia.
Pozzuoli (anc. Puteoli), the most important harbour of Italy in the 1st
century B.C., is now mainly noticeable for the large armour-plate and
gun works of Messrs Armstrong, and for the volcanic earth (_pozzolana_)
which forms so important an element in concrete and cement, and is
largely quarried near Rome also. Naples, on the other hand, is one of
the most important harbours of modern Italy. Beyond it, Torre del Greco
and Torre Annunziata at the foot of Vesuvius, are active trading ports
for smaller vessels, especially in connexion with macaroni, which is
manufactured extensively by all the towns along the bay. Castellammare
di Stabia, on the west coast of the gulf, has a large naval shipbuilding
yard and an important harbour. Beyond Castellammare the promontory of
Sorrento, ending in the Punta della Campanella (from which Capri is 3 m.
south-west) forms the south-west extremity of the gulf. The highest
point of this mountain ridge, which is connected with the main Apennine
chain, is the Monte S. Angelo (4735 ft.). It extends as far east as
Salerno, where the coast plain of the Sele begins. As in the low marshy
ground at the mouths of the Liri and Volturno, malaria is very
prevalent. The south-east extremity of the Gulf of Salerno is formed by
another mountain group, culminating in the Monte Cervati (6229 ft.);
and on the east side of this is the Gulf of Policastro, where the
province of Salerno, and with it Campania, borders, on the province of
Potenza.
The population of Campania was 3,080,503 in 1901; that of the province
of Caserta was 705,412, with a total of 187 communes, the chief towns
being Caserta (32,709), Sta Maria Capua Vetere (21,825), Maddaloni
(20,682), Sessa Aurunca (21,844); that of the province of Benevento was
256,504, with 73 communes, the only important town being Benevento
itself (24,647); that of the province of Naples 1,151,834, with 69
communes, the most important towns being Naples (563,540), Torre del
Greco (33,299), Castellammare di Stabia (32,841), Torre Annunziata
(28,143), Pozzuoli (22,907); that of the province of Avellino
(Principato Ulteriore in the days of the Neapolitan kingdom) 402,425,
with 128 communes, the chief towns being Avellino (23,760) and Ariano di
Puglia (17,650); that of the province of Salerno (Principato Citeriore)
564,328, with 158 communes, the chief towns being Salerno (42,727), Cava
dei Tirreni (23,681), Nocera Inferiore (19,796). Naples is the chief
railway centre: a main line runs from Rome through Roccasecca (whence
there is a branch via Sora to Avezzano, on the railway from Rome to
Castellammare Adriatico), Caianello (junction for Isernia, on the line
between Sulmona and Campobasso or Benevento), Sparanise (branch to
Formia and Gaeta) and Caserta to Naples. From Caserta, indeed, there are
two independent lines to Naples, while a main line runs to Benevento and
Foggia across the Apennines. From Benevento railways run north to
Vinchiaturo (for Isernia or Campobasso) and south to Avellino. From
Cancello, a station on one of the two lines from Caserta to Naples,
branches run to Torre Annunziata, and to Nola, Codola, Mercato, San
Severino and Avellino. Naples, besides the two lines to Caserta (and
thence either to Rome or Benevento), has local lines to Pozzuoli and
Torregaveta (for Ischia) and two lines to Sarno, one via Ottaiano, the
other via Pompeii, which together make up the circum-Vesuvian electric
line, and were in connexion with the railway to the top of Vesuvius
until its destruction in April 1906. The main line for southern Italy
passes through Torre Annunziata (branch for Castellammare di Stabia and
Gragnano), Nocera (branch for Codola), Salerno (branch for Mercato San
Severino), and Battipaglia. Here it divides, one line going
east-south-east to Sicignano (branch to Lagonegro), Potenza and
Metaponto (for Taranto and Brindisi or the line along the east coast of
Calabria to Reggio), the other going south-south-east along the west
coast of Calabria to Reggio.
Industrial activity is mainly concentrated in Naples, Pozzuoli and the
towns between Naples and Castellammare di Stabia (including the latter)
on the north-east shores of the Bay of Naples. The native peasant
industries are (besides agriculture, for which see ITALY) the
manufacture of pottery and weaving with small hand-looms, both of which
are being swept away by the introduction of machinery; but a government
school of textiles has been established at Naples for the encouragement
of the trade. (T. As.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The name Osci--earlier Opsci, Opusci (Gr. [Greek:
Opikoi])--presumably meant "tillers of the soil."
CAMPANI-ALIMENIS, MATTEO, Italian mechanician and natural philosopher of
the 17th century, was born at Spoleto. He held a curacy at Rome in 1661,
but devoted himself principally to scientific pursuits. As an optician
he is chiefly celebrated for the manufacture of the large object-glasses
with which G.D. Cassini discovered two of Saturn's satellites, and for
an attempt to rectify chromatic aberration by using a triple eye-glass;
and in clock-making, for his invention of the illuminated dial-plate,
and that of noiseless clocks, as well as for an attempt to correct the
irregularities of the pendulum which arise from variations of
temperature. Campani published in 1678 a work on horology, and on the
manufacture of lenses for telescopes. His younger brother Giuseppe was
also an ingenious optician (indeed the attempt to correct chromatic
aberration has been ascribed to him instead of to Matteo), and is,
besides, noteworthy as an astronomer, especially for his discovery, by
the aid of a telescope of his own construction, of the spots in Jupiter,
the credit of which was, however, also claimed by Eustachio Divini.
CAMPANILE, the bell tower attached to the churches and town-halls in
Italy (from _campana_, a bell). Bells are supposed to have been first
used for announcing the sacred offices by Pope Sabinian (604), the
immediate successor to St Gregory; and their use by the municipalities
came with the rights granted by kings and emperors to the citizens to
enclose their towns with fortifications, and assemble at the sound of a
great bell. It is to the Lombard architects of the north of Italy that
we are indebted for the introduction and development of the campanile,
which, when used in connexion with a sacred building, is a feature
peculiar to Christian architecture--Christians alone making use of the
bell to gather the multitude to public worship. The campanile of Italy
serves the same purpose as the tower or steeple of the churches in the
north and west of Europe, but differs from it in design and position
with regard to the body of the church. It is almost always detached from
the church, or at most connected with it by an arcaded passage. As a
rule also there is never more than one campanile to a church, with a few
exceptions, as in S. Ambrogio, Milan; the cathedral of Novara; S.
Abbondio, Como; S. Antonio, Padua; and some of the churches in south
Italy and Sicily. The design differs entirely from the northern type; it
never has buttresses, is very tall and thin in proportion to its height,
and as a rule rises abruptly from the ground without base or plinth
mouldings undiminished to the summit; it is usually divided by
string-courses into storeys of nearly equal height, and in north and
central Italy the wall surface is decorated with pilaster strips and
arcaded corbel strings. Later, the square tower was crowned with an
octagonal turret, sometimes with a conical roof, as in Cremona and
Modena cathedrals. As a rule the openings increase in number and
dimensions as they rise, those at the top therefore giving a lightness
to the structure, while the lower portions, with narrow slits only,
impart solidity to the whole composition.
The earliest examples are those of the two churches of S. Apollinare in
Classe (see BASILICA, fig. 8) and S. Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna, dating
from the 6th century. They are circular, of considerable height, and
probably were erected as watch towers or depositories for the treasures
of the church. The next in order are those in Rome, of which there are a
very large number in existence, dating from the 8th to the 11th century.
These towers are square and in several storeys, the lower part quite
plain till well above the church to which they are attached. Above this
they are divided into storeys by brick cornices carried on stone
corbels, generally taken from ancient buildings, the lower storeys with
blind arcades and the upper storeys with open arcades. The earliest on
record was one connected with St Peter's, to the atrium of which, in the
middle of the 8th century, a bell-tower overlaid with gold was added.
One of the finest is that of S. Maria-in-Cosmedin, ascribed to the 8th
or 9th century. In the lower part of it are embedded some ancient
columns of the Composite Order belonging to the Temple of Ceres. The
tower is 120 ft. high, the upper part divided into seven storeys, the
four upper ones with open arcades, the bells being hung in the second
from the top. The arches of the arcades, two or three in number, are
recessed in two orders and rest on long impost blocks (their length
equal to the thickness of the wall above), carried by a mid-wall shaft.
This type of arcade or window is found in early German work, except
that, as a rule, there is a capital under the impost block. Rome is
probably the source from which the Saxon windows were derived, the
example in Worth church being identically the same as those in the Roman
campanili. In the campanile of S. Alessio there are two arcades in each
storey, each divided with a mid-wall shaft. Among others, those of SS.
Giovanni e Paolo, S. Lorenzo in Lucina, S. Francesca Romana, S. Croce in
Gerusalemme, S. Giorgio in Velabro (fig. 1), S. Cecilia, S. Pudenziana,
S. Bartolommeo in Isola (982), S. Silvestro in Capite, are
characteristic examples. On some of the towers are encrusted plaques of
marble or of red or green porphyry, enclosed in a tile or moulded brick
border; sometimes these plaques are in majolica with Byzantine patterns.
[Illustration: From a photograph by Alinari.
FIG. 1.--Campanile of S. Giorgio in Velabro, Rome.]
The early campanili of the north of Italy are of quite another type, the
north campanile of S. Ambrogio, Milan (1129), being decorated with
vertical flat pilaster strips, four on each face, and horizontal arcaded
corbel strings. Of earlier date (879), the campanile of S. Satiro at
Milan is in perfect preservation; it is divided into four storeys by
arched corbel tables, the upper storey having a similar arcade with
mid-wall shaft to those in Rome. One of the most notable examples in
north Italy is the campanile of Pomposa near Ferrara. It is of immense
height and has nine storeys crowned with a lofty conical spire, the wall
face being divided vertically with pilaster strips and horizontally with
arcaded corbel tables,--this campanile, the two towers of S. Antonio,
Padua, and that of S. Gottardo, Milan, of octagonal plan, being among
the few which are thus terminated. In the campanile at Torcello we find
an entirely different treatment: doubly recessed pilaster-strips divide
each face into two lofty blind arcades rising from the ground to the
belfry storey, over 100 ft. high, with small slits for windows, the
upper or belfry storey having an arcade of four arches on each front.
This is the type generally adopted in the campanili of Venice, where
there are no string-courses. The campanile of St Mark's was of similar
design, with four lofty blind arcades on each face. The lower portion,
built in brick, 162 ft. high, was commenced in 902 but not completed
till the middle of the 12th century. In 1510 a belfry storey was added
with an open arcade of four arches on each face, and slightly set back
from the face of the tower above was a mass of masonry with pyramidal
roof, the total height being 320 ft. On the 14th of July 1902 the whole
structure collapsed; its age, the great weight of the additions made in
1510, and probably the cutting away inside of the lower part, would seem
to have been the principal contributors to this disaster, as the pile
foundations were found to be in excellent condition.
In central Italy the two early campanili at Lucca return to the Lombard
type of the north, with pilaster strips and arcaded corbel strings, and
the same is found in S. Francesco (Assisi), S. Frediano (Lucca), S.
Pietro-in-Grado and S. Michele-in-Orticaia (Pisa), and S. Maria-Novella
(Florence). The campanile of S. Niccola, Pisa, is octagonal on plan,
with a lofty blind arcade on each face like those in Venice, but with a
single string-course halfway up. The gallery above is an open eaves
gallery like those in north Italy.
[Illustration: From a photograph by Brogi.
FIG. 2.--Campanile of St Mark's, Venice.]
In southern Italy the design of the campanile varies again. In the two
more important examples at Bari and Molfetta, there are two towers in
each case attached to the east end of the cathedrals. The campanili are
in plain masonry, the storeys being suggested only by blind arches or
windows, there being neither pilaster strips nor string-courses. The
same treatment is found at Barletta and Caserta Vecchia; in the latter
the upper storey has been made octagonal with circular turrets at each
angle, and this type of design is followed at Amalfi, the centre portion
being circular instead of octagonal and raised much higher. In Palermo
the campanile of the Martorana, of which the two lower storeys,
decorated with three concentric blind pointed arches on each face,
probably date from the Saracenic occupation, has angle turrets on the
two upper storeys. The upper portions of the campanile of the cathedral
have similar angle turrets, which, crowned with conical roofs, group
well with the central octagonal spires of the towers. The two towers of
the west front of the cathedral at Cefalu resemble those of Bari and
Molfetta as regards their treatment.
The campanili of S. Zenone, Verona, and the cathedrals of Siena and
Prato, differ from those already mentioned in that they owe their
decoration to the alternating courses of black and white marble. Of this
type by far the most remarkable so far as its marble decoration is
concerned is Giotto's campanile at Florence, built in 1334. It measures
275 ft. high, 45 ft. square, and is encased in black, white and red
marble, with occasional sculptured ornament. The angles are emphasized
by octagonal projections, the panelling of which seems to have ruled
that of the whole structure. There are five storeys, of which the three
upper ones are pierced with windows; twin arcades side by side in the
two lower, and a lofty triplet window with tracery in the belfry stage.
A richly corbelled cornice crowns the structure, above which a spire was
projected by Giotto, but never carried out.
[Illustration: From a photograph by Alinari.
FIG. 3.--Giotto's Campanile, Florence.]
The loftiest campanile in Italy is that of Cremona, 396 ft. high. Though
built in the second half of the 13th century, and showing therefore
Gothic influence in the pointed windows of the belfry and two storeys
below, and the substitution of the pointed for the semicircular arch of
the arcaded corbel string-courses, it follows the Lombard type in its
general design, and the same is found in the campanile of S. Andrea,
Mantua. In the 16th century an octagonal lantern in two strings crowned
with a conical roof was added. Owing to defective foundations, some of
the Italian campanili incline over considerably; of these leaning
towers, those of the Garisendi and Asinelli palaces at Bologna form
conspicuous objects in the town; the two more remarkable examples are
the campanile of S. Martino at Este, of early Lombard type, and the
leaning tower at Pisa, which was built by the citizens in 1174 to rival
that of Venice. The Pisa tower is circular on plan, about 51 ft. in
diameter and 172 ft. high. Not including the belfry storey, which is set
back on the inner wall, it is divided into seven storeys all surrounded
with an open gallery or arcade. (See ARCHITECTURE, Plate I. fig. 62.)
Owing to the sinking of the piles on the south side, the inclination was
already noticed when the tower was about 30 ft. high, and slight
additions in the height of the masonry on that side were introduced to
correct the level, but without result, so that the works were stopped
for many years and taken up again in 1234 under the direction of William
of Innsbruck; he also attempted to rectify the levels by increasing the
height of the masonry on the south side. At a later period the belfry
storey was added. The inclination now approaches 14 ft. out of the
perpendicular. The outside is built entirely in white marble and is of
admirable workmanship, but it is a question whether the equal
subdivision of the several storeys is not rather monotonous. The
campanili of the churches of S. Nicolas and S. Michele in Orticaia, both
in Pisa, are also inclined to a slight extent.
[Illustration: From a photograph by Alinari.
FIG. 4.--Campanile of the Palazzo del Signore, Verona.]
The campanili hitherto described are all attached to churches, but there
are others belonging to civic buildings some of which are of great
importance. The campanile of the town hall of Siena rises to an enormous
height, being 285 ft., and only 22 ft. wide; it is built in brick and
crowned with a battlemented parapet carried on machicolation corbels,
16 ft. high, all in stone, and a belfry storey above set back behind the
face of the tower. The campanile of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence is
similarly crowned, but it does not descend to the ground, being balanced
in the centre of the main wall of the town hall. A third example is the
fine campanile of the Palazzo-del-Signore at Verona, fig. 4, the lower
portion built in alternate courses of brick and stone and above entirely
in brick, rising to a height of nearly 250 ft., and pierced with putlog
holes only. The belfry window on each face is divided into three lights
with coupled shafts. An octagonal tower of two storeys rises above the
corbelled eaves.
In the campanili of the Renaissance in Italy the same general
proportions of the tower are adhered to, and the style lent itself
easily to its decoration; in Venice the lofty blind arcades were adhered
to, as in the campanile of the church of S. Giorgio dei Greci. In that
of S. Giorgio Maggiore, however, Palladio returned to the simple
brickwork of Verona, crowned with a belfry storey in stone, with angle
pilasters and columns of the Corinthian order in antis, and central
turret with spire above. In Genoa there are many examples; the quoins
are either decorated with rusticated masonry or attenuated pilasters,
with or without horizontal string-courses, always crowned with a belfry
storey in stone and classic cornices, which on account of their greater
projection present a fine effect. (R. P. S.)
CAMPANULA (Bell-flower), in botany, a genus of plants containing about
230 species, found in the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere,
chiefly in the Mediterranean region. The name is taken from the
bell-shaped flower. The plants are perennial, rarely annual or biennial,
herbs with spikes or racemes of white, blue or lilac flowers. Several
are native in Britain; _Campanula rotundifolia_ is the harebell (q.v.)
or Scotch bluebell, a common plant on pastures and heaths,--the delicate
slender stem bears one or a few drooping bell-shaped flowers; _C.
Rapunculus_, rampion or ramps, is a larger plant with a panicle of
broadly campanulate red-purple or blue flowers, and occurs on gravelly
roadsides and hedgebanks, but is rare. It is cultivated, but not
extensively, for its fleshy roots, which are used, either boiled or raw,
as salad. Many of the species are grown in gardens for their elegant
flowers; the dwarf forms are excellent for pot culture, rockeries or
fronts of borders. _C. Medium_, Canterbury bell, with large blue, purple
and white flowers, is a favourite and handsome biennial, of which there
are numerous varieties. _C. persicifolia_, a perennial with more open
flowers, is also a well-known border plant, with numerous forms,
including white and blue-flowered and single and double. _C. glomerata_,
which has sessile flowers crowded in heads on the stems and branches,
found native in Britain in chalky and dry pastures, is known in numerous
varieties as a border plant. _C. pyramidalis_, with numerous flowers
forming a tall pyramidal inflorescence, is a handsome species. There are
also a number of alpine species suitable for rockeries, such as _C.
alpina, caucasica, caespitosa_ and others. The plants are easily
cultivated. The perennials are propagated by dividing the roots or by
young cuttings in spring, or by seeds.
CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER (1788-1866), American religious leader, was born
near Ballymena, Co. Antrim, Ireland, on the 12th of September 1788, and
was the son of Thomas Campbell (1763-1854), a schoolmaster and clergyman
of the Presbyterian "Seceders." Alexander in 1809, after a year at
Glasgow University, joined his father in Washington, Pennsylvania, where
the elder Campbell had just formed the Christian Association of
Washington, "for the sole purpose of promoting simple evangelical
Christianity." With his father's desire for Church unity the son agreed.
He began to preach in 1810, refusing any salary; in 1811 he settled in
what is now Bethany, West Virginia, and was licensed by the Brush Run
Church, as the Christian Association was now called. In 1812, urging
baptism by immersion upon his followers by his own example, he took his
father's place as leader of the Disciples of Christ (q.v., popularly
called Christians, Campbellites and Reformers). He seemed momentarily to
approach the doctrinal position of the Baptists, but by his statement,
"I will be baptized only into the primitive Christian faith," by his
iconoclastic preaching and his editorial conduct of _The Christian
Baptist_ (1823-1830), and by the tone of his able debates with
Paedobaptists, he soon incurred the disfavour of the Redstone
Association of Baptist churches in western Pennsylvania, and in 1823 his
followers transferred their membership to the Mahoning Association of
Baptist churches in eastern Ohio, only to break absolutely with the
Baptists in 1830. Campbell, who in 1829 had been elected to the
Constitutional Convention of Virginia by his anti-slavery neighbours,
now established _The Millennial Harbinger_ (1830-1865), in which, on
Biblical grounds, he opposed emancipation, but which he used principally
to preach the imminent Second Coming, which he actually set for 1866, in
which year he died, on the 4th of March, at Bethany, West Virginia,
having been for twenty-five years president of Bethany College. He
travelled, lectured, and preached throughout the United States and in
England and Scotland; debated with many Presbyterian champions, with
Bishop Purcell of Cincinnati and with Robert Owen; and edited a revision
of the New Testament.
See Thomas W. Grafton's _Alexander Campbell, Leader of the Great
Reformation of the Nineteenth Century_ (St Louis, 1897).
CAMPBELL, BEATRICE STELLA (Mrs PATRICK CAMPBELL) (1865- ), English
actress, was born in London, her maiden name being Tanner, and in 1884
married Captain Patrick Campbell (d. 1900). After having appeared on the
provincial stage she first became prominent at the Adelphi theatre,
London, in 1892, and next year created the chief part in Pinero's
_Second Mrs Tanqueray_ at the St James's, her remarkable impersonation
at once putting her in the first rank of English actresses. For some
years she displayed her striking dramatic talent in London, playing
notably with Mr Forbes Robertson in Davidson's _For the Crown_, and in
_Macbeth_; and her _Magda_ (Royalty, 1900) could hold its own with
either Bernhardt or Duse. In later years she paid successful visits to
America, but in England played chiefly on provincial tours.
CAMPBELL, GEORGE (1719-1796), Scottish theologian, was born at Aberdeen
on the 25th of December 1719. His father, the Rev. Colin Campbell, one
of the ministers of Aberdeen, the son of George Campbell of Westhall,
who claimed to belong to the Argyll branch of the family, died in 1728,
leaving a widow and six children in somewhat straitened circumstances.
George, the youngest son, was destined for the legal profession, and
after attending the grammar school of Aberdeen and the arts classes at
Marischal College, he was sent to Edinburgh to serve as an apprentice to
a writer to the Signet. While at Edinburgh he attended the theological
lectures, and when the term of his apprenticeship expired, he was
enrolled as a regular student in the Aberdeen divinity hall. After a
distinguished career he was, in 1746, licensed to preach by the
presbytery of Aberdeen. From 1748 to 1757 he was minister of Banchory
Ternan, a parish on the Dee, some 20 m. from Aberdeen. He then
transferred to Aberdeen, which was at the time a centre of considerable
intellectual activity. Thomas Reid was professor of philosophy at King's
College; John Gregory (1724-1773), Reid's predecessor, held the chair of
medicine; Alexander Gerard (1728-1795) was professor of divinity at
Marischal College; and in 1760 James Beattie (1735-1803) became
professor of moral philosophy in the same college. These men, with
others of less note, formed themselves in 1758 into a society for the
discussions of questions in philosophy. Reid was its first secretary,
and Campbell one of its founders. It lasted till about 1773, and during
this period numerous papers were read, particularly those by Reid and
Campbell, which were afterwards expanded and published.
In 1759 Campbell was made principal of Marischal College. In 1763 he
published his celebrated _Dissertation on Miracles_, in which he seeks
to show, in opposition to Hume, that miracles are capable of proof by
testimony, and that the miracles of Christianity are sufficiently
attested. There is no contradiction, he argues, as Hume said there was,
between what we know by testimony and the evidence upon which a law of
nature is based; they are of a different description indeed, but we can
without inconsistency believe that both are true. The _Dissertation_ is
not a complete treatise upon miracles, but with all deductions it was
and still is a valuable contribution to theological literature. In 1771
Campbell was elected professor of theology at Marischal College, and
resigned his city charge, although he still preached as minister of
Greyfriars, a duty then attached to the chair. His _Philosophy of
Rhetoric_, planned at Banchory Ternan years before, appeared in 1776,
and at once took a high place among books on the subject. In 1778 his
last and in some respects his greatest work appeared, _A New Translation
of the Gospels_. The critical and explanatory notes which accompanied it
gave the book a high value.
In 1795 he was compelled by increasing weakness to resign the offices he
held in Marischal College, and on his retirement he received a pension
of £300 from the king. He died on the 31st of March 1796.
His _Lectures on Ecclesiastical History_ were published after his
death with a biographical notice by G.S. Keith; there is a uniform
edition of his works in 6 vols.
CAMPBELL, JOHN (1708-1775), Scottish author, was born at Edinburgh on
the 8th of March 1708. Being designed for the legal profession, he was
sent to Windsor, and apprenticed to an attorney; but his tastes soon led
him to abandon the study of law and to devote himself entirely to
literature. In 1736 he published the _Military History of Prince Eugene
and the Duke of Marlborough_, and soon after contributed several
important articles to the _Ancient Universal History_. In 1742 and 1744
appeared the _Lives of the British Admirals_, in 4 vols., a popular work
which has been continued by other authors. Besides contributing to the
_Biographia Britannica_ and Dodsley's _Preceptor_, he published a work
on _The Present State of Europe_, onsisting of a series of papers which
had appeared in the _Museum_. He also wrote the histories of the
Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, French, Swedish, Danish and Ostend
settlements in the East Indies, and the histories of Spain, Portugal,
Algarve, Navarre and France, from the time of Clovis till 1656, for the
_Modern Universal History_. At the request of Lord Bute, he published a
vindication of the peace of Paris concluded in 1763, embodying in it a
descriptive and historical account of the New Sugar Islands in the West
Indies. By the king he was appointed agent for the provinces of Georgia
in 1755. His last and most elaborate work, _Political Survey of
Britain_, 2 vols. 4to, was published in 1744, and greatly increased the
author's reputation. Campbell died on the 28th of December 1775. He
received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the university of Glasgow in
1745.
CAMPBELL, JOHN CAMPBELL, BARON (1779-1861), lord chancellor of England,
the second son of the Rev. George Campbell, D.D., was born on the 17th
of September 1779 at Cupar, Fife, where his father was for fifty years
parish minister. For a few years Campbell studied at the United College,
St Andrews. In 1800 he was entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and,
after a short connexion with the _Morning Chronicle_, was called to the
bar in 1806, and at once began to report cases decided at _nisi prius_
(i.e. on jury trial). Of these _Reports_ he published altogether four
volumes, with learned notes; they extend from Michaelmas 1807 to Hilary
1816. Campbell also devoted himself a good deal to criminal business,
but in spite of his unceasing industry he failed to attract much
attention behind the bar; he had changed his circuit from the home to
the Oxford, but briefs came in slowly, and it was not till 1827 that he
obtained a silk gown and found himself in that "front rank" who are
permitted to have political aspirations. He unsuccessfully contested the
borough of Stafford in 1826, but was elected for it in 1830 and again in
1831. In the House he showed an extraordinary, sometimes an excessive
zeal for public business, speaking on all subjects with practical sense,
but on none with eloquence or spirit. His main object, however, like
that of Brougham, was the amelioration of the law, more by the abolition
of cumbrous technicalities than by the assertion of new and striking
principles.
Thus his name is associated with the Fines and Recoveries Abolition Act
1833; the Inheritance Act 1833; the Dower Act 1833; the Real Property
Limitation Act 1833; the Wills Act 1837; one of the Copyhold Tenure Acts
1841; and the Judgments Act 1838. All these measures were important and
were carefully drawn; but their merits cannot be explained in a
biographical notice. The second was called for by the preference which
the common law gave to a distant collateral over the brother of the
half-blood of the first purchaser; the fourth conferred an indefeasible
title on adverse possession for twenty years (a term shortened by Lord
Cairns in 1875 to twelve years); the fifth reduced the number of
witnesses required by law to attest wills, and removed the vexatious
distinction which existed in this respect between freeholds and
copyholds; the last freed an innocent debtor from imprisonment only
before final judgment (or on what was termed _mesne_ process), but the
principle stated by Campbell that only fraudulent debtors should be
imprisoned was ultimately given effect to for England and Wales in
1869.[1] In one of his most cherished objects, however, that of Land
Registration (q.v.), which formed the theme of his maiden speech in
parliament, Campbell was doomed to disappointment. His most important
appearance as member for Stafford was in defence of Lord John Russell's
first Reform Bill (1831). In a temperate and learned speech, based on
Fox's declaration against constitution-mongering, he supported both the
enfranchising and the disfranchising clauses, and easily disposed of the
cries of "corporation robbery," "nabob representation," "opening for
young men of talent," &c. The following year (1832) found Campbell
solicitor-general, a knight and member for Dudley, which he represented
till 1834. In that year he became attorney-general and was returned by
Edinburgh, for which he sat till 1841.[2]
His political creed declared upon the hustings there was that of a
moderate Whig. He maintained the connexion of church and state, and
opposed triennial parliaments and the ballot. In parliament he continued
to lend the most effective help to the Liberal party. His speech in 1835
in support of the motion for inquiry into the Irish Church temporalities
with a view to their partial appropriation for national purposes (for
disestablishment was not then dreamed of as possible) contains much
terse argument, and no doubt contributed to the fall of Peel and the
formation of the Melbourne cabinet. The next year Campbell had a fierce
encounter with Lord Stanley in the debate which followed the motion of
T. Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle) on the repair and maintenance
of parochial churches and chapels. The legal point in the dispute (which
Campbell afterwards made the subject of a separate pamphlet) was whether
the church-wardens of the parish, in the absence of the vestry, had any
means of enforcing a rate except the antiquated interdict or
ecclesiastical censure. It was not on legal technicalities, however, but
on the broad principle of religious equality, that Campbell supported
the abolition of church rates, in which he included the Edinburgh
annuity-tax.
In the same year he spoke for Lord Melbourne, in the action (thought by
some to be a political conspiracy[3]) which the Hon. G.C. Norton brought
against the Whig premier for criminal conversation with his wife. At
this time also he exerted himself for the reform of justice in the
ecclesiastical courts, for the uniformity of the law of marriage (which
he held should be a purely civil contract) and for giving prisoners
charged with felony the benefit of counsel. His defence of _The Times_
newspaper, which had accused Sir John Conroy, equerry to the duchess of
Kent, of misappropriation of money (1838), is chiefly remarkable for the
Confession--"I despair of any definition of libel which shall exclude no
publications which ought to be suppressed, and include none which ought
to be permitted." His own definition of blasphemous libel was enforced
in the prosecution which, as attorney-general, he raised against the
bookseller H. Hetherington, and which he justified on the singular
ground that "the vast bulk of the population believe that morality
depends entirely on revelation; and if a doubt could be raised among
them that the ten commandments were given by God from Mount Sinai, men
would think they were at liberty to steal, and women would consider
themselves absolved from the restraints of chastity." But his most
distinguished effort at the bar was undoubtedly the speech for the House
of Commons in the famous case of _Stockdale v. Hansard_, 1837, 7 C. and
P. 731. The Commons had ordered to be printed, among other papers, a
report of the inspectors of prisons on Newgate, which stated that an
obscene book, published by Stockdale, was given to the prisoners to
read. Stockdale sued the Commons' publisher, and was met by the plea of
parliamentary privilege, to which, however, the judges did not give
effect, on the ground that they were entitled to define the privileges
of the Commons, and that publication of papers was not essential to the
functions of parliament. The matter was settled by an act of 1840.
In 1840 Campbell conducted the prosecution against John Frost, one of
the three Chartist leaders who attacked the town of Newport, all of whom
were found guilty of high treason. We may also mention, as matter of
historical interest, the case before the high steward and the House of
Lords which arose out of the duel fought on Wimbledon Common between the
earl of Cardigan and Captain Harvey Tuckett. The law of course was clear
that the "punctilio which swordsmen falsely do call honour" was no
excuse for wilful murder. To the astonishment of everybody, Lord
Cardigan escaped from a capital charge of felony because the full name
of his antagonist (Harvey Garnett Phipps Tuckett) was not legally
proved. It is difficult to suppose that such a blunder was not
preconcerted. Campbell himself made the extraordinary declaration that
to engage in a duel which could not be declined without infamy (i.e.
social disgrace) was "an act free from moral turpitude," although the
law properly held it to be wilful murder. Next year, as the Melbourne
administration was near its close, Plunkett, the venerable chancellor of
Ireland, was forced by discreditable pressure to resign, and the Whig
attorney-general, who had never practised in equity, became chancellor
of Ireland, and was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron
Campbell of St Andrews, in the county of Fife. His wife, Mary Elizabeth
Campbell, the eldest daughter of the first Baron Abinger by one of the
Campbells of Kilmorey, Argyllshire, whom he had married in 1821, had in
1836 been created Baroness Stratheden in recognition of the withdrawal
of his claim to the mastership of the rolls. The post of chancellor
Campbell held for only sixteen days, and then resigned it to his
successor Sir Edward Sugden (Lord St Leonards). The circumstances of his
appointment and the erroneous belief that he was receiving a pension of
£4000 per annum for his few days' court work brought Campbell much
unmerited obloquy.[4] It was during the period 1841-1849, when he had no
legal duty, except the self-imposed one of occasionally hearing Scottish
appeals in the House of Lords, that the unlucky dream of literary fame
troubled Lord Campbell's leisure.[5]
Following in the path struck out by Miss Strickland in her _Lives of the
Queens of England_, and by Lord Brougham's _Lives of Eminent Statesmen_,
he at last produced, in 1849, _The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and
Keepers of the Great Seal of England, from the earliest times till the
reign of King George IV._, 7 vols. 8vo. The conception of this work is
magnificent; its execution wretched. Intended to evolve a history of
jurisprudence from the truthful portraits of England's greatest lawyers,
it merely exhibits the ill-digested results of desultory learning,
without a trace of scientific symmetry or literary taste, without a
spark of that divine imaginative sympathy which alone can give flesh and
spirit to the dead bones of the past, and without which the present
becomes an unintelligible maze of mean and selfish ideas. A charming
style, a vivid fancy, exhaustive research, were not to be expected from
a hard-worked barrister; but he must certainly be held responsible for
the frequent plagiarisms, the still more frequent inaccuracies of
detail, the colossal vanity which obtrudes on almost every page, the
hasty insinuations against the memory of the great departed who were to
him as giants, and the petty sneers which he condescends to print
against his own contemporaries, with whom he was living from day to day
on terms of apparently sincere friendship.
These faults are painfully apparent in the lives of Hardwicke, Eldon,
Lyndhurst and Brougham, and they have been pointed out by the
biographers of Eldon and by Lord St Leonards.[6] And yet the book is an
invaluable repertory of facts, and must endure until it is superseded by
something better. It was followed by the _Lives of the Chief Justices of
England, from the Norman Conquest till the death of Lord Mansfield_,
8vo, 2 vols., a book of similar construction but inferior merit.
It must not be supposed that during this period the literary lawyer was
silent in the House of Lords. He spoke frequently. The 3rd volume of the
_Protests of the Lords_, edited by Thorold Rogers (1875), contains no
less than ten protests by Campbell, entered in the years 1842-1845. He
protests against Peel's Income Tax Bill of 1842; against the Aberdeen
Act 1843, as conferring undue power on church courts; against the
perpetuation of diocesan courts for probate and administration; against
Lord Stanley's absurd bill providing compensation for the destruction of
fences to dispossessed Irish tenants; and against the Parliamentary
Proceedings Bill, which proposed that all bills, except money bills,
having reached a certain stage or having passed one House, should be
continued to next session. The last he opposed because the proper remedy
lay in resolutions and orders of the House. He protests in favour of
Lord Monteagle's motion for inquiry into the sliding scale of corn
duties; of Lord Normanby's motion on the queen's speech in 1843, for
inquiry into the state of Ireland (then wholly under military
occupation); of Lord Radnor's bill to define the constitutional powers
of the home secretary, when Sir James Graham opened Mazzini's letters.
In 1844 he records a solitary protest against the judgment of the House
of Lords in _R._ v. _Millis_, 1844, 10 Cla. and Fin. 534, which affirmed
that a man regularly married according to the rites of the Irish
Presbyterian Church, and afterwards regularly married to another woman
by an episcopally ordained clergyman, could not be convicted of bigamy,
because the English law required for the validity of a marriage that it
should be performed by an ordained priest.
On the resignation of Lord Denman in 1850, Campbell was appointed chief
justice of the queen's bench. For this post he was well fitted by his
knowledge of common law, his habitual attention to the pleadings in
court and his power of clear statement. On the other hand, at _nisi
prius_ and on the criminal circuit, he was accused of frequently
attempting unduly to influence juries in their estimate of the
credibility of evidence. It is also certain that he liked to excite
applause in the galleries by some platitude about the "glorious
Revolution" or the "Protestant succession." He assisted in the reforms
of special pleading at Westminster, and had a recognized place with
Brougham and Lyndhurst in legal discussions in the House of Lords. But
he had neither the generous temperament nor the breadth of view which is
required in the composition of even a mediocre statesman. In 1859 he was
made lord chancellor of Great Britain, probably on the understanding
that Bethell should succeed as soon as he could be spared from the House
of Commons. His short tenure of this office calls for no remark. In the
same year he published in the form of a letter to Payne Collier an
amusing and extremely inconclusive essay on Shakespeare's legal
acquirements. One passage will show the conjectural Drocess which runs
through the book: "If Shakespeare was really articled to a Stratford
attorney, in all probability, during the five years of his clerkship, he
visited London several times on his master's business, and he may then
have been introduced to the green-room at Blackfriars by one of his
countrymen connected with that theatre." The only positive piece of
evidence produced is the passage from Thomas Nash's "Epistle to the
Gentlemen of the Two Universities," prefixed to Greene's _Arcadia_,
1859, in which he upbraids somebody (not known to be Shakespeare) with
having left the "trade of Noverint" and busied himself with "whole
Hamlets" and "handfuls of tragical speeches." The knowledge of law shown
in the plays is very much what a universal observer must have picked up.
Lawyers always underestimate the legal knowledge of an intelligent
layman. Campbell died on the 23rd of June 1861. It has been well said of
him in explanation of his success, that he lived eighty years and
preserved his digestion unimpaired. He had a hard head, a splendid
constitution, tireless industry, a generally judicious temper. He was a
learned, though not a scientific lawyer, a faithful political adherent,
thoroughly honest as a judge, dutiful and happy as a husband. But there
was nothing admirable or heroic in his nature. On no great subject did
his principles rise above the commonplace of party, nor had he the
magnanimity which excuses rather than aggravates the faults of others.
His life was the triumph of steady determination unaided by a single
brilliant or attractive quality.
AUTHORITIES.--_Life of Lord Campbell, a Selection from his
Autobiography, Diary and Letters_, ed. by Hon. Mrs Hardcastle (1881);
E. Foss, _The Judges of England_ (1848-1864); W.H. Bennet, _Select
Biographical Sketches from Note-books of a Law Reporter_ (1867); E.
Manson, _Builders of our Law_ (ed. 1904); J.B. Atlay, _The Victorian
Chancellors_, vol. ii. (1908).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Two of his later acts, allowing the defendant in an action for
libel to prove _veritas_, and giving a right of action to the
representatives of persons killed through negligence, also deserve
mention.
[2] Greville in his _Memoirs_ says that Campbell got this post on
condition that he should not expect the ordinary promotion to the
bench; a condition which, it if were so, he immediately violated by
claiming the vice-chancellorship on the death of Sir John Leach.
Pepys (Lord Cottenham) and Bickersteth (Lord Langdale) were both
promoted to the bench in preference to Campbell.
[3] "There can be no doubt that old Wynton was at the bottom of it
all, and persuaded Lord Grantley to urge it on for mere political
purposes."--Greville, iii. 351.
[4] See thereon J.B. Atlay, _The Victorian Chancellors_ (1908), vol.
ii. p. 174.
[5] In 1842 he published the _Speeches of Lord Campbell at the Bar
and in the Home of Commons, with an Address to the Irish Bar as Lord
Chancellor of Ireland_ (Edin., Black).
[6] It was of this book that Sir Charles Wetherell said, referring to
its author, "and then there is my noble and biographical friend who
has added a new terror to death." See _Misrepresentations in
Campbell's "Lives of Lyndhurst and Brougham" corrected by St
Leonards_ (London, 1869).
CAMPBELL, JOHN FRANCIS, of Islay (1822-1885), Gaelic scholar, was born
on the 29th of December 1822, heir to the beautiful Isle of Islay, on
the west coast of Argyllshire. Of this inheritance he never became
possessed, as the estate had to be sold by his father, and he began life
under greatly changed conditions. Educated at Eton and at Edinburgh
University, he occupied at various times several minor government posts.
His leisure was largely employed in collecting, translating and editing
the folklore of the western Highlands, taken down from the lips of the
natives. The results of his investigations were published in four
volumes under the title _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_
(1860-1862), and form a most important contribution to the subject, the
necessary precursor to the subsequent Gaelic revival in Great Britain.
Campbell was also devoted to geology and other scientific pursuits, and
he invented the sunshine recorder, used in most of the British
meteorological stations. He died at Cannes on the 17th of February
1885.
CAMPBELL, JOHN McLEOD (1800-1872), Scottish divine, son of the Rev.
Donald Campbell, was born at Kilninver, Argyllshire, in 1800. Thanks to
his father he was already a good Latin scholar when he went to Glasgow
University in 1811. Finishing his course in 1817, he became a student at
the Divinity Hall, where he gained some reputation as a Hebraist. After
further training at Edinburgh he was licensed as preacher by the
presbytery of Lorne in 1821. In 1825 he was appointed to the parish of
Row on the Gareloch. About this time the doctrine of Assurance of Faith
powerfully influenced him. He began to give so much prominence to the
universality of the Atonement that his parishioners went so far as to
petition the presbytery in 1829. This petition was withdrawn, but a
subsequent appeal in March 1830 led to a presbyterial visitation
followed by an accusation of heresy. The General Assembly by which the
charge was ultimately considered found Campbell guilty of teaching
heretical doctrines and deprived him of his living. Declining an
invitation to join Edward Irving in the Catholic Apostolic Church, he
worked for two years as an evangelist in the Highlands. Returning to
Glasgow in 1843, he was minister for sixteen years in a large chapel
erected for him, but he never attempted to found a sect. In 1856 he
published his famous book on _The Nature of the Atonement_, which has
profoundly influenced all writing on the subject since his time. His aim
is to view the Atonement in the light of the Incarnation. The divine
mind in Christ is the mind of perfect sonship towards God and perfect
brotherhood towards men. By the light of this divine fact the
Incarnation is seen to develop itself naturally and necessarily as an
atonement; the penal element in the sufferings of Christ is minimized.
Subsequent critics have pointed out that Campbell's position was not
self-consistent in the place assigned to the penal and expiatory element
in the sufferings of Christ, nor adequate in its recognition of the
principle that the obedience of Christ perfectly affirms all
righteousness and so satisfies the holiness of God. In 1859 his health
gave way, and he advised his congregation to join the Barony church,
where Norman McLeod was pastor. In 1862 he published _Thoughts on
Revelation_. In 1868 he received the degree of D.D. from Glasgow
University. In 1870 he removed to Roseneath, and there began his
_Reminiscences and Reflections_, an unfinished work published after his
death by his son. Campbell was greatly loved and esteemed by a circle of
friends, which included Thomas Erskine, Norman McLeod, Bishop Alexander
Ewing, F.D. Maurice, D.J. Vaughan, and he lived to be recognized and
honoured as a man whose opinion on theological subjects carried great
weight. In 1871 a testimonial and address were presented to him by
representatives of most of the religious bodies in Scotland. He died on
the 27th of February 1872, and was buried in Roseneath churchyard.
(D. Mn.)
CAMPBELL, LEWIS (1830-1908), British classical scholar, was born at
Edinburgh on the 3rd of September 1830. His father, Robert Campbell,
R.N., was a first cousin of Thomas Campbell, the poet. He was educated
at Edinburgh Academy, and Glasgow and Oxford universities. He was fellow
and tutor of Queen's College, Oxford (1855-1858), vicar of Milford,
Hants (1858-1863), and professor of Greek and Gifford lecturer at the
university of St Andrews (1863-1894). In 1894 he was elected an honorary
fellow of Balliol. As a scholar he is best known by his work on
Sophocles and Plato. His published works include: Sophocles (2nd ed.,
1879); Plato, _Sophistes_ and _Politicus_ (1867), _Theaetetus_ (2nd ed.,
1883), _Republic_ (with Jowett, 1894); _Life and Letters of Benjamin
Jowett_ (with E. Abbott, 1897), _Letters of B. Jowett_ (1899); _Life of
James Clerk Maxwell_ (with W. Garnett, new ed., 1884); _A Guide to Greek
Tragedy for English Readers_ (1891); _Religion in Greek Literature_
(1898); _On the Nationalisation of the Old English Universities_ (1901);
Verse translations of the plays of Aeschylus (1890); Sophocles (1896);
_Tragic Drama in Aeschylus, Sophocles and Shakespeare_ (1904);
_Paralipomena Sophoclea_ (1907). He died on the 25th of October 1908.
CAMPBELL, REGINALD JOHN (1867- ), British Congregationalist divine,
son of a United Free Methodist minister of Scottish descent, was born in
London, and educated at schools in Bolton and Nottingham, where his
father successively removed, and in Belfast, the home of his
grandfather. At an early age he taught in the high school at Ashton,
Cheshire, and was already married when in 1891 he went to Christchurch,
Oxford, where he graduated in 1895 in the honours school of modern
history. He had gone to Oxford with the intention of becoming a
clergyman in the Church of England, but in spite of the influence of
Bishop Gore, then head of the Pusey House, and of Dean Paget (afterwards
bishop of Oxford), his Scottish and Irish Nonconformist blood was too
strong, and he abandoned the idea in order to take up work in the
Congregational ministry. He accepted a call, on leaving Oxford, to the
small Congregational church in Union Street, Brighton, and quickly
became famous there as a preacher, so much so that on Joseph Parker's
death he was chosen as his successor (1903) at the City Temple, London.
Here he notably enhanced his popularity as a preacher, and became one of
the recognized leaders of Nonconformist opinion. At the end of 1906 he
attracted widespread attention by his vigorous propagation of what was
called the "New Theology," a restatement of Christian beliefs to
harmonize with modern critical views and beliefs, and published a book
with this title which gave rise to considerable discussion.
CAMPBELL, THOMAS (1777-1844), Scottish poet, eighth son of Alexander
Campbell, was born at Glasgow on the 27th of July 1777. His father, who
was a cadet of the family of Campbell of Kirnan, Argyllshire, belonged
to a Glasgow firm trading in Virginia, and lost his money in consequence
of the American war. Campbell was educated at the grammar school and
university of his native town. He won prizes for classics and for
verse-writing, and the vacations he spent as a tutor in the western
Highlands. His poem "Glenara" and the ballad of "Lord Ullin's Daughter"
owe their origin to a visit to Mull. In May 1797 he went to Edinburgh to
attend lectures on law. He supported himself by private teaching and by
writing, towards which he was helped by Dr Robert Anderson, the editor
of the _British Poets_. Among his contemporaries in Edinburgh were Sir
Walter Scott, Henry Brougham, Francis Jeffrey, Dr Thomas Brown, John
Leyden and James Grahame. To these early days in Edinburgh may be
referred "The Wounded Hussar," "The Dirge of Wallace" and the "Epistle
to Three Ladies." In 1799, six months after the publication of the
_Lyrical Ballads_ of Wordsworth and Coleridge, _The Pleasures of Hope_
was published. It is a rhetorical and didactic poem in the taste of his
time, and owed much to the fact that it dealt with topics near to men's
hearts, with the French Revolution, the partition of Poland and with
negro slavery. Its success was instantaneous, but Campbell was deficient
in energy and perseverance and did not follow it up. He went abroad in
June 1800 without any very definite aim, visited Klopstock at Hamburg,
and made his way to Regensburg, which was taken by the French three days
after his arrival. He found refuge in a Scottish monastery. Some of his
best lyrics, "Hohenlinden," "Ye Mariners of England" and "The Soldier's
Dream," belong to his German tour. He spent the winter in Altona, where
he met an Irish exile, Anthony McCann, whose history suggested "The
Exile of Erin."[1] He had at that time the intention of writing an epic
on Edinburgh to be entitled "The Queen of the North." On the outbreak of
war between Denmark and England he hurried home, the "Battle of the
Baltic" being drafted soon after. At Edinburgh he was introduced to the
first Lord Minto, who took him in the next year to London as occasional
secretary. In June 1803 appeared a new edition of the _Pleasures of
Hope_, which some lyrics were added.
In 1803 Campbell married his second cousin, Matilda Sinclair, and
settled in London. He was well received in Whig society, especially at
Holland House. His prospects, however, were slight when in 1805 he
received a government pension of £200. In that year the Campbells
removed to Sydenham. Campbell was at this time regularly employed on the
_Star_ newspaper, for which he translated the foreign news. In 1809 he
published a narrative poem in the Spenserian stanza, "Gertrude of
Wyoming," with which were printed some of his best lyrics. He was slow
and fastidious in composition, and the poem suffered from
over-elaboration. Francis Jeffrey wrote to the author: "Your timidity or
fastidiousness, or some other knavish quality, will not let you give
your conceptions glowing, and bold, and powerful, as they present
themselves; but you must chasten, and refine, and soften them, forsooth,
till half their nature and grandeur is chiselled away from them. Believe
me, the world will never know how truly you are a great and original
poet till you venture to cast before it some of the rough pearls of your
fancy." In 1812 he delivered a series of lectures on poetry in London at
the Royal Institution; and he was urged by Sir Walter Scott to become a
candidate for the chair of literature at Edinburgh University. In 1814
he went to Paris, making there the acquaintance of the elder Schlegel,
of Baron Cuvier and others. His pecuniary anxieties were relieved in
1815 by a legacy of £4000. He continued to occupy himself with his
_Specimens of the British Poets_, the design of which had been projected
years before. The work was published in 1819. It contains on the whole
an admirable selection with short lives of the poets, and prefixed to it
an essay on poetry containing much valuable criticism. In 1820 he
accepted the editorship of the _New Monthly Magazine_, and in the same
year made another tour in Germany. Four years later appeared his
"Theodric", a not very successful poem of domestic life. He took an
active share in the foundation of the university of London, visiting
Berlin to inquire into the German system of education, and making
recommendations which were adopted by Lord Brougham. He was elected lord
rector of Glasgow University three times (1826-1829). In the last
election he had Sir Walter Scott for a rival. Campbell retired from the
editorship of the _New Monthly Magazine_ in 1830, and a year later made
an unsuccessful venture with the _Metropolitan Magazine_. He had
championed the cause of the Poles in _The Pleasures of Hope_, and the
news of the capture of Warsaw by the Russians in 1831 affected him as if
it had been the deepest of personal calamities. "Poland preys on my
heart night and day," he wrote in one of his letters, and his sympathy
found a practical expression in the foundation in London of the
Association of the Friends of Poland. In 1834 he travelled to Paris and
Algiers, where he wrote his _Letters from the South_ (printed 1837).
The small production of Campbell may be partly explained by his domestic
calamities. His wife died in 1828. Of his two sons, one died in infancy
and the other became insane. His own health suffered, and he gradually
withdrew from public life. He died at Boulogne on the 15th of June 1844,
and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Campbell's other works include a _Life of Mrs Siddons_ (1842), and a
narrative poem, "The Pilgrim of Glencoe" (1842). See _The Life and
Letters of Thomas Campbell_ (3 vols., 1849), edited by William
Beattie, M.D.; _Literary Reminiscences and Memoirs of Thomas Campbell_
(1860), by Cyrus Redding; _The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell_
(1875), in the Aldine Edition of the British Poets, edited by the Rev.
W. Alfred Hill, with a sketch of the poet's life by William Allingham;
and the "Oxford Edition" of the _Complete Works of Thomas Campbell_
(1908), edited by J. Logie Robertson. See also _Thomas Campbell_ in
the Famous Scots Series, by J.C. Hadden, and a selection by Lewis
Campbell (1904) for the Golden Treasury Series.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The original authorship of this poem was by many people assigned
to G. Nugent Reynolds. Campbell's claim is established in _Literary
Remains of the United, Irishmen_, by R.R. Madden (1887).
CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, SIR HENRY (1836-1908), English prime minister, was
born on the 7th of September 1836, being the second son of Sir James
Campbell, Bart., of Stracathro, Forfarshire, lord provost of Glasgow.
His elder brother James, who just outlived him, was Conservative M.P.
for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities from 1880 to 1906. Both his father
and his uncle William Campbell, who had together founded an important
drapery business in Glasgow, left him considerable fortunes; and he
assumed the name of Bannerman in 1872, in compliance with the provisions
of the will of his maternal uncle, Henry Bannerman, from whom he
inherited a large property in Kent. He was educated at Glasgow
University and at Trinity College, Cambridge (senior optime, and
classical honours); was returned to parliament for Stirling as a Liberal
in 1868 (after an unsuccessful attempt at a by-election); and became
financial secretary at the war office (1871-1874; 1880-1882), secretary
to the admiralty (1882-1884), and chief secretary for Ireland
(1884-1885). When Mr Gladstone suddenly adopted the cause of Home Rule
for Ireland, he "found salvation", to use his own phrase, and followed
his leader. In Mr Gladstone's 1886 ministry he was secretary for war,
and filled the same office in the Liberal ministry of 1892-1895. In the
latter year he was knighted (G.C.B.). It fell to his lot as war minister
to obtain the duke of Cambridge's resignation of the office of
commander-in-chief; but his intended appointment of a chief of the staff
in substitution for that office was frustrated by the resignation of the
ministry. It was an imputed omission on the part of the war office, and
therefore of the war minister, to provide a sufficient supply of
small-arms ammunition for the army which on the 21st of June 1895 led to
the defeat of the Rosebery government. Wealthy, popular and possessed of
a vein of oratorical humour (Mr T. Healy had said that he tried to
govern Ireland with Scottish jokes), Sir Henry had already earned the
general respect of all parties, and in April 1895, when Mr Speaker Peel
retired, his claims for the vacant post were prominently canvassed; but
his colleagues were averse from his retirement from active politics and
Mr Gully was selected. Though a prominent member of the inner Liberal
circle and a stanch party man, it was not supposed by the public at this
time that any ambition for the highest place could be associated with
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman; but the divisions among the Liberals, and
the rivalry between Lord Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt, made the
political situation an anomalous one. The very fact that he was
apparently unambitious of personal supremacy combined with his
honourable record and experience to make him a safe man; and in December
1898, on Sir W. Harcourt's formal resignation of the leadership of the
Opposition, he was elected to fill the position in the House of Commons
with the general assent of the party. In view of its parliamentary
impotence, and its legacy of an unpopular Home Rule programme, Sir Henry
had a difficult task to perform, but he prudently interpreted his duty
as chiefly consisting in the effort to keep the Radical party together
in the midst of its pronounced differences. In this he was successful,
although the advent of the Boer War of 1899-1902 created new
difficulties with the Liberal Imperialists. The leader of the Opposition
from the first denounced the diplomatic steps taken by Lord Milner and
Mr Chamberlain, and objected to all armed intervention or even
preparation for hostilities. Sir Henry's own tendency to favour the
anti-war section, his refusal to support the government in any way, and
his allusion to "methods of barbarism" in connexion with the conduct of
the British army (June 14, 1901), accentuated the crisis within the
party; and in 1901 the Liberal Imperialists, who looked to Lord Rosebery
(q.v.) and Mr Asquith (q.v.) for their political inspiration, showed
pronounced signs of restiveness. But a party meeting was called on the
9th of July, and Sir Henry was unanimously confirmed in the leadership.
The end of the war in 1902 showed the value of his persistency
throughout the years of Liberal unpopularity and disunion. The political
conflict once more resumed its normal condition, for the first time
since 1892. The blunders of the government were open to a united attack,
and Mr Chamberlain's tariff-reform movement in 1903 provided a new
rallying point in defence of the existing fiscal system. In the Liberal
campaign on behalf of free trade the real leader, however, was Mr
Asquith. Sir Henry's own principal contribution to the discussion was
rather unfortunate, for while insisting on the blessings derived by
England from its free-trade policy, he coupled this with the rhetorical
admission (at Bolton in 1903) that "12,000,000 British citizens were
underfed and on the verge of hunger." But Lord Salisbury's retirement,
Unionist divisions, the staleness of the ministry, and the accumulating
opposition in the country to the Education Act of 1902 and to the
continued weight of taxation, together with the growth of the Labour
movement, and the antagonism to the introduction of Chinese coolies
(1904) into South Africa under conditions represented by Radical
spokesmen as those of "slavery," made the political pendulum swing back.
A Liberal majority at the dissolution was promised by all the signs at
by-elections. The government held on, but collapse was only a question
of time (see the articles on BALFOUR, A.J., and CHAMBERLAIN, J.). On the
4th of December 1905 the Unionist government resigned, and the king sent
for Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who in a few days formed his cabinet.
Lord Rosebery, who until a short time before had seemed likely to
co-operate, alone held aloof. In a speech at Stirling on the 23rd of
November, Sir Henry appeared to him to have deliberately flouted his
well-known susceptibilities by once more writing Home Rule in large
letters on the party programme, and he declared at Bodmin that he would
"never serve under that banner." Sir Henry's actual words, which
undoubtedly influenced the Irish vote, were that he "desired to see the
effective management of Irish affairs in the hands of a representative
Irish assembly. If an instalment of representative control was offered
to Ireland, or any administrative improvement, he would advise the
Nationalists to accept it, provided it was consistent and led up to
their larger policy." But if Lord Rosebery once more separated himself
from the official Liberals, his principal henchmen in the Liberal League
were included in the cabinet, Mr Asquith becoming chancellor of the
exchequer, Sir Edward Grey foreign secretary, and Mr Haldane war
minister. Other sections of the party were strongly represented by Mr
John Morley as secretary for India, Mr Bryce (afterwards ambassador at
Washington) as chief secretary for Ireland, Sir R.T. Reid (Lord
Loreburn) as lord chancellor, Mr Augustine Birrell as education minister
(afterwards Irish secretary), Mr Lloyd-George as president of the Board
of Trade, Mr Herbert Gladstone as home secretary, and Mr John Burns--a
notable rise for a Labour leader--as president of the Local Government
Board. Lord Ripon became leader in the House of Lords; and Lord Elgin
(colonial secretary), Lord Carrington (agriculture), Lord Aberdeen (lord
lieutenant of Ireland), Sir Henry Fowler (chancellor of the duchy of
Lancaster), Mr Sidney Buxton (postmaster-general), Mr L.V. Harcourt
(first commissioner of works), and Captain John Sinclair (secretary for
Scotland) completed the ministry, a place of prominence outside the
cabinet being found for Mr Winston Churchill as under-secretary for the
colonies. In 1907 Mr R. McKenna was brought into the cabinet as
education minister. There had been some question as to whether Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman should go to the House of Lords, but there was a
decided unwillingness in the party, and he determined to keep his seat
in the Commons.
At the general election in January 1906 an overwhelming Liberal majority
was returned, irrespective of the Labour and Nationalist vote, and Sir
Henry himself was again elected for Stirling. The Liberals numbered 379,
the Labour members 51, the Nationalists 83, and the Unionists only 157.
His premiership was the reward of undoubted services rendered to his
party; it may be said, however, that, in contradistinction to the prime
ministers for some time previous, he represented the party, rather than
that the party represented him. It was not his ideas or his commanding
personality, nor any positive programme, that brought the Liberals back
to power, but the country's weariness of their predecessors and the
successful employment at the elections of a number of miscellaneous
issues. But as the man who had doggedly, yet unpretentiously, filled the
gap in the days of difficulty, and been somewhat contemptuously
criticized by the Unionist press for his pains, Sir Henry was clearly
marked out for the post of prime minister when his party got its chance;
and, as the head of a strongly composed cabinet, he satisfied the
demands of the situation and was accepted as leader by all sections.
Once prime minister, his personal popularity proved to be a powerful
unifying influence in a somewhat heterogeneous party; and though the
illness and death (August 30, 1906) of his wife (daughter of General Sir
Charles Bruce), whom he had married in 1860, made his constant
attendance in the House of Commons impossible, his domestic sorrow
excited widespread sympathy and appealed afresh to the affection of his
political followers. This became all the more apparent as his own health
failed during 1907; for, though he was obliged to leave much of the
leadership in the Commons to Mr Asquith, his possible resignation of the
premiership was strongly deprecated; and even after November, when it
became clear that his health was not equal to active work, four or five
months elapsed before the necessary change became a _fait accompli_.
Personal affection and political devotion had in these two years made
him appear indispensable to the party, although nobody ever regarded him
as in the front line of English statesmen so far as originality of ideas
or brilliance of debating power were concerned. It is not the fortune of
many more brilliant statesmen to earn this testimonial to character.
From the beginning of the session of 1908 it was evident, however, that
Mr Asquith, who was acting as deputy prime minister, would before long
succeed to the Liberal leadership; and on the 5th of April Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman's resignation was formally announced. He died on the
22nd of the same month. He had spoken in the House of Commons on the
13th of February, but since then had been prostrated and unable to
transact business, his illness dating really from a serious heart attack
in the night of the 13th of November at Bristol, after a speech at the
Colston banquet.
From a party-political point of view the period of Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman's premiership was chiefly marked by the continued
controversies remaining from the general election of 1906,--tariff
reform and free trade, the South African question and the allied
Liberal policy for abolishing Chinese labour, the administration of
Ireland, and the amendment of the Education Act of 1902 so as to remove
its supposed denominational character. In his speech at the Albert Hall
on the 21st of December 1905 it was noticeable that, before the
elections, the prime minister laid stress on only one subject which
could be regarded as part of a constructive programme--the necessity of
doing something for canals, which was soon shelved to a royal
commission. But in spite of the fiasco of the Irish Councils Bill
(1907), the struggles over education (Mr Birrell's bill of 1906 being
dropped on account of the Lords' amendments), the rejection by the peers
of the Plural Voting Abolition Bill (1906), and the failure (again due
to the Lords) of the Scottish Small Holdings Bill and Valuation Bill
(1907), which at the time made his premiership appear to be a period of
bitter and unproductive debate, a good many reforming measures of some
moment were carried. A new Small Holdings Act (1907) for England was
passed; the Trades Disputes Act (1906) removed the position of trades
unions from the controversy excited over the Taff Vale decision; Mr
Lloyd-George's Patents Act (1907) and Merchant Shipping Act (1906) were
welcomed by the tariff reformers as embodying their own policy; a
long-standing debate was closed by the passing of the Deceased Wife's
Sister Act (1907); and acts for establishing a public trustee, a court
of criminal appeal, a system of probation for juvenile offenders, and a
census of production, were passed in 1907. Meanwhile, though the
Colonial Conference (re-named Imperial) of 1907 showed that there was a
wide difference of opinion on the tariff question between the free-trade
government and the colonial premiers, in one part of the empire the
ministry took a decided step--in the establishment of a self-governing
constitution for the Transvaal and Orange River colonies--which, for
good or ill, would make the period memorable. Mr Haldane's new army
scheme was no less epoch-making in Great Britain. In foreign affairs,
the conclusion of a treaty with Russia for delimiting the British and
Russian spheres of influence in the Middle East laid the foundations of
entirely new relations between the British and Russian governments. On
the other hand, so far as concerned the ultimate fortunes of the Liberal
party, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's premiership can only be regarded
as a period of marking time. He had become its leader as a conciliator
of the various sections, and it was as a conciliator, ready to
sympathize with the strong views of all sections of his following, that
he kept the party together, while his colleagues went their own ways in
their own departments. His own special "leads" were few, owing to the
personal reasons given above; his declaration at the Queen's Hall,
London, early in 1907, in favour of drastic land reform, served only to
encourage a number of extremists; and the Liberal enthusiasm against the
House of Lords, violently excited in 1906 by the fate of the Education
Bill and Plural Voting Bill, was rather damped than otherwise, when his
method of procedure by resolution of the House of Commons was disclosed
in 1907. The House passed by an enormous majority a resolution
(introduced on June 25) "that in order to give effect to the will of the
people, as expressed by their representatives, it is necessary that the
power of the other House to alter or reject bills passed by this House
should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a
single parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail"; but
the prime minister's explanation that statutory provision should be made
for two or three successive private conferences between the two Houses
as to any bill in dispute at intervals of about six months, and that,
only after that, the bill in question should be finally sent up by the
Commons with the intimation that unless passed in that form it would
become law over their heads, was obviously not what was wanted by
enthusiastic opponents of the second chamber. The problem still
remained, how to get the House of Lords to pass a "law" to restrict
their own powers. After the passing of this resolution the cry against
the House of Lords rapidly weakened, since it became clear at the
by-elections (culminating at Peckham in March 1908) that the "will of
the people" was by no means unanimously on the side of the bills which
had failed to pass.
The result of the two years was undoubtedly to revive the confidence of
the Opposition, who found that they had outlived the criticisms of the
general election, and both on the question of tariff reform and on
matters of general politics were again holding their own. The failure of
the government in Ireland (where the only success was Mr Birrell's
introduction of the Universities Bill in April 1908), their internal
divisions as regards socialistic legislation, their variance from the
views of the self-governing colonies on Imperial administration, the
admission after the general election that the alleged "slavery" of the
Chinese in the Transvaal was, in Mr Winston Churchill's phrase, a
"terminological inexactitude," and the introduction of extreme measures
such as the Licensing Bill of 1908, offered excellent opportunities of
electioneering attack. Moreover, the Liberal promises of economy had
been largely falsified, the reductions in the navy estimates being
dangerous in themselves, while the income tax still remained at
practically the war level. For much of all this the prime minister's
colleagues were primarily responsible; but he himself had given a lead
to the anti-militarist section by prominently advocating international
disarmament, and the marked rebuff to the British proposals at the Hague
conference of 1907 exposed alike the futility of this Radical ideal and
the general inadequacy of the prime minister's policy of pacificism. Sir
Henry's rather petulant intolerance of Unionist opposition, shown at the
opening of the 1906 session in his dismissal of a speech by Mr Balfour
with the words "Enough of this foolery!" gradually gave way before the
signs of Unionist reintegration. His resignation took place at a moment
when the Liberal, Irish and Labour parties were growing restive under
their obligations, government policy stood in need of concentration
against an Opposition no longer divided and making marked headway in the
country, and the ministry had to be reconstituted under a successor, Mr
Asquith, towards whom, so far, there was no such feeling of personal
devotion as had been the chief factor in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's
leadership. (H. Ch.)
CAMPBELTOWN, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and seaport of
Argyllshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 8286. It is situated on a fine bay,
towards the S.E. extremity of the peninsula of Kintyre, 11 m. N.E. of
the Mull and 83 m. S.W. of Glasgow by water. The seat of the Dalriad
monarchy in the 6th or 7th century, its importance declined when the
capital was transferred to Forteviot. No memorial of its antiquity has
survived, but the finely sculptured granite cross standing on a pedestal
in the market-place belongs to the 12th century, and there are ruins of
some venerable chapels and churches. Through the interest of the
Campbells, who are still the overlords and from whom it takes its name,
it became a royal burgh in 1700. It was the birthplace of the Rev. Dr
Norman Macleod (1812). The chief public buildings are the churches (one
of which occupies the site of a castle of the Macdonalds), the town
house, the Academy and the Athenaeum. The staple industry is whisky
distilling, of which the annual output is 2,000,000 gallons, more than
half for export. The port is the head of a fishery district and does a
thriving trade. Shipbuilding, net and rope-making, and woollen
manufacturing are other industries, and coal is mined in the vicinity.
There are three piers and a safe and capacious harbour, the bay, called
Campbeltown Loch, measuring 2 m. in length by 1 in breadth. At its
entrance stands a lighthouse on the island of Davaar. On the Atlantic
shore is the splendid golf-course of Machrihanish, 5 m. distant.
Machrihanish is connected with Campbeltown by a light railway. Near the
village of Southend is Machrireoch, the duke of Argyll's shooting-lodge,
an old structure modernized, commanding superb views of the Firth of
Clyde and its islands, and of Ireland. On the rock of Dunaverty stood
the castle of Macdonald of the Isles, who was dispossessed by the
Campbells in the beginning of the 17th century. At this place in 1647
General David Leslie is said to have ordered 300 of the Macdonalds to be
slain after their surrender. Of the ancient church founded here by
Columba, only the walls remain. Campbeltown unites with Ayr, Inveraray,
Irvine and Oban in sending one member (for the "Ayr Burghs") to
parliament.
CAMPE, JOACHIM HEINRICH (1746-1818), German educationist, was born at
Deensen in Brunswick in 1746. He studied theology at the university of
Halle, and after acting for some time as chaplain at Potsdam, he
accepted a post as director of studies in the Philanthropin at Dessau
(see BASEDOW). He soon after set up an educational establishment of his
own at Trittow, near Hamburg, which he was obliged to give up to one of
his assistants within a few years, in consequence of feeble health. In
1787 he proceeded to Brunswick as counsellor of education, and purchased
the _Schulbuchhandlung_, which under his direction became a most
prosperous business. He died in 1818. His numerous educational works
were widely used throughout Germany. Among the most popular were the
_Kleine Kinderbibliothek_ (11th ed., 1815); _Robinson der Jüngere_ (59th
ed., 1861), translated into English and into nearly every European
language; and _Sämmtliche Kinder- und Jugendschriften_, 37 vols.
CAMPECHE (CAMPEACHY), a southern state of Mexico, comprising the western
part of the peninsula of Yucatan, bounded N. and E. by Yucatan, S. by
Guatemala, S.W. by Tabasco and N.W. by that part of the Gulf of Mexico
designated on English maps as the Bay of Campeachy. Pop. (1895) 87,264;
(1900) 86,542, mostly Indians and mestizos. Area, 18,087 sq. m. The name
of the state is derived from its principal forest product, _palo de
campeche_ (logwood). The surface, like that of Yucatan, consists of a
vast sandy plain, broken by a group of low elevations in the north,
heavily forested in the south, but with open tracts in the north adapted
to grazing. The northern part is insufficiently watered, the rains
filtering quickly through the soil. In the south, however, there are
some large rivers, and the forest region is very humid. The climate is
hot and unhealthy. In the north-west angle of the state is the Laguna de
Términos, a large tide-water lake, which receives the drainage of the
southern districts. Among the products and exports are logwood, fustic,
lignum-vitae, mahogany, cedar, hides, tortoiseshell and _chicle_, the
last extracted from the _zapote chico_ trees (_Achras sapota_, L.).
Stock-raising engages some attention. One railway crosses the state from
the capital, Campeche, to Merida, Yucatan, but there are no other means
of transportation except the rivers and mule-paths. The port of Carmen
(pop. in 1900, about 6000), on a sand key between the Laguna de Términos
and the Gulf, has an active trade in dyewoods and other forest products,
and owing to its inland water communications with the forest areas of
the interior is the principal port of the state and of Tabasco.
CAMPECHE, or CAMPECHE DE BARANDA, a fortified city and port of Mexico,
and capital of a state of the same name, situated on the Bay of
Campeche, 825 m. E. of the city of Mexico and 90 m. S.W. of Merida, in
lat. 20° 5' N., long. 90° 16' W. Pop. (1900) 17,109. Campeche was one of
the three open ports of this coast under the Spanish régime, and its
walls, general plan, fine public edifices, shady squares and comfortable
stone residences are evidence of the wealth it once possessed. It is
still one of the most attractive towns on the Gulf coast of Mexico. It
had a monopoly of the Yucatan trade and enjoyed large profits from its
logwood exports, both of which have been largely lost. It was formerly
the principal port for the state and for a part of Yucatan, but the port
of Carmen at the entrance to Laguna de Términos is now the chief
shipping port for logwood and other forest products, and a considerable
part of the trade of Campeche has been transferred to Progreso, the port
of Merida. The port of Campeche is a shallow roadstead defended by three
forts and protected by a stone pier or wharf 160 ft. long, but vessels
drawing more than 9 ft. are compelled to lie outside and discharge cargo
into lighters. The exports include logwood, cotton, hides, wax, tobacco,
salt and cigars of local manufacture. The principal public buildings are
the old citadel, some old churches, the town hall, a handsome theatre,
hospital and market. The streets are traversed by tramways, and a
railway runs north-eastward to Merida. Campeche stands on the site of an
old native town, of which there are interesting remains in the vicinity,
and which was first visited by Hernández de Córdoba in 1517. The
Spanish town was founded in 1540, and was sacked by the British in 1659
and by buccaneers in 1678 and 1685. During the revolution of 1842
Campeche was the scene of many engagements between the Mexicans and
people of Yucatan.
CAMPEGGIO, LORENZO (1464-1539), Italian cardinal, was born at Milan of a
noble Bolognese family. At first he followed a legal career at Pavia and
Bologna, and when in 1499 he took his doctorate he was esteemed the most
learned canonist in Europe. In 1500 he married Francesca de'
Gualtavillani, by whom he had five children, one of whom, Allessandro,
born in 1504, became cardinal in 1551, and another, Gianbaptista, became
bishop of Minorca. His wife dying in 1510, he went into the church; on
account of his services during the rebellion of Bologna, he was made by
Julius II. auditor of the Rota in 1511, and sent to Maximilian and to
Vienna as nuncio. Raised to the see of Feltre in 1512, he went on
another embassy to Maximilian in 1513, and was created cardinal priest
of San Tommaso in Pavione, 27th of June 1517. Leo X., needing a subsidy
from the English clergy, sent Campeggio to England on the ostensible
business of arranging a crusade against the Turks. Wolsey, then engaged
in beginning his reform of the English church, procured that he himself
should be joined to the legation as senior legate; thus the Italian, who
arrived in England on the 23rd of July 1518, held a subordinate position
and his special legatine faculties were suspended. Campeggio's mission
failed in its immediate object; but he returned to Rome, where he was
received in Consistory on the 28th of November 1519, with the gift from
the king of the palace of Cardinal Adriano Castellesi (q.v.), who had
been deposed, and large gifts of money and furniture. He was made
protector of England in the Roman curia; and in 1524 Henry VIII. gave
him the rich see of Salisbury, and the pope the archbishopric of
Bologna. After attending the diet of Regensburg, he shared the captivity
of Clement VII. during the sack of Rome in 1527 and did much to restore
peace. On the 1st of October 1528 he arrived in England as co-legate
with Wolsey in the matter of Henry's divorce. He brought with him a
secret document, the Decretal, which defined the law and left the
legates to decide the question of fact; but this important letter was to
be shown only to Henry and Wolsey. "Owing to recent events," that is,
the loss of the temporal power, Clement was in no way inclined to offend
the victorious Charles V., Catherine's nephew, and Campeggio had already
received (16th of September 1528) distinct instructions "not to proceed
to sentence under any pretext without express commission, but protract
the matter as long as possible." After using all means of persuasion to
restore peace between the king and queen, Campeggio had to resist the
pressure brought upon him to give sentence. The legatine court opened at
Blackfriars on the 18th of June 1529, but the final result was certain.
Campeggio could not by the terms of his commission give sentence; so his
only escape was to prorogue the court on the 23rd of July on the plea of
the Roman vacation. Having failed to satisfy the king, he left England
on the 26th of October 1529, after his baggage had been searched at
Dover to find the Decretal, which, however, had been burnt. Returning to
Bologna, the cardinal assisted at the coronation of Charles V. on the
24th of February 1530, and went with him to the diet of Augsburg. He was
deprived by Henry of the English protectorate; and when sentence was
finally given against the divorce, Campeggio was deprived of the see of
Salisbury as a non-resident alien, by act of parliament (11th of March
1535); but his rich benefices in the Spanish dominions made ample
amends. In 1537 he became cardinal bishop of Sabina, and died in Rome on
the 25th of July 1539. His tomb is in the church of S. Maria in
Trastevere. (E. Tn.)
CAMPER, PETER (1722-1789), Dutch anatomist and naturalist, was born at
Leiden on the 11th of May 1722. He was educated at the university there,
and in 1746 graduated in philosophy and medicine. After the death of his
father in 1748 he spent more than a year in England, and then visited
Paris, Lyons and Geneva, and returned to Franeker, where in 1750 he had
been appointed to the professorship of philosophy, medicine and
surgery. He visited England a second time in 1752, and in 1755 he was
called to the chair of anatomy and surgery at the Athenaeum in
Amsterdam. He resigned this post after six years, and retired to his
country house near Franeker, in order uninterruptedly to carry on his
studies. In 1763, however, he accepted the professorship of medicine,
surgery and anatomy at Groningen, and continued in the chair for ten
years. He then returned to Franeker, and after the death of his wife in
1776 spent some time in travelling. In 1762 he had been returned as one
of the deputies in the assembly of the province of Friesland, and the
latter years of his life were much occupied with political affairs. In
1787 he was nominated to a seat in the council of state, and took up his
residence at the Hague, where he died on the 7th of April 1789.
Camper's works, mainly memoirs and detached papers, are very numerous;
the most important of those bearing on comparative anatomy were
published in 3 vols. at Paris in 1803, under the title _Oeuvres de P.
Camper qui ont pour objet l'histoire naturelle, la physiologie, et
l'anatomie comparée_. His _Dissertation physique sur les différences
réelles que présentent les traits du visage chez les hommes de
différents pays et de différents âges; sur le beau qui caractérise les
statues antiques et les pièces gravées_, &c., which was published in
1781 both in Dutch and in French, contains an account of the facial
angle which he used as a cranial characteristic. (See also ANATOMY.)
CAMPHAUSEN, OTTO VON (1812-1896), Prussian statesman, was born at
Hünshoven in the Rhine Provinces on the 21st of October 1812. Having
studied jurisprudence and political economy at the universities of Bonn,
Heidelberg, Munich and Berlin, he entered the legal career at Cologne,
and immediately devoted his attention to financial and commercial
questions. Nominated assessor in 1837, he acted for five years in this
capacity at Magdeburg and Coblenz, became in 1845 counsellor in the
ministry of finance, and was in 1849 elected a member of the second
chamber of the Prussian diet, joining the Moderate Liberal party. In
1869 he was appointed minister of finance. On taking office, he was
confronted with a deficit in the revenue, which he successfully cleared
off by effecting a conversion of a greater part of the state loans. The
French war indemnity enabled him to redeem a considerable portion of the
state debt and to remit certain taxes. He was, however, a too warm
adherent of free trade principles to enjoy the confidence either of the
Agrarian party or of Prince Bismarck, and his antagonism to the tobacco
monopoly and the general economic policy of the latter brought about his
retirement. Camphausen's great services to Prussia were recognized by
his sovereign in the bestowal of the order of the Black Eagle in 1895, a
dignity carrying with it a patent of nobility. He died at Berlin on the
18th of May 1896.
CAMPHAUSEN, WILHELM (1818-1885), German painter, was born at Düsseldorf,
and studied under A. Rethel and F.W. von Schadow. As an historical and
battle painter he rapidly became popular, and in 1859 was made professor
of painting at the Düsseldorf academy, together with other later
distinctions. His "Flight of Tilly" (1841), "Prince Eugene at the Battle
of Belgrade" (1843; in the Cologne museum), "Flight of Charles II. after
the Battle of Worcester" (Berlin National Gallery), "Cromwell's Cavalry"
(Munich Pinakothek), are his principal earlier pictures; and his
"Frederick the Great at Potsdam," "Frederick II. and the Bayreuth
Dragoons at Hohenfriedburg," and pictures of the Schleswig-Holstein
campaign and the war of 1866 (notably "Lines of Düppel after the
Battle," at the Berlin National Gallery), made him famous in Germany as
a representative of patriotic historical art. He also painted many
portraits of German princes and celebrated soldiers and statesmen. He
died at Düsseldorf on the 16th of June 1885.
CAMPHORS, organic chemical compounds, the alcohols and ketones of the
hydrocarbons known as terpenes, occurring associated with volatile oils
in many plants. They are extracted together with volatile oils by
distilling certain plants with steam, the volatile oils being
subsequently separated by fractional distillation. The term "camphor" is
generally applied to the solid products so obtained, and hence includes
the "stearoptenes," or solid portions of the volatile oils. They are
mostly white crystalline solids, possessing a characteristic odour; they
are sparingly soluble in water, but readily dissolve in alcohol and
ether. Chemically, the camphors may be divided into two main groups,
according to the nature of the corresponding hydrocarbon or terpene. In
this article only the camphors of commercial importance will be treated;
details as to the chemical structure, syntheses and relations will be
found in the article TERPENES.
_Menthol, mentha or peppermint camphor_, C10H19OH, 5-methyl-2-isopropyl
hexahydrophenol, an oxyhexahydrocymene, occurs in the volatile oils of
_Mentha piperita_ and _M. arvensis_ (var. _piperascens_ and _glabrata_),
from which it is obtained by cooling and subsequently pressing the
separated crystals; or by fractional distillation. It crystallizes in
prisms, having the odour and taste of peppermint; it melts at 42° and
boils at 212°. It is very slightly soluble in water, but readily
dissolves in alcohol and ether. It is optically active, being
laevo-rotatory. Menthol is used in medicine to relieve pain, as in
rheumatism, neuralgia, throat affections and toothache. It acts also as
a local anaesthetic, vascular stimulant and disinfectant.
_Thymol, thyme camphor_, C10H13OH, 3-methyl-6-isopropyl phenol, an
oxycymene, occurs in the volatile oil of Ajowan, _Carum ajowan_, garden
thyme, _Thymus vulgaris_, wild thyme, _T. Serpyllum_ and horse mint,
_Monarda punctata_. Thymol crystallizes in large colourless plates which
melt at 44° and boil at 230°. It has the odour of thyme, is sparingly
soluble in water, but very soluble in alcohol, ether and in alkaline
solutions. In medicine it is used as an antiseptic, being more active
than phenol. Iodine and potash convert it into di-iodthymol, which has
been introduced in surgery under the names _aristol_ and _annidalin_, as
a substitute for iodoform.
_Borneol, Borneo camphor_ or camphol, also known as Malayan, Barus or
Dryobalanops camphor, C10H17OH, occurs in fissures in the wood of
_Dryobalanops aromatica_, a majestic tree flourishing in the East
Indies. This product is dextro-rotatory; the laevo and inactive
modifications occur in the so-called baldrianic camphor. Borneol melts
at 203° and boils at 212°. It is very similar to common or Japan
camphor, but has a somewhat peppery odour. Sodium and alcohol reduce
common camphor to a mixture of d- and l-borneol.
_Common camphor, Japan or Laurel camphor_, C10H16O, which constitutes
the bulk of the camphor of commerce, is the product of the camphor
laurel, _Cinnamonum camphora_, a tree flourishing in Japan, Formosa and
central China. It also occurs in various volatile oils, e.g. lavender,
rosemary, sage and spike. To extract the camphor, chips of the tree are
steamed, and the mixed vapours of camphor, volatile oils and water are
conducted to a condensing plant, where most of the camphor separates
out. This is filtered, and the remainder, about 20% of the total, which
is retained in solution, is extracted by fractional distillation and
cooling the distillate. The crude camphor so obtained is exported from
Japan in two grades--Samuel A and Samuel B. It is purified by mixing
with a little charcoal, sand, iron filings or quicklime and subliming,
by steam distillation or by crystallization. Common camphor forms a
translucent mass of hexagonal prisms, melting at 175° and boiling at
204°. It sublimes very readily. In alcoholic solution it is
dextro-rotatory; the laevo form, Matricaria camphor, occurs in the oil
of _Matricaria parthenium_ and closely resembles the d form. Camphor
is chiefly used in the celluloid industry. The so-called "artificial
camphor" is pinene hydrochloride (see TERPENES).
Externally applied it acts medicinally as a counter-irritant, and, in
some degree, as a local anaesthetic, being also a definite antiseptic.
It is, therefore, largely used in liniments for the relief of myalgia,
sciatica, lumbago, etc. Combined with chloroform, thymol or carbolic
acid, it is a valuable local application for neuralgia and for toothache
due to dental caries. Taken internally, camphor is a nerve stimulant, a
diaphoretic and a feeble antipyretic. It is excreted by the kidneys as
various substances, including campho-glycuric acid (Schmiedeberg). In
large doses it causes marked nervous symptoms, exhilaration being
followed by abdominal pain, violent epileptiform convulsions, coma and
death. Its internal uses are in hysteria, and in such conditions as
diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera. It is a popular remedy for "cold in
the head," but it is not to be relied upon as a prophylactic against
infection either by an ordinary cold or true influenza.
CAMPHUYSEN, DIRK RAFELSZ (1586-1627), Dutch painter, poet and
theologian, was the son of a surgeon at Gorcum. As he manifested great
artistic talent, his brother, in whose charge he was left on the death
of his parents, placed him under the painter Govaerts. But at that time
there was intense interest in theology; and Camphuysen, sharing in the
prevailing enthusiasm, deserted the pursuit of art, to become first a
private tutor and afterwards minister of Vleuten near Utrecht(1616). As,
however, he had embraced the doctrines of Arminius with fervour, he was
deprived of this post and driven into exile (1619). His chief solace was
poetry; and he has left a translation of the Psalms, and a number of
short pieces, remarkable for their freshness and depth of poetic
feeling. He is also the author of several theological works of fair
merit, among which is a _Compendium Doctrinae Sociniorum_; but his fame
chiefly rests on his pictures, which, like his poems, are mostly small,
but of great beauty; the colouring, though thin, is pure; the
composition and pencilling are exquisite, and the perspective above
criticism. The best of his works are his sunset and moonlight scenes and
his views of the Rhine and other rivers. The close of his life was spent
at Dokkum. His nephew Raphael (b. 1598) is by some considered to have
been the author of several of the works ascribed to him; and his son
Govaert (1624-1674), a follower or imitator of Paul Potter, is similarly
credited.
CAMPI, GIULIO (1500-1572), the founder of a school of Italian painters,
was born at Cremona. He was son of a painter, Galeazzo Campi
(1475-1536), under whom he took his first lessons in art. He was then
taught by Giulio Romano; and he made a special study of Titian,
Correggio and Raphael. His works are remarkable for their correctness,
vigour and loftiness of style. They are very numerous, and the church of
St Margaret in his native town owes all its paintings to his hand. Among
the earliest of his school are his brothers, Vincenzo and Antonio, the
latter of whom was also of some mark as a sculptor and as historian of
Cremona.
Giulio's pupil, BERNARDINO CAMPI (1522-1592), in some respects superior
to his master, began life as a goldsmith. After an education under
Giulio Campi and Ippolito Corta, he attained such skill that when he
added another to the eleven Caesars of Titian, it was impossible to say
which was the master's and which the imitator's. He was also much
influenced by Correggio and Raphael. His principal work is seen in the
frescoes of the cupola at San Sigismondo, at Cremona.
CAMPILLO, JOSÉ DEL (1695-1743), Spanish statesman, was of very obscure
origin. From his own account of his youth, written to Antonio de Mier in
1726, we only know that he was born in "a house equally poor and
honest," that he studied Latin by his own wish, that he entered the
service of Don Antonio Maldonado, prebendary of Córdoba, who wished
apparently to train him as a priest, and that he declined to take
orders. He left the service of Maldonado in 1713, being then eighteen
years of age. In 1715 he became "page" to D. Francisco de Ocio,
superintendent general of customs, who doubtless employed him as a
clerk. In 1717 he attracted the favourable notice of Patiño, the head of
the newly-organized navy, and was by him transferred to the naval
department. Under the protection of Patiño, who became prime minister in
1726, Campillo was constantly employed on naval administrative work both
at home and in America. It was Patiño's policy to build up a navy
quietly at home and in America, without attracting too much attention
abroad, and particularly in England. Campillo proved an industrious and
honest subordinate. Part of his experience was to be present at a
shipwreck in Central America in which he was credited with showing
spirit and practical ability in saving the lives of the crew. In 1726 he
was denounced to the Inquisition for the offence of reading forbidden
books. The proceedings against him were not carried further, but the
incident is an example of the vexatious tyranny exercised by the Holy
Office, and the effect it must have had even in its decadence in damping
all intellectual activity. It was not until in 1741, when Spain was
entangled in a land war in Italy and a naval war with England, that
Campillo was summoned by the king to take the place of prime minister.
He had to find the means of carrying on a policy out of all proportion
to the resources of Spain, with an empty treasury. His short tenure of
power was chiefly notable for his vigorous attempt to sweep away the
system of farming the taxes, which left the state at the mercy of
contractors and financiers. Campillo's predecessors were constantly
compelled to apply to capitalists to provide funds to meet the demands
of the king for his buildings and his foreign policy. A whole year's
revenue was frequently forestalled. Campillo persuaded the king to allow
him to establish a system of direct collection, by which waste and
pilfering would be avoided. Some progress was made towards putting the
national finances on a sound footing, though Campillo could not prevent
the king from disposing, without his knowledge, of large sums of money
needed for the public service. He died suddenly on the 11th of April
1743. Campillo was the author of a treatise on a _New System of
Government for America_ printed at Madrid 1789. He also left a MS.
treatise with the curious title, _What is superfluous and is wanting in
Spain, in order that it may be what it ought to be, and not what it is._
See D. Antonio Rodriquez Villa, _Patiño y Campillo_ (Madrid, 1882).
CAMPINAS, an inland city of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, 65 m. by
rail N.W. of the city of São Paulo and 114 m. from the port of Santos,
with which it is connected by the Paulista & São Paulo railway. Pop.
(1890) of the city and municipality, 33,921. Campinas is the commercial
centre of one of the oldest coffee-producing districts of the state and
the outlet for a rich and extensive agricultural region lying farther
inland. The Mogyana railway starts from this point and extends north to
Uberaba, Minas Geraes, while the Paulista lines extend north-west into
new and very fertile regions. Coffee is the staple production, though
Indian corn, mandioca and fruit are produced largely for local
consumption. The city is built in a bowl-like depression of the great
central plateau, and the drainage from the surrounding hillsides has
produced a dangerously insanitary condition, from which one or two
virulent fever epidemics have resulted.
CAMPING OUT. The sport of abandoning ordinary house-life, and living in
tents, touring in vans, boats, &c., has been elaborately developed in
modern times, and a considerable literature has been devoted to it, to
which the curious may be referred.
See, for Europe, A.A. Macdonell's _Camping-out_ (1892) and _Voyages on
German Rivers_ (1890); G.R. Lowndes, _Gipsy Tents_ (1890).
For Australia and Africa, W.B. Lord, _Shifts and Expedients of Camp
Life_ (1871); the articles by F.J. Jackson in the _Big Game Shooting_
volume of the "Badminton Library"; the articles on "Camping out" in
_The Encyclopaedia of Sport_; F.C. Selous, _A Hunter's Wanderings in
Africa_ (1881), and _Travel and Adventure in South Africa_ (1893);
A.W. Chanler, _Through Jungle and Desert_ (1896); A.B. Rathbone,
_Camping and Tramping in Malaya_ (1898).
For America, G.O. Shields, _Camping and Camp Outfits_ (1890); W.W.
Pascoe, _Canoe and Camp Cookery_ (1893); _Woodcraft_, by "Nessmuk"
(1895); W.S. Rainsford, _Camping and Hunting in the Shoshone_ (1896);
S.E. White, _The Forest_ (1903), and _The Mountains_ (1904);
_Suggestions as to Outfit for Tramping and Camping_ (1904), published
by "The Appalachian Mountain Club," Boston. Valuable information will
be found in the sporting periodicals, and in the catalogues of
outfitters and dealers in sporting goods.
CAMPION, EDMUND (1540-1581), English Jesuit, was born in London,
received his early education at Christ's Hospital, and, as the best of
the London scholars, was chosen in their name to make the complimentary
speech when Queen Mary visited the city on the 3rd of August 1553. He
went to Oxford and became fellow of St John's College in 1557, taking
the oath of supremacy on the occasion of his degree in 1564, in which
year he was orator in the schools. He had already shown his talents as a
speaker at the funeral of Amy Robsart in 1560; and when Sir Thomas
White, the founder of the college, was buried in 1564, the Latin oration
fell to the lot of Campion. Two years later he welcomed Queen Elizabeth
to the university, and won a regard, which the queen preserved until
the end. Religious difficulties now began to beset him; but at the
persuasion of Edward Cheyney, bishop of Gloucester, although holding
Catholic doctrines, he took deacon's orders in the English Church.
Inwardly "he took a remorse of conscience and detestation of mind."
Rumours of his opinions began to spread and, giving up the office of
proctor, he left Oxford in 1569 and went to Ireland to take part in a
proposed restoration of the Dublin University. The suspicion of papistry
followed him; and orders were given for his arrest. For some three
months he eluded pursuit, hiding among friends and occupying himself by
writing a history of Ireland (first published in Holinshed's
_Chronicles_), a superficial work of no real value. At last he escaped
to Douai, where he joined William Allen (q.v.) and was reconciled to the
Roman Church. After being ordained subdeacon, he went to Rome and became
a Jesuit in 1573, spending some years at Brünn, Vienna and Prague. In
1580 the Jesuit mission to England was begun, and he accompanied Robert
Parsons (q.v.) who, as superior, was intended to counterbalance
Campion's fervour and impetuous zeal. He entered England in the
characteristic guise of a jewel merchant, arrived in London on the 24th
of June 1580, and at once began to preach. His presence became known to
the authorities and an indiscreet declaration, "Campion Brag," made the
position more difficult. The hue and cry was out against him; henceforth
he led a hunted life, preaching and ministering to Catholics in
Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Lancashire. During this
time he was writing his _Decem Rationes_, a rhetorical display of
reasons against the Anglican Church. The book was printed in a private
press at Stonor Park, Henley, and 400 copies were found on the benches
of St Mary's, Oxford, at the Commencement, on the 27th of June 1581. The
sensation was immense, and the pursuit became keener. On his way to
Norfolk he stopped at Lyford in Berkshire, where he preached on the 14th
of July and the following day, yielding to the foolish importunity of
some pious women. Here he was captured by a spy and taken to London,
bearing on his hat a paper with the inscription, "Campion, the Seditious
Jesuit." Committed to the Tower, he was examined in the presence of
Elizabeth, who asked him if he acknowledged her to be really queen of
England, and on his replying straightly in the affirmative, she made him
offers, not only of life but of wealth and dignities, on conditions
which his conscience could not allow. He was kept a long time in prison,
twice racked by order of the council, and every effort was made to shake
his constancy. Despite the effect of a false rumour of retraction and a
forged confession, his adversaries in despair summoned him to four
public conferences (1st, 18th, 23rd and 27th of September), and although
still suffering, and allowed neither time nor books for preparation, he
bore himself so easily and readily that he won the admiration of most of
the audience. Racked again on the 31st of October, he was indicted at
Westminster that he with others had conspired at Rome and Reims to raise
a sedition in the realm and dethrone the queen. On the 20th of November
he was brought in guilty before Lord Chief Justice Wray; and in reply to
him said: "If our religion do make traitors we are worthy to be
condemned; but otherwise are and have been true subjects as ever the
queen had." He received the sentence of the traitor's death with the _Te
Deum laudamus_, and, after spending his last days in pious exercises,
was led with two companions to Tyburn (1st of December 1581) and
suffered the barbarous penalty. Of all the Jesuit missionaries who
suffered for their allegiance to the ancient religion, Campion stands
the highest. His life and his aspirations were pure, his zeal true and
his loyalty unquestionable. He was beatified by Leo XIII. in 1886.
An admirable biography is to be found in Richard Simpson's _Edmund
Campion_ (1867); and a complete list of his works in De Backer's
_Bibliothèque de la compagnie de Jésus_. (E. Tn.)
CAMPION, THOMAS (1567-1620), English poet and musician, was born in
London on the 12th of February 1567, and christened at St Andrew's,
Holborn. He was the son of John Campion of the Middle Temple, who was by
profession one of the cursitors of the chancery court, the clerks "of
course," whose duties were to draft the various writs and legal
instruments in correct form. His mother was Lucy Searle, daughter of
Laurence Searle, one of the queen's serjeants-at-arms. Upon the death of
Campion's father in 1576, his mother married Augustine Steward and died
herself soon after. Steward acted for some years as guardian of the
orphan, and sent him in 1581, together with Thomas Sisley, his stepson
by his second wife Anne, relict of Clement Sisley, to Peterhouse,
Cambridge, as a gentleman pensioner. He studied at Cambridge for four
years, and left the university, it would appear, without a degree, but
strongly imbued with those tastes for classical literature which
exercised such powerful influence upon his subsequent work. In April
1587 he was admitted to Gray's Inn, possibly with the intention of
adopting a legal profession, but he had little sympathy with legal
studies and does not appear to have been called to the bar. His
subsequent movements are not certain, but in 1591 he appears to have
taken part in the French expedition under Essex, sent for the assistance
of Henry IV. against the League; and in 1606 he first appears with the
degree of doctor of physic, though the absence of records does not
permit us to ascertain where this was obtained. The rest of his life was
probably spent in London, where he practised as a physician until his
death on the 1st of March 1620, leaving behind him, it would appear,
neither wife nor issue. He was buried the same day at St
Dunstan's-in-the-West, Fleet Street.
The body of his works is considerable, the earliest known being a group
of five anonymous poems included in the _Songs of Divers Noblemen and
Gentlemen_, appended to Newman's surreptitious edition of Sidney's
_Astrophel and Stella_, which appeared in 1591. In 1595 appeared under
his own name the _Poemata_, a collection of Latin panegyrics, elegies
and epigrams, which evince much skill in handling, and won him
considerable reputation. This was followed in 1601 by _A Booke of
Ayres_, one of the song-books so fashionable in his day, the music of
which was contributed in equal proportions by himself and Philip
Rosseter, while the words were almost certainly all written by him. The
following year he published his _Observations in the Art of English
Poesie_, "against the vulgar and unartificial custom of riming," in
favour of rhymeless verse on the model of classical quantitative poetry.
Its appearance at this stage was important as the final statement of the
crazy prejudice by one of its sanest and best equipped champions, but
the challenge thus thrown down was accepted by Daniel, who in his
_Defence of Ryme_, published the same year, finally demolished the
movement.
In 1607 he wrote and published a masque for the occasion of the marriage
of Lord Hayes, and in 1613 he issued a volume of _Songs of Mourning_
(set to music by Coperario or John Cooper) for the loss of Prince Henry,
which was sincerely lamented by the whole English nation. The same year
he wrote and arranged three masques, the _Lords' Masque_ for the
marriage of Princess Elizabeth, an entertainment for the amusement of
Queen Anne at Caversham House, and a third for the marriage of the earl
of Somerset to the infamous Frances Howard, countess of Essex. If,
moreover, as appears quite likely, his _Two Bookes of Ayres_ (both words
and music written by himself) belongs also to this year, it was indeed
his _annus mirabilis_.
Some time in or after 1617 appeared his _Third and Fourth Booke of
Ayres_; while to that year probably also belongs his _New Way of making
Foure Parts in Counter-point_, a technical treatise which was for many
years the standard text-book on the subject. It was included, with
annotations by Christopher Sympson, in Playfair's _Brief Introduction to
the Skill of Musick_, and two editions appear to have been bought up by
1660. In 1618 appeared _The Ayres that were sung and played at Brougham
Castle_ on the occasion of the king's entertainment there, the music by
Mason and Earsden, while the words were almost certainly by Campion; and
in 1619 he published his _Epigrammatum Libri II. Umbra Elegiarum liber
unus_, a reprint of his 1595 collection with considerable omissions,
additions (in the form of another book of epigrams) and corrections.
While Campion had attained a considerable reputation in his own day, in
the years that followed his death his works sank into complete oblivion.
No doubt this was due to the nature of the media in which he mainly
worked, the masque and the song-book. The masque was an amusement at
any time too costly to be popular, and with the Rebellion it was
practically extinguished. The vogue of the song-books was even more
ephemeral, and, as in the case of the masque, the Puritan ascendancy,
with its distaste for all secular music, effectively put an end to the
madrigal. Its loss involved that of many hundreds of dainty lyrics,
including those of Campion, and it is due to the enthusiastic efforts of
Mr A.H. Bullen, who first published a collection of the poet's works in
1889, that his genius has been recognized and his place among the
foremost rank of Elizabethan lyric poets restored to him.
Campion set little store by his English lyrics; they were to him "the
superfluous blossoms of his deeper studies," but we may thank the fates
that his precepts of rhymeless versification so little affected his
practice. His rhymeless experiments are certainly better conceived than
many others, but they lack the spontaneous grace and freshness of his
other poetry, while the whole scheme was, of course, unnatural. He must
have possessed a very delicate musical ear, for not one of his songs is
unmusical; moreover, the fact of his composing both words and music gave
rise to a metrical fluidity which is one of his most characteristic
features. Rarely indeed are his rhythms uniform, while they frequently
shift from line to line. His range was very great both in feeling and
expression, and whether he attempts an elaborate epithalamium or a
simple country ditty, the result is always full of unstudied freshness
and tuneful charm. In some of his sacred pieces he is particularly
successful, combining real poetry with genuine religious fervour.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Works_, &c., ed. A.H. Bullen (1889) excluding _A New
Way_, &c.; _Songs and Masques_, ed. A.H. Bullen (1903), with an
introduction on Campion's music by Janet Dodge; _Poems_, &c. (in
English), ed. P. Vivian (1907); _Complete Works_, ed. P. Vivian
(Clarendon Press, 1908). The "Observations in the Art of English
Poesie" are also published in Haslewood's _Ancient Critical Essays_
and Gregory Smith's _Elizabethan Critical Essays_, vol. ii. (1903).
(P. Vn.)
CAMPISTRON, JEAN GALBERT DE (1656-1723), French dramatist, was born at
Toulouse of noble family in 1656. At the age of seventeen he was wounded
in a duel and sent to Paris. Here he became an ardent disciple of
Racine. If he copied his master's methods of construction with some
success, in the execution of his plans he never advanced beyond
mediocrity, nor did he ever approach the secret of the musical lines of
_Athalie_ and _Phèdre_. He secured the patronage of the influential
duchesse de Bouillon by dedicating _Arminius_ to her, and in 1685 he
scored his first success with _Andronic_, which disguised under other
names the tragic story of Don Carlos and Elizabeth of France. The piece
made a great sensation, but Campistron's treatment is weak, and he
failed to avail himself of the possibilities inherent in his subject.
Racine was asked by Louis Joseph, duc de Vendôme, to write the book of
an opera to be performed at a fete given in honour of the Dauphin. He
handed on the commission to Campistron, who produced _Acis et Galathée_
for Lulli's music. Campistron had another success in _Tiridate_ (1691),
in which he treated, again under changed names, the biblical story of
Amnon's passion for his sister Tamar. He wrote many other tragedies and
two comedies, one of which, _Le Jaloux désabusé_, has been considered by
some judges to be his best work. In 1686 he had been made intendant to
the duc de Vendôme and followed him to Italy and Spain, accompanying him
on all his campaigns. If he was not a good poet he was an honest man
under circumstances in which corruption was easy and usual. Many honours
were conferred on him. The king of Spain bestowed on him the order of St
James of the Sword; the duke of Mantua made him marquis of Penango in
Montferrat; and in 1701 he was received into the Academy. After thirty
years of service with Vendôme he retired to his native place, where he
died on the 11th of May 1723.
CAMPOAMOR Y CAMPOOSORIO, RAMON DE (1817-1901), Spanish poet, was born at
Navia (Asturias) on the 24th of September 1817. Abandoning his first
intention of entering the Jesuit order, he studied medicine at Madrid,
found an opening in politics as a supporter of the Moderate party, and,
after occupying several subordinate posts, became governor of Castellón
de la Plana, of Alicante and of Valencia. His conservative tendencies
grew more pronounced with time, and his _Polémicas con la
Democracia_ (1862) may be taken as the definitive expression of his
political opinions. His first appearance as a poet dated from 1840, when
he published his _Ternezas y flores_, a collection of idyllic verses,
remarkable for their technical excellence. His _Ayes del Alma_ (1842) and
his _Fábulas morales y políticas_ (1842) sustained his reputation, but
showed no perceptible increase of power or skill. An epic poem in
sixteen cantos, _Colón_ (1853), is no more successful than modern epics
usually are. Campoamor's theatrical pieces, such as _El Palacio de la
Verdad_ (1871), _Dies Irae_ (1873), _El Honor_ (1874) and _Glorias
Humanas_ (1885), are interesting experiments; but they are totally
lacking in dramatic spirit. He always showed a keen interest in
metaphysical and philosophic questions, and defined his position in _La
Filosofía de las leyes_ (1846), _El Personalismo_ (1855), _Lo
Absoluto_ (1865) and _El Ideísmo_ (1883). These studies are chiefly
valuable as embodying fragments of self-revelation, and as having led to
the composition of those _doloras, humoradas_ and _pequeños poemas_,
which the poet's admirers consider as a new poetic species. The first
collection of _Doloras_ was printed in 1846, and from that date onwards
new specimens were added to each succeeding edition. It is difficult to
define a _dolora_. One critic has described it as a didactic, symbolic
stanza which combines the lightness and grace of the epigram, the
melancholy of the _endecha_, the concise narrative of the ballad, and
the philosophic intention of the apologue. The poet himself declared
that a _dolora_ is a dramatic _humorada_, and that a _pequeño poema_ is
a _dolora_ on a larger scale. These definitions are unsatisfactory. The
humoristic, philosophic epigram is an ancient poetic form to which
Campoamor has given a new name; his invention goes no further. It cannot
be denied that in the _Doloras_ Campoamor's special gifts of irony,
grace and pathos find their best expression. Taking a commonplace theme,
he presents in four, eight or twelve lines a perfect miniature of
condensed emotion. By his choice of a vehicle he has avoided the fatal
facility and copiousness which have led many Spanish poets to
destruction. It pleased him to affect a vein of melancholy, and this
affectation has been reproduced by his followers. Hence he gives the
impression of insincerity, of trifling with grave subjects and of using
mysticism as a mask for frivolity. The genuine Campoamor is a poet of
the sunniest humour who, under the pretence of teaching morality by
satire, is really seeking to utter the gay scepticism of a genial,
epicurean nature. His influence has not been altogether for good. His
formula is too easily mastered, and to his example is due a plague of
_doloras_ and _humoradas_ by poetasters who have caricatured their
model. Campoamor, as he himself said, did not practise art for art's
sake; he used art as the medium of ideas, and in ideas his imitators are
poor. He died at Madrid on the 12th of February 1901. Of late years a
deep silence had fallen upon him, and we are in a position to judge him
with the impartiality of another generation. The overwhelming bulk of
his work will perish; we may even say that it is already dead. His
pretensions, or the pretensions put forward in his name, that he
discovered a new poetic _genre_ will be rejected later, as they are
rejected now by all competent judges. The title of a philosophic poet
will be denied to him. But he will certainly survive, at least in
extract, as a distinguished humorist, an expert in epigrammatic and
sententious aphorism, an artist of extremely finished execution.
(J. F. K.)
CAMPOBASSO, a city of Molise, Italy, the capital of the province of
Campobasso, 172 m. E.S.E. of Rome by rail, situated 2132 ft. above
sea-level. Pop. (1901) town 11,273; commune 14,491. The town itself
contains no buildings of antiquarian interest, but it has some fine
modern edifices. Its chief industry is the manufacture of arms and
cutlery. Above the town are the picturesque ruins of a castle of the
15th century. The date of the foundation of Campobasso is unknown. The
town, with the territory surrounding it, was under the feudal rule of
counts until 1739, when it passed to the Neapolitan crown, in
consideration of a payment of 108,000 ducats.
CAMPODEA, a small whitish wingless insect with long flexible antennae
and a pair of elongated caudal appendages. The best-known species
(_Campodea staphylinus_) has a wide distribution and is equally at home
in the warm valleys of south Europe, in the subarctic conditions of
mountain tops, in caves and in woods and gardens in England. It lives in
damp places under stones, fallen trees or in rotten wood and leaves.
Although blind, it immediately crawls away on exposure to the light into
the nearest crevice or other sheltered spot, feeling the way with its
antennae. Its action is characteristically serpentine, recalling that of
a centipede. Campodea is one of the bristle-tailed or thysanurous
insects of the order Aptera (q.v.).
CAMPOMANES, PEDRO RODRIGUEZ, CONDE DE (1723-1802), Spanish statesman and
writer, was born at Santa Eulalia de Sorribia, in Asturias, on the 1st
of July 1723. From 1788 to 1793 he was president of the council of
Castile; but on the accession of Charles IV. he was removed from his
office, and retired from public life, regretted by the true friends of
his country. His first literary work was _Antiquidad maritima de la
republica de Cartago_, with an appendix containing a translation of the
_Voyage of Hanno_ the Carthaginian, with curious notes. This appeared in
a quarto volume in 1756. His principal works are two admirable essays,
_Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular_, 1774, and _Discurso
sobre la educacion popular de los artesanos y su fomento_, 1775. As a
supplement to the last, he published four appendices, each considerably
larger than the original essay. The first contains reflections on the
origin of the decay of arts and manufactures in Spain during the last
century. The second points out the steps necessary for improving or
re-establishing the old manufactures, and contains a curious collection
of royal ordinances and rescripts regarding the encouragement of arts
and manufactures, and the introduction of foreign raw materials. The
third treats of the gild laws of artisans, contrasted with the results
of Spanish legislation and the municipal ordinances of towns. The fourth
contains eight essays of Francisco Martinez de Mata on national
commerce, with some observations adapted to present circumstances. These
were all printed at Madrid in 1774 and 1777, in five volumes. Count
Campomanes died on the 3rd of February 1802.
Don A. Rodriguez Villa has placed a biographical notice of Campomanes
as an introduction to the first edition of his _Cartas
politico-economicas_, published in 1878.
CAMPOS, ARSENIO MARTINEZ DE (1831-1900), Spanish marshal, senator and
knight of the Golden Fleece, was born at Segovia on the 14th of December
1831. He graduated as a lieutenant in 1852, and for some years was
attached to the staff college as an assistant professor. He took part in
the Morocco campaign of 1850-1860, and distinguished himself in sixteen
actions, obtaining the cross of San Fernando, and the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. He then returned to the staff college as a
professor. Afterwards he joined the expedition to Mexico under Prim. In
1869 he was sent to Cuba, where he was promoted to the rank of general
in 1872. On his return to the Peninsula, the Federal Republican
government in 1873 confided to General Campos several high commands, in
which he again distinguished himself against the Cantonal Republicans
and the Carlists. About that time he began to conspire with a view to
restore the son of Queen Isabella. Though Campos made no secret of his
designs, Marshal Serrano, in 1874, appointed him to the command of a
division which took part in the relief of Bilbao on the 2nd of May of
that year, and in the operations around Estella in June. On both
occasions General Campos tried in vain to induce the other commanders to
proclaim Alphonso XII. He then affected to hold aloof, and would have
been arrested, had not the minister of war, Ceballos, answered for his
good behaviour, and quartered him in Avila under surveillance. He
managed to escape, and after hiding in Madrid, joined General Daban at
Sagunto on the 29th of December 1874, where he proclaimed Alphonso XII.
king of Spain. From that date he never ceased to exercise great
influence in the politics of the restoration. He was considered as a
sort of supreme counsellor, being consulted by King Alphonso, and later
by his widow, the queen-regent, in every important political crisis,
and on every international or colonial question, especially when other
generals or the army itself became troublesome. He took an important
part in the military operations against the Carlists, and in the
negotiations with their leaders, which put an end to the civil war in
1876. In the same way he brought about the pacification of Cuba in 1878.
On his return from that island he presided over a Conservative cabinet
for a few months, but soon made way for Canovas, whom he ever afterwards
treated as the leader of the Conservative party. In 1881, with other
discontented generals, he assisted Sagasta in obtaining office. After
the death of King Alphonso, Campos steadily supported the regency of
Queen Christina, and held high commands, though declining to take
office. In 1893 he was selected to command the Spanish army at Melilla,
and went to the court of Morocco to make an advantageous treaty of
peace, which averted a war. When the Cuban rising in 1895 assumed a
serious aspect, he was sent out by the Conservative cabinet of Canovas
to cope with the rebellion, but he failed in the field, as well as in
his efforts to win over the Creoles, chiefly because he was not allowed
to give them local self-government, as he wished. Subsequently he
remained aloof from politics, and only spoke in the senate to defend his
Cuban administration and on army questions. After the war with America,
and the loss of the colonies in 1899, when Señor Silvela formed a new
Conservative party and cabinet, the old marshal accepted the presidency
of the senate, though his health was failing fast. He held this post up
to the time of his death. This took place in the summer recess of 1900
at Zarauz, a village on the coast of Guipuzcoa, where he was buried.
CAMPOS, an inland city of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the
Parahyba river, 30 m. from the sea, and about 143 m. N.E. of the city of
Rio de Janeiro. Pop. (1890) of the city, 22,518; of the municipality,
78,036. The river is navigable for small steamers above and below the
city, but is closed to coast-wise navigation by dangerous sandbars at
its mouth. The shipping port for Campos is Imbetiba (near Macahé), 60 m.
south-west, with which it is connected by rail. There is also water
communication between the two places by means of coastal lakes united by
canals. Campos has indirect railway communication with Rio de Janeiro by
way of Macahé, and is the starting point for several small independent
lines. The elevation of the city is only 69 ft. above sea level, and it
stands near the western margin of a highly fertile alluvial plain
devoted to the production of sugar. The climate is hot and humid, and
many kinds of tropical fruit are produced in abundance.
CÂMPULUNG (also written Campu Lung and Kimpulung), the capital of the
department of Muscel, Rumania, and the seat of a suffragan bishop;
situated among the outlying hills of the Carpathian Mountains, at the
head of a long well-wooded glen traversed by the river Tirgului, a
tributary of the Argesh. Pop. (1900) 13,033. Its pure air and fine
scenery render Câmpulung a popular summer resort. In the town are more
than twenty churches, besides a monastery and a cathedral, which both
claim to have been founded, in the 13th century, by Radul Negru, first
prince of Walachia. The Tirgului supplies water-power for several
paper-mills; annual fairs are held on the 20th of July and the 24th of
October; and there is a considerable traffic with Transylvania, over the
Torzburg Pass, 15 m. north, and with the south by a branch railway to
Ploesci. Near Câmpulung are the remains of a Roman camp; and, just
beyond the gates, vestiges of a Roman colony, variously identified with
Romula, Stepenium and Ulpia Traiana, but now called Gradistea or Jidovi.
CAMUCCINI, VINCENZO (1773-1844), Italian historical painter, was born at
Rome. He was educated by his brother Pietro, a picture-restorer, and
Borubelli, an engraver, and, up to the age of thirty, attempted nothing
higher than copies of the great masters, his especial study being
Raphael. As an original painter, Camuccini belongs to the school of the
French artist David. His works are rather the fruits of great cleverness
and patient care than of fresh and original genius; and his style was
essentially imitative. He enjoyed immense popularity, both personally,
and as an artist, and received many honours and preferments from the
papal and other Italian courts. He was appointed director of the Academy
of San Luca and of the Neapolitan Academy at Rome, and conservator of
the pictures of the Vatican. He was also made chevalier of nearly all
the orders in Italy, and member of the Legion of Honour. His chief works
are the classical paintings of the "Assassination of Caesar," the "Death
of Virginia," the "Devotion of the Roman Women," "Young Romulus and
Remus," "Horatius Cocles," the "St Thomas," which was copied in mosaic
for St Peter's, the "Presentation of Christ in the Temple" and a number
of excellent portraits. He became a rich man, and made a fine collection
of pictures which in 1856 were sold, a number of them (including
Raphael's "Madonna with the Pink") being bought by the duke of
Northumberland.
CAMULODUNUM, also written CAMALODUNUM (mod. Colchester, q.v.), a British
and Roman town. It was the capital of the British chief Cunobelin and is
named on his coins: after his death and the Roman conquest of south
Britain, the Romans established (about A.D. 48) a _colonia_ or
municipality peopled with discharged legionaries, and intended to serve
both as an informal garrison and as a centre of Roman civilization. It
was stormed and burnt A.D. 61 in the rising of Boadicéa (q.v.), but soon
recovered and became one of the chief towns in Roman Britain. Its walls
and some other buildings still stand and abundant Roman remains enrich
the local museum. The name denotes "the fortress of Camulos," the Celtic
Mars.
CAMUS, ARMAND GASTON (1740-1804), French revolutionist, was a successful
advocate before the Revolution. In 1789 he was elected by the third
estate of Paris to the states general, and attracted attention by his
speeches against social inequalities. Elected to the National Convention
by the department of Haute-Loire, he was named member of the committee
of general safety, and then sent as one of the commissioners charged
with the surveillance of General C.F. Dumouriez. Delivered with his
colleagues to the Austrians on the 3rd of April 1793, he was exchanged
for the daughter of Louis XVI. in November 1795. He played an
inconspicuous rôle in the council of the Five Hundred. On the 14th of
August 1789 the Constituent Assembly made Camus its archivist, and in
that capacity he organized the national archives, classified the papers
of the different assemblies of the Revolution and drew up analytical
tables of the _procès-verbaux_. He was restored to the office in 1796
and became absorbed in literary work. He remained an austere republican,
refusing to take part in the Napoleonic régime.
CAMUS, CHARLES ÉTIENNE LOUIS (1699-1768), French mathematician and
mechanician, was born at Crécy-en-Brie, near Meaux, on the 25th of
August 1699. He studied mathematics, civil and military architecture,
and astronomy, and became associate of the Académie des Sciences,
professor of geometry, secretary to the Academy of Architecture and
fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1736 he accompanied Pierre
Louis Maupertuis and Alexis Claude Clairaut in the expedition to Lapland
for the measurement of a degree of the meridian. He died on the 2nd of
February 1768. He was the author of a _Cours de mathématiques_ (Paris,
1766), and a number of essays on mathematical and mechanical subjects
(see Poggendorff, _Biog.-lit. Handworterbuch_).
CAMUS, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH DES (1672-1732), French mechanician, was born
near St Mihiel, on the 14th of September 1672. After studying for the
church, he devoted himself to mechanical inventions, a number of which
he described in his _Traité des forces mouvantes pour la pratique des
arts et métiers_, Paris, 1722. He died in England in 1732.
CAMUS DE MÉZIÈRES, NICOLAS LE (1721-1789), French architect, was born at
Paris on the 26th of March 1721, and died it the same city on the 27th
of July 1789. He published several works on architectural and related
subjects.
CANA, of Galilee, a village of Palestine remarkable as the home of
Nathanael, and the scene of Christ's "beginning of miracles" (John ii.
I-II, iv. 46-54). Its site is unknown, but it is evident from the
biblical narrative that it was in the neighbourhood of, and higher than,
Capernaum. Opinion as to identification is fairly divided between Kefr
Kenna and Kand-el-Jelil. The former, about 4 m. N.N.E. of Nazareth,
contains a ruined church and a small Christian population; the latter is
an uninhabited village about 9 m. N. of Nazareth, with no remains but a
few cisterns.
CANAAN, CANAANITES. These geographical and ethnic terms have a shifting
reference, which doubtless arises out of the migrations of the tribes to
which the term "Canaanites" belongs. Thus in Josh. v. 1 the term seems
to be applied to a population on the coast of the Mediterranean, and in
Josh. xi. 3, Num. xiii. 29 (cf. also Gen. xiii, 12) not only to these,
but to a people in the Jordan Valley. In Isa. xxiii. 11 it seems to be
used of Phoenicia, and in Zeph. ii. 5 (where, however, the text is
disputed) of Philistia. Most often it is applied comprehensively to the
population of the entire west Jordan land and its pre-Israelitish
inhabitants. This usage is characteristic of the writer called the
Yahwist (J); see _e.g. _Gen. xii. 5, xxxiii. 18; Ex. xv. 15; Num.
xxxiii. 51; Josh. xxii. 9; Judg. in. i; Ps. cvi. 38, and elsewhere. It
was also, as Augustine tells us,[1] a usage of the Phoenicians to call
their land "Canaan." This is confirmed by coins of the city of Laodicea
by the Lebanon, which bear the legend, "Of Laodicea, a metropolis in
Canaan"; these coins are dated under Antiochus IV. (17 5-1648.0.), and
his successors, Greek writers, too, tell us a fact of much interest,
viz. that the original name of Phoenicia was [Greek: Chna], i.e. Kena, a
short, collateral form of Kena'an or Kan'an The form Kan'an is favoured
by the Egyptian usage. Seti I. is said to have conquered the Shasu, or
Arabian nomads, from the fortress of Taru (Shur?) to "the Ka-n-'-na,"
and Rameses III. to have built a temple to the god Amen in "the
Ka-n-'-na." By this geographical name is probably meant all western
Syria and Palestine with Raphia--"the (first) city of the
Ka-n-'-na"--for the south-west boundary towards the desert.[2] In the
letters sent by governors and princes of Palestine to their Egyptian
overlord[3]--commonly known as the Tel-el-Amarna tablets--we find the
two forms Kinahhi and Kinahna, corresponding to Kena' and Kena'an
respectively, and standing, as Ed. Meyer has shown, for Syria in its
widest extent.
On the name "Canaan" Winckler remarks,[4] "There is at present no
prospect of an etymological explanation." From the fact that Egyptian
(though not Hebrew) scribes constantly prefix the article, we may
suppose that it originally meant "the country of the Canaanites," just
as the Hebrew phrase "the Lebanon" may originally have meant "the
highlands of the Libnites"; and we are thus permitted to group the term
"Canaan" with clan-names such as Achan, Akan, Jaakan, Anak (generally
with the article prefixed), Kain, Kenan. Nor are scholars more unanimous
with regard to the region where the terms "Canaanite" and "Canaan"
arose. It may be true that the term Kinahhi in the Amarna letters
corresponds to Syria and Palestine in their entirety. But this does not
prove that the terms "Canaanite" and "Canaan" arose in that region, for
they are presumably much older than the Amarna tablets. Let us refer at
this point to a document in Genesis which is perhaps hardly estimated at
its true value, the so-called Table of Peoples in Gen. x. Here we find
"Canaan" included among the four sons of Ham. If Cush in v. 6 really
means Ethiopia, and M-s-r-i-m Egypt, and Put the Libyans, and if Ham is
really a Hebraized form of the old Egyptian name for Egypt, Kam-t
(black),[5] the passage is puzzling in the extreme. But if, as has
recently been suggested,[6] Cush, M-s-r-i-m, and Put are in north
Arabia, and Ham is the short for Yarham or Yerahme'el (see i Chr. ii.
25-27, 42), a north Arabian name intimately associated with Caleb, all
becomes clear, and Canaan in particular is shown to be an Arabian name.
Now it is no mere hypothesis that beginning from about 4000 B.C.[7] a
wave of Semitic migration poured out of Arabia, and flooded Babylonia
certainly, and possibly, more or less, Syria and Palestine also. Also
that between 2800 and 2600 B.C. a second wave from Arabia took the same
course, covering not only Babylonia, but also Syria and Palestine and
probably also Egypt (the Hyksos). It is soon after this that we meet
with the great empire-builder and civilizer, Khammurabi (2267-2213), the
first king of a united Babylonia. It is noteworthy that the first part
of his name is identical with the name of the father of Canaan in
Genesis (Ham or Kham), indicating his Arabian origin.[8] It was he, too,
who restored the ancient supremacy of Babylonia over Syria and
Palestine, and so prevented the Babylonizing of these countries from
coming to an abrupt end.
We now understand how the Phoenicians, whose ancestors arrived in the
second Semitic migration, came to call their land "Canaan." They had in
fact the best right to do so. The first of the Canaanite immigrants were
driven seawards by the masses which followed them. They settled in
Phoenicia, and in after times became so great in commerce that
"Canaanite" became a common Hebrew term for "merchant" (e.g. Isa. xxiii.
8). It is a plausible theory that in the conventional language of their
inscriptions they preserved a number of geographical and religious
phrases which, for them, had no clear meaning, and belonged properly to
the land of their distant ancestors, Arabia.[9] For their own traditions
as to their origin see PHOENICIA; we cannot venture to reject these
altogether. The masses of immigrants which followed them may have borne
the name of Amorites. A few words on this designation must here be
given. Both within and without Palestine the name was famous.
First, as regards the Old Testament. We find "the Amorite" (a collective
term) mentioned in the Table of Peoples (Gen. x. 16-18a) among other
tribal names, the exact original reference of which had probably been
forgotten. No one in fact would gather from this and parallel passages
how important a part was played by the Amorites in the early history of
Palestine. In Gen. xiv. 7 f., Josh. x. 5 f., Deut. i. 19 ff., 27, 44 we
find them located in the southern mountain country, while in Num. xxi.
13, 21 f., Josh. ii 10, ix 10, xxiv. 8, 12, &c. we hear of two great
Amorite kings, residing respectively at Heshbon and Ashtaroth on the
east of the Jordan. Quite different, however, is the view taken in Gen.
xv. 16, xlviii. 22, Josh. xxiv. 15, Judg. i. 34, Am. ii. 9, 10, &c.,
where the name of Amorite is synonymous with "Canaanite," except that
"Amorite" is never used for the population on the coast. Next, as to the
extra-Biblical evidence. In the Egyptian inscriptions and in the Amarna
tablets Amar and Amurru have a more limited meaning, being applied to
the mountain-region east of Phoenicia, extending to the Orontes. Later
on, Amurru became the Assyrian term for the interior of south as well as
north Palestine, and at a still more recent period the term "the land of
Hatti" (conventionally = Hittites) displaced "Amurru" so far as north
Palestine is concerned (see HITTITES).
Thus the Phoenicians and the Amorites belong to the first stage of the
second great Arabian migration. In the interval preceding the second
stage Syria with Palestine became an Egyptian dependency, though the
links with the sovereign power were not so strong as to prevent frequent
local rebellions. Under Thothmes III. and Amen-hotep II. the pressure of
a strong hand kept the Syrians and Canaanites sufficiently loyal to the
Pharaohs. The reign of Amen-hotep III., however, was not quite so
tranquil for the Asiatic province. Turbulent chiefs began to seek their
opportunities, though as a rule they did not find them because they
could not obtain the help of a neighbouring king.[10] The boldest of the
disaffected was Aziru, son of Abdashirta, a prince of Amurru, who even
before the death, of Amen-hotep III. endeavoured to extend his power
into the plain of Damascus. Akizzi, governor of Katna (near Horns or
Hamath), reported this to the Pharaoh who seems to have frustrated the
attempt. In the next reign, however, both father and son caused infinite
trouble to loyal servants of Egypt like Rib-Addi, governor of Gubla
(Gebal).
It was, first, the advance of the Hatti (Hittites) into Syria, which
began in the time of Amen-hotep III., but became far more threatening in
that of his successor, and next, the resumption of the second Arabian
migration, which most seriously undermined the Egyptian power in Asia.
Of the former we cannot speak here (see HITTITES), except so far as to
remark the Abd-Ashirta and his son Aziru, though at first afraid of the
Hatti, was afterwards clever enough to make a treaty with their king,
and, with other external powers, to attack the districts which remained
loyal to Egypt. In vain did Rib-Addi send touching appeals for aid to
the distant Pharaoh, who was far too much engaged in his religious
innovations to attend to such messages. What most interests us is the
mention of troublesome invaders called some times _sa-gas_ (a Babylonian
ideogram meaning "robber"), sometimes Habiri. Who are these Habiri? Not,
as was at first thought by some, specially the Israelites, but all those
tribes of land-hungry nomads ("Hebrews") who were attracted by the
wealth and luxury of the settled regions, and sought to appropriate it
for themselves. Among these we may include not only the Israelites or
tribes which afterwards became Israelitish, but the Moabites, Ammonites
and Edomites. We meet with the Habiri in north Syria. Itakkama writes
thus to the Pharaoh,[11] "Behold, Namyawaza has surrendered all the
cities of the king, my lord, to the SA-GAS in the land of Kadesh and in
Ubi. But I will go, and if thy gods and thy sun go before me, I will
bring back the cities to the king, my lord, from the Habiri, to show
myself subject to him; and I will expel the SA-GAS." Similarly Zimrida,
king of Sidon, declares, "All my cities which the king has given into my
hand, have come into the hand of the Habiri."[12] Nor had Palestine any
immunity from the Arabian invaders. The king of _Jerusalem_, Abd-Hiba,
the second part of whose name has been thought to represent the Hebrew
Yahweh,[13] reports thus to the Pharaoh, "If (Egyptian) troops come this
year, lands and princes will remain to the king, my lord; but if troops
come not, these lands and princes will not remain to the king, my
lord."[14] Abd-Hiba's chief trouble arose from persons called Milkili and
the sons of Lapaya, who are said to have entered into a treasonable
league with the Habiri. Apparently this restless warrior found his death
at the siege of Gina.[15] All these princes, however, malign each other
in their letters to the Pharaoh, and protest their own innocence of
traitorous intentions. Namyawaza, for instance, whom Itakkama (see
above) accuses of disloyalty, writes thus to the Pharaoh, "Behold, I and
my warriors and my chariots, together with my brethren and my SA-GAS,
and my Suti[16] are at the disposal of the (royal) troops, to go
whithersoever the king, my lord, commands."[17] This petty prince,
therefore, sees no harm in having a band of Arabians for his garrison,
as indeed Hezekiah long afterwards had his Urbi to help him against
Sennacherib.
From the same period we have recently derived fresh and important
evidence as to pre-Israelitish Palestine. As soon as the material
gathered is large enough to be thoroughly classified and critically
examined, a true history of early Palestine will be within measurable
distance. At present, there are five places whence the new evidence has
been obtained: 1. Tell-el-Hasy, generally identified with the Lachish of
the Old Testament. Excavations were made here in 1890-1892 by Flinders
Petrie and Bliss. 2. Gezer, plausibly identified with the Gezer of I
Kings ix. 16. Here R.A.S. Macalister began excavating in 1902. 3.
Tell-es-Safy, possibly the Gath of the Old Testament, 6 m. from
Eleutheropolis. Here F.J. Bliss and R.A.S. Macalister made some
discoveries in 1899-1900. A complete examination of the site, however,
was impossible. 4. Tell-el-Mutasellim, near Lejjun (Megiddo-Legio).
Schumacher began working here in 1903 for the German Palestine Society.
5. Taannek, on the south of the plain of Esdraelon. Here Prof. Ernst
Sellin of Vienna was able to do much in a short time (1902-1904). It may
be mentioned here that on the first of these sites a cuneiform tablet
belonging to the Amarna series was discovered; at Gezer, a deed of sale;
at Tell-el-Hasy the remains of a Babylonian stele, three seals, and
three cylinders with Babylonian mythological representations; at
Tell-el-Mutasellim, a seal bearing a Babylonian legend, and at Taannek,
twelve tablets and fragments of tablets were found near the fragments of
the terracotta box in which they were stored. It is a remarkable fact
that the kings or chiefs of the neighbourhood should have used
Babylonian cuneiform in their own official correspondence. But much
beside tablets has been found on these sites; primitive sanctuaries, for
instance. The splendid alignment of monoliths at Gezer is described in
detail in _P.E.F. Quart. Statement_, January 1903, p. 23, and July 1903,
p. 219. There is reason, as Macalister thinks, to believe that it is the
result of a gradual development, beginning with two small pillars, and
gradually enlarging by later additions. There is a smaller one at
Tell-es-Safy. The Semitic cult of sacred standing stones is thus proved
to be of great antiquity; Sellin's discoveries at Taannek and those of
Bliss at Tell-es-Safy fully confirm this. Rock-hewn altars have also
been found, illustrating the prohibition in Ex. xx. 25, 26, and numerous
jars with the skeletons of infants. We cannot doubt that the sacrificing
of children was practised on a large scale among the Canaanites. Their
chief deity was Ashtart (Astarte), the goddess of fertility. Numerous
images of her have been found, but none of the god Baal. The types of
the divine form vary in the different places. The other images which
have been found represent Egyptian deities. We must not, however, infer
that there was a large Egyptian element in the Canaanitish Pantheon.
What the images do prove is the large amount of intercourse between
Egypt and Canaan, and the presence of Egyptians in the subject country.
See the _Tell-el-Amarna Letters_, ed. by Winckler, with translation
(1896); the reports of Macalister in the Pal. Expl. Fund Statements
from 1903 onwards; Sellin's report of excavations at Tell Ta'annek;
also H.W. Hogg, "Recent Assyriology," &c., in _Inaugural Lectures_ ed.
by Prof. A.S. Peake (Manchester University, 1905). On Biblical
questions, see Dillmann's commentaries and the Bible dictionaries. See
further articles PALESTINE; JEWS. (T. K. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Enarralio in Psalm civ._
[2] W.M. Müller, _Asien und Europa, _p. 205.
[3] The letters are written in the official and diplomatic
language--Babylonian, though "Canaanitish" words and idioms are not
wanting.
[4] _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, _p. 181.
[5] These explanations are endorsed by Driver _ (Genesis, on _Gen. x.).
[6] See the relevant articles in _Ency. Bib. _and Cheyne's _Genesis
and Exodus._
[7] For the grounds of these dates see Winckler, _Gesch. Isr._ i. 127
f.; Paton, _Early Hist. of Syria and Palestine_ (1902), pp. 6-8,
25-28.
[8] It is true the Babylonians themselves interpreted the name
differently (5 R. 44 a b 21), _kimta rapashtum_, "wide family." That,
however, is only a natural protest against what we may call Canaanism
or Arabism.
[9] See Cheyne, _Genesis and Exodus_ (on Gen. i. 26), and cf. G.A.
Cooke, _N. Sem. Inscriptions_ (e.g. pp. 30-40, on Eshmunazar's
inscription).
[10] See _Amarna Letters_, Winckler's edition, No. 7.
[11] _Op. cit._ No. 146.
[12] _Op. cit._ No. 147.
[13] Johns, _Assyrian Deeds_, iii. p. 16.
[14] _Amarna Letters_, No. 180 (xi. 20-24).
[15] _Ibid._ No. 164 (xi. 15-18).
[16] Nomads of the Syrian desert.
[17] _Amarna Letters_, No. 144 (xi. 24-32).
CANACHUS, a sculptor of Sicyon in Achaea, of the latter part of the 6th
century B.C. He was especially noted as the author of two great statues
of Apollo, one in bronze made for the temple at Miletus, and one in
cedar wood made for Thebes. The coins of Miletus furnish us with copies
of the former and show the god to have held a stag in, one hand and a
bow in the other. The rigidity of these works naturally impressed later
critics.
CANADA. The Dominion of Canada comprises the northern half of the
continent of North America and its adjacent islands, excepting Alaska,
which belongs to the United States, and Newfoundland, still a separate
colony of the British empire. Its boundary on the south is the parallel
of latitude 49°, between the Pacific Ocean and Lake-of-the-Woods, then a
chain of small lakes and rivers eastward to the mouth of Pigeon river on
the north-west side of Lake Superior, and the Great Lakes with their
connecting rivers to Cornwall, on the St Lawrence. From this eastward to
the state of Maine the boundary is an artificial line nearly
corresponding to lat. 45°; then an irregular line partly determined by
watersheds and rivers divides Canada from Maine, coming out on the Bay
of Fundy. The western boundary is the Pacific on the south, an irregular
line a few miles inland from the coast along the "pan handle" of Alaska
to Mount St Elias, and the meridian of 141° to the Arctic Ocean. A
somewhat similar relationship cuts off Canada from the Atlantic on the
east, the north-eastern coast of Labrador belonging to Newfoundland.
_Physical Geography._--In spite of these restrictions of its natural
coast line on both the Atlantic and the Pacific, Canada is admirably
provided with harbours on both oceans. The Gulf of St Lawrence with its
much indented shores and the coast of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick
supply endless harbours, the northern ones closed by ice in the winter,
but the southern ones open all the year round; and on the Pacific
British Columbia is deeply fringed with islands and fjords with
well-sheltered harbours everywhere, in strong contrast with the unbroken
shore of the United States to the south. The long stretches of sheltered
navigation from the Straits of Belle Isle north of Newfoundland to
Quebec, and for 600 m. on the British Columbian coast, are of great
advantage for the coasting trade. The greatly varied Arctic coast line
of Canada with its large islands, inlets and channels is too much
clogged with ice to be of much practical use, but Hudson Bay, a
mediterranean sea 850 m. long from north to south and 600 m. wide, with
its outlet Hudson Strait, has long been navigated by trading ships and
whalers, and may become a great outlet for the wheat of western Canada,
though closed by ice except for four months in the summer. Of the nine
provinces of Canada only three have no coast line on salt water,
Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the first may soon be extended
to Hudson Bay. Ontario has a seaboard only on Hudson Bay's southern
extension, James Bay, and there is no probability that the shallow
harbours of the latter bay will ever be of much importance for shipping,
though Churchill Harbour on the west side of Hudson Bay may become an
important grain port. What Ontario lacks in salt water navigation is,
however, made up by the busy traffic of the Great Lakes.
Geology.
The physical features of Canada are comparatively simple, and drawn on a
large scale, more than half of its surface sloping gently inwards
towards the shallow basin of Hudson Bay, with higher margins to the
south-east and south-west. In the main it is a broad trough, wider
towards the north than towards the south, and unsymmetrical, Hudson Bay
occupying much of its north-eastern part, while to the west broad plains
rise gradually to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern
member of the Cordillera which follows the Pacific coast of America. The
physical geography of Canada is so closely bound up with its geology
that at least an outline of the geological factors involved in its
history is necessary to understand the present physiography. The
mountain structures originated in three great orogenic periods, the
earliest in the Archean, the second at the end of the Palaeozoic and the
third at the end of the Mesozoic. The Archean mountain chains, which
enclosed the present region of Hudson Bay, were so ancient that they had
already been worn down almost to a plain before the early Palaeozoic
sediments were laid down. This ruling geological and physical feature of
the North American continent has been named by E. Suess the "Canadian
Shield." Round it the Palaeozoic sands and clays, largely derived from
its own waste, were deposited as nearly horizontal beds, in many places
still almost undisturbed. Later the sediments lying to the south-east of
this "protaxis," or nucleus of the continent, were pushed against its
edge and raised into the Appalachian chain of mountains, which, however,
extends only a short distance into Canada. The Mesozoic sediments were
almost entirely laid down to the west and south-west of the protaxis,
upon the flat-lying Palaeozoic rocks, and in the prairie region they are
still almost horizontal; but in the Cordillera they have been thrust up
into the series of mountain chains characterizing the Pacific coast
region. The youngest of these mountain chains is naturally the highest,
and the oldest one in most places no longer rises to heights deserving
the name of mountains. Owing to this unsymmetric development of North
America the main structural watershed is towards its western side, on
the south coinciding with the Rocky Mountains proper, but to the
northward falling back to ranges situated further west in the same
mountain region. The great central area of Canada is drained towards
Hudson Bay, but its two largest rivers have separate watersheds, the
Mackenzie flowing north-west to the Arctic Ocean and the St Lawrence
north-east towards the Atlantic, the one to the south-west and the other
to the south-east of the Archean protaxis. While these ancient events
shaped the topography in a broad way, its final development was
comparatively recent, during the glacial period, when the loose
materials were scoured from some regions and spread out as boulder clay,
or piled up as moraines in others; and the original water-ways were
blocked in many places. The retreat of the ice left Canada much in its
present condition except for certain post-glacial changes of level which
seem to be still in progress. For this reason the region has a very
youthful topography with innumerable lakes and waterfalls as evidence
that the rivers have not long been at work. The uneven carving down of
the older mountain systems, especially that of the Archean pro taxis,
and the disorderly scattering of glacial material provide most of the
lake basins so characteristic of Canada.
_Lakes and Rivers._--As a result of the geological causes just mentioned
many parts of Canada are lavishly strewn with lakes of all sizes and
shapes, from bodies of water hundreds of miles long and a thousand feet
deep to ponds lost to sight in the forest. Thousands of these lakes have
been mapped more or less carefully, and every new survey brings to light
small lakes hitherto unknown to the white man. For numbers they can be
compared only with those of Finland and Scandinavia in Europe, and for
size with those of eastern Africa; but for the great extent of
lake-filled country there is no comparison. From the map it will be
noticed that the largest and most thickly strewn lakes occur within five
hundred or a thousand miles of Hudson Bay, and belong to the Archean
protaxis or project beyond its edges into the Palaeozoic sedimentary
rocks which lean against it. The most famous of the lakes are those of
the St Lawrence system, which form part of the southern boundary of
Canada and are shared with the United States; but many others have the
right to be called "Great Lakes" from their magnitude. There are nine
others which have a length of more than 100 m., and thirty-five which
are more than 50 m. long. Within the Archean protaxis they are of the
most varied shapes, since they represent merely portions of the
irregular surface inundated by some morainic dam at the lowest point.
Comparatively few have simple outlines and an unbroken surface of water,
the great majority running into long irregular bays and containing many
islands, sometimes even thousands in number, as in Georgian Bay and
Lake-of-the-Woods. In the Cordilleran region on the other hand the lakes
are long, narrow and deep, in reality sections of mountain valleys
occupied by fresh water, just as the fjords of the adjoining coast are
valleys occupied by the sea. The lakes of the different regions present
the same features as the nearest sea coasts but on a smaller scale. The
majority of the lakes have rocky shores and islands and great variety of
depth, many of the smaller ones, however, are rimmed with marshes and
are slowly filling up with vegetable matter, ultimately becoming peat
bogs, the _muskegs_ of the Indian. Most of Canada is so well watered
that the lakes have outlets and are kept fresh, but there are a few
small lakes in southern Saskatchewan, e.g. the Quill and Old Wives
lakes, in regions arid enough to require no outlets. In such cases the
waters are alkaline, and contain various salts in solution which are
deposited as a white rim round the basin towards the end of the summer
when the amount of water has been greatly reduced by evaporation. It is
interesting to find maritime plants, such as the samphire, growing on
their shores a thousand miles from the sea and more than a thousand feet
above it. In many cases the lakes of Canada simply spill over at the
lowest point from one basin into the next below, making chains of lakes
with no long or well-defined channels between, since in so young a
country there has not yet been time for the rivers to have carved wide
valleys. Thus canoe navigation may be carried on for hundreds of miles,
with here and there a waterfall or a rapid requiring a portage of a few
hundred yards or at most a mile or two. The river systems are therefore
in many cases complex and tortuous, and very often the successive
connecting links between the lakes receive different names. The best
example of this is the familiar one of the St Lawrence, which may be
said to begin as Nipigon river and to take the names St Mary's, St
Clair, Detroit and Niagara, before finally flowing from Lake Ontario to
the sea under its proper name. As these lakes are great reservoirs and
settling basins, the rivers which empty them are unusually steady in
level and contain beautifully clear water. The St Lawrence varies only a
few feet in the year and always has pellucid bluish-green water, while
the Mississippi, whose tributaries begin only a short distance south of
the Great Lakes, varies 40 ft. or more between high- and low-water and
is loaded with mud. The St Lawrence is far the most important Canadian
river from the historic and economic points of view, since it provided
the main artery of exploration in early days, and with its canals past
rapids and between lakes still serves as a great highway of trade
between the interior of the continent and the seaports of Montreal and
Quebec. It is probable that politically Canada would have followed the
course of the States to the south but for the planting of a French
colony with widely extended trading posts along the easily ascended
channel of the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes, so that this river was
the ultimate bond of union between Canada and the empire.
North of the divide between the St Lawrence system and Hudson Bay there
are many large rivers converging on that inland sea, such as Whale
river, Big river, East Main, Rupert and Nottaway rivers coming in from
Ungava and northern Quebec; Moose and Albany rivers with important
tributaries from northern Ontario; and Severn, Nelson and Churchill
rivers from the south-west. All of these are rapid and shallow,
affording navigation only for canoes; but the largest of them, Nelson
river, drains the great Manitoban lakes, Winnipeg, Winnipegosis and
Manitoba, which are frequented by steamers, and receive the waters of
Lake-of-the-Woods, Lake Seul and many others emptying into Winnipeg
river from Ontario; of Red river coming in from the United States to the
south; and of the southern parts of the Rocky Mountains and the western
prairie provinces drained by the great Saskatchewan river. The parallel
of 49° approximately separates the Saskatchewan waters from the streams
going south to the Missouri, though a few small tributaries of the
latter river begin on Canadian territory.
The northern part of Alberta and Saskatchewan and much of northern
British Columbia are drained through the Athabasca and Peace rivers,
first north-eastwards towards Athabasca Lake, then north through Slave
river to Great Slave Lake, and finally north-west through Mackenzie
river to the Arctic Ocean. If measured to the head of Peace river the
Mackenzie has a length of more than 2000 m., and it provides more than
1000 m. of navigation for stern-wheel steamers. Unfortunately, like
other northward-flowing rivers, it does not lead down to a frequented
sea, and so bears little traffic except for the northern fur-trading
posts. The Mackenzie forms a large but little-known delta in lat. 69°,
and in its flood season the head-waters pour down their torrents before
the thick ice of the lower part with its severer climate has yet given
way, piling up the ice in great barriers and giving rise to widespread
floods along the lower reaches. Similar flooding takes place in several
other important northward-flowing rivers in Canada, the St Lawrence at
Montreal affording the best-known instance. Second among the great
north-western rivers is the Yukon, which begins its course about 18 m.
from tide-water on an arm of the Pacific, 2800 ft. above the sea and
just within the Canadian border. It flows first to the north, then to
the north-west, passing out of the Yukon territory into Alaska, and then
south-west, ending in Bering Sea, the northward projection of the
Pacific, 2000 m. from its head-waters. Of its course 1800 m. are
continuously navigable for suitable steamers, so that most of the
traffic connected with the rich Klondike gold-fields passes over its
waters. The rest of the rivers flowing into the Pacific pass through
British Columbia and are much shorter, though the two southern ones
carry a great volume of water owing to the heavy precipitation of snow
and rain in the Cordilleran region. The Columbia is the largest, but
after flowing north-west and then south for about 400 m., it passes into
the United States. With its expansions, the narrow and deep Arrow lakes,
it is an important waterway in the Kootenay region. The Fraser, next in
size but farther north, follows a similar course, entering the sea at
Vancouver; while the Skeena and Stikine in northern British Columbia are
much shorter and smaller, owing to the encroachments of Peace and Liard
rivers, tributaries of the Nelson, on the Cordilleran territory. All of
these rivers are waterways of some importance in their lower course, and
are navigated by powerful stern-wheel boats supplying the posts and
mining camps of the interior with their requirements. In most cases they
reach the coast through deep valleys or profound canyons, and the
transcontinental railways find their way beside them, the Canadian
Pacific following at first tributaries of the Columbia near its great
bend, and afterwards Thompson river and the Fraser; while the Grand
Trunk Pacific makes use of the valley of the Skeena and its tributaries.
The divide between the rivers flowing west and those flowing east and
north is very sharp in the southern Rocky Mountains, but there are two
lakes, the Committee's Punch Bowl and Fortress Lake, right astride of
it, sending their waters both east and west; and there is a mountain
somewhat south of Fortress Lake whose melting snows drain in three
directions into tributaries of the Columbia, the Saskatchewan and the
Athabasca, so that they are distributed between the Pacific, the
Atlantic (Hudson Bay) and the Arctic Oceans. The divide between the St
Lawrence and Hudson Bay in eastern Canada also presents one or two lakes
draining each way, but in a much less striking position, since the
water-parting is flat and boggy instead of being a lofty range of
mountains. The rivers of Canada, except the St Lawrence, are losing
their importance as means of communication from year to year, as
railways spread over the interior and cross the mountains to the
Pacific; but from the point of view of the physical geographer there are
few things more remarkable than the intricate and comprehensive way in
which they drain the country. As most of the Canadian rivers have
waterfalls on their course, they must become of more and more importance
as sources of power. The St Lawrence system, for instance, generates
many thousand horse-power at Sault Ste Marie, Niagara and the Lachine
rapids. All the larger cities of Canada make use of water power in this
way, and many new enterprises of the kind are projected in eastern
Canada; but the thousands of feet of fall of the rivers in the Rocky
Mountain region are still almost untouched, though they will some day
find use in manufactures like those of Switzerland.
_The Archean Protaxis._--The broad geological and geographical
relationships of the country have already been outlined, but the more
important sub-divisions may now be taken up with more detail, and for
that purpose five areas may be distinguished, much the largest being the
Archean protaxis, covering about 2,000,000 sq. m. It includes Labrador,
Ungava and most of Quebec on the east, northern Ontario on the south;
and the western boundary runs from Lake-of-the-Woods north-west to the
Arctic Ocean near the mouth of Mackenzie river. The southern parts of
the Arctic islands, especially Banksland, belong to it also. This vast
area, shaped like a broad-limbed V or U, with Hudson Bay in the centre,
is made up chiefly of monotonous and barren Laurentian gneiss and
granite; but scattered through it are important stretches of Keewatin
and Huronian rocks intricately folded as synclines in the gneiss, as
suggested earlier, the bases of ancient mountain ranges. The Keewatin
and Huronian, consisting of greenstones, schists and more or less
metamorphosed sedimentary rocks, are of special interest for their ore
deposits, which include most of the important metals, particularly iron,
nickel, copper and silver. The southern portion of the protaxis is now
being opened up by railways, but the far greater northern part is known
only along the lakes and rivers which are navigable by canoe. Though
once consisting of great mountain ranges there are now no lofty
elevations in the region except along the Atlantic border in Labrador,
where summits of the Nachvak Mountains are said to reach 6000 ft. or
more. In every other part the surface is hilly or mammilated, the harder
rocks, such as granite or greenstone, rising as rounded knobs, or in the
case of schists forming narrow ridges, while the softer parts form
valleys generally floored with lakes. From the summit of any of the
higher hills one sees that the region is really a somewhat dissected
plain, for all the hills rise to about the same level with a uniform
skyline at the horizon. The Archean protaxis is sometimes spoken of as
a plateau, but probably half of it falls below 1000 ft. The lowland part
includes from 100 to 500 m. all round the shore of Hudson Bay, and
extends south-west to the edge of the Palaeozoic rocks on Lake Winnipeg.
Outwards from the bay the level rises slowly to an average of about 1500
ft., but seldom reaches 2000 ft. except at a few points near Lake
Superior and on the eastern coast of Labrador. In most parts the
Laurentian hills are bare _roches moutonnées_ scoured by the glaciers of
the Ice Age, but a broad band of clay land extends across northern
Quebec and Ontario just north of the divide. The edges of the protaxis
are in general its highest parts, and the rivers flowing outwards often
have a descent of several hundred feet in a few miles towards the Great
Lakes, the St Lawrence or the Atlantic, and in some cases they have cut
back deep gorges or canyons into the tableland. The waterfalls are
utilized at a few points to work up into wood pulp the forests of spruce
which cover much of Labrador, Quebec and Ontario. Most of the pine that
formerly grew on the Archean at the northern fringe of the settlements
has been cut, but the lumberman is still advancing northwards and
approaching the northern limit of the famous Canadian white pine
forests, beyond which spruces, tamarack (larch) and poplar are the
prevalent trees. As one advances northward the timber grows smaller and
includes fewer species of trees, and finally the timber line is reached,
near Churchill on the west coast of Hudson Bay and somewhat farther
south on the Labrador side. Beyond this to the north are the "barren
grounds" on which herds of caribou (reindeer) and musk ox pasture,
migrating from north to south according to the season. There are no
permanent ice sheets known on the mainland of north-eastern Canada, but
some of the larger islands to the north of Hudson Bay and Straits are
partially covered with glaciers on their higher points. Unless by its
mineral resources, of which scarcely anything is known, the barren
grounds can never support a white population and have little to tempt
even the Indian or Eskimo, who visit it occasionally in summer to hunt
the deer in their migrations.
_The Acadian Region._--The "maritime provinces" of eastern Canada,
including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, may be
considered together; and to these provinces as politically bounded may
be added, from a physical point of view, the analogous south-eastern
part of Quebec--the entire area being designated the Acadian region.
Taken as a whole, this eastern part of Canada, with a very irregular and
extended coast-line on the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Atlantic, may be
regarded as a northern continuation of the Appalachian mountain system
that runs parallel to the Atlantic coast of the United States. The rocks
underlying it have been subjected to successive foldings and crumplings
by forces acting chiefly from the direction of the Atlantic Ocean, with
alternating prolonged periods of waste and denudation. The main axis of
disturbance and the highest remaining land runs through the
south-eastern part of Quebec, forming the Notre Dame Mountains, and
terminates in the Gaspé peninsula as the Shickshock Mountains. The
first-named seldom exceed 1500 ft. in height, but the Shickshocks rise
above 3000 ft. The province of New Brunswick exhibits approximately
parallel but subordinate ridges, with wide intervening areas of nearly
flat Silurian and Carboniferous rocks. The peninsula of Nova Scotia,
connected by a narrow neck with New Brunswick, is formed by still
another and more definite system of parallel ridges, deeply fretted on
all sides by bays and harbours. A series of quartzites and slates
referred to the Cambrian, and holding numerous and important veins of
auriferous quartz, characterize its Atlantic or south-eastern side,
while valuable coal-fields occur in Cape Breton and on parts of its
shores on the Gulf of St Lawrence. In New Brunswick the Carboniferous
rocks occupy a large area, but the coal seams so far developed are thin
and unimportant. Metalliferous ores of various kinds occur both in Nova
Scotia and in this province, but with the exception of the gold already
mentioned, have not yet become the objects of important industries.
Copper and asbestos are the principal mineral products of that part of
Quebec included in the region now under description, although many
other minerals are known and already worked to some extent. Extensive
tracts of good arable land exist in many parts of the Acadian region.
Its surface was originally almost entirely wooded, and the products of
the forest continue to hold a prominent place. Prince Edward Island, the
smallest province of Canada, is low and undulating, based on
Permo-Carboniferous and Triassic rocks affording a red and very fertile
soil, much of which is under cultivation.
_The St Lawrence Plain._--As the St Lawrence invited the earliest
settlers to Canada and gave the easiest communication with the Old
World, it is not surprising to find the wealthiest and most populous
part of the country on its shores and near the Great Lakes which it
leads up to; and this early development was greatly helped by the flat
and fertile plain which follows it inland for over 600 m. from the city
of Quebec to Lake Huron. This affords the largest stretch of arable land
in eastern Canada, including the southern parts of Ontario and Quebec
with an area of some 38,000 sq. m. In Quebec the chief portion is south
of the St Lawrence on the low plain extending from Montreal to the
mountains of the "Eastern Townships," while in Ontario it extends from
the Archean on the north to the St Lawrence and Lakes Ontario, Erie and
Huron. The whole region is underlain by nearly horizontal and
undisturbed rocks of the Palaeozoic from the Devonian downward.
Superimposed on these rocks are Pleistocene boulder clay, and clay and
sand deposited in post-glacial lakes or an extension of the Gulf of St
Lawrence. Though petroleum and salt occur in the south-west peninsula of
Ontario, metalliferous deposits are wanting, and the real wealth of this
district lies in its soil and climate, which permit the growth of all
the products of temperate regions. Georgian Bay and the northern part of
Lake Huron with the whole northern margin of Lake Superior bathe the
foot of the Laurentian plateau, which rises directly from these lakes;
so that the older fertile lands of the country with their numerous
cities and largely-developed manufactures are cut off by an elevated,
rocky and mostly forest-covered tract of the Archean from the newer and
far more extensive farm lands of the west. For many years this southern
projection of the northern wilderness was spanned by only one railway,
and offered a serious hindrance to the development of the regions
beyond; but settlements are now spreading to the north and rapidly
filling up the gap between east and west.
_The Interior Continental Plain._--Passing westward by rail from the
forest-covered Archean with its rugged granite hills, the flat prairie
of Manitoba with its rich grasses and multitude of flowers comes as a
very striking contrast, introducing the Interior Continental plain in
its most typical development. This great plain runs north-westward
between the border of the Archean protaxis and the line of the Rocky
Mountains, including most of Manitoba, the southern part of Saskatchewan
and most of Alberta. At the international boundary in lat. 49° it is 800
m. wide, but in lat. 56° it has narrowed to 400 m. in width, and to the
north of lat. 62° it is still narrower and somewhat interrupted, but
preserves its main physical features to the Arctic Ocean about the mouth
of the Mackenzie. This interior plain of the continent represents the
area of the ancient sea by which it was occupied in Mesozoic times, with
a more ancient margin towards the north-west against the Archean, where
undisturbed limestones and other rocks of the Silurian and Devonian rest
upon the downward slope of the Laurentian Shield. Most of the plains are
underlain by Cretaceous and early Tertiary shales and sandstones lying
nearly unaltered and undisturbed where they were deposited, although now
raised far above sea-level, particularly along the border of the Rocky
Mountains where they were thrust up into foot-hills when the range
itself was raised. These strata have been subjected to great denudation,
but owing to their comparatively soft character this has been, in the
main, nearly uniform, and has produced no very bold features of relief,
Coal and lignitic coal are the principal economic minerals met with in
this central plain, though natural gas occurs and is put to use near
Medicine Hat, and "tar sands" along the north-eastern edge of the
Cretaceous indicate the presence of petroleum. Its chief value lies in
its vast tracts of fertile soil, now rapidly filling up with settlers
from all parts of the world, and the grassy uplands in the foot-hill
region affording perennial pasturage for the cattle, horses and sheep of
the rancher. Though the region is spoken of as a plain there are really
great differences of level between the highest parts in south-western
Alberta, 4500 ft. above the sea, and the lowest in the region of Lake
Winnipeg, where the prairie is at an elevation of only 800 ft. The very
flat and rich prairie near Winnipeg is the former bed of the glacial
Lake Agassiz; but most of the prairie to the west is of a gently rolling
character and there are two rather abrupt breaks in the plain, the most
westerly one receiving the name of the Missouri Coteau. The first step
represents a rise to 1600 ft., and the second to 3000 ft. on an average.
In so flat a country any elevation of a few hundred feet is remarkable
and is called a mountain, so that Manitoba has its Duck and Riding
mountains. More important than the hills are the narrow and often rather
deep river valleys cut below the general level, exposing the soft rocks
of the Cretaceous and in many places seams of lignite. When not too deep
the river channels may be traced from afar across the prairie by the
winding band of trees growing beside the water. The treeless part of the
plains, the prairie proper, has a triangular shape with an area twice as
large as that of Great Britain. North of the Saskatchewan river groves
or "bluffs" of trees begin, and somewhat farther north the plains are
generally wooded, because of the slightly more humid climate. It has
been proved, however, that certain kinds of trees if protected will grow
also on the prairie, as may be seen around many of the older
farm-steads. In the central southern regions the climate is arid enough
to permit of "alkaline" ponds and lakes, which may completely dry up in
summer, and where a supply of drinking-water is often hard to obtain,
though the land itself is fertile.
_The Cordilleran Belt._--The Rocky Mountain region as a whole, best
named the Cordillera or Cordilleran belt, includes several parallel
ranges of mountains of different structures and ages, the eastern one
constituting the Rocky Mountains proper. This band of mountains 400 m.
wide covers towards the south almost all of British Columbia and a strip
of Alberta east of the watershed, and towards the north forms the whole
of the Yukon Territory. While it is throughout essentially a mountainous
country, very complicated in its orographic features and interlocking
river systems, two principal mountain axes form its ruling features--the
Rocky Mountains proper, above referred to, and the Coast Ranges. Between
them are many other ranges shorter and less regular in trend, such as
the Selkirk Mountains, the Gold Ranges and the Caribou Mountains. There
is also in the southern inland region an interior plateau, once probably
a peneplain, but now elevated and greatly dissected by river valleys,
which extends north-westward for 500 m. with a width of about 100 m. and
affords the largest areas of arable and pasture land in British
Columbia. Similar wide tracts of less broken country occur, after a
mountainous interruption, in northern British Columbia and to some
extent in the Yukon Territory, where wide valleys and rolling hills
alternate with short mountain ranges of no great altitude. The Pacific
border of the coast range of British Columbia is ragged with fjords and
channels, where large steamers may go 50 or 100 m. inland between
mountainous walls as on the coast of Norway; and there is also a
bordering mountain system partly submerged forming Vancouver Island and
the Queen Charlotte Islands. The highest mountains of the Cordillera in
Canada are near the southern end of the boundary separating Alaska from
the Yukon Territory, the meridian of 141°, and they include Mount Logan
(19,540 ft.) and Mount St Elias (18,000 ft.), while the highest peak in
North America, Mount McKinley (20,000 ft.), is not far to the north-west
in Alaska. This knot of very lofty mountains, with Mount Fairweather and
some others, all snowy and glacier-clad for almost their whole height,
are quite isolated from the highest points of the Rocky Mountains
proper, which are 1000 m. to the south-east. Near the height of land
between British Columbia and Alberta there are many peaks which rise
from 10,000 to 12,000 ft. above sea-level, the highest which has been
carefully measured being Mount Robson (13,700 ft.). The next range to
the east, the Selkirks, has several summits that reach 10,000 ft. or
over, while the Coast Ranges scarcely go beyond 9000 ft. The snow line
in the south is from 7500 to 9000 ft. above sea-level, being lower on
the Pacific side where the heaviest snowfall comes in winter than on the
drier north-eastern side. The snow line gradually sinks as one advances
north-west, reaching only 2000 or 3000 ft. on the Alaskan coast. The
Rockies and Selkirks support thousands of glaciers, mostly not very
large, but having some 50 or 100 sq. m. of snowfield. All the glaciers
are now in retreat, with old tree-covered moraines, hundreds or
thousands of feet lower down the valley. The timber line is at about
7500 ft. in southern British Columbia and 4000 ft. in the interior of
the Yukon Territory. On the westward slopes, especially of the Selkirks
and Coast Ranges, vegetation is almost tropical in its density and
luxuriance, the giant cedar and the Douglas fir sometimes having
diameters of 10 ft. or more and rising to the height of 150 ft. On the
eastern flanks of the ranges the forest is much thinner, and on the
interior plateau and in many of the valleys largely gives way to open
grass land. The several ranges of the Cordillera show very different
types of structure and were formed at different ages, the Selkirks with
their core of pre-Cambrian granite, gneiss and schists coming first,
then the Coast Ranges, which seem to have been elevated in Cretaceous
times, formed mainly by a great upwelling of granite and diorite as
batholiths along the margin of the continent and sedimentary rocks lying
as remnants on their flanks; and finally the Rocky Mountains in the
Laramie or early Eocene, after the close of the Cretaceous. This latest
and also highest range was formed by tremendous thrusts from the Pacific
side, crumpling and folding the ancient sedimentary rocks, which run
from the Cambrian to the Cretaceous, and faulting them along overturned
folds. The outer ranges in Alberta have usually the form of tilted
blocks with a steep cliff towards the north-east and a gentler slope,
corresponding to the dip of the beds, towards the south-west. Near the
centre of the range there are broader foldings, carved into castle and
cathedral shapes. The most easterly range has been shown to have been
actually pushed 7 m. out upon the prairies. In the Rocky Mountains
proper no eruptive rocks have broken through, so that no ore deposits of
importance are known from them, but in the Cretaceous synclines which
they enclose valuable coal basins exist. Coal of a bituminous and also
semi-anthracite kind is produced, the best mined on the Pacific slope of
the continent, the coking coals of the Fernie region supplying the fuel
of the great metal mining districts of the Kootenays in British
Columbia, and of Montana and other states to the south. The Selkirks and
Gold Ranges west of the Rockies, with their great areas of eruptive
rocks, both ancient and modern, include most of the important mines of
gold, silver, copper and lead which give British Columbia its leadership
among the Canadian provinces as a producer of metals. In early days the
placer gold mines of the Columbia, Fraser and Caribou attracted miners
from everywhere, but these have declined, and lode mines supply most of
the gold as well as the other metals. The Coast Ranges and islands also
include many mines, especially of copper, but up to the present of less
value than those inland. Most of the mining development is in southern
British Columbia, where a network of railways and waterways gives easy
access; but as means of communication improve to the north a similar
development may be looked for there. The Atlin and White Horse regions
in northern British Columbia and southern Yukon have attracted much
attention, and the Klondike placers still farther north have furnished
many millions of dollars' worth of gold. Summing up the economic
features of the Cordilleran belt, it includes many of the best
coal-mines and the most extensive deposits of gold, copper, lead and
zinc of the Dominion, while in silver, nickel and iron Ontario takes the
lead. When its vast area stretching from the international boundary to
beyond the Arctic circle is opened up, it may be expected to prove the
counterpart of the great mining region of the Cordillera in the United
States to the south.
_Climate_.--In a country like Canada ranging from lat. 42° to the
Arctic regions and touching three oceans, there must be great variations
of climate. If placed upon Europe it would extend from Rome to the North
Cape, but latitude is of course only one of the factors influencing
climate, the arrangement of the ocean currents and of the areas of high
and low pressure making a very wide difference between the climates of
the two sides of the Atlantic. In reality the Pacific coast of Canada,
rather than the Atlantic coast, should be compared with western Europe,
the south-west corner of British Columbia, in lat. 48° to 50°, having a
climate very similar to the southern coast of England. In Canada the
isotherms by no means follow parallels of latitude, especially in summer
when in the western half of the country they run nearly north-west and
south-east; so that the average temperature of 55° is found about on the
Arctic circle in the Mackenzie river valley, in lat. 50° near the
Lake-of-the-Woods, in lat. 55° at the northern end of James Bay, and in
lat. 49° on Anticosti in the Gulf of St Lawrence. The proximity of the
sea or of great lakes, the elevation and the direction of mountain
chains, the usual path of storms and of prevalent winds, and the
relative length of day and amount of sunshine in summer and winter all
have their effect on different parts of Canada. One cannot even describe
the climate of a single province, like Ontario or British Columbia, as a
unit, as it varies so greatly in different parts. Details should
therefore be sought in articles on the separate provinces. In eastern
Canada Ungava and Labrador are very chill and inhospitable, owing
largely to the iceberg-laden current sweeping down the coast from Davis
Strait, bringing fogs and long snowy winters and a temperature for the
year much below the freezing-point. South of the Gulf of St Lawrence,
however, the maritime provinces have much more genial temperatures,
averaging 40° F. for the year and over 60° for the summer months. The
amount of rain is naturally high so near the sea, 40 to 56 in., but the
snowfall is not usually excessive. In Quebec and northern Ontario the
rainfall is diminished, ranging from 20 to 40 in., while the snows of
winter are deep and generally cover the ground from the beginning of
December to the end of March. The winters are brilliant but cold, and
the summers average from 60° to 65° F., with generally clear skies and a
bracing atmosphere which makes these regions favourite summer resorts
for the people of the cities to the south. The winter storms often sweep
a little to the north of southern Ontario, so that what falls as snow in
the north is rain in the south, giving a much more variable winter,
often with too little snow for sleighing. The summers are warm, with an
average temperature of 65° and an occasional rise to 90°. As one goes
westward the precipitation diminishes to 17.34 in. in Manitoba and 13.35
for the other two prairie provinces, most of this, however, coming
opportunely from May to August, the months when the growing grain most
requires moisture. There is a much lighter snowfall in winter than in
northern Ontario and Quebec, with somewhat lower temperatures. The snow
and the frost in the ground are considered useful as furnishing moisture
to start the wheat in spring. The precipitation in southern Saskatchewan
and Alberta is much more variable than farther east and north, so that
in some seasons crops have been a failure through drought, but large
areas are now being brought under irrigation to avoid such losses. The
prairie provinces have in most parts a distinctly continental climate
with comparatively short, warm summers and long, cold winters, but with
much sunshine in both seasons. In southern Alberta, however, the winter
cold is often interrupted by chinooks, westerly winds which have lost
their moisture by crossing the mountains and become warmed by plunging
down to the plains, where they blow strongly, licking up the snow and
raising the temperature, sometimes in a few hours, from 20° to 40° F. In
this region cattle and horses can generally winter on the grass of the
ranges without being fed, though in hard seasons there may be heavy
losses. Northwards chinooks become less frequent and the winter's cold
increases, but the coming of spring is not much later, and the summer
temperatures, with sunshine for twenty hours out of twenty-four in June,
are almost the same as for hundreds of miles to the south, so that most
kinds of grain and vegetables ripen far to the north in the Peace river
valley. Though the climate of the plains is one of extremes and often of
rather sudden changes, it is brisk and invigorating and of particular
value for persons affected with lung troubles.
The climate of the Cordilleran region presents even more variety than
that of the other provinces because of the ranges of mountains which run
parallel to the Pacific. Along the coast itself the climate is insular,
with little frost in winter and mild heat in summer, and with a very
heavy rainfall amounting to 100 in. on the south-west side of Vancouver
Island and near Port Simpson. Within 100 m. inland beyond the Coast
Range the precipitation and general climate are, like those of Ontario,
comparatively mild and with moderate snowfall towards the south, but
with keen winters farther north. The interior plateau may be described
as arid, so that irrigation is required if crops are to be raised. The
Selkirk Mountains have a heavy rainfall and a tremendous snowfall on
their western flanks, but very much less precipitation on their eastern
side. The Rocky Mountains have the same relationships but the whole
precipitation is much less than in the Selkirks. The temperature depends
largely, of course, on altitude, so that one may quickly pass from
perpetual snow above 8000 ft. in the mountains to the mild, moist
climate of Vancouver or Victoria, which is like that of Devonshire. In
the far north of the territories of Yukon, Mackenzie and Ungava the
climate has been little studied, as the region is uninhabited by white
men except at a few fur-trading posts. North-west and north-east of
Hudson Bay it becomes too severe for the growth of trees as seen on the
"barren grounds," and there may be perpetual ice beneath the coating of
moss which serves as a non-conducting covering for the "tundras." There
is, however, so little precipitation that snow does not accumulate on
the surface to form glaciers, the summer's sun having warmth enough to
thaw what falls in the winter. Leaving out the maritime provinces,
southern Ontario, southern Alberta and the Pacific coast region on the
one hand, and the Arctic north, particularly near Hudson Bay, on the
other, Canada has snowy and severe winters, a very short spring with a
sudden rise of temperature, short warm summers, and a delightful autumn
with its "Indian summer." There is much sunshine, and the atmosphere is
bracing and exhilarating.
_Flora_.--The general flora of the Maritime Provinces, Quebec and
Eastern Ontario is much the same, except that in Nova Scotia a number of
species are found common also to Newfoundland that are not apparent
inland. Professor Macoun gives us a few notable species--_Calluna
vulgaris_, Salisb., _Alchemilla vulgaris_, L., _Rhododendron maximum_,
L., _Ilex glabia_, Gray, _Hudsonia ericoides_, L., _Gaylussacia dumosa_,
F. and G., and _Schezaea pusilla_, Pursh. In New Brunswick the western
flora begins to appear as well as immigrants from the south, while in
the next eastern province, Quebec, the flora varies considerably. In the
lower St Lawrence country and about the Gulf many Arctic and sub-Arctic
species are found. On the shores of the lower reaches _Thalictrum
alpinum_, L., _Vesicaria arctica_, Richards, _Arapis alpina_, L.,
_Saxifraga oppositifolia_, L., _Cerastium alpinum_, L., _Saxifraga
caespitosa_, L. and S. have been gathered, and on the Shickshock
Mountains of Eastern Canada _Silene acaulis_, L., _Lychnis alpina_, L.,
_Cassiope hypnoides_, Don., _Rhododendron laponicum_, Wahl, and many
others. On the summit of these hills (4000 ft.) have been collected
_Aspidium aculeatum_, Swartz var., _Scopulinum_, D.C. Eaton, _Pellaea
densa_, Hook, _Gallium kamtschaticum_, Sletten. From the city of Quebec
westwards there is a constantly increasing ratio of southern forms, and
when the mountain (so called) at Montreal is reached the representative
Ontario flora begins. In Ontario the flora of the northern part is much
the same as that of the Gulf of St Lawrence, but from Montreal along the
Ottawa and St Lawrence valleys the flora takes a more southern aspect,
and trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants not found in the eastern parts
of the Dominion become common. In the forest regions north of the lakes
the vegetation on the shores of Lake Erie requires a high winter
temperature, while the east and north shores of Lake Superior have a
boreal vegetation that shows the summer temperature of this enormous
water-stretch to be quite low. Beyond the forest country of Ontario come
the prairies of Manitoba and the North-West Territories. In the ravines
the eastern flora continues for some distance, and then disappearing
gives place to that of the prairie, which is found everywhere between
the Red river and the Rocky Mountains except in wooded and damp
localities. Northwards, in the Saskatchewan country, the flora of the
forest and that of the prairies intermingle. On the prairies and the
foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains a great variety of grasses are found,
several years' collection resulting in 42 genera and 156 species. Of the
best hay and pasture grasses, _Agropyrum Elymus, Stipa, Bromus,
Agrostis, Calamagrostes_ and _Poa_, there are 59 species. Besides the
grasses there are leguminous plants valuable for pasture--_Astragalus,
Vicia_ (wild vetch), _Lathyrus_ (wild pea) of which there are many
species. The rose family is represented by _Prunus, Potentilla,
Fragaria, Rosa, Rubus_ and _Amelanchier_.
About the saline lakes and marshes of the prairie country are found
_Ruppia maritima_, L., _Heliotropium curassavicum_, L., natives of the
Atlantic coast, and numerous species of _Chenopodium, Atriplex_ and
allied genera. The flora of the forest belt of the North-West
Territories differs little from that of northern Ontario. At the
beginning of the elevation of the Rocky Mountains there is a luxurious
growth of herbaceous plants, including a number of rare umbellifers. At
the higher levels the vegetation becomes more Arctic. Northwards the
valleys of the Peace and other rivers differ little from those of Quebec
and the northern prairies. On the western slope of the mountains, that
is, the Selkirk and Coast ranges as distinguished from the eastern or
Rocky Mountains range, the flora differs, the climate being damp instead
of dry. In some of the valleys having an outlet to the south the flora
is partly peculiar to the American desert, and such species as _Purshia
tridentata_, D.C., and _Artemisia tridentata_, Nutt., and species of
_Gilia, Aster_ and _Erigonum_ are found that are not met with elsewhere.
Above Yale, in the drier part of the Fraser valley, the absence of rain
results in the same character of flora, while in the rainy districts of
the lower Fraser the vegetation is so luxuriant that it resembles that
of the tropics. So in various parts of the mountainous country of
British Columbia, the flora varies according to climatic conditions.
Nearer the Pacific coast the woods and open spaces are filled with
flowers and shrubs. Liliaceous flowers are abundant, including
_Erythoniums, Trilliums, Alliums, Brodeaeas, Fritillarias, Siliums,
Camassias_ and others.
_Fauna_.--The larger animals of Canada are the musk ox and the caribou
of the barren lands, both having their habitat in the far north; the
caribou of the woods, found in all the provinces except in Prince Edward
Island; the moose, with an equally wide range in the wooded country; the
Virginia deer, in one or other of its varietal forms, common to all the
southern parts; the black-tailed deer or mule deer and allied forms, on
the western edge of the plains and in British Columbia; the pronghorn
antelope on the plains, and a small remnant of the once plentiful bison
found in northern Alberta and Mackenzie, now called "wood buffalo." The
wapiti or American elk at one time abounded from Quebec to the Pacific,
and as far north as the Peace river, but is now found only in small
numbers from Manitoba westwards. In the mountains of the west are the
grizzly bear, black bear and cinnamon bear. The black bear is also
common to most other parts of Canada; the polar bear everywhere along
the Arctic littoral. The large or timber wolf is found in the wooded
districts of all the provinces, and on the plains there is also a
smaller wolf called the coyote. In British Columbia the puma or cougar,
sometimes called the panther and the American lion, still frequently
occurs; and in all parts the common fox and the silver fox, the lynx,
beaver, otter, marten, fisher, wolverene, mink, skunk and other
fur-bearing animals. Mountain and plain and Arctic hares and rabbits are
plentiful or scarce in localities, according to seasons or other
circumstances. In the mountains of British Columbia are the bighorn or
Rocky Mountain sheep and the Rocky Mountain goat, while the saddleback
and white mountain sheep have recently been discovered in the northern
Cordillera. The birds of Canada are mostly migratory, and are those
common to the northern and central states of the United States. The
wildfowl are, particularly in the west, in great numbers; their
breeding-grounds extending from Manitoba and the western prairies up to
Hudson Bay, the barren lands and Arctic coasts. The several kinds of
geese--including the Canada goose, the Arctic goose or wavey, the
laughing goose, the brant and others--all breed in the northern regions,
but are found in great numbers throughout the several provinces, passing
north in the spring and south in the autumn. There are several varieties
of grouse, the largest of which is the grouse of British Columbia and
the pennated grouse and the prairie chicken of Manitoba and the plains,
besides the so-called partridge and willow partridge, both of which are
grouse. While the pennated grouse (called the prairie chicken in Canada)
has always been plentiful, the prairie hen (or chicken) proper is a more
recent arrival from Minnesota and the Dakotas, to which it had come from
Illinois and the south as settlement and accompanying wheatfields
extended north. In certain parts of Ontario the wild turkey is
occasionally found and the ordinary quail, but in British Columbia is
found the California quail, and a larger bird much resembling it called
the mountain partridge. The golden eagle, bald-headed eagle, osprey and
a large variety of hawks are common in Canada, as are the snowy owl, the
horned owl and others inhabiting northern climates. The raven frequently
remains even in the colder parts throughout the winter; these, with the
Canada jay, waxwing, grosbeak and snow bunting, being the principal
birds seen in Manitoba and northern districts in that season. The rook
is not found, but the common crow and one or two other kinds are there
during the summer. Song-birds are plentiful, especially in wooded
regions, and include the American robin, oriole, thrushes, the cat-bird
and various sparrows; while the English sparrow, introduced years ago,
has multiplied excessively and become a nuisance in the towns. The
smallest of the birds, the ruby throat humming-bird, is found
everywhere, even up to timber line in the mountains. The sea-birds
include a great variety of gulls, guillemots, cormorants, albatrosses
(four species), fulmars and petrels, and in the Gulf of St Lawrence the
gannet is very abundant. Nearly all the sea-birds of Great Britain are
found in Canadian waters or are represented by closely allied species.
(A. P. C.)
_Area and Population._--The following table shows the division of the
Dominion into provinces and districts, with the capital, population and
estimated area of each.
+------------------------+-------------+--------------------------+---------------+
| | | Population. | |
| | Area in +------------+-------------+ Official |
| | sq. mi. | 1881. | 1901. | Capital. |
+------------------------+-------------+------------+-------------+---------------+
| Provinces-- | | | | |
| Ontario | 260,862 | 1,926,922 | 2,182,947 | Toronto |
| Quebec | 351,873 | 1,359,027 | 1,648,898 | Quebec |
| Nova Scotia | 21,428 | 440,572 | 459,574 | Halifax |
| New Brunswick | 27,985 | 321,233 | 331,120 | Fredericton |
| Manitoba | 73,732 | 62,260 | 255,211[1]| Winnipeg |
| British Columbia | 372,630 | 49,459 | 178,657 | Victoria |
| Prince Edward Island | 2,184 | 108,891 | 103,259 | Charlottetown |
| Saskatchewan | 250,650 | \ 25,515 | 91,460[1]| Regina |
| Alberta | 253,540 | / | 72,841[1]| Edmonton |
| | | | | |
| Districts-- | | | | |
| Keewatin | 516,571 | \ | 8,800 | · · |
| Yukon | 196,976 | | | 27,219 | Dawson City |
| Mackenzie | 562,182 | > 30,931 | 5,216 | · · |
| Ungava | 354,961 | | | 5,113 | · · |
| Franklin | 500,000 | / | | · · |
+------------------------+-------------+------------+-------------+---------------+
| The Dominion | 3,745,574[2]| 4,324,810 | 5,371,315 | Ottawa |
+------------------------+-------------+------------+-------------+---------------+
In 1867 the Dominion was formed by the union of the provinces of Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec (Lower Canada) and Ontario (Upper Canada).
In 1869 the North-west Territories were purchased from the Hudson's Bay
Company, from a corner of which Manitoba was carved in the next year. In
1871 British Columbia and in 1873 Prince Edward Island joined the
Dominion.
The islands and other districts within the Arctic circle became a
portion of the Dominion only in 1880, when all British possessions in
North America, excepting Newfoundland, with its dependency, the Labrador
coast, and the Bermuda islands, were annexed to Canada. West of the
province of Ontario, then inaccurately defined, the provinces of
Manitoba and British Columbia were the only organized divisions of the
western territory, but in 1882 the provisional districts of Assiniboia,
Athabasca, Alberta and Saskatchewan were formed, leaving the remainder
of the north-west as unorganized territories, a certain portion of the
north-east, called Keewatin, having previously been placed under the
lieutenant-governor of Manitoba. In 1905 these four districts were
formed into the two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and Keewatin
was placed directly under the federal government. In 1898, owing to the
influx of miners, the Yukon territory was constituted and granted a
limited measure of self-government. The unorganized territories are
sparsely inhabited by Indians, the people of the Hudson's Bay Company's
posts and a few missionaries.
_Population_.--The growth of population is shown by the following
figures:--1871, 3,485,761; 1881, 4,324,810; 1891, 4,833,239; 1901,
5,371,315. Since 1901 the increase has been more rapid, and in 1905
alone 144,621 emigrants entered Canada, of whom about two-fifths were
from Great Britain and one-third from the United States.
The density of population is greatest in Prince Edward Island, where it
is 51.6 to the sq. m.; in Nova Scotia it is 22.3; New Brunswick, 11.8;
Ontario, 9.9; Manitoba, 4.9; Quebec, 4.8; Saskatchewan, 1.01; Alberta,
0.72; British Columbia, 0.4; the Dominion, 1.8. This is not an
indication of the density in settled parts; as in Quebec, Ontario and
the western provinces there are large unpopulated districts, the area of
which enters into the calculation. The population is composed mainly of
English- or French-speaking people, but there are German settlements of
some extent in Ontario, and of late years there has been a large
immigration into the western provinces and territories from other parts
of Europe, including Russians, Galicians, Polish and Russian Jews, and
Scandinavians. These foreign elements have been assimilated more slowly
than in the United States, but the process is being hastened by the
growth of a national consciousness. English, Irish and Scots and their
descendants form the bulk of the population of Ontario, French-Canadians
of Quebec, Scots of Nova Scotia, the Irish of a large proportion of New
Brunswick. In the other provinces the latter race tends to confine
itself to the cities. Manitoba is largely peopled from Ontario, together
with a decreasing number of half-breeds--i.e. children of white fathers
(chiefly French or Scottish) and Indian mothers--who originally formed
the bulk of its inhabitants. Alberta and Saskatchewan, particularly the
ranching districts, are chiefly peopled by English immigrants, though
since 1900 there has also been a large influx from the United States.
British Columbia contains a mixed population, of which in the mining
districts a large proportion is American. Since 1871 a great change has
taken place throughout the west, i.e. from Lake Superior to the Pacific.
Then Manitoba was principally inhabited by English and French
half-breeds (or Métis), descendants of Hudson's Bay Company's employes,
or adventurous pioneers from Quebec, together with Scottish settlers,
descendants of those brought out by Lord Selkirk (q.v.), some English
army pensioners and others, and the van of the immigration that shortly
followed from Ontario. Beyond Manitoba buffalo were still running on the
plains, and British Columbia having lost its mining population of 1859
and 1860 was largely inhabited by Indians, its white population which
centred in the city of Victoria being principally English.
French is the language of the province of Quebec, though English is much
spoken in the cities; both languages are officially recognized in that
province, and in the federal courts and parliament. Elsewhere, English
is exclusively used, save by the newly-arrived foreigners. The male sex
is slightly the more numerous in all the provinces except Quebec, the
greatest discrepancy existing in British Columbia.
The birth-rate is high, especially in Quebec, where families of twelve
to twenty are not infrequent, but is decreasing in Ontario. In spite of
the growth of manufactures since 1878, there are few large cities, and
the proportion of the urban population to the rural is small. Herein it
differs noticeably from Australia. Between 1891 and 1901 the number of
farmers in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces decreased, and
there seemed a prospect of the country being divided into a
manufacturing east and an agricultural west, but latterly large tracts
in northern Ontario and Quebec have proved suitable for cultivation and
are being opened up.
_Religion_.--There is no established church in Canada, but in the
province of Quebec certain rights have been allowed to the Roman
Catholic church ever since the British conquest. In that province about
87% of the population belongs to this church, which is strong in the
others also, embracing over two-fifths of the population of the
Dominion. The Protestants have shown a tendency to subdivision, and many
curious and ephemeral sects have sprung up; of late years, however, the
various sections of Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists have united,
and a working alliance has been formed between Presbyterians, Methodists
and Congregationalists. The Methodists are the strongest, and in Ontario
form over 30% of the population. Next come the Presbyterians, the
backbone of the maritime provinces. The Church of England is strong in
the cities, especially Toronto. Save among the Indians, active disbelief
in Christianity is practically non-existent, and even among them 90% are
nominally Christian.
_Indians_.--The Indian population numbers over 100,000 and has slightly
increased since 1881. Except in British Columbia and the unorganized
territories, nearly all of these are on reservations, where they are
under government supervision, receiving an annuity in money and a
certain amount of provisions; and where, by means of industrial schools
and other methods, civilized habits are slowly superseding their former
mode of life. British Columbia has about 25,000, most of whom are along
the coast, though one of the important tribes, the Shuswaps, is in the
interior. An almost equal number are found in the three prairie
provinces. Those of Ontario, numbering about 20,000, are more civilized
than those of the west, many of them being good farmers. In all the
provinces they are under the control of the federal government which
acts as their trustee, investing the money which they derive chiefly
from the sale of lands and timber, and making a large annual
appropriation for the payment of their annuities, schools and other
expenses. While unable to alienate their reservations, save to the
federal government, they are not confined to them, but wander at
pleasure. As they progress towards a settled mode of life, they are
given the franchise; this process is especially far advanced in Ontario.
A certain number are found in all the provinces. They make incomparable
guides for fishing, hunting and surveying parties, on which they will
cheerfully undergo the greatest hardships, though tending to shrink from
regular employment in cities or on farms.
_Orientals_.--The Chinese and Japanese numbered in 1906 about 20,000, of
whom, three-quarters were in British Columbia, though they were
spreading through the other provinces, chiefly as laundrymen. They are
as a rule frugal, industrious and law-abiding, and are feared rather for
their virtues than for their vices. Since 1885 a tax has been imposed on
all Chinese entering Canada, and in 1903 this was raised to £100 ($500).
British Columbia endeavoured in 1905 to lay a similar restriction on the
Japanese, but the act was disallowed by the federal legislature.
_Finance_.--Since 1871 the decimal system of coinage, corresponding to
that of the United States, has been the only one employed. One dollar is
divided into one hundred cents (£1=$4.86-2/3). The money in circulation
consists of a limited number of notes issued by the federal government,
and the notes of the chartered banks, together with gold, silver and
copper coin. Previous to 1906 this coin was minted in England, but in
that year a branch of the royal mint was established at Ottawa. Though
the whole financial system rests on the maintenance of the gold
standard, gold coin plays a much smaller part in daily business than in
England, France or Germany. United States' notes and silver are usually
received at par; those of other nations are subject to a varying rate of
exchange.
The banking system, which retains many features of the Scotch system, on
which it was originally modelled, combines security for the note-holders
and depositors with prompt increase and diminution of the circulation in
accordance with the varying conditions of trade. This is especially
important in a country where the large wheat crop renders an additional
quantity of money necessary on very short notice during the autumn and
winter. There has been no successful attempt to introduce the "wild cat"
banking, which had such disastrous effects in the early days of the
western states. Since federation no chartered bank has been compelled to
liquidate without paying its note-holders in full. The larger banks are
chartered by the federal government; in the smaller towns a number of
private banks remain, but their importance is small, owing to the great
facilities given to the chartered banks by the branch system. In 1906
there were 34 chartered banks, of which the branches had grown from 619
in 1900 to 1565 in 1906, and the number since then has rapidly
increased. The banks are required by law to furnish to the finance
minister detailed monthly statements which are published in the official
gazette. Once in every ten years the banking act is revised and
weaknesses amended. Clearing-houses have been established in the chief
commercial centres. In October 1906 the chartered banks had an aggregate
paid-up capital of over $94,000,000 with a note circulation of
$83,000,000 and deposits of over $553,000,000.
There are four kinds of savings banks in Canada:--(1) the post-office
savings banks; (2) the government savings banks of the Maritime
provinces taken over at federation and being gradually merged with the
former; (3) two special savings banks in the cities of Montreal and
Quebec; (4) the savings bank departments of the chartered banks. The
rate of interest allowed by the government is now 3%, and the chartered
banks usually follow the government rate. The amount on deposit in the
first three increased from $5,057,607 in 1868 to $89,781,546 in October
1906. The returns from the chartered banks do not specify the deposits
in these special accounts.
The numerous loan and trust companies also possess certain banking
privileges.
The federal revenue is derived mainly from customs and excise duties,
with subsidiary amounts from mining licences, timber dues, post-office,
&c. Both the revenue and the expenditure have in recent years increased
greatly, the revenue rising from $46,743,103 in 1899 to $71,186,073 in
1905 and the expenditure keeping pace with it. The debt of the Dominion
in 1873 and in 1905 was:--
+------------+--------------+--------------+
| | 1873. | 1905. |
+------------+--------------+--------------+
| Gross debt | $129,743,432 | $377,678,580 |
| Assets | 30,894,970 | 111,454,413 |
| Net debt | 98,848,462 | 266,224,413 |
+------------+--------------+--------------+
While the debt had thus increased faster than the population, it weighed
less heavily on the people, not only on account of the great increase
in commercial prosperity, but of the much lower rate of interest paid,
and of the increasing revenue derived from assets. Whereas in 1867 the
rate of interest was over 4%, and interest was being paid on former
provincial loans of over 6%, Canada could in 1906 borrow at 3%.
The greater part of the debt arises from the assumption of the debts of
the provinces as they entered federation, expenditure on canals and
assistance given to railways. It does not include the debts incurred by
certain provinces since federation, a matter which concerns themselves
alone. A strong prejudice against direct taxation exists, and none is
imposed by the federal government, though it has been tentatively
introduced in the provinces, especially in Quebec, in the form of liquor
licences, succession duties, corporation taxes, &c. British Columbia has
a direct tax on property and on income. The cities, towns and
municipalities resort to it to supply their local needs, and there is a
tendency, especially pronounced in Ontario on account of the excellence
of her municipal system, to devolve the burden of educational payments,
and others more properly provincial, upon the municipal authorities on
the plea of decentralization.
_Commerce and Manufactures._--Since 1867 the opening up of the fertile
lands in the north-west, the increase of population, the discovery of
new mineral fields, the construction of railways and the great
improvement of the canal system have changed the conditions, methods and
channels of trade. The great extension during the same period of the use
of water-power has been of immense importance to Canada, most of the
provinces possessing numerous swift-flowing streams or waterfalls,
capable of generating a practically unlimited supply of power.
In 1878 the introduction of the so-called "National Policy" of
protection furthered the growth of manufactures. Protection still
remains the trade policy of Canada, though modified by a preference
accorded to imports from Great Britain and from most of the British
colonies. The tariff, though moderate as compared with that of the
United States, amounted in 1907 to about 28% on dutiable imports and to
about 16% on total imports. Tentative attempts at export duties have
also been made. Inter-provincial commerce is free, and the home market
is greatly increasing in importance. The power to make commercial
treaties relating to Canada rests with the government of Great Britain,
but in most cases the official consent of Canada is required, and for
many years no treaty repugnant to her interests has been signed. The
denunciation by the British government in 1897 of commercial treaties
with Belgium and Germany, at the request of Canada, was a striking proof
of her increasing importance, and attempts have at various times been
made to obtain the full treaty-making power for the federal government.
The great proportion of the foreign trade of the Dominion is with the
United States and Great Britain. From the former come most of the
manufactured goods imported and large quantities of raw materials; to
the latter are sent food-stuffs. Farm products are the most important
export, and with the extension of this industry in the north-west
provinces and in northern Ontario will probably continue to be so. Gold,
silver, copper and other minerals are largely exported, chiefly in an
unrefined state and almost entirely to the United States. The exports of
lumber are about equally divided between the two. Formerly, the logs
were shipped as square timber, but now almost always in the form of
deals, planks or laths; such square timber as is still shipped goes
almost entirely to Great Britain. Wood pulp for the manufacture of paper
is exported chiefly to the United States. To that country fresh fish is
sent in large quantities, and there is an important trade in canned
salmon between British Columbia and Great Britain. Few of the
manufacturers do more than compete with the foreigner for an increasing
share of the home market. In this they have won increased success, at
least five-sixths of the manufactured goods used being produced within
the country, but a desire for further protection is loudly expressed.
Though the chief foreign commerce is with Great Britain and the United
States, the Dominion has trade relations with all the chief countries of
the world and maintains commercial agents among them. Her total foreign
trade (import and export) was in 1906 over £100,000,000.
_Shipping_.--The chief seaports from east to west are Halifax, N.S.,
Sydney, N.S., St John, N.B., Quebec and Montreal on the Atlantic; and
Vancouver, Esquimalt and Victoria, B.C., on the Pacific. Halifax is the
ocean terminus of the Intercolonial railway; St John, Halifax and
Vancouver of the Canadian Pacific railway. Prince Rupert, the western
terminus of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway, was in 1906 only an
uninhabited harbour, but was being rapidly developed into a flourishing
city. Though Halifax and St John are open in winter, much of the winter
trade eastwards is done through American harbours, especially Portland,
Maine, owing to the shorter railway journey. Esquimalt, Halifax,
Kingston (Ont.) and Quebec have well-equipped graving-docks. The coast,
both of the ocean and of the Great Lakes, is well lighted and protected.
The decay of the wooden shipbuilding industry has lessened the
comparative importance of the mercantile marine, but there has been a
great increase in the tonnage employed in the coasting trade and upon
inland waters. Numerous steamship lines ply between Canada and Great
Britain; direct communication exists with France, and the steamers of
the Canadian Pacific railway run regularly to Japan and to Australia.
_Internal Communications_.--Her splendid lakes and rivers, the
development of her canal system, and the growth of railways have made
the interprovincial traffic of Canada far greater than her foreign, and
the portfolio of railways and canals is one of the most important in the
cabinet. There are, nominally, about 200 railways, but about one-half of
these, comprising five-sixths of the mileage, have been amalgamated into
four great systems: the Grand Trunk, the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian
Northern and the Intercolonial; most of the others have been more or
less consolidated. With the first of the four large systems is connected
the Grand Trunk Pacific. The Intercolonial, as also a line across Prince
Edward Island, is owned and operated by the federal government.
Originally built chiefly as a military road, and often the victim of
political exigencies, it has not been a commercial success. With the
completion of the Grand Trunk Pacific (planned for 1911) and the
Canadian Northern, the country would possess three trans-continental
railways, and be free from the reproach, so long hurled at it, of
possessing length without breadth.
At numerous points along the frontier, connexion is made with the
railways of the United States. Liberal aid is given by the federal,
provincial and municipal governments to the construction of railways,
amounting often to more than half the cost of the road. The government
of Ontario has constructed a line to open up the agricultural and mining
districts of the north of the province, and is operating it by means of
a commission. Practically all the cities[3] and large towns have
electric tramways, and electricity is also used as a motive power on
many lines uniting the larger cities with the surrounding towns and
villages. Since 1903 the Dominion government has instituted a railway
commission of three members with large powers of control over freight
and passenger rates and other such matters. Telephone and express
companies are also subject to its jurisdiction. From its decisions an
appeal may be made to the governor-general in council, i.e. to the
federal cabinet. It has exercised a beneficial check on the railways and
has been cheerfully accepted by them. In Ontario a somewhat similar
commission, appointed by the local government, exercises extensive
powers of control over railways solely within the province, especially
over the electric lines.
Despite the increase in railway facilities, the waterways remain
important factors in the transportation of the country. Steamers ply on
lakes and rivers in every province, and even in the far northern
districts of Yukon and Mackenzie. Where necessary obstacles are
surmounted by canals, on which over £22,000,000 have been spent, chiefly
since federation. The St Lawrence river canal system from Lake Superior
to tide water overcomes a difference of about 600 ft., and carries large
quantities of grain from the west to Montreal, the head of summer
navigation on the Atlantic. These canals have a minimum depth of 14 ft.
on the sills, and are open to Canadian and American vessels on equal
terms; the equipment is in every respect of the most modern character.
So great, however, is the desire to shorten the time and distance
necessary for the transportation of grain from Lake Superior to Montreal
that an increasing quantity is taken by water as far as the Lake Huron
and Georgian Bay ports, and thence by rail to Montreal. Numerous smaller
canals bring Ottawa into connexion with Lake Champlain and the Hudson
river via Montreal; by this route the logs and sawn lumber of Ontario,
Quebec and New Brunswick find their destination. It has long been a
Canadian ideal to shorten the distance from Lake Superior to the sea.
With this object in view, the Trent Valley system of canals has been
built, connecting Lake Ontario with the Georgian Bay (an arm of Lake
Huron) via Lake Simcoe. In 1899 and subsequently surveys were made with
a view to connecting the Georgian Bay through the intervening water
stretches, with the Ottawa river system, and thence to Montreal. In 1903
all tolls were taken off the Canadian canals, greatly to the benefit of
trade.
_Mining_.--The mineral districts occur from Cape Breton to the islands
in the Pacific and the Yukon district. Nova Scotia, British Columbia and
the Yukon are still the most productive, but the northern parts of
Ontario are proving rich in the precious metals. Coal, chiefly
bituminous, occurs in large quantities in Nova Scotia, British Columbia
and in various parts of the north-west (lignite), though most of the
anthracite is imported from the United States, as is the greater part of
the bituminous coal used in Ontario. Under the stimulus of federal
bounties, the production of pig iron and of steel, chiefly from imported
ore, is rapidly increasing. Bounties on certain minerals and metals are
also given by some of the provinces. The goldfields of the Yukon, though
still valuable, show a lessening production. Sudbury, in Ontario, is the
centre of the nickel production of the world, the mines being chiefly in
American hands, and the product exported to the United States. Of the
less important minerals, Canada is the world's chief producer of
asbestos and corundum. Copper, lead, silver and all the important metals
are mined in the Rocky Mountain district. From Quebec westwards, vast
regions are still partly, or completely, unexplored.
_Lumber_.--In spite of great improvidence, and of loss by fire, the
forest wealth of Canada is still the greatest in the world. Measures
have been taken, both by the provincial and the federal governments, for
its preservation, and for re-forestation of depleted areas. Certain
provinces prohibit the exportation of logs to the United States, in
order to promote the growth of saw-mills and manufactures of wooden-ware
within the country, and the latter have of late years developed with
great rapidity. The lumber trade of British Columbia has suffered from
lack of an adequate market, but is increasing with the greater demand
from the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. A great development has
also taken place in Ontario and the eastern provinces, through the use
of spruce and other trees, long considered comparatively useless, in the
manufacture of wood-pulp for paper-making.
_Crown Lands_.--Large areas of unoccupied land remain in all the
provinces (except Prince Edward Island). In Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
Alberta, the so-called railway belt of British Columbia and the
territories, these crown lands are chiefly owned by the federal
parliament; in the other provinces, by the local legislatures. So great
is their extent that, in spite of the immigration of recent years, the
Dominion government gives a freehold of 160 acres to every _bona fide_
settler, subject to certain conditions of residence and the erection of
buildings during the first three years. Mining and timber lands are sold
or leased at moderate rates. All crown lands controlled by the provinces
must be paid for, save in certain districts of Ontario, where free
grants are given, but the price charged is low. The Canadian Pacific
railway controls large land areas in the two new provinces; and large
tracts in these provinces are owned by land companies. Both the Dominion
and the provincial governments have set apart certain areas to be
preserved, largely in their wild state, as national parks. Of these the
most extensive are the Rocky Mountains Park at Banff, Alberta, owned by
the Dominion government, and the "Algonquin National Park," north-east
of Lake Simcoe, the property of Ontario.
_Fisheries_.--The principal fisheries are those on the Atlantic coast,
carried on by the inhabitants of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince
Edward Island, and the eastern section of Quebec. Cod, herring, mackerel
and lobsters are the fish chiefly caught, though halibut, salmon,
anchovies and so-called sardines are also exported. Bounties to
encourage deep-sea fishing have been given by the federal government
since 1882. In British Columbian waters the main catch is of salmon, in
addition to which are halibut, oolachan, herring, sturgeon, cod and
shellfish. The lakes of Ontario and Manitoba produce white fish,
sturgeon and other fresh-water fish. About 80,000 persons find more or
less permanent employment in the fishing industry, including the
majority of the Indians of British Columbia.
The business of fur-seal catching is carried on to some extent in the
North Pacific and in Bering Sea by sealers from Victoria, but the
returns show it to be a decreasing industry, as well as one causing
friction with the United States. Indeed, no department of national life
has caused more continual trouble between the two peoples than the
fisheries, owing to different laws regarding fish protection, and the
constant invasion by each of the territorial waters of the other.
_Education_.--The British North America Act imposes on the provincial
legislatures the duty of legislating on educational matters, the
privileges of the denominational and separate schools in Ontario and
Quebec being specially safeguarded. In 1871, the New Brunswick
legislature abolished the separate school system, and a contest arose
which was finally settled by the authority of the legislature being
sustained, though certain concessions were made to the Roman Catholic
dissentients. Subsequently a similar difficulty arose in Manitoba, where
the legislature in 1890 abolished the system of separate schools which
had been established in 1871. After years of bitter controversy, in
which a federal ministry was overthrown, a compromise was arranged in
1897, in which the Roman Catholic leaders have never fully acquiesced.
In the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, formed in 1905, certain
educational privileges, (though not amounting to a separate school
system) were granted to the Roman Catholics.
All the provinces have made sacrifices to insure the spread of
education. In 1901, 76% of the total population could read and write,
and 86% of those over five years of age. These percentages have
gradually risen ever since federation, especially in the province of
Quebec, which was long in a backward state. The school systems of all
the provinces are, in spite of certain imperfections, efficient and
well-equipped, that of Ontario being especially celebrated. A fuller
account of their special features will be found under the articles on
the different provinces.
Numerous residential schools exist and are increasing in number with the
growth of the country in wealth and culture. In Quebec are a number of
so-called classical colleges, most of them affiliated with Laval
University.
Higher education was originally organized by the various religious
bodies, each of which retains at least one university in more or less
integral connexion with itself. New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba
support provincial universities at Fredericton, Toronto and Winnipeg.
Those of most importance[4] are:--Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S.
(1818); the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, N.B. (1800);
McGill University, Montreal, Que. (1821); Laval University, Quebec, and
Montreal, Que. (1852); Queen's University, Kingston, Ont. (1841); the
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. (1827); Trinity University,
Toronto, Ont. (1852); Victoria University, Toronto, Ont. (1836); the
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ont. (1848); the University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Man. (1877).
Of these McGill (see MONTREAL) is especially noted for the excellence of
its training in practical and applied science. Many of the students,
especially in the departments of medicine and theology, complete their
education in the United States, Britain or Europe.
Most of the larger towns and cities contain public libraries, that of
Toronto being especially well-equipped.
Of the numerous learned and scientific societies, the chief is the Royal
Society of Canada, founded in 1881.
_Defence_.--The command in chief of all naval and military forces is
vested in the king, but their control rests with the federal parliament.
The naval forces, consisting of a fisheries protection service, are
under the minister of marine and fisheries, the land forces under the
minister of militia and defence. Prior to 1903, command of the latter
was vested in a British officer, but since then has been entrusted to a
militia council, of which the minister is president. The fortified
harbours of Halifax (N.S.) and Esquimalt (B.C.) were till 1905
maintained and garrisoned by the imperial government, but have since
been taken over by Canada. This has entailed the increase of the
permanent force to about 5000 men. Previously, it had numbered about
1000 (artillery, dragoons, infantry) quartered in various schools,
chiefly to aid in the training of the militia. In this all able-bodied
citizens between the ages of 18 and 60 are nominally enrolled, but the
active militia consists of about 45,000 men of all ranks, in a varying
state of efficiency. These cannot be compelled to serve outside the
Dominion, though special corps may be enlisted for this purpose, as was
done during the war in South Africa (1899-1902). At Quebec is a Dominion
arsenal, rifle and ammunition factories. Cadet corps flourish in most of
the city schools. At Kingston (Ont.) is the Royal Military College, to
the successful graduates of which a certain number of commissions in the
British service is annually awarded.
_Justice and Crime_.--Justice is well administered throughout the
country, and even in the remotest mining camps there has been little of
the lawlessness seen in similar districts of Australia and the United
States. For this great credit is due to the "North-west mounted police,"
the "Riders of the Plains," a highly efficient body of about seven
hundred men, under the control of the federal government. Judges are
appointed for life by the Dominion parliament, and cannot be removed
save by impeachment before that body, an elaborate process never
attempted since federation, though more than once threatened. From the
decisions of the supreme court of Canada appeal may be made to the
judicial committee of the imperial privy council.
AUTHORITIES.--The Canadian Geological Survey has published (Ottawa,
since 1845) a series of reports covering a great number of subjects.
Several provinces have bureaus or departments of mines, also issuing
reports. The various departments of the federal and the provincial
governments publish annual reports and frequent special reports, such
as the decennial report on the census, from which a vast quantity of
information may be obtained. Most of this is summed up in the annual
_Statistical Year Book of Canada_ and in the _Official Handbook of the
Dominion of Canada_, issued at frequent intervals by the Department of
the Interior. See also J.W. White (the Dominion geographer), _Atlas of
Canada_ (1906); J. Castell Hopkins, _Canada: an Encyclopaedia_ (6
vols., 1898-1900); _The Canadian Annual Review_ (yearly since 1902),
replacing H.J. Morgan's _Canadian Annual Register_ (1878-1886); Sir
J.W. Dawson, _Handbook of Canadian Geology_ (1889); George Johnson,
_Alphabet of First Things in Canada_ (3rd ed., 1898); A.G. Bradley,
_Canada in the Twentieth Century_ (1903); _Transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada_ (yearly since 1883); R.C. Breckenridge, _The
Canadian Banking System_ (1895); A. Shortt, _History of Canadian
Banking_ (1902-1906); Sir S. Fleming, _The Intercolonial_ (1876); John
Davidson, "Financial Relations of Canada and the Provinces" (_Economic
Journal_, June 1905); _Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada,
passim_, for valuable papers by H.M. Ami, A.P. Coleman, G.M. Dawson,
W.F. Ganong, B.J. Harrington and others; also articles in _Canadian
Economics_ and in the _Handbook of Canada_, published on the occasion
of visits of the British Association. (W. L. G.)
AGRICULTURE
Canada is pre-eminently an agricultural country. Of the total population
(estimated in 1907 at 6,440,000) over 50% are directly engaged in
practical agriculture. In addition large numbers are engaged in
industries arising out of agriculture; among these are manufacturers of
agricultural implements, millers of flour and oatmeal, curers and
packers of meat, makers of cheese and butter, and persons occupied in
the transportation and commerce of grain, hay, live stock, meats,
butter, cheese, milk, eggs, fruit and various other products. The
country is splendidly formed for the production of food. Across the
continent there is a zone about 3500 m. long and as wide as or wider
than France, with (over a large part of this area) a climate adapted to
the production of foods of superior quality. Since the opening of the
20th century, great progress has been made in the settlement and
agricultural development of the western territories between the
provinces of Manitoba and British Columbia. The three "North-West
Provinces" (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) have a total area of
369,869,898 acres, of which 12,853,120 acres are water. In 1906 their
population was 808,863, nearly double what it was in 1901. The land in
this vast area varies in virginal fertility, but the best soils are very
rich in the constituents of plant food. Chemical analyses made by Mr
F.T. Shutt have proved that soils from the North-West Provinces contain
an average of 18,000 lb of nitrogen, 15,580 lb of potash and 6,700 lb of
phosphoric acid per acre, these important elements of plant food being
therefore present in much greater abundance than they are in ordinary
cultivated European soils of good quality. The prairie lands of Manitoba
and Saskatchewan produce wheat of the finest quality. Horse and cattle
ranching is practised in Alberta, where the milder winters allow of the
outdoor wintering of live stock to a greater degree than is possible in
the colder parts of Canada. The freezing of the soil in winter, which at
first sight seems a drawback, retains the soluble nitrates which might
otherwise be drained out. The copious snowfall protects vegetation,
supplies moisture, and contributes nitrogen to the soil. The
geographical position of Canada, its railway systems and steamship
service for freight across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, are
favourable to the extension of the export trade in farm products to
European and oriental countries. Great progress has been made in the
development of the railway systems of Canada, and the new
transcontinental line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, passing through
Saskatchewan via Saskatoon, and Alberta via Edmonton, renders possible
of settlement large areas of fertile wheat-growing soil. The canal
system of Canada, linking together the great natural waterways, is also
of much present and prospective importance in cheapening the
transportation of agricultural produce.
Crops
Of _wheat_ many varieties are grown. The methods of cultivation do not
involve the application of so much hand labour per acre as in Europe.
The average yield of wheat for the whole of Canada is nearly 20 bushels
per acre. In 1901 the total production of wheat in Canada was 55½
million bushels. In 1906 the estimated total production was 136 million
bushels. The total wheat acreage, which at the census of 1901 was
4,224,000, was over 6,200,000 in 1906, an increase of nearly two million
acres in five years.
Up to the close of the 19th century, Ontario was the largest
wheat-growing province in Canada. In 1900 the wheat acreage in Ontario
was 1,487,633, producing 28,418,907 bushels, an average yield of 19.10
bushels per acre. Over three-quarters of this production was of fall or
winter wheat, the average yield of which in Ontario over a series of
years since 1883 had been about 20 bushels per acre. But the
predominance in wheat-growing has now shifted to the new prairie regions
of the west. A census taken in 1906 shows that the total acreage of
wheat in the North-West Provinces was 5,062,493, yielding 110,586,824
bushels, an average in a fairly normal season of 21.84 bushels per acre.
Of this total wheat acreage, 2,721,079 acres were in Manitoba, 2,117,484
acres in Saskatchewan, and 223,930 acres in Alberta, with average
yields per acre at the rates of 20.02 bushels in Manitoba, 23.70 in
Saskatchewan and 26.49 in Alberta. In these provinces spring wheat is
almost universally sown, except in Alberta where fall or winter wheat is
also sown to a considerable extent. Summer fallowing for wheat is a
practice that has gained ground in the North-West Provinces. Land
ploughed and otherwise tilled, but left unseeded during the summer, is
sown with wheat in the succeeding autumn or spring. Wheat on summer
fallow land yielded, according to the North-West census of 1906, from 2
to 8 bushels per acre more than that sown on other land. Summer
fallowing is, however, subject to one drawback: the strong growth which
it induces is apt to retard the ripening of the grain. Canada is clearly
destined to rank as one of the most important grain-producing countries
of the world. The northern limits of the wheat-growing areas have not
been definitely ascertained; but samples of good wheat were grown in
1907 at Fort Vermilion on the Peace river, nearly 600 m. north of
Winnipeg in lat. 58.34 and at Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie river in
lat. 61.52, more than 800 m. north of Winnipeg and about 1000 m. north
of the United States boundary. As a rule the weather during the
harvesting period permits the grain to be gathered safely without damage
from sprouting. Occasionally in certain localities in the north-west the
grain is liable to injury from frost in late summer; but as the
proportion of land under cultivation increases the climate becomes
modified and the danger from frost is appreciably less. The loss from
this cause is also less than formerly, because any grain unfit for
export is now readily purchased for the feeding of animals in Ontario
and other parts of eastern Canada.
Suitable machinery for cleaning the grain is everywhere in general use,
so that weed seeds are removed before the wheat is ground. This gives
Canadian wheat excellent milling properties, and enables the millers to
turn out flour uniform in quality and of high grade as to keeping
properties. Canadian flour has a high reputation in European markets. It
is known as flour from which bakers can make the best quality of bread,
and also the largest quantity per barrel, the quantity of albuminoids
being greater in Canadian flour than in the best brands of European.
Owing to its possession of this characteristic of what millers term
"strength," i.e. the relative capacity of flour to make large loaves of
good quality, Canadian flour is largely in demand for blending with the
flour of the softer English wheats. For this reason some of the strong
Canadian wheats have commanded in the home market 5s. and 6s. a quarter
more than English-grown wheat. At the general census of 1901 the number
of flouring and grist mill establishments, each employing five persons
and over, was returned at 400, the number of employes being 4251 and the
value of products $31,835,873. A special census of manufactures in 1906
shows that these figures had grown in 1905 to 832 establishments, 5619
employes and $56,703,269 value of the products. There is room for a
great extension in the cultivation of wheat and the manufacture and
exportation of flour.
In the twelve months of 1907 Canada exported 37,503,057 bushels of wheat
of the value of $34,132,759 and 1,858,485 barrels of flour of the value
of $7,626,408. The corresponding figures in 1900 were--wheat, 16,844,650
bushels, value, $11,995,488, and flour, 768,162 bushels, value,
$2,791,885.
Oats of fine quality are grown in large crops from Prince Edward Island
on the Atlantic coast to Vancouver Island on the Pacific coast. Over
large areas the Canadian soil and climate are admirably adapted for
producing oats of heavy weight per bushel. In all the provinces of
eastern Canada the acreage under oats greatly exceeds that under wheat.
The annual average oat crop in all Canada is estimated at about 248
million bushels. As the total annual export of oats is now less than
three million bushels the home consumption is large, and this is an
advantage in maintaining the fertility of the soil. In 1907 the area
under oats in Ontario was 2,932,509 acres and yielded 83,524,301
bushels, the area being almost as large as that of the acreage under hay
and larger than the combined total of the other principal cereals grown
in the province. Canadian oatmeal is equal in quality to the best. It is
prepared in different forms, and in various degrees of fineness.
Barley was formerly grown for export to the United States for malting
purposes. After the raising of the duty on barley under the McKinley and
Dingley tariffs that trade was practically destroyed and Canadian
farmers were obliged to find other uses for this crop. Owing to the
development of the trade with the mother-country in dairying and meat
products, barley as a home feeding material has become more
indispensable than ever. Before the adoption of the McKinley tariff
about nine million bushels of barley were exported annually, involving
the loss of immense stores of plant food. In 1907, with an annual
production of nearly fifty million bushels, only a trifling percentage
was exported, the rest being fed at home and exported in the form of
produce without loss from impoverishment of the soil. The preparation of
pearl or pot barley is an incidental industry.
Rye is cultivated successfully, but is seldom used for human food. Flour
from wheat, meal from oats, and meal from Indian corn are preferred.
Buckwheat flour is used in considerable quantities in some districts for
the making of buckwheat cakes, eaten with maple syrup. These two make an
excellent breakfast dish, characteristic of Canada and some of the New
England states. There are also numerous forms of preparations from
cereals, sold as breakfast foods, which, owing to the high quality of
the grains grown in Canada and the care exercised in their manufacture,
compare favourably with similar products in other countries.
Peas in large areas are grown free from serious trouble with insect
pests. Split peas for soup, green peas as vegetables and sweet peas for
canning are obtained of good quality.
Vegetables are grown everywhere, and form a large part of the diet of
the people. There is a comparatively small export, except in the case of
turnips and potatoes and of vegetables which have been canned or dried.
Besides potatoes, which thrive well and yield large quantities of
excellent quality, there are turnips, carrots, parsnips and beets. The
cultivation of sugar beets for the manufacture of sugar has been
established in Ontario and in southern Alberta, where in 1906 an acreage
under this crop of 3344 yielded 27,211 tons, an average of 8.13 tons per
acre. Among the common vegetables used in the green state are peas,
beans, cabbage, cauliflowers, asparagus, Indian corn, onions, leeks,
tomatoes, lettuce, radish, celery, parsley, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash
and rhubarb. Hay, of good quality of timothy (_Phleum pratense_), and
also of timothy and clover, is grown over extensive areas. For export it
is put up in bales of about 150 lb each. Since 1899 a new form of
pressing has been employed, whereby the hay is compressed to stow in
about 70 cub. ft. per ton. This has been a means of reducing the ocean
freight per ton. The compact condition permits the hay to be kept with
less deterioration of quality than under the old system of more loose
baling. Austrian brome grass (_Bromus inermis_) and western rye grass
(_Agropyrum tenerum_) are both extensively grown for hay in the
North-West Provinces.
Live stock.
The almost universal adoption of electrical traction in towns has not
led to the abandonment of the breeding of horses to the extent that was
at one time anticipated. Heavy draught horses are reared in Ontario, and
to a less but increasing extent in the North-West Provinces, the breeds
being mainly the Clydesdale and the Shire. Percherons are also bred in
different parts of Canada, and a few Belgian draught horses have been
introduced. Good horses suitable for general work on farms and for cabs,
omnibuses, and grocery and delivery wagons, are plentiful for local
markets and for export. Thoroughbred and pure bred hackney stallions are
maintained in private studs and by agricultural associations throughout
the Dominion, and animals for cavalry and mounted infantry remounts are
produced in all the provinces including those of the North-West. Useful
carriage horses and saddle horses are bred in many localities. Horse
ranching is practised largely in Alberta. There are no government stud
farms. The total number of horses in the Dominion was estimated on the
basis of census returns at 2,019,824 for the year 1907, an increase of
609,309 since 1901.
Cattle, sheep, swine and poultry are reared in abundance. The bracing
weather of Canadian winters is followed by the warmth and humidity of
genial summers, under which crops grow in almost tropical luxuriance,
while the cool evenings and nights give the plants a robustness of
quality which is not to be found in tropical regions, and also make life
for the various domestic animals wholesome and comfortable. In the
North-West Provinces there are vast areas of prairie land, over which
cattle pasture, and from which thousands of fat bullocks are shipped
annually. Throughout other parts bullocks are fed on pasture land, and
also in stables on nourishing and succulent feed such as hay, Indian
corn fodder, Indian corn silage, turnips, carrots, mangels, ground oats,
barley, peas, Indian corn, rye, bran and linseed oil cake. The breeding
of cattle, adapted for the production of prime beef and of dairy cows
for the production of milk, butter and cheese, has received much
attention. There is government control of the spaces on the steamships
in which the cattle are carried, and veterinary inspection prevents the
exportation of diseased animals.
A considerable trade has been established in the exportation of dressed
beef in cold storage, and also in the exportation of meat and other
foods in hermetically sealed receptacles. By the Meat and Canned Foods
Act of 1907 of the Dominion parliament and regulations thereunder, the
trade is carried on under the strictest government supervision, and no
canned articles of food may be exported unless passed as absolutely
wholesome and officially marked as such by government inspectors. There
is a considerable trade in "lunch tongues."
The cattle breeds are principally those of British origin. For beef,
shorthorns, Herefords, Galloways and Aberdeen-Angus cattle are bred
largely, whilst for dairying purposes, shorthorns, Ayrshires, Jerseys,
Guernseys and Holstein-Friesians prevail. The French-Canadian cattle are
highly esteemed in eastern Canada, especially by the farmers of the
French provinces. They are a distinct breed of Jersey and Brittany type,
and are stated to be descended from animals imported from France by the
early settlers. The estimated number of cattle in Canada in 1907 was
7,439,051, an increase of 2,066,547 over the figures of the census of
1901.
All parts of the Dominion are well adapted for sheep; but various
causes, amongst which must be reckoned the prosperity of other branches
of agriculture, including wheat-growing and dairying, have in several of
the provinces contributed to prevent that attention to this branch which
its importance deserves, though there are large areas of rolling, rugged
yet nutritious pastures well suited to sheep-farming. In the maritime
provinces and in Prince Edward Island sheep and lambs are reared in
large numbers. In Ontario sheep breeding has reached a high degree of
perfection, and other parts of the American continent draw their
supplies of pure bred stock largely from this province. All the leading
British varieties are reared, the Shropshire, Oxford Down, Leicester and
Cotswold breeds being most numerous. There are also excellent flocks of
Lincolns and Southdowns. The number of sheep and lambs in Canada was
estimated for the year 1907 at 2,830,785, as compared with 2,465,565 in
1901.
Pigs, mostly of the Yorkshire, Berkshire and Tamworth breeds, are reared
and fattened in large numbers, and there is a valuable export trade in
bacon. Canadian hogs are fed, as a rule, on feeds suited for the
production of what are known as "fleshy sides." Bacon with an excess of
fat is not wanted, except in the lumber camps; consequently the farmers
of Canada have cultivated a class of swine for bacon having plenty of
lean and firm flesh. The great extension of the dairy business has
fitted in with the rearing of large numbers of swine. Experimental work
has shown that swine fattened with a ration partly of skim-milk were
lustier and of a more healthy appearance than swine fattened wholly on
grains. Slaughtering and curing are carried on chiefly at large packing
houses. The use of mechanical refrigerating plants for chilling the pork
has made it practicable to cure the bacon with the use of a small
percentage of salt, leaving it mild in flavour when delivered in
European markets. Regular supplies are exported during every week of the
year. Large quantities of lard, brawn and pigs' feet are exported. In
1907 the number of pigs in Canada was estimated at 3,530,060, an
increase of 1,237,385 over the census record of 1901. Turkeys thrive
well, grow to a fine size and have flesh of tender quality. Chickens are
raised in large numbers, and poultry-keeping has developed greatly since
the opening of the 20th century. Canadian eggs are usually packed in
cases containing thirty dozens each. Cardboard fillers are used which
provide a separate compartment for each egg. There are cold storage
warehouses at various points in Canada, at which the eggs are collected,
sorted and packed before shipment. These permit the eggs to be landed in
Europe in a practically fresh condition as to flavour, with the shells
quite full.
Dairy products.
Canada has been called the land of milk and honey. Milk is plentiful,
and enters largely into the diet of the people. With a climate which
produces healthy, vigorous animals, notably free from epizootic
diseases, with a fertile soil for the growth of fodder crops and
pasture, with abundance of pure air and water, and with a plentiful
supply of ice, the conditions in Canada are ideal for the dairying
industry. Large quantities of condensed milk, put up in hermetically
sealed tins, are sold for use in mining camps and on board steamships.
The cheese is chiefly of the variety known as "Canadian Cheddar." It is
essentially a food cheese rather than a mere condiment, and 1 lb of it
will furnish as much nourishing material as 2¼ lb of the best beefsteak.
The industry is largely carried on by co-operative associations of
farmers. The dairy factory system was introduced into Canada in 1864,
and from that time the production and exportation of cheese grew
rapidly. Legislation was passed to protect Canadian dairy produce from
dishonest manipulation, and soon Canadian cheese obtained a deservedly
high reputation in the British markets. In 1891 cheese factories and
creameries numbered 1733, and in 1899 there were 3649. In 1908 there
were 4355 of these factories, of which 1284 were in Ontario, 2806 in
Quebec, and 265 in the remaining seven provinces of Canada. Those in
Ontario are the largest in size. Amongst the British imports of cheese
the Canadian product ranks first in quality, whilst in quantity it
represents about 72% of the total value of the cheese imports, and 84%
of the total value of the imports of that kind of cheese which is
classed as Cheddar. In 1906 the total exports of cheese to all countries
from Canada reached 215,834,543 lb of the value of $24,433,169.
Butter for export is made in creameries, where the milk, cream and
butter are handled by skilled makers. The creameries are provided with
special cold storage rooms, into which the butter is placed on the same
day in which it is made. From them it is carried in refrigerator railway
cars and in cold storage chambers on steamships to its ultimate
destination. For the export trade it is packed in square boxes made of
spruce or some other odourless wood. These are lined with parchment
paper, and contain each 56 lb net of butter. The total export of butter
from Canada in 1906 was 34,031,525 lb., of the value of $7,075,539.
According to a census of manufactures taken in 1906, the total value of
factory cheese and butter made in Canada during that year was
$32,402,265.
Fruits.
There are large districts lying eastward of the Great Lakes and westward
of the Rocky Mountains, where apples of fine quality can be grown; and
there are other smaller areas in which pears, peaches and grapes are
grown in quantities in the open air. The climate is favourable to the
growth of plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, currants,
gooseberries, etc. There are many localities in which cranberries are
successfully grown, and in which blueberries also grow wild in great
profusion.
Apples and pears are the chief sorts of fruit exported. The high
flavour, the crisp, juicy flesh and the long-keeping qualities of the
Canadian apples are their chief merits. Apples are exported in barrels
and also in boxes containing about one bushel each. Large quantities are
also evaporated and exported. Establishments for evaporating fruit are
now found in most of the larger apple-growing districts, and canning
factories and jam factories have been established in many parts of
Canada, and are conducted with advantage and profit.
The chief fruit-growing districts have long been in southern and western
Ontario and in Nova Scotia; but recently much attention has been devoted
to fruit-growing in British Columbia, where large areas of suitable land
are available for the cultivation of apples, pears and other fruits. In
some parts of the semi-arid districts in the interior of the province
irrigation is being successfully practised for the purpose of bringing
land under profitable cultivation for fruit. Collections of fruit grown
in British Columbia have received premier honours at the competitive
exhibitions of the Royal Horticultural Society in London, where their
high quality and fine colour have been greatly appreciated.
Wine is made in considerable quantities in the principal vine-growing
districts, and in several localities large vineyards have been planted
for this purpose. An abundance of cider is also made in all the large
apple-growing districts.
Honey is one of the minor food-products of Canada, and in many
localities bees have abundance of pasturage. Canadian honey for colour,
flavour and substance is unsurpassed. Maple sugar and syrup are made in
those areas of the country where the sugar-maple tree flourishes. The
syrup is used chiefly as a substitute for jam or preserved fruits, and
the sugar is used in country homes for sweetening, for cooking purposes
and for the making of confectionery. The processes of manufacture have
been improved by the introduction of specially constructed evaporators,
and quantities of maple sugar and syrup are annually exported.
Tobacco is a new crop which has been grown in Canada since 1904. Its
cultivation promises to be successful in parts of Ontario, Quebec and
British Columbia.
State aid.
The department of agriculture of the Dominion government renders aid to
agriculture in many ways, maintaining the experimental farms and various
effective organizations for assisting the live-stock, dairying and
fruit-growing industries, for testing the germination and purity of
agricultural seeds, and for developing the export trade in agricultural
and dairy produce. The health of animals branch, through which are
administered the laws relating to the contagious diseases of animals,
and the control of quarantine and inspection stations for imported
animals, undertakes also valuable experiments on the diseases of farm
livestock, including glanders in horses, tuberculosis in cattle, &c. The
policy of slaughtering horses reacting to the mallein test has been
successfully initiated by Canada, the returns for 1908 from all parts of
the country indicating a considerable decrease from the previous year in
the number of horses destroyed and the amount of compensation paid. A
disease of cattle in Nova Scotia, known as the Pictou cattle disease,
long treated as contagious, has now been demonstrated by the veterinary
officers of the department to be due to the ingestion of a weed, the
ragwort, _Senecio Jacobea_. Hog cholera or swine fever has been almost
eradicated. A laboratory is maintained for bacteriological and
pathological researches and for the preparation of preventive vaccines.
Canada is entirely free from rinderpest, pleuro-pneumonia and
foot-and-mouth disease.
The work of the live-stock branch is directed towards the improvement of
the stock-raising industry, and is carried on through the agencies of
expert teachers and stock judges, the systematic distribution of
pure-bred breeding stock, the yearly testing of pure-bred dairy herds,
the supervision of the accuracy of the registration of pure-bred animals
and the nationalization of live-stock records. The last two objects are
secured by act of the Dominion parliament passed in 1905. Under this act
a record committee, appointed annually by the pedigree stud, herd and
flock book associations of Canada, perform the duties of accepting the
entries of pure-bred animals for the respective pedigree registers, and
are provided with an office and with stationery and franking privileges
by the government. Pedigree certificates are certified as correct by an
officer of the department of agriculture, so that in Canada there exist
national registration and government authority for the accuracy of
pedigree livestock certificates. The government promotes the extension
of markets for farm products; it maintains officers in the United
Kingdom who make reports from time to time on the condition in which
Canadian goods are delivered from the steamships, and also on what they
can learn from importing and distributing merchants regarding the
preferences of the market for different qualities of farm goods and
different sorts of packages. Through this branch of the public service a
complete chain of cold-storage accommodation between various points in
Canada and markets in Europe, particularly in Great Britain, has been
arranged. The government offered a bonus to those owners of creameries
who would provide cold-storage accommodation at them and keep the room
in use for a period of three years. It also arranged with the various
railway companies to run refrigerator cars weekly on the main lines
leading to Montreal and other export points. The food-products from any
shippers are received into these cars at the various railway stations at
the usual rates, without extra charge for icing or cold-storage service.
The government offered subventions to those who would provide
cold-storage warehouses at various points where these were necessary,
and also arranged with the owners of ocean steamships to provide
cold-storage chambers on them by means of mechanical refrigerators. The
policy of encouraging the provision of ample cold-storage accommodation
has been developed still further by the Cold Storage Act of the Dominion
parliament passed in 1907, under which subsidies are granted in part
payment of the cost of erecting and equipping cold-storage warehouses in
Canada for the preservation of perishable food-products.
Besides furnishing technical and general information as to the carrying
on of dairying operations, the government has established and maintained
illustration cheese factories and creameries in different places for the
purpose of introducing the best methods of co-operative dairying in both
the manufacturing and shipping of butter and cheese. Inspectors are
employed to give information regarding the packing of fruit, and also to
see to the enforcement of the Fruit Marks Acts, which prohibit the
marking of fruit with wrong brands and packing in any fraudulent manner.
The seed branch of the department of agriculture was established in 1900
for the purpose of encouraging the production and use of seeds of
superior quality, thereby improving all kinds of field and garden crops
grown in Canada. Seeds are tested in the laboratory for purity and
germination on behalf of farmers and seed merchants, and scientific
investigations relating to seeds are conducted and reported upon. In the
year 1906-1907 6676 samples of seeds were tested. Encouragement to
seed-growing is given by the holding of seed fairs, and bulletins are
issued on weeds, the methods of treating seed-wheat against smut and on
other subjects. Collections of weed seeds are issued to merchants and
others to enable them readily to identify noxious weed seeds. The Seed
Control Act of 1905 brings under strict regulations the trade in
agricultural seeds, prohibiting the sale for seeding of cereals,
grasses, clovers or forage plants unless free from weeds specified, and
imposing severe penalties for infringements.
The census and statistics office, reorganized as a branch of the
department of agriculture in 1905, undertakes a complete census of
population, of agriculture, of manufactures and of all the natural
products of the Dominion every ten years, a census of the population and
agriculture of the three North-West Provinces every five years, and
various supplemental statistical inquiries at shorter intervals.
Experimental farms.
Experimental farms were established in 1887 in different parts of the
Dominion, and were so located as to render efficient help to the
farmers in the more thickly settled districts, and at the same time to
cover the varied climatic and other conditions which influence
agriculture in Canada. The central experimental farm is situated at
Ottawa, near the boundary line between Quebec and Ontario, where it
serves as an aid to agriculture in these two important provinces. One of
the four branch farms then established is at Nappan, Nova Scotia, near
the boundary between that province and New Brunswick, where it serves
the farmers of the three maritime provinces. A second branch
experimental farm is at Brandon in Manitoba, a third is at Indian Head
in Saskatchewan and the fourth is at Agassiz in the coast climate of
British Columbia. In 1906-1907 two new branch farms were established.
One is situated at Lethbridge, southern Alberta, where problems will be
investigated concerning agriculture upon irrigated land and dry farming
under conditions of a scanty rainfall. The other is at Lacombe, northern
Alberta, about 70 m. south of Edmonton, in the centre of a good
agricultural district on the Canadian Pacific railway. Additional branch
farms in different parts of the Dominion are in process of
establishment. At all these farms experiments are conducted to gain
information as to the best methods of preparing the land for crop and of
maintaining its fertility, the most useful and profitable crops to grow,
and how the various crops grown can be disposed of to the greatest
advantage. To this end experiments are conducted in the feeding of
cattle, sheep and swine for flesh, the feeding of cows for the
production of milk, and Of poultry both for flesh and eggs. Experiments
are also conducted to test the merits of new or untried varieties of
cereals and other field crops, of grasses, forage plants, fruits,
vegetables, plants and trees; and samples, particularly of the most
promising cereals, are distributed freely among farmers for trial, so
that those which promise to be most profitable may be rapidly brought
into general cultivation. Annual reports and occasional bulletins are
published and widely distributed, giving the results of this work.
Farmers are invited to visit these experimental farms, and a large
correspondence is conducted with those interested in agriculture in all
parts of the Dominion, who are encouraged to ask advice and information
from the officers of the farms.
Agricultural organizations and education.
The governments of the several provinces each have a department of
agriculture. Among other provincial agencies for imparting information
there are farmers' institutes, travelling dairies, live-stock
associations, farmers', dairymen's, seed-growers', and fruit-growers'
associations, and agricultural and horticultural societies. These are
all maintained or assisted by the several provinces. Parts of the
proceedings and many of the addresses and papers presented at the more
important meetings of these associations are published by the provincial
governments, and distributed free to farmers who desire to have them.
There are also annual agricultural exhibitions of a highly important
character, where improvements in connexion with agricultural and
horticultural products, live-stock, implements, &c., are shown in
competition. The Dominion government makes in turn to one of the chief
local agricultural exhibition societies a grant of $50,000 for the
purposes of the national representation of agriculture and live-stock.
The exhibition receiving the grant loses its local character, and thus
becomes the Dominion exhibition or fair for that year.
There are several important agricultural colleges for the practical
education of young men in farming, foremost amongst them being the
Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph. Agricultural colleges are also
maintained at Truro, Nova Scotia, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. In most of the
provinces are dairy schools where practical instruction and training are
given. Since the beginning of the 20th century agricultural education
and rural training in Canada have been greatly stimulated by the
munificence of Sir William C. Macdonald of Montreal. A donation by him
of $10,000, distributed to boys and girls on Canadian farms for prizes
in a competition for the selection of seed grain, as recommended by
Professor J.W. Robertson, led to the Macdonald-Robertson Seed Growers'
Association. This soon assumed national proportions in the Canadian
Seed Growers' Association, which, with the seed branch of the department
of agriculture mentioned above, has done much to raise to a uniform
standard of excellence the grain grown over large areas of the Canadian
wheat-fields. The Macdonald Institute at Guelph, Ontario, the buildings
and equipment of which Sir William provided at a cost of $182,500, and
the Macdonald College at Ste Anne de Bellevue, 20 m. west of Montreal,
have been established to promote the cause of rural education upon the
lines of nature study, with school gardens, manual training domestic
science, &c., which on both sides of the Atlantic are now being found so
effective in the hands of properly trained and enthusiastic teachers.
The property of the Macdonald College at Ste Anne de Bellevue comprises
561 acres, of which 74 acres are devoted to campus and field-research
plots, 100 acres to a _petite culture_ farm and 387 acres to a
live-stock and grain farm. The college includes a school for teachers, a
school of theoretical and practical agriculture and a school of
household science for the training of young women. The land, buildings
and equipment of the college, which cost over $2,500,000, were presented
by Sir William Macdonald, who in addition has provided for the future
maintenance of the work by a trust fund of over $2,000,000. In connexion
with the public elementary schools throughout Canada, where the
principles of agriculture are taught to some extent, manual training
centres, provided out of funds supplied by the same public-spirited
donor, are now maintained by local and provincial public school
authorities. (E. H. G.)
HISTORY
Discovery.
About A.D. 1000 Leif Ericsson, a Norseman, led an expedition from
Greenland to the shores probably of what is now Canada, but the first
effective contact of Europeans with Canada was not until the end of the
15th century. John Cabot (q.v.), sailing from Bristol, reached the
shores of Canada in 1497. Soon after fishermen from Europe began to go
in considerable numbers to the Newfoundland banks, and in time to the
coasts of the mainland of America. In 1534 a French expedition under
Jacques Cartier, a seaman of St Malo, sent out by Francis I., entered
the Gulf of St Lawrence. In the following year Cartier sailed up the
river as far as the Lachine Rapids, to the spot where Montreal now
stands. During the next sixty years the fisheries and the fur trade
received some attention, but no colonization was undertaken.
French colony.
At the beginning of the 17th century we find the first great name in
Canadian history. Samuel de Champlain (q.v.), who had seen service under
Henry IV. of France, was employed in the interests of successive
fur-trading monopolies and sailed up the St Lawrence in 1603. In the
next year he was on the Bay of Fundy and had a share in founding the
first permanent French colony in North America--that of Port Royal, now
Annapolis, Nova Scotia. In 1608 he began the settlement which was named
Quebec. From 1608 to his death in 1635 Champlain worked unceasingly to
develop Canada as a colony, to promote the fur trade and to explore the
interior. He passed southward from the St Lawrence to the beautiful lake
which still bears his name and also westward, up the St Lawrence and the
Ottawa, in the dim hope of reaching the shores of China. He reached Lake
Huron and Lake Ontario, but not the great lakes stretching still farther
west.
The era was that of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), and during that
great upheaval England was sometimes fighting France. Already, in 1613,
the English from Virginia had almost completely wiped out the French
settlement at Port Royal, and when in 1629 a small English fleet
appeared at Quebec, Champlain was forced to surrender. But in 1632
Canada was restored to France by the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye. Just
at this time was formed under the aegis of Cardinal Richelieu the
"Company of New France," known popularly as "The Company of One Hundred
Associates." With 120 members it was granted the whole St Lawrence
valley; for fifteen years from 1629 it was to have a complete monopoly
of trade; and products from its territory were to enter France free of
duty. In return the company was to take to New France 300 colonists a
year; only French Catholics might go; and for each settlement the
company was to provide three priests. Until 1663 this company controlled
New France.
It was an era of missionary zeal in the Roman Catholic church, and
Canada became the favourite mission. The Society of Jesus was only one
of several orders--Franciscans (Recollets), Sulpicians, Ursulines,
&c.--who worked in New France. The Jesuits have attracted chief
attention, not merely on account of their superior zeal and numbers, but
also because of the tragic fate of some of their missionaries in Canada.
In the voluminous _Relations_ of their doings the story has been
preserved. Among the Huron Indians, whose settlements bordered on the
lake of that name, they secured a great influence. But there was
relentless war between the Hurons and the Iroquois occupying the
southern shore of Lake Ontario, and when in 1649 the Iroquois ruined and
almost completely destroyed the Hurons, the Jesuit missionaries also
fell victims to the conquerors' rage. Missionaries to the Iroquois
themselves met with a similar fate and the missions failed. Commercial
life also languished. The company planned by Richelieu was not a
success. It did little to colonize New France, and in 1660, after more
than thirty years of its monopoly, there were not more than 2000 French
in the whole country. In 1663 the charter of the company was revoked. No
longer was a trading company to discharge the duties of a sovereign. New
France now became a royal province, with governor, intendant, &c., on
the model of the provinces of France.
In 1664 a new "Company of the West Indies" (_Compagnie des Indes
Occidentales_) was organized to control French trade and colonization
not only in Canada but also in West Africa, South America and the West
Indies. At first it promised well. In 1665 some 2000 emigrants were sent
to Canada; the European population was soon doubled, and Louis XIV.
began to take a personal interest in the colony. But once more, in
contrast with English experience, the great trading company proved a
failure in French hands as a colonizing agent, and in 1674 its charter
was summarily revoked by Louis XIV. Henceforth in name, if not in fact,
monopoly is ended in Canada.
By this time French explorers were pressing forward to unravel the
mystery of the interior. By 1659 two Frenchmen, Radisson and
Groseillers, had penetrated beyond the great lakes to the prairies of
the far West; they were probably the first Europeans to see the
Mississippi. By 1666 a French mission was established on the shores of
Lake Superior, and in 1673 Joliet and Marquette, explorers from Canada,
reached and for some distance descended the Mississippi. Five years
later Cavelier de la Salle was making his toilsome way westward from
Quebec to discover the true character of the great river and to perform
the feat, perilous in view of the probable hostility of the natives, of
descending it to the sea. In 1682 he accomplished his task, took
possession of the valley of the Mississippi in the name of Louis XIV.
and called it Louisiana. Thus from Canada as her basis was France
reaching out to grasp a continent.
There was a keen rivalry between church and state for dominance in this
new empire. In 1659 arrived at Quebec a young prelate of noble birth,
Francois Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, who had come to rule the church in
Canada. An ascetic, who practised the whole cycle of medieval
austerities, he was determined that Canada should be ruled by the
church, and he desired for New France a Puritanism as strict as that of
New England. His especial zeal was directed towards the welfare of the
Indians. These people showed, to their own ruin, a reckless liking for
the brandy of the white man. Laval insisted that the traders should not
supply brandy to the natives. He declared excommunicate any one who did
so and for a time he triumphed. More than once he drove from Canada
governors who tried to thwart him. In 1663 he was actually invited to
choose a governor after his own mind and did so, but with no cessation
of the old disputes. In 1672 Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac (q.v.),
was named governor of New France, and in him the church found her match.
Yet not at once; for, after a bitter struggle, he was recalled in 1682.
But Canada needed him. He knew how to control the ferocious Iroquois,
who had cut off France from access to Lake Ontario; to check them he had
built a fort where now stands the city of Kingston. With Frontenac gone,
these savages almost strangled the colony. On a stormy August night in
1689 1500 Iroquois burst in on the village of Lachine near Montreal,
butchered 200 of its people, and carried off more than 100 to be
tortured to death at their leisure. Then the strong man Frontenac was
recalled to face the crisis.
Struggles with England.
It was a critical era. James II. had fallen in England, and William III.
was organizing Europe against French aggression. France's plan for a
great empire in America was now taking shape and there, as in Europe, a
deadly struggle with England was inevitable. Frontenac planned attacks
upon New England and encouraged a ruthless border warfare that involved
many horrors. Him, in return, the English attacked. Sir William Phips
sailed from Boston in 1690, conquered Acadia, now Nova Scotia, and then
hazarded the greater task of leading a fleet up the St Lawrence against
Quebec. On the 16th of October 1690 thirty-four English ships, some of
them only fishing craft, appeared in its basin and demanded the
surrender of the town. When Frontenac answered defiantly, Phips attacked
the place; but he was repulsed and in the end sailed away unsuccessful.
Each side had now begun to see that the vital point was control of the
interior, which time was to prove the most extensive fertile area in the
world. La Salle's expedition had aroused the French to the importance of
the Mississippi, and they soon had a bold plan to occupy it, to close in
from the rear on the English on the Atlantic coast, seize their colonies
and even deport the colonists. The plan was audacious, for the English
in America outnumbered the French by twenty to one. But their colonies
were democracies, disunited because each was pursuing its own special
interests, while the French were united under despotic leadership.
Frontenac attacked the Iroquois mercilessly in 1696 and forced these
proud savages to sue for peace. But in the next year was made the treaty
of Ryswick, which brought a pause in the conflict, and in 1698 Frontenac
died.
After Frontenac the Iroquois, though still hostile to France, are
formidable no more, and the struggle for the continent is frankly
between the English and the French. The peace of Ryswick proved but a
truce, and when in 1701, on the death of the exiled James II., Louis
XIV. flouted the claims of William III. to the throne of England by
proclaiming as king James's son, renewed war was inevitable. In Europe
it saw the brilliant victories of Marlborough; in America it was less
decisive, but France lost heavily. Though the English, led by Sir
Hovenden Walker, made in 1711 an effort to take Quebec which proved
abortive, they seized Nova Scotia; and when the treaty of Utrecht was
made in 1713, France admitted defeat in America by yielding to Britain
her claims to Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. But she still
held the shores of the St Lawrence, and she retained, too, the island of
Cape Breton to command its mouth. There she built speedily the fortress
of Louisbourg, and prepared once more to challenge British supremacy in
America. With a sound instinct that looked to future greatness, France
still aimed, more and more, at the control of the interior of the
Continent. The danger from the Iroquois on Lake Ontario had long cut her
off from the most direct access to the West, and from the occupation of
the Ohio valley leading to the Mississippi, but now free from this
savage scourge she could go where she would. In 1701 she founded
Detroit, commanding the route from Lake Erie to Lake Huron. Her
missionaries and leaders were already at Sault Ste Marie commanding the
approach to Lake Superior, and at Michilimackinac commanding that to
Lake Michigan. They had also penetrated to what is now the Canadian
West, and it was a French Canadian, La Vérendrye, who, by the route
leading past the point where now stands the city of Winnipeg, pressed
on into the far West until in 1743, first recorded of white men, he came
in sight of the Rocky Mountains. In the south of the continent France
also crowned La Salle's work by founding early in the 18th century New
Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi. It was a far cry from New
Orleans to Quebec. If France could link them by a chain of settlements
and shut in the English to their narrow strip of Atlantic seaboard there
was good promise that North America would be hers.
The project was far-reaching, but France could do little to make it
effective. Louis XV. allowed her navy to decline and her people showed
little inclination for emigration to the colonies. In 1744, when the war
of the Austrian Succession broke out, the New England colonies planned
and in 1745 effected the capture of Louisbourg, the stronghold of France
in Cape Breton Island, which menaced their commerce. But to their
disgust, when the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was made in 1748, this
conquest was handed back to France. She continued her work of building a
line of forts on the great lakes--on the river Niagara, on the Ohio, on
the Mississippi; and the English colonies, with the enemy thus in their
rear, grew ever more restive. In 1753 Virginia warned the French on the
Ohio that they were encroaching on British territory. The next year, in
circumstances curiously like those which were repeated when the French
expedition under Marchand menaced Britain in Egypt by seeking to
establish a post on the Upper Nile, George Washington, a young Virginian
officer, was sent to drive the French from their Fort Duquesne on the
Ohio river, where now stands Pittsburgh. The result was sharp fighting
between English and French in a time of nominal peace. In 1755 the
British took the stern step of deporting the Acadian French from Nova
Scotia. Though this province had been ceded to Great Britain in 1713
many of the Acadians had refused to accept British sovereignty. In 1749
the British founded Halifax, began to colonize Nova Scotia, and, with
war imminent, deemed it prudent to disperse the Acadians, chiefly along
the Atlantic seaboard (see NOVA SCOTIA: _History_). In 1756 the Seven
Years' War definitely began. France had no resources to cope with those
of Britain in America, and the British command of the sea proved
decisive. On the 13th of September 1759 Wolfe won his great victory
before Quebec, which involved the fall of that place, and a year later
at Montreal the French army in Canada surrendered. By the peace of
Paris, 1763, the whole of New France was finally ceded to Great Britain.
English possesion.
With only about 60,000 French in Canada at the time of the conquest it
might have seemed as if this population would soon be absorbed by the
incoming British. Some thought that, under a Protestant sovereign, the
Canadian Catholics would be rapidly converted to Protestantism. But the
French type proved stubbornly persistent and to this day dominates the
older Canada. The first English settlers in the conquered country were
chiefly petty traders, not of a character to lead in social or public
affairs. The result was that the government of the time co-operated
rather with the leaders among the French.
After peace was concluded in 1763, Canada was governed under the
authority of a royal proclamation, but sooner or later a constitution
specially adapted to the needs of the country was inevitable. In 1774
this was provided by the Quebec Act passed by the Imperial parliament.
Under this act the western territory which France had claimed, extending
as far as the Mississippi and south to the Ohio, was included with
Canada in what was called the Province of Quebec. This vast territory
was to be governed despotically from Quebec; the Roman Catholic church
was given its old privileges in Canada; and the French civil law was
established permanently side by side with the English criminal law. The
act linked the land-owning class in Canada and the church by ties of
self-interest to the British cause. The _habitant_, placed again under
their authority, had less reason to be content.
In 1775 began the American Revolution. Its leaders tried to make the
revolt continental, and invaded Canada, hoping that the French would
join them. They took Montreal and besieged Quebec during the winter of
1775-1776; but the prudent leadership of Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards
Lord Dorchester, saved Quebec and in 1776 the revolutionary army
withdrew unsuccessful from Canada. Since that time any prospect of
Canada's union to the United States has been very remote.
But the American Revolution profoundly influenced the life of Canada.
The country became the refuge of thousands of American loyalists who
would not desert Great Britain. To Nova Scotia, to what are now New
Brunswick (q.v.) and Ontario (q.v.) they fled in numbers not easily
estimated, but probably reaching about 40,000. Until this time the
present New Brunswick and Ontario had contained few European settlers;
now they developed, largely under the influence of the loyalists of the
Revolution. This meant that the American type of colonial life would be
reproduced in Canada; but it meant also bitter hostility on the part of
these colonists to the United States, which refused in any way to
compensate the loyalists for their confiscated property. Great Britain
did something; the loyalists received liberal grants of land and cash
compensation amounting to nearly £4,000,000.
A prevailingly French type of government was now no longer adequate in
Canada, and in 1791 was passed by the British parliament the
Constitutional Act, separating Canada at the Ottawa river into two
parts, each with its own government; Lower Canada, chiefly French,
retaining the old system of laws, with representative institutions now
added, and Upper Canada, on the purely British model. (For the history
of Lower and Upper Canada, now Quebec and Ontario, the separate articles
must be consulted.) Each province had special problems; the French in
Lower Canada aimed at securing political power for their own race, while
in Upper Canada there was no race problem, and the great struggle was
for independence of official control and in all essential matters for
government by the people. It may be doubted whether at this time it
would have been safe to give these small communities complete
self-government. But this a clamorous radical element demanded
insistently, and the issue was the chief one in Canada for half a
century.
But before this issue matured war broke out between Great Britain and
the United States in 1812 from causes due chiefly to Napoleon's
continental policy. The war seemed to furnish a renewed opportunity to
annex Canada to the American Union, and Canada became the chief theatre
of conflict. The struggle was most vigorous on the Niagara frontier. But
in the end the American invasion failed and the treaty made at Ghent in
1814 left the previous status unaltered.
Lord Durham.
In 1837 a few French Canadians in Lower Canada, led by Louis Joseph
Papineau (q.v.), took up arms with the wild idea of establishing a
French republic on the St Lawrence. In the same year William Lyon
Mackenzie (q.v.) led a similar armed revolt in Upper Canada against the
domination of the ruling officialdom called, with little reason, the
"Family Compact." Happening, as these revolts did, just at the time of
Queen Victoria's accession, they attracted wide attention, and in 1838
the earl of Durham (q.v.) was sent to govern Canada and report on the
affairs of British North America. Clothed as he was with large powers,
he undertook in the interests of leniency and reconciliation to banish,
without trial, some leaders of the rebellion in Lower Canada. For this
reason he was censured at home and he promptly resigned, after spending
only five months in the country. But his _Report_, published in the
following year, is a masterly survey of the situation and included
recommendations that profoundly influenced the later history of Canada.
He recommended the union of the two Canadian provinces at once, the
ultimate union of all British North America and the granting to this
large state of full self-government. The French element he thought a
menace to Canada's future, and partly for this reason he desired all the
provinces to unite so that the British element should be dominant.
To carry out Lord Durham's policy the British government passed in 1840
an Act of Union joining Upper and Lower Canada, and sent out as governor
Charles Poulett Thompson, who was made Baron Sydenham and Toronto In the
single parliament each province was equally represented. By this time
there was more than a million people in Canada, and the country was
becoming important. Lord Sydenham died in 1841 before his work was
completed, and he left Canada still in a troubled condition. The French
were suspicious of the Union, aimed avowedly at checking their
influence, and the complete self-government for which the "Reformers" in
English-speaking Canada had clamoured was not yet conceded by the
colonial office. But rapidly it became obvious that the provinces united
had become too important to be held in leading strings. The issue was
finally settled in 1849 when the earl of Elgin was governor and the
Canadian legislature, sitting at Montreal, passed by a large majority
the Rebellion Losses Bill, compensating citizens, some of them French,
in Lower Canada, for losses incurred at the hands of the loyal party
during the rebellion a decade earlier. The cry was easily raised by the
Conservative minority that this was to vote reward for rebellion. They
appealed to London for intervention. The mob in Montreal burned the
parliament buildings and stoned Lord Elgin himself because he gave the
royal assent to the bill. He did so in the face of this fierce
opposition, on the ground that, in Canadian domestic affairs, the
Canadian parliament must be supreme.
The union of the two provinces did not work well. Each was jealous of
the other and deadlocks frequently occurred. Commercially, after 1849,
Canada was prosperous. In 1854 Lord Elgin negotiated a reciprocity
treaty with the United States which gave Canadian natural products free
entrance to the American market. The outbreak of the Civil War in the
United States in 1861 increased the demand for such products, and Canada
enjoyed an extensive trade with her neighbour. But, owing largely to the
unfriendly attitude of Great Britain to the northern side during the
war, the United States cancelled the treaty, when its first term of ten
years ended in 1865, and it has never been renewed.
Under the party system in Canada cabinets changed as often as, until
recently, they did in France, and the union of the two provinces did not
give political stability. The French and English were sufficiently equal
in strength to make the task of government well nigh impossible. In 1864
came the opportunity for change, when New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and
Prince Edward Island were considering a federal union. Canada suggested
a wider plan to include herself and, in October 1864, a conference was
held at Quebec. The conference outlined a plan of federation which
subsequently, with slight modifications, passed the imperial parliament
as "The British North America Act," and on the 1st of July 1867, the
Dominion of Canada came into existence. It was born during the era of
the American Civil War, and was planned to correct defects which time
had revealed in the American federation. The provinces in Canada were
conceded less power than have the states in the American union; the
federal government retaining the residuum of power not conceded.
(G. M. W.)
Canada since federation.
When federation was accomplished in 1867 the Dominion of Canada
comprised only the four provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia. Lord Monck was appointed the first governor-general, and at
his request the Hon. John Alexander Macdonald undertook the formation of
an administration. A coalition cabinet was formed, including the
foremost Liberals and Conservatives drawn from the different provinces.
Under a proclamation issued from Windsor Castle by Queen Victoria on the
22nd of May the new constitution came into effect on the 1st of July.
This birthday of the Dominion has been fixed by statute as a public
holiday, and is annually observed under the name of "Dominion Day."
Seventy-two senators--half Conservatives and half Liberals--were
appointed, and lieutenant-governors were named for the four provinces.
The prime minister was created a K.C.B., and minor honours were
conferred on other ministers in recognition of their services in
bringing about the union.
Nova Scotia question.
The first general election for the Dominion House of Commons was held
during the month of August, and except in the province of Nova Scotia
was favourable to the administration, which entered upon its
parliamentary work with a majority of thirty-two. The first session of
parliament was opened on the 8th of November, but adjourned on the 21st
of December till the 12th of March 1868, chiefly on account of the fact
that members of the Dominion parliament were allowed, in Ontario and
Quebec, to hold seats in the local legislatures, so that it was
difficult for the different bodies to be in session simultaneously. It
was not till 1873 that an act was passed making members of the local
legislatures ineligible for seats in the House of Commons. Immediately
after the completion of federation a serious agitation for repeal of the
union arose in Nova Scotia, which had been brought into the federal
system by a vote of the existing legislature, without any direct
preliminary appeal to the people. Headed by Joseph Howe (q.v.), the
advocates of repeal swept the province at the Dominion election. Out of
19 members then elected 18 were pledged to repeal, Dr Tupper, the
minister responsible for carrying the Act of Union, alone among the
supporters of federation securing a seat. The local assembly, in which
36 out of 38 members were committed to repeal, passed an address to Her
Majesty praying her not to "reduce this free, happy and hitherto
self-governed province to the degraded condition of a servile dependency
of Canada," and sent Howe with a delegation to London to lay the
petition at the foot of the throne. Howe enlisted the support of John
Bright and other members of parliament, but the imperial government was
firm, and the duke of Buckingham, as colonial secretary, soon informed
the governor-general in a despatch that consent could not be given for
the withdrawal of Nova Scotia from the Dominion. Meanwhile Howe,
convinced of the impossibility of effecting separation, and fearing
disloyal tendencies which had manifested themselves in some of its
advocates, entered into negotiations with Dr Tupper in London, and later
with the Dominion government, for better financial terms than those
originally arranged for Nova Scotia in the federal system. The estimated
amount of provincial debt assumed by the general government was
increased by $1,186,756, and a special annual subsidy of $82,698 was
granted for a period of ten years. These terms having been agreed to,
Howe, as a pledge of his approval and support, accepted a seat as
secretary of state in the Dominion cabinet. By taking this course he
sacrificed much of his remarkable popularity in his native province, but
confirmed the work of consolidating the Dominion. It was many years
before the bitterness of feeling aroused by the repeal agitation
entirely subsided in Nova Scotia.
A gloom was cast over the first parliament of the Dominion by the
assassination in 1868 of one of the most brilliant figures in the
politics of the time, D'Arcy McGee (q.v.) His murderer, a Fenian acting
under the instructions of the secret society to which he belonged, was
discovered, and executed in 1869.
The reorganization of the various departments of state, in view of the
wider interests with which they had to deal, occupied much of the
attention of the first parliament of the Dominion. In 1867 the postal
rates were reduced and unified. In 1868 a militia system for the whole
Dominion was organized, the tariff altered and systematized, and a Civil
Service Act passed. The banking system of the country was put on a sound
footing by a series of acts culminating in 1871, and in the same year a
uniform system of decimal currency was established for the whole
Dominion. While the new machinery of state was thus being put in
operation other large questions presented themselves.
Inter-Colonial railway.
The construction of the Inter-Colonial railway as a connecting link
between the provinces on the seaboard and those along the St Lawrence
and the Great Lakes was a part of the federation compact, a clause of
the British North America Act providing that it should be begun within
six months after the date of union. The guarantee of the imperial
government made easy the provision of the necessary capital, but as
this was coupled with a voice in the decision of the route, it
complicated the latter question, about which a keen contest arose. The
most direct and therefore commercially most promising line of
construction passed near the boundary of the United States. Recent
friction with that country made this route objected to by the imperial
and many Canadian authorities. Ultimately the longer, more expensive,
but more isolated route along the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence was
adopted. The work was taken in hand at once, and pressed steadily
forward to completion. It has since been supplemented by other lines
built for more distinctly commercial ends. Though not for many years a
financial success, the Inter-Colonial railway, which was opened in 1876,
has in a marked way fulfilled its object by binding together socially
and industrially widely separated portions of the Dominion.
Hudson's Bay Company territories.
Within a month of the meeting of the first parliament of the Dominion a
question of vast importance to the future of the country was brought
forward by the Hon. W. McDougall in a series of resolutions which were
adopted, and on which was based an address to the queen praying that
Majesty would unite Rupert's Land and the North-West Territories to
Canada. A delegation consisting of Sir G.E. Cartier and the Hon. W.
McDougall was in 1868 sent to England to negotiate with the Hudson's Bay
Company (q.v.) for the extinction of its claims, and to arrange with the
imperial government for the transfer of the territory. After prolonged
discussions the company agreed to surrender to the crown, in
consideration of a payment of £300,000, the rights and interests in the
north-west guaranteed by its charter, with the exception of a
reservation of one-twentieth part of the fertile belt, and 45,000 acres
of land adjacent to the trading posts of the company. For the purposes
of this agreement the "fertile belt" was to be bounded as follows:--"On
the south by the U.S. boundary, on the west by the Rocky Mountains, on
the north by the northern branch of the Saskatchewan river, on the east
by Lake Winnipeg, the Lake of the Woods, and the waters connecting
them." An act authorizing the change of control was passed by the
imperial parliament in July 1868; the arrangement made with the Hudson's
Bay Company was accepted by the Canadian parliament in June 1869; and
the deed of surrender from the Hudson's Bay Company to Her Majesty is
dated November 19th, 1869. In anticipation of the formal transfer to the
Dominion an act was passed by the Canadian parliament in the same month
providing for the temporary government of Rupert's Land and the
North-West Territories. On the 28th of September the Hon. W. McDougall
was appointed the first governor, and left at once to assume control on
the 1st of December, when it had been understood that the formal change
of possession would take place.
Red river rebellion.
Meanwhile a serious condition of affairs was developing in the Red river
settlement, the most considerable centre of population in the newly
acquired territory. The half-breeds regarded with suspicion a transfer
of control concerning which they had not been consulted. They resented
the presence of the Canadian surveyors sent to lay out roads and
townships, and the tactless way in which some of these did their work
increased the suspicion that long-established rights to the soil would
not be respected. A population largely Roman Catholic in creed, and
partly French in origin and language, feared that an influx of new
settlers would overthrow cherished traditions. Some were afraid of
increased taxation. A group of immigrants from the United States
fomented disturbance in the hope that it would lead to annexation. Louis
Riel, a fanatical half-breed, placed himself at the head of the
movement. His followers established what they called a "provisional
government" of which he was chosen president, and when the newly
appointed governor reached the boundary line he was prevented from
entering the territory. Several of the white settlers who resisted this
rebellious movement were arrested and kept in confinement. One of these,
a young man named Thomas Scott, having treated Riel with defiance, was
court-martialled for treason to the provisional government, condemned,
and on the 4th of March 1870, shot in cold blood under the walls of Fort
Garry. This crime aroused intense excitement throughout the country,
and the Orange body, particularly, to which Scott belonged, demanded the
immediate punishment of his murderer and the suppression of the
rebellion. An armed force, composed partly of British regulars and
partly of Canadian volunteers, was made ready and placed under the
command of Colonel Garnet Wolseley, afterwards Lord Wolseley. As a
military force could not pass through the United States, the expedition
was compelled to take the route up Lake Superior, and from the head of
that lake through 500 m. of unbroken and difficult wilderness. In August
1870, the force reached Fort Garry, to find the rebels scattered and
their leader, Riel, a fugitive in the neighbouring states. Meanwhile,
during the progress of the expedition, an act had been passed creating
Manitoba a province, with full powers of self-government, and the
arrival of the military was closely followed by that of the first
governor, Mr (later Sir) Adams G. Archibald, who succeeded in organizing
the administration on a satisfactory basis. Fort Garry became Winnipeg,
and there were soon indications that it was destined to be a great city,
and the commercial doorway to the vast prairies that lay beyond.
Meanwhile, till adequate means of transportation were provided, it was
seen that city and prairie alike must wait for any large inflow of
population.
New provinces.
Provision was made in the British North America Act to receive new
provinces into the Dominion. Manitoba was the first to be constituted;
in 1871 British Columbia, which had hitherto held aloof, determined,
under the persuasion of a sympathetic governor, Mr (later Sir) Antony
Musgrave, to throw in its lot with the Dominion. Popular feeling in
British Columbia itself was not strongly in favour of union, and the
terms under which the new province was to be received were the subject
of much negotiation with the provincial authorities, and were keenly
debated in parliament before the bill in which they were embodied was
finally carried. The clause on which there was the widest divergence of
opinion was one providing that a trans-continental railway, connecting
the Pacific province with the eastern part of the Dominion, should be
begun within two, and completed within ten years. To a province which at
the time contained a population of only 36,000, and but half of this
white, the inducement thus held out was immense. The Opposition in
parliament claimed that the contract was one impossible for the Dominion
to fulfil. The government of Sir John Macdonald felt, however, that the
future of the Dominion depended upon linking together the Atlantic and
the Pacific, and in view of the vast unoccupied spaces lying between the
Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, open to immigration from the United
States, their audacity in undertaking the work was doubtless justified.
The construction of the Canadian Pacific railway, thus inaugurated,
became for several years the chief subject of political contention
between opposing parties.
Anticipating the order of chronology slightly, it may be mentioned here
that in 1873 Prince Edward Island (q.v.), which had in 1865 decisively
rejected proposals of the Quebec conference and had in the following
year repeated its rejection of federation by a resolution of the
legislature affirming that no terms Canada could offer would be
acceptable, now decided to throw in its lot with the Dominion. The
island had become involved in heavy railway expenditure, and financial
necessities led the electors to take a broader view of the question. In
the end the federal government assumed the railway debt, arrangements
were made for extinguishing certain proprietary rights which had long
been a source of discontent, and on the 1st of July 1873 the Dominion
was rounded off by the accession of the new province.
Finally in 1878, in order to remove all doubts about unoccupied
territory, an imperial order in council was passed in response to an
address of the Canadian parliament, annexing to the Dominion all British
possessions in North America, except Newfoundland. That small colony,
which had been represented at the Quebec conference, also rejected the
proposals of 1865, and, in spite of various efforts to arrange
satisfactory terms, has steadily held aloof, and so has proved the only
obstacle to the complete political unification of British North America.
[Illustration: CANADA]
Difficulties with the United States.
A signal proof was soon furnished of the new standing in the empire
which federation had given to the Canadian provinces. A heritage of
differences and difficulties had been left to be settled between
England, Canada and the American Union as the result of the Civil War.
In retaliation for the supposed sympathy of Canadians with the South in
this struggle the victorious North took steps to abrogate in 1866 the
reciprocity treaty of 1854, which had conferred such great advantages on
both countries. It followed that the citizens of the United States lost
the right which they had received under the treaty to share in the
fisheries of Canada. American fishermen, however, showed so little
inclination to give up what they had enjoyed so long, that it was found
necessary to take vigorous steps to protect Canadian fishing rights, and
frequent causes of friction consequently arose. During the progress of
the Civil War American feeling had been greatly exasperated by the
losses inflicted on commerce by the cruiser "Alabama," which, it was
claimed, was allowed to leave a British port in, violation of
international law. On the other hand, Canadian feeling had been equally
exasperated by the Fenian raids, organized on American soil, which had
cost Canada much expenditure of money and some loss of life. In,
addition to these causes of difference there was an unsettled boundary
dispute in British Columbia, and questions about the navigation of
rivers common to the United States and Canada. In 1869 the government of
Canada sent a deputation to England to press upon the imperial
government the necessity of asserting Canada's position in regard to the
fisheries, and the desirability of settling other questions in dispute
with the republic. The outcome of this application was the appointment
of a commission to consider and if possible settle outstanding
differences between the three countries. The prime minister of the
Dominion, Sir John Macdonald, was asked to act as one of the imperial
commissioners in carrying on these negotiations. This was the first time
that a colonist had been called upon to assist in the settlement of
international disputes. The commission assembled at the American capital
in February 1871, and after discussions extending over several weeks
signed what is known as the treaty of Washington. By the terms of this
treaty the "Alabama" claims and the San Juan boundary were referred to
arbitration; the free navigation of the St Lawrence was granted to the
United States in return for the free use of Lake Michigan and certain
Alaskan rivers; and it was settled that a further commission should
decide the excess of value of the Canadian fisheries thrown open to the
United States over and above the reciprocal concessions made to Canada.
Much to the annoyance of the people of the Dominion the claims for the
Fenian raids were withdrawn at the request of the British government,
which undertook, to make good to Canada any losses she had suffered. To
some of these terms the representative of Canada made a strenuous
opposition, and in finally signing the treaty stated that he did so
chiefly for imperial interests, although in these he believed Canadian
interests to be involved. The clauses relating to the fisheries and the
San Juan boundary were reserved for the approval of the Canadian
parliament, which, in spite of much violent opposition, ratified them by
a large majority. Under the "Alabama" arbitration Great Britain paid to
the United States damages to the amount of $15,500,000, while the German
Emperor decided the San Juan boundary in favour of the United States.
The Fishery Commission, on the other hand, which sat in Halifax, awarded
Canada $5,500,000 as the excess value of its fisheries for twelve years,
and after much hesitation this sum was paid by the United States into
the Canadian treasury. An imperial guarantee of a loan for the
construction of railways was the only compensation Canada received for
the Fenian raids.
Canadian Pacific railway question.
The second general election for the Dominion took place in 1872. It was
marked by the complete defeat of the Anti-Unionist party in Nova Scotia,
only one member of which secured his election, thus exactly reversing
the vote of 1867. While Sir John Macdonald's administration was
supported in Nova Scotia, it was weakened in Ontario on account of the
clemency shown to Riel, and in Quebec by the refusal to grant a general
amnesty to all who had taken part in the rebellion. Two important
members of the cabinet, Sir G. Cartier and Sir F. Hincks, were defeated.
Opposition to the Washington treaty and dread of the bold railway policy
of the government also contributed to weaken its position. But a graver
blow, ending in the complete overthrow of the administration, was soon
to fall as the result of the election. In 1872 two companies had been
formed and received charters to build the Canadian Pacific railway. Sir
Hugh Allan of Montreal was at the head of the one, and the Hon. David
Macpherson of Toronto was president of the other. The government
endeavoured to bring about an amalgamation of these rival companies,
believing that the united energies and financial ability of the whole
country were required for so vast an undertaking. While negotiations to
this end were still proceeding the election of 1872 came on with the
result already mentioned. Soon after the meeting of parliament, a
Liberal member of the House, Mr L.S. Huntingdon, formally charged
certain members of the cabinet with having received large sums of money,
for use in the election, from Sir Hugh Allan, on condition, as it was
claimed, that the Canadian Pacific contract should be given to the new
company, of which he became the head on the failure of the plan for
amalgamation. These charges were investigated by a royal commission,
which was appointed after it had been decided that the parliamentary
committee named for that purpose could not legally take evidence under
oath. Parliament met in October 1873, to receive the report of the
commission. While members of the government were exonerated by the
report from the charge of personal corruption, the payment of large sums
of money by Sir Hugh Allan was fully established, and public feeling on
the matter was so strong that Sir J. Macdonald, while asserting his own
innocence, felt compelled to resign without waiting for the vote, of
parliament. Lord Dufferin, who had succeeded Lord Lisgar as
governor-general in 1872, at once sent for the leader of the Opposition,
Mr Alexander Mackenzie (q.v.), who succeeded in forming a Liberal
administration which, on appealing to the constituencies, was supported
by an overwhelming majority, and held power for the five following
years.
On the accession to power of the Liberal party, a new policy was adopted
for the construction of the trans-continental railway. It was proposed
to lessen the cost of construction by utilizing the water stretches
along the route, while, on the ground that the contract made was
impossible of fulfilment, the period of completion was postponed
indefinitely. Meanwhile the surveys and construction were carried
forward not by a company, but as a government work. Under this
arrangement British Columbia became exceedingly restive, holding the
Dominion to the engagement by which it had been induced to enter the
union. A representative of the government, Mr (later Sir James) Edgar,
sent out to conciliate the province by some new agreement, failed to
accomplish his object, and all the influence of the governor-general,
Lord Dufferin, who paid a visit at this time to the Pacific coast, was
required to quiet the public excitement, which had shown itself in a
resolution passed by the legislature for separation from the Dominion
unless the terms of union were fulfilled.
Economic "national policy."
Meanwhile a policy destined to affect profoundly the future of the
Dominion had, along with that of the construction of the Canadian
Pacific railway, become a subject of burning political discussion and
party division. During the period of Mr Mackenzie's administration a
profound business depression affected the whole continent of America.
The Dominion revenue showed a series of deficits for several years in
succession. The factories of the United States, unduly developed by an
extreme system of protection, sought in Canada a slaughter market for
their surplus products, to the detriment or destruction of Canadian
industries. Meanwhile the republic, which had for many years drained
Canada of hundreds of thousands of artisans to work its factories,
steadily declined to consider any suggestion for improving trade
relations between the two countries. In these circumstances Sir J.
Macdonald brought forward a proposal to adopt what was called a
"national policy," or, in other words, a system of protection for
Canadian industries. Mr Mackenzie and his chief followers, whose
inclinations were towards free trade, pinned their political fortunes to
the maintenance of a tariff for revenue only. After some years of fierce
discussion in parliament and throughout the country the question was
brought to an issue in 1878, when, with a large majority of followers
pledged to carry out protection, Sir John Macdonald was restored to
power. The new system was laid before parliament in 1879 by the finance
minister, Sir Leonard Tilley; and the tariff then agreed upon, although
it received considerable modification from time to time, remained, under
both Conservative and Liberal administrations, the basis of Canadian
finance, and, as Canadians generally believed, the bulwark of their
industry. It had almost immediately the effect of lessening the exodus
of artisans to the United States, and of improving the revenue and so
restoring the national credit.
Completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
In October 1878 Lord Dufferin's term of office expired, and his place as
governor-general was taken by the marquess of Lorne, whose welcome to
the Dominion was accentuated by the fact that he was the son-in-law of
the queen, and that his viceroyalty was shared by the princess Louise.
The election of 1878 marked the beginning of a long period of
Conservative rule--the premiership of Sir J. Macdonald continuing from
that time without a break until his death in 1891, while his party
remained in power till 1896. This long-continued Conservative supremacy
was apparently due to the policy of bold and rapid development which it
had adopted, and which appealed to a young and ambitious country more
strongly than the more cautious proposals of the Liberal leaders. As
soon as the government had redeemed its pledge to establish a system of
protection a vigorous railway policy was inaugurated. A contract was
made with a new company to complete the Canadian Pacific railway within
ten years, on condition of receiving a grant of $25,000,000 and
25,000,000 acres of land, together with those parts of the line already
finished under government direction. After fierce debate in parliament
these terms were ratified in the session of 1881. The financial
difficulties encountered by the company in carrying out their gigantic
task were very great, and in 1884 they were compelled to obtain from the
Dominion government a loan of $20,000,000 secured on the company's
property. This loan was repaid by 1887. Meanwhile the work was carried
forward with so much energy that, five years before the stipulated
period of completion, on the 7th of November 1886, the last spike was
driven by Mr Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona), whose fortune had been
largely pledged to the undertaking, along with those of other prominent
Canadian business men, especially Mr George Stephen (Lord Mountstephen),
Mr Duncan McIntyre, and Mr R.B. Angus. Under the energetic management of
Mr (later Sir) W.C. Van Home, who was appointed president of the company
in 1888, the new railway soon became the most prominent feature in the
development of the country; lines of steamships were established on the
great lakes and the Pacific; a stream of immigration began to flow into
the prairie region; and the increasing prosperity of the railway had a
poverful influence in improving the public credit.
Riel's rebellion.
Even before the Canadian Pacific railway was fully completed, it proved
of great service in a national emergency which suddenly arose in the
north-west. With the organization of Manitoba and the opening of
improved communication immigrants began to move rapidly westward, and
government surveyors were soon busy laying off lands in the Saskatchewan
valley. The numbers of the half-breed settlers of this district had been
increased by the migration of many of those who had taken part in the
first uprising at Fort Garry. Influenced by somewhat similar motives,
fearing from the advance of civilization the destruction of the buffalo,
on which they chiefly depended for food, with some real grievances and
others imaginary, the discontented population sent for Riel, who had
been living, since his flight from Fort Garry, in the United States. He
returned to put himself at the head of a second rebellion. At first he
seemed inclined to act with moderation and on lines of constitutional
agitation, but soon, carried away by fanaticism, ambition and vanity, he
turned to armed organization against the government. To half-breed
rebellion was added the imminent danger of an Indian uprising, to which
Riel looked for support. The authorities at Ottawa were at first
careless or sceptical in regard to the danger, the reality of which was
only brought home to them when a body of mounted police, advancing to
regain a small post at Duck Lake, of which the rebels had taken
possession, was attacked and twelve of their number killed. Volunteers
and militia were at once called out in all the old provinces of Canada,
and were quickly conveyed by the newly constructed line of railway to
the neighbourhood of the point of disturbance. Major-general Middleton,
of the imperial army, who was then in command of the Canadian militia,
led the expedition. Several minor engagements with half-breeds or
Indians preceded the final struggle at Batoche, where Gabriel Dumont,
Riel's military lieutenant, had skilfully entrenched his forces. After a
cautious advance the eagerness of the troops finally overcame the
hesitation of the commander in exposing his men, the rifle pits were
carried with a rush, and the rebellion crushed at a single stroke.
Dumont succeeded in escaping across the United States boundary; Riel was
captured, imprisoned, and in due course tried for treason. This second
rebellion carried on under his leadership had lasted about three months,
had cost the country many valuable lives, and in money about five
millions of dollars. Clear as was his guilt, Riel's trial, condemnation
and execution on the 16th of November 1885, provoked a violent political
storm which at one time threatened to overthrow the Conservative
government. The balance of power between parties in parliament was held
by the province of Quebec, and there racial and religious feeling evoked
no slight sympathy for Riel. But while a section of Quebec was eager to
secure the rebel's pardon, Ontario was equally bent on the execution of
justice, so that in the final vote on the question in parliament the
defection of French Conservatives was compensated for by the support of
Ontario Liberals. In the end 25 out of 53 French members voted in
justification of Kiel's punishment. With him were executed several
Indian chiefs who had been concerned in a massacre of whites. Painful as
were the circumstances connected with this rebellion, it is certain that
the united action of the different provinces in suppressing it tended to
consolidate Canadian sentiment, and the short military campaign had the
effect of fixing public attention upon the immense fertile territory
then being opened up.
Macdonald's fiscal policy.
The general election of 1882 turned chiefly upon endorsement of the
national policy of protection; in that of 1887 the electoral test was
again applied to the same issue, while Sir John Macdonald also asked for
approval of the government's action in exacting from Riel the full
penalty of his guilt. On both issues the Conservative policy was upheld
by the electors, and Macdonald was continued in power with a large
parliamentary majority. From the election of 1887 the Riel agitation
ceased to seriously influence politics, but the fiscal controversy
continued under new forms. Between 1887 and 1891 a vigorous agitation
was kept up under Liberal auspices in favour of closer trade relations
with the United States, at first under the name of Commercial Union and
later under that of Unrestricted Reciprocity. The object in both cases
was to break down tariff barriers between the United States and Canada,
even though that should be at the expense of discrimination against
Great Britain. The Conservative party took the position that commercial
union, involving as it would a common protective tariff against all
other countries, including the motherland, would inevitably lead to
political unification with the United States. The question after long
and vehement discussion was brought to a final issue in the election of
1891, and Sir John Macdonald's government was again sustained. From that
time protection became the settled policy of the country. On their
accession to power in 1896 it was adopted by the Liberals, who joined to
it a preference for the products of the mother country. Under the
protective policy thus repeatedly confirmed, Canada gradually became
more independent of the American market than in earlier times, and
enjoyed great commercial prosperity. Soon after the election of 1891 Sir
John Macdonald (q.v.) died, after an active political career of more
than forty years. Under his direction the great lines of policy which
have governed the development of Canada as a confederated state within
the empire were inaugurated and carried forward with great success, so
that his name has become indissolubly connected with the history of the
Dominion at its most critical stage.
Macdonald's successors.
During the years which succeeded the death of Sir John Macdonald a
succession of losses weakened the position of the Conservative party
which had held power so long. The Hon. J.C.C. Abbott, leader of the
party in the Senate, became prime minister on Macdonald's death in 1891,
but in 1892 was compelled by ill-health to resign, and in 1893 he died.
His successor, Sir John Thompson, after a successful leadership of about
two years, died suddenly of heart disease at Windsor Castle, immediately
after being sworn of the imperial privy council. Charges of corruption
in the administration of the department of public works, which led to
the expulsion of one member of parliament, involved also the resignation
from the cabinet of Sir Hector Langevin, leader of the French
Conservatives, against whom carelessness at least in administration had
been established. The brief premiership of Sir Mackenzie Bowell, between
1894 and 1896, was marked by much dissension in the Conservative ranks,
ending finally in a reconstruction of the government in 1896 under Sir
Charles Tupper. Breaks had been made in the Liberal ranks also by the
death in 1892 of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie and the withdrawal of the
Hon. Edward Blake from Canadian politics to accept a seat in the British
parliament as a member of the Home Rule party. But the appeal made to
the electors in 1896 resulted in a decisive victory for the Liberal
party, and marked the beginning of a long period of Liberal rule.
Laurier.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier (q.v.) became prime minister, and strengthened the
cabinet which he formed by drawing into it from provincial politics the
premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The administration
thus established underwent many changes, but after winning three general
elections it was still in power in 1909. The period of Sir Wilfrid
Laurier's rule was one of striking progress in material growth, and a
marked development of national feeling. While the federation of the
provinces favoured the growth of a strong sentiment of Canadian
individuality, the result of unification had been to strengthen
decidedly the ties that bind the country to the empire. This was as true
under Liberal as under Conservative auspices--as Canadians understood
the meaning of these party names. The outbreak of the South African war
in 1899 furnished an occasion for a practical display of Canadian
loyalty to imperial interests. Three contingents of troops were
despatched to the seat of war and took an active part in the events
which finally secured the triumph of the British arms. These forces were
supplemented by a regiment of Canadian horse raised and equipped at the
sole expense of Lord Strathcona, the high commissioner of the Dominion
in London. The same spirit was illustrated in other ways. In bringing
about a system of penny postage throughout the empire; in forwarding the
construction of the Pacific cable to secure close and safe imperial
telegraphic connexion; in creating rapid and efficient lines of
steamship communication with the motherland and all the colonies; in
granting tariff preference to British goods and in striving for
preferential treatment of inter-imperial trade; in assuming
responsibility for imperial defence at the two important stations of
Halifax and Esquimalt,--Canada, under the guidance of Sir Wilfrid
Laurier and his party, took a leading part and showed a truly national
spirit.
Canadian expansion.
The opening years of the 20th century were marked by a prolonged period
of great prosperity. A steady stream of emigrants from Europe and the
United States, sometimes rising in number to 300,000 in a single year,
began to occupy the vast western prairies. So considerable was the
growth of this section of the Dominion that in 1905 it was found
necessary to form two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, from the
North-West Territories, the area of each being 275,000 sq. m. Each
province has a lieutenant-governor and a single legislative chamber,
with a representation of four members in the Senate and five in the
House of Commons of the Dominion parliament. The control of the public
lands is retained by the general government on the ground that it has
been responsible for the development of the country by railway
construction and emigration. With the rapid increase of population,
production in Canada also greatly increased; exports, imports and
revenue constantly expanded, and capital, finding abundant and
profitable employment, began to flow freely into the country for further
industrial development. New and great railway undertakings were a marked
feature of this period. The Canadian Pacific system was extended until
it included 12,000 m. of line. The Canadian Northern railway, already
constructed from the Great Lakes westward to the neighbourhood of the
Rockies, and with water and rail connexions reaching eastward to Quebec,
began to transform itself into a complete transcontinental system, with
an extension to the Hudson Bay. That this line owed its inception and
construction chiefly to the joint enterprise of two private individuals,
Messrs Mackenzie and Mann, was a striking proof of the industrial
capacities of the country. To a still more ambitious line, the Grand
Trunk Pacific, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, aiming at
extensive steamship connexion on both oceans, and closely associated
with the Grand Trunk system of Ontario and Quebec, the government of
Canada gave liberal support as a national undertaking. The eastern
section of 1875 m., extending from Winnipeg to Moncton, where connexion
is secured with the winter ports of Halifax and St John, was, under the
act of incorporation, to be built by the government, and then leased for
fifty years, under certain conditions, to the Grand Trunk Pacific
Company. The western portion, of 1480 m., from Winnipeg to the Pacific,
was to be built, owned and operated by the company itself, the
government guaranteeing bonds to the extent of 75% of the whole cost of
construction. The discovery of large deposits of nickel at Sudbury; of
extremely rich gold mines on the head-waters of the Yukon, in a region
previously considered well-nigh worthless for human habitation; of
extensive areas of gold, copper and silver ores in the mountain regions
of British Columbia; of immense coal deposits in the Crow's Nest Pass of
the same province and on the prairies; of veins of silver and cobalt of
extraordinary richness in northern Ontario--all deeply affected the
industrial condition of the country and illustrated the vastness of its
undeveloped resources. The use of wood-pulp in the manufacture of paper
gave a greatly enhanced value to many millions of acres of northern
forest country. The application of electricity to purposes of
manufacture and transportation made the waterfalls and rapids in which
the country abounds the source of an almost unlimited supply of energy
capable of easy distribution for industrial purposes over wide areas.
Relations with the United States.
Since confederation a series of attempts has been made with varying
degrees of success to settle the questions in dispute between the
Dominion and the United States, naturally arising from the fact that
they divide between them the control of nearly the whole of a large
continent and its adjoining waters. Considering the vastness of the
interests involved, there is much cause for satisfaction in the fact
that these differences have been settled by peaceful arbitrament rather
than by that recourse to force which has so often marked the
delimitation of rights and territory on other continents The Washington
Treaty of 1871 has already been referred to. Its clauses dealing with
the fisheries and trade lasted for fourteen years, and were then
abrogated by the action of the United States. Various proposals on the
part of Canada for a renewal of the reciprocity were not entertained.
After 1885 Canada was therefore compelled to fall back upon the treaty
of 1818 as the guarantee of her fishing rights. It became necessary to
enforce the terms of that convention, under which the fishermen of the
United States could not pursue their avocations within the three miles'
limit, tranship cargoes of fish in Canadian ports, or enter them except
for shelter, water, wood or repairs. On account of infractions of the
treaty many vessels were seized and some were condemned. In 1887 a
special commission was appointed to deal with the question. On this
commission Mr Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Sackville West and Sir Charles
Tupper represented British and Canadian interests; Secretary T.F.
Bayard, Mr W. le B. Putnam and Mr James B. Angell acted for the United
States. The commission succeeded in agreeing to the terms of a treaty,
which was recommended to Congress by President Cleveland as supplying "a
satisfactory, practical and final adjustment, upon a basis honourable
and just to both parties, of the difficult and vexed questions to which
it relates." This agreement, known as the Chamberlain-Bayard treaty, was
rejected by the Senate, and as a consequence it became necessary to
carry on the fisheries under a _modus vivendi_ renewed annually.
In 1886 a difference about international rights on the high seas arose
on the Pacific coast in connexion with the seal fisheries of Bering Sea.
In that year several schooners, fitted out in British Columbia for the
capture of seals in the North Pacific, were seized by a United States
cutter at a distance of 60 m. from the nearest land, the officers were
imprisoned and fined, and the vessels themselves subjected to
forfeiture. The British government at once protested against this
infraction of international right, and through long and troublesome
negotiations firmly upheld Canada's claims in the matter. The dispute
was finally referred to a court of arbitration, on which Sir John
Thompson, premier of the Dominion, sat as one of the British
arbitrators. It was decided that the United States had no jurisdiction
in the Bering Sea beyond the three miles' limit, but the court also made
regulations to prevent the wholesale slaughter of fur-bearing seals. The
sum of $463,454 was finally awarded as compensation to the Canadian
sealers who had been unlawfully seized and punished. This sum was paid
by the United States in 1898.
As the result of communications during 1897 between Sir Wilfrid Laurier
and Secretary Sherman, the governments of Great Britain and the United
States agreed to the appointment of a joint high commission, with a view
of settling all outstanding differences between the United States and
Canada. The commission, which included three members of the Canadian
cabinet and a representative of Newfoundland, and of which Lord
Herschell was appointed chairman, met at Quebec on the 23rd of August
1898. The sessions continued in Quebec at intervals until the 10th of
October, when the commission adjourned to meet in Washington on the 1st
of November, where the discussions were renewed for some weeks. Mr
Nelson Dingley, an American member of the commission, died during the
month of January, as did the chairman, Lord Herschell, in March, as the
result of an accident, soon after the close of the sittings of the
commission. The Alaskan boundary, the Atlantic and inland fisheries, the
alien labour law, the bonding privilege, the seal fishery in the Bering
Sea and reciprocity of trade in certain products were among the subjects
considered by the commission. On several of these points much progress
was made towards a settlement, but a divergence of opinion as to the
methods by which the Alaskan boundary should be determined put an end
for the time to the negotiations.
In 1903 an agreement was reached by which the question of this boundary,
which depended on the interpretation put upon the treaty of 1825 between
Russia and England, should be submitted to a commission consisting of
"six impartial jurists of repute," three British and three American. The
British commissioners appointed were: Lord Alverstone, lord chief
justice of England; Sir Louis Jette, K.C., of Quebec; and A.B.
Aylesworth, K.C., of Toronto. On the American side were appointed: the
Hon. Henry C. Lodge, senator for Massachusetts; the Hon. Elihu Root,
secretary of war for the United States government; and Senator George
Turner. Canadians could not be persuaded that the American members
fulfilled the condition of being "impartial jurists," and protest was
made, but, though the imperial government also expressed surprise, no
change in the appointments was effected. The commission met in London,
and announced its decision in October. This was distinctly unfavourable
to Canada's claims, since it excluded Canadians from all ocean inlets as
far south as the Portland Channel, and in that channel gave to Canada
only two of the four islands claimed. A statement made by the Canadian
commissioners, who refused to sign the report, of an unexplained change
of opinion on the part of Lord Alverstone, produced a widespread
impression for a time that his decision in favour of American claims was
diplomatic rather than judicial. Later Canadian opinion, however, came
to regard the decision of the commission as a reasonable compromise. The
irritation caused by the decision gradually subsided, but at the moment
it led to strong expressions on the part of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and
others in favour of securing for Canada a fuller power of making her own
treaties. While the power of making treaties must rest ultimately in the
hands that can enforce them, the tendency to give the colonies chiefly
interested a larger voice in international arrangements had become
inevitable. The mission of a Canadian cabinet minister, the Hon. R.
Lemieux, to Japan in 1907, to settle Canadian difficulties with that
country, illustrated the change of diplomatic system in progress.
Education.
Under the British North American Act the control of education was
reserved for the provincial governments, with a stipulation that all
rights enjoyed by denominational schools at the time of confederation
should be respected. Provincial control has caused some diversity of
management; the interpretation of the denominational agreement has led
to acute differences of opinion which have invaded the field of
politics. In all the provinces elementary, and in some cases secondary,
education is free, the funds for its support being derived from local
taxation and from government grants. The highly organized school system
of Ontario is directed by a minister of education, who is a member of
the provincial cabinet. The other provinces have boards of education,
and superintendents who act under the direction of the provincial
legislatures. In Quebec the Roman Catholic schools, which constitute the
majority, are chiefly controlled by the local clergy of that church. The
Protestant schools are managed by a separate board. In Ontario as well
as in Quebec separate schools are allowed to Roman Catholics. In Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and British
Columbia the public schools are strictly undenominational. This position
was only established in New Brunswick and Manitoba after violent
political struggles, and frequent appeals to the highest courts of the
empire for decisions on questions of federal or provincial jurisdiction.
The right of having separate schools has been extended to the newly
constituted provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Secondary education is provided for by high schools and collegiate
institutes in all towns and cities, and by large residential institutions
at various centres, conducted on the principle of the English public
schools. The largest of these is Upper Canada College at Toronto. Each
province has a number of normal and model schools for the training of
teachers. For higher education there are also abundant facilities. M'Gill
University at Montreal has been enlarged and splendidly endowed by the
munificence of a few private individuals, Toronto University by the
provincial legislature of Ontario; Queen's University at Kingston largely
by the support of its own graduates and friends. University work in the
maritime provinces, instead of being concentrated, as it might well be,
in one powerful institution, is distributed among five small, but within
their range efficient universities. The agricultural college at Guelph
and the experimental farms maintained by the federal government give
excellent training and scientific assistance to farmers. Sir William
Macdonald in 1908 built and endowed, at an expenditure of at least
£700,000, an agricultural college and normal school at St Anne's, near
Montreal. While the older universities have increased greatly in
influence and efficiency, the following new foundations have been made
since confederation:--University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, 1877;
Presbyterian College, Winnipeg, 1870; Methodist College, Winnipeg, 1888;
Wesleyan College, Montreal, 1873; Presbyterian College, Montreal, 1868;
School of Practical Science, Toronto, 1877; Royal Military College,
Kingston, 1875; M'Master University, Toronto, 1888. All the larger
universities have schools of medicine in affiliation, and have the power
of conferring medical degrees. Since 1877 Canadian degrees have been
recognized by the Medical Council of Great Britain.
Indian tribes.
In her treatment of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country (numbering
93,318 in 1901) Canada has met with conspicuous success. Since the
advance of civilization and indiscriminate slaughter have deprived them
of the bison, so long their natural means of subsistence, the north-west
tribes have been maintained chiefly at the expense of the country. As a
result of the great care now used in watching over them there has been a
small but steady increase in their numbers. Industrial and boarding
schools, established in several of the provinces, by separating the
children from the degrading influences of their home life, have proved
more effectual than day schools for training them in the habits and
ideas of a higher civilization. (See INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN.)
Constitution.
The constitution of the Dominion embodies the first attempt made to
adapt British principles and methods of government to a federal system.
The chief executive authority is vested in the sovereign, as is the
supreme command of the military and naval forces. The governor-general
represents, and fulfils the functions of, the crown, which appoints him.
He holds office for five years, and his powers are strictly limited, as
in the case of the sovereign, all executive acts being done on the
advice of his cabinet, the members of which hold office only so long as
they retain the confidence of the people as expressed by their
representatives in parliament. The governor-general has, however, the
independent right to withhold his assent to any bill which he considers
in conflict with imperial interests. The following governors-general
have represented the crown since the federation of the provinces, with
the year of their appointment: Viscount Monck, 1867; Sir John Young
(afterwards Baron Lisgar), 1868; the earl of Dufferin, 1872; the
marquess of Lome (afterwards duke of Argyll), 1878; the marquess of
Lansdowne, 1883; Lord Stanley of Preston (afterwards earl of Derby),
1888; the earl of Aberdeen, 1893; the earl of Minto, 1898; Earl Grey,
1904. The upper house, or Senate, is composed of members who hold office
for life and are nominated by the governor-general in council. It
originally consisted of 72 members, 24 from Quebec, 24 from Ontario, and
24 from the maritime provinces, but this number has been from time to
time slightly increased as new provinces have been added. The House of
Commons consists of representatives elected directly by the people. The
number of members, originally 196, is subject to change after each
decennial census. The basis adopted in the British North America Act is
that Quebec shall always have 65 representatives, and each of the other
provinces such a number as will give the same proportion of members to
its population as the number 65 bears to the population of Quebec at
each census. In 1908 the number of members was 218.
Members of the Senate and of the House of Commons receive an annual
indemnity of $2500, with a travelling allowance. Legislation brought
forward in 1906 introduced an innovation in assigning a salary of $7000
to the recognized leader of the Opposition, and pensions amounting to
half their official income to ex-cabinet ministers who have occupied
their posts for five consecutive years. This pension clause has since
been repealed. One principal object of the framers of the Canadian
constitution was to establish a strong central government. An opposite
plan was therefore adopted to that employed in the system of the United
States, where the federal government enjoys only the powers granted to
it by the sovereign states. The British North America Act assigns to the
different provinces, as to the central parliament, their spheres of
control, but all residuary powers are given to the general government.
Within these limitations the provincial assemblies have a wide range of
legislative power. In Nova Scotia and Quebec the bicameral system of an
upper and lower house is retained; in the other provinces legislation is
left to a single representative assembly. For purely local matters
municipal institutions are organized to cover counties and townships,
cities and towns, all based on an exceedingly democratic franchise.
The creation of a supreme court engaged the attention of Sir John
Macdonald in the early years after federation, but was only finally
accomplished in 1876, during the premiership of Alexander Mackenzie.
This court is presided over by a chief justice, with five puisne judges,
and has appellate civil and criminal jurisdiction for the Dominion. By
an act passed in 1891 the government has power to refer to the supreme
court any important question of law affecting the public interest. The
right of appeal from the supreme court, thus constituted, to the
judicial committee of the privy council marks, in questions judicial,
Canada's place as a part of the British empire.
The appointment, first made in 1897, of the chief justice of Canada,
along with the chief justices of Cape Colony and South Australia, as
colonial members of the judicial committee still further established the
position of that body as the final court of appeal for the British
people. The grave questions of respective jurisdiction which have from
time to time arisen between the federal and provincial governments have
for the most part been settled by appeal to one or both of these
judicial bodies. Some of these questions have played a considerable part
in Canadian politics, but are of too complicated a nature to be dealt
with in the present brief sketch. They have generally consisted in the
assertion of provincial rights against federal authority. The decision
of the courts has always been accepted as authoritative and final.
An excellent bibliography of Canadian history will be found in the
volume _Literature of American History_, published by the American
Library Association. The annual _Review of Historical Publications
Relating to Canada_, published by the University of Toronto, gives a
critical survey of the works on Canadian topics appearing from year to
year. (G. R. P.)
LITERATURE
1. _English-Canadian Literature_ is marked by the weaknesses as well as
the merits of colonial life. The struggle for existence, the conquering
of the wilderness, has left scant room for broad culture or scholarship,
and the very fact that Canada is a colony, however free to control her
own affairs, has stood in the way of the creation of anything like a
national literature. And yet, while Canada's intellectual product is
essentially an offshoot of the parent literature of England, it is not
entirely devoid of originality, either in manner or matter. There is in
much of it a spirit of freedom and youthful vigour characteristic of the
country. It is marked by the wholesomeness of Canadian life and Canadian
ideals, and the optimism of a land of limitless potentialities.
The first few decades of the period of British rule were lean years
indeed so far as native literature is concerned. This period of unrest
gave birth to little beyond a flood of political pamphlets, of no
present value save as material for the historian. We may perhaps except
the able though thoroughly partisan writings of Sir John Beverley
Robinson and Bishop Strachan on the one side, and Robert Fleming Gourlay
and William Lyon Mackenzie on the other. In the far West, however, a
little group of adventurous fur-traders, of whom Sir Alexander
Mackenzie, David Thompson, Alexander Henry and Daniel Williams Harmon
may be taken as conspicuous types, were unfolding the vast expanse of
the future dominion. They were men of action, not of words, and had no
thought of literary fame, but their absorbingly interesting journals
are none the less an essential part of the literature of the country.
Barring the work of Francis Parkman, who was not a Canadian, no history
of the first rank has yet been written in or of Canada. Canadian
historians have not merely lacked so far the genius for really great
historical work, but they have lacked the point of view; they have stood
too close to their subject to get the true perspective. At the same time
they have brought together invaluable material for the great historian
of the future. Robert Christie's _History of Lower Canada_ (1848-1854)
was the first serious attempt to deal with the period of British rule.
William Kingsford's (1819-1898) ambitious work, in ten volumes, comes
down like Christie's to the Union of 1841, but goes back to the very
beginnings of Canadian history. In the main it is impartial and
accurate, but the style is heavy and sometimes slovenly. J.C. Dent's
(1841-1888) _Last Forty Years_ (1880) is practically a continuation of
Kingsford. Dent also wrote an interesting though one-sided account of
the rebellion of 1837. Histories of the maritime provinces have been
written by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Beamish Murdoch and James Hannay.
Haliburton's is much the best of the three. The brief but stirring
history of western Canada has been told by Alexander Begg (1840-1898);
and George Bryce (b. 1844) and Beckles Willson (b. 1869) have written
the story of the Hudson's Bay Company. Much scholarship and research
have been devoted to local and special historical subjects, a notable
example of which is Arthur Doughty's exhaustive work on the siege of
Quebec. J. McMullen (b. 1820), Charles Roberts (b. 1860) and Sir John
Bourinot (1837-1902) have written brief and popular histories, covering
the whole field of Canadian history more or less adequately. Alpheus
Todd's (1821-1884) _Parliamentary Government in England_ (1867-1869) and
_Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies_ (1880) are standard
works, as is also Bourinot's _Parliamentary Procedure and Practice_
(1884).
Biography has been devoted mainly to political subjects. The best of
these are Joseph Pope's _Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald_ (1894), W.D. le
Sueur's _Frontenac_ (1906), Sir John Bourinot's _Lord Elgin_ (1905),
Jean McIlwraith's _Sir Frederick Haldimand_ (1904), D.C. Scott's _John
Graves Simcoe_ (1905), A.D. de Celles' _Papineau and Cartier_ (1904),
Charles Lindsey's _William Lyon Mackenzie_ (1862), J.W. Longley's
_Joseph Howe_ (1905) and J.S. Willison's _Sir Wilfrid Laurier_ (1903).
In _belles lettres_ very little has been accomplished, unless we may
count Goldwin Smith (q.v.) as a Canadian. As a scholar, a thinker, and a
master of pure English he has exerted a marked influence upon Canadian
literature and Canadian life.
While mediocrity is the prevailing characteristic of most of what passes
for poetry in Canada, a few writers have risen to a higher level. The
conditions of Canadian life have not been favourable to the birth of
great poets, but within the limits of their song such men as Archibald
Lampman (1861-1891), William Wilfred Campbell (b. 1861), Charles
Roberts, Bliss Carman (b. 1861) and George Frederick Cameron have
written lines that are well worth remembering. Lampman's poetry is the
most finished and musical. He fell short of being a truly great poet,
inasmuch as great poetry must, which his does not, touch life at many
points, but his verses are marked by the qualities that belonged to the
man--sincerity, purity, seriousness. Campbell's poetry, in spite of a
certain lack of compression, is full of dramatic vigour: Roberts has put
some of his best work into sonnets and short lyrics, while Carman has
been very successful with the ballad, the untrammelled swing and sweep
of which he has finely caught; the simplicity and severity of Cameron's
style won the commendation of even so exacting a critic as Matthew
Arnold. One remarkable drama--Charles Heavysege's (1816-1876) _Saul_
(1857)--belongs to Canadian literature. Though unequal in execution, it
contains passages of exceptional beauty and power. The sweetness and
maturity of Isabella Valency Crawford's (1851-1887) verse are also very
worthy of remembrance. The _habitant_ poems of Dr W.H. Drummond
(1854-1907) stand in a class by themselves, between English and French
Canadian literature, presenting the simple life of the _habitant_ with
unique humour and picturesqueness.
The first distinctively Canadian novel was John Richardson's (1796-1852)
_Wacousta_ (1832), a stirring tale of the war of 1812. Richardson
afterwards wrote half a dozen other romances, dealing chiefly with
incidents in Canadian history. Susanna Moodie (1803-1885) and Katharine
Parr Traill (1802-1899), sisters of Agnes Strickland, contributed novels
and tales to one of the earliest and best of Canadian magazines, the
_Literary Garland_ (1838-1847). _The Golden Dog_, William Kirby's
(1817-1906) fascinating romance of old Quebec, appeared in 1877, in a
pirated edition. Twenty years later the first authorized edition was
published. James de Mille (1833-1880) was the author of some thirty
novels, the best of which is _Helena's Household_ (1868), a story of
Rome in the 1st century. _The Dodge Club_ (1869), a humorous book of
travel, appeared, curiously enough, a few months before _Innocents
Abroad_. De Mille's posthumous novel, _A Strange Manuscript found in a
Copper Cylinder_ (1888), describes a singular race whose cardinal
doctrine is that poverty is honourable and wealth the reverse. Sir
Gilbert Parker (b. 1862) stands first among contemporary Canadian
novelists. He has made admirable use in many of his novels of the
inexhaustible stores of romantic and dramatic material that lie buried
in forgotten pages of Canadian history. Of later Canadian novelists
mention may be made of Sara Jeannette Duncan (Mrs Everard Cotes, b.
1862), Ralph Connor (Charles W. Gordon, b. 1866), Agnes C. Laut (b.
1872), W.A. Fraser (b. 1859) and Ernest Thompson Seton (b. 1860). Thomas
Chandler Haliburton (q.v.) stands in a class by himself. In many
respects his is the most striking figure in Canadian literature. He is
best known as a humorist, and as a humorist he ranks with the creators
of "My Uncle Toby" and "Pickwick." But there is more than humour in
Haliburton's books. He lacked, in fact, but one thing to make him a
great novelist: he had no conception of how to construct a plot. But he
knew human nature, and knew it intimately in all its phases; he could
construct a character and endow it with life; his people talk naturally
and to the point; and many of his descriptive passages are admirable.
Those who read Haliburton's books only for the sake of the humour will
miss much of their value. His inimitable _Clockmaker_ (1837), as well as
the later books, _The Old Judge_ (1849), _The Attaché_ (1843), _Wise
Saws and Modern Instances_ (1853) and _Nature and Human Nature_ (1855),
are mirrors of colonial life and character.
For general treatment of English-Canadian literature, reference may be
made to Sir John Bourinot's _Intellectual Development of the Canadian
People_ (1881); G. Mercer Adam's _Outline History of Canadian
Literature_ (1887); "Native Thought and Literature," in J.E. Collins's
_Life of Sir John A. Macdonald_ (1883); "Canadian Literature," by J.M.
Oxley, in the _Encyclopaedia Americana_, vol. ix. (1904); A.
MacMurchy's _Handbook of Canadian Literature_ (1906); and articles by
J. Castell Hopkins, John Reade, A.B. de Mille and Thomas O'Hagan, in
vol. v. of _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the Country_ (1898-1900);
also to Henry J. Morgan's _Bibliotheca Canadensis_ (1867) and
_Canadian Men and Women of the Time_ (1898); W.D. Lighthall, _Songs of
the Great Dominion_; Theodore Rand's _Treasury of Canadian Verse_
(1900); C.C. James's _Bibliography of Canadian Verse_ (1898); L.E.
Horning's and L.J. Burpee's _Bibliography of Canadian Fiction_ (1904);
S.E. Dawson's _Prose Writers of Canada_ (1901); "Canadian Poetry," by
J.A. Cooper, in _The National_, 29, p. 364; "Recent Canadian Fiction,"
by L.J. Burpee, in _The Forum_, August 1899. For individual authors,
see Haliburton's _A Centenary Chaplet_ (1897), with a bibliography;
"Haliburton," by F. Blake Crofton, in _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the
Country_; C.H. Farnham's _Life of Francis Parkman_ and H.D. Sedgwick's
_Francis Parkman_ (1901); and articles on "Parkman," by E.L. Godkin,
in _The Nation_, 71, p. 441; by Justin Winsor in _The Atlantic_, 73,
p. 660; by W.D. Howells, _The Atlantic_, 34, p. 602; by John Fiske,
_The Atlantic_, 73, p. 664; by J.B. Gilder in _The Critic_, 23, p.
322; "Goldwin Smith as a Critic," by H. Spencer, _Contemp. Review_,
41, p. 519; "Goldwin Smith's Historical Works," by C.E. Norton, _North
American Review_, 99, p. 523; "Poetry of Charles Heavysege," by Bayard
Taylor, _Atlantic_, 16, p. 412; "Charles Heavysege," by L.J. Burpee,
in _Trans. Royal Society of Canada_, 1901; "Archibald Lampman," by
W.D. Howells, _Literature_ (N.Y.), 4, p. 217; "Archibald Lampman," by
L.J. Burpee, in _North American Notes and Queries_ (Quebec), August
and September 1900; "Poetry of Bliss Carman," by J.P. Mowbray,
_Critic_, 41, p. 308; "Isabella Valency Crawford," in _Poet-Lore_
(Boston), xiii. No. 4; _Roberts and the Influences of his Time_
(1906), by James Cappon; "William Wilfred Campbell," _Sewanee Review_,
October 1900; "Kingsford's History of Canada," by G.M. Wrong, _N.A.
Review_, I p. 550; "Books of Gilbert Parker," by C.A. Pratt, _Critic_,
33, p. 271. (L. J. B.)
2. _French-Canadian Literature_ at the opening of the 20th century might
be described as entirely the work of two generations, and it was
separated from the old régime by three more generations whose racial
sentiment only found expression in the traditional songs and tales which
their forefathers of the 17th century had brought over from the _mère
patrie_. Folk-lore has always been the most essentially French of all
imaginative influences in Canadian life; and the songs are the
quintessence of the lore. Not that the folk-songs have no local
variants. Indian words, like _moccasin_ and _toboggan_, are often
introduced. French forms are freely turned into pure Canadianisms, like
_cageux_, raftsman, _boucane_, brushwood smoke, _portage_, &c. New
characters, which appeal more directly to the local audience, sometimes
supplant old ones, like the _quatre vieux sauvages_ who have ousted the
time-honoured _quatre-z-officiers_ from the Canadian version of
_Malbrouk_. There are even a few entire songs of transatlantic origin.
But all these variants together are mere stray curios among the crowding
souvenirs of the old home over sea. No other bridge can rival _le Pont
d'Avignon_. "_Ici_" in _C'est le ban vin qui danse ici_ can be nowhere
else but in old France--_le ban vin_ alone proves this. And the Canadian
folk-singer, though in a land of myriad springs, still goes _à la claire
fontaine_ of his ancestral fancy; while the lullabies his mother sang
him, like the love-songs with which he serenades his _blonde_, were
nearly all sung throughout the Normandy of _le Grand Monarque_. The
_habitant_ was separated from old-world changes two centuries ago by
difference of place and circumstances, while he has hitherto been
safeguarded from many new-world changes by the segregative influences of
race, religion, language and custom; and so his folk-lore still remains
the intimate _alter et idem_ of what it was in the days of the great
pioneers. It is no longer a living spirit among the people at large; but
in secluded villages and "back concessions" one can still hear some
charming melodies as old and pure as the verses to which they are sung,
and even a few quaint survivals of Gregorian tunes. The best collection,
more particularly from the musical point of view, is _Les Chansons
populaires du Canada_, started by Ernest Gagnon (1st ed. 1865).
Race-patriotism is the distinguishing characteristic of French-Canadian
literature, which is so deeply rooted in national politics that L.J.
Papineau, the most insistent demagogue of 1837, must certainly be named
among the founders, for the sake of speeches which came before written
works both in point of time and popular esteem. Only 360 volumes had
been published during 80 years, when, in 1845, the first famous book
appeared--François Xavier Garneau's (1809-1866) _Histoire du Canada_. It
had immense success in Canada, was favourably noticed in France, and has
influenced all succeeding men of letters. Unfortunately, the imperfect
data on which it is based, and the too exclusively patriotic spirit in
which it is written, prevent it from being an authoritative history: the
author himself declares "_Vous verrez si la défaite de nos ancêtres ne
vaut pas toutes las victoires_." But it is of far-reaching importance as
the first great literary stimulus to racial self-respect. "_Le Canada
français avait perdu ses Ictlres de noblesse; Garneau les lui a
rendues_." F.X. Garneau is also remembered for his poems, and he was
followed by his son Alfred Garneau (1836-1904).
A. Gérin-Lajoie was a mere lad when the exile of some compatriots
inspired _Le Canadien errant_, which immediately became a universal
folk-song. Many years later he wrote discriminatingly about those _Dix
ans au Canada_ (1888) that saw the establishment of responsible
government. But his fame rests on _Jean Rivard_ (1874), the prose
bucolic of the _habitant_. The hero, left at the head of a fatherless
family of twelve when nearly through college, turns from the glut of
graduates swarming round the prospects of professional city-bred
careers, steadfastly wrests a home from the wilderness, helps his
brothers and sisters, marries a _habitante_ fit for the wife of a
pioneer, brings up a large family, and founds a settlement which grows
into several parishes and finally becomes the centre of the electoral
district of "Rivardville," which returns him to parliament. These simple
and earnest _Scènes de la vie réelle_ are an appealing revelation of
that eternal secret of the soil which every people wishing to have a
country of its own must early lay to heart; and _Jean Rivard, le
défricheur_, will always remain the eponym of the new _colons_ of the
19th century.
Philippe de Gaspé's historical novel, _Les Anciens Canadiens_ (1863), is
the complement of Garneau and Gérin-Lajoie. Everything about the
author's life helped him to write this book. Born in 1784, and brought
up among reminiscent eye-witnesses of the old régime, he was an eager
listener, with a wonderful memory and whole-hearted pride in the glories
of his race and family, a kindly _seigneur_, who loved and was loved by
all his _censitaires_, a keen observer of many changing systems, down to
the final Confederation of 1867, and a man who had felt both extremes of
fortune (_Mémoires_, 1866). The story rambles rather far from its
well-worn plot. But these very digressions give the book its intimate
and abiding charm; for they keep the reader in close personal touch with
every side of Canadian life, with songs and tales and homely forms of
speech, with the best features of seigniorial times and the strong
guidance of an ardent church, with _voyageurs, coureurs de bois_,
Indians, soldiers, sailors and all the strenuous adventurers of a wild,
new, giant world. The poet of this little band of authors was Octave
Crémazie, a Quebec bookseller, who failed in business and spent his last
years as a penniless exile in France. He is usually rather too
derivative, he lacks the saving grace of style, and even his best
Canadian poems hardly rise above fervent occasional verse. Yet he became
a national poet, because he was the first to celebrate occasions of
deeply felt popular emotion in acceptable rhyme, and he will always
remain one because each occasion touched some lasting aspiration of his
race. He sings what Garneau recounts--the love of mother country, mother
church and Canada. The _Guerre de Crimée, Guerre d'ltalie_, even
_Castel-fidardo_, are duly chronicled. An ode on _Mgr. de
Montmorency-Laval_, first bishop of Quebec, brings him nearer to his
proper themes, which are found in full perfection in the _Chant du vieux
soldat canadien_, composed in 1856 to honour the first French man-of-war
that visited British Quebec, and _Le Drapeau de Carillon_ (1858), a
centennial paean for Montcalm's Canadians at Ticonderoga. Much of the
mature work of this first generation, and of the juvenilia of the
second, appeared in _Les Soirées canadiennes_ and _Le Foyer canadien_,
founded in 1862 and 1863 respectively. The abbé Ferland was an
enthusiastic editor and historian, and Etienne Parent should be
remembered as the first Canadian philosopher.
At Confederation many eager followers began to take up the work which
the founders were laying down. The abbé Casgrain devoted a life-time to
making the French-Canadians appear as the chosen people of new-world
history; but, though an able advocate, he spoilt a really good case by
trying to prove too much. His _Pèlerinage au pays d'Evangéline_ (1888)
is a splendid defence of the unfortunate Acadians; and all his books
attract the reader by their charm of style and personality. But his
_Montcalm et Lévis_ (1891) and other works on the conquest, are all
warped by a strong bias against both Wolfe and Montcalm, and in favour
of Vandreuil, the Canadian-born governor; while they show an inadequate
grasp of military problems, and practically ignore the vast determining
factor of sea-power altogether. Benjamin Sulte's comprehensive _Histoire
des Canadiens-français_ (1882) is a well-written, many-sided work.
Thomas Chapais' monographs are as firmly grounded as they are finely
expressed; his _Jean Talon_ (1904) is of prime importance; and his
_Montcalm_ (1901) is the generous _amende honorable_ paid by
French-Canadian literature to a much misrepresented, but admirably
wrought, career. A. Gérin-Lajoie's cry of "back to the land" was
successfully adapted to modern developments in _Le Saguenay_ (1896) and
_L'Outaouais supérieur_ (1889) by Arthur Buies, who showed what immense
inland breadths of country lay open to suitable "Jean Rivards" from the
older settlements along the St Lawrence. In oratory, which most
French-Canadians admire beyond all other forms of verbal art, Sir
Wilfrid Laurier has greatly surpassed L.J. Papineau, by dealing with
more complex questions, taking a higher point of view, and expressing
himself with a much apter flexibility of style.
Among later poets may be mentioned Pierre Chauveau (1820-1890), Louis
Fiset, (b. 1827), and Adolphe Poisson (b. 1849). Louis Fréchette
(1830-1908) has, however, long been the only poet with a reputation
outside of Canada. In 1879 _Les Fleurs boréales_ won the Prix Monthyon
from the French Academy. In 1887 _La Légende d'un peuple_ became the
acknowledged epic of a race. He occasionally nods; is rather strident in
the patriotic vein; and too often answers the untoward call of rhetoric
when his subject is about to soar into the heights of poetry. But a rich
vocabulary, a mastery of verse-forms quite beyond the range of Crémazie,
real originality of conception, individual distinction of style, deep
insight into the soul of his people, and, still more, the glow of
warm-blooded life pulsing through the whole poem, all combine to give
him the greatest place at home and an important one in the world at
large. _Les Vengeances_ (1875), by Leon Pamphile Le May, and _Les
Aspirations_ (1904), by W. Chapman, worthily represent the older and
younger contemporaries. Dr Nérée Beauchemin keeps within somewhat narrow
limits in _Les Floraisons matutinales_ (1897); but within them he shows
true poetic genius, a fine sense of rhythm, rhyme and verbal melody, a
_curiosa felicitas_ of epithet and phrase, and so sure an eye for local
colour that a stranger could choose no better guide to the imaginative
life of Canada.
A Canadian drama hardly exists; among its best works are the pleasantly
epigrammatic plays of F.G. Marchand. Novels are not yet much in vogue;
though Madame Conan's _L'Oublié_ (1902) has been crowned by the Academy;
while Dr Choquette's _Les Ribaud_ (1898) is a good dramatic story, and
his _Claude Paysan_ (1899) is an admirably simple idyllic tale of the
hopeless love of a soil-bound _habitant_, told with intense natural
feeling and fine artistic reserve. Chief-Justice Routhier, a most
accomplished occasional writer, is very French-Canadian when arraigning
_Les Grands Drames_ of the classics (1889) before his ecclesiastical
court and finding them guilty of Paganism.
The best bibliographies are Philéas Gagnon's _Essai de bibliographie
canadienne_ (1895), and Dr N.E. Dionne's list of publications from the
earliest times in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_
for 1905. (W. Wo.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The census is taken every ten years, save in these three
provinces, where it is taken every five. Their population in 1906
was:--Manitoba, 360,000; Saskatchewan, 257,000; Alberta, 184,000.
[2] The areas assigned to Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick and British Columbia are exclusive of the territorial seas,
that to Quebec is exclusive of the Gulf of St Lawrence (though
including the islands lying within it), and that to Ontario is
exclusive of the Canadian portion of the Great Lakes. About 500,000
sq. m. belong to the Arctic region and 125,755 sq. m. are water.
[3] In Canada a city must have over 10,000 inhabitants, a town over
2000.
[4] The date of foundation is given in brackets.
CANAL (from Lat. _canalis_, "channel" and "kennel" being doublets of the
word), an artificial water course used for the drainage of low lands,
for irrigation (q.v.), or more especially for the purpose of navigation
by boats, barges or ships. Probably the first canals were made for
irrigation, but in very early times they came also to be used for
navigation, as in Assyria and Egypt. The Romans constructed various
works of the kind, and Charlemagne projected a system of waterways
connecting the Main and the Rhine with the Danube, while in China the
Grand Canal, joining the Pei-ho and Yang-tse-Kiang and constructed in
the 13th century, formed an important artery of commerce, serving also
for irrigation. But although it appears from Marco Polo that inclines
were used on the Grand Canal, these early waterways suffered in general
from the defect that no method being known of conveniently transferring
boats from one level to another they were only practicable between
points that lay on nearly the same level; and inland navigation could
not become generally useful and applicable until this defect had been
remedied by the employment of locks. Great doubts exist as to the
person, and even the nation, that first introduced locks. Some writers
attribute their invention to the Dutch, holding that nearly a century
earlier than in Italy locks were used in Holland where canals are very
numerous, owing to the favourable physical conditions. On the other
hand, the contrivance has been claimed for engineers of the Italian
school, and it is said that two brothers Domenico of Viterbo constructed
a lock-chamber enclosed by a pair of gates in 1481, and that in 1487
Leonardo da Vinci completed six locks uniting the canals of Milan. Be
that as it may, however, the introduction of locks in the 14th or 15th
century gave a new character to inland navigation and laid the basis of
its successful extension.
The Languedoc Canal (Canal du Midi) may be regarded as the pioneer of
the canals of modern Europe. Joining the Bay of Biscay and the
Mediterranean it is 148 m. long and rises 620 ft. above sea-level with
119 locks, its depth being about 6½ ft. It was designed by Baron Paul
Riquet de Bonrepos (1604-1680) and was finished in 1681. With it and the
still earlier Briare canal (1605-1642) France began that policy of canal
construction which has provided her with over 3000 m. of canals, in
addition to over 4600 m. of navigable rivers. In Russia Peter the Great
undertook the construction of a system of canals about the beginning of
the 18th century, and in Sweden a canal with locks, connecting
Eskilstuna with Lake Malar, was finished in 1606. In England the oldest
artificial canal is the Foss Dyke, a relic of the Roman occupation. It
extends from Lincoln to the river Trent near Torksey (11 m.), and formed
a continuation of the Caer Dyke, also of Roman origin but now filled up,
which ran from Lincoln to Peterborough (40 m.). Camden in his
_Britannia_ says that the Foss Dyke was deepened and to some extent
rendered navigable in 1121. Little, however, was done in making canals
in Great Britain until the middle of the 18th century, though before
that date some progress had been made in rendering some of the larger
rivers navigable. In 1759 the duke of Bridgewater obtained powers to
construct a canal between Manchester and his collieries at Worsley, and
this work, of which James Brindley was the engineer, and which was
opened for traffic in 1761, was followed by a period of great activity
in canal construction, which, however, came to an end with the
introduction of railways. According to evidence given before the royal
commission on canals in 1906 the total mileage of existing canals in the
United Kingdom was 3901. In the United States the first canal was made
in 1792-1796 at South Hadley, Massachusetts, and the canal-system,
though its expansion was checked by the growth of railways, has attained
a length of 4200 m., most of the mileage being in New York, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania. The splendid inland navigation system of Canada mainly
consists of natural lakes and rivers, and the artificial waterways are
largely "lateral" canals, cut in order to enable vessels to avoid rapids
in the rivers. (See the articles on the various countries for accounts
of the canal-systems they possess.)
The canals that were made in the early days of canal-construction were
mostly of the class known as _barge_ or _boat canals_, and owing to
their limited depth and breadth were only available for vessels of small
size. But with the growth of commerce the advantage was seen of cutting
canals of such dimensions as to enable them to accommodate sea-going
ships. Such _ship-canals_, which from an engineering point of view
chiefly differ from barge-canals in the magnitude of the works they
involve, have mostly been constructed either to shorten the voyage
between two seas by cutting through an intervening isthmus, or to
convert important inland places into seaports. An early example of the
first class is afforded by the Caledonian Canal (q.v.), while among
later ones may be mentioned the Suez Canal (q.v.), the Kaiser Wilhelm,
Nord-Ostsee or Kiel Canal, connecting Brunsbüttel at the mouth of the
Elbe with Kiel (q.v.) on the Baltic, and the various canals that have
been proposed across the isthmus that joins North and South America (see
PANAMA CANAL). Examples of the second class are the Manchester Ship
Canal and the canal that runs from Zeebrugge on the North Sea to Bruges
(q.v.).
_Construction._--In laying out a line of canal the engineer is more
restricted than in forming the route of a road or a railway. Since water
runs downhill, gradients are inadmissible, and the canal must either be
made on one uniform level or must be adapted to the general rise or fall
of the country through which it passes by being constructed in a series
of level reaches at varying heights above a chosen datum line, each
closed by a lock or some equivalent device to enable vessels to be
transferred from one to another. To avoid unduly heavy earthwork, the
reaches must closely follow the bases of hills and the windings of
valleys, but from time to time it will become necessary to cross a
sudden depression by the aid of an embankment or aqueduct, while a piece
of rising ground or a hill may involve a cutting or a tunnel. Brindley
took the Bridgewater canal over the Irwell at Barton by means of an
aqueduct of three stone arches, the centre one having a span of 63 ft.,
and T. Telford arranged that the Ellesmere canal should cross the Dee
valley at Pont-y-Cysyllte partly by embankment and partly by aqueduct.
The embankment was continued till it was 75 ft. above the ground, when
it was succeeded by an aqueduct, 1000 ft. long and 127 ft. above the
river, consisting of a cast iron trough supported on iron arches with
stone piers. Occasionally when a navigable stream has to be crossed, a
swing viaduct is necessary to allow shipping to pass. The first was that
built by Sir E. Leader Williams to replace Brindley's aqueduct at
Barton, which was only high enough to give room for barges (see
MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL). One of the earliest canal tunnels was made in
1766-1777 by Brindley at Harecastle on the Trent and Mersey canal; it is
2880 yds. long, 12 ft. high and 9 ft. wide, and has no tow-path, the
boats being propelled by men lying on their backs and pushing with their
feet against the tunnel walls ("leggers"). A second tunnel, parallel to
this but 16 ft. high and 14 ft. wide, with a tow-path, was finished by
Telford in 1827. Standedge tunnel, on the Huddersfield canal, is over 3
m. long, and is also worked by leggers.
Dimensions.
The dimensions of a canal, apart from considerations of water-supply,
are regulated by the size of the vessels which are to be used on it.
According to J.M. Rankine, the depth of water and sectional area of
waterway should be such as not to cause any material increase of the
resistance to the motion of the boats beyond what would be encountered
in open water, and he gives the following rules as fulfilling these
conditions:--
Least breadth of bottom = 2 × greatest breadth of boat.
Least depth of water = 1½ ft. + greatest draught of boat.
Least area of waterway = 6 × greatest midship section of boat.
The ordinary inland canal is commonly from 25 to 30 ft. wide at the
bottom, which is flat, and from 40 to 50 ft. at the water level, with a
depth of 4 or 5 ft., the angle of slope of the sides varying with the
nature of the soil. To retain the water in porous ground, and especially
on embankments, a strong watertight lining of puddle or tempered clay
must be provided on the bed and sides of the channel. Puddle is made of
clay which has been finely chopped up with narrow spades, water being
supplied until it is in a semi-plastic state. It is used in thin layers,
each of which is worked so as to be firmly united with the lower
stratum. The full thickness varies from 2 to 3 ft. To prevent the
erosion of the sides at the water-line by the wash from the boats, it
may be necessary to pitch them with stones or face them with brushwood.
In some of the old canals the slopes have been cut away and vertical
walls built to retain the towing-paths, with the result of adding
materially to the sectional area of the waterway.
Water supply.
A canal cannot be properly worked without a supply of water calculated
to last over the driest season of the year. If there be no natural lake
available in the district for storage and supply, or if the engineer
cannot draw upon some stream of sufficient size, he must form artificial
reservoirs in suitable situations, and the conditions which must be
attended to in selecting the positions of these and in constructing them
are the same as those for drinking-water supply, except that the purity
of the water is not a matter of moment. They must be situated at such an
elevation that the water from them may flow to the summit-level of the
canal, and if the expense of pumping is to be avoided, they must command
a sufficient catchment area to supply the loss of water from the canal
by evaporation from the surface, percolation through the bed, and
lockage. If the supply be inadequate, the draught of the boats plying on
the canal may have to be reduced in a dry season, and the consequent
decrease in the size of their cargoes will both lessen the carrying
capacity of the canal and increase the working expenses in relation to
the tonnage handled. Again, since the consumption of water in lockage
increases both with the size of the locks and the frequency with which
they are used, the difficulty of finding a sufficient water supply may
put a limit to the density of traffic possible on a canal or may
prohibit its locks from being enlarged so as to accommodate boats of the
size necessary for the economical handling of the traffic under modern
conditions. It may be pointed out that the up consumes more water than
the down traffic. An ascending boat on entering a lock displaces a
volume of water equal to its submerged capacity. The water so displaced
flows into the lower reach of the canal, and as the boat passes through
the lock is replaced by water flowing from the upper reach. A descending
boat in the same way displaces a volume of water equal to its submerged
capacity, but in this case the water flows back into the higher reach
where it is retained when the gates are closed.
Waste-weirs and stop-gates.
An essential adjunct to a canal is a sufficient number of waste-weirs to
discharge surplus water accumulating during floods, which, if not
provided with an exit, may overflow the tow-path, and cause a breach in
the banks, stoppage of the traffic, and damage to adjoining lands. The
number and positions of these waste-weirs must depend on the nature of
the country through which the canal passes. Wherever the canal crosses a
stream a waste-weir should be formed in the aqueduct; but independently
of this the engineer must consider at what points large influxes of
water may be apprehended, and must at such places form not only
waste-weirs of sufficient size to carry off the surplus, but also
artificial courses for its discharge into the nearest streams. These
waste-weirs are placed at the top water-level of the canal, so that when
a flood occurs the water flows over them and thus relieves the banks.
Stop-gates are necessary at short intervals of a few miles for the
purpose of dividing the canal into isolated reaches, so that in the
event of a breach the gates may be shut, and the discharge of water
confined to the small reach intercepted between two of them, instead of
extending throughout the whole line of canal. In broad canals these
stop-gates may be formed like the gates of locks, two pairs of gates
being made to shut in opposite directions. In small works they may be
made of thick planks slipped into grooves formed at the narrow points of
the canal under road bridges, or at contractions made at intermediate
points to receive them. Self-acting stop-gates have been tried, but have
not proved trustworthy. When repairs have to be made stop-gates allow of
the water being run off by "off-lets" from a short reach, and afterwards
restored with but little interruption of the traffic. These off-lets are
pipes placed at the level of the bottom of the canal and provided with
valves which can be opened when required. They are generally formed at
aqueducts or bridges crossing rivers, where the contents of the canal
between the stop-gates can be run off into the stream.
Locks.
Locks are chambers, constructed of wood, brickwork, masonry or concrete,
and provided with gates at each end, by the aid of which vessels are
transferred from one reach of the canal to another. To enable a boat to
ascend, the upper gates and the sluices which command the flow of water
from the upper reach are closed. The sluices at the lower end of the
lock are then opened, and when the level of the water in the lock has
fallen to that of the lower reach, the boat passes in to the lock. The
lower gates and sluices being then closed, the upper sluices are opened,
and when the water rising in the lock has floated the boat up the level
of the upper reach the upper gates are opened and it passes out. For a
descending boat the procedure is reversed. The sluices by which the lock
is filled or emptied are carried through the walls in large locks, or
consist of openings in the gates in small ones. The gates are generally
of oak, fitting into recesses of the walls when open, and closing
against sills in the lock bottom when shut. In small narrow locks
single gates only are necessary; in large locks pairs of gates are
required, fitting together at the head or "mitre-post" when closed. The
vertical timber at the end of the gate is known as the "heel-post," and
at its foot is a casting that admits an iron pivot which is fixed in the
lock bottom, and on which the gate turns. Iron straps round the head of
the heel-post are let into the lock-coping to support the gate. The
gates are opened and closed by balance beams projecting over the lock
side, by gearing or in cases where they are very large and heavy by the
direct action of a hydraulic ram. In order to economize water canal
locks are made only a few inches wider than the vessels they have to
accommodate. The English canal boat is about 70 or 75 ft. long and 7 or
8 ft. in beam; canal barges are the same length but 14 or 15 ft. in
width, so that locks which will hold one of them will admit two of the
narrower canal boats side by side. In general canal locks are just long
enough to accommodate the longest vessels using the navigation. In some
cases, however, provision is made for admitting a train of barges; such
long locks have sometimes intermediate gates by which the effective
length is reduced when a single vessel is passing. The lift of canal
locks, that is, the difference between the level of adjoining reaches,
is in general about 8 or 10 ft., but sometimes is as little as 1½ ft. On
the Canal du Centre (Belgium) there are locks with a lift of 17 ft., and
on the St Denis canal near La Villette basins in Paris there is one with
a lift of 32½ ft. In cases where a considerable difference of level has
to be surmounted the locks are placed close together in a series or
"flight," so that the lower gates of one serve also as the upper gates
of the next below. To save water, expecially where the lift is
considerable, side ponds are sometimes employed; they are reservoirs
into which a portion of the water in a lock-chamber is run, instead of
being discharged into the lower reach, and is afterwards used for
partially filling the chamber again. Double locks, that is, two locks
placed side by side and communicating by a passage which can be opened
or closed at will, also tend to save water, since each serves as a side
pond to the other. The same advantage is gained with double flights of
locks, and time also is saved since vessels can pass up and down
simultaneously.
Inclines.
A still greater economy of water can be effected by the use of inclined
planes or vertical lifts in place of locks. In China rude inclines
appear to have been used at an early date, vessels being carried down a
sloping plane of stonework by the aid of a flush of water or hauled up
it by capstans. On the Bude canal (England) this plan was adopted in an
improved form, the small flat-bottomed boats employed being fitted with
wheels to facilitate their course over the inclines. Another variant,
often adopted as an adjunct to locks where many small pleasure boats
have to be dealt with, is to fit the incline itself with rollers, upon
which the boats travel. In some cases the boats are conveyed on a
wheeled trolley or cradle running on rails; this plan was adopted on the
Morris canal, built in 1825-1831, in the case of 23 inclines having
gradients of about 1 in 10, the rise of each varying from 44 to 100 ft.
Between the Ourcq canal and the Marne, near Meaux, the difference of
level is about 40 ft., and barges weighing about 70 tons are taken from
the one to the other on a wheeled cradle weighing 35 tons by a wire rope
over an incline nearly 500 yards long. But heavy barges are apt to be
strained by being supported on cradles in this way, and to avoid this
objection they are sometimes drawn up the inclines floating in a tank or
caisson filled with water and running on wheels. This arrangement was
utilized about 1840 on the Chard canal (England), and 10 years later it
was adapted at Blackhill on the Monkland canal (Scotland) to replace a
double flight of locks, in consequence of the traffic having been
interrupted by insufficiency of water. There the height to be overcome
was 96 ft. Two pairs of rails, of 7 ft. gauge, were laid down on a
gradient of 1 in 10, and on these ran two carriages having wrought iron,
water-tight caissons with lifting gates at each end, in which the barges
floated partially but not wholly supported by water. The carriages, with
the barge and water, weighed about 80 tons each, and were arranged to
counterbalance each other, one going up as the other was going down. The
power required was provided by two high pressure steam engines of 25
h.p., driving two large drums round which was coiled, in opposite
directions, the 2-inch wire rope that hauled the caissons. An incline
constructed on the Union canal at Foxton (England) to replace 10 locks
giving a total rise of 75 ft., accommodates barges of 70 tons, or two
canal boats of 33 tons. It is in some respects like the Monkland canal
incline, but the movable caissons work on four pairs of rails on an
incline of 1 in 14, broadside on, and the boats are entirely waterborne.
Steam power is employed, with an hydraulic accumulator which enables
hydraulic power to be used in keeping the caisson in position at the top
of the incline while the boats are being moved in or out, a water-tight
joint being maintained with the final portion of the canal during the
operation. The gates in the caisson and canal are also worked by
hydraulic power. The incline is capable of passing 200 canal boats in 12
hours, and the whole plant is worked by three men.
Lifts.
Vertical lifts can only be used instead of locks with advantage at
places where the difference in level occurs in a short length of canal,
since otherwise long embankments or aqueducts would be necessary to
obtain sites for their construction. An early example was built in 1809
at Tardebigge on the Worcester and Birmingham canal. It consisted of a
timber caisson, weighing 64 tons when full of water, counterpoised by
heavy weights carried on timber platforms. The lift of 12 ft. was
effected in about three minutes by two men working winches. Seven lifts,
erected on the Grand Western canal between Wellington and Tiverton about
1835, consisted of two chambers with a masonry pier between them. In
each chamber there worked a timber caisson, suspended at either end of a
chain hung over large pulleys above. As one caisson descended the other
rose, and the apparatus was worked by putting about a ton more water in
the descending caisson than in the ascending one. At Anderton a lift was
erected in 1875 to connect the Weaver navigation with the Trent and
Mersey canal, which at that point is 50 ft. higher than the river. The
lift is a double one, and can deal with barges up to 100 tons. The
change is made while the vessels are floating in 5 ft. of water
contained in a wrought iron caisson, 75 ft. long and 15½ ft. wide. An
hydraulic ram 3 ft. in diameter supports each caisson, the bottom of
which is strengthened so as to transfer the weight to the side girders.
The descending caisson falls owing to being filled with 6 in. greater
depth of water than the ascending one, the weight on the rams (240 tons)
being otherwise constant, since the barge displaces its own weight of
water; an hydraulic accumulator is used to overcome the loss of weight
in the descending caisson when it begins to be immersed in the lower
level of the river. The two presses in which the rams work are connected
by a 5-in. pipe, so that the descent of one caisson effects the raising
of the other. A similar lift, completed in 1888 at Fontinettes on the
Neuffossé canal in France, can accommodate vessels of 250 tons, a total
weight of 785 tons being lifted 43 ft.; and a still larger example on
the Canal du Centre at La Louvière in Belgium has a rise of 50 ft., with
caissons that will admit vessels up to 400 tons, the total weight lifted
amounting to over 1000 tons. This lift, with three others of the same
character, overcomes the rise of 217 ft., which occurs in this canal in
the course of 4-1/3 m.
Animal power.
_Haulage._--The horse or mule walking along a tow-path and drawing or
"tracking" a boat or barge by means of a towing rope, still remains the
typical method of conducting traffic on the smaller canals; on
ship-canals vessels proceed under their own steam or are aided by tugs.
Horse traction is very slow. The maximum speed on a narrow canal is
about 3½ m. an hour, and the average speed, which, of course, depends
largely on the number of locks to be passed through, very much less. It
has been calculated that in England on the average one horse hauls one
narrow canal boat about 2 m. an hour loaded or 3 m. empty, or two narrow
canal boats 1½ m. loaded and 2½ m. empty. Efforts have accordingly been
made not only to quicken the rate of transit, but also to move heavier
loads, thus increasing the carrying capacity of the waterways. But at
speeds exceeding about 3½ m. an hour the "wash" of the boat begins to
cause erosion of the banks, and thus necessitates the employment of
special protective measures, such as building side walls of masonry or
concrete. For a canal of given depth there is a particular speed at
which a boat can be hauled with a smaller expenditure of energy than at
a higher or a lower speed, this maximum being the speed of free
propagation of the primary wave raised by the motion of the boat (see
WAVE). About 1830 when, in the absence of railways, canals could still
aspire to act as carriers of passengers, advantage was taken of this
fact on the Glasgow and Ardrossan canal, and subsequently on some
others, to run fast passenger boats, made lightly of wrought iron and
measuring 60 ft. in length by about 6 ft. in breadth. Provided with two
horses they started at a low speed behind the wave, and then on a given
signal were jerked on the top of the wave, when their speed was
maintained at 7 or 8 m. an hour, the depth of the canal being 3 or 4 ft.
This method, however, is obviously inapplicable to heavy barges, and in
their case improved conditions of transport had to be sought in other
directions.
Mechanical power.
Steam towage was first employed on the Forth and Clyde canal in 1802,
when a tug-boat fitted with steam engines by W. Symington drew two
barges for a distance of 19½ m. in 6 hours in the teeth of a strong
headwind. As a result of this successful experiment it was proposed to
employ steam tugs on the Bridgewater canal; but the project fell through
owing to the death of the duke of Bridgewater, and the directors of the
Forth and Clyde canal also decided against this method because they
feared damage to the banks. Steam tugs are only practicable on
navigations on which there are either no locks or they are large enough
to admit the tug and its train of barges simultaneously; otherwise the
advantages are more than counterbalanced by the delays at locks. On the
Bridgewater canal, which has an average width of 50 ft. with a depth of
5½ ft., is provided with vertical stone walls in place of sloping banks,
and has no locks for its entire length of 40 m. except at Runcorn, where
it joins the Mersey, tugs of 50 i.h.p., with a draught of 4 ft., tow
four barges, each weighing 60 tons, at a rate of nearly 3 m. an hour. On
the Aire and Calder navigation, where the locks have a minimum length of
215 ft., a large coal traffic is carried in trains of boat-compartments
on a system designed by W.H. Bartholomew. The boats are nearly square in
shape, except the leading one which has an ordinary bow; they are
coupled together by knuckle-joints fitted into hollow stern-posts, so
that they can move both laterally and vertically, and a wire rope in
tension on each side enables the train to be steered. No boat crews are
required, the crew of the steamer regulating the train. If the number of
boats does not exceed 11 they can be pushed, but beyond that number they
are towed. Each compartment carries 35 tons, and the total weight in a
train varies from 700 to 900 tons. On the arrival of a train at Goole
the boats are detached and are taken over submerged cradles under
hydraulic hoists which lift the boat with the cradle sufficiently high
to enable it to be turned over and discharge the whole cargo at once
into a shoot and thence into sea-going steamers. Another method of
utilizing steam-power, which was also first tried on the Forth and Clyde
canal by Symington in 1789, is to provide each vessel with a separate
steam engine, and many barges are now running fitted in this way.
Experiments have also been made with internal combustion engines in
place of steam engines. In some cases, chiefly on rivers having a strong
current, recourse has been had to a submerged chain passed round a drum
on a tug: this drum is rotated by steam power and thus the tug is hauled
up against the current. To obviate the inconvenience of passing several
turns of the chain round the drum in order to get sufficient grip, the
plan was introduced on the Seine and Oise in 1893 of passing the chain
round a pulley which could be magnetized at will, the necessary
adhesion being thus obtained by the magnetic attraction exercised on
the iron chain; and it was also adopted about the same time in
combination with electrical haulage on a small portion of the Bourgogne
canal, electricity being employed to drive the motor that worked the
pulley. Small locomotives running on rails along the towpath were tried
on the Shropshire Union canal, where they were abandoned on account of
practical difficulties in working, and also on certain canals in France
and Germany, where, however, the financial results were not
satisfactory. On portions of the Teltow canal, joining the Havel and the
Spree, electrical tractors run on rails along both banks, taking their
power from an overhead wire; they attain a speed of 2½ m. an hour when
hauling two 600-ton barges. The electrical supply is also utilized for
working the lock gates and for various other purposes along the route of
the canal. In the Mont-de-Rilly tunnel, at the summit level of the
Aisne-Marne canal, a system of cable-traction was established in 1894,
the boats being taken through by being attached to an endless travelling
wire rope supported by pulleys on the towpath.
When railways were being carried out in England some canal companies
were alarmed for their future, and sold their canals to the railway
companies, who in 1906 owned 1138 m. of canals out of a total length
in the United Kingdom of 3901 m. As some of these canals are links in
the chain of internal water communication complaints have frequently
arisen on the question of through traffic and tolls. The great
improvements carried out in America and on the continent of Europe by
state aid enable manufacturers to get the raw material they use and
goods they export to and from their ports at much cheaper rates than
those charged on British canals. The association of chambers of
commerce and other bodies having taken up the matter, a royal
commission was appointed in 1906 to report on the canals and
water-ways of the kingdom, with a view to considering how they could
be more profitably used for national purposes. Its Report was
published in December 1909.
AUTHORITIES.--L.F. Vernon-Harcourt, _Rivers and Canals_ (2nd ed.,
1896); Chapman, _Canal Navigation_; Firisi, _On Canals_; R. Fulton,
_Canal Navigation_; Tatham, _Economy of Inland Navigation_; Valancy,
_Treatise on Inland Navigation_; D. Stevenson, _Canal and River
Engineering_; John Phillips, _History of Inland Navigation_; J.
Priestley, _History of Navigable Rivers, Canals, &c. in Great Britain_
(1831); T. Telford, _Life_ (1838); John Smeaton, _Reports_ (1837);
_Reports of the International Congresses on Interior Navigation_;
_Report and Evidence of the Royal Commission on Canals_ (_Great
Britain_), 1906-9. (E. L. W.)
CANAL DOVER, a city of Tuscarawas county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the
Tuscarawas river, about 70 m. S. by E. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 3470;
(1900) 5422 (930 foreign-born); (1910) 6621. It is served by the
Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania railways, and by the Ohio canal,
and is connected with Cleveland by an inter-urban electric line. It lies
on a plateau about 880 ft. above sea-level and commands pleasant views
of diversified scenery. Coal and iron ore abound in the vicinity, and
the city manufactures iron, steel, tin plate, electrical and telephone
supplies, shovels, boilers, leather, flour, brick and tile, salt,
furniture and several kinds of vehicles. The municipality owns and
operates its water-works. Canal Dover was laid out as a town in 1807,
and was incorporated as a village in 1842, but its charter was soon
allowed to lapse and was not revived until 1867. Canal Dover became a
city under the Ohio municipal code of 1903.
CANALE (or CANALETTO), ANTONIO (1697-1768), Venetian painter, born on
the 18th of October 1697, was educated under his father Bernard, a
scene-painter of Venice, and for some time followed his father's line of
art. In 1719 he went to Rome, where he employed himself chiefly in
delineating ancient ruins, and particularly studied effects of light and
shade, in which he became an adept. He was the first painter who made
practical use of the camera lucida. On returning home he devoted his
powers to views in his native city, which he painted with a clear and
firm touch and the most facile mastery of colour in a deep tone,
introducing groups of figures with much effect. In his latter days he
resided some time in England. His pictures, in their particular range,
still remain unrivalled for their magnificent perspective. The National
Gallery, London, has five pictures by him, notably the "View on the
Grand Canal, Venice," and the "Regatta on the Grand Canal." He died on
the 20th of August 1768. Bellotto (commonly named Bernardo), who is also
sometimes called CANALETTO (1724-1780), was his nephew and pupil, and
painted with deceptive resemblance to the style of the more celebrated
master.
CANALIS (also "canal" and "channel"; from the Latin), in architecture,
the sinking between the fillets of the volute of the Ionic capital: in
the earliest examples, though sunk below the fillets, it is slightly
convex in section.
CANANDAIGUA, a village and the county-seat of Ontario county, New York,
U.S.A., 30 m. S.E. of Rochester. Pop. (1890) 5868; (1900) 6151; (1910)
7217. It is served by the New York Central and Hudson River, and the
Northern Central (Pennsylvania system) railways, and is connected with
Rochester by an inter-urban electric line. Among the manufactures are
pressed bricks, tile, beer, ploughs, flour, agate and tin-ware. The
village, picturesquely situated at the north end of Canandaigua Lake, a
beautiful sheet of water about 15 m. long with a breadth varying from a
mile to a mile and a half, is a summer resort. It has a county court
house; the Canandaigua hospital of physicians and surgeons; the
Frederick Ferris Thompson memorial hospital, with a bacteriological
laboratory supported by the county; the Clark Manor House (a county home
for the aged), given by Mrs Frederick Ferris Thompson in memory of her
mother and of her father, Myron Holley Clark (1806-1892), president of
the village of Canandaigua in 1850-1851 and governor of New York in
1855-1857; the Ontario Orphan Asylum; Canandaigua Academy; Granger Place
school for girls; Brigham Hall (a private sanatorium for nervous and
mental diseases); Young Men's Christian Association building (1905); and
two libraries, the Wood (public) library and the Union School library,
founded in 1795. There is a public playground in the village with free
instruction by a physical director; and a swimming school, endowed by
Mrs F.F. Thompson, gives free lessons in swimming. The village owns its
water-supply system. A village of the Seneca Indians, near the present
Canandaigua, bearing the same name, which means "a settlement was
formerly there" (not, as Lewis Morgan thought, "chosen spot"), was
destroyed by Gen. John Sullivan in 1779. There are boulder memorials of
Sullivan's expedition and of the treaty signed here on the 11th of
November 1794 by Timothy Pickering, on behalf of the United States with
the Six Nations--a treaty never ratified by the Senate. Canandaigua was
settled in 1789 and was first incorporated in 1812.
CANARD (the Fr. for "duck"), a sensational or extravagant story, a hoax
or false report, especially one circulated by newspapers. This use of
the word in France dates from the 17th century, and is supposed by
Littré to have originated in the old expression, "_vendre un canard à
moitié_" (to half-sell a duck); as it is impossible to "half-sell a
duck," the phrase came to signify to take in, or to cheat.
CANARY (_Serinus canarius_), a well-known species of passerine bird,
belonging to the family _Fringillidae_ or finches (see FINCH). It is a
native of the Canary Islands and Madeira, where it occurs abundantly in
the wild state, and is of a greyish-brown colour, slightly varied with
brighter hues, although never attaining the beautiful plumage of the
domestic bird. It was first domesticated in Italy during the 16th
century, and soon spread over Europe, where it is now the most common of
cage-birds. During the years of its domestication, the canary has been
the subject of careful artificial selection, the result being the
production of a bird differing widely in the colour of its plumage, and
in a few of its varieties even in size and form, from the original wild
species. The prevailing colour of the most admired varieties of the
canary is yellow, approaching in some cases to orange, and in others to
white; while the most robust birds are those which, in the dusky green
of the upper surface of their plumage, show a distinct approach to the
wild forms. The least prized are those in which the plumage is
irregularly spotted and speckled. In one of the most esteemed varieties,
the wing and tail feathers are at first black--a peculiarity, however,
which disappears after the first moulting. Size and form have also been
modified by domestication, the wild canary being not more than 5½ in. in
length, while a well-known Belgian variety usually measures 8 in. There
are also hooped or bowed canaries, feather-footed forms and top-knots,
the latter having a distinct crest on the head; but the offspring of two
such top-knotted canaries, instead of showing an increased development
of crest, as might be expected, are apt to be bald on the crown. Most of
the varieties, however, of which no fewer than twenty-seven were
recognized by French breeders so early as the beginning of the 18th
century, differ merely in the colour and the markings of the plumage.
Hybrids are also common, the canary breeding freely with the siskin,
goldfinch, citril, greenfinch and linnet. The hybrids thus produced are
almost invariably sterile. It is the female canary which is almost
invariably employed in crossing, as it is difficult to get the females
of the allied species to sit on the artificial nest used by breeders. In
a state of nature canaries pair, but under domestication the male bird
has been rendered polygamous, being often put with four or five females;
still he is said to show a distinct preference for the female with which
he was first mated. It is from the others, however, that the best birds
are usually obtained. The canary is very prolific, producing eggs, not
exceeding six in number, three or four times a year; and in a state of
nature it is said to breed still oftener. The work of building the nest,
and of incubation, falls chiefly on the female, while the duty of
feeding the young rests mainly with the cock bird. The natural song of
the canary is loud and clear; and in their native groves the males,
especially during the pairing season, pour forth their song with such
ardour as sometimes to burst the delicate vessels of the throat. The
males appear to compete with each other in the brilliancy of their
melody, in order to attract the females, which, according to the German
naturalist Johann Matthaus Bechstein (1757-1822) always select the best
singers for their mates. The canary readily imitates the notes of other
birds, and in Germany and especially Tirol, where the breeding of
canaries gives employment to a large number of people, they are usually
placed for this purpose beside the nightingale. (A. N.)
CANARY ISLANDS (_Canarias_), a Spanish archipelago in the Atlantic
Ocean; about 60 m. W. of the African coast, between 27° 40' and 29° 30'
N., and between 13° 20' and 18° 10' W. Pop. (1900) 358,564; area 2807
sq. m. The Canary Islands resemble a roughly-drawn semicircle, with its
convex side facing south-wards, and with the island of Hierro detached
on the south-west. More precisely, they may be considered as two groups,
one of which, including Teneriffe, Grand Canary, Palma, Hierro and
Gomera, consists of mountain peaks, isolated and rising directly from an
ocean of great depth; while the other, comprising Lanzarote,
Fuerteventura and six uninhabited islets, is based on a single submarine
plateau, of far less depth. Teneriffe and Gomera, the only members of
the principal group which have a common base, may be regarded as the
twin peaks of one great volcanic mass. Ever since the researches of
Leopold von Buch the Canary Islands have been classical ground to the
student of volcanic action. Buch considered them to be representative of
his "craters of elevation." In common with the other West African
islands they are of volcanic origin. The lavas consist chiefly of
trachytes and basalts.
[Illustration: CANARY ISLANDS MAP]
_Climate_.--From April to October a north or north-east wind blows upon
the islands, beginning about 10 A.M. and continuing until 5 or 6 P.M. In
summer this wind produces a dense stratum of sea-cloud (_cumuloni_), 500
ft. thick, whose lower surface is about 2500 ft. above the sea at
Teneriffe. This does not reach up to the mountains, which have on every
side a stratum of their own, about 1000 ft. thick, the lower surface
being about 3500 ft. above the level of the sea. Between these two
distinct strata there is a gap, through which persons on a vessel near
the island may obtain a glimpse of the peak. The sea-cloud conceals from
view the other islands, except those whose mountains pierce through it.
On the south-west coasts there is no regular sea or land breeze. In
winter they are occasionally visited by a hot south-east wind from
Africa, which is called the _Levante_, and produces various disagreeable
consequences on the exposed parts of the person, besides injuring the
vegetation, especially on the higher grounds. Locusts have sometimes
been brought by this wind. In 1812 it is said that locusts covered some
fields in Fuerteventura to the depth of 4 ft. Hurricanes, accompanied by
waterspouts, sometimes cause much devastation; but, on the whole, the
islands are singularly free from such visitations. The climate generally
is mild, dry and healthy. On the lower grounds the temperature is
equable, the daily range seldom exceeding 6° Fahr. At Santa Cruz the
mean for the year is about 71°. The rainy season occurs at the same
period as in southern Europe. The dry season is at the time of the
trade-winds, which extend a few degrees farther north than this
latitude.
_Fauna_.--The indigenous mammals of the Canary Islands are very few in
number. The dog, swine, goat and sheep were alone found upon the island
by the Spanish conquerors: The race of large dogs which is supposed to
have given a name to the islands has been long extinct. A single
skeleton has been found, which is deposited in one of the museums at
Paris. The ferret, rabbit, cat, rat, mouse and two kinds of bat have
become naturalized. The ornithology is more interesting, on account at
once of the birds native to the islands, and the stragglers from the
African coast, which are chiefly brought over in winter, when the wind
has blown for some time from the east. Among the indigenous birds are
some birds of prey, as the African vulture, the falcon, the buzzard, the
sparrow-hawk and the kite. There are also two species of owl, three
species of sea-mew, the stockdove, quail, raven, magpie, chaffinch,
goldfinch, blackcap, canary, titmouse, blackbird, house-swallow, &c. As
to the insects, mention may be made of a species of gnat or mosquito
which is sometimes troublesome, especially to strangers. The list of
reptiles is limited to three varieties of lizard and one species of
frog. The only fresh-water fish is the eel. Marine fishes are not
numerous, the reason perhaps being that the steepness of the coast does
not allow seaweed to grow in sufficient quantity to support the lower
forms of marine animal life. Whales and seals are occasionally seen. The
cuttle-fish is abundant, and is sought for as an article of food.
_Flora_.--The position of mountainous islands like the Canaries, in the
subtropical division of the temperate zone, is highly favourable to the
development, within a small space, of plants characteristic of both warm
and cold climates. Von Buch refers to five regions of vegetation in
Teneriffe:--(1) From the sea to the height of 1300 ft. This he styles
the African region. The climate in the hottest parts is similar to that
of Egypt. Here grow, among the introduced plants, the coffee tree, the
date-palm, the sugar-cane, the banana, the orange tree, the American
agave and two species of cactus; and among indigenous plants, the dragon
tree on the north-west of Teneriffe. A leafless and fantastic euphorbia,
_E. canariensis_, and a shrubby composite plant, _Cacalia kleinia_, give
a character to the landscape about Santa Cruz. (2) Between 1300 ft. and
2800 ft. This is the region of south European vegetation, the climate
answering to that of southern France and central Italy. Here nourish
vines and cereals. (3) The region of indigenous trees, including
various species of laurel, an _Ardisia, Ilex, Rhamnus, Olea, Myrica_,
and other trees found wild also at Madeira. The clouds rest on this
region during the day, and by their humidity support a vegetation
amongst the trees, partly of shrubs, and partly of ferns. It extends to
the height of 4000 ft. (4) The region of the beautiful _Pinus
canariensis_, extending to the height of 6400 ft.; here the broad-leaved
trees have ceased to grow, but arborescent heaths are found throughout
its whole extent, and specimens of _Juniperus oxycedrus_ may be met
with. (5) The region of Retama (_Cytisus nubigenus_), a species of
white-flowering and sweet-scented broom, which is found as high as
11,000 ft. At the upper edge of this region a lilac-coloured violet
clings to the soil, and above there is nothing but a little lichen. The
number of wild flowering plants may be estimated at 900, upwards of 270
of which are peculiar to the Canaries. The forms of vegetation must in
the main be considered North African. The character of the vegetation in
Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, islands composed of extensive plains and
low hills, with few springs, is different from that of the other
islands, which are more elevated and have many springs. The wood is less
abundant, and the vegetation less luxuriant.
_Inhabitants_.--The Guanches (q.v.), who occupied the Canaries at the
time of the Spanish invasion, no longer exist as a separate race, for
the majority were exterminated, and the remainder intermarried with
their conquerors. The present inhabitants are slightly darker than the
people of Spain, but in other respects are scarcely distinguishable from
them. The men are of middle height, well-made and strong; the women are
not striking in respect of beauty, but they have good eyes and hair.
Spanish is the only language in use. The birth-rate is uniformly high
and the death-rate low; and, despite the emigration of many families to
South America and the United States, the census of 1900 showed that the
population had increased by over 75,000 since 1877. The excess of
females over males, which in 1900 amounted to upwards of 22,000, is
partly explained by the fact that few women emigrate. Fully 80% of the
inhabitants could neither read nor write in 1900; but education
progresses more rapidly than in many other Spanish provinces. Good
schools are numerous, and the return of emigrants and their children who
have been educated in the United States, tends to raise the standard of
civilization. The sustenance of the poorer classes is chiefly composed
of fish, potatoes and _gofio_, which is merely Indian corn or wheat
roasted, ground and kneaded with water or milk. The land is, in great
part, strictly entailed.
_Government_.--The archipelago forms one Spanish province, of which the
capital is Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the residence of the civil governor,
who has under his command one of the two districts into which the
archipelago is divided, this first district comprising Teneriffe, Palma,
Gomera and Hierro. The other district includes Grand Canary, Lanzarote,
Fuerteventura, and has at its head a sub-governor, residing in Las
Palmas, on Grand Canary, who is independent of the governor except in
regard to elections and municipal administration. The chief finance
office is at Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The court of appeal, created in
1526, is in Las Palmas. The captain-general and second commandant of the
archipelago reside in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and there is a
brigadier-governor of Grand Canary, residing in Las Palmas, besides
eight inferior military commandants. The province furnishes no men for
the Spanish peninsular army, but its annual conscription provides men
for the local territorial militia, composed of regiments of infantry,
squadrons of mounted rifles and companies of garrison artillery--about
5000 men all told. The archipelago is divided into two naval districts,
commanded by royal navy captains. Roman Catholicism is the official
religion, and ecclesiastical law is the same as in other Spanish
provinces. The convents have been suppressed, and in many cases
converted to secular uses. Laguna and Las Palmas are episcopal sees, in
the archbishopric of Seville.
_Industry and Commerce._--Owing to the richness of the volcanic soil,
agriculture in the Canaries is usually very profitable. Land varies in
value according to the amount of water available, but as a rule commands
an extraordinarily high price. In the _Terrenos de secano_, or
non-irrigable districts, the average price of an acre ranges from £7 to
£17; in the _Terrenes de riego_, or irrigable land, it ranges from £100
to £250. Until 1853 wine was the staple product, and although even the
finest brand (known as _Vidonia_) never equalled the best Madeira
vintages, it was largely consumed abroad, especially in England. The
annual value of the wine exported often exceeded £500,000. In 1853,
however, the grape disease attacked the vineyards; and thenceforward the
production of cochineal, which had been introduced in 1825, took the
place of viticulture so completely that, twenty years later, the exports
of cochineal were worth £556,000. France and England were the chief
purchasers. This industry declined in the later years of the 19th
century, and was supplanted by the cultivation of sugar-cane, and
afterwards of bananas, tomatoes, potatoes and onions. Bananas are the
most important crop. Other fruits grown in smaller quantities include
oranges, figs, dates, pineapples, guavas, custard-apples and prickly
pears. Tobacco-planting is encouraged by the Spanish government, and the
sugar trade is maintained, despite severe competition. The grain harvest
does not supply the needs of the islanders. Pigs and sheep of a small,
coarse-woolled breed, are numerous; and large herds of goats wander in
an almost wild state over the higher hills. Fishing is a very important
industry, employing over 10,000 hands. The fleet of about 2200 boats
operates along some 600 m. of the African coast, between Cape Cantin and
the Arguin Bank. Shipbuilding is carried on at Las Palmas; and the minor
industries include the manufacture of cloth, drawn-linen (_calado_)
work, silk, baskets, hats, &c. A group of Indian merchants, who employ
coolie labour, produce silken, jute and cotton goods, Oriental
embroideries, wrought silver, brass-ware, porcelain, carved sandal-wood,
&c. The United Kingdom heads the import trade in coal, textiles,
hardware, iron, soap, candles and colonial products. Timber comes
chiefly from North America and Scandinavia, alcohol from Cuba and the
United States, wheat and flour from various British possessions, maize
from Morocco and Argentina. Large quantities of miscellaneous imports
are sent by Germany, Spain, France and Italy. Bananas, tomatoes,
potatoes, sugar and wine are exported. The total value of the foreign
trade fluctuates very greatly, and the difficulty of forming an estimate
is enhanced in many years by the absence of official statistics; but
imports and exports together probably amount in a normal year to about
£1,000,000. The chief ports are Las Palmas and Santa Cruz, which
annually accommodate about 7000 vessels of over 8,000,000 tons. In 1854
all the ports of the Canaries were practically declared free; but on the
1st of November 1904 a royal order prohibited foreign vessels from
trading between one island and another. This decree deprived the
outlying islands of their usual means of communication, and, in answer
to a protest by the inhabitants, its operation was postponed.
_History_.--There is ground for supposing that the Phoenicians were not
ignorant of the Canaries. The Romans learned of their existence through
Juba, king of Mauretania, whose account of an expedition to the islands,
made about 40 B.C., was preserved by the elder Pliny. He mentions
"Canaria, so called from the multitude of dogs of great size," and
"Nivaria, taking its name from perpetual snow, and covered with clouds,"
doubtless Teneriffe. Canaria was said to abound in palms and pine trees.
Both Plutarch and Ptolemy speak of the Fortunate Islands, but from their
description it is not clear whether the Canaries or one of the other
island groups in the western Atlantic are meant; see ISLES OF THE BLEST.
In the 12th century the Canaries were visited by Arab navigators, and in
1334 they were rediscovered by a French vessel driven among them by a
gale. A Portuguese expedition, undertaken about the same time, failed to
find the archipelago, and want of means frustrated the project of
conquest entertained by a grandson of Alphonso X. of Castile, named Juan
de la Cerda, who had obtained a grant of the islands and had been
crowned king of them at Avignon, by Pope Clement VI. Two or possibly
more Spanish expeditions followed, and a monastic mission was
established, but at the close of the 14th century the Guanches remained
unconquered and unconverted. In 1402, however, Gadifer de la Salle and
Jean de Béthencourt (q.v.) sailed with two vessels from Rochelle, and
landed early in July on Lanzarote. The relations between these two
leaders, and their respective shares in the work of conquest and
exploration, have been the subject of much controversy. Between 1402 and
1404 La Salle conquered Lanzarote and part of Fuerteventura, besides
exploring other islands; Béthencourt meanwhile sailed to Cadiz for
reinforcements. He returned in 1404 with the title of king, which he had
secured from Henry III. of Castile. La Salle, thus placed in a position
of inferiority, left the islands and appealed unsuccessfully for redress
at the court of Castile. In 1405 Béthencourt visited Normandy, and
returned with fresh colonists who conquered Hierro. In December 1406 he
left the Canaries, entrusting their government to his nephew Maciot de
Béthencourt, and reserving for himself a share in any profits obtained,
and the royal title. Eight years of misrule followed before Queen
Catherine of Castile intervened. Maciot thereupon sold his office to her
envoy, Pedro Barba de Campos; sailed to Lisbon and resold it to Prince
Henry the Navigator; and a few years afterwards resold it once more to
Enrique de Guzman, count of Niebla. Jean de Béthencourt, who died in
1422, bequeathed the islands to his brother Reynaud; Guzman sold them to
another Spaniard named Paraza, who was forced to re-sell to Ferdinand
and Isabella of Castile in 1476; and Prince Henry twice endeavoured to
enforce his own claims. Meanwhile the Guanches remained unconquered
throughout the greater part of the archipelago. In 1479 the sovereignty
of Ferdinand and Isabella over the Canaries was established by the
treaty of Alcaçova, between Portugal and Castile. After much bloodshed,
and with reinforcements from the mother country, the Spaniards, under
Pedro de Vera, became masters of Grand Canary in 1483. Palma was
conquered in 1491, and Teneriffe in 1495, by Alonzo de Lugo. The
archipelago was included for administrative purposes in the
captaincy-general of Andalusia until 1833, when it was made a separate
province. In 1902 a movement in favour of local autonomy was repressed
by Spanish troops.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For a general description of the islands, see _Les Îles
Canaries_, by J. Pitard and L. Proust (Paris, 1909); _Madeira and the
Canary Islands_, by A. Samler Brown, a guide for travellers and
invalids, with coloured maps and plates (London, 1901); _A Guide to
the Canary Islands_, by J.H.T. Ellerbeck (London, 1892); _The Canary
Islands as a Winter Resort_, by J. Whitford (London, 1890, with maps
and illustrations); _De la Tierra Canaria_, by L. and A. Millares
Cubas (Madrid, 1894); and _Physikalische Beschreibung der kanarischen
Inseln_, by L. von Buch (Berlin, 1825). Besides the interesting folio
atlas of von Buch (Paris, 1836), good modern maps have been published
by E. Stanford (London, 1891, 12½ English m. to 1 in.), and M. Perez y
Rodriquez (Madrid, 1896-1898, 4 sheets). See also _Histoire naturelle
des îles Canaries_, by P. Barker-Webb and S. Berthelot (Paris,
1835-1849); and "Les Îles Canaries et les parages de pêche canariens,"
by Dr. A. Taquin, in the _B.S.R. Beige G. 26_ (1902), and 27 (1903);
and, for history and antiquities, the _Historia general de las islas
Canarias_, by A. Millares Cubas, in 10 vols. (Las Palmas,
1893-1895),and _Historia de la Inquisicion en las islas Canarias_, by
the same author (Las Palmas, 1874); _Antiquités canariennes_, by S.
Berthelot (Paris, 1879).
CANCALE, a fishing port of north-western France in the department of
Ille-et-Vilaine on the Bay of Cancale, 9 m. E.N.E. of St Malo by road.
Pop. (1906) town 3827, commune 7061. It exports oysters, which are found
in its bay in large numbers and of excellent quality, and equips a fleet
for the Newfoundland cod-fisheries. The harbour is protected by the
rocks known as the Rochers de Cancale. In 1758 an English army under the
duke of Marlborough landed here for the purpose of attacking St Malo and
pillaged the town. It was again bombarded by the English in 1779.
CANCEL (from the Lat. _cancelli_, a plural diminutive of _cancer_, a
grating or lattice, from which are also derived "chancel" and
"chancellor"), a word meaning to cross out, from the crossed latticed
lines drawn across a legal document to annul it, hence to delete or
destroy.
CANCELLI (plural of Lat. _cancellus_, dim. of _cancer_, a crossing bar),
in architecture, the term given to barriers which correspond to the
modern balustrade or railing, especially the screen dividing the body of
a church from the part occupied by the ministers; hence "chancel"
(q.v.). By the Romans _cancelli_ were similarly employed to divide off
portions of the courts of law (cf. the English "bar").
CANCER, LUIS (d. 1549), Spanish missionary to Central America, was born
at Barbastro near Saragossa. After working for some time in Dominica and
Haiti, he crossed to the mainland, where he had great success in
pacifying the Indians whom more violent methods had failed to subdue. He
upheld the cause of the natives at an ecclesiastical assembly held in
Mexico in 1546, and three years later, on the 26th of June, met his
death at their hands on the west coast of Florida.
CANCER ("THE CRAB"), in astronomy, the fourth sign of the zodiac,
denoted by the symbol [Crab symbol]. Its name may be possibly derived
from the fact that when the sun arrives at this part of the ecliptic it
apparently retraces its path, resembling in some manner the sidelong
motion of a crab. It is also a constellation, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th
century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); Ptolemy catalogued 13 stars
in it, Tycho Brahe 15 and Hevelius 29. Its most interesting objects are:
a large loose cluster of stars, known as _Praesepe_ or the Beehive,
visible as a nebulous patch to the naked eye, and [zeta] _Cancri_, a
remarkable multiple star, composed of two stars, of magnitudes 5 and
5.7, revolving about each other in 60 years, and a third star of
magnitude 5.5 which revolves about these two in an opposite direction in
a period of 17½ years; from irregularities in the motion of this star,
it is supposed to be a satellite of an invisible body which itself
revolves about the two stars previously mentioned, in a period of 600 to
700 years.
CANCER, or CARCINOMA (from Lat. _cancer_, Gr. _[Greek: karkiuoma]_, an
eating ulcer), the name given to a class of morbid growths or tumours
which occur in man, and also in most or all vertebrate animals. The term
"malignant disease" is commonly used as synonymous with "cancer." For
the general pathology, &c., of tumours see TUMOUR.
Cancer exists in various forms, which, although differing from each
other in many points, have yet certain common characters to which they
owe their special significance.
1. In structure such growths are composed of nucleated cells and free
nuclei together with a milky fluid called cancer juice, all contained
within a more or less dense fibrous stroma or framework.
2. They have no well-defined limits, and they involve all textures in
their vicinity, while they also tend to spread by the lymphatics and
veins, and to cause similar growths in distant parts or organs called
"secondary cancerous growths."
3. They are undergoing constant increase, and their progress is usually
rapid.
4. Pain is a frequent symptom. When present it is generally of a severe
and agonizing character, and together with the local effects of the
disease and the resulting condition of ill health or "cachexia," hastens
the fatal termination to which all cancerous growths tend.
5. When such growths are removed by the surgeon they are apt to return
either at the same or at some other part.
The chief varieties of cancer are _Scirrhus_ or hard cancer,
_Encephaloid_ or soft cancer and _Epithelial cancer_.
Scirrhus is remarkable for its hardness, which is due to the large
amount of its fibrous, and relatively small proportion of its cell
elements. It is of comparatively slow growth, but it tends to spread and
to ulcerate. Its most common seat by far is the female breast, though it
sometimes affects internal organs.
Encephaloid is in structure the reverse of the last, its softness
depending on the preponderance of its cell over its fibrous elements.
Its appearance and consistence resemble brain substance (hence its
name), and it is of such rapid growth as to have given rise to its being
occasionally termed _acute cancer_. Its most frequent seats are
internal organs or the limbs. Ulceration and haemorrhage are common
accompaniments of this form of cancer.
Epithelial cancer is largely composed of cells resembling the natural
epithelium of the body. It occurs most frequently in those parts
provided with epithelium, such as the skin and mucous membranes, or
where those adjoin, as in the lips. This form of cancer does not spread
so rapidly nor produce secondary growths in other organs to the same
extent as the two other varieties, but it tends equally with them to
involve the neighbouring lymphatic glands, and to recur after removal.
Cancer affects all parts of the body, but is much more frequent in some
tissues than in others. According to recent statistics prepared by the
registrar-general for England and Wales (sixty-seventh annual report)
the most frequent seats are, in numerical order, as
follows:--_males_--stomach, liver, rectum, intestines, aesophagus,
tongue; _females_--uterus, breast, stomach, liver, intestines, rectum.
Other statistics give similar, though not identical results. It may be
said, broadly, that the most frequent seats are the female sexual organs
and after them the digestive tract in both sexes. In children, in whom
cancer is rare, the most frequent seats appear to be--under five, the
kidneys and supra-renal bodies; five to ten, the brain; ten to twenty,
the arm and leg bones.
Cancer tends to advance steadily to a fatal termination, but its
duration varies in different cases according to the part affected and
according to the variety of the disease. Soft cancer affecting important
organs of the body often proves fatal in a few months, while, on the
other hand, cases of hard or epithelial cancer may sometimes last for
several years; but no precise limit can be assigned for any form of the
disease. In some rare instances growths exhibiting all the signs of
cancer may exist for a great length of time without making any progress,
and may even dwindle and disappear altogether. This is called
"spontaneous cure."
Cancer research.
Cancer has been the subject of observation from time immemorial, and of
the most elaborate investigation by innumerable workers in recent years;
but the problems of its origin and character have hitherto baffled
inquiry. Modern scientific study of them may be said to have begun with
J. Müller's microscopic work in the structure of cancerous tissue early
in the 19th century. A great impetus to this line of investigation was
given by the cellular theory of R. Virchow and the pathological
researches of Sir J. Paget, and general attention was directed to the
microscopic examination of the cells of which cancer is composed. This
led to a classification, on which much reliance was once placed, of
different kinds of cancer, based on the character of the cells, and
particularly to a distinction between _carcinoma_, in which the cells
are of the epithelial type, and _sarcoma_, in which they are of the
connective tissue type. The distinction, though still maintained, has
proved barren; it never had any real significance, either clinical or
pathological, and the tendency in recent research is to ignore it. The
increased knowledge gained in numerous other branches of biological
science has also been brought to bear on the problem of cancer and has
led to a number of theories; and at the same time the apparently
increasing prevalence of the disease recorded by the vital statistics of
many countries has drawn more and more public attention to it. Two
results have followed. One is the establishment of special endowed
institutions devoted to cancer research; the other is the publication
and discussion of innumerable theories and proposed methods of
treatment. Popular interest has been constantly fanned by the
announcement of some pretended discovery or cure, in which the public is
invited to place its trust. Such announcements have no scientific value
whatever. In the rare cases in which they are not pure quackery, they
are always premature and based on inadequate data.
Organized cancer research stands on a different footing. It may be
regarded as the revival at the end of the 19th century of what was
unsuccessfully attempted at the beginning. As early as 1792, at the
suggestion of Mr. John Howard, surgeon, a ward was opened at the
Middlesex hospital in London for the special benefit of persons
suffering from cancer. It was fitted up and endowed anonymously by Mr.
Samuel Whitbread, M.P. for Bedford, and according to the terms of the
benefaction at least six patients were to be continually maintained in
it until relieved by art or released by death. The purpose was both
philanthropic and scientific, as Mr. Howard explained in bringing
forward the suggestion. Two principal objects, he said, presented
themselves to his mind, "namely, the relief of persons suffering under
this disease and the investigation of a complaint which, although
extremely common, is both with regard to its natural history and cure
but imperfectly known." This benefaction was the origin of one of the
most complete institutions for the scientific study of cancer that
exists to-day.
In 1804 a Society for Investigating the Nature of Cancer was formed by a
number of medical men in London, Edinburgh and other towns at the
instigation of John Hunter. The aim was collective investigation, and an
attempt was made to carry it out by issuing forms of inquiry; but the
imperfect means of communication then existing caused the scheme to be
abandoned in a short time. Subsequent attempts at collective
investigation also failed until recently. About 1900 a movement, which
had been for some time gathering force, began to take visible shape
simultaneously in different countries. The cancer ward at the Middlesex
hospital had then developed into a cancer wing, and to it were added
special laboratories for the investigation of cancer, which were opened
on the 1st of March 1900. In this establishment the fully equipped means
of clinical and laboratory research were united under one roof and
manned by a staff of investigators under the direction of Dr W.S.
Lazarus Barlow. In the same year the _Deutsche Comité fur
Krebsforschung_ was organized in Berlin, receiving an annual subsidy of
5000 marks (£250) from the imperial exchequer. This body devoted its
energies to making a census of cancer patients in Germany on a definite
date. A special ward for cancer was also set apart at the Charité
hospital in Berlin, with a state endowment of 53,000 marks (£2560) per
annum, and a laboratory for cancer research was attached to the first
medical clinique under Professor Ernst von Leyden at the same hospital.
A third institution in Germany is a special cancer department at the
Royal Prussian Institute for Experimental Therapeutics at
Frankfort-on-Main, which has been supported, like the Imperial Cancer
Research Fund in England, by private contributions on a generous scale.
The fund just mentioned was initiated in October 1901, and its
operations took definite shape a year later, when Dr. E.F. Bashford was
appointed general superintendent of research. The patron of the
foundation was King Edward VII., and the president was the prince of
Wales. It had in 1908 a capital endowment of about £120,000, subscribed
by private munificence and producing an income of about £7000 a year.
The central laboratory is situated in the examination building of the
Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in London, and the work is
conducted under the superintendence of an executive committee formed by
representatives of those bodies. In the United States a cancer
laboratory, which had been established in Buffalo in 1899 under Dr
Roswell Park, was formally placed under the control of New York state in
June 1901, and is supported by an annual grant of $15,000 (£3000). There
are other provisions in the United States connected with Harvard and
Cornell universities. At the former the "Caroline Brewer Croft Fund for
Cancer Research" started special investigations in the surgical
department of the Harvard Medical School in 1900 or the previous year,
and in connexion with the Cornell University Medical School there is a
small endowment called the "Huntingdon Cancer Research Fund." There
appear to be institutions of a similar character in other countries, in
addition to innumerable investigators at universities and other ordinary
seats of scientific research.
Some attempt has been made to co-ordinate the work thus carried on in
different countries. An international cancer congress was held at
Heidelberg and Frankfort in 1906, and a proposal was put forward by
German representatives that a permanent international conference on
cancer should be established, with headquarters in Berlin. The committee
of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund did not fall in with the proposal,
being of opinion that more was to be gained in the existing stage of
knowledge by individual intercourse and exchange of material between
actual laboratory workers.
Theories of cancer.
In spite of the immense concentration of effort indicated by the
simultaneous establishment of so many centres of endowed research, and
in spite of the light thrown upon the problem from many sides by modern
biological science, our knowledge of the origin of cancer is still in
such a tentative state that a detailed account of the theories put
forward is not called for; it will suffice to indicate their general
drift. The actual pathological process of cancer is extremely simple.
Certain cells, which are apparently of a normal character and have
previously performed normal functions, begin to grow and multiply in an
abnormal way in some part of the body. They continue this process so
persistently that they first invade and then destroy the surrounding
tissues; nothing can withstand their march. They are moreover carried to
other parts of the body, where they establish themselves and grow in the
same way. Their activity is carried on with relentless determination,
though at a varying pace, until the patient dies, unless they are bodily
removed. Hence the word "malignant." The problem is--what are these
cells, or why do they behave in this way? The principal answers put
forward may be summarized:--(1) they are epithelial cells which grow
without ceasing because the connective tissue has lost the capacity to
hold their proliferative powers in check (H. Freund, following K.
Thiersch and W. Waldeyer); (2) they are embryonic cells accidentally
shut off (J.F. Cohnheim); (3) they are epithelial cells with a latent
power of unlimited proliferation which becomes active on their being
dislocated from the normal association (M.W.H. Ribbert and Borrmann);
(4) they are stimulated to unlimited growth by the presence of a
parasite (Plimmer, Sanfelice, Roncali and others); (5) they are
fragments of reproductive tissue (G.T. Beatson); (6) they are cells
which have lost their differentiated character and assumed elementary
properties (von Hausemann, O. Hertwig). The very number and variety of
hypotheses show that none is established. Most of them attempt to
explain the growth but not the origin of the disease. The hypothesis of
a parasitic origin, suggested by recent discoveries in relation to other
diseases, has attracted much attention; but the observed phenomena of
cancerous growths are not in keeping with those of all known parasitic
diseases, and the theory is now somewhat discredited. A more recent
theory that cancer is due to failure of the normal secretions of the
pancreas has not met with much acceptance.
Some generalizations bearing on the problem have been drawn from the
work done in the laboratories of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. They
may be summarily stated thus. Cancer has been shown to be an identical
process in all vertebrates (including fishes), and to develop at a time
which conforms in a striking manner to the limits imposed by the long or
short compass of life in different animals. Cancerous tissue can be
artificially propagated in the short-lived mouse by actual transference
to another individual, but only to one of the same species. Cancerous
tissue thus propagated presents all the characteristic features of the
malignant growth of sporadic tumours; it infiltrates and produces
extensive secondary growths. Under suitable experimental conditions the
aggregate growth of a cancer is undefined, of enormous and, so far as we
can judge, of limitless amount. This extraordinary growth is due to the
continued proliferation of cancerous cells when transplanted. The
processes by which growing cancer cells are transferred to a new
individual are easily distinguishable and fundamentally different from
all known processes of infection. The artificial propagation of cancer
causes no specific symptoms of illness in the animal in which it
proceeds. Under artificial propagation cancer maintains all the
characters of the original tumours of the primary hosts. _Carcinoma_ and
_sarcoma_ agree in possessing all the pathological and cellular
features of malignant new growths.
Statistics of cancer.
Simultaneously with the active pursuit of laboratory research much
statistical work has been devoted to establishing the broad facts of the
prevalence and incidence of cancer on a firm basis. The point of most
general interest is the apparently steady increase of the disease in all
countries possessing fairly trustworthy records. It will be sufficient
to give the figures for England and Wales as an example.
ANNUAL DEATH-RATES FROM CANCER TO A MILLION LIVING. _England and
Wales._
+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|1871-1875.|1876-1880.|1881-1885.|1886-1890.|1891-1895.|1896-1900.|1901-1904.|
+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| 445 | 493 | 547 | 631 | 711 | 800 | 861 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
In forty years the recorded rate had risen from 403 to 861. The question
how far these and similar statistics represent a real increase cannot be
satisfactorily resolved, because it is impossible to ascertain how much
of the apparent increase is due to more accurate diagnosis and improved
registration. Some of it is certainly due to those causes, so that the
recorded figures cannot be taken to represent the facts as they stand.
At the same time it is certain that some increase has taken place in
consequence of the increased average length of life; a larger proportion
of persons now reach the ages at which cancer is most frequent. Increase
due to this fact, though it is a real increase, does not indicate that
the cause of cancer is more rife or more potent; it only means that the
condition of the population in regard to age is more favourable to its
activity. On the whole it seems probable that, when allowance has been
made for this factor and for errors due to improved registration, a real
increase due to other causes has taken place, though it is not so great
as the recorded statistics would indicate.
The long-established conclusions concerning the incidence of the disease
in regard to age and sex have been confirmed and rendered more precise
by modern statistics. Cancer is a disease of old age; the incidence at
the ages of sixty-five to seventy-five is ten times greater than at the
ages thirty-five to forty-five. This fact is the source of frequent
fallacies when different countries or districts and different periods
are compared with each other, unless account is taken of the differences
in age and constitution. With regard to sex females are far more liable
than males; the respective death-rates per million living for England
and Wales in 1904 were--males 740; females 1006. But the two rates show
a tendency to approximate; the increase shown over a series of years has
been considerably more rapid among males than among females. One result
of more careful examination of statistics has been to discredit, though
perhaps somewhat hastily, certain observations regarding the prevalence
of cancer in special districts and special houses. On the other hand the
fuller statistics now available concerning the relative frequency of
cancer in the several organs and parts of the body, of which some
account is given above, go to confirm the old observation that cancer
commonly begins at the seat of some local irritation. By far the most
frequent seats of disease are the uterus and breast in women and the
digestive tract in both sexes, and these are all particularly subject to
such irritation. With regard to the influence of heredity the trend of
modern research is to minimize or deny its importance in cancer, as in
phthisis, and to explain family histories by other considerations. At
most heredity is only thought to confer a predisposition.
Treatment.
The only "cure" for cancer remains removal by operation; but improved
methods of diagnosis enable this to be done in many cases at an earlier
stage of the disease than formerly; and modern methods of surgery permit
not only of operation in parts of the body formerly inaccessible, but
also more complete removal of the affected tissues. Numerous forms of
treatment by modern therapeutic means, both internal and external, have
been advocated and tried; but they are all of an experimental nature and
have failed to meet with general acceptance. One of the most recent is
treatment by trypsin, a pancreatic ferment. This has been suggested by
Dr John Beard of Edinburgh in conformity with the theory, mentioned
above, that failure of the pancreatic secretions is the cause of cancer.
It has been claimed that the drug exercises a favourable influence in
conjunction with operation and even without it. The experience of
different observers with regard to results is contradictory; but
clinical investigations conducted at Middlesex hospital in a number of
cases of undoubted cancer in strict accordance with Dr Beard's
directions, and summarized by Dr Walter Ball and Dr Fairfield Thomas in
the _Sixth Report from the Cancer Research Laboratories_ (_Archives of
Middlesex Hospital_, vol. ix.) in May 1907, resulted in the conclusion
"that the course of cancer, considered both as a disease and as a morbid
process, is unaltered by the administration of trypsin and amylopsin."
The same conclusion has been reached after similar trials at the cancer
hospital. Another experimental method of treatment which has attracted
much attention is application of the X-rays. The results vary in a
capricious and inexplicable manner; in some cases marked benefit has
followed, in others the disease has been as markedly aggravated. Until
more is known both of cancer and of X-rays, their use must be considered
not only experimental but risky. (A. Sl.)
CANCRIN, FRANZ LUDWIG VON (1738-1812), German mineralogist and
metallurgist, was born on the 21st of February 1738, at Breitenbach,
Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1764 he entered the service of the landgrave of
Hesse-Darmstadt at Hanau, becoming professor of mathematics at the
military academy, head of the civil engineering department of the state,
director of the theatre and (1774) of the mint. A work on the copper
mines of Hesse (1767) earned him a European reputation, and in 1783 he
accepted from Catherine II. of Russia the directorship of the famous
Staraya salt-works, living thenceforth in Russia. In 1798 he became a
councillor of state at St Petersburg. He published many works on
mineralogy and metallurgy, of which the most important, the _Grundzüge
der Berg- und Salzwerkskunde_ (13 vols., Frankfort, 1773-1791), has been
translated into several languages. His son, Count Georg von Cancrin, or
Kankrin (1774-1845), was the eminent Russian minister of finance.
CANDELABRUM (from Lat. _candela_, a taper or candle), the stand on which
ancient lamps were placed. The most ancient example is the bronze
candelabrum made by Callimachus for the Erechtheum at Athens, to carry
the lamp sacred to Minerva. In this case it is probable the lamp was
suspended, as in the example from Pompeii, now in the Naples museum;
this consisted of a stalk or reed, the upper part moulded with
projecting feature to carry the lamps, and a base resting on three
lions' or griffins' feet; sometimes there was a disk at the top to carry
a lamp, and sometimes there was a hollow cup, in which resinous woods
were burnt. The origin of the term suggests that on the top of the disk
was a spike to carry a wax or tallow candle (_candela_ or _funalia_).
Besides these bronze candelabra, of which there are many varieties in
museums, the Romans used more ponderous supports in stone or marble, of
which many examples were found in the Thermae. These consisted of a
base, often triangular, and of similar design to the small sacrificial
altars, and a shaft either richly moulded or carved with the acanthus
plant and crowned with a large cup or basin. There is a fine example of
the latter in the Vatican. The Roman examples seem to have served as
models for many of the candelabra in the churches in Italy. The word
"candelabrum" is also now used to describe many different forms of
lighting with multiple points, and is often applied to hanging lights as
well as to those which rise from a stand.
CANDIA, formerly the capital and still the most populous city of Crete
(q.v.), to which it has given its name. It is situated on the northern
shore somewhat nearer the eastern than the western end of the island, in
35° 20' N. lat. and 25° 9' E. long. It is still surrounded by its
extensive Venetian fortifications; but they have fallen into disrepair,
and a good part of the town is in a dilapidated condition, mainly from
the effects of earthquakes. The principal buildings are the Venetian
loggia (barbarously mutilated by the new régime), the Konak (now
Prefecture), the mosques, which are fourteen in number, the new
cathedral, the two Greek churches, the Armenian church, the Capuchine
monastery, the bazaars and the baths. There are also some beautiful
Venetian fountains. The town is the seat of a Greek archbishop. A highly
interesting museum has been formed here containing the antiquities found
during the recent excavations. The chief trade is in oil and soap, both
of which are of excellent quality. The coasting trade, which is of
considerable importance, is mainly carried on in Turkish vessels. The
manufacture of leather for home consumption is an extensive industry and
wine of good quality is produced in the neighbourhood. The harbour,
which had grown almost inaccessible, was deepened by Mustapha Pasha
between 1820 and 1840. It is formed for the most part by the ancient
moles, and was never deep enough to admit the larger vessels even of the
Venetians, which were accustomed to anchor in the port of the
neighbouring island of Standia. A short distance from St George's Gate
there was a small village exclusively inhabited by lepers, who numbered
about seventy families, but they have now been transported to
Spinalonga. The population of the town is estimated at from 15,000 to
18,000, about half being Mahommedan Greeks. The site of Candia, or, as
it was till lately locally known, Megalo castro (the Great Fortress),
has been supposed to correspond with that of the ancient _Heracleion_,
the seaport of Cnossus, and this appellation has now been officially
revived by its Greek inhabitants. The ruins of Cnossus are situated at
the distance of about 3 m. to the south-east at the village of
Makryteichos or Long Wall. Founded by the Saracens in the 9th century,
Candia was fortified by the Genoese in the 12th, and was greatly
extended and strengthened by the Venetians in the 13th, 14th and 15th
centuries. It was besieged by the Turks under the vizier Achmet in 1667;
and, in spite of a most heroic defence, in which the Venetians lost
30,000 in killed and wounded, it was forced to surrender in 1669. (See
also CRETE.)
CANDIDATE, one who offers himself or is selected by others for an office
or place, particularly one who puts up for election to parliament or to
any public body. The word is derived from the Latin _candidatus_, clad
in white (_candidus_). In Rome, candidates for election to the higher
magistracies appeared in the Campus Martius, the Forum and other public
places, during their canvass, in togas with the white of the natural
wool brightened by chalk.
CANDLE (Lat. _candela_, from _candere_, to glow), a cylindrical rod of
solid fatty or waxy matter, enclosing a central fibrous wick, and
designed to be burnt for giving light. The oldest materials employed for
making candles are beeswax and tallow, while among those of more recent
introduction are spermaceti, stearine and paraffin wax. Waxlights
(_cereus_, sc. _funis_) were known to the Romans. In the midlde ages wax
candles were little used, owing to their expense, except for the
ceremonies of the church and other religious purposes (see LIGHTS,
CEREMONIAL USE OF), but in the 15th century, with the cheapening of wax,
they began to find wider employment. The tallow candle, mentioned by
Apuleius as _sebaceus_, was long an article of domestic manufacture. The
tallow was melted and strained, and then lengths of cotton or flax
fibre, or rushes from which most of the external skin had been stripped,
only sufficient being left to support the pith ("rushlights"), were
dipped into it, the operation being repeated until the desired thickness
had been attained. In Paris, in the 13th century, there was a gild of
candlemakers who went from house to house to make tallow candles, the
manufacture of wax candles being in the hands of another gild. This
separation of the two branches of the trade is also exemplified by the
existence of two distinct livery companies in the city of London--the
Waxchandlers and the Tallowchandlers; the French _chandelle_ properly
means tallow candle, candles made of materials less fusible than tallow
being called _bougies_, a term said to be derived from the town of
Bougie in Algeria, either because wax was produced there or because the
Venetians imported wax candles thence into Europe. The old tallow "dips"
gave a poor light, and tallow itself is now used only to a limited
extent, except as a source of "stearine." This is the trade name for a
mixture of solid fatty acids--mainly stearic and palmitic--manufactured
not only from tallow and other animal fats, but also from such vegetable
fats as palm-oil. Paraffin wax, a mixture of solid hydrocarbons obtained
from crude North American and Rangoon petroleum, and also yielded in
large quantities by the Scotch shale oil industry, is, at least in Great
Britain, a still more important material of candle-manufacture, which
came into use about 1854. Spermaceti, a crystalline fatty substance
obtained from the sperm whale (_Physeter macrocephalus_), was introduced
as a material for candles about a century earlier. In practice the
candlemaker mostly uses mixtures of these materials. For instance, 5-10%
of stearine, which is used alone for candles that have to be burnt in
hot climates, is mixed with paraffin wax, to counteract the tendency to
bend with heat exhibited by the latter substance. Again, the brittleness
of spermaceti is corrected by the addition of beeswax, stearine,
paraffin wax or ceresin (obtained from the mineral wax ozocerite). In
some "composite" candles stearine is mixed with the hard fat ("cocoa-nut
stearine") expressed from cocoa-nut oil by hydraulic pressure; and this
cocoa-nut stearine is also used for night-lights, which are short thick
candles with a thin wick, calculated to burn from six to ten hours.
The stearine or stearic acid industry originated in the discovery made
by M.E. Chevreul about 1815, that fats are glycerides or compounds of
glycerin with fatty acids, mostly palmitic, stearic and oleic. The
object of the candlemaker is to remove this glycerin, not only because
it is a valuable product in itself, but also because it is an
objectionable constituent of a candle; the vapours of acrolein formed by
its decomposition in the flame are the cause of the unpleasant odours
produced by tallow "dips." He also removes the oleic acid, which is
liquid at ordinary temperatures, from the palmitic and stearic acids,
mixtures of which solidify at temperatures varying from about 130° to
155° F., according to the percentage of each present. Several methods
are in use for the decomposition of the fats. In the autoclave process
the fat, whether tallow, palm-oil or a mixture of the two, mixed with 25
or 30% of water and about 3% of lime, is subjected in an autoclave to
steam at a pressure of about 120 lb per square inch for eight or ten
hours, when nearly all of it is saponified. On standing the product
separates into two layers--"sweet water" containing glycerin below, and
the fatty acids with a certain amount of lime soap above. The upper
layer is then boiled and treated with enough sulphuric acid to decompose
the lime soap, the calcium sulphate formed is allowed to subside, and
the fatty acids are run off into shallow boxes to be crystallized or
"seeded" prior to the separation of the oleic acid, which is effected by
pressing the solid blocks from the boxes, first cold and then hot, by
hydraulic machinery. In another process saponification is effected by
means of concentrated sulphuric acid. The fat is mixed with 4-6% of the
acid and treated with steam in boiling water till the hydrolysis is
complete, when on standing the glycerin and sulphuric acid sink to the
bottom and the fatty acids rise to the top. Owing to the darkness of
their colour, when this process is employed, the latter usually have to
be distilled before being crystallized. The autoclave process yields
about 45% of stearine, one-third of which is recovered from the
expressed oleic acid, but with sulphuric acid saponification the amount
of stearine is higher--over 60%--and that of oleic acid less, part of it
being converted into solid material by the action of the acid. The yield
of glycerin is also less. In a combination of the two processes the fat
may first be treated by the autoclave process, so as to obtain a full
yield (about 10%) of glycerin, and the resulting fatty acids then
subjected to acid saponification, so as to get the higher amount of
stearine. At the best, however, some 30% of oleic acid remains, and
though often sought, no satisfactory method of converting this residue
into solid has been discovered. It constitutes "red oil," and is used in
soap-making and in woollen manufacture. In the process patented by Ernst
Twitchell in 1898, decomposition is effected by boiling the fat with
half its bulk of water in presence of a reagent obtained by the action
of sulphuric acid on oleic acid and an aromatic hydrocarbon such as
benzene.
The wick is a most important part of a candle, and unless it is of
proper size and texture either too much or too little fuel will be
supplied to the flame, and the candle will gutter or be otherwise
unsatisfactory. The material generally employed is cotton yarn, plaited
or "braided" by machinery, and treated or "pickled" with a solution of
boracic acid, ammonium or potassium nitrate, or other salt. The
tightness of the plaiting varies with the material used for the candle,
wicks for stearine being looser than for paraffin, but tighter than for
wax or spermaceti. The plaited wick is flat and curls over as the candle
burns, and thus the end is kept projecting into the outer part of the
flame where it is consumed, complete combustion being aided by the
pickling process it has undergone. In the old tallow dips the strands of
cotton were merely twisted together, instead of being plaited; wicks
made in this way had no determinate bias towards the outside of the
flame, and thus were not wholly consumed, the result being that there
was apt to be an accumulation of charred matter, which choked the flame
unless removed by periodical "snuffing."
Four ways of making candles may be distinguished--dipping, pouring,
drawing and moulding, the last being that most commonly employed.
_Dipping_ is essentially the same as the domestic process already
described, but the rate of production is increased by mounting a number
of wicks in a series of frames, each of which in turn is brought over
the tallow bath so that its wicks can be dipped. _Pouring_, used in the
case of wax, which cannot well be moulded because it contracts in
cooling and also has a tendency to stick to the moulds, consists in
ladling molten wax upon the wicks suspended from an iron ring. When of
the desired thickness the candles are rolled under a plate on a marble
slab. In _drawing_, used for small tapers, the wick, rolled on a drum,
is passed through the molten wax or paraffin, drawn through a circular
hole and slowly wound on a second drum; it is then passed again through
the molten material and through a somewhat larger hole, and reeled back
on the first drum, this process being repeated with larger and larger
holes until the coating is of the required thickness. In _moulding_, a
number of slightly conical moulds are fixed by the larger extremity to a
kind of trough, with their tapered ends projecting downwards and with
wicks arranged down their centres. The molten material is poured into
the trough and fills the moulds, from which the candles are withdrawn
when solidified. Modern candle-moulding machines are continuous in their
operation; long lengths of wick are coiled on bobbins, one for each
mould, and the act of removing one set of candles from their moulds
draws in a fresh set of wicks. "Self-fitting ends," which were invented
by J.L. Field in 1864, and being shaped like a truncated cone enable the
candles to be fixed in candlesticks of any diameter, are formed by means
of an attachment to the tops of the moulds; spirally twisted candles
are, as it were, unscrewed from their moulds. It is necessary to be able
to regulate the temperature of the moulds accurately, else the candles
will not come out freely and will not be of good appearance. For
stearine candles the moulds are immersed in tepid water and the cooling
must be slow, else the material will crystallize, though if it be too
slow cracking will occur. For paraffin, on the other hand, the moulds
must be rather hotter than the molten material (about 200° F.), and must
be quickly cooled to prevent the candles from sticking.
A candle-power, as a unit of light in photometry, was defined by the
(London) Metropolis Gas Act of 1860 as the light given by a sperm
candle, of which six weighed 1 lb and each burned 120 grains an hour.
See W. Lant Carpenter, _Soaps and Candles_ (London, 1895); C.E. Groves
and W. Thorp, _Chemical Technology_, vol. ii. "Lighting" (London,
1895); L.L. Lamborn, _Soaps, Candles and Glycerine_ (New York, 1906);
J. Lewkowitsch, _Oils, Fats, and Waxes_ (London, 1909).
CANDLEMAS (Lat. _festum candelarum sive luminum_), the name for the
ancient church festival, celebrated annually on the 2nd of February, in
commemoration of the presentation of Christ in the Temple. In the Greek
Church it is known as [Greek: Upapantê tou Kuriou] ("the meeting of the
Lord," i.e. with Simeon and Anna), in the West as the Purification of
the Blessed Virgin. It is the most ancient of all the festivals in
honour of the Virgin Mary. A description is given of its celebration at
Jerusalem in the _Peregrinatio_ of Etheria (Silvia), in the second half
of the 4th century. It was then kept on the 14th of February, forty days
after Epiphany, the celebration of the Nativity (Christmas) not having
been as yet introduced; the Armenians still keep it on this day, as "the
Coming of the Son of God into the Temple." The celebration gradually
spread to other parts of the church, being moved to the 2nd of February,
forty days after the newly established feast of Christmas. In 542 it was
established throughout the entire East Roman empire by Justinian. Its
introduction in the West is somewhat obscure. The 8th-century _Gelasian
Sacramentary_, which embodies a much older tradition, mentions it under
the title of Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which has led some
to suppose that it was ordained by Pope Gelasius I. in 492[1] as a
counter-attraction to the heathen Lupercalia; but for this there is no
warrant. The procession on this day was introduced by Pope Sergius I.
(687-701). The custom of blessing the candles for the whole year on this
day, whence the name Candlemas is derived, did not come into common use
until the 11th century.
In the _Quadragesimae de Epiphania_ as described by Etheria there is, as
Monsignor Duchesne points out (_Christian Worship_, p. 272), no
indication of a special association with the Blessed Virgin; and the
distinction between the festival as celebrated in the East and West is
that in the former it is a festival of Christ, in the latter a festival
pre-eminently of the Virgin Mother.
See L. Duchesne, _Christian Worship_ (Eng. trans., London, 1904); art.
s.v. by F.G. Holweck in the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] So Baronius, _Ann. ad ann._ 544.
CANDLESTICK, the receptacle for holding a candle, nowadays made in
various art-forms. The word was formerly used for any form of support on
which lights, whether candles or lamps, were fixed; thus a candelabrum
(q.v.) is sometimes spoken of from tradition as a candlestick, e.g. as
when Moses was commanded to make a candlestick for the tabernacle, of
hammered gold, a talent in weight, and consisting of a base with a shaft
rising out of it and six arms, and with seven lamps supported on the
summits of the six arms and central shaft. When Solomon built the
temple, he placed in it ten golden candlesticks, five on the north and
five on the south side of the Holy Place; but after the Babylonish
captivity the golden candlestick was again placed in the temple, as it
had been before in the tabernacle by Moses. On the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus, it was carried with other spoils to Rome.
Representations of the seven-branched candlestick, as it is called,
occur on the arch of Titus at Rome, and on antiquities found in the
Catacombs at Rome. The primitive form of candlestick was a torch made of
slips of bark, vine tendrils or wood dipped in wax or tallow, tied
together and held in the hand by the lower end, such as are frequently
figured on ancient painted vases. The next step was to attach to them a
cup (_discus_) to catch the dripping wax or tallow.
A candlestick may be either "flat" or "tall." The former has a short
stem, rising from a dish, and is usually furnished with an extinguisher
fitting into a socket; the latter has a pillar which may be only a few
inches in height or may rise to several feet, and rarely has an
extinguisher. The flat variety is sometimes called a "bedroom
candlestick." The beginnings of this interesting and often beautiful
appliance are not exactly known, but it dates certainly as far back as
the 14th century and is probably older. It is most usually of metal,
earthenware or china, but originally it was made of some hard wood and
had no socketed pillar, the candle fitting upon a metal spike, in the
fashion still familiar in the case of many church candlesticks. It has
been constantly influenced by mobiliary and architectural fashions, and
has varied, as it still varies, from the severest simplicity of form and
material to the most elaborate artistic treatment and the costliest
materials--gold and silver, crystal, marble and enamel. Previous to the
17th century, iron, latten, bronze and copper were chiefly used, but
thenceforward the most elegant examples were chiefly of silver, though
in more modern periods Sheffield plate, silver plate and china became
exceedingly popular. Sometimes the base and sconce are of one material
and the pillar of another, as when the former are of silver and the
pillar of marble or china. The choice and combination of materials are,
indeed, infinite. The golden age of the candlestick lasted, roughly
speaking, from the third quarter of the 17th century to the end of the
18th. The later Jacobean, Queen Anne and early Georgian forms were often
extremely elegant, with broad bases, round, oval or square and swelling
stems. Fine examples of these periods, especially when of silver, are
much sought after and command constantly augmenting prices. As with most
domestic appliances the history of the candlestick is an unceasing
tendency towards simplicity, the most elaborate and fantastic forms,
animals and reptiles, the monstrous creatures of mythology, lions and
men-at-arms, angels and cupids, having gradually given place to
architectural motives such as the baluster stem and to the classic grace
of the Adam style. The candlestick in its modern form is, indeed,
artistically among the least unsatisfactory of household plenishings.
CANDLISH, ROBERT SMITH (1806-1873), Scottish divine, was born at
Edinburgh on the 23rd of March 1806, and spent his early years in
Glasgow, where he graduated in 1823. During the years 1823-1826 he went
through the prescribed course at the divinity hall, then presided over
by Dr Stevenson MacGill, and on leaving, accompanied a pupil as private
tutor to Eton, where he stayed two years. In 1829 he entered upon his
life's work, having been licensed to preach during the summer vacation
of the previous year. After short assistant pastorates at St Andrew's,
Glasgow, and Bonhill, Dumbartonshire, he obtained a settled charge as
minister of the important parish of St George's, Edinburgh. Here he at
once took the place he so long held as one of the ablest preachers in
Scotland. Destitute of natural oratorical gifts and somewhat ungainly in
his manner, he attracted and even riveted the attention of his audience
by a rare combination of intellectual keenness, emotional fervour,
spiritual insight and power of dramatic representation of character and
life. His theology was that of the Scottish Calvinistic school, but his
sympathetic character combined with strong conviction gathered round him
one of the largest and most intelligent congregations in the city.
From the very commencement of his ministry in Edinburgh, Candlish took
the deepest interest in ecclesiastical questions, and he soon became
involved as one of the chief actors in the struggle which was then
agitating the Scottish church. His first Assembly speech, delivered in
1839, placed him at once among the leaders of the party that afterwards
formed the Free Church, and his influence in bringing about the
Disruption of 1843 was inferior only to that of Thomas Chalmers. Great
as was his popularity as a preacher, it was in the arena of
ecclesiastical debate that his ability chiefly showed itself, and
probably no other single man had from first to last so large a share in
shaping the constitution and guiding the policy of the Free Church. He
took his stand on two principles: the right of the people to choose
their ministers, and the independence of the church in things spiritual.
On his advice Hugh Miller was appointed editor of the _Witness_, the
powerful Free Church organ. He was actively engaged at one time or other
in nearly all the various schemes of the church, but special mention
should be made of his services on the education committee, of which he
was convener from 1846 to 1863, and in the unsuccessful negotiations for
union among the non-established Presbyterian denominations of Scotland,
which were carried on during the years 1863-1873. In the Assembly of
1861 he filled the moderator's chair.
As a theologian the position of Candlish was perhaps inferior to that
which he held as a preacher and ecclesiastic, but it was not
inconsiderable. So early as 1841 his reputation in this department was
sufficient to secure for him the government nomination to the newly
founded chair of Biblical criticism in the university of Edinburgh.
Owing to the opposition of Lord Aberdeen, however, the presentation was
cancelled. In 1847 Candlish, who had received the degree of D.D. from
Princeton, New Jersey, in 1841, was chosen by the Assembly of the Free
Church to succeed Chalmers in the chair of divinity in the New College,
Edinburgh. After partially fulfilling the duties of the office for one
session, he was led to resume the charge of St George's, the clergyman
who had been chosen by the congregation as his successor having died
before entering on his work. In 1862 he succeeded William Cunningham as
principal of New College with the understanding that he should still
retain his position as minister of St George's. He died on the 19th of
October 1873.
Though his greatest power was not displayed through the press, Candlish
made a number of contributions to theological literature. In 1842 he
published the first volume of his _Contributions towards the Exposition
of the Book of Genesis_, a work which was completed in three volumes
several years later. In 1854 he delivered, in Exeter Hall, London, a
lecture on the _Theological Essays_ of the Rev. F.D. Maurice, which he
afterwards published, along with a fuller examination of the doctrine of
the essays. In this he defended the forensic aspect of the gospel. A
treatise entitled _The Atonement; its Reality, Completeness and Extent_
(1861) was based upon a smaller work which first appeared in 1845. In
1864 he delivered the first series of Cunningham lectures, taking for
his subject _The Fatherhood of God_. Published immediately afterwards,
the lectures excited considerable discussion on account of the peculiar
views they represented. Further illustrations of these views were given
in two works published about the same time as the lectures, one a
treatise _On the Sonship and Brotherhood of Believers_, and the other an
exposition of the first epistle of St John.
See William Wilson, _Memorials of R.S. Candlish, D.D._, with a chapter
on his position as a theologian by Robert Rainy.
CANDOLLE, AUGUSTIN PYRAME DE (1778-1841), Swiss botanist, was born at
Geneva on the 4th of February 1778. He was descended from one of the
ancient families of Provence, whence his ancestors had been expatriated
for their religion in the middle of the 16th century. Though a weakly
boy he showed great aptitude for study, and distinguished himself at
school by his rapid attainments in classical and general literature, and
specially by a faculty for writing elegant verse. He began his
scientific studies at the college of Geneva, where the teaching of
J.P.E. Vaucher first inspired him with the determination to make
botanical science the chief pursuit of his life. In 1796 he removed to
Paris. His first productions, _Historia Plantarum Succulentarum_ (4
vols., 1799) and _Astragalogia_ (1802), introduced him to the notice of
Cuvier, for whom he acted as deputy at the Collège de France in 1802,
and to J.B. Lamarck, who afterwards confided to him the publication of
the third edition of the _Flore française_ (1803-1815). The _Principes
élémentaires de botanique_, printed as the introduction to this work,
contained the first exposition of his principle of classification
according to the natural as opposed to the Linnean or artificial method.
In 1804 he was granted the degree of doctor of medicine by the medical
faculty of Paris, and published his _Essai sur les propriétés médicales
des plantes comparées avec leurs formes extérieures et leur
classification naturelle_, and soon after, in 1806, his _Synopsis
plantarum in flora Gallica descriptarum_. At the desire of the French
government he spent the summers of the following six years in making a
botanical and agricultural survey of the whole kingdom, the results of
which were published in 1813. In 1807 he was appointed professor of
botany in the medical faculty of the university of Montpellier, and in
1810 he was transferred to the newly founded chair of botany of the
faculty of sciences in the same university. From Montpellier, where he
published his _Théorie élémentaire de la botanique_ (1813), he removed
to Geneva in 1816, and in the following year was invited by the now
independent republic to fill the newly created chair of natural history.
The rest of his life was spent in an attempt to elaborate and complete
his "natural" system of botanical classification. The results of his
labours in this department are to be found in his _Regni vegetabilis
systema naturale_, of which two volumes only were completed (1821) when
he found that it would be impossible for him to execute the whole work
on so extensive a scale. Accordingly in 1824 he began a less extensive
work of the same kind--his _Prodromus systematis regni vegetabilis_--but
even of this he was able to finish only seven volumes, or two-thirds of
the whole. He had been for several years in delicate health when he died
on the 9th of September 1841 at Geneva.
His son, ALPHONSE LOUIS PIERRE PYRAME DE CANDOLLE, born at Paris on the
28th of October 1806, at first devoted himself to the study of law, but
gradually drifted to botany and finally succeeded to his father's chair.
He published a number of botanical works, including continuations of the
_Prodromus_ in collaboration with his son, Anne Casimir Pyrame de
Candolle. He died at Geneva on the 4th of April 1893.
CANDON, a town of South Ilocos province, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on
the W. coast, about 200 m. N. by W. of Manila. Pop. (1903) 18,828. Its
climate is hot, though healthy. Candon is surrounded by an extensive and
fertile plain, and is defended by a small fort. Its inhabitants are
noted for their honesty and industry, as well as for their regard for
law and order. They carry on an extensive traffic with the wild tribes
of the neighbouring mountains. Indigo is grown in considerable quantity,
as are rice and tobacco. The weaving of blankets, handkerchiefs, and
cotton and silk cloths constitutes quite an important industry. The
language is Ilocanc.
CANDYTUFT (_Iberis amara_, so called from Iberia, i.e. Spain, where many
species of the genus are native, and _amara_, bitter, i.e. in taste), a
small annual herb (natural order Cruciferae) with white or purplish
flowers, the outer petals of which are longer than the rest. It is a
native of western Europe and found wild on dry soil in cultivated ground
in the centre and east of England. This and several other species of the
genus are known as garden plants, and are of easy culture in ordinary
garden soil if well exposed to sun and air. The common candytuft of
gardens is _I. umbellata_, a hardy annual, native of southern Europe,
and known in a number of varieties differing in colour of flowers. _I.
coronaria_ (rocket candytuft) has long dense heads of white flowers and
is also an annual. Some species have a shrubby growth and are evergreen
perennials; the best-known is _I. sempervirens_, a native of southern
Europe, a much-branched plant about a foot high with long racemes of
white flowers. _I. gibraltarica_ is a showy, handsome half hardy
evergreen.
CANE, a name applied to many plants which have long, slender, reed-like
stalks or stems, as, for example, the sugar-cane, the bamboo-cane or the
reed-cane. From the use as walking-sticks to which many of these plants
have been applied, the name "cane" is improperly given to sticks,
irrespective of the source from which they are derived. Properly it
should be restricted to a peculiar class of palms, known as rattans,
included under the two closely allied genera _Calamus_ and
_Daemonorops_, of which there are a large number of species. The plants
are found widely extended throughout the islands of the Indian
Archipelago, the Malay Peninsula, China, India and Ceylon; and also in
Australia and Africa. They were described by Georg Eberhard Rumpf or
Rumphius (1627-1702), governor of Amboyna, and author of the _Herbarium
Amboynense_ (6 vols. folio, Amsterdam, 1741-1755), under the name of
Palmijunci, as inhabitants of dense forests into which the rays of the
sun scarce can penetrate, where they form spiny bushes, obstructing the
passage through the jungle. The slender stems rarely exceed an inch in
diameter and are generally much smaller. They creep or trail to an
enormous length, often reaching 500 or 600 ft., and support themselves
on trees or bushes by recurved spines borne on the stalk or back of the
midrib of the leaf, or by stiff hooks replacing the upper leaflets. In
some cases the midrib is elongated beyond the leaflets to form a long
whip-like structure, bearing recurved hooks at intervals. The natives,
in preparing the canes for the market, strip off the leaves by pulling
the cut plant through a notch made in a tree. The canes always present
distinct rings at the junction of the sheathing leaves with the stem.
They assume a yellow colour as they dry; and those imported from
Calcutta have a glossy surface, while the produce of the Eastern
Archipelago presents a dull exterior.
Canes, on account of their lightness, length, strength and flexibility,
are used for a great variety of purposes by the inhabitants of the
countries in which they grow. Split into thin strips they are twisted to
form ropes and ships' cables, an application mentioned by Captain
Dampier in his _Voyages_. A more important application, however, is for
basket-work, and for making chairs, couches, pillows, &c., as the great
strength and durability of thin and easily prepared strips admit of such
articles being made at once airy, strong and flexible. Much of the
beautiful and elaborate basket-work of the Chinese and Japanese is made
from thin strips of cane, which are also used by the Chinese for larger
works, such as door-mats, houses and sheds.
A very large trade with Western countries and the United States is
carried on in canes and rattans, the principal centres of the trade
being Batavia, Sarawak, Singapore, Penang and Calcutta. In addition to
the varieties used for walking-sticks, whip and umbrella handles, &c.,
the common rattans are in extensive demand for basket-making, the seats
and backs of chairs, the ribs of cheap umbrellas, saddles and other
harness-work; and generally for purposes where their strength and
flexibility make them efficient substitutes for whalebone. The
walking-stick "canes" of commerce include a great many varieties, some
of which, however, are not the produce of trailing palms. The well-known
Malacca canes are obtained from _Calamus Scipionum_, the stems of which
are much stouter than is the case with the average species of _Calamus_.
CANEA, or KHANIA, the principal seaport and since 1841 the capital of
Crete, finely situated on the northern coast of the island, about 25 m.
from its western extremity, on the isthmus of the Akrotiri peninsula,
which lies between the Bay of Canea and the Bay of Suda (latitude 35°
31' N., longitude 24° 1' E.). Surrounded by a massive Venetian wall, it
forms a closely built, irregular and overcrowded town, though of late
years a few of its streets have been widened. The ordinary houses are of
wood; but the more important buildings are of more solid materials. The
Turks have a number of mosques; there are Greek churches and a Jewish
synagogue; an old Venetian structure serves as a military hospital; and
the prison is of substantial construction. The town is now the principal
seat of government; the seat of a Greek bishop, who is suffragan to the
metropolitan at Candia, and the official residence of the European
consuls. The harbour, formed by an ancient transverse mole nearly 1200
ft. long, and protected by a lighthouse and a fort, would admit vessels
of considerable tonnage; but it has been allowed to silt up until it
shoals off from 24 ft. to 10 or even 8, so that large vessels have to
anchor about 4 or 5 m. out. The principal articles of trade are oil and
soap, and there is a pretty extensive manufacture of leather. The fosse
is laid out in vegetable gardens; public gardens have been constructed
outside the walls; and artesian wells have been bored by the government.
To the east of the town a large Arab village had grown up, inhabited for
the most part by natives of Egypt and Cyrenaica, who acted as boatmen,
porters and servants, but since the fall of the Turkish government most
of these have quitted the island; while about a mile off on the rising
ground is the village of Khalepa, where the consuls and merchants
reside. The population of the town is estimated at 20,000. Canea
probably occupies the site of the ancient Cydonia, a city of very early
foundation and no small importance. During the Venetian rule it was one
of the strongest cities in the island, but it fell into the hands of the
Turks in 1646, several years before the capture of Candia. In 1856 it
suffered from an earthquake. The neighbouring plain is famous for its
fruitfulness, and the quince is said to derive its name _Cydonia_ from
the town. (See also CRETE.)
CANE-FENCING (the Fr. _canne_), the art of defending oneself with a
walking-stick. It may be considered to be single-stick fencing without a
guard for the hand, with the important difference that in cane-fencing
the thrust is as important as the cut, and thus _canne_ approaches
nearer to sabre-play. The cuts are practically identical with those of
the single-stick (q.v.), but they are generally given after one or more
rapid preliminary flourishes (_moulinets_, circles) which the lightness
of the stick facilitates, and which serve to perplex and disconcert an
assailant. The thrusts are similar to those in foil-play, but are often
carried out with both hands grasping the stick, giving greater force and
enabling it to be used at very close quarters. The canes used in French
fencing schools are made of several kinds of tough wood and are about 3
ft. long, tapering towards the point. As very severe blows are
exchanged, masks, gloves, padded vests and shin-guards, similar to those
used in football, are worn.
See Georges d'Amoric, _French Method of the Noble Art of Self-Defence_
(London, 1898); J. Charlemont, _L'Art de la Boxe française et de la
Canne_ (Paris, 1899).
CANEPHORAE (Gr. [Greek: kaneon], a basket, and [Greek: ferein], to
carry), "basket-bearers," the title given of old to Athenian maidens of
noble family, annually chosen to carry on their heads baskets with
sacrificial implements and apparatus at the Panathenaic and other
festivals. The term (also in the form _Canephori_) is applied in
architecture to figures of either sex carrying on their heads baskets,
containing edibles or material for sacrifices. The term might well be
applied to the Caryatide figures of the Erechtheum. Those represented in
the Panathenaic frieze of the Parthenon carry vases on their shoulders.
CANES VENATICI ("The HOUNDS," or "the GREYHOUNDS"), in astronomy, a
constellation of the northern hemisphere named by Hevelius in 1690, who
compiled it from the stars between the older asterisms Ursa Major,
Boötes and Coma Berenices. Interesting objects in this portion of the
heavens are: the famous spiral nebula first described by Lord Rosse;
_a-Canum Venaticorum_, a double star, of magnitudes 3 and 6; this star
was named _Cor Caroli_, or The Heart of Charles II., by Edmund Halley,
on the suggestion of Sir Charles Scarborough (1616-1694), the court
physician; a cluster of stars of the 11th magnitude and fainter,
extremely rich in variables, of the 900 stars examined no less than 132
being regularly variable.
CANGA-ARGUELLES, JOSÉ (1770-1843), Spanish statesman, was born in 1770.
He took an active part in the Spanish resistance to Napoleon in a civil
capacity and was an energetic member of the cortes of 1812. On the
return of the Bourbon line in 1814, Canga-Arguelles was sent into exile
in the province of Valencia. On the restoration in 1820 of the
constitution of 1812, he was appointed minister of finance. He continued
at this post till the spring of 1821, distinguishing himself by the zeal
and ability with which he sought to reform the finances of Spain. It was
high time; for the annual deficit was greater than the entire revenue
itself, and landed and other property was, to an unheard-of extent,
monopolized by the priests. The measures he proposed had been only
partially enforced, when the action of the king with regard to the
ministry, of which he was a member, obliged him to resign. Thereafter,
as a member of the Moderate Liberal party, Canga-Arguelles advocated
constitutional government and financial reform, till the overthrow of
the constitution in 1823, when he fled to England. He did not return to
Spain till 1829, and did not again appear in public life, being
appointed keeper of the archives at Simancas. He died in 1843.
Canga-Arguelles is the author of three works: _Elementos de la Ciencia
de Hacienda_ (Elements of the Science of Finance), London, 1825;
_Diccionario de Hacienda_ (Dictionary of Finance), London, 1827; and
_Observaciones sobre la guerra de la Peninsula_ (Observations on the
Peninsular War), in which he endeavoured to show that his countrymen had
taken a far more effective part in the national struggle against the
French than English historians were willing to admit.
CANGAS DE ONÍS, or CANGAS, a town of northern Spain, in the province of
Oviedo; situated on the right bank of the river Sella, in a fertile,
well-watered, partly wooded, undulating region. Pop. (1900) 8537. The
trade of Cangas de Onís is chiefly in live-stock and coal from the
neighbouring mines. A Latin inscription on the town-hall records the
fact that this place was the residence of the first Spanish kings after
the spread of the Moors over the Peninsula. Here early in the 8th
century lived King Pelayo, who started the Christian reconquest of
Spain. His historic cave of Covadonga is only 8 m. distant (see
ASTURIAS). The church of the Assumption, rebuilt in the 19th century, is
on the model and site of an older church of the middle ages. Near Cangas
are ruins and bridges of the Roman period.
CANGAS DE TINÉO, a town of northern Spain, in the province of Oviedo,
and on the river Narcea. Pop. (1900) 22,742. There is no railway and the
river is not navigable, but a good road runs through Tinéo, Grado and
the adjacent coal-fields, to the ports of Cudillero and Avilés. The
inhabitants have thus an easily accessible market for the farm produce
of the fertile hills round Cangas de Tinéo, and for the cloth, leather,
pottery, &c., manufactured in the town.
CANGUE, or CANG, the European name for the Chinese _Kia_ or _Kea_, a
portable pillory, carried by offenders convicted of petty offences. It
consists of a square wooden collar weighing from 20 to 60 lb., through a
hole in which the victim's head is thrust. It fits tight to the neck and
must be worn day and night for the period ordered. The offender is left
exposed in the street. Over the parts by which it fastens slips of paper
bearing the mandarin's seal are pasted so that no one can liberate the
condemned. The length of the punishment is usually from a fortnight to a
month. As the cangue is 3 to 4 ft. across the convict is unable to feed
himself or to lie down, and thus, unless fed by friends or passersby,
often starves to death. As in the English pillory, the name of the man
and the nature of his offence are inscribed on the cangue.
CANINA, LUIGI (1795-1856), Italian archaeologist and architect, was born
at Casale in Piedmont. He became professor of architecture at Turin, and
his most important works were the excavation of Tusculum in 1829 and of
the Appian Way in 1848, the results of which he embodied in a number of
works published in a costly form by his patroness, the queen of
Sardinia.
CANINI, GIOVANNI AGNOLO (1617-1666), Italian designer and engraver, was
born at Rome. He was a pupil of Domenichino and afterwards of Antonio
Barbalonga. He painted some altar-pieces at Rome, including two admired
pictures for the church of San Martino a' Monti, representing the
martyrdom of St Stephen and of St Bartholomew. Having accompanied
Cardinal Chigi to France, he was encouraged by the minister Colbert to
carry into execution his project of designing from medals, antique gems
and similar sources a series of portraits of the most illustrious
characters of antiquity, accompanied with memoirs; but shortly after the
commencement of the undertaking Canini died at Rome. The work, however,
was prosecuted by his brother Marcantonio, who, with the assistance of
Picard and Valet, completed and published it in 1699, under the title of
_Iconografia di Gio. Ag. Canini_. It contains 150 engravings. A reprint
in Italian and French appeared at Amsterdam in 1731.
CANIS MAJOR ("Great Dog"), in astronomy, a constellation placed south of
the Zodiac, just below and behind the heels of Orion. _Canis minor_, the
"little dog," is another constellation, also following Orion and
separated from Canis major by the Milky Way. Both these constellations,
or at least their principal stars, Sirius in the Great Dog and Procyon
in the Little Dog, were named in very remote times, being referred to as
the "dogs of Orion" or in equivalent terms. Sirius is the brightest star
in the heavens; and the name is connected with the adjectives [Greek:
seirhos] and [Greek: sehirios], scorching. It may possibly be related to
the Arabic _Siraj_, thus meaning the "glittering one." Hommel has shown
that Sirius and Procyon were "the two _Si'ray_" or glitterers. It is
doubtful whether Sirius is referred to in the Old Testament. By some it
has been identified with the Hebrew _mazzaroth_, the _Lucifer_ of the
Vulgate; by others with _mazzaloth_, the _duodecim signa_ of the
Vulgate; while Professor M.A. Stern identifies it with the Hebrew
_kimah_, which is rendered variously in the Vulgate as Arcturus, Hyades
and Pleiades.[1] The inhabitants of the Euphrates valley included both
constellations in their stellar system; but considerable difficulty is
encountered in the allocation of the Babylonian names to the dominant
stars. The name _kak-ban_, which occurs on many tablets, has been
determined by Epping and Strassmaier, and also by Jensen and Hommel, as
equivalent to Sirius; etymologically this word means "dog-star" (or,
according to R. Brown, _Primitive Constellations_, "bow-star"). On the
other hand, _Kaksidi_ or _Kak-si-sa_, meaning the "leader," has been
identified by Sayce and others with Sirius, while Hommel regards it as
Procyon. The question is mainly philological, and the arguments seem
inconclusive. We may notice, however, that connexions were made between
Kaksidi and the weather, which have strong affinities with the ideas
expressed at a later date by the Greeks. For example, its appearance in
the morning with the sun heralded the "north winds," the [Greek: boreai
etaesiai] or _aquilones etesiae_, the strong and dangerous
north-westerly winds of Greece which blow for forty days from the rising
of the star; again, when Sirius appeared misty the "locusts devour."
Sirius also appears in the cosmogony of Zoroaster, for Plutarch records
that Ormuzd appointed this star to be a guard and overseer in the
heavens, and in the _Avesta_ we find that Tistrya (Sirius) is "the
bright and happy star, that gives happy dwelling." With the Egyptians
Sirius assumed great importance. Appearing with the sun when the Nile
was rising, Sirius was regarded as a herald of the waters which would
overspread the land, renewing its fertility and promising good harvests
for the coming season. Hephaestion records that from its aspect the rise
of the water was foretold, and the Roman historian Florus adds that the
weather was predicted also. Its rising marked the commencement of their
new year, the _annus canarius_ and _annus cynicus_ of the Romans. It was
the star of Sept or Sothis, and, according to one myth, was identified
with the goddess Hathor--the Aphrodite of the Greeks. It was the "second
sun" of the heavens, and according to Maspero (_Dawn of Civilization_,
1894) "Sahu and Sopdit, Orion and Sirius, were the rulers of this
mysterious world of night and stars."
The Greeks, borrowing most of their astronomical knowledge from the
Babylonians, held similar myths and ideas as to the constellations and
stars. Sirius was named [Greek: Seirios, Kuon] (the dog) and [Greek: to
astron], the star; and its heliacal rising was associated with the
coming of the dry, hot and sultry season. Hesiod tells us that "Sirius
parches head and knees"; Homer speaks similarly, calling it [Greek:
kakon saema], the evil star, and the star of late summer ([Greek:
opora]), the rainy and stormy season. Procyon ([Greek: Prokuon]) was so
named because it rose before [Greek: Kuon]. The Euphratean myth of the
dogs has its parallel in Greece, Sirius being the hound of the hunter
Orion, and as recorded by Aratus always chasing the Hare; Pindar refers
to the chase of Pleione, the mother of the Pleiads, by Orion and his
dogs. Similarly Procyon became Maera, the dog of Icarius, when Boötes
became Icarius, and Virgo his daughter Erigone.
The Romans adopted the Greek ideas. They named the constellation
_Canis_, and Sirius was known as _Canis_ also, and as _Canicula_.
Procyon became _Antecanem_ and _Antecanis_, but these names did not come
into general use. They named the hottest part of the year associated
with the heliacal rising of Sirius the _Dies caniculares_, a phrase
which has survived in the modern expression "dog-days"; and the
pestilences which then prevailed occasioned the offering of sacrifices
to placate this inimical star. Festus narrates, in this connexion, the
sacrificing of red dogs at the feast of Floralia, and Ovid of a dog on
the Robigalia. The experience of the ancient Greeks that Sirius rose
with the sun as the latter entered Leo, i.e. the hottest part of the
year, was accepted by the Romans with an entire disregard of the
intervening time and a different latitude. To quote Sir Edward Sherburne
(_Sphere of Manilius_, 1675), "The greater part of the Antients assign
the Dog Star rising to the time of the Sun's first entering into Leo,
or, as Pliny writes, 23 days after the summer solstice, as Varro 29, as
Columella 30.[2] ...At this day with us, according to Vulgar
computation, the rising and setting of the said Star is in a manner
coincident with the Feasts of St Margaret (which is about the 13th of
our July) and St Lawrence (which falls on the 10th of our August)."
Sirius is the most conspicuous star in the sky; it sends to the earth
eleven times as much light as Aldebaran, the unit standard adopted in
the revised Harvard Photometry; numerically its magnitude is -1.6. At
the present time its colour is white with a tinge of blue, but
historical records show that this colour has not always prevailed.
Aratus designated it [Greek: poikilos], many coloured; the Alexandrian
Ptolemy classified it with Aldebaran, Antares and Betelgeuse as [Greek:
upokirros], fiery red; Seneca describes it as "redder than Mars"; while,
in the 10th century, the Arabian Biruni termed it "shining red." On the
other hand Sufi, who also flourished in the 10th century, pointedly
omits it from his list of coloured stars. The question has been
thoroughly discussed by T.J.J. See, who shows that Sirius has shone
white for the last 1000 to 1200 years.[3] The parallax has been
determined by Sir David Gill and W.L. Elkin to be 0.37"; it is therefore
distant from the earth over 5 × 10^13 miles, and its light takes 8.6
years to traverse the intervening space. If the sun were at the same
distance Sirius would outshine it 30 times, the sun appearing as a star
of the second magnitude. It has a large proper motion, which shows
recurrent undulations having a 50-year period. From this Bessel surmised
the existence of a satellite or companion, for which C.A.F. Peters and
A. Auwers computed the elements. T.H. Safford determined its position
for September 1861; and on the 31st of January 1862, Alvan G. Clark, of
Cambridgeport, Mass., telescopically observed it as a barely visible,
dull yellow star of the 9th to 10th magnitude. The mean distance apart
is about 20 astronomical units; the total mass of the pair is 3.7 times
the mass of the sun, Sirius itself being twice as massive as its
companion, and, marvellously enough, forty thousand times as bright. The
spectrum of Sirius is characterized by prominent absorption lines due to
hydrogen, the metallic lines being weak; other stars having the same
spectra are said to be of the "Sirian type." Such stars are the most
highly heated (see STAR).
_Procyon_, or a Canis minoris, is a star of the 2nd magnitude, one-fifth
as bright as Sirius, or numerically 0.47 when compared with Aldebaran.
It is more distant than Sirius, its parallax being 0.33"; and its light
is about six times that of the sun. Its proper motion is large, 1.25",
and its velocity at right angles to the line of sight is about 11 m. per
second. Its proper motion shows large irregularities, pointing to a
relatively massive companion; this satellite was discovered on the 13th
of November 1896 by J.M. Schaeberle, with the great Lick telescope, as a
star of the 13th magnitude. Its mass is equal to about that of the sun,
but its light is only one twenty-thousandth.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See G. Schiaparelli, _Astronomy in the Old Testament_ (1905).
[2] For other values of the interval between the summer solstice and
the rising of Sirius, see Smith's _Dict. of Greek and Roman
Antiquities_.
[3] See Thomas Barker, _Phil. Trans._, 1760, 51, p. 498, for
quotations from classical authors; also T.J.J. See, _Astronomy and
Astrophysics_. vol. xi. p. 269.
CANITZ, FRIEDRICH RUDOLF LUDWIG, FREIHERR VON (1654-1699), German poet
and diplomatist, was born at Berlin on the 27th of November 1654. He
attended the universities of Leiden and Leipzig, travelled in England,
France, Italy and Holland, and on his return was appointed groom of the
bedchamber (Kammerjunker) to the elector Frederick William of
Brandenburg, whom he accompanied on his campaigns in Pomerania and
Sweden. In 1680 he became councillor of legation, and he was employed on
various embassies. In 1697 the elector Frederick III. made him a privy
councillor, and the emperor Leopold I. created him a baron of the
Empire. Having fallen ill on an embassy to the Hague, he obtained his
discharge and died at Berlin in 1699. Canitz's poems (_Nebenstunden
unterschiedener Gedichte_), which did not appear until after his death
(1700), are for the most part dry and stilted imitations of French and
Latin models, but they formed a healthy contrast to the coarseness and
bombast of the later Silesian poets.
A complete edition of Canitz's poems was published by U. König in
1727; see also L. Fulda, _Die Gegner der zweiten schlesischen Schule_,
ii. (1883).
CAÑIZARES, JOSÉ DE (1676-1750), Spanish dramatist, was born at Madrid on
the 4th of July 1676, entered the army, and retired with the rank of
captain in 1702 to act as censor of the Madrid theatres and steward to
the duke of Osuna. In his fourteenth year Cañizares recast a play by
Lope de Vega under the title of _Las Cuentas del Gran Capitán_, and he
speedily became a fashionable playwright. His originality, however, is
slight, and _El Dómine Lucas_, the only one of his pieces that is still
read, is an adaptation from Lope de Vega. Cañizares produced a version
of Racine's _Iphigénie_ shortly before 1716, and is to some extent
responsible for the destruction of the old Spanish drama. He died on the
4th of September 1750, at Madrid.
CANNAE (mod. _Canne_), an ancient village of Apulia, near the river
Aufidus, situated on a hill on the right bank, 6 m. S.W. from its mouth.
It is celebrated for the disastrous defeat which the Romans received
there from Hannibal in 216 B.C. (see PUNIC WARS). There is a
considerable controversy as to whether the battle took place on the
right or the left bank of the river. In later times the place became a
_municipium_, and unimportant Roman remains still exist upon the hill
known as Monte di Canne. In the middle ages it became a bishopric, but
was destroyed in 1276.
See O. Schwab, _Das Schlachtfeld von Canna_ (Munich, 1898), and
authorities under PUNIC WARS.
CANNANORE, or KANANORE, a town of British India, in the Malabar district
of Madras, on the coast, 58 m. N. from Calicut and 470 m. by rail from
Madras. Pop. (1901) 27,811. Cannanore belonged to the Kalahasti or
Cherakal rajas till the invasion of Malabar by Hyder Ali. In 1498 it was
visited by Vasco da Gama; in 1501 a Portuguese factory was planted here
by Cabral; in 1502 da Gama made a treaty with the raja, and in 1505 a
fort was built. In 1656 the Dutch effected a settlement and built the
present fort, which they sold to Ali Raja in 1771. In 1783 Cannanore was
captured by the British, and the reigning princess became tributary to
the East India Company. Here is the residence of the Moplah chief, known
as the Ali Raja, who owns most of the Laccadive Islands. Cannanore was
the military headquarters of the British on the west coast until 1887.
CANNES, a seaport of France, in the department of the Alpes Maritimes,
on the Mediterranean, 19 m. S.W. of Nice and 120 m. E. of Marseilles by
rail. Pop.(1906) 24,531. It enjoys a southern exposure on a seaward
slope, and is defended from the northern winds by ranges of hills.
Previous to 1831, when it first attracted the attention of Lord
Brougham, it mainly consisted of the old quarter (named Sucquet), and
had little to show except an ancient castle, and a church on the top of
Mont Chevalier, dedicated in 1603 to Notre Dame du Mont Espérance; but
since that period it has become a large and important town, and is now
one of the most fashionable winter resorts in the south of France, much
frequented by English visitors, the Americans preferring Nice. The
neighbourhood is thickly studded with magnificent villas, which are
solidly built of a stone so soft that it is sawn and not hewn. There is
an excellent quay, and a beautiful promenade runs along the beach; and
numerous sheltered roads stretch up the valleys amidst groves of olive
trees. On the north the modern town climbs up to Le Cannet (2 m.), while
on the east it practically extends along the coast to Golfe Jouan (3½
m.), where Napoleon landed on the 1st of March 1815, on his return from
Elba. From Cannes a railway runs north in 12½ m. to Grasse. On the top
of the hill behind the town are a Roman Catholic and a Protestant
cemetery. In the most prominent part of the latter is the grave of Lord
Brougham, distinguished by a massive stone cross standing on a double
basement, with the simple inscription--"Henricus Brougham, Natus
MDCCLXXVIII., Decessit MDCCCLXVIII."; and in the immediate vicinity lies
James, fourth duke of Montrose, who died December 1874. The country
around is very beautiful and highly fertile; orange and lemon trees are
cultivated like peach trees in England, while olives, almonds, figs,
peaches, grapes and other fruits are grown in abundance, and, along with
the produce of the fisheries, form the chief exports of the town.
Essences of various kinds are manufactured, and flowers are extensively
cultivated for the perfumers. The climate of Cannes has been the subject
of a considerable variety of opinion,--the preponderance being, however,
in its favour. According to Dr de Valcourt, it is remarkable by reason
of the elevation and regularity of the temperature during the height of
the day, the clearness of the atmosphere and abundance of light, the
rarity of rain and the absence of fogs.
Cannes is a place of great antiquity, but its earlier history is very
obscure. It was twice destroyed by the Saracens in the 8th and the 10th
centuries; but it was afterwards repeopled by a colony from Genoa.
Opposite the town is the island of Ste Marguerite (one of the Lérins),
in the citadel of which the Man with the Iron Mask was confined from
1686 to 1698, and which acquired notoriety as the prison whence Marshal
Bazaine escaped in August 1874. On the other chief island (St Honorat)
of the Lérins is the famous monastery (5th century to 1788), in
connexion with which grew up the school of Lérins, which had a wide
influence upon piety and literature in the 5th and 6th centuries.
See L. Alliez, _Histoire du monastère de Lérins_ (2 vols., Paris,
1862); and _Les Îles de Lérins, Cannes, et les rivages environnants_
(Paris, 1860); _Cartulaire du monastère de Lérins_ (2 vols., Paris,
1883 and 1905); de Valcourt, _Cannes and its Climate_ (London, 1873);
Joanne, special _Guide to Cannes_; J.R. Green, essay on Cannes and St
Honorat, in the first series of his _Stray Studies_ (1st ed., 1876);
A. Cooper-Marsdin, _The School of Lérins_ (Rochester, 1905).
(W. A. B. C.)
CANNIBALISM, the eating of human flesh by men (from a Latinized form of
Carib, the name of a tribe of South America, formerly found also in the
West Indies), also called "anthropophagy" (Gr. [Greek: authrpspos], man,
and [Greek: phaneiu], to eat). Evidence has been adduced from some of
the palaeolithic cave-dwellings in France to show that the inhabitants
practised cannibalism, at least occasionally. From Herodotus, Strabo and
others we hear of peoples like the Scythian Massagetae, a nomad race
north-east of the Caspian Sea, who killed old people and ate them. In
the middle ages reports, some of them probably untrustworthy, by Marco
Polo and others, attributed cannibalism to the wild tribes of China, the
Tibetans, &c. In our own days cannibalism prevails, or prevailed until
recently, over a great part of West and Central Africa, New Guinea,
Melanesia (especially Fiji) and Australia. New Zealand and the
Polynesian Islands were great centres of the practice. It is extensively
practised by the Battas of Sumatra and in other East Indian islands and
in South America; in earlier days it was a common feature of Indian wars
in North America. Sporadic cannibalism occurs among more civilized
peoples as a result of necessity or as a manifestation of disease (see
LYCANTHROPY).
_Classification._--Cannibalistic practices may be classified from two
points of view: (1) the motives of the act; (2) the ceremonial
regulations. A third division of subordinate importance is also
possible, if we consider whether the victims are actually killed for
food or whether only such are eaten as have met their death in battle or
other ways.
1. From a psychological point of view the term cannibalism groups
together a number of customs, whose only bond of union is that they all
involve eating of human flesh. (a) Food cannibalism, where the object is
the satisfaction of hunger, may occur sporadically as a result of real
necessity or may be kept up for the simple gratification of a taste for
human flesh in the absence of any lack of food in general or even of
animal food, (i.) Cannibalism from necessity is found not only among the
lower races, such as the Fuegians or Red Indian tribes, but also among
civilized races, as the records of sieges and shipwrecks show. (ii.)
Simple food cannibalism is common in Africa; the Niam-Niam and Monbuttu
carry on wars for the sake of obtaining human flesh; in West Africa
human flesh could formerly be seen exposed for sale in the market like
any other article of commerce; and among some tribes it is the practice
to sell the corpses of dead relatives for consumption as food. (b) In
curious contrast to this latter custom is the practice of devouring
dead kinsfolk as the most respectful method of disposing of their
remains. In a small number of cases this practice is combined with the
custom of killing the old and sick, but in the great majority of peoples
it is simply a form of burial; it seems to prevail in most parts of
Australia, many parts of Melanesia, Africa and South America, and less
frequently in other parts of the world. To this group belong the customs
described by Herodotus; we may perhaps regard as a variant form the
custom of using the skull of a dead man as a drinking-cup. This practice
is widely found, and the statement of Herodotus that the skull was set
in gold and preserved by the Issedones may point in this direction; from
the account given of the Tibetans some seven hundred years ago by
William of Ruysbruck (Rubruquis) it appears that they had given up
cannibalism but still preserved the use of the skull as a drinking
vessel. Another modification of an original ritual cannibalism is the
custom of drinking the ashes of the dead, which is practised by some
African and South American tribes. The custom of holding burial feasts
has also been traced to the same origin. More incomprehensible to the
European than any other form of cannibalism is the custom of partaking
of the products of putrefaction as they run down from the body. The
Australians smoke-dry the bodies of tribesmen; here, too, it is the
custom to consume the portions of the body which are rendered liquid by
the heat. (c) The ritual cannibalism just mentioned shades over into and
may have been originally derived from magical cannibalism, of which
three sub-species may be distinguished. (i.) Savages are accustomed, on
the one hand, to abstain from certain foods in order that they may not
acquire certain qualities; on the other hand other foods are eagerly
desired in order that they may by partaking of the flesh also come to
partake of the mental or bodily peculiarities of the man or animal from
which the meat is derived; thus, after the birth of a child, especially
the first-born, the parents are frequently forbidden the flesh of
slow-moving animals, because that would prevent the child from learning
to walk; conversely, eating the heart of a lion is recommended for a
warrior to make him brave; from this point of view therefore we readily
understand the motives which lead to the eating of those slain in
battle, both friends and foes. (ii.) We may term protective an entirely
different kind of magical cannibalism, which consists in the consumption
of a small portion of the body of a murdered man, in order that his
ghost may not trouble the murderer; according to Hans Egède, the Eskimo,
when they kill a witch, eat a portion of her heart, that she may not
haunt them. (iii.) The practice is also said to have the effect of
causing the relatives of the murdered man to lose heart or to prevent
them from exercising the right of revenge; in this case it may be
brought into relation with the ceremony of the blood covenant in one of
the forms of which the parties drink each other's blood; or, it may
point to a reminiscence of a ritual eating of the dead kinsman. The late
survival of this idea in Europe is attested by its mention by Dante in
the _Purgatorio_. (d) The custom of eating food offered to the gods is
widespread, and we may trace to this origin Mexican cannibalism,
perhaps, too, that of Fiji. The Aztec worship of the god of war,
Huitzilopochtli, led to the sacrifice of prisoners, and the custom of
sacrifice to their frequent wars. The priest took out the heart, offered
it to the sun, and then went through the ceremonies of feeding the idol
with the heart and blood; finally the bodies of the victims were
consumed by the worshippers. (e) We reach an entirely different set of
motives in penal and revenge cannibalism. For the origin of these ideas
we may perhaps look to that of protective magic, dealt with above; but
it seems possible that there is also some idea of influencing the lot of
the criminal in a future life; it may be noted that the whole of the
body is seldom eaten in protective cannibalism; among the Battas,
however, the criminal, and in parts of Africa the debtor, are entirely
consumed. Other cases, especially where the victim is an enemy, may be
due to mere fury and bravado. (f) In the west of North America a
peculiar kind of cannibalism is found, which is confined to a certain
body of magicians termed "Hametzen" and a necessary condition of
admission to their order. Another kind of initiatory cannibalism
prevailed in the south of Australia, where a magician had to eat a
portion of a child's body before he was admitted. The meaning of these
ceremonials is not clear.
2. Most kinds of cannibalism are hedged round with ceremonial
regulations. Certain tribes, as we have seen above, go to war to provide
human flesh; in other cases it is only the nearest relatives who may not
partake of a body; in other cases again it is precisely the nearest
relatives on whom the duty falls. A curious regulation in south-east New
Guinea prescribes that the killer of the victim shall not partake in the
feast; in some cases the whole of the clan to which belonged the man for
whom revenge is taken abstains also; in other cases this clan, together
with any others of the same intermarrying group, takes part in the feast
to the exclusion of (a) the clan or group with which they intermarry and
(b) all outside clans. Some peoples forbid women to eat human flesh; in
others certain classes, as the Muri of the Bambala, a tribe in the
Kassai, may be forbidden to eat it. In Mindanao the only person who
might eat of a slain enemy was the priest who led the warriors, and he
was not permitted to escape this duty. In Grand Bassam all who had taken
part in a festival at the foundation of a new village were compelled to
eat of the human victim. But the variations are too numerous for any
general account to be given of ceremonial limitations. S.R. Steinmetz
has proposed a division into endo-and exo-cannibalism; but these
divisions are frequently of minor importance, and he has failed to
define satisfactorily the limits of the groups on which his
classification is based.
_Origin._--It will probably never be possible to say how cannibalism
originated; in fact the multiplicity of forms and the diversity of
ceremonial rules--some prescribing that tribesmen shall on no account be
eaten, others that the bodies of none but tribesmen shall provide the
meal of human flesh--point to a multiple origin. It has been maintained
that the various forms of endo-cannibalism (eating of tribesmen) spring
from an original practice of food cannibalism which the human race has
in common with many animals; but this leaves unexplained _inter alia_
the limitation of the right of participation in the funeral meal to the
relatives of the dead man; at the same time it is possible to argue that
the magical ideas now associated with cannibalism are of later growth.
Against the view put forward by Steinmetz it may be urged that we have
other instances of magical foods, such as the eating of a lion's heart,
which do not point to an original custom of eating the animal as food.
We shall probably be justified in referring all forms of
endo-cannibalism to a ritual origin; otherwise the limitation is
inexplicable; on the other hand exo-cannibalism, in some of its forms,
and much of the extension of endo-cannibalism must be referred to a
desire for human flesh, grown into a passion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Steinmetz, in _Mitt. Anthrop. Ges. Wien_, N.F. xvi.;
Andree, _Die Anthropophagie_; Bergmann, _Die Verbreitung der
Anthropophagie_; Schneider, _Die Naturvölker_, i. 121-200;
Schaffhausen, _Anthropologische Studien, Internat. Archiv_ iii. 69-73;
xii. 78; E.S. Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, vol. ii.; _Dictionnaire
des sci. méd., s.v._ "Anthropophagie"; Dr Seligmann in _Reports of the
Cook-Daniels Expedition to New Guinea._ (N. W. T.)
CANNING, CHARLES JOHN, EARL (1812-1862), English statesman,
governor-general of India during the Mutiny of 1857, was the youngest
child of George Canning, and was born at Brompton, near London, on the
14th of December 1812. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where
he graduated B.A. in 1833, as first class in classics and second class
in mathematics. In 1836 he entered parliament, being returned as member
for the town of Warwick in the Conservative interest. He did not,
however, sit long in the House of Commons; for, on the death of his
mother in 1837, he succeeded to the peerage which had been conferred on
her with remainder to her only surviving son, and as Viscount Canning
took his seat in the House of Lords. His first official appointment was
that of under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, in the
administration formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1841--his chief being the
earl of Aberdeen. This post he held till January 1846; and from January
to July of that year, when the Peel administration was broken up, Lord
Canning filled the post of commissioner of woods and forests. He
declined to accept office under the earl of Derby; but on the formation
of the coalition ministry under the earl of Aberdeen in January 1853, he
received the appointment of postmaster-general. In this office he showed
not only a large capacity for hard work, but also general administrative
ability and much zeal for the improvement of the service. He retained
his post under Lord Palmerston's ministry until July 1855, when, in
consequence of the death of Lord Dalhousie and a vacancy in the
governor-generalship of India, he was selected by Lord Palmerston to
succeed to that great position. This appointment appears to have been
made rather on the ground of his father's great services than from any
proof as yet given of special personal fitness on the part of Lord
Canning. The new governor sailed from England in December 1855, and
entered upon the duties of his office in India at the close of February
1856. His strong common sense and sound practical judgment led him to
adopt a policy of conciliation towards the native princes, and to
promote measures tending to the betterment of the condition of the
people.
In the year following his accession to office the deep-seated discontent
of the people broke out in the Indian Mutiny (q.v.). Fears were
entertained, and even the friends of the viceroy to some extent shared
them, that he was not equal to the crisis. But the fears proved
groundless. He had a clear eye for the gravity of the situation, a calm
judgment, and a prompt, swift hand to do what was really necessary. By
the union of great moral qualities with high, though not the highest,
intellectual faculties, he carried the Indian empire safely through the
stress of the storm, and, what was perhaps a harder task still, he dealt
wisely with the enormous difficulties arising at the close of such a
war, established a more liberal policy and a sounder financial system,
and left the people more contented than they were before. The name of
"Clemency Canning," which was applied to him during the heated
animosities of the moment, has since become a title of honour.
While rebellion was raging in Oudh he issued a proclamation declaring
the lands of the province forfeited; and this step gave rise to much
angry controversy. A "secret despatch," couched in arrogant and
offensive terms, was addressed to the viceroy by Lord Ellenborough, then
a member of the Derby administration, which would have justified the
viceroy in immediately resigning. But from a strong sense of duty he
continued at his post; and ere long the general condemnation of the
despatch was so strong that the writer felt it necessary to retire from
office. Lord Canning replied to the despatch, calmly and in a
statesman-like manner explaining and vindicating his censured policy. In
April 1859 he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for his
great services during the mutiny. He was also made an extra civil grand
cross of the order of the Bath, and in May of the same year he was
raised to the dignity of an earl. By the strain of anxiety and hard work
his health and strength were seriously impaired, while the death of his
wife was also a great shock to him; in the hope that rest in his native
land might restore him, he left India, reaching England in April 1862.
But it was too late. He died in London on the 17th of June following.
About a month before his death he was created K.G. As he died without
issue the title became extinct.
See Sir H.S. Cunningham, _Earl Canning_ ("Rulers of India" series),
1891; and A.J.C. Hare, _The Story of Two Noble Lilies_ (1893).
CANNING, GEORGE (1770-1827), British statesman, was born in London on
the 11th of April 1770. The family was of English origin and had been
settled at Bishop's Canynge in Wiltshire. In 1618 a George Canning, son
of Richard Canning of Foxcote in Warwickshire, received a grant of the
manor of Garvagh in Londonderry, Ireland, from King James I. The father
of the statesman, also named George, was the eldest son of Mr Stratford
Canning, of Garvagh. He quarrelled with and was disowned by his family.
He came to London and led a struggling life, partly in trade and partly
in literature. In May 1768 he married Mary Annie Costello, and he died
on the 11th of April 1771, exactly one year after the birth of his son.
Mrs Canning, who was left destitute, received no help from her husband's
family, and went on the stage, where she was not successful. She married
a dissolute and brutal actor of the name of Reddish. Her son owed his
escape from the miseries of her household to another member of the
company, Moody, who wrote to Mr Stratford Canning, a merchant in London
and younger brother of the elder George Canning. Moody represented to Mr
Stratford Canning that the boy, although full of promise, was on the
high road to the gallows under the evil influence of Reddish. Mr
Stratford Canning exerted himself on behalf of his nephew. An estate of
the value of £200 a year was settled on the boy, and he was sent in
succession to a private school at Hyde Abbey near Winchester, to Eton in
1781, and to Christchurch, Oxford, in 1787. After leaving Eton and
before going to Oxford, he was entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn. At
Eton he edited the school magazine, _The Microcosm_, and at Oxford he
took the leading part in the formation of a debating society. He made
many friends, and his reputation was already so high that Sheridan
referred to him in the House of Commons as a rising hope of the Whigs.
According to Lord Holland, he had been noted at Oxford as a furious
Jacobin and hater of the aristocracy. In 1792 he came to London to read
for the bar. He had taken his B.A. in 1791 and proceeded M.A. on the 6th
of July 1794.
Soon after coming to London he became acquainted with Pitt in some
uncertain way. The hatred of the aristocracy, for which Lord Holland
says he was noted at Oxford, would naturally deter an ambitious young
man with his way to make in the world, and with no fixed principles,
from attaching his fortune to the Whigs. Canning had the glaring
examples of Burke and Sheridan himself to show him that the great
"revolution families"--Cavendishes, Russells, Bentincks--who controlled
the Whig party, would never allow any man, however able, who did not
belong to their connexion, to rise to the first rank. He therefore took
his place among the followers of Pitt. It is, however, only fair to note
that he always regarded Pitt with strong personal affection, and that he
may very naturally have been influenced, as multitudes of other
Englishmen were, by the rapid development of the French Revolution from
a reforming to an aggressive and conquering force. In a letter to his
friend Lord Boringdon (John Parker, afterwards earl of Morley), dated
the 13th of December 1792, he explicitly states that this was the case.
Enlightened self-interest was doubtless combined with honest conviction
in ranking him among the followers of Pitt. By the help of the prime
minister he entered parliament for the borough of Newtown in the Isle of
Wight in July 1793. His maiden speech, on the subvention to the king of
Sardinia, was made on the 31st of January 1794. It is by some said to
have been a failure, but he satisfied himself, and he soon established
his place as the most brilliant speaker on the ministerial side. It may
be most conveniently noted here, that his political patrons exerted
themselves to provide for his private as well as his official
prosperity. Their favour helped him to make a lucrative marriage with
Miss Joan Scott, who had a fortune of £100,000, on the 8th of July 1800.
The marriage was a very happy one, though the bulk of the fortune was
worn away in the expenses of public and social life. Mrs Canning, who
survived her husband for ten years, was created a viscountess in 1828.
Four children were born of the marriage--a son who died in his father's
lifetime, and was lamented by him in very touching verse; another a
captain in the navy, drowned at Madeira in 1827; a third son, Charles
(q.v.), afterwards created Earl Canning; and a daughter Harriet, who
married the marquess of Clanricarde in 1825.
The public life of Canning may be divided into four stages. From 1793 to
1801 he was the devoted follower of Pitt, was in minor though important
office, and was the wittiest of the defenders of the ministry in
parliament and in the press. From 1801 to 1809 he was partly in
opposition, partly in office, fighting for the foremost place. Between
1809 and 1822 there was a period of comparative eclipse, during which he
was indeed at times in office, but in lesser places than he would have
been prepared to accept between 1804 and 1809, and was regarded with
general distrust. From 1822 till his death in 1827 he was the most
powerful influence in English, and one of the most powerful in European,
politics.
In the spring of 1796 he was appointed under-secretary for the foreign
office, and in the election of that year he was returned for Wendover.
He was also appointed receiver-general of the alienation office, a
sinecure post which brought him £700 a year. His position as
under-secretary brought him into close relations with Pitt and the
foreign secretary, Lord Grenville (q.v.). During the negotiations for
peace at Lille (1797), Canning was actively concerned in the devices
which were employed by Pitt and Grenville to keep the real character of
the discussion secret from other members of the cabinet. Canning had a
taste for mystery and disguises, which he had shown at Oxford, and which
did much to gain him his unfortunate reputation for trickery. From the
20th of November 1797, till the 9th of July 1798, he was one of the most
active, and was certainly the most witty of the contributors to the
_Anti-Jacobin_, a weekly paper started to ridicule the frothy
philanthropic and eleutheromaniac rant of the French republicans, and to
denounce their brutal rapacity and cruelty. But Canning's position as
under-secretary was not wholly pleasant to him. He disliked his
immediate chief Grenville, one of the Whigs who joined Pitt, and a man
of thoroughly Whiggish aristocratic insolence. In 1799 he left the
foreign office and was named one of the twelve commissioners for India,
and in 1800 joint paymaster of the forces, a post which he held till the
retirement of Pitt in 1801.
During these years of subordinate activity Canning had established his
position as an orator and a wit. His oratory cannot be estimated with
absolute confidence. Speeches were then badly reported. The text of his
own, published by Therry (6 volumes, London, 1828), were revised by
himself, and not for the better. Though his favourite author was Dryden,
whose prose is uniformly manly and simple, and though he had a keen eye
for faults of taste in the style of others, Canning had himself a
leaning to preciosity and tinsel. His wit was, and remains, above all
question. In public life it did him some harm in the opinion of serious
people, who could not believe that so jocose a politician had solid
capacity. It exasperated opponents, some of whom, notably Peter Pindar
(see WOLCOT, JOHN), retaliated by brutal personalities. Canning was
constantly reminded that his mother was a strolling actress, and was
accused of foisting his pauper family on the public funds. The
accusation was perfectly untrue, but this style of political controversy
was common, and was adopted by Canning. He put himself on a level with
Peter Pindar when he assailed Pitt's successor Addington (see SIDMOUTH,
VISCOUNT) on the ground that he was the son of a doctor.
While out of office with Pitt, Canning proved a somewhat insubordinate
follower. The snobbery and malignity of his attacks on Addington roused
considerable feeling against him, and his attempts to act as a political
go-between in ministerial arrangements were unfortunate. On the
formation of Pitt's second ministry he took the post of treasurer of the
navy on the 12th of May 1804. In office he continued to be
insubordinate, and committed mistakes which got him into bad odour as
untrustworthy. He endeavoured to persuade Lord Hawkesbury (see
LIVERPOOL, EARLS OF) to join in a scheme for turning an old friend out
of the India Office. Though his relations with Pitt began to be somewhat
strained towards the end, he left office on the minister's death on the
21st of January 1806.
Canning, who delivered the eulogy of Pitt in the House of Commons on the
3rd of February, refused to take office in Fox's ministry of "all the
talents." Attempts were made to secure him, and he was offered the
leadership of the House of Commons, under the supervision of Fox, an
absurd proposal which he had the good sense to decline. After the death
of Fox, and the dismissal by the king of Lord Grenville's ministry, he
joined the administration of the duke of Portland as secretary of state
for foreign affairs. He held the office from the 25th of March 1807 till
the 9th of September 1809. During these two years he had a large share
in the vigorous policy which defeated the secret articles of the treaty
of Tilsit by the seizure of the Danish fleet. As foreign secretary it
fell to him to defend the ministry when it was attacked in parliament.
He refused to tell how he became aware of the secret articles, and the
mystery has never been fully solved. He threw himself eagerly into the
prosecution of the war in Spain, yet his tenure of office ended in
resignation in circumstances which left him under deep discredit. He
became entangled in what can only be called two intrigues. In view of
the failing health of the duke of Portland he told his colleague,
Spencer Perceval, chancellor of the exchequer, that a new prime minister
must be found, that he must be in the House of Commons, that the choice
lay between them, adding that he might not be prepared to serve as
subordinate. In April of 1809 he had told the duke of Portland that Lord
Castlereagh, secretary for the colonies and war, was in his opinion
unfit for his post, and must be removed to another office. The duke, a
sickly and vacillating man, said nothing to Castlereagh, and took no
steps, and Canning did not enlighten his colleague. When he found that
no measures were being taken to make a change of office, Canning
resigned on the 7th of September. Castlereagh then learnt the truth, and
after resigning sent Canning a challenge on the 19th of September. In
the duel on Putney Heath which followed Canning was wounded in the
thigh. His apologists have endeavoured to defend him against the charge
of double dealing, but there can be no question that Castlereagh had
just ground to be angry. Public opinion was strong against Canning, and
in the House of Commons he was looked upon with distrust. For twelve
years he remained out of office or in inferior places. His ability made
it impossible that he should be obscure. In 1810 he was a member of the
Bullion Committee, and his speeches on the report showed his mastery of
the subject. It was no doubt his reputation for economic knowledge which
chiefly recommended him to the electors of Liverpool in 1812. He had
been elected for Tralee in 1803, for Newtown (Hants) in 1806 and for
Harwich in 1807. But in parliament he had lost all influence, and is
described as wandering about neglected and avoided. In 1812 he committed
the serious mistake of accepting a well-paid ornamental mission to
Lisbon, which he was about to visit for the health of his eldest son. He
remained abroad for eighteen months. In 1816 he submitted to enter
office as president of the Board of Control in Lord Liverpool's cabinet,
in which Castlereagh, to whom he had now become reconciled, was
secretary of state for foreign affairs. In 1820 he resigned his post in
order to avoid taking any part in the proceedings against Queen
Caroline, the wife of George IV.
Canning's return to great office and influence dates from the suicide of
Castlereagh in 1822. He had accepted the governor-generalship of India,
which would have implied his retirement from public life at home, and
refused to remain unless he was promised "the whole inheritance" of
Castlereagh,--the foreign office and the leadership of the House of
Commons. His terms were accepted, and he took office in September 1822.
He held the office from that date till April 1827, when he became prime
minister in succession to Lord Liverpool, whose health had broken down.
Even before this he was the real director of the policy of the
cabinet--as Castlereagh had been from 1812 to 1822. It may be noted that
he resigned his seat for Liverpool in 1823, and was elected for Harwich,
which he left for Newport in 1826. Few English public men have
represented so many constituencies.
His fame as a statesman is based mainly on the foreign policy which he
pursued in those years--the policy of non-intervention, and of the
patronage, if not the actual support, of national and liberal movements
in Europe (see the historical articles under EUROPE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL,
TURKEY, GREECE). To this policy he may be said to have given his name,
and he has enjoyed the reputation of having introduced a generous spirit
into British politics, and of having undone the work of his predecessor
at the foreign office, who was constantly abused as the friend of
despotism and of despots. It may well be believed that Canning followed
his natural inclinations, and it can be asserted without the
possibility of contradiction, if also without possibility of proof, that
he had influenced the mind of Castlereagh. Yet the fact remains that
when Canning came into office in September 1822, he found the
instructions to be given to the representative of the British government
at the congress of Verona already drawn up by his predecessor, who had
meant to attend the congress himself (see LONDONDERRY, ROBERT STEWART,
2ND MARQUESS OF). These instructions were handed on without change by
Canning to the duke of Wellington, who went as representative, and they
contain all the principles which have been said to have been peculiarly
Canning's. Indeed this policy was dictated by the character and position
of the British government, and had been followed in the main since the
conference of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. Canning was its orator and
minister rather than its originator. Yet his eloquence has associated
with his name the responsibility for British policy at the time. No
speech of his is perhaps more famous than that in which he claimed the
initiative in recognizing the independence of the revolted Spanish
colonies in South America in 1823--"I resolved that, if France had
Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World
into existence to redress the balance of the Old" (December 12, 1826).
When Lord Liverpool was struck down in a fit on the 17th of February
1827, Canning was marked out by position as his only possible successor.
He was not indeed accepted by all the party which had followed
Liverpool. The duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel and several other
members of the ministry, moved perhaps by personal animosity, and
certainly by dislike of his known and consistent advocacy of the claims
of the Roman Catholics, refused to serve with him. Canning succeeded in
constructing a ministry in April--but the hopes and the fears of friends
and enemies proved to be equally unfounded. His health had already begun
to give way, and broke down altogether under the strain of the effort
required to form his ministry. He had caught cold in January at the
funeral of the duke of York, and never recovered. He died on the 8th of
August 1827, at Chiswick, in the house of the duke of Devonshire, where
Fox had died, and in the same room.
See _Speeches_, with a memoir by R. Therry (London, 1826); A.G.
Stapleton, _Political Life of Canning_, 1822-1827 (2nd ed., London,
1831); _Canning and His Times_ (London, 1859); Lord Dalling and
Bulwer, _Historical Characters_ (London, 1868); F.H. Hill, _George
Canning_ (London, 1887); _Some Political Correspondence of George
Canning_, ed. E.J. Stapleton (2 vols., 1897); J.A.R. Marriott, _George
Canning and His Times, a Political Study_ (London, 1903); W. Alison
Phillips, _George Canning_ (London, 1903), with reproductions of
contemporary portraits and caricatures; H.W.V. Temperley, _George
Canning_ (London, 1905).
CANNIZZARO, STANISLAO (1826-1910), Italian chemist, was born at Palermo
on the 13th of July 1826. In 1841 he entered the university of his
native place with the intention of making medicine his profession, but
he soon turned to the study of chemistry, and in 1845 and 1846 acted as
assistant to Rafaelle Piria (1815-1865), known for his work on salicin,
who was then professor of chemistry at Pisa and subsequently occupied
the same position at Turin. During the Sicilian revolution he served as
an artillery officer at Messina and was also chosen deputy for
Francavilla in the Sicilian parliament; and after the fall of Messina in
September 1848 he was stationed at Taormina. On the collapse of the
insurgents he escaped to Marseilles, in May 1849, and after visiting
various French towns reached Paris in October. There he gained an
introduction to M.E. Chevreul's laboratory, and in conjunction with F.S.
Cloëz (1817-1883) made his first contribution to chemical research in
1851, when they prepared cyanamide by the action of ammonia on cyanogen
chloride in ethereal solution. In the same year he was appointed
professor of physical chemistry at the National College of Alexandria,
where he discovered that aromatic aldehydes are decomposed by alcoholic
potash into a mixture of the corresponding acid and alcohol, e.g.
benzaldehyde into benzoic acid and benzyl alcohol ("Cannizzaro's
reaction"). In the autumn of 1855 he became professor of chemistry at
Geneva university, and six years later, after declining professorships
at Pisa and Naples, accepted the chair of inorganic and organic
chemistry at Palermo. There he spent ten years, studying the aromatic
compounds and continuing to work on the amines, until in 1871 he was
appointed to the chair of chemistry at Rome university. Apart from his
work on organic chemistry, which includes also an investigation of
santonin, he rendered great service to the philosophy of chemistry when
in his memoir _Sunto di un corso di Filosofia chemica_ (1858) he
insisted on the distinction, till then imperfectly realized, between
molecular and atomic weights, and showed how the atomic weights of
elements contained in volatile compounds can be deduced from the
molecular weights of those compounds, and how the atomic weights of
elements of whose compounds the vapour densities are unknown can be
ascertained from a knowledge of their specific heats. For this
achievement, of fundamental importance for the atomic theory in
chemistry, he was awarded the Copley medal by the Royal Society in 1891.
Cannizzaro's scientific eminence in 1871 secured him admission to the
Italian senate, of which he was vice-president, and as a member of the
Council of Public Instruction and in other ways he rendered important
services to the cause of scientific education in Italy.
CANNOCK, a market town in the western parliamentary division of
Staffordshire, England, in the district known as Cannock Chase, 130 m.
N.W. from London by the London and North Western railway. Pop. of urban
district (1891) 20,613; (1901) 23,974. The church of St Luke is
Perpendicular, enlarged in modern times. The famous political preacher,
Henry Sacheverell, held the living early in the 18th century. Cannock
has tool, boiler, brick and tile works. Cannock Chase, a tract generally
exceeding 500 ft. in elevation, extends on an axis from north-west to
south-east over some 36,000 acres. It was a royal preserve, and remains
for the most part an uncultivated waste, but it is also a rich
coalfield, and there are mines in every direction. Brownhills, Burntwood
and Chase Town, Great Wyrley, Hednesford, Hammerwich, and Pelsall are
townships or villages of the mining population.
CANNON (a word common to Romance languages, from the Lat. _canna_, a
reed, tube, with the addition of the augmentative termination _-on,
-one_), a gun or piece of ordnance. The word, first found about 1400
(there is an indenture of Henry IV. 1407 referring to _"canones, seu
instrumenta Anglicè gunnes vocata"_), is commonly applied to any form of
firearm which is fired from a carriage or fixed mounting, in
contradistinction to "small-arms," which are fired without a rest or
support of any kind.[1] An exception must be made, however, in the case
of _machine guns_ (q.v.), and the word as used in modern times may be
defined as follows: "a piece of ordnance mounted upon a fixed or movable
carriage and firing a projectile of greater calibre than 1½ in." In
French, however, _canon_ is the term applied to the barrel of small
arms, and also, as an alternative to _mitrailleuse_ or _mitrailleur_, to
machine guns, as well as to ordnance properly so-called. The Hotchkiss
machine gun used in several navies is officially called "revolving
cannon." For details see ARTILLERY, ORDNANCE, MACHINE GUNS, &c. Amongst
the many derived senses of the word may be mentioned "cannon curls," in
which the hair is arranged in horizontal tubular curls one above the
other. For "cannon" in billiards see BILLIARDS.
In the 16th and 17th centuries the "cannon" in England was distinctively
a large piece, smaller natures of ordnance being called by various
special names such as culverin, saker, falcon, demi-cannon, &c. We hear
of Cromwell taking with him to Ireland (1649) "two cannon of eight
inches, two cannon of seven, two demi-cannon, two twenty-four pounders,"
&c.
Sir James Turner, a distinguished professional soldier contemporary with
Cromwell, says: "The cannon or battering ordnance is divided by the
English into Cannon Royal, Whole Cannon and Demi-Cannon. The first is
likewise called the Double Cannon, she weighs 8000 pound of metal and
shoots a bullet of 60, 62 or 63 pound weight. The Whole Cannon weighs
7000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 38, 39 or 40 pound. The
Demi-Cannon weighs about 6000 pound and shoots a bullet of 28 or 30
pound. ... These three several guns are called cannons of eight, cannons
of seven and cannons of six." The generic sense of "cannon," in which
the word is now exclusively used, is found along with the special sense
above mentioned as early as 1474. A warrant of that year issued by
Edward IV. of England to Richard Copcote orders him to provide
"_bumbardos, canones, culverynes ... et alias canones quoscumque, ac
pulveres, sulfer ... pro eisdem canonibus necessarias_." "Artillery" and
"ordnance," however, were the more usual terms up to the time of Louis
XIV. (c. 1670), about which time heavy ordnance began to be classified
according to the weight of its shot, and the special sense of "cannon"
disappears.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The original small arms, however, are often referred to as hand
cannon.
CANNON-BALL TREE (_Couroupita guianensis_), a native of tropical South
America (French Guiana), which bears large spherical woody fruits,
containing numerous seeds, as in the allied genus _Bertholletia_ (Brazil
nut).
CANNSTATT, or KANNSTATT, a town of Germany in the kingdom of
Württemberg, pleasantly situated in a fertile valley on both banks of
the Neckar, 2½ m. from Stuttgart, with which it has been incorporated
since 1904. Pop. (1905) 26,497. It is a railway centre, has two
Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, two bridges across the Neckar,
handsome streets in the modern quarter of the town and fine promenades
and gardens. There is a good deal of business in the town. Railway
plant, automobiles and machinery are manufactured; spinning and weaving
are carried on; and there are chemical works and a brewery here. Fruit
and vines are largely cultivated in the neighbourhood. A large
population is temporarily attracted to Cannstatt by the fame of its
mineral springs, which are valuable for diseases of the throat and
weaknesses of the nervous system. These springs were known to the
Romans. Besides the usual bathing establishments there are several
medical institutions for the treatment of disease. Near the town are the
palaces of Rosenstein and Wilhelma; the latter, built (1842-1851) for
King William of Württemberg in the Moorish style, is surrounded by
beautiful gardens. In the neighbourhood also are immense caves in the
limestone where numerous bones of mammoths and other extinct animals
have been found. On the Rotenberg, where formerly stood the ancestral
castle of the house of Württemberg, is the mausoleum of King William and
his wife.
Cannstatt (Condistat) is mentioned early in the 8th century as the place
where a great court was held by Charlemagne for the trial of the
rebellious dukes of the Alamanni and the Bavarians. From the emperor
Louis the Bavarian it received the same rights and privileges as were
enjoyed by the town of Esslingen, and until the middle of the 14th
century it was the capital of the county of Württemberg. Cannstatt was
the scene of a victory gained by the French over the Austrians on the
21st of July 1796.
See Veiel, _Der Kurort Kannstatt und seine Mineralquellen_ (Cannstatt,
1875).
CANO, ALONZO (1601-1667), Spanish painter, architect and sculptor, was
born at Granada. He has left in Spain a very great number of specimens
of his genius, which display the boldness of his design, the facility of
his pencil, the purity of his flesh-tints and his knowledge of
chiaroscuro. He learned architecture from his father, Miguel Cano,
painting from Pacheco and sculpture from Juan Martinez Montañes. As a
statuary, his most famous works are the Madonna and Child in the church
of Nebrissa, and the colossal figures of San Pedro and San Pablo. As an
architect he indulged in too profuse ornamentation, and gave way too
much to the fancies of his day. Philip IV. made him royal architect and
king's painter, and gave him the church preferment of a canon. His more
important pictures are at Madrid. He was notorious for his ungovernable
temper; and it is said that once he risked his life by committing the
then capital offence of dashing to pieces the statue of a saint, when in
a rage with the purchaser who grudged the price he demanded. His known
passionateness also (according to another story) caused him to be
suspected, and even tortured, for the murder of his wife, though all
other circumstances pointed to his servant as the culprit.
CANO, MELCHIOR (1325-1560), Spanish theologian, born at Tarançon, in New
Castile, joined the Dominican order at an early age at Salamanca, where
in 1546 he succeeded to the theological chair in that university. A man
of deep learning and originality, proud and a victim to the _odium
theologicum_, he could brook no rivalry. The only one who at that time
could compare with him was the gentle Bartolomeo de Caranza, also a
Dominican and afterwards archbishop of Toledo. At the university the
schools were divided between the partisans of the two professors; but
Cano pursued his rival with relentless virulence, and took part in the
condemnation for heresy of his brother-friar. The new society of the
Jesuits, as being the forerunners of Antichrist, also met with his
violent opposition; and he was not grateful to them when, after
attending the council of Trent in 1545, he was sent, by their influence,
in 1552, as bishop of the far-off see of the Canaries. His personal
influence with Philip II. soon procured his recall, and he was made
provincial of his order in Castile. In 1556 he wrote his famous
_Consultatio theologica_, in which he advised the king to resist the
temporal encroachments of the papacy and, as absolute monarch, to defend
his rights by bringing about a radical change in the administration of
ecclesiastical revenues, thus making Spain less dependent on Rome. With
this in his mind Paul IV. styled him "a son of perdition." The
reputation of Cano, however, rests on a posthumous work, _De Locis
theologicis_ (Salamanca, 1562), which stands to-day unrivalled in its
own line. In this, a genuine work of the Renaissance, Cano endeavours to
free dogmatic theology from the vain subtleties of the schools and, by
clearing away the puerilities of the later scholastic theologians, to
bring religion back to first principles; and, by giving rules, method,
co-ordination and system, to build up a scientific treatment of
theology. He died at Toledo on the 30th of September 1560. (E. Tn.)
CANOE (from Carib. _canáoa_, the West Indian name found in use by
Columbus; the Fr. _canot_, boat, and Ger. _Kahn_, are derived from the
Lat. _canna_, reed, vessel), a sort of general term for a boat sharp at
both ends, originally designed for propulsion by one or more paddles
(not oars) held without a fixed fulcrum, the paddler facing the bow. As
the historical native name for certain types of boat used by savages, it
is applied in such cases to those which, like other boats, are open
within from end to end, and the modern "Canadian canoe" preserves this
sense; but a more specific usage of the name is for such craft as differ
essentially from open boats by being covered in with a deck, except for
a "well" where the paddler sits. Modern developments are the cruising
canoe, combining the use of paddle and sails, and the racing canoe,
equipped with sails only.
The primitive canoes were light frames of wood over which skins (as in
the Eskimo canoe) or the bark of trees (as in the North American
lndians' birch-bark canoe) were tightly stretched. The modern painted
canvas canoe, built on Indian lines, was a natural development of this
idea. The Indian also used, and the African still uses, the "dug-out,"
made from a tree hollowed by fire after the manner of Robinson Crusoe.
Many of these are of considerable size and carrying capacity; one in the
New York Natural History Museum from Queen Charlotte's Island is 63 ft.
long, 8 ft. 3 in. wide, and 5 ft. deep, cut from a single log. The "war
canoe" of paddling races is its modern successor. In the islands of the
Pacific primitive canoes are wonderfully handled by the natives, who
make long sea voyages in them, often stiffening them by attaching
another hull (see CATAMARAN).
In the earlier part of the 19th century, what was known as a "canoe" in
England was the short covered-in craft, with a "well" for the paddler to
sit in, which was popularly used for short river practice; and this type
still survives. But the sport of canoeing in any real sense dates from
1865, when John MacGregor (q.v.) designed the canoe "Rob Roy" for long
journeys by water, using both double-bladed paddle and sails, yet light
enough (about 70 lb) to be carried over land. The general type of this
canoe is built of oak with a cedar deck; the length is from 12 ft. to
15 ft., the beam from 26 in. to 30 in., the depth 10 in. to 16 in. The
paddle is 7 ft. long and 6 in. wide in the blade, the canoeist sits low
in a cockpit, and in paddling dips the blades first on one side and then
the other. The rig is generally yawl.
In 1866 the Royal Canoe Club was formed in England, and the prince of
Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) became commodore. Its headquarters are at
Kingston-on-Thames and it is still the leading organization. There is
also the British Canoe Association, devoted to cruising. After the
English canoes were seen in Paris at the Exhibition of 1867, others like
them were built in France. Branches and clubs were formed also at the
English universities, and in Liverpool, Hull, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The
New York Canoe Club was founded in 1871. One member of the Royal Canoe
Club crossed the English Channel in his canoe, another the Irish Channel
from Scotland to Ireland, and many rivers were explored in inaccessible
parts, like the Jordan, the Kishon, and the Abana and the Pharpar at
Damascus, as well as the Lake Menzaleh in the Delta of the Nile, and the
Lake of Galilee and Waters of Merom in Syria.
W. Baden Powell modified the type of the "Rob Roy" in the "Nautilus,"
intended only for sailing. From this time the two kinds of pleasure
canoe--paddling and sailing--parted company, and developed each on its
own lines; the sailing canoe soon (1882) had a deck seat and tiller, a
smaller and smaller cockpit, and a larger and larger sail area, with the
consequent necessary air and water-tight bulkheads in the hull. Paul
Butler of Lowell, Mass., added (1886) the sliding outrigger seat,
allowing the canoeist to slide out to windward. The final stage is the
racing machine pure and simple, seen in the exciting contests at the
annual August meets of the American Canoe Association on the St Lawrence
river, or at the more frequent race days of its constituent divisions,
associated as Canadian (47 clubs), Atlantic (32 clubs), Central (26
clubs) and Western.
The paddling canoe, propelled by single-bladed paddles, is also
represented in single, tandem and crew ("war canoe") races, and this
form of the sport remains more of the amateur type. The "Canadian," a
clinker or carvel built mahogany or cedar or bass-wood canoe, or the
painted canvas, bark or compressed paper canoe, all on the general lines
of the Indian birch bark, are as common on American rivers as the punt
is on the Thames, and are similarly used.
See MacGregor, _A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe_ (1866), _The
Rob Roy on the Baltic_, &c.; W. Baden Powell, _Canoe Travelling_
(1871); W.L. Alden, _Canoe and the Flying Proa_ (New York, 1878); J.D.
Hayward, _Camping out with the British Canoe Association_; C.B. Vaux,
_Canoe Handling_ (New York, 1888); Stephens, _Canoe and Boat Building_
(New York, 1881).
CANON. The Greek word [Greek: kanon] means originally a straight rod or
pole, and metaphorically what serves to keep a thing upright or
straight, a rule. In the New Testament it occurs in Gal. vi. 16, and 2
Cor. x. 13, 15, 16, signifying in the former passage a measure, in the
latter what is measured, a district. The general applications of the
word fall mainly into two groups, in one of which the underlying meaning
is that of rule, in the other that of a list or catalogue, i.e. of books
containing the rule. Of the first, such uses as that of a standard or
rule of conduct or taste, or of a particular form of musical composition
(see below) may be mentioned, but the principal example is of the sum of
the laws regulating the ecclesiastical body (see CANON LAW). In the
second group of uses that of the ecclesiastical dignitary (see below),
that of the list of the names of those persons recognized as saints by
the Church (see CANONIZATION), and that of the authoritative body of
Scriptures (see below) are examples.
_Music._--A canon in part-music is the form taken by the earliest
compositions in harmony, successive or consequent parts having the same
melody, but each beginning at a stated period after its precursor or
antecedent. In many early polyphonic compositions, one or more voices
were imitated note for note by the others, so that the other parts did
not need to be written out at all, but were deduced from the leaders by
a rule or canon. Sir Frederick Bridge has pointed out that in this way
the term "canon" came to supersede the old name of the art-form, _Fuga
ligata_. (See also under FUGUE, CONTRAPUNTAL FORMS and Music.) When the
first part completes its rhythmical sentence before the second enters,
and then continues the melody as an accompaniment to the second, and so
on for the third or fourth, this form of canon in England was styled a
"round" or "catch"; the stricter canon being one in which the succession
of parts did not depend on the ending of the phrase. But outside England
catches and canons were undifferentiated. The "round" derived its name
from the fact that the first part returned to the beginning while the
others continued the melody; the "catch" meant that each later part
caught up the tune. The problem of the canon, as an artistic
composition, is to find one or more points in a melody at which one or
more successive parts may start the same tune harmoniously. Catches were
familiar in English folk music until after the Restoration; different
trades having characteristic melodies of their own. In the time of
Charles II they took a bacchanalian cast, and later became sentimental.
Gradually the form went out as a type of folk music, and now survives
mainly in its historical interest. (H. Ch.)
_The Church Dignitary_.--A canon is a person who possesses a prebend, or
revenue allotted for the performance of divine service in a cathedral or
collegiate church. Though the institute of canons as it at present
exists does not go back beyond the 11th century it has a long history
behind it. The name is derived from the list (_matricula_) of the clergy
belonging to a church, [Greek: kanon] being thus used in the council of
Nicaea (c. 16). In the synod of Laodicea the adjective [Greek:
kanonikos] is found in this sense (c. 15); and during the 6th century
the word _canonicus_ occurs commonly in western Europe in relation to
the clergy belonging to a cathedral or other church. Eusebius of
Vercelli (d. 370) was the first to introduce the system whereby the
cathedral clergy dwelt together, leading a semi-monastic life in common
and according to rule; and St Augustine established a similar manner of
life for the clergy of his cathedral at Hippo. The system spread widely
over Africa, Spain and Gaul; a familiar instance is St Gregory's
injunction to St Augustine that at Canterbury the bishop and his clergy
should live a common life together, similar to the monastic life in
which he had been trained; that these "clerics" at Canterbury were not
monks is shown by the fact that those of them in the lower clerical
grades were free to marry and live at home, without forfeiting their
position or emoluments as members of the body of cathedral clergy (Bede,
_Hist. Eccl._ i. 27). This mode of life for the secular clergy, which
became common in the west, seems never to have taken root in the east.
It came to be called _vita canonica_, canonical life, and it was the
object of various enactments of councils during the 6th, 7th and 8th
centuries. The first serious attempt to legislate for it and reduce it
to rule was made by Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (c. 750), who composed
a rule for the clergy of his cathedral, which was in large measure an
adaptation of the Benedictine Rule to the case of secular clergy living
in common. Chrodegang's Rule was adopted in many churches, both
cathedral and collegiate (i.e. those served by a body of clergy). In 816
the synod of Aix-la-Chapelle (see _Mon. Germ. Concil._ ii. 307) made
further regulations for the canonical life, which became the law in the
Frankish empire for cathedral and collegiate churches. The Rule of
Chrodegang was taken as the basis, but was supplemented and in some
points mitigated and made less monastic in character. There was a common
dormitory and common refectory for all, but each canon was allowed a
dwelling room within the cloister; the use of flesh meat was permitted,
and the clothing was of better quality than that of monks. Each canon
retained the use of his private property and money, but the revenues of
the cathedral or church were treated as a common fund for the
maintenance of the whole establishment. The chief duty of the canons was
the performance of the church services. Thus the canons were not monks,
but secular clergy living in community, without taking the monastic vows
or resigning their private means--a form of life somewhat resembling
that of the fathers of the London or Birmingham Oratory in our day. The
bishop was expected to lead the common life along with his clergy.
The canonical life as regulated by the synod of Aix, subsisted in the
9th and 10th centuries; but the maintenance of this intermediate form
of life was of extreme difficulty. There was a constant tendency to
relax the bonds of the common life, and attempts in various directions
to restore it. In England, by the middle of the 10th century, the
prescriptions of the canonical life seem to have fallen into desuetude,
and in nine cathedrals the canons were replaced by communities of
Benedictines. In the 11th century the Rule of Chrodegang was introduced
into certain of the English cathedrals, and an Anglo-Saxon translation
of it was made under Leofric for his church of Exeter. The turning point
came in 1059, when a reforming synod, held at the Lateran, exhorted the
clergy of all cathedral and collegiate churches to live in community, to
hold all property and money in common, and to "lead the life of the
Apostles" (cf. Acts ii. 44, 45). The clergy of numerous churches
throughout Western Europe (that of the Lateran Basilica among them) set
themselves to carry out these exhortations, and out of this movement
grew the religious order of Canons Regular or Augustinian Canons (q.v.).
The opposite tendency also ran its course and produced the institute of
secular canons. The revenues of the cathedral were divided into two
parts, that of the bishop and that of the clergy; this latter was again
divided among the clergy themselves, so that each member received his
own separate income, and the persons so sharing, whatever their clerical
grade, were the canons of the cathedral church. Naturally all attempt at
leading any kind of common life was frankly abandoned. In England the
final establishment of this order of things was due to St Osmund (1090).
The nature and functions of the institute of secular canons are
described in the article CATHEDRAL.
See Du Cange, _Glossarium_, under "Canonicus"; Amort, _Vetus
Disciplina Canonicorum_ (1747), to be used with caution for the
earlier period; C. du Molinet, _Réflexions historiques et curieuses
sur les antiquités des chanoines tant séculiers que réguliers_ (1674);
Herzog, _Realencyklopädie_ (3rd ed.), art. "Kapitel"; Wetzer und
Welte, _Kirchenlexicon_ (2nd ed.), art. "Canonica vita" and
"Canonikat." The history of the canonical institute is succinctly
told, and the best literature named, by Max Heimbucher, _Orden und
Kongregationen_, 1896, i. § 55; also by Otto Zöckler, _Askese und
Mönchtum_, 1897, pp. 422-425. On medieval secular canons a standard
work is Chr. Wordsworth's _Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral_ (1892-1897);
see also an article thereon by Edm. Bishop in _Dublin Review_, July
1898. (E. C. B.)
In the Church of England, the canons of cathedral or collegiate churches
retain their traditional character and functions, though they are now,
of course, permitted to marry. Their duties were defined by the Canons
of 1603, and included that of residence at the cathedrals according to
"their local customs and statutes," and preaching in the cathedral and
in the churches of the diocese, "especially those whence they or their
church receive any yearly rent or profit." A canonry not being legally a
"cure of souls," a canon may hold a benefice in addition to his prebend,
in spite of the acts against pluralities. By the Canons of 1603 he was
subject to discipline if he made his canonry an excuse for neglecting
his cure. By the act of 1840 reforming cathedral chapters the number of
canonries was greatly reduced, while some were made applicable to the
endowment of archdeaconries and professorships. At the same time it was
enacted that a canon must have been six years in priest's orders, except
in the case of canonries annexed to any professorship, headship or other
office in any university. The obligatory period of residence, hitherto
varying in different churches, was also fixed at a uniform period of
three months. The right of presentation to canonries is now vested in
some cases in the crown, in others in the lord chancellor, the
archbishop or in the bishop of the diocese.
Honorary canons are properly canons who have no prebend or other
emoluments from the common fund of the chapter. In the case of old
cathedrals the title is bestowed upon deserving clergymen by the bishop
as a mark of distinction. In new cathedrals, e.g. Manchester or
Birmingham, where no endowment exists for a chapter, the bishop is
empowered to appoint honorary canons, who carry out the ordinary
functions of a cathedral body (see CATHEDRAL).
Minor canons, more properly styled priest-vicars, are appointed by the
dean and chapter. Their function is mainly to sing the service, and they
are selected therefore mainly for their voices and musical
qualifications. They may hold a benefice, if it lies within 6 m. of the
cathedral.
In the Protestant churches of the continent canons as ecclesiastical
officers have ceased to exist. In Prussia and Saxony, however, certain
chapters, secularized at the Reformation, still exist. The canons
(_Domherren_) are, however, laymen with no ecclesiastical character
whatever, and their rich prebends are merely sources of endowment for
the cadets of noble families.
See Phillimore, _Eccles. Law_, 2 vols. (London, 1895). (W. A. P.)
_The Scriptures._--There are three opinions as to the origin of the
application of the term "canon" to the writings used by the Christian
Church. According to Semler, Baur and others, the word had originally
the sense of list or catalogue--the books publicly read in Christian
assemblies. Others, as Steiner, suppose that since the Alexandrian
grammarians applied it to collections of old Greek authors as models of
excellence or classics, it meant classical (canonical) writings.
According to a third opinion, the term included from the first the idea
of a regulating principle. This is the more probable, because the same
idea lies in the New Testament use of the noun, and pervades its
applications in the language of the early Fathers down to the time of
Constantine, as Credner has shown.[1] The "[Greek: kanon] of the church"
in the Clementine homilies,[2] the "ecclesiastical [Greek: kanon]"[3]
and the "[Greek: kanon] of the truth" in Clement and Irenaeus,[4] the
[Greek: kanon] of the faith in Polycrates,[5] the _regula fidei_ of
Tertullian,[6] and the _libri regulares_ of Origen[7] imply a _normative
principle_. Credner's view of [Greek: kanon] as an abbreviation of
[Greek: grachai kanonos], equivalent to _Scripturae legis_ in
Diocletian's Act,[8] is too artificial, and is unsanctioned by usage.
The earliest example of its application to a catalogue of the Old or New
Testament books occurs in the Latin translation of Origen's homily on
Joshua, where the original seems to have been [Greek: kanon]. The word
itself is certainly in Amphilochius,[9] as well as in Jerome[10] and
Rufinus.[11] As the Latin translation of Origen has _canonicus_ and
_canonizatus_, we infer that he used [Greek: kanonikos], opposed as it
is to _apocryphus_ or _secretus_. The first occurrence of [Greek:
kanonikos] is in the 59th canon of the council of Laodicea, where it is
contrasted with [Greek: idiotikos] and [Greek: akanonistos]. [Greek:
Kanonixomena], "_canonized_ books," is first used in Athanasius's festal
epistle.[12] The kind of rule which the earliest Fathers thought the
Scriptures to be can only be conjectured; it is certain that they
believed the Old Testament books to be a divine and infallible guide.
But the New Testament was not so considered till towards the close of
the 2nd century, when the conception of a Catholic Church was realized.
The collection of writings was not called _Scripture_, or put on a par
with the Old Testament as sacred and inspired, till the time of
Theophilus of Antioch (about 180 A.D.). Hence Irenaeus applies the
epithets divine and perfect to the Scriptures; and Clement of Alexandria
calls them inspired.
When distinctions were made among the Biblical writings other words were
employed, synonymous with [Greek: kanonixomena] or [Greek:
kekanonismena], such as [Greek: endiathaeka], [Greek: orismena]. The
canon was thus a catalogue of writings, forming a rule of truth, sacred,
divine, revealed by God for the instruction of men. The rule was perfect
for its purpose. (See BIBLE: section _Canon_.)
The term "canonical," i.e. that which is approved or ordered by the
"canon" or rule, is applied to ecclesiastical vestments, "canonicals,"
and to those hours set apart by the Church for prayer and devotion, the
"Canonical Hours" (see BREVIARY). (S. D.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Zur Geschichte des Kanons_, pp. 3-68.
[2] _Clement Hom._, ap. Coteler. vol. i. p. 608.
[3] _Stromata_, vi. 15, p. 803, ed. Potter.
[4] _Adv. Haeres._ i. 95.
[5] Euseb. _H.E._ v. 24.
[6] _De praescript. Haereticorum_, chs. 12, 13.
[7] _Comment. in Mat._ iii. p. 916, ed. Delarue.
[8] _Monumenta vetera ad Donatistarum historiam pertinentia_, ed.
Dupin, p. 168.
[9] At the end of the _Iambi ad Seleucum_, on the books of the New
Testament, he adds, [Greek: outos acheudestatos kanon an ein ton
theopneuston grachon].
[10] _Prologus galeatus in ii. Reg._
[11] _Expos. in Symb. Apost._ 37, p. 374, ed. Migne.
[12] After the word is added [Greek: kai paradothenta, pioteuthenta
te theia einai]. _Opp._ vol. i. p. 961, ed. Benedict.
CANONESS (Fr. _chanoinesse_, Ger. _Kanonissin_, Lat. _canonica_ or
_canonica virgo_), a female beneficiary of a religious college. In the
8th century chapters of canons were instituted in the Frankish empire,
and in imitation of these certain women took common vows of obedience
and chastity, though not of poverty. Like nuns they had common table and
dormitory, and recited the breviary, but generally the rule was not so
strict as in the case of nuns. The canonesses often taught girls, and
were also employed in embroidering ecclesiastical vestments and
transcribing liturgical books. A distinction was drawn between regular
and secular canonesses, the latter being of noble family and not
practising any austerity. Some of their abbesses were notable feudal
princesses. In Germany several foundations of this kind (e.g.
Gandersheim, Herford and Quedlinburg), which were practically secular
institutions before the Reformation, adopted the Protestant faith, and
still exist, requiring of their members the simple conditions of
celibacy and obedience to their superior during membership. These
institutions (_Stifter_) are now practically almshouses for the
unmarried daughters of noble families. In some cases the right of
presentation belongs to the head of the family, sometimes admission is
gained by purchase; but in modern times a certain number of prebends
have been created for the daughters of deserving officials. The
organization of the _Stift_ is collegiate, the head bearing the ancient
titles of abbess, prioress or provostess (_Pröbstin_), and the
canonesses (_Stiftsdamen_) meet periodically in _Konvent_ for the
discussion of the affairs of the community. The ladies are not bound to
residence. In many of these _Stifter_ quaint pre-Reformation customs and
ceremonies still survive; thus, at the convent of St John the Baptist at
Schleswig, on the day of the patron saint, the room in which the
_Konvent_ is held is draped in black and a realistic life-size wax head
of St John on a charger is placed in the centre of the table round which
the canonesses sit.
CANONIZATION, in its widest sense, an act by which in the Christian
Church the ecclesiastical authority grants to a deceased believer the
honour of public _cultus_. In the early Church there was no formal
canonization. The _cultus_ applied at first to local martyrs, and it was
only in exceptional circumstances that a kind of judiciary inquiry and
express decision became necessary to legitimate this _cultus_. The
peculiar situation of the Church of Africa explains the _Vindicatio
martyrum_, which was early practised there (_Optatus Milevit._, i. 16).
In the _cultus_ rendered to confessors, the authorization of the Church
had long been merely implicit. But when an express decision was given,
it was the bishop who gave it. Gradually the canonization of saints came
to be included in the centralizing movement which reserved to the pope
the most important acts of ecclesiastical power. The earliest
acknowledged instance of canonization by the pope is that of Ulric of
Augsburg, who was declared a saint by John XV. in A.D. 993. From that
time the pontifical intervention became more and more frequent, and, in
practice, the right of the bishops in the matter of canonization
continued to grow more restricted. In 1170 the new right was
sufficiently established for Pope Alexander III. to affirm that the
bishops could not institute the _cultus_ of a new saint without the
authority of the Roman Church (Cap. _Audivimus_, Decret. _De Rell. et
venerat. Sanctorum_, iii. 115). The 12th and, especially, the 13th
centuries furnish many examples of canonizations pronounced by the
popes, and the procedure of this period is well ascertained. It was much
more summary than that practised in modern times. The evidence of those
who had known the holy personages was collected on the spot. The inquiry
was as rapid as the judgment, and both often took place a short time
after the death of the saint, as in the cases of St Thomas of Canterbury
(died 1170, canonized 1173), St Peter of Castelnau (died on the 15th of
January 1208, canonized on the 12th of March of the same year), St
Francis of Assisi (died on the 4th of October 1226, canonized on the
19th of July 1228), and St Anthony of Padua (died on the 13th of June
1231, canonized on the 3rd of June 1232).
At this period there was no marked difference between canonization and
beatification. In modern practice, as definitively settled by the
decrees of Pope Urban VIII. (1625 and 1634), the two acts are totally
distinct. Canonization is the solemn and definitive act by which the
pope decrees the plenitude of public honours. Beatification consists in
permitting a _cultus_, the manifestations of which are restricted, and
is merely a step towards canonization.
The procedure at present followed at the Roman curia is either
_exceptional_ or _common_. The approval of immemorial _cultus_ comes
within the category of exceptional procedure. Urban VIII., while
forbidding the rendering of a public _cultus_ without authorization from
the Holy See, made an exception in favour of the blessed who were at
that time (1625) in possession of an immemorial _cultus_, i.e. dating
back at least a century (1525). The procedure _per viam casus excepti_
consists in the legitimation of a _cultus_ which has been rendered to a
saint for a very long time. The causes of the martyrs (_declarationis
martyrii_) also are exceptional. Juridical proof is required of the
_fact_ of the martyrdom and of its _cause_, i.e. it must be established
that the servant of God was put to death through hatred of the faith.
These are the two cases which constitute exceptional procedure.
The _common_ procedure is that in which the cause is prosecuted _per
viam non cultus_. It is, in reality, a suit at law, pleaded before the
tribunal of the Congregation of Rites, which is a permanent commission
of cardinals, assisted by a certain number of subordinate officers and
presided over by a cardinal. The supreme judge in the matter is the pope
himself. The _postulator_, who is the mandatory of a diocese or
ecclesiastical commonalty, is the solicitor. He must furnish the proofs,
which are collected according to very stringent rules. The _promoter of
the faith_, popularly called the "devil's advocate" (_advocatus
diaboli_), is the defendant, whose official duty is to point out to the
tribunal the weak points of the case.
The procedure is loaded with many formalities, of which the historical
explanation lies in the tribunals of the ancient system, and which
considerably delay the progress of the causes. The first decisive step
is the _introduction of the cause_. If, by the advice of the cardinals
who have examined the documents, the pope pronounce his approval, the
servant of God receives the title of "Venerable," but is not entitled to
any manifestation of _cultus_. Only in the event of the claimant passing
this test successfully can the essential part of the procedure be begun,
which will result in conferring on the Venerable the title of "Blessed."
This part consists in three distinct proceedings: (1) to establish a
reputation for sanctity, (2) to establish the heroic quality of the
virtues, (3) to prove the working of miracles. A favourable judgment on
all three of these tests is called the decree _de tuto_, by which the
pope decides that they may safely proceed to the solemn beatification of
the servant of God (_Tuto procedi potest ad solemnem V.S.D.N.
beatificationem_). In the ceremony of beatification the essential part
consists in the reading of the pontifical brief, placing the Venerable
in the rank of the Blessed, which is done during a solemn mass,
celebrated with special rites in the great hall above the vestibule of
the basilica of St Peter.
The process of canonization, which follows that of beatification, is
usually less lengthy. It consists principally in the discussion of the
miracles (usually two in number) obtained by the intercession of the
Blessed since the decree of beatification. After a great number of
formalities and prayers, the pope pronounces the sentence, and indicates
eventually the day on which he will proceed to the ceremony of
canonization, which takes place with great solemnity in the basilica of
St Peter.
The extremely complicated procedure which is prescribed for the conduct
of the cases in order to ensure every opportunity for exercising rigour
and discretion, considerably retards the progress of the causes, and
necessitates a numerous staff. This circumstance, together with the
custom of ornamenting the basilica of St Peter very richly on the day of
the ceremony, accounts for the considerable cost which a canonization
entails. To prevent abuses, a minute tariff of expenses was drawn up
during the pontificate of Leo XIII.
The Greek Church, represented by the patriarch of Constantinople, and
the Russian Church, represented by the Holy Synod, also canonize their
saints after a preliminary examination of their titles to public
_cultus_. Their procedure is less rigorous than that of the Roman
Church, and as yet has been but imperfectly studied.
See J. Fontanini, _Codex Constitutionum quas summi pontifices
ediderunt in solemni canonizatione sanctorum_ (Rome, 1729, a
collection of original documents); Pr. Lambertini (Pope Benedict
XIV.), _De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione_
(Bologna, 1734-1738), several times reprinted, and more remarkable for
erudition and knowledge of canon law than for historical criticism;
Al. Lauri, _Codex pro postulatoribus causarum beatificationis et
canonizationis, recognovit Joseph Fornari_ (Romae, 1899); F.W. Faber,
_Essay on Beatification, Canonization, &c._ (London, 1848); A.
Boudinhon, _Les Procès de béatification et de canonisation_ (Paris,
1905); E. Golubinskij, _Istorija Kanonizaçii sviatich v russko j
çerkvi_ (Moscow, 1903). (H. De.)
CANON LAW. Canon law, _jus canonicum_, is the sum of the laws which
regulate the ecclesiastical body; for this reason it is also called
ecclesiastical law, _jus ecclesiasticum_. It is also referred to under
the name of _canones, sacri canones_, a title of great antiquity, for
the [Greek: kanones], _regulae_, were very early distinguished from the
secular laws, the [Greek: nomoi], _leges_.
Word "canon." Different meanings.
The word [Greek: kanon], canon, has been employed in ecclesiastical
literature in several different senses (see CANON above). The
disciplinary decisions of the council of Nicaea, for example (can. 1, 2,
&c.), employ it in the sense of an established rule, ecclesiastical in
its origin and in its object. But the expression is most frequently used
to designate disciplinary laws, in which case canons are distinguished
from dogmatic definitions. With regard to form, the decisions of
councils, even when dogmatic, are called canons; thus the definitions of
the council of Trent or of the Vatican, which generally begin with the
words "_Si quis dixerit_," and end with the anathema, are canons; while
the long chapters, even when dealing with matters of discipline, retain
the name of chapters or decrees. Similarly, it has become customary to
give the name of canons to the texts inserted in certain canonical
compilations such as the _Decretum_ of Gratian, while the name of
chapters is given to the analogous quotations from the Books of the
Decretals. It is merely a question of words and of usage. As to the
expression _jus canonicum_, it implies the systematic codification of
ecclesiastical legislation, and had no existence previous to the labours
which resulted in the _Corpus juris canonici_.
Divisions.
Canon law is divided into public law and private law; the former is
concerned with the constitution of the Church, and, consequently, with
the relations between her and other bodies, religious and civil; the
latter has as its object the internal discipline of the ecclesiastical
body and its members. This division, which has been found convenient for
the study of canon law, has no precedent in the collections of texts.
With regard to the texts now in force, the name of _jus antiquum_,
ancient law, has been given to the laws previous to the _Corpus juris
canonici_; the legislation of this _Corpus_ has been called _jus novum_,
new law; and finally, the name of recent law, _jus novissimum_, has been
given to the law established by the council of Trent and subsequent
papal constitutions. There is a further distinction between the written
law, _jus scriptum_, laws made by the councils or popes, which are to be
found in the collections, and the unwritten law, _jus non scriptum_, a
body of practical rules arising rather from natural equity and from
custom than from formal laws; with this is connected the customary law.
In the Church, as in other societies, it has happened that the unwritten
customary law has undergone a gradual diminution in importance, as a
consequence of centralization and the accumulation of written laws;
nowadays it need not be reckoned with, save in cases where local customs
are involved. The common law is that which is intended to regulate the
whole body; special or local law is that which is concerned with certain
districts or certain categories of persons, by derogation from or
addition to the common law.
Sources.
By the _sources_ or authors of the canon law are meant the authorities
from which it is derived; they must obviously be of such a nature as to
be binding upon the whole religious body, or at least upon a specified
portion of it. In the highest rank must be placed Christ and the
Apostles, whose dispositions for the constitution and government of the
Church are contained in the New Testament, completed by tradition; for
the Church did not accept the disciplinary and ritual provisions of the
Old Testament as binding upon her (see Acts xi., xv.). To the apostles
succeeded the episcopal body, with its chief the bishop of Rome, the
successor of St. Peter, whose legislative and disciplinary power, by a
process of centralization, underwent a slow but uninterrupted
development. It is then to the episcopate, assembled in ecumenical
council, and to its chief, that the function of legislating for the
whole Church belongs; the inferior authorities, local councils or
isolated bishops and prelates, can only make special laws or statutes,
valid only for that part of the Church under their jurisdiction. Most of
the canons, however, which constitute the ancient law, and notably those
which appear in the _Decretum_ of Gratian, emanate from local councils,
or even from individual bishops; they have found a place in the common
law because the collections of canons, of which they formed the most,
notable part, have been everywhere adopted.
Having made these general observations, we must now consider the history
of those texts and collections of canons which to-day form the
ecclesiastical law of the Western Church: (1) up to the _Decretum_ of
Gratian, (2) up to the council of Trent, (3 and 4) up to the present
day, including the codification ordered by Pius X.
1. _From the Beginning to the Decretum of Gratian._--At no time, and
least of all during the earliest centuries, was there any attempt to
draw up a uniform system of legislation for the whole of the Christian
Church. The various communities ruled themselves principally according
to their customs and traditions, which, however, possessed a certain
uniformity resulting from their close connexion with natural and divine
law. Strangely enough, those documents which bear the greatest
resemblance to a small collection of canonical regulations, such as the
Didache, the Didascalia and the Canons of Hippolytus, have not been
retained, and find no place in the collections of canons, doubtless for
the reason that they were not official documents. Even the Apostolical
Constitutions (q.v.), an expansion of the Didache and the Didascalia,
after exercising a certain amount of influence, were rejected by the
council in Trullo (692). Thus the only pseudo-epigraphic document
preserved in the law of the Greek Church is the small collection of the
eighty-five so-called "Apostolic Canons" (q.v.). The compilers, in their
several collections, gathered only occasional decisions, the outcome of
no pre-determined plan, given by councils or by certain great bishops.
Greek collection.
These compilations began in the East. It appears that in several
different districts canons made by the local assemblies[1] were added to
those of the council of Nicaea which were everywhere accepted and
observed. The first example seems to be that of the province of Pontus,
where after the twenty canons of Nicaea were placed the twenty-five
canons of the council of Ancyra (314), and the fifteen of that of
Neocaesarea (315-320). These texts were adopted at Antioch, where there
were further added the twenty-five canons of the so-called council _in
encaeniis_ of that city (341). Soon afterwards, Paphlagonia contributed
twenty canons passed at the council of Gangra (held, according to the
_Synodicon orientale_, in 343),[2] and Phrygia fifty-nine canons of the
assembly of Laodicea (345-381?), or rather of the compilation known as
the work of this council.[3] The collection was so well and so widely
known that all these canons were numbered in sequence, and thus at the
council of Chalcedon (451) several of the canons of Antioch were read
out under the number assigned to them in the collection of the whole. It
was further increased by the twenty-eight (thirty) canons of Chalcedon;
about the same time were added the four canons of the council of
Constantinople of 381, under the name of which also appeared three (or
seven) other canons of a later date. Towards the same date, also, the
so-called "Apostolic Canons" were placed at the head of the group. Such
was the condition of the Greek collection when it was translated and
introduced into the West.
Its final form.
In the course of the 6th century the collection was completed by the
addition of documents already in existence, but which had hitherto
remained isolated, notably the canonical letters of several great
bishops, Dionysius of Alexandria, St Basil and others. It was at this
time that the Latin collection of Dionysius Exiguus became known; and
just as he had given the Greek councils a place in his collection, so
from him were borrowed the canons of councils which did not appear in
the Greek collection--the twenty canons of Sardica (343), in the Greek
text, which differs considerably from the Latin; and the council of
Carthage of 410, which itself included, more or less completely, in 105
canons, the decisions of the African councils. Soon after came the
council _in Trullo_ (692), also called the _Quinisextum_, because it was
considered as complementary to the two councils (5th and 6th ecumenical)
of Constantinople (553 and 680), which had not made any disciplinary
canons. This assembly elaborated 102 canons, which did not become part
of the Western law till much later, on the initiative of Pope John VIII.
(872-881). Now, in the second of its canons, the council in Trullo
recognized and sanctioned the Greek collection above mentioned; it
enumerates all its articles, insists on the recognition of these canons,
and at the same time prohibits the addition of others. As thus defined,
the collection contains the following documents: firstly, the
eighty-five Apostolic Canons, the Constitutions having been put aside as
having suffered heretical alterations; secondly, the canons of the
councils of Nicaea, Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicea,
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (the disciplinary canons of this council
deal with the reception of the Nestorians, and were not communicated to
the West), Chalcedon, Sardica, Carthage (that of 419, according to
Dionysius), Constantinople (394); thirdly, the series of canonical
letters of the following great bishops--Dionysius of Alexandria, Peter
of Alexandria (the Martyr), Gregory Thaumaturgus, Athanasius, Basil,
Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Amphilochus of Iconium,
Timotheus of Alexandria, Theophilus of Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria,
Gennadius of Constantinople; the canon of Cyprian of Carthage (the
Martyr) is also mentioned, but with the note that it is only valid for
Africa. With the addition of the twenty-two canons of the ecumenical
council of Nicaea (787), this will give us the whole contents of the
official collection of the Greek Church; since then it has remained
unchanged. The law of the Greek Church was in reality rather the work of
the Byzantine emperors.[4]
Nomocanon.
The collection has had several commentators; we need only mention the
commentaries of Photius (883), Zonaras (1120) and Balsamon (1170). A
collection in which the texts are simply reproduced in their
chronological order is obviously inconvenient; towards 550, Johannes
Scholasticus, patriarch of Constantinople, drew up a methodical
classification of them under fifty heads. Finally should be mentioned
yet another kind of compilation still in use in the Greek Church,
bearing the name of _nomocanon_, because in them are inserted, side by
side with the ecclesiastical canons, the imperial laws on each subject:
the chief of them are the one bearing the name of Johannes Scholasticus,
which belongs, however, to a later date, and that of Photius (883).
In the West.
The canon law of the other Eastern Churches had no marked influence on
the collections of the Western Church, so we need not speak of it here.
While, from the 5th century onwards a certain unification in the
ecclesiastical law began to take place within the sphere of the see of
Constantinople, it was not till later that a similar result was arrived
at in the West. For several centuries there is no mention of any but
local collections of canons, and even these are not found till the 5th
century; we have to come down to the 8th or even the 9th century before
we find any trace of unification. This process was uniformly the result
of the passing on of the various collections from one region to another.
Africa.
The most remarkable, and the most homogeneous, as well as without doubt
the most ancient of these local collections is that of the Church of
Africa. It was formed, so to speak, automatically, owing to the plenary
assemblies of the African episcopate held practically every year, at
which it was customary first of all to read out the canons of the
previous councils. This gave to the collection an official character. At
the time of the Vandal invasion this collection comprised the canons of
the council of Carthage under Gratus (about 348) and under Genethlius
(390), the whole series of the twenty or twenty-two plenary councils
held during the episcopate of Aurelius, and finally, those of the
councils held at Byzacene. Of the last-named we have only fragments, and
the series of the councils under Aurelius is very incomplete. The
African collection has not come to us directly: we have two incomplete
and confused arrangements of it, in two collections, that of the
_Hispana_ and that of Dionysius Exiguus. Dionysius knows only the
council of 419, in connexion with the affair of Apiarius; but in this
single text are reproduced, more or less fully, almost all the synods of
the collection; this was the celebrated _Concilium Africanum_, so often
quoted in the middle ages, which was also recognized by the Greeks. The
Spanish collection divides the African canons among seven councils of
Carthage and one of Mileve; but in many cases it ascribes them to the
wrong source; for example, it gives under the title of the fourth
council of Carthage, the _Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua_, an Arlesian
compilation of Saint Caesarius, which has led to a number of incorrect
references. Towards the middle of the 6th century a Carthaginian deacon,
Fulgentius Ferrandus, drew up a _Breviatio canonum_,[5] a methodical
arrangement of the African collection, in the order of the subjects.
From it we learn that the canons of Nicaea and the other Greek councils,
up to that of Chalcedon, were also known in Africa.
Rome.
Dionysius Exiguus and his collection.
Dionysio-Hadriana.
The Roman Church, even more than the rest, governed itself according to
its own customs and traditions. Up to the end of the 5th century the
only canonical document of non-Roman origin which it officially
recognized was the group of canons of Nicaea, under which name were also
included those of Sardica. A Latin version of the other Greek councils
(the one referred to by Dionysius as _prisca_) was known, but no
canonical use was made of it. The local law was founded on usage and on
the papal letters called decretals. The latter were of two kinds: some
were addressed to the bishops of the ecclesiastical province immediately
subject to the pope; the others were issued in answer to questions
submitted from various quarters; but in both cases the doctrine is the
same. At the beginning of the 6th century the Roman Church adopted the
double collection, though of private origin, which was drawn up at that
time by the monk Dionysius, known by the name of Dionysius Exiguus,
which he himself had assumed as a sign of humility. He was a Scythian by
birth, and did not come to Rome till after 496, his learning was
considerable for his times, and to him we owe the employment of the
Christian era and a new way of reckoning Easter. At the desire of
Stephen, bishop of Salona, he undertook the task of making a new
translation, from the original Greek text, of the canons of the Greek
collection. The manuscript which he used contained only the first fifty
of the Apostolic Canons; these he translated, and they thus became part
of the law of the West. This part of the work of Dionysius was not added
to later; it was otherwise with the second part. This embodied the
documents containing the local law, namely 39 decretals of the popes
from Siricius (384-398) to Anastasius II. (496-498). As was natural this
collection received successive additions as further decretals appeared.
The collection formed by combining these two parts remained the only
official code of the Roman Church until the labours undertaken in
consequence of the reforming movement in the 11th century. In 774 Pope
Adrian I. gave the twofold collection of the Scythian monk to the future
emperor Charlemagne as the canonical book of the Roman Church; this is
what is called the _Dionysio-Hadriana_. This was an important stage in
the history of the centralization of canon law; the collection was
officially received by the Frankish Church, imposed by the council of
Aix-la-Chapelle of 802, and from that time on was recognized and quoted
as the _liber canonum_. If we consider that the Church of Africa, which
had already suffered considerably from the Vandal invasion, was at this
period almost entirely destroyed by the Arabs, while the fate of Spain
was but little better, it is easy to see why the collection of Dionysius
became the code of almost the whole of the Western Church, with the
exception of the Anglo-Saxon countries; though here too it was known.
The other collections of canons, of Italian origin, compiled before the
10th century, are of importance on account of the documents which they
have preserved for us, but as they have not exercised any great
influence on the development of canon law, we may pass them over.
In Gaul.
Quesnel collection.
The Dionysio-Hadriana did not, when introduced into Gaul, take the place
of any other generally received collection of canons. In this country
the Church had not been centralized round a principal see which would
have produced unity in canon law as in other things; even the political
territorial divisions had been very unstable. The only canonical centre
of much activity was the Church of Arles, which exercised considerable
influence over the surrounding region in the 5th and 6th centuries. The
chief collection known throughout Gaul before the Dionysio-Hadriana was
the so-called collection of Quesnel, named after its first editor.[6] It
is a rich collection, though badly arranged, and contains 98
documents--Eastern and African canons and papal letters, but no Gallic
councils; so that it is not a collection of local law. We might expect
to find such a collection, in view of the numerous and important
councils held in Gaul, but their decisions remained scattered among a
great number of collections none of which had ever a wide circulation or
an official character.
Councils.
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the Gallic councils which
contributed towards the canon law of that country; we will mention only
the following:--Arles (314), of great importance; a number of councils
in the district of Arles, completed by the _Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua_
of St Caesarius;[7] the councils of the province of Tours; the
assemblies of the episcopate of the three kingdoms of the Visigoths at
Agde (506), of the Franks at Orleans (511), and of the Burgundians at
Epaone (517); several councils of the kingdoms of the Franks, chiefly at
Orleans; and finally, the synods of the middle of the 8th century, under
the influence of St Boniface. Evidently the impulse towards unity had to
come from without; it began with the alliance between the Carolingians
and the Papacy, and was accentuated by the recognition of the _liber
canonum_.
In Spain.
The Hispana.
In Spain the case, on the contrary, is that of a strong centralization
round the see of Toledo. Thus we find Spanish canon law embodied in a
collection which, though perhaps not official, was circulated and
received everywhere; this was the Spanish collection, the _Hispana_.[8]
The collection is well put together and includes almost all the
important canonical documents. In the first part are contained the
councils, arranged according to the regions in which they were held:
Greek councils, following a translation of Italian origin, but known by
the name of _Hispana_; African councils, Gallican councils and Spanish
councils. The latter, which form the local section, are further divided
into several classes: firstly, the synods held under the Roman empire,
the chief being that of Elvira[9] (c. 300); next the texts belonging to
the kingdom of the Suevi, after the conversion of these barbarians by St
Martin of Braga: these are, the two councils of Braga (563 and 572), and
a sort of free translation or adaptation of the canons of the Greek
councils, made by Martin of Braga; this is the document frequently
quoted in later days under the name of _Capitula Martini papae_;
thirdly, the decisions of the councils of the Visigothic Church, after
its conversion to Catholicism. Nearly all these councils were held at
Toledo, beginning with the great council of 589. The series continued up
to 694 and was only interrupted by the Mussulman invasion. Finally, the
second part of the _Hispana_ contains the papal decretals, as in the
collection of Dionysius.
From the middle of the 9th century this collection was to become even
more celebrated; for, as we know, it served as the basis for the famous
collection of the False Decretals.
Great Britain and Ireland.
The Churches of Great Britain and Ireland remained still longer outside
the centralizing movement. Their contribution towards the later system
of canon law consisted in two things: the Penitentials and the influence
of the Irish collection, the other sources of local law not having been
known to the predecessors of Gratian nor to Gratian himself.
Penitentials.
The Penitentials[10] are collections intended for the guidance of
confessors in estimating the penances to be imposed for various sins,
according to the discipline in force in the Anglo-Saxon countries. They
are all of Anglo-Saxon or Irish origin, and although certain of them
were compiled on the continent, under the influence of the island
missionaries, it seems quite certain that a Roman Penitential has never
existed.[11] They are, however, of difficult and uncertain ascription,
since the collections have been largely amended and remodelled as
practice required. Among the most important we may mention those bearing
the names of Vinnianus (d. 589), Gildas (d. 583), Theodore of Canterbury
(d. 690), the Venerable Bede (d. 735) and Egbert of York (732-767); the
Penitentials which are ascribed to St Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil
and Bobbio (d. 615), and Cumean (Cumine Ailbha, abbot of Iona); in the
Prankish kingdom the most interesting work is the Penitential of
Halitgar, bishop of Cambrai[12] from 817 to 831. As penances had for a
long time been lightened, and the books used by confessors began to
consist more and more of instructions in the style of the later moral
theology (and this is already the case of the books of Halitgar and
Rhabanus Maurus), the canonical collections began to include a greater
or smaller number of the penitential canons.
Irish collection.
The Irish collection,[13] though it introduced no important documents
into the law of the Western Church, at least set canonists the example
of quoting passages from the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers.
This collection seems to date from the 8th century; besides the usual
sources, the author has included several documents of local origin,
beginning with the pretended synod of St Patrick.
The false decretals.
Systematic collections.
In the very middle of the 9th century a much enlarged edition of the
_Hispana_ began to be circulated in France. To this rich collection the
author, who assumes the name of Isidore, the saintly bishop of Seville,
added a good number of apocryphal documents already existing, as well as
a series of letters ascribed to the popes of the earliest centuries,
from Clement to Silvester and Damasus inclusive, thus filling up the gap
before the decretal of Siricius, which is the first genuine one in the
collection. The other papal letters only rarely show signs of alteration
or falsification, and the text of the councils is entirely
respected.[14] From the same source and at the same date came two other
forged documents--firstly, a collection of Capitularies, in three books,
ascribed to a certain Benedict (Benedictus Levita),[15] a deacon of the
church of Mainz; this collection, in which authentic documents find very
little place, stands with regard to civil legislation exactly in the
position of the False Decretals with regard to canon law. The other
document, of more limited scope, is a group of _Capitula_ given under
the name of Angilram, bishop of Metz. It is nowadays admitted by all
that these three collections come from the same source. For a study of
the historical questions connected with the famous False Decretals, see
the article DECRETALS (FALSE); here we have only to consider them with
reference to the place they occupy in the formation of ecclesiastical
law. In spite of some hesitation, with regard rather to the official
character than to the historical authenticity of the letters attributed
to the popes of the earlier centuries, the False Decretals were accepted
with confidence, together with the authentic texts which served as a
passport for them. All later collections availed themselves
indiscriminately of the contents of this vast collection, whether
authentic or forged, without the least suspicion. The False Decretals
did not greatly modify nor corrupt the Canon Law, but they contributed
much to accelerate its progress towards unity. For they were the last of
the chronological collections, i.e. those which give the texts in the
order in which they appeared. From this time on, canonists began to
exercise their individual judgment in arranging their collections
according to some systematic order, grouping their materials under
divisions more or less happy, according to the object they had in view.
This was the beginning of a codification of a common canon law, in which
the sources drawn upon lose, as it were, their local character. This is
made even more noticeable by the fact that, in a good number of the
works extant, the author is not content merely to set forth and classify
the texts; but he proceeds to discuss the point, drawing conclusions and
sometimes outlining some controversy on the subject, just as Gratian was
to do more fully later on.
Regino.
Burchard.
Anselm Deusdedit.
Ivo of Chartres.
During this period, which extended from the end of the 9th century to
the middle of the 12th, we can enumerate about forty systematic
collections, of varying value and circulation, which all played a
greater or lesser part in preparing the juridical renaissance of the
12th century, and most of which were utilized by Gratian. We need
mention only the chief of them--the _Collectio Anselmo dedicata_, by an
unknown author of the end of the 9th century; the _Libri duo de
synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis_,[16] compiled about
906 by Regino, abbot of Prüm, and dedicated to Hatto of Mainz,
relatively a very original treatise; the enormous compilation in twenty
books of Burchard, bishop of Worms (1112-1122), the _Decretum_ or
_Collectarium_,[17] very widely spread and known under the name of
_Brocardum_, of which the 19th book, dealing with the process of
confession, is specially noteworthy. Towards the end of the 11th
century, under the influence of Hildebrand, the reforming movement
makes itself felt in several collections of canons, intended to support
the rights of the Holy See and the Church against the pretensions of the
emperor. To this group belong an anonymous collection, described by M.P.
Fournier as the first manual of the Reform;[18] the collection of
Anselm, bishop of Lucca,[19] in 13 books (1080-1086); that of Cardinal
Deusdedit,[20] in 4 books, dedicated to Pope Victor III. (1086-1087);
and lastly that of Bonizo,[21] bishop of Sutri, in 10 books (1089). In
the 12th century, the canonical works of Ivo of Chartres[22] are of
great importance. His _Panormia_, compiled about 1095 or 1096, is a
handy and well-arranged collection in 8 books; as to the _Decretum_, a
weighty compilation in 17 books, there seems sufficient proof that it is
a collection of material made by Ivo in view of his _Panormia_. To the
12th century belong the collection in the MS. of Saragossa
(_Caesaraugustana_) to which attention was drawn by Antonio Agustin;
that of Cardinal Gregory, called by him the _Polycarpus_, in 8 books
(about 1115); and finally the _Liber de misericordia et justitia_ of
Algerus,[23] scholasticus of Liége, in 3 books, compiled at latest in
1123.
But all these works were to be superseded by the _Decretum_ of Gratian.
The Decretum of Gratian.
2. _The Decretum of Gratian and the Corpus Juris Canonici._--The work of
Gratian, though prepared and made possible by those of his predecessors,
greatly surpasses them in scientific value and in magnitude. It is
certainly the work which had the greatest influence on the formation of
canon law; it soon became the sole manual, both for teaching and for
practice, and even after the publication of the Decretals was the chief
authority in the universities. The work is not without its faults;
Gratian is lacking in historical and critical faculty; his theories are
often hesitating; but on the whole, his treatise is as complete and as
perfect as it could be; so much so that no other work of the same kind
has been compiled; just as there has never been made another Book of the
Sentences. These two works, which were almost contemporary (Gratian is
only about two years earlier),[24] were destined to have the same fate;
they were the manuals, one for theology, the other for canon law, in use
in all the universities, taught, glossed and commented on by the most
illustrious masters. From this period dates the more marked and
definitive separation between theology and ecclesiastical law.
Dicta Gratiani.
Contents.
Mode of citation.
Of Gratian we know practically nothing. He was a Camaldulensian monk of
the convent of St Felix at Bologna, where he taught canon law, and
published, probably in 1148, his treatise called at first _Concordantia
discordantium canonum_, but soon known under the name of the _Decretum_.
Nowadays, and for some time past, the only part of the _Decretum_
considered is the collection of texts; but it is actually a treatise, in
which the author endeavours to piece together a coherent juridical
system from the vast body of texts, of widely differing periods and
origin, which are furnished by the collections. These texts he inserts
bodily in the course of his dissertation; where they do not agree, he
divides them into opposite groups and endeavours to reconcile them; but
the really original part of his work are the _Dicta Gratiani_, inserted
between the texts, which are still read. Gratian drew his materials from
the existing collections, and especially from the richer of them; when
necessary, he has recourse to the Roman laws, and he made an extensive
use of the works of the Fathers and the ecclesiastical writers; he
further made use of the canons of the recent councils, and the recently
published decretals, up to and including the Lateran council of 1139.
His immense work consists of three parts (_partes_). The first, treating
of the sources of canon law and of ecclesiastical persons and offices,
is divided according to the method of Paucapalea, Gratian's pupil, into
101 _distinctiones_, which are subdivided into _canones_. The second
part consists of 36 _causae_ (cases proposed for solution), subdivided
into _quaestiones_ (the several questions raised by the case), under
each of which are arranged the various _canones_ (canons, decretals,
&c.) bearing on the question. But _causa_ xxxiii. _quaestio_ 3, headed
_Tractatus de Poenitentia_, is divided like the main part into seven
_distinctiones_, containing each several _canones_. The third part,
which is entitled _De Consecratione_, gives, in five _distinctiones_,
the law bearing on church ritual and the sacraments. The following is
the method of citation. A reference to the first part indicates the
initial words or number of the _canon_ and the number of the
_distinctio_, e.g. can. Propter ecclesiasticas, dist. xviii. or c. 15,
d. xviii. The second part is cited by the _canon, causa_ and _quaestio_,
e.g. can. Si quis suadente, C. 17, qu. 4, or c. 29, C. xvii., qu. 4. The
treatise _De Poenitentia_, forming the 3rd _quaestio_ of the 33rd
_causa_ of the second part, is referred to as if it were a separate
work, e.g. c. Principium, D. ii. de poenit. or c. 45, D. ii. de poenit.
In quoting a passage from the third part the _canon_ and _distinctio_
are given, e.g. c. Missar. solenn. D.I. de consecrat., or c. 12, D.I.
de consecr.
Authority.
Considered from the point of view of official authority, the _Decretum_
occupies an intermediate position very difficult to define. It is not
and cannot be a really official code, in which every text has the force
of a law. It has never been recognized as such, and the pretended
endorsement of it by Pope Eugenius III. is entirely apocryphal.
Moreover, it could not have become an official code; it would be
impossible to transform into so many laws either the discordant texts
which Gratian endeavoured to reconcile or his own _Dicta_; a treatise on
canon Law is not a code. Further, there was as yet no idea of demanding
an official compilation. The _Decretum_ has thus remained a work of
private authority, and the texts embodied in it have only that legal
value which they possess in themselves. On the other hand, the
_Decretum_ actually enjoys a certain public authority which is unique;
for centuries it has been the text on which has been founded the
instruction in canon law in all the universities; it has been glossed
and commented on by the most illustrious canonists; it has become,
without being a body of laws, the first part of the _Corpus juris
canonici_, and as such it has been cited, corrected and edited by the
popes. It has thus, by usage, obtained an authority perfectly recognized
and accepted by the Church.[25]
After Gratian.
Gratian's collection, for the very reason that it had for its aim the
creation of a systematic canon law, was a work of a transitional
character. Henceforth a significant differentiation began to appear; the
collections of texts, the number of which continued to increase, were
clearly separated from the commentaries in which the canonists continued
the formation and interpretation of the law. Thus the way was prepared
for official collections. The disciples of Gratian, in glossing or
commenting on the _Decretum_, turned to the papal decretals, as they
appeared, for information and the determination of doubtful points.
Their idea, then, was to make collections of these points, to support
their teaching; this is the origin of those _Compilationes_ which were
soon to be embodied in the collection of Gregory IX. But we must not
forget that these compilations were intended by their authors to
complete the _Decretum_ of Gratian; in them were included the decretals
called _extravagantes_, i.e. _quae vagabantur extra Decretum_. This is
why we find in them hardly any documents earlier than the time of
Gratian, and also why canonists have continued to refer to the
decretals of Gregory IX. by the abbreviation X (_Extra_, i.e. _extra
Decretum_).
"Quinque compilationes."
Bernard of Pavia, "Breviarium."
"Compilatio tertia."
"Secunda."
"Quarta."
"Quinta."
There were numerous collections of this kind towards the end of the 12th
and at the beginning of the 13th century. Passing over the first
_Additiones_ to the _Decretum_ and the _Appendix concilii Lateranensis_
(council of 1179), we will speak only of the _Quinque compilationes_,[26]
which served as a basis for the works of Raymond of Pennaforte. The first
and most important is the work of Bernard, provost and afterwards bishop
of Pavia, namely, the _Breviarium extravagantium_, compiled about 1190;
it included the decretals from Alexander III. to Clement III., together
with certain "useful chapters" omitted by Gratian. The important feature
of the book is the arrangement of the decretals or sections of decretals
in five books, divided into titles (_tituli_) logically arranged. The
five books treat of (1) ecclesiastical persons and dignitaries or judges;
(2) procedure; (3) rights, duties and property of the clergy, i.e.
benefices, dues, sacraments, &c., with the exception of marriage, which
is the subject of book (4); (5) of penalties. There is a well-known
hexameter summing up this division:
_Judex, judicium, clerus, connubia, crimen._
This is the division adopted in all the official collections of the
_Corpus juris_. By a bull of the 28th of December 1210 Innocent III.
sent to the university of Bologna an authentic collection of the
decretals issued during the first twelve years of his pontificate; this
collection he had caused to be drawn up by his notary, Petrus
Collivacinus of Benevento, his object being to supersede the collections
in circulation, which were incomplete and to a certain extent spurious.
This was the _Compilatio tertia_; for soon after, Joannes Galensis (John
of Wales) collected the decretals published between the collection of
Bernard of Pavia and the pontificate of Innocent III.; and this, though
of later date, became known as the _Compilatio secunda_. The _quarta_,
the author of which is unknown, contained the decretals of the last six
years of Innocent III., and the important decrees of the Lateran council
of 1215. Finally, in 1226, Honorius III. made an official presentation
to Bologna of his own decretals, this forming the _Compilatio quinta_.
Decretals of Gregory IX.
The result of all these supplements to Gratian's work, apart from the
inconvenience caused by their being so scattered, was the accumulation
of a mass of material almost as considerable as the _Decretum_ itself,
from which they tended to split off and form an independent whole,
embodying as they did the latest state of the law. From 1230 Gregory IX.
wished to remedy this condition of affairs, and gave to his
penitentionary, the Dominican Raymond of Pennaforte, the task of
condensing the five compilations in use into a single collection, freed
from useless and redundant documents. The work was finished in 1234, and
was at once sent by the pope to Bologna with the bull _Rex pacificus_,
declaring it to be official. Raymond adopts Bernard of Pavia's division
into five books and into titles; in each title he arranges the decretals
in chronological order, cutting out those which merely repeat one
another and the less germane parts of those which he preserves; but
these _partes decisae_, indicated by the words "_et infra_" or "_et j,_"
are none the less very useful and have been printed in recent editions.
Raymond does not attempt any original work; to the texts already
included in the _Quinque compilationes_, he adds only nine decretals of
Innocent III. and 196 chapters of Gregory IX. This first official code
was the basis of the second part of the _Corpus juris canonici_. The
collection of Gregory IX. is cited as follows: the opening words of the
chapter are given, or else its order or number, then the title to which
it belongs; earlier scholars added X (_extra_); nowadays, this
indication is omitted, and the order or number of the title in the book
is given instead, e.g. _Quum olim, de Consuetudine_, X.; or cap. 6, _de
consuet._ (I. iv.); that is to say, book I., title iv., _de
consuetudine_, chapter 6, beginning with the words _Quum olim_.
Their relation to the general law.
The "Liber Sextus."
Though Gregory IX. wished to supersede the _compilationes_, he had no
idea of superseding the _Decretum_ of Gratian, still less of codifying
the whole of the canon law. Though his collection is still in theory the
chief monument of ecclesiastical law, it only marked a certain stage and
was before long to receive further additions. The reason for this is
that in most cases the decretals did not formulate any law, but were
merely solutions of particular cases, given as models; to arrive at the
abstract law it was necessary to examine the solution in each case with
regard to the circumstances and thus formulate a rule; this was the work
of the canonists. The "decretalists" commented on the new collection, as
the "decretists" had done for that of Gratian; but the canonists were
not legislators: even the summaries which they placed at the head of the
chapters could not be adduced as legislative texts. The abstract law was
to be found rather in the _Summae_ of the canonists than in the
decretals. Two important results, however, were achieved: on the one
hand, supplementary collections on private authority ceased to be made,
for this Gregory IX. had forbidden; on the other hand, the collections
were no longer indefinitely swelled by the addition of new decisions in
particular cases, those already existing being enough to form a basis
for the codification of the abstract law; and for this reason subsequent
collections contain as a rule only the "constitutions" of popes or
councils, i.e. rules laid down as of general application. Hence arose a
separation, which became more and more marked, between legislation and
jurisprudence. This change was not produced suddenly, the old method
being at first adhered to. In 1245 Innocent IV. sent to the universities
a collection of 45 decretals, with the order that they should be
inserted under their proper titles in the collection of Gregory IX. In
1253 he sent a further list of the first words (_principia_) of the
complementary constitutions and decretals; but the result was
practically _nil_ and the popes gave up this system of successive
additions. It was, however, found expedient to publish a new official
collection. At the instance of the university of Bologna, Boniface
VIII., himself an eminent canonist, had this prepared by a committee of
canonists and published it in 1298. As it came as an addition to the
five books of Gregory IX., it was called the sixth book, the _Liber
Sextus_. It includes the constitutions subsequent to 1234, and notably
the decrees of the two ecumenical councils of Lyons, and is arranged in
books and titles, as above described; the last title, _de regulis
juris_, contains no less than eighty-eight legal axioms, mostly borrowed
from Roman law. The _Liber Sextus_ is cited like the decretals of
Gregory IX., only with the addition of: _in sexto_ (in VI^o.).
The "Clementinae."
The same observations apply to the next collection, the _Clementinae_.
It was prepared under the care of Clement V., and even promulgated by
him in consistory in March 1314; but in consequence of the death of the
pope, which took place almost immediately after, the publication and
despatch of the collection to the universities was postponed till 1317,
under John XXII. It includes the constitutions of Clement V., and above
all, the decrees of the council of Vienne of 1311, and is divided, like
preceding collections, into books and titles; it is cited in the same
way, with the additional indication _Clem-(entina)_.
"Extravagantes" of John XXII.
And "communes."
At this point the official collections stop. The two last, which have
found a place in the editions of the _Corpus_, are collections of
private authority, but in which all the documents are authentic.
Evidently the strict prohibition of the publishing of collections not
approved by the Holy See had been forgotten. The _Extravagantes_ (i.e.
_extra collectiones publicas_) of John XXII. number 20, and are
classified under fourteen titles. The _Extravagantes communes (i.e._
coming from several popes) number 73, from Boniface VIII. to Sixtus IV.
(1484), and are classified in books and titles. These two collections
were included in the edition of Jean Chappuis in 1500; they passed into
the later editions, and are considered as forming part of the _Corpus
juris canonici_. As such, and without receiving any complementary
authority, they have been corrected and re-edited, like the others, by
the _Correctores romani_. They are cited, like the decretals, with a
further indication of the collection to which they belong: _Extrav. Jo.
XXII._, or _inter-comm-(unes)._
The "Corpus juris canonici."
Thus was closed, as the canonists say, the _Corpus juris canonici_; but
this expression, which is familiar to us nowadays, is only a
bibliographical term. Though we find in the 15th century, for example,
at the council of Basel the expression _corpus juris_, obviously
suggested by the _Corpus juris civilis_, not even the official edition
of Gregory XIII. has as its title the words _Corpus juris canonici_. and
we do not meet with this title till the Lyons edition of 1671.
The study of canon law.
The glosses.
The "Summae."
The history of the canonical collections forming the _Corpus juris_
would not be complete without an account of the labours of which they
were the object. We know that the universities of the middle ages
contained a Faculty of Decrees, with or without a Faculty of Laws, i.e.
civil law. The former made _doctores decretorum_, the latter _doctores
legum_. The teaching of the _magistri_ consisted in oral lessons
(_lecturae_) directly based on the text. The short remarks explanatory
of words in the text, originally written in the margin, became the gloss
which, formed thus by successive additions, took a permanent form and
was reproduced in the manuscripts of the _Corpus_, and later in the
various editions, especially in the official Roman edition of 1582; it
thus acquired by usage a kind of semi-official authority. The chief of
the _glossatores_ of the _Decretum_ of Gratian were Paucapalea, the
first disciple of the master, Rufinus (1160-1170), John of Faenza (about
1170), Joannes Teutonicus (about 1210), whose glossary, revised and
completed by Bartholomeus Brixensis (of Brescia) became the _glossa
ordinaria decreti_. For the decretals we may mention Vincent the
Spaniard and Bernard of Botone (Bernardus Parmensis, d. 1263), author of
the _Glossa ordinaria_. That on the _Liber Sextus_ is due to the famous
Joannes Andreae (c. 1340); and the one which he began for the
Clementines was finished later by Cardinal Zabarella (d. 1417). The
commentaries not so entirely concerned with the text were called
_Apparatus_; and _Summae_ was the name given to general treatises. The
first of these works are of capital importance in the formation of a
systematic canon law. Such were the _Summae_ of the first disciples of
Gratian: Paucapalea (1150),[27] Rolando Bandinelli[28] (afterwards
Alexander III., c. 1150), Rufinus[29] (c. 1165), Étienne of Tournai[30]
(Stephanus Tornacensis, c. 1168), John of Faenza (c. 1170), Sicard,
bishop of Cremona (c. 1180), and above all Huguccio (c. 1180). For the
Decretals we should mention: Bernard of Pavia[31] (c. 1195), Sinibaldo
Fieschi (Innocent IV., c. 1240), Henry of Susa (d. 1271), commonly
called (cardinalis) Hostiensis, whose _Summa Hostiensis_ or _Summa
aurea_ is a work of the very highest order; Wilhelmus Durantis or
Durandus, Joannes Andreae, Nicolas de Tudeschis (_abbas siculus_), &c.
The 15th century produced few original treatises; but after the council
of Trent the _Corpus juris_ was again commented on by distinguished
canonists, e.g. the Jesuit Paul Laymann (1575-1635), the Portuguese
Agostinho Barbosa (1590-1649), Manuel Gonzalez Tellez (d. 1649) and
Prospero Fagnani (1598-1687), who, although blind, was secretary to the
Congregation of the Council. But as time goes on, the works gradually
lose the character of commentaries on the text, and develop into
expositions of the law as a whole.
Editions.
The "Correctores romani."
"Institutiones Lancelotti."
We can mention here only the chief editions of the _Corpus_. The council
of Trent, as we know, ordered that the official books of the Roman
Church--sacred books, liturgical books, &c.--should be issued in
official and more correct editions; the compilations of ecclesiastical
law were also revised. The commission of the _Correctores romani_,[32]
established about 1563 by Pius IV., ended its work under Gregory XIII
and the official edition, containing the text and the glosses, appeared
at Rome in 1582. Richter's edition (2 vols., Leipzig, 1839) remains
valuable, but has been greatly surpassed by that of E. Friedberg
(Leipzig, 1879-1881). Many editions contain also the _Institutiones_
composed at the command of Paul IV. (1555-1559) by Giovanni Paolo
Lancelotti, a professor of Bologna, on the model of the Institutes of
Justinian. The work has merits, but has never been officially approved.
Though the collections of canon law were to receive no more additions,
the source of the laws was not dried up; decisions of councils and popes
continued to appear; but there was no attempt made to collect them.
Canonists obtained the recent texts as they could. Moreover, it was an
epoch of trouble: the great Schism of the West, the profound divisions
which were its result, the abuses which were to issue in the
Reformation, were conditions little favourable for a reorganization of
the ecclesiastical laws. Thus we are brought to the third period.
3. _After the Council of Trent._--The numerous important decrees made by
the council of Trent, in the second part of its sessions, called _de
reformatione_, are the starting-point of the canon law in its latest
stage, _jus novissimum_; it is this which is still in force in the Roman
Church. It has in no way undermined the official status of the _Corpus
juris_; but it has completed the legislation of the latter in many
important respects, and in some cases reformed it.
Final state of the law.
The law during this period, as abstracted from the texts and
compilations, suggests the following remarks. The laws are formulated in
general terms, and the decisions in particular cases relegated to the
sphere of jurisprudence; and the canonists have definitely lost the
function which fell to them in the 12th and 13th centuries: they receive
the law on authority and no longer have to deduce it from the texts. The
legislative power is powerfully centralized in the hands of the pope:
since the reforming decrees of the council of Trent it is the pontifical
constitutions alone which have made the common law; the ecumenical
council, doubtless, has not lost its power, but none were held until
that of the Vatican (1870), and this latter was unable to occupy itself
with matters of discipline. Hence the separation, increasingly marked,
between the common law and the local laws, which cannot derogate from
the common law except by concession of the Holy See, or by right of a
lawfully authorized custom. This centralization, in its turn, has
greatly increased the tendency towards unity and uniformity, which have
reached in the present practice of the Roman Church a degree never known
before, and considered by some to be excessive.
Dispersion of the texts.
If we now consider the laws in themselves, we shall find that the
dispersed condition of the legislative documents has not been modified
since the closure of the _Corpus juris_; on the contrary the enormous
number of pontifical constitutions, and of decrees emanating from the
Roman Congregations, has greatly aggravated the situation; moreover, the
attempts which have been made to resume the interrupted process of
codification have entirely failed. As regards the texts, the canon law
of to-day is in a very similar position to that of English law, which
gave rise to J.S. Mill's saying: "All ages of English history have given
one another rendezvous in English law; their several products may be
seen all together, not interfused, but heaped one upon another, as many
different ages of the earth may be read in some perpendicular section of
its surface."[33] Nothing has been abrogated, except in so far as this
has been implicitly demanded by subsequent laws. From this result
insoluble controversies and serious uncertainties, both in the study and
practice of the law; and, finally, it has become impossible for most
people to have a first-hand knowledge of the actual laws.
Decrees of the Council of Trent.
Pontifical constitutions.
Decrees of the Curia.
For this third period, the most important and most considerable of the
canonical texts is the body of disciplinary decrees of the council of
Trent (1545-1563). In consequence of the prohibition issued by Pius IV.,
they have not been published separately from the dogmatic texts and
other acts, and have not been glossed;[34] but their official
interpretation has been reserved by the popes to the "Congregation of
the cardinal interpreters of the Council of Trent," whose decisions form
a vast collection of jurisprudence. Next in importance come the
pontifical constitutions, which are collected together in the
_Bullarium_; but this is a collection of private authority, if we except
the _Bullarium_ of Benedict XIV., officially published by him in 1747;
further, the _Bullarium_ is a compilation arranged in chronological
order, and its dimensions make it rather unwieldy. In the third place
come the decrees of the Roman Congregations, which have the force of
law. Several of these organs of the papal authority have published
official collections, in which more place is devoted to jurisprudence
than to laws; several others have only private compilations, or even
none at all, among others the most important, viz. the Holy Office (see
CURIA ROMANA). The resulting confusion and uncertainty may be imagined.
"Liber septimus" of P. Mathieu.
of Clement VIII.
These drawbacks were felt a long time back, and to this feeling we owe
two attempts at a supplementary codification which were made in the 16th
century, both of which are known under the name of _Liber Septimus_. The
first was of private origin, and had as its author Pierre Mathieu, the
Lyons jurist (1563-1621); it appeared in 1590 at Lyons. It is a
continuation of the _Extravagantes communes_, and includes a selection
of papal constitutions, from Sixtus IV. (1471-1484) to Sixtus V.
(1585-1590) inclusive, with the addition of a few earlier documents. It
follows the order of the decretals. This collection has been of some
service, and appears as an appendix in many editions of the _Corpus
juris_; the chief reason for its failure is that it has no official
sanction. The second attempt was official, but it came to nothing. It
was connected with the movement of reform and revision which followed
the council of Trent. Immediately after the publication of the official
edition of the _Corpus juris_, Gregory XIII. appointed a committee of
cardinals charged with the task of drawing up a _Liber septimus_. Sixtus
V. hurried on its execution, which was rapidly proceeded with, mainly
owing to Cardinal Pinelli, who submitted the draft of it to Clement
VIII. The pope had this Liber VII. printed as a basis for further
researches; but after long deliberations the volume was suppressed, and
the idea of a fresh codification was abandoned. The collection included
the decrees of the council of Trent, and a number of pontifical
constitutions, arranged in the order of the titles of the decretals.[35]
But even had it been promulgated, it is doubtful whether it would have
improved the situation. It would merely have added another collection to
the previous ones, which were already too voluminous, without resulting
in any useful abrogations.
Demand for codification.
Decision of Pius X.
Method.
4. _The Future Codification._--Neither Clement VIII. nor, at a later
date, Benedict XIV., could have dreamt of the radical reform at present
in course of execution. Instead of accumulating the texts of the laws in
successive collections, it is proposed entirely to recast the system of
editing them. This codification in a series of short articles was
suggested by the example of the French codes, the history of which
during the 19th century is well known. From all quarters the Catholic
episcopate had submitted to the Vatican council petitions in this sense.
"It is absolutely clear," said some French bishops, "and has for a long
time past been universally acknowledged and asserted, that a revision
and reform of the canon law is necessary and most urgent. As matters now
stand, in consequence of the many and grave changes in human affairs and
in society, many laws have become useless, others difficult or
impossible to obey. With regard to a great number of canons, it is a
matter of dispute whether they are still in force or are abrogated.
Finally, in the course of so many centuries, the number of
ecclesiastical laws has increased to such an extent, and these laws have
accumulated in such immense collections, that in a certain sense we can
well say: We are crushed beneath the laws, _obruimur legibus_. Hence
arise infinite and inextricable difficulties which obstruct the study of
canon law; an immense field for controversy and litigation; a thousand
perplexities of conscience; and finally contempt for the laws."[36] We
know how the Vatican council had to separate without approaching the
question of canonical reform; but this general desire for a recasting of
the ecclesiastical code was taken up again on the initiative of Rome. On
the 19th of March 1904, Pius X. published a _Motu proprio, "de ecclesiae
legibus in unum redigendis_." After briefly reviewing the present
condition of the canonical texts and collections, he pointed out its
inconvenience, referred to the many requests from the episcopate, and
decreed the preparation of a general code of canon law. This immense
undertaking involved the codification of the entire canon law, drawing
it up in a clear, short and precise form, and introducing any expedient
modifications and reforms. For this purpose the pope appointed a
commission of cardinals, of which he himself became president; also a
commission of "consultors" resident at Rome, which asked for a certain
amount of assistance from canonists at various universities and
seminaries. Further, the assembled bishops of each province were invited
to give their opinion as to the points in which they considered the
canon law might profitably be modified or abrogated. Two consultors had
the duty of separately drawing up a preliminary plan for each title,
these projects being twice submitted for the deliberation of the
commission (or sub-commission) of consultors, the version adopted by
them being next submitted to the commission of cardinals, and the whole
finally sent up for the papal sanction. These commissions started work
at the end of 1904.
Local law.
_Local Law._--The common law of the Roman Church cannot by itself
uniformly regulate all the churches of the different nations; each of
them has its own local law, which we must briefly mention here. In
theory, this law has as its author the local ecclesiastical authorities,
councils or bishops; but this is true only for laws and regulations
which are in harmony with the common law, merely completing or defining
it. But if it is a question of derogating from the common law, the
authority of the Holy See must intervene to legalize these derogations.
This intervention takes the form either of "indults," i.e. graceful
concessions granted at the request of the episcopate, or of special
approbation of conciliary resolutions. It would, however, be impossible
to mention any compilations containing only local law. Whether in the
case of national or provincial councils, or of diocesan synods, the
chief object of the decrees is to reinforce, define or apply the law;
the measures which constitute a derogation have only a small place in
them. It is, then, only in a limited sense that we can see a local canon
law in the councils of the various regional churches. Having made this
remark, we must distinguish between the countries which are still
subject to the system of concordats and other countries.
Countries subject to concordats.
In the case of the former, the local law is chiefly founded on the
concordat (q.v.), including the derogations and privileges resulting
from it. The chief thing to note is the existence, for these countries,
of a civil-ecclesiastical law, that is to say, a body of regulations
made by the civil authority, with the consent, more or less explicit, of
the Church, about ecclesiastical matters, other than spiritual; these
dispositions are chiefly concerned with the nomination or confirmation
by the state of ecclesiastics to the most important benefices, and with
the administration of the property of the Church; sometimes also with
questions of jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, concerning the
persons or property of the Church. It is plain that the agreements under
the concordats have a certain action upon a number of points in the
canonical laws; and all these points go to constitute the local
concordatory law. This is the case for Austria, Spain, Portugal,
Bavaria, the Prussian Rhine provinces, Alsace, Belgium, and, in America,
Peru. Up to 1905 it was also the case in France, where the ancient local
customs now continue, pending the reorganization of the Church without
the concordat.
We do not imply that in other countries the Church can always find
exemption from legislative measures imposed upon her by the civil
authorities, for example, in Italy, Prussia and Russia; but here it is a
situation _de facto_ rather than _de jure_, which the Church tolerates
for the sake of convenience; and these regulations only form part of the
local canon law in a very irregular sense.
Other Countries.
In other countries the episcopal assemblies lay down the local law.
England has its council of Westminster (1852), the United States their
plenary councils of Baltimore (1852, 1866, 1884), without mentioning the
diocesan synods; and the whole of Latin America is ruled by the special
law of its plenary council, held at Rome in 1899. The same is the case
with the Eastern Churches united to the Holy See; following the example
of the famous council of Lebanon for the Maronites, held in 1730, and
that of Zamosc for the Ruthenians, in 1720, these churches, at the
suggestion of Leo XIII., have drawn up in plenary assembly their own
local law: the Syrians at Sciarfa in 1888; the Ruthenians at Leopol in
1891; and a little later, the Copts. The framing of local law will
certainly be more clear and more easy when the general code of canon law
has been published.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For the texts and collections: the dissertations of Dom
Coustant, _De antiquis canonum collectionibus, deque variis
epistolarum Rom. Pont, editionibus_ (Paris, 1721); P. de Marca, _De
veteribus collectionibus canonum_ (Paris, 1681); the brothers Peter
and Jerome Ballerini, _De antiquis tum editis tum ineditis
collectionibus et collectoribus canonum ad Gratianum usque_ (Venice,
1757). This is the best of all these works; it is reproduced in Migne,
_P.L._, vol. 56; C. Seb. Berardi, _De variis sacrorum canonum
collectionibus ante Gratianum_ (Turin, 1752); P. Quesnel, _De codice
canonum Ecclesiae Romanae; de variis fidei libellis in antiquo Rom.
Eccl. codice contentis; de primo usu codicis canonum Dionysii Exigui
in Gallicanis regionibus_ (Paris, 1675; with the critical notes of the
brothers Ballerini, also in Migne, _loc. cit._); and finally, Florent,
_De methodo atque auctoritate collectionis Gratiani_ (Paris, 1679),
and Antonio Agustin, archbishop of Tarragona, _De emendatione
Gratiani_ (Tarragona, 1586); these have all been brought together in
Gallandi, _De vetustis canonum collectionibus dissertationum sylloge_
(Venice, 1778). The most complete work on the texts up to the 9th
century is F. Maassen, _Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des
canonischen Rechts im Abendlande_, vol. i. (all that has yet appeared,
Gratz, 1870). For the period between the False Decretals and Gratian,
there is no work of this sort, but the materials have been put
together and published in part by M.P. Fournier. After Gratian, the
classic work is Schulte, _Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des
canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart_ (3 vols.,
Stuttgart, 1875 et. seq.). Manuals for the study of the sources: Ph.
Schneider, _Die Lehre von den Kirchenrechtsquellen_ (Regensburg,
1892); F. Laurin, _Introductio in Corpus juris canonici_ (Freiburg,
1889); Tardif, _Histoire des sources du droit canonique_ (Paris,
1887). Most of the German manuals on canon law devote considerable
space to the history of the sources: see Phillips, vol. ii (3rd ed.,
1857; French translation by the abbé Crouzet); Vering, 3rd ed.
(Freiburg, 1893); Schulte, _Das katholische Kirchenrecht_, pt. i.
(Giessen, 1860), &c. For the Greek Church: Pitra, _Juris ecclesiae
graecorum historia et monumenta_ (Rome, 1864); the later history of
the Greek law: Zachariae, _Historiae juris graecorum delineatio_
(Heidelberg, 1839); Mortreuil, _Histoire du droit byzantin_ (Paris,
1843-1846); the recent texts in the _Conciliorum Collectio lacensis_,
vol. ii.; _Acta et decreta s. conciliorum, quae ab episcopis rituum
orientalium ab a. 1682 usque ad a. 1789 indeque ad a. 1869 sunt
celebrata_ (Freiburg, 1876). Short manual of Institutions: Jos.
Papp-Szilagyi, _Enchiridion juris eccl. orientalis catholicae_
(Magno-Varadini, 1862). For recent canonical texts: Richter's edition
of the council of Trent (Leipzig, 1863); the _Collectanea S.C. de
Propaganda Fide_ (Rome, 1893); the _Bullarium_, a collection of papal
acts and constitutions; the editions of Cocquelines (28 vols., Rome,
1733-1756), and of Cherubini (19 vols., Luxemburg, 1727-1758), which
are better than the enlarged reprint of Turin, which was unfinished
(it goes up to 1730). The official edition of the _Bullarium_ of
Benedict XIV. (4 vols., Rome, 1754-1758) has been reprinted several
times and is of great importance; the continuation of the _Bullarium_
since Benedict XIV. has been published by Barberi, _Bullarii romani
continuatio_, in 20 vols., going up to the fourth year of Gregory XVI.
Every year, since 1854, has been printed a collection of pontifical
acts, _Acta Pii IX., Acta Leonis XIII._, &c., which are the
equivalents of the _Bullarium_. Dictionaries: Durand de Maillane,
_Dictionnaire canonique_ (Paris, 1786), re-edited by André under the
title, _Cours alphabétique et méthodique de droit canonique_, and by
Wagner (Paris, 1894), has Gallican tendencies; Ferraris, _Prompta
bibliotheca canonica_, &c., several new and enlarged editions; the
best is that of Migne (1866), completed by Father Bucceroni, _Ferraris
Supplementum_ (Rome, 1899). Articles on canon law in Wetzer und
Welte's _Kirchenlexicon_ (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1880 et seq.); Hauck,
_Realencyklopadie für prot. Theologie und Kirche_ (2nd ed., Leipzig,
1877-1888); Vacant-Mangenot's _Dictionnaire de théologie catholique_,
in course of publication (Paris, 1899 et seq.). Periodicals: _Analecta
juris pontificii_, ed. by Mgr. Chaillot (1863-1889); _Analecta
ecclesiastica_ (since 1893); _Acta Sanctae sedis_ (since 1865);
_Archiv fur kathol. Kirchenrecht_ (since 1857); _Le Canoniste
contemporain_ (since 1878). (A. Bo.*)
_Canon Law in England and in the Anglican Communion_.--There were
matters in which the local English and Irish canon law, even before the
16th century, differed from that obtaining on the western part of the
European continent. Thus (1), it has been said that--whereas the
continental canon law recognized a quadripartite division of Church
revenue of common right between (a) the bishop, (b) the clergy, (c) the
poor, (d) the fabric--the English law maintained a tripartite
division--(a) clergy, (b) the poor, (c) the fabric. Lord Selborne
(_Ancient Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes_, 2nd ed.,
1892) denies that there was any division of tithe in England. (2) By the
general canon law the burden of repairing the nave, as well as the
chancel of the church, was upon the parson or rector who collected the
whole tithe. But the custom of England transferred this burden to the
parishioners, and some particular local customs (as in the city of
London) placed even the burden of repair of the chancel on them. To meet
this burden church rates were levied. (3) A church polluted by the
shedding of blood, as by suicide or murder, was reconsecrated on the
continent. In England the custom was (and is) simply to "reconcile." (4)
A much more important difference, if the decision of the Irish court of
exchequer chamber upheld in the House of Lords, where the peers were
equally divided, correctly stated the English Canon law (_Reg._ v.
_Millis_, 10 Cl. & Fin., 534) was in regard to the essentials of
marriage. By the general Western canon law before the council of Trent,
the parties themselves were said to be the "ministers of the Sacrament"
in the case of holy matrimony. The declared consent of the parties to
take each other there and then constituted at once (although
irregularly) holy matrimony. The presence of priest or witnesses was not
necessary. In _Reg._ v. _Millis_, however, it was held that in England
it was always otherwise and that here the presence of a priest was
necessary. High authorities, however, have doubted the historical
accuracy of this decision. (5) The addition of houses of priests to the
provincial synods seems peculiar to England and Ireland.
The historical position of the general canon law of the Catholic Church
in the English provinces has, since the separation from Rome, been the
subject of much consideration by English lawyers and ecclesiastics. The
view taken by the king's courts, and acquiesced in by the ecclesiastical
courts, since Henry VIII., is that the Church of England was always an
independent national church, subject indeed to the general principles of
the _jus commune ecclesiasticum_ (Whitlock J. in _Ever_ v. _Owen_,
Godbolt's Reports, 432), but unbound by any particular constitutions of
council or pope; unless those constitutions had been "received" here by
English councils, or so recognized by English courts (secular or
spiritual) as to become part of the ecclesiastical custom of the realm.
Foreign canon law never bound (so it has been taught) _proprio vigore_.
The sources of English ecclesiastical law (purely ecclesiastical) were
therefore (1) the principles of the _jus commune ecclesiasticum_; (2)
foreign particular constitutions received here, as just explained; (3)
the constitutions and canons of English synods (cf. _Phill. Ecc. Law_,
part i. ch. iv., and authorities there cited).
1. On the existence of this _jus commune ecclesiasticum_ and that the
Church of England, in whatever sense independent, takes it over until
she repeals it, see _Escott_ v. _Mastin_, 4 Moo. _P.C.C._ 119. Lord
Brougham, in delivering the judgment, speaks of the "common law
prevailing for 1400 years over Christian Europe," and (p. 137) says that
"nothing but express enactment can abrogate the common law of all
Christendom before the Reformation of the Anglican Church."
2. As to foreign particular constitutions in England, there are a great
number of them, of which it has been and is admitted, that they have
currency in England. However papal in their origin, post-Reformation
lawyers have regarded them as valid, unless they can be shown to be
contrary to the king's prerogative, or to the common or statute law of
the realm. To this doctrine express statutory authority (as the events
have happened) has been given by 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19, sect. 7. A
striking example of the doctrine is furnished by the decree of Innocent
III. in the Fourth Lateran Council against pluralities. This decree was
enforced in the court of Arches against a pluralist clerk in 1848
(_Burder_ v. _Mavor_, I Roberts, 614). The courts of common law from
Lord Coke's time downwards have recognized this "constitution of the
pope" (as the queen's bench called it in 1598). The exchequer chamber,
in 1837, declared it to have "become part of the common law of the land"
(_Alstan_ v. _Atlay, 7 A._ and _E._ 289).
3. The particular constitutions of English synods are numerous and cover
a large field. At least in legal theory, the only distinction between
pre-Reformation and post-Reformation constitutions is in favour of the
former--so long as they do not contravene the royal prerogative or the
law of the land (see 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19). The most important are
collected together and digested (so far as regards England) in
Lyndwood's _Provinciale_, a work which remains of great authority in
English courts. These constitutions are again divided into two classes:
(a) provincial constitutions promulgated by provincial synods, usually
in the name of the presiding archbishop or bishop; and (b) decrees of
papal legates, Otho in 1236 and Othobon (Ottobuono de' Fieschi,
afterwards Pope Adrian V.) in 1269. Canons passed since 25 Hen. VIII. c.
19 have not the parliamentary confirmation which that act has been held
to give to previous canons, and do not necessarily bind the laity,
although made under the king's licence and ratified by him. This
doctrine laid down by Lord Hardwicke in _Middleton_ v. _Croft_ (2
_Stra_. 1056) was approved in 1860 in _Marshall_ v. _Bp. of Exeter_
(L.R. 3 H.L. 17). Nevertheless, there are many provisions in these
post-Reformation canons which are declaratory of the ancient usage and
law of the Church, and the law which they thus record is binding on the
laity. The chief body of English post-Reformation canon law is to be
found in the canons of 1603, amended in 1865 and 1888. The canons of
1640 are apparently upon the same footing as those of 1603;
notwithstanding objections made at the time that they were void because
convocation continued to sit after the dissolution of parliament. The
opinion of all the judges taken at the time was in favour of the
legality of this procedure. 13 Car. ii. c. 12 simply provided that these
canons should not be given statutory force by the operation of that act.
In addition to the enactment of canons (strictly so-called) the English
provincial synods since the Henrician changes have legislated--in 1570
by the enactment of the Thirty-Nine Articles, in 1661 by approving the
present Book of Common Prayer, and in 1873 by approving shorter forms of
matins and evensong.
The distinction between pre-Henrician and post-Henrician procedure lies
in the requirement, since 25 Hen. VIII., of the royal licence and
confirmation. Apparently diocesan synods may still enact valid canons
without the king's authority; but these bodies are not now called.
The prevailing legal view of the position of the Church of England in
regard to canon law has been just stated, and that is the view taken by
judicial authority for the past three centuries. On the other hand, it
is suggested by, e.g., the late Professor Maitland, that it was not, in
fact, the view taken here in the later middle ages--that in those ages
there was no theory that "reception" here was necessary to validate
papal decrees. It is said by this school of legal historians that, from
the Conquest down to Henry VIII., the Church of England was regarded by
churchmen not as in any sense as separate entity, but as two provinces
of the extra-territorial, super-national Catholic Church, and that the
pope at this period was contemplated as the _princeps_ of this Catholic
Church, whose edicts bound everywhere, as those of Augustus had bound in
the Roman empire.
It is right that this view should be stated, but it is not that of the
writer of this article.
As to _Ireland_, in a national synod of the four Irish provinces held at
Dublin before the four archbishops, in 1634, a hundred canons were
promulgated with the royal licence, containing much matter not dealt
with by similar constitutions in England. In 1711, some further canons
were promulgated (with royal licence) by another national synod. Some
forms of special prayer were appended to these canons.
In 1869 the Irish Church Act (32 and 33 Vict. c. 42) "disestablished"
the Irish Church, sect. 19 repealed any act of parliament, law or custom
whereby the bishops, clergy or laity of the said church were prohibited
from holding synods or electing representatives thereto for the purpose
of making rules for the well-being and ordering of the said church, and
enacted that no such law, &c., should hinder the said bishops, clergy
and laity, by such representatives, lay and clerical, and so elected as
they shall appoint, from meeting in general synod or convention and in
such general synod or convention forming constitutions and providing for
future representation of the members of the church in diocesan synods,
general convention or otherwise. The Church of Ireland, so set free,
created for herself new legislative authorities, unknown to the old
canon law, viz. mixed synods of clergy and laity, and a system of
representation by election, unknown to primitive or medieval times.
Similar changes had, however, been introduced during the preceding
century in some parts of the Anglican communion outside the British
Isles (see _infra_). Sect. 20 of the same statute kept alive the old
ecclesiastical law of Ireland by way of assumed contract (cf.
ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION).
Under the provisions of this statute, the "archbishops and bishops of
the ancient Apostolic and Catholic Church of Ireland" (so they describe
themselves), together with representatives of the clergy and laity,
assembled in 1870, in "General Convention," to "provide for the
regulation" of that church. This Convention declared that a General
Synod of the archbishops and bishops, with representatives of the clergy
and laity, should have chief legislative power in the Irish Church, with
such administrative power as might be necessary and consistent with the
church's episcopal constitution. This General Synod was to consist of
two Houses--the House of Bishops and the House of Lay and Clerical
Representatives. No question was to be carried unless there were in its
favour a majority of the clerical and lay representatives, voting either
conjointly or by orders, and also a majority of the bishops, should they
desire to vote. This General Synod was given full power to alter or
amend canons, or to repeal them, or to enact new ones. For any
alteration or amendment of "articles, doctrines, rites or rubrics," a
two-thirds majority of each order of the representative house was
required and a year's delay for consultation of the diocesan synods.
Provisions were made as to lay representation in the diocesan synods.
The Convention also enacted some canons and a statute in regard to
ecclesiastical tribunals (see ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION). It expressly
provided that its own legislation might be repealed or amended by future
general synods.
In 1871 the General Synod attempted to codify its canon law in
forty-eight canons which, "and none other," were to have force and
effect as the canons of the Church of Ireland. Since 1871 the General
Synod has, from time to time, put forth other canons.
The post-Reformation history of canon law in the Anglican communion in
_Scotland_ has differed from the story of that law in the last four
centuries in Ireland. After the legislation under William and Mary
disestablishing episcopacy in Scotland and subjecting its professors to
civil penalties, little attention was given to canon law for many years.
Synods of bishops at Edinburgh in 1724 and 1731 dealt with some disputed
questions of ritual and ceremonial. In 1743 an assembly of five bishops
enacted sixteen canons. A "primus" was to be chosen indifferently from
the bishops, but to have no other powers than those of convoking and
presiding over synods. He was to hold office only during pleasure of the
other bishops. Bishops were to be elected by the presbyters of the
district. Such election was subject to the confirmation of the majority
of the bishops. In 1811, a "Code of Canons" was enacted by a "General
Ecclesiastical Synod," consisting of the bishops, the deans (viz.
presbyters appointed by the bishops in each diocese to defend the
interests of the presbyters and now for the first time given "decisive"
voice in synods) and certain clerical representatives from the
"districts" or dioceses. Future synods, called for the purpose of
altering the code, were to consist of two chambers. The first was to be
composed of the bishops; the second to consist of the "deans" and
clerical representatives. No law or canon was to be enacted or
abrogated, save by the consent of both chambers. These canons were
revised in 1828, 1829 and 1838. The code of this last year created
diocesan synods, to be held annually and to consist of the bishop, dean
and all instituted clergy of the diocese. It also provided for the
annual meeting of a purely episcopal synod, which was to receive appeals
from either clergy or laity. In 1862-1863, another General Synod further
revised and amended the Code of Canons. This revised code enabled the
bishop to appoint a learned and discreet layman to act as his
chancellor, to advise him in legal matters and be his assessor at
diocesan synods. Assistant curates and mission priests were, under
certain restrictions, given seats in diocesan synods. Male communicants
were also permitted to be present at such synods, with a deliberative
but not "decisive" voice; unless in special circumstances the bishop
excluded them. Canon 46 provides that "if any question shall arise as to
the interpretation of this Code of Canons or of any part thereof, the
general principles of canon law shall be alone deemed applicable
thereto." This provision was reenacted in Canon 47 of 1876. Canon 51 of
1890, however, weakens this provision. It enacts that: "The preceding
canons shall in all cases be construed in accordance with the principles
of the civil law of Scotland. Nevertheless, it shall be lawful, in cases
of dispute or difficulty concerning the interpretation of these canons,
to appeal to any generally recognized principles of canon law." The
canons of 1862-1863 also provided for a lay share in the election of
bishops. In 1890 the 32nd canon enacted that the "General Synod" should
thereafter be called the Provincial Synod.
The canon law in Scotland before the 16th century was generally that of
the continent of Europe. The usages of the church were similar to those
in France, and had not the insular character of those in England and
Ireland. The canon law regulating marriage, legitimacy and succession
was taken over by the Scottish secular courts (see ECCLESIASTICAL
JURISDICTION) and survived as part of the common law of the land almost
unimpaired. Thus, the courts recognize marriages by _verba de
praesenti_ or by _verba de futuro cum copula_--in this last matter
following a decree of Gregory IX.--and also legitimation _per subsequens
matrimonium_. But though one of the _fontes juris Scotiae_, canon law
never was of itself authoritative in Scotland. In the canons of her
national provincial councils (at whose yearly meetings representatives
attended on behalf of the king) that country possessed a canon law of
her own, which was recognized by the parliament and the popes, and
enforced in the courts of law. Much of it, no doubt, was borrowed from
the _Corpus juris canonici_ and the English provincial canons. But the
portions so adopted derived their authority from the Scottish Church.
The general canon law, unless where it has been acknowledged by act of
parliament, or a decision of the courts, or sanctioned by the canons of
a provincial council, is only received in Scotland according to equity
and expediency.
The "Protestant Episcopal Church _in the United States_" is the
organization of the Anglican Communion in the American colonies before
the separation. This communion was subject to "all the laws of the
Church of England applicable to its situation" (Murray Hoffman, _A
Treatise on the Law of the Protestant Episcopal Church_, New York, 1850,
p. 17). This body of law the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United
States took over (_op. cit._ p. 41 et seq.; F. Vinton, _A Manual
Commentary on the General Canon Law and the Constitution of the
Protestant Episcopal Church_, New York, 1870, p. 16 et seq.). Much,
however, of the English post-Reformation canonical legislation was not
applicable to the United States, because of different circumstances, as
e.g. a very large portion of the canons of 1603 (Vinton, p. 32). In
1789, a General Convention, consisting of clerical and lay deputies as
well as of bishops, assumed for itself and provided for its successors
supreme legislative power. The concurrence of both "orders," clerical
and lay, was required for the validity of any vote. Since 1853 a lay
deputy to the Convention has been required to be a communicant (_ib._ p.
102). Upon the American bishops numbering more than three, they became a
separate "House" from the "Convention." The House of Bishops was given a
right to propose measures to the "House of Deputies," and to negative
acts of the House of Deputies, provided they complied with certain
forms. Similar "constitutions" providing for representation of the laity
have been adopted by the different dioceses (Hoffman, _op. cit._ p. 184
et seq.). Deacons are also admitted to a deciding voice in every diocese
but New Jersey, where they may speak but not vote. A great body of
legislation has been put forth by these bodies during the past century.
Since 1870, at least, the "Church of the Province of _South Africa_" has
secured autonomy while yet remaining a part of the Anglican Communion.
By its constitution of that year the English Church in South Africa
adopts the laws and usages of the Church of England, as far as they are
applicable to an unestablished church, accepts the three creeds, the
Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, the decisions of the
undisputed general councils, the Authorized English Version of the
Scriptures, disclaims the right of altering any of these standards of
faith and doctrine, except in agreement with such alterations as may be
adopted by a general synod of the Anglican Communion. But in
interpreting these standards of faith and doctrine, the Church of the
Province of South Africa is not bound by decisions other than those of
its own Church courts, or such court as the Provincial Synod may
recognize as a tribunal of appeal. The Provincial Synod is the
legislative authority subject to a general synod of the Anglican
Communion, provided such latter synod include representatives from the
Church of South Africa. The Provincial Synod consists of (1) the House
of Bishops, (2) the House of the Clergy, (3) the House of the Laity. No
resolution can be passed which is not accepted by all three orders.
Bishops are elected by the clergy with the assent of lay
representatives, subject to the confirmation of the metropolitan and
comprovincial bishops. The metropolitan is to be consecrated in England
by the archbishop of Canterbury. He now bears the title of archbishop.
All bishops are to enter into a contract to obey and maintain the
constitution and canons of the province. Canon 18 of the Code of 1870
recognizes the offices of catechist, reader and sub-deacon (Wirgman,
_The English Church and People in South Africa_, p. 223 et seq.).
In the West Indies, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, provincial and
diocesan synods or conventions have been formed on one or other of the
types above mentioned and have enacted canons. (W. G. F. P.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The councils which we are about to mention, up to the 9th
century, have been published several times, notably in the great
collections of Hardouin, Mansi, &c.; they will be found brought
together in one small volume in Bruns, _Canones apostolorum et
conciliorum_ (Berlin, 1839).
[2] The date of this council was formerly unknown; it is ascribed to
343 by the Syriac Nestorian collection recently published by M.
Chabot, _Synodicon Orientale_, p. 278, note 4.
[3] See Boudinhon, "Note sur le concile de Laodicée," in the _Compte
rendu du premier congrès des savants catholiques à Paris_, 1888
(Paris, 1889), vol. ii. p. 420.
[4] For the further history of the law of the Greek Church and that
of the Eastern Churches, see Vering, _Kirchenrecht_, §§ 14-183 (ed.
1893). The Russian Church, as we know, adopted the Greek
ecclesiastical law.
[5] Edited by Pierre Pithou (Paris, 1588), and later by Chifflet,
_Fulg. Ferrandi opera_ (Dijon, 1694); reproduced in Migne, _Patr.
Lat._ vol. 67, col. 949.
[6] Published by Quesnel in his edition of the works of St Leo, vol.
ii. (Paris, 1675); reproduced by the brothers Ballerini, with learned
dissertations, _Opera S. Leonis_, vol. iii., Migne, _P.L. 56._
[7] Malnory, _Saint Césaire d'Arles_ (Paris, 1894).
[8] _Collectio canonum Ecclesiae Hispanae_ (Madrid, 1808); reproduced
in Migne, _P.L. 84._
[9] L. Duchesne, "Le Concile d'Elvire" in the _Mélanges Renier_.
[10] For the Penitentials, see Wasserschleben, _Die Bussordnungen der
abendländischen Kirche_ (Halle, 1851); Mgr. H.J. Schmitz, _Die
Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche_ (2 vols., Mainz, 1883,
1898).
[11] This is proved, in spite of the contrary opinions of
Wasserschleben and Schmitz, by M. Paul Fournier, "Étude sur les
Pénitentiels," in the _Revue d'histoire et de littérature
religieuses_, vol. vi. (1901), pp. 289-317, and vol. vii., 1902, pp.
59-70 and 121-127.
[12] In Migne, _P.L._ 105, col. 651.
[13] Edited by Wasserschleben (Giessen, 1874). See also P. Fournier,
"De l'influence de la collection irlandaise sur la formation des
collections canoniques," in _Nouvelle Revue historique de droit
français et étranger_, vol. xxiii, note I.
[14] The collection of the False Decretals has been published with a
long critical introduction by P. Hinschius, _Decretales
Pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilramni_ (Leipzig, 1863). For the
rest of the bibliography, see DECRETALS (FALSE).
[15] The latest edition is in Pertz, _Monumenta Germaniae_, vol. ii.
part ii.
[16] Edited by Wasserschleben (Leipzig, 1840); reproduced by Migne,
_P.L. 132._
[17] Edited several times; in Migne, _P.L. 140._
[18] P. Fournier, "Le Premier Manuel canonique de la réforme du XIe
siècle," in _Mélanges de l'École française de Rome_, xiv. (1894).
[19] Unpublished.
[20] Edited by Mgr. Pio Martinucci (Venice, 1869). On this collection
see Wolf von Glanvell, _Die Kanonessammlung des Kardinals Deusdedit_
(Paderborn, 1905).
[21] Unpublished.
[22] Several times edited; in Migne, _P.L._ 161. See P. Fournier,
"Les Collections canoniques attribuées à Yves de Chartres,"
_Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartres_ (1896 and 1897).
[23] Printed in Martene, _Nov. Thesaur. anecdot._ vol. v. col. 1019.
[24] See P. Fournier, "Deux Controverses sur les origines du Décret
de Gratien," in the _Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuses_,
vol. iii. (1898), pp. n. 2 and 3.
[25] See Laurin, _Introductio in corpus juris canonici_, c. vii. p.
73.
[26] By referring to the decretals of Gregory IX. for the texts
inserted there, E. Friedberg has succeeded in giving a much abridged
edition of the _Quinque compilationes_ (Leipzig, 1882).
[27] Edited by Schulte, _Die Summa des Paucapaiea_ (Giessen, 1890).
[28] Edited by Thaner, _Die Summa Magistri Rolandi_ (Innsbruck,
1874); later by Gietl, _Die Sentenzen Rolands_ (Freiburg im B.,
1891).
[29] Edited by H. Singer, _Die Summa Decretorum des Magister Rufinus_
(Paderborn, 1902).
[30] Edited by Schulte, _Die Summe des Stephanus Tornacensis_
(Giessen, 1891).
[31] He made a Summa of his own collection, ed. E. Laspeyres,
_Bernardi Papiensis Summa Decretalium_ (Mainz, 1860). The
commentaries of Innocent IV. and Henry of Susa have been frequently
published.
[32] The history of this commission and the rules which it followed
for editing the _Decretum_, will be found in Laurin, _Introductio in
corpus juris canonici_, p. 63, or in the Prolegomena to Friedberg's
edition of the _Decretum_.
[33] Quoted by Hogan, _Clerical Studies_, p. 235.
[34] There are innumerable editions of the council of Trent. That
which is favoured by canonists is Richter's edition (Leipzig, 1863),
in which each chapter _de reformatione_ is followed by a selection of
decisions of the S.C. of the council.
[35] Republished by F. Sentis, from one of the few copies which have
escaped destruction: _Clementis Papae VIII. Decretales, quae vulgo
nunenpantur Liber septimus Decretalium Clementis VIII._ (Freiburg im
B., 1870).
[36] _Omnium concilii Vaticani ... documentorum collectio_, per
Conradum Martin (Paderborn, 1873), p. 152.
CANOPUS, or CANOBUS, an ancient coast town of Lower Egypt, a hundred and
twenty stadia, or 15 m. east of Alexandria, the principal port in Egypt
for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria, situated at the
mouth of the westernmost (Canopic or Heracleotic) branch of the Nile, on
the western bank. The channel, which entered the Mediterranean at the
western end of the Bay of Aboukir, is entirely silted up, but on the
shore at Aboukir there are extensive traces of the city with its quays,
&c. Excavation has disclosed granite monuments with the name of Rameses
II., but they may have been brought at a late period for the adornment
of the place. It is not certain that Canopus was an old Egyptian town,
but it appears in Herodotus as an ancient port. In the 9th year of
Ptolemy Euergetes (239 B.C.) a great assembly of priests at Canopus
passed an honorific degree, _inter alia_, conferring the title [Greek:
Euergetaes] "Benefactor" on the king. Two examples of this decree are
known, inscribed in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. From it we learn
that the native form of the name of Canopus was Karob. A temple of
Osiris was built by Euergetes, but very near to Canopus was an older
shrine, a temple of Heracles mentioned by Herodotus as an asylum for
fugitive slaves. The decree shows that Heracles here stands for Ammon.
Osiris was worshipped at Canopus under a peculiar form, a vase with a
human head, and was identified with Canopus, the pilot of Menelaus, who
was said to have been buried here: the name canopic has been applied,
through an old misunderstanding, to the vases with human and animal
heads in which the internal organs were placed by the Egyptians after
embalming. In the Roman epoch the town was notorious for its
dissoluteness. Aboukir means "father Cyrus," referring to a Coptic saint
of that name. (F. Ll. G.)
CANOPY (through Fr. _canapé_, from Med. Lat. _canapeum_, classical
_conopeum_, a mosquito curtain, Gr. [Greek: konops], a gnat), the upper
part or cover of a niche, or the projecting ornament over an altar or
scat or tomb. Early English canopies are generally simple, with
trefoiled or cinquefoiled heads; but in the later styles they are very
rich, and divided into compartments with pendants, knots, pinnacles, &c.
The triangular arrangement over an Early English and Decorated doorway
is often called a canopy. The triangular canopies in the north of Italy
are peculiar. Those in England are generally part of the arrangement of
the arch mouldings of the door, and form, as it were, the hood-moulds to
them, as at York. The former are above and independent of the door
mouldings, and frequently support an arch with a tympanum, above which
is a triangular canopy, as in the Duomo at Florence. Sometimes the
canopy and arch project from the wall, and are carried on small jamb
shafts, as at San Pietro Martire, at Verona. There is an extremely
curious canopy, being a sort of horseshoe arch, surmounting and breaking
into a circular arch, at Tournai. Similar canopies are often over
windows, as at York, over the great west window, and lower tiers in the
towers. These are triangular, while the upper windows in the towers have
ogee canopies.
CANOSA (anc. _Canusium_), a town of Apulia, Italy, in the province of
Bari, situated on the right bank of the Ofanto (anc. _Aufidus_), 505 ft.
above sea-level, 15 m. S.W. of Barletta by rail. Pop. (1901) 24,230. It
was rebuilt in 963 below the Roman city, which had been abandoned after
its devastation by the Saracens in the 9th century. The former cathedral
of S. Sabino (the bishopric passed in 1818 to Andria), in the southern
Romanesque style, was consecrated in 1101: it has five domes (resembling
St Mark's at Venice, except that it is a Latin cross, instead of a Greek
cross, in plan) and many ancient columns. The archiepiscopal throne and
pulpit of the end of the 11th century are also fine. On the south side
of the building is the detached mausoleum of Bohemund, son of Robert
Guiscard, who died in 1111, constructed partly in Byzantine, partly in
the local style. It has fine bronze doors with long inscriptions; the
exterior is entirely faced with _cipollino_ (Carystian) marble. The
conception of this mortuary chapel, which is unique at this period, was
undoubtedly derived from the _turbeh_ before a mosque; these turbehs are
square, domed-roofed tombs in which the sultans and distinguished
Mahommedans are buried (E. Bertaux, _L'Art dans l'Italie mêridionale_,
Paris, 1904, i. 312). A medieval castle crowns the hill on the side of
which the city stands. (See CANUSIUM.) (T. As.)
CANOSSA, a ruined castle, 1890 ft. above sea-level, in Emilia, Italy, 12
m. S.W. of Reggio Emilia, commanding a fine view of the Apennines. It
belonged to the countess Matilda of Tuscany (d. 1115), and is famous as
the scene of the penance performed by the emperor Henry IV. before Pope
Gregory VII. in 1077. The castle was destroyed by the inhabitants of
Reggio in 1255.
CANOVA, ANTONIO (1757-1822), Italian sculptor, was born on the 1st of
November 1757, at Passagno, an obscure village situated amid the
recesses of the hills of Asolo, where these form the last undulations of
the Venetian Alps, as they subside into the plains of Treviso. At three
years of age Canova was deprived of both parents, his father dying and
his mother remarrying. Their loss, however, was compensated by the
tender solicitude and care of his paternal grandfather and grandmother,
the latter of whom lived to experience in her turn the kindest personal
attention from her grandson, who, when he had the means, gave her an
asylum in his house at Rome. His father and grandfather followed the
occupation of stone-cutters or minor statuaries; and it is said that
their family had for several ages supplied Passagno with members of that
calling. As soon as Canova's hand could hold a pencil, he was initiated
into the principles of drawing by his grandfather Pasino. The latter
possessed some knowledge both of drawing and of architecture, designed
well, and showed considerable taste in the execution of ornamental
works. He was greatly attached to his art; and upon his young charge he
looked as one who was to perpetuate, not only the family name, but also
the family profession.
The early years of Canova were passed in study. The bias of his mind was
to sculpture, and the facilities afforded for the gratification of this
predilection in the workshop of his grandfather were eagerly improved.
In his ninth year he executed two small shrines of Carrara marble, which
are still extant. Soon after this period he appears to have been
constantly employed under his grandfather. Amongst those who patronized
the old man was the patrician family Falier of Venice, and by this means
young Canova was first introduced to the senator of that name, who
afterwards became his most zealous patron. Between the younger son,
Giuseppe Falier, and the artist a friendship commenced which terminated
only with life. The senator Falier was induced to receive him under his
immediate protection. It has been related by an Italian writer and since
repeated by several biographers, that Canova was indebted to a trivial
circumstance--the moulding of a lion in butter--for the warm interest
which Falier took in his welfare. The anecdote may or may not be true.
By his patron Canova was placed under Bernardi, or, as he is generally
called by filiation, Torretto, a sculptor of considerable eminence, who
had taken up a temporary residence at Pagnano, a village in the vicinity
of the senator's mansion. This took place whilst Canova was in his
thirteenth year; and with Torretto he continued about two years, making
in many respects considerable progress. This master returned to Venice,
where he soon afterwards died; but by the high terms in which he spoke
of his pupil to Falier, the latter was induced to bring the young artist
to Venice, whither he accordingly went, and was placed under a nephew of
Torretto. With this instructor he continued about a year, studying with
the utmost assiduity. After the termination of this engagement he began
to work on his own account, and received from his patron an order for a
group, "Orpheus and Eurydice." The first figure, which represents
Eurydice in flames and smoke, in the act of leaving Hades, was completed
towards the close of his sixteenth year. It was highly esteemed by his
patron and friends, and the artist was now considered qualified to
appear before a public tribunal. The kindness of some monks supplied him
with his first workshop, which was the vacant cell of a monastery. Here
for nearly four years he laboured with the greatest perseverance and
industry. He was also regular in his attendance at the academy, where he
carried off several prizes. But he relied far more on the study and
imitation of nature. From his contemporaries he could learn nothing, for
their style was vicious. From their works, therefore, he reverted to
living models, as exhibited in every variety of situation. A large
portion of his time was also devoted to anatomy, which science was
regarded by him as "the secret of the art." He likewise frequented
places of public amusement, where he carefully studied the expressions
and attitudes of the performers. He formed a resolution, which was
faithfully adhered to for several years, never to close his eyes at
night without having produced some design. Whatever was likely to
forward his advancement in sculpture he studied with ardour. On
archaeological pursuits he bestowed considerable attention. With ancient
and modern history he rendered himself well acquainted and he also began
to acquire some of the continental languages.
Three years had now elapsed without any production coming from his
chisel. He began, however, to complete the group for his patron, and the
Orpheus which followed evinced the great advance he had made. The work
was universally applauded, and laid the foundation of his fame. Several
groups succeeded this performance, amongst which was that of "Daedalus
and Icarus," the most celebrated work of his noviciate. The simplicity
of style and the faithful imitation of nature which characterized them
called forth the warmest admiration. His merits and reputation being now
generally recognized, his thoughts began to turn from the shores of the
Adriatic to the banks of the Tiber, for which he set out at the
commencement of his twenty-fourth year.
Before his departure for Rome, his friends had applied to the Venetian
senate for a pension, to enable him to pursue his studies without
embarrassment. The application was ultimately successful. The stipend
amounted to three hundred ducats (about £60 per annum), and was limited
to three years. Canova had obtained letters of introduction to the
Venetian ambassador, the Cavaliere Zulian, and enlightened and generous
protector of the arts, and was received in the most hospitable manner.
His arrival in Rome, on the 28th of December 1780, marks a new era in
his life. It was here he was to perfect himself by a study of the most
splendid relics of antiquity, and to put his talents to the severest
test by a competition with the living masters of the art. The result was
equal to the highest hopes cherished either by himself or by his
friends. The work which first established his fame at Rome was "Theseus
vanquishing the Minotaur." The figures are of the heroic size. The
victorious Theseus is represented as seated on the lifeless body of the
monster. The exhaustion which visibly pervades his whole frame proves
the terrible nature of the conflict in which he has been engaged.
Simplicity and natural expression had hitherto characterized Canova's
style; with these were now united more exalted conceptions of grandeur
and of truth. The Theseus was regarded with fervent admiration.
Canova's next undertaking was a monument in honour of Clement XIV.; but
before he proceeded with it he deemed it necessary to request permission
from the Venetian senate, whose servant he considered himself to be, in
consideration of the pension. This he solicited in person, and it was
granted. He returned immediately to Rome, and opened his celebrated
studio close to the Via del Babuino. He spent about two years of
unremitting toil in arranging the design and composing the models for
the tomb of the pontiff. After these were completed, other two years
were employed in finishing the monument, and it was finally opened to
public inspection in 1787 The work, in the opinion of enthusiastic
_dilettanti_, stamped the author as the first artist of modern times.
After five years of incessant labour, he completed another cenotaph to
the memory of Clement XIII., which raised his fame still higher. Works
now came rapidly from his chisel. Amongst these is Psyche, with a
butterfly, which is placed on the left hand, and held by the wings with
the right. This figure, which is intended as a personification of man's
immaterial part, is considered as in almost every respect the most
faultless and classical of Canova's works. In two different groups, and
with opposite expression, the sculptor has represented Cupid with his
bride; in the one they are standing, in the other recumbent. These and
other works raised his reputation so high that the most flattering
offers were sent him from the Russian court to induce him to remove to
St Petersburg, but these were declined. "Italy," says he, in writing of
the occurrence to a friend, "Italy is my country--is the country and
native soil of the arts. I cannot leave her; my infancy was nurtured
here. If my poor talents can be useful in any other land, they must be
of some utility to Italy; and ought not her claim to be preferred to all
others?"
Numerous works were produced in the years 1795-1797, of which several
were repetitions of previous productions. One was the celebrated group
representing the "Parting of Venus and Adonis." This famous production
was sent to Naples. The French Revolution was now extending its shocks
over Italy; and Canova sought obscurity and repose in his native
Passagno. Thither he retired in 1798, and there he continued for about a
year, principally employed in painting, of which art also he had some
knowledge. He executed upwards of twenty paintings about this time. One
of his productions is a picture representing the dead body of the
Saviour just removed from the cross, surrounded by the three Marys, S.
John, Joseph of Arimathea, and, somewhat in the background, Nicodemus.
Above appears the Father, with the mystic dove in the centre of a glory,
and surrounded by a circle of cherubs. This composition, which was
greatly applauded, he presented to the parochial church of his native
place. Events in the political world having come to a temporary lull, he
returned to Rome; but his health being impaired from arduous
application, he took a journey through a part of Germany, in company
with his friend Prince Rezzonico. He returned from his travels much
improved, and again commenced his labours with vigour and enthusiasm.
Canova's sculptures have been distributed under three heads:--(1) Heroic
compositions; (2) Compositions of grace and elegance; and (3) Sepulchral
monuments and relievos. In noticing the works which fall under each of
these divisions, it will be impossible to maintain a strict
chronological order, but perhaps a better idea of his productions may
thus be obtained. Their vast number, however, prevents their being all
enumerated.
(1) His "Perseus with the Head of Medusa" appeared soon after his
return. The moment of representation is when the hero, flushed with
conquest, displays the head of the "snaky Gorgon," whilst the right hand
grasps a sword of singular device. By a public decree, this fine work
was placed in one of the _stanze_ of the Vatican hitherto reserved for
the most precious works of antiquity; but it would be a mistake to say
that it wholly sustains this comparison, or that it rivals the earlier
realization of the same subject in Italian art, that by Cellini. In
1802, at the personal request of Napoleon, Canova repaired to Paris to
model a bust of the first consul. The artist was entertained with
munificence, and various honours were conferred upon him. The statue,
which is colossal, was not finished till six years after. On the fall of
the great Napoleon, Louis XVIII. presented this statue to the British
government, by whom it was afterwards given to the duke of Wellington.
"Palamedes," "Creugas and Damoxenus," the "Combat of Theseus and the
Centaur," and "Hercules and Lichas" may close the class of heroic
compositions, although the catalogue might be swelled by the enumeration
of various others, such as "Hector and Ajax," and the statues of
Washington, King Ferdinand of Naples, and others. The group of "Hercules
and Lichas" is considered as the most terrible conception of Canova's
mind, and in its peculiar style as scarcely to be excelled.
(2) Under the head of compositions of grace and elegance, the statue of
Hebe takes the first place in point of date. Four times has the artist
embodied in stone the goddess of youth, and each time with some
variation. The only material improvement, however, is the substitution
of a support more suitable to the simplicity of the art. Each of the
statues is, in all its details, in expression, attitude and delicacy of
finish, strikingly elegant. The "Dancing Nymphs" maintain a character
similar to that of the Hebe. The "Graces" and the "Venus" are more
elevated. The "Awakened Nymph" is another work of uncommon beauty. The
mother of Napoleon, his consort Maria Louisa (as Concord), to model whom
the author made a further journey to Paris in 1810, the princess
Esterhazy and the muse Polymnia (Elisa Bonaparte) take their place in
this class, as do the ideal heads, comprising Corinna, Sappho, Laura,
Beatrice and Helen of Troy.
(3) Of the cenotaphs and funeral monuments the most splendid is the
monument to the archduchess Maria Christina of Austria, consisting of
nine figures. Besides the two for the Roman pontiffs already mentioned,
there is one for Alfieri, another for Emo, a Venetian admiral, and a
small model of a cenotaph for Nelson, besides a great variety of
monumental relievos.
The events which marked the life of the artist during the first fifteen
years of the period in which he was engaged on the above-mentioned works
scarcely merit notice. His mind was entirely absorbed in the labours of
his studio, and, with the exception of his journeys to Paris, one to
Vienna, and a few short intervals of absence in Florence and other parts
of Italy, he never quitted Rome. In his own words, "his statues were the
sole proofs of his civil existence." There was, however, another proof,
which modesty forbade him to mention, an ever-active benevolence,
especially towards artists. In 1815 he was commissioned by the Pope to
superintend the transmission from Paris of those works of art which had
formerly been conveyed thither under the direction of Napoleon. By his
zeal and exertions, for there were many conflicting interests to
reconcile, he adjusted the affair in a manner at once creditable to his
judgment and fortunate for his country. In the autumn of this year he
gratified a wish he had long entertained of visiting London, where he
received the highest tokens of esteem. The artist for whom he showed
particular sympathy and regard in London was Haydon, who might at the
time be counted the sole representative of historical painting there,
and whom he especially honoured for his championship of the Elgin
marbles, then recently transported to England, and ignorantly
depreciated by polite connoisseurs. Canova returned to Rome in the
beginning of 1816, with the ransomed spoils of his country's genius.
Immediately after, he received several marks of distinction,--by the
hand of the Pope himself his name was inscribed in "the Golden Volume of
the Capitol," and he received the title of marquis of Ischia, with an
annual pension of 3000 crowns, about £625.
He now contemplated a great work, a colossal statue of Religion. The
model filled Italy with admiration; the marble was procured, and the
chisel of the sculptor ready to be applied to it, when the jealousy of
churchmen as to the site, or some other cause, deprived the country of
the projected work. The mind of Canova was inspired with the warmest
sense of devotion, and though foiled in this instance he resolved to
consecrate a shrine to the cause. In his native village he began to make
preparations for erecting a temple which was to contain, not only the
above statue, but other works of his own; within its precincts were to
repose also the ashes of the founder. Accordingly he repaired to
Passagno in 1810. At a sumptuous entertainment which he gave to his
workmen, there occurred an incident which marks the kindliness of his
character. When the festivities of the day had terminated, he requested
the shepherdesses and peasantgirls of the adjacent hamlets to pass in
review before him, and to each he made a present, expending on the
occasion about £400. We need not, therefore, be surprised that a few
years afterwards, when the remains of the donor came to be deposited in
their last asylum, the grief which the surrounding peasantry evinced was
in natural expression so intense as to eclipse the studied solemnity of
more pompous mourning.
After the foundation-stone of this edifice had been laid, Canova
returned to Rome; but every succeeding autumn he continued to visit
Passagno, in order to direct the workmen, and encourage them with
pecuniary rewards and medals. In the meantime the vast expenditure
exhausted his resources, and compelled him to labour with unceasing
assiduity notwithstanding age and disease. During the period which
intervened between commencing operations at Passagno and his decease, he
executed or finished some of his most striking works. Amongst these were
the group "Mars and Venus," the colossal figure of Pius VI., the
"Pietà," the "St John," the "recumbent Magdalen." The last performance
which issued from his hand was a colossal bust of his friend, the Count
Cicognara. In May 1822 he paid a visit to Naples, to superintend the
construction of wax moulds for an equestrian statue of the perjured
Bourbon king Ferdinand. This journey materially injured his health, but
he rallied again on his return to Rome. Towards the latter end of the
year he paid his annual visit to the place of his birth, when he
experienced a relapse. He proceeded to Venice, and expired there on the
13th of October 1822, at the age of nearly sixty-five. His disease was
one which had affected him from an early age, caused by the continual
use of carving-tools, producing a depression of the ribs. The most
distinguished funeral honours were paid to his remains, which were
deposited in the temple at Passagno on the 25th of the same month.
Canova, in a certain sense, renovated the art of sculpture in Italy, and
brought it back to that standard from which it had declined when the
sense both of classical beauty and moderation, and of Titanic invention
and human or superhuman energy as embodied by the unexampled genius of
Michelangelo, had succumbed to the overloaded and flabby mannerisms of
the 17th and 18th centuries. His finishing was refined, and he had a
special method of giving a mellow and soft appearance to the marble. He
formed his models of the same size as the work was intended to be. The
prominent defect of Canova's attractive and highly trained art is that
which may be summed up in the word artificiality,--that quality, so
characteristic of the modern mind, which seizes upon certain properties
of conception and execution in the art of the past, and upon certain
types of beauty or emotion in life, and makes a compound of the
two--regulating both by the standard of taste prevalent in contemporary
"high society," a standard which, referring to cultivation and
refinement as its higher term, declines towards fashion as the lower. Of
his moral character a generous and unwearied benevolence formed the most
prominent feature. The greater part of the vast fortune realized by his
works was distributed in acts of this description. He established prizes
for artists and endowed all the academies of Rome. The aged and
unfortunate were also the objects of his peculiar solicitude. His titles
were numerous. He was enrolled amongst the nobility of several states,
decorated with various orders of knighthood, and associated in the
highest professional honours.
See the _Life of Canova_ by Memes; that by Missirini; the _Biografia_
by the Count Cicognara; _Canova et ses ouvrages_, by Quatremère de
Quincy (1834); _Opere scelte di Antonio Canova_, by Anzelmi (Naples,
1842); _Canova_, by A.G. Meyer (1898); and _La Relazione del Canova
con Napoli ... memorie con documenti inediti_, by Angelo Borzelli
(1901). (W. M. R.)
CANOVAS DEL CASTILLO, ANTONIO (1828-1897), Spanish statesman, was born
in Malaga on the 8th of February 1828. Educated in his native town, he
went to Madrid in 1845, bent upon finding means to complete his literary
and philosophical studies. His uncle, Don Serafin Estebañez Calderon,
found him a situation as clerk in the Madrid-Aranjuez railway, but
Canovas soon took to journalism and literature, earning enough to
support himself and pay for his law studies at the Madrid University.
During this period he published his two best works--an historical novel,
_Las Campanas de Huesca_, and the history of the decay of Spain from
Philip III. to Charles II. under the house of Austria. He became a
politician through his Junius-like letters to the "Murcielago"--_The
Bat_, a satirical political journal--and by drawing up the manifesto of
Manzanares in 1854 for Marshal O'Donnell, of whom he always remained a
loyal adherent. Canovas entered the Cortes in 1854; he was made governor
of Cadiz in 1857, sub-director of the state department in 1858,
under-secretary at the home office in 1860, minister of the interior in
1864, minister of the colonies in 1865, minister of finance in 1866, and
was exiled by Marshal Narvaez in the same year, afterwards becoming a
bitter opponent of all the reactionary cabinets until the revolution of
1868. He took no part in preparing that event. He sat in the Cortes
Constituyentes of 1869 as a doctrinaire Conservative, combating all
Radical and democratic reforms, and defending the exiled Bourbons; but
he abstained from voting when the Cortes elected Amadeus king on the
16th of November 1870. He did not object to some of his political
friends, like Silvela and Elduayen, entering the cabinets of King
Amadeus, and in 1872 declared that his attitude would depend on the
concessions which government would make to Conservative principles.
After the abdication of Amadeus and the proclamation of the federal
republic, Canovas took the lead of the propaganda in favour of the
restoration of the Bourbons, and was their principal agent and adviser.
He drew up the manifesto issued in 1874 by the young king Alphonso XII.,
at that time a cadet at Sandhurst; but he dissented from the military
men who were actively conspiring to organize an Alphonsist
_pronunciamiento_. Like Marshal Concha, marquis del Duero, he would have
preferred to let events develop enough to allow of the dynasty being
restored without force of arms, and he severely blamed the conduct of
the generals when he first heard of the _pronunciamiento_ of Marshal
Campos at Sagunto. Sagasta thereupon caused Canovas to be arrested (30th
of December 1874); but the next day the Madrid garrison also proclaimed
Alphonso XII. king, and Canovas showed the full powers he had received
from the king to assume the direction of affairs. He formed a regency
ministry pending the arrival of his majesty, who confirmed his
appointment, and for six years Canovas was premier except during the
short-lived cabinets of Marshal Jovellar in 1875 and Marshal Campos for
a few months in 1879. Canovas was, in fact, the soul of the Restoration.
He had to reconstruct a Conservative party out of the least reactionary
parties of the days of Queen Isabella and out of the more moderate
elements of the revolution. With such followers he made the constitution
of 1876 and all the laws of the monarchy, putting a limited franchise in
the place of universal suffrage, curtailing liberty of conscience,
rights of association and of meeting, liberty of the press, checking
democracy, obliging the military to abstain from politics, conciliating
the Carlists and Catholics by his advances to the Vatican, the Church
and the religious orders, pandering to the protectionists by his tariff
policy, and courting abroad the friendship of Germany and Austria after
contributing to the marriage of his king to an Austrian princess.
Canovas crowned his policy by countenancing the formation of a Liberal
party under Sagasta, flanked by Marshal Serrano and other Liberal
generals, which took office in 1881. He again became premier in 1883,
and remained in office until November 1885; but he grew very unpopular,
and nearly endangered the monarchy in 1885 by his violent repression of
popular and press demonstrations, and of student riots in Madrid and the
provinces. At the death of Alphonso XII. he at once advised the queen
regent to send for Sagasta and the Liberals, and during five years he
looked on quietly whilst Sagasta re-established universal suffrage and
most of the liberties curtailed in 1876, and carried out a policy of
free trade on moderate lines. In 1890 Canovas took office under the
queen regent, and one of his first acts was to reverse the tariff policy
of the Liberals, denouncing all the treaties of commerce, and passing in
1892 a highly protectionist tariff. This was the starting-point of the
decline in foreign trade, the advance of foreign exchanges, the decay of
railway traffic, and the monetary and financial crisis which continued
from 1892 to 1898. Splits in the Conservative ranks forced Canovas to
resign at the end of 1893, and Sagasta came in for eighteen months,
Canovas resumed office in March 1895 immediately after the outbreak of
the Cuban insurrection, and devoted most of his time and efforts, with
characteristic determination, to the preparation of ways and means for
sending 200,000 men to the West Indies to carry out his stern and
unflinching policy of no surrender, no concessions and no reforms. He
was making up his mind for another effort to enable General Weyler to
enforce the reforms that had been wrung from the Madrid government, more
by American diplomacy than from a sense of the inevitable, when the
bullet of an anarchist, in August 1897, at the baths of Santa Agueda,
cut short his career. On the whole, Canovas must be regarded as the
greatest Spanish statesman of the close of the 19th century. He was not
only a politician but also a man of the world, a writer of considerable
merit, a scholar well versed in social, economic and philosophical
questions, a great debater, a clever lecturer, a member of all the
Madrid academies and a patron of art and letters. (A. E. H.)
CANROBERT, FRANÇOIS CERTAIN (1809-1895), marshal of France, was born at
St Céré (Lot) on the 27th of June 1809 and educated at St Cyr; he
received a commission as sub-lieutenant in 1828, becoming lieutenant in
1833. He went to Algeria in 1835, served in the expedition to Mascara,
at the capture of Tlemcen, and in 1837 became captain. In the same year
he was wounded in the storm of Constantine, receiving the Legion of
Honour for his conduct. In 1839 he was employed in organizing a
battalion of the Foreign Legion for the Carlist Wars. In 1841 he was
again serving in Africa. Promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1846 and colonel
of the 3rd regiment in 1847, he commanded the expedition against Ahmed
Sghir in 1848, and defeated the Arabs at the Djerma Pass. Transferred to
the Zouaves, he defeated the Kabyles, and in 1849 displayed both courage
and energy in reinforcing the blockaded garrison of Bou Sada, and in
command of one of the attacking columns at Zaatcha (December 1849). For
his valour on the latter occasion he received the rank of general of
brigade and the commandership of the Legion of Honour. He led the
expedition against Narah in 1850 and destroyed the Arab stronghold.
Summoned to Paris, he was made aide-de-camp to the president, Louis
Napoleon, and took part in the _coup d'etat_ of the 2nd of December
1851. In the Crimean War he commanded a division at the Alma, where he
was twice wounded. He held a dormant commission entitling him to command
in case of St Arnaud's death, and he thus succeeded to the chief command
of the French army a few days after the battle. He was slightly wounded
and had a horse killed under him at Inkerman, when leading a charge of
Zouaves. Disagreements with the English commander-in-chief and, in
general, the disappointments due to the prolongation of the siege of
Sevastopol led to his resignation of the command, but he did not return
to France, preferring to serve as chief of his old division almost up to
the fall of Sevastopol. After his return to France he was sent on
diplomatic missions to Denmark and Sweden, and made a marshal and
senator of France (grand cross Legion of Honour, and honorary G.C.B.).
He commanded the III. army corps in Lombardy in 1859, distinguishing
himself at Magenta and Solferino. He successively commanded the camp at
Châlons, the IV. army corps at Lyons and the army of Paris. In the
Franco-German War he commanded the VI. army corps, which won the
greatest distinction in the battle of Gravelotte, where Canrobert
commanded on the St Privat position. The VI. corps was amongst those
shut up in Metz and included in the surrender of that fortress. After
the war Canrobert was appointed a member of the superior council of war,
and was also active in political life, being elected senator for Lot in
1876 and for Charente in 1879 and again in 1885. He died at Paris on the
28th of January 1895 and his remains received a public funeral. His
_Souvenirs_ were published in 1898 at Paris.
CANT, ANDREW (1590?-1663), a leader of the Scottish Covenanters. About
1623 the people of Edinburgh called him to be their minister, but he was
rejected by James I. Ten years later he was minister of Pitsligo in
Aberdeenshire, a charge which he left in 1638 for that of Newbattle in
Mid-Lothian. In July of that year he went with other commissioners to
Aberdeen in the vain attempt to induce the university and the presbytery
of that city to subscribe the National Covenant, and in the following
November sat in the general assembly at Glasgow which abolished
episcopacy in Scotland. In 1640 he was chaplain to the Scottish army and
then settled as minister at Aberdeen. Though a stanch Covenanter, he was
a zealous Royalist, preaching before Charles I. in Edinburgh, and
stoutly advocating the restoration of the monarchy in the time of the
Commonwealth. Cant's frequent and bitter attacks on various members of
his congregation led in 1660 to complaints laid before the magistrates,
in consequence of which he resigned his charge. His son Andrew was
principal of Edinburgh University (1675-1685).
CANT, (1) (Possibly through the Fr. from Lat. _cantos_, corner), in
architecture, a term used where the corner of a square is cut off,
octagonally or otherwise. Thus a bay window, the sides of which are not
parallel, or at right angles to the spectator, is said to be canted. (2)
(From the Lat. _cantare_, to sing, very early in use, in a depreciatory
sense, of religious services), a word appearing in English in the 16th
century 'for the whining speech of beggars; hence it is applied to
thieves' or gipsies' jargon, to the peculiar language of any class or
sect, to any current phrase or turn of language, and particularly to the
hypocritical use of pious phraseology.
CANTABRI, an ancient tribe which inhabited the north coast of Spain near
Santander and Bilbao and the mountains behind--a district hence known as
Cantabria. Savage and untameable mountaineers, they long defied the
Roman arms and made themselves a name for wild freedom. They were first
attacked by the Romans about 150 B.C.; they were not subdued till
Agrippa and Augustus had carried out a series of campaigns (29-19 B.C.)
which ended in their partial annihilation. Thenceforward their land was
part of the province Hispania Tarraconensis with some measure of local
self-government. They became slowly Romanized, but developed little town
life and are rarely mentioned in history. They provided recruits for the
Roman _auxilia_, like their neighbours the Astures, and their land
contained lead mines, of which, however, little is known.
CANTABRIAN MOUNTAINS (Span. _Cordillera Cantabrica_), a mountain chain
which extends for more than 300 m. across northern Spain, from the
western limit of the Pyrenees to the borders of Galicia, and on or near
the coast of the Bay of Biscay. The Cantabrians stretch from east to
west, nearly parallel to the sea, as far as the pass of Leitariegos,
afterwards trending southward between Leon and Galicia. Their western
boundary is marked by the valley of the river Miño (Portuguese Minho),
by the lower Sil, which flows into the Miño, and by the Cabrera, a small
tributary of the Sil. Some geographers regard the mountains of Galicia
beyond the Miño as an integral part of the same system; others confine
the name to the eastern half of the highlands between Galicia and the
Pyrenees, and call their western half the Asturian Mountains. There are
also many local names for the subsidiary ranges within the chain. As a
whole, the Cantabrian Mountains are remarkable for their intricate
ramifications, but almost everywhere, and especially in the east, it is
possible to distinguish two principal ranges, from which the lesser
ridges and mountain masses radiate. One range, or series of ranges,
closely follows the outline of the coast; the other, which is loftier,
forms the northern limit of the great tableland of Castile and Leon, and
is sometimes regarded as a continuation of the Pyrenees. The coastal
range rises in some parts sheer above the sea, and everywhere has so
abrupt a declivity that the streams which flow seaward are all short and
swift. The descent from the southern range to the high plateaus of
Castile is more gradual, and several large rivers, notably the Ebro,
rise here and flow to the south or west. The breadth of the Cantabrian
chain, with all its ramifications, increases from about 60 m. in the
east to about 115 m. in the west. Many peaks are upwards of 6000 ft.
high, but the greatest altitudes are attained in the central ridges on
the borders of Leon, Oviedo, Palencia and Santander. Here are the Peña
Vieja (8743 ft.), Prieta (8304 ft.) and Espinguete (7898 ft.); an
unnamed summit in the Peñas de Europa, to which range the Peña Vieja
also belongs, rises on the right bank of the Sella to a height of 8045
ft.; farther west the peaks of Manipodre, Ubiña, Rubia and Cuiña all
exceed 7000 ft. A conspicuous feature of the chain, as of the adjacent
tableland, is the number of its _parameras_, isolated plateaus shut in
by lofty mountains or even by precipitous walls of rock. At the
south-western extremity of the chain is el Vierzo, once a lake-bed, now
a valley drained by the upper Sil and enclosed by mountains which
bifurcate from the main range south of the pass of Leitariegos--the
Sierra de Justredo and Montañas de Leon curving towards the east and
south-west, the Sierra de Picos, Sierra del Caurel and other ranges
curving towards the west and south-east. The Cantabrians are rich in
coal and iron; an account of their geological structure is given under
SPAIN. They are crossed at many points by good roads and in their
eastern half by several railways. In the west, near the pass of Pájares,
the railway from Leon to Gijón passes through the Perruca tunnel, which
is 2 m. long and 4200 ft. above sea-level; the railway descends
northward through fifty-eight smaller tunnels. The line from Leon to
Orense also traverses a remarkable series of tunnels, bridges and deep
cuttings.
CANTACUZINO, CANTACUZEN or CANTACUZENE, the name of a family which
traces its origin to the Byzantine emperors and writers of the same name
(see under JOHN V., Cantacuzene). The founder of the family, Andronik,
migrated to Rumania in 1633, and from his two sons Constantine and
Gheorge sprang the two principal lines which afterwards branched into
numerous families of nobles and high dignitaries, including hospodars
(rulers) of Walachia and Moldavia. The Cantacuzinos were represented in
every branch of administration and in the world of letters. Under their
influence the Rumanian language and literature in the 17th century
reached their highest development. Among the more prominent members of
the family the following may be mentioned, (1) SHERBAN CANTACUZINO
(1640-1688), appointed hospodar of Walachia in 1679. He served under the
Turks in the siege of Vienna, and when they were defeated it is alleged
that he conceived the plan of marching on Constantinople to drive the
Turks out of Europe, the western powers having promised him their moral
support. In the midst of his preparations he died suddenly, poisoned, it
is said, by the boyars who were afraid of his vast plans. Far more
important was his activity in economic and literary directions. He
introduced the maize into Rumania; it is now the staple food of the
country. He founded the first Rumanian school in Bucharest; he assisted
liberally in the establishment of various printing offices; and under
his auspices the famous Rumanian Bible appeared in Bucharest in 1688.
Through his influence also the Slavonic language was officially and
finally abolished from the liturgy and the Rumanian language substituted
for it. (2) STEFAN CANTACUZINO, son of Constantine, prince of Walachia,
1714-1716. (3) DEMETRIUS CANTACUZINO, prince of Moldavia, 1674-1676. He
left an unsatisfactory record. Descendants of Demetrius and Sherban have
emigrated to Russia, and held high positions there as governors of
Bessarabia and in other responsible posts. (4) Of the Moldavian
Cantacuzinos, THEODORE is well known as a chronicler of his times (c.
1740). (5) GHEORGE CANTACUZINO (b. 1837), son of GREGORI (1800-1849). He
was appointed in 1870 minister of public instruction in Rumania; in
1889, president of the chamber; in 1892, president of the senate; from
1899 he was head of the Conservative party, and from 1905 to 1907 prime
minister (see also RUMANIA: _History_). (M. G.)
CANTAGALLO, an inland town of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, about
100 m. by rail N.E. of the port of Rio de Janeiro, with which it is
connected by the Cantagallo railway. Pop. (1890) of the municipality,
26,067, of whom less than one-fourth live in the town. Cantagallo is
situated in the fertile Parahyba valley and is the commercial centre of
a rich coffee-producing district. There are exhausted gold placer mines
in its vicinity, but they were not rich enough to cause any considerable
development in mining. Coffee production is the principal industry, but
sugar-cane is grown to a limited extent, and some attention is given to
the raising of cattle and swine. The district is an excellent fruit
region.
CANTAL, a department of central France, formed from Haute-Auvergne, the
southern portion of the old province of Auvergne. It is bounded N. by
the department of Puy-de-Dôme, E. by Haute-Loire, S.E. by Lozère, S. by
Aveyron and Lozère, and W. by Corrèze and Lot. Area 2231 sq. m. Pop.
(1906) 228,600. Cantal is situated in the middle of the central plateau
of France. It takes its name from the Monts du Cantal, a volcanic group
occupying its central region, and continued towards the north and east
by ranges of lower altitude. The Plomb du Cantal, the culminating summit
of the department, attains a height of 6096 ft.; and its neighbours, the
Puy Mary and the Puy Chavaroche, attain a height of 5863 and 5722 ft.
respectively. Immediately to the east of this central mass lies the
lofty but fertile plateau of Planèze, which merges into the Monts de la
Margeride on the eastern border. The valley of the Truyère skirts the
Planèze on the south and divides it from the Monts d'Aubrac, at the foot
of which lies Chaudesaigues, noted for its thermal springs, the most
important in the department. Northwards the Monts du Cantal are
connected with the Monts Dore by the volcanic range of Cézallier and the
arid plateaus of Artense. In the west of the department grassy plateaus
and beautiful river valleys slope gently down from the central heights.
Most of the streams of the department have their sources in this central
ridge and fall by a short and rapid course into the rivers which
traverse the extensive valleys on either side. The principal rivers are
the Alagnon, a tributary of the Allier; the Celle and Truyère,
tributaries of the Lot; and the Cère and Rue, tributaries of the
Dordogne. The climate of the department varies considerably in the
different localities. In the alluvial plain between Murat and St Flour,
and in the south-west in the arrondissement of Aurillac, it is generally
mild and dry; but in the northern and central portions the winters are
long and severe and the hurricanes peculiarly violent. The cold and damp
of the climate in these districts are great obstacles to the cultivation
of wheat, but rye and buckwheat are grown in considerable quantities,
and in natural pasture Cantal is extremely rich. Cattle are accordingly
reared with profit, especially around Salers and in the Monts d'Aubrac,
while butter and Roquefort cheese are made in large quantities. Large
flocks of sheep pasture in the Monts d'Aubrac and elsewhere in the
department; goats are also reared. The inhabitants are simple and
primitive and accustomed to live on the scantiest fare. Many of them
migrate for part of the year to Paris and the provinces, where they
engage in the humblest occupations. The principal articles of food are
rye, buckwheat and chestnuts. The internal resources of the department
are considerable; but the difficulty of land-carriage prevents them
being sufficiently developed. The hills and valleys abound with game and
the streams with fish. Cantal produces a vast variety of aromatic and
medicinal plants; and its mineral products include coal, antimony and
lime. The department has no prominent manufactures. Live-stock, cheese,
butter and coal are the principal exports; coal, wine, cereals, flour
and earthenware are imported. The department is served by the railways
of the Orléans and Southern companies, the construction of which at some
points demanded considerable engineering skill, notably in the case of
the viaduct of Garabit spanning the gorge of the Truyère. Cantal is
divided into four arrondissements--Aurillac, Mauriac, Murat and St
Flour--23 cantons and 267 communes. It belongs to the region of the
XIII. army corps and to the académie (educational division) of
Clermont-Ferrand. Its bishopric is at St Flour and depends on the
archbishopric of Bourges. Its court of appeal is at Riom. The capital is
Aurillac (q.v.), and St Flour (q.v.) is the other principal town.
CANTARINI, SIMONE (1612-1648), called SIMONE DA PESARO, painter and
etcher, was born at Oropezza near Pesaro in 1612. He was a disciple of
Guido Reni and a fellow-student of Domenichino and Albano. The
irritability of his temper and his vanity were extreme; and it is said
that his death, which took place at Verona in 1648, was occasioned by
chagrin at his failure in a portrait of the duke of Mantua. Others
relate that he was poisoned by a Mantuan painter whom he had injured.
His pictures, though masterly and spirited, are deficient in
originality. Some of his works have been mistaken for examples of Guido
Reni, to whom, indeed, he is by some considered superior in the
extremities of the figures. Among his principal paintings are "St
Anthony," at Cagli; the "Magdalene," at Pesaro; the "Transfiguration,"
in the Brera Gallery, Milan; the "Portrait of Guido," in the Bologna
gallery; and "St Romuald," in the Casa Paolucci. His most celebrated
etching is "Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, honouring the arms of Cardinal
Borghese."
CANTATA (Italian for a song or story set to music), a vocal composition
accompanied by instruments and generally containing more than one
movement. In the 16th century, when all serious music was vocal, the
term had no reason to exist, but with the rise of instrumental music in
the 17th century cantatas began to exist under that name as soon as the
instrumental art was definite enough to be embodied in sonatas. From the
middle of the 17th till late in the 18th century a favourite form of
Italian chamber music was the cantata for one or two solo voices, with
accompaniment of harpsichord and perhaps a few other solo instruments.
It consisted at first of a declamatory narrative or scene in recitative,
held together by a primitive aria repeated at intervals. Fine examples
may be found in the church music of Carissimi; and the English vocal
solos of Purcell (such as _Mad Tom_ and _Mad Bess_) show the utmost that
can be made of this archaic form. With the rise of the Da Capo aria the
cantata became a group of two or three arias joined by recitative.
Handel's numerous Italian duets and trios are examples on a rather large
scale. His Latin motet _Silete Venti_, for soprano solo, shows the use
of this form in church music.
The Italian solo cantata naturally tended, when on a large scale, to
become indistinguishable from a scene in an opera. In the same way the
church cantata, solo or choral, is indistinguishable from a small
oratorio or portion of an oratorio. This is equally evident whether we
examine the unparalleled church cantatas of Bach, of which nearly 200
are extant, or the _Chandos Anthems_ of Handel. In Bach's case many of
the larger cantatas are actually called oratorios; and the _Christmas
Oratorio_ is a collection of six church cantatas actually intended for
performance on six different days, though together forming as complete
an artistic whole as any classical oratorio.
The essential point, however, in Bach's church cantatas is that they
formed part of a church service, and moreover of a service in which the
organization of the music was far more coherent than is possible in the
Anglican church. Many of Bach's greatest cantatas begin with an
elaborate chorus followed by a couple of arias and recitatives, and end
with a plain chorale. This has often been commented upon as an example
of Bach's indifference to artistic climax in the work as a whole. But no
one will maintain this who realizes the place which the church cantata
occupied in the Lutheran church service. The text was carefully based
upon the gospel or lessons for the day; unless the cantata was short the
sermon probably took place after the first chorus or one of the arias,
and the congregation joined in the final chorale. Thus the unity of the
service was the unity of the music; and, in the cases where all the
movements of the cantata were founded on one and the same chorale-tune,
this unity has never been equalled, except by those 16th-century masses
and motets which are founded upon the Gregorian tones of the festival
for which they are written.
In modern times the term cantata is applied almost exclusively to
choral, as distinguished from solo vocal music. There has, perhaps, been
only one kind of cantata since Bach which can be recognized as an art
form and not as a mere title for works otherwise impossible to classify.
It is just possible to recognize as a distinct artistic type that kind
of early 19th-century cantata in which the chorus is the vehicle for
music more lyric and songlike than the oratorio style, though at the
same time not excludeing the possibility of a brilliant climax in the
shape of a light order of fugue. Beethoven's _Glorreiche Augenblick_ is
a brilliant "pot-boiler" in this style; Weber's _Jubel Cantata_ is a
typical specimen, and Mendelssohn's _Walpurgisnacht_ is the classic.
Mendelssohn's "Symphony Cantata," the _Lobgesang_, is a hybrid work,
partly in the oratorio style. It is preceded by three symphonic
movements, a device avowedly suggested by Beethoven's ninth symphony;
but the analogy is not accurate, as Beethoven's work is a symphony of
which the fourth movement is a choral finale of essentially single
design, whereas Mendelssohn's "Symphony Cantata" is a cantata with three
symphonic preludes. The full lyric possibilities of a string of choral
songs were realized at last by Brahms in his _Rinaldo_, set to a text
which Goethe wrote at the same time as he wrote that of the
_Walpurgisnacht_. The point of Brahms's work (his only experiment in
this _genre_) has naturally been lost by critics who expected in so
voluminous a composition the qualities of an elaborate choral music with
which it has nothing whatever to do. Brahms has probably said the last
word on this subject; and the remaining types of cantata (beginning with
Beethoven's _Meeres-stille_, and including most of Brahms's and many
notable English small choral works) are merely so many different ways of
setting to choral music a poem which is just too long to be comprised in
one movement. (D. F. T.)
CANTEEN (through the Fr. _cantine_, from Ital. _cantina_, a cellar), a
word chiefly used in a military sense for an official sutler's shop,
where provisions, &c., are sold to soldiers. The word was formerly
applied also to portable equipments for carrying liquors and food, or
for cooking in the field. Another sense of the word, which has survived
to the present day, is that of a soldier's water-bottle, or of a small
wooden or metal can for carying a workman's liquor, &c.
CANTEMIR, the name of a celebrated family of Tatar origin, which came
from the Crimea in the 17th century and settled in Moldavia.
CONSTANTINE CANTEMIR became a prince of Moldavia, 1685-1693. He was a
good and conscientious ruler, who protected the people from the rapacity
of the tax-gatherers and introduced peace into his country. He was
succeeded on the throne by his son Antioch, who ruled twice, 1696-1700
and 1705-1707.
His youngest brother, DEMETRIUS or DEMETER CANTEMIR (b. October 26,
1673), was made prince of Moldavia in 1710; he ruled only one year,
1710-1711, when he joined Peter the Great in his campaign against the
Turks and placed Moldavia under Russian suzerainty. Beaten by the Turks,
Cantemir emigrated to Russia, where he and his family finally settled.
He died at Kharkov in 1723. He was known as one of the greatest
linguists of his time, speaking and writing eleven languages, and being
well versed in Oriental scholarship. He was a voluminous and original
writer of great sagacity and deep penetration, and his writings range
over many subjects. The best known is his _History of the Growth and
Decay of the Ottoman Empire_. He also wrote a history of oriental music,
which is no longer extant; the first critical history of Moldo-Walachia;
the first geographical, ethnographical and economic description of
Moldavia, _Descriptio Moldaviae_, under the name of _Historia
Hieroglyphica_, to which he furnished a key, and in which the principal
persons are represented by animals; also the history of the two ruling
houses of Brancovan and Cantacuzino; and a philosophical treatise on the
old theme of the disputation between soul and body, written in Greek and
Rumanian under the title _Divanul Lumii_.
The latter's son, ANTIOCH CANTEMIR (born in Moldavia, 1700; died in
Paris, 1744), became in 1731 Russian minister in Great Britain, and in
1736 minister plenipotentiary in Paris. He brought to London the Latin
MS. from whence the English translation of his father's history of the
Turkish empire was made by N. Tindal, London, 1756, to which he added an
exhaustive biography and bibliography of the author (pp. 455-460). He
was a Russian poet and almost the first author of satires in modern
Russian literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Operele Principelui D. Cantemir_, ed. Academia Româna
(1872 foll.); A. Philippide, _Introducere in istoria limbei si
literat. romane_ (Iasi, 1888), pp. 192-202; O.G. Lecca, _Familiile
boeresti romane_ (Bukarest, 1898), pp. 144-148; M. Gaster, _Chrestom.
româna_, i. 322, 359 (in Cyrillic). (M. G.)
CANTERBURY, CHARLES MANNERS-SUTTON, 1ST VISCOUNT (1780-1845), speaker of
the House of Commons, was the elder son of Charles Manners-Sutton
(q.v.), afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and was born on the 29th of
January 1780. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he
graduated B.A. in 1802, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in
1806. At the general election of this year he was returned to parliament
in the Tory interest as member for Scarborough, and in 1809 became
judge-advocate-general in the ministry of Spencer Perceval. He retained
this position until June 1817, when he was elected speaker in succession
to Charles Abbot, created Baron Colchester, refusing to exchange this
office in 1827 for that of home secretary. In 1832 he abandoned
Scarborough and was returned to parliament as one of the members for the
university of Cambridge. Before the general election of 1832
Manners-Sutton had intimated his desire to retire from the position of
speaker and had been voted an annuity of £4000 a year. The ministry of
Earl Grey, however, reluctant to meet the reformed House of Commons with
a new and inexperienced occupant of the chair, persuaded him to retain
his office, and in 1833 he was elected speaker for the seventh time.
Some feeling had been shown against him on this occasion owing to his
Tory proclivities, and the Whigs frequently complained that outside the
House he was a decided partisan. The result was that when a new
parliament met in February 1835 a sharp contest ensued for the
speakership, and Manners-Sutton was defeated by James Abercromby,
afterwards Lord Dunfermline. In March 1835 the retiring speaker was
raised to the peerage as Baron Bottesford and Viscount Canterbury. In
1835 he was appointed high commissioner for Canada, but owing to
domestic reasons he never undertook the appointment. He died in London
on the 21st of July 1845 and was buried at Addington. His first wife was
Lucy (d. 1815), daughter of John Denison of Ossington, by whom he had
two sons and a daughter. Both his sons, Charles John (1812-1869), and
John Henry Thomas (1814-1877), succeeded in turn to the viscounty. By
his second wife, Ellen (d. 1845), widow of John Home-Purves, he had a
daughter.
CANTERBURY, a city and county of a city, the metropolis of an
archdiocese of the Church of England, and a municipal, county and
parliamentary borough of Kent, England, 62 m. E.S.E, of London by the
South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 24,889. It lies on the
river Stour, which here debouches from a beautiful narrow valley of the
North Downs, the low but abrupt elevations of which command fine views
of the city from the west and south, while the river presently enters
upon the flat belt of land which separates the elevated Isle of Thanet
from the rest of Kent. This belt represents the existence, in early
historic times, of a sea-strait, and Fordwich, little more than 2 m.
north-east of Canterbury, was once accessible for shipping. The city
surrounds the precincts of the great cathedral.
_The Cathedral_.--It was to Canterbury, as the capital of Aethelberht,
the fourth Saxon king of Kent, that in 597 Augustine and his
fellow-missionaries came from Rome, and their settlement by Aethelberht
in his capital became the origin of its position, held ever since, as
the metropolis of the Church of England. Aethelberht, whose queen,
Bertha, was already a Christian, gave the missionaries a church whose
mythical founder was King Lucius. Augustine was a Benedictine and
established the monastery of that order attached to the cathedral; this
foundation was set upon a firm basis after the Norman Conquest by
Archbishop Lanfranc, who placed its charge (as distinct from that of the
diocese) in the hands of a prior.
History of the building.
Preparatory to the description of the cathedral, the principal epochs in
the history of its erection may be noted. The Romano-British church
occupied by St Augustine, of basilica form, remained long in use, though
it was largely rebuilt by Archbishop Odo, c. 950; after further
vicissitudes it was destroyed by fire in 1067. Archbishop Lanfranc,
taking up his office in 1070, undertook the building of an entirely new
church, but under Anselm (c. 1100) Prior Ernulf rebuilt the eastern
part, and his successor Conrad carried on the work. A fire destroyed
much of this part of the building in 1174, and from that year the
architect, William of Sens, took up the work of rebuilding until 1178,
when, on his suffering serious injury by falling from a scaffold,
another William, commonly distinguished as the Englishman, carried on
the work and completed it in 1184. In 1376 Archbishop Sudbury entered
upon the construction of a new nave, and Prior Chillenden continued this
under Archbishop Courtenay. The building of the central tower was
undertaken c. 1495 by Prior Goldstone, with the counsel of Selling, his
predecessor, and Archbishop Morton.
Exterior.
This Perpendicular tower is the most notable feature of the exterior. It
rises in two storeys to a height of 235 ft. from the ground, and is
known variously as Bell Harry tower from the great bell it contains, or
as the Angel steeple from the gilded figure of an angel which formerly
adorned the summit. The Perpendicular nave is flanked at the west front
by towers, whose massive buttresses, rising in tiers, serve to enhance
by contrast the beautiful effect of the unbroken straight lines of Bell
Harry tower. The south-western of these towers is an original
Perpendicular structure by Prior Goldstone, while the north-western was
copied from it in 1834-1840, replacing a Norman tower which had carried
a spire until 1705 and had become unsafe. The north-west and south-west
transepts are included in Chillenden's Perpendicular reconstruction; but
east of these earlier work is met with. The south-east transept exhibits
Norman work; the projecting chapel east of this is known as Anselm's
tower. The cathedral terminates eastward in a graceful apsidal form,
with the final addition of the circular eastern chapel built by William
the Englishman, and known as the Corona or Becket's Crown. St Andrew's
tower or chapel on the north side, corresponding to Anselm's on the
south, is the work of Ernulf. From this point westward the various
monastic buildings adjoin the cathedral on the north side, so that the
south side is that from which the details of the exterior must be
examined.
Interior.
When the nave of the cathedral is entered, the complete separation of
the interior into two main parts, not only owing to the distinction
between the two main periods of building; but by an actual structural
arrangement, is realized as an unusual and, as it happens, a most
impressive feature. In most English cathedrals the choir is separated
from the nave by a screen; at Canterbury not only is this the case, but
the separation is further marked by a broad flight of steps leading up
to the screen, the choir floor (but not its roof) being much higher than
that of the nave. Chillenden, in rebuilding the nave, retained only the
lower parts of some of the early Norman walls of Lanfranc and the piers
of the central tower arches. These piers were encased or altered on
Perpendicular lines. In the choir, the late 12th-century work of the two
Williams, the notable features are its great length, the fine
ornamentation and the use of arches both round and pointed, a remarkable
illustration of the transition between the Norman and Early English
styles; the prolific use of dark marble in the shafts and mouldings
strongly contrasting with the light stone which is the material
principally used; and, finally, the graceful incurve of the main arcades
and walls at the eastern end of the choir where it joins the chapel of
the Trinity, an arrangement necessitated by the preservation of the
earlier flanking chapels or towers of St Anselm and St Andrew. From the
altar eastward the floor of the church is raised again above that of the
choir. The choir screen was built by Prior de Estria, c. 1300. The
organ is not seen, being hidden in the triforium and played from the
choir. There are several tombs of archbishops in the choir. The
south-east transept serves as the chapel of the King's school and
exhibits the work of William of Sens in alteration of that of Ernulf.
Anselm's chapel or tower, already mentioned, may be noticed again as
containing a Decorated window (1336). This style is not common in the
cathedral.
Becket's shrine. Pilgrimages.
Behind the altar is Trinity Chapel, in the centre of which stood the
celebrated shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury. The priory owed its chief
fame to the murder of Archbishop Becket (1170) in the church, his
canonization as St Thomas of Canterbury, and the resort of the Christian
world on pilgrimage to his shrine. Miracles were almost immediately said
to be worked at his grave in the crypt and at the well in which his
garments had been washed; and from the time when Henry II. did his
penance for the murder in the church, and the battle of Alnwick was
gained over the Scots a few days afterwards--it was supposed as a
result--the fame of the martyr's power and the popularity of his
worship became established in England. On the rebuilding of the
cathedral after the fire of 1174, a magnificent shrine was erected for
him in Trinity Chapel, which was built for the purpose, and became
thronged for three centuries by pilgrims and worshippers of all classes,
from kings and emperors downward. Henceforward the interests of the city
became bound up in those of the cathedral, and were shown in the large
number of hostels for the accommodation of pilgrims, and of shops
containing wares especially suited to their tastes. A pilgrimage to
Canterbury became not only a pious exercise, but a favourite summer
excursion; and the poet Chaucer, writing in the 14th century, gives an
admirable picture of such pilgrimages, with the manners and behaviour of
a party of pilgrims, leisurely enjoying the journey and telling stories
on the road. The English language even preserved two words originating
in these customs--a "canterbury," or a "canterbury tale," a phrase used
for a fiction, and a "canter," which is a short form for a "canterbury
gallop," an allusion to the easy pace at which these pilgrimages were
performed. The shrine with its vast collected wealth was destroyed, and
every reminiscence connected with it as far as possible effaced, by King
Henry VIII.'s commissioners in 1538. But some of the beautiful old
windows of stained glass, illustrating the miracles wrought in connexion
with the saint, are preserved. The north-west transept was the actual
scene of Becket's murder; the spot where he fell is shown on the floor,
but this part of the building is of later date than the tragedy.
Close to the site of the shrine is the fine tomb of Edward the Black
Prince, with a remarkable portrait effigy, and above it his helmet,
shield and other equipment. There is also in this chapel the tomb of
King Henry IV. The Corona, at the extreme cast of the church, contains
the so-called St Augustine's chair in which the archbishops are
enthroned. It is of marble, but its name is not deserved, as it dates
probably from c. 1200. The western part of the crypt, beneath the choir,
is the work of Ernulf, and perhaps incorporates some of Lanfranc's work.
The chapel of St John or St Gabriel, beneath Anselm's tower, is still
used for service, in which the French language is used; it was devoted
to this purpose in 1561, on behalf of French Protestant refugees, who
were also permitted to carry on their trade as weavers in the crypt. The
eastern and loftier part of the crypt, with its apsidal termination, is
the work of William the Englishman. Here for some time lay the body of
Becket, and here the celebrated penance of Henry II. was performed.
Monastic buildings.
The chief entrance to the precincts is through an ornate gateway at the
south-west, called Christchurch gateway, and built by Prior Goldstone in
1517. Among the remains of the monastic buildings there may be mentioned
the Norman ruins of the infirmary, the fine two-storeyed treasury and
the lavatory tower, Norman in the lower part and Perpendicular in the
upper. The cloisters are of various dates, containing a little rich
Norman work, but were very largely rebuilt by Prior Chillenden. The
upper part of the chapter-house is also his work, but the lower is by
Prior de Estria. The library is modern. The site of the New Hall of the
monastery is covered by modern buildings of King's school, but the
Norman entry-stair is preserved--a magnificent example of the style,
with highly ornate arcading.
The principal dimensions of the cathedral arc: length (outside) 522 ft.,
nave 178 ft., choir 180 ft. The nave is 71 ft. in breadth and 80 ft. in
height.
Province and diocese.
The archbishop of Canterbury is primate of all England; the
ecclesiastical province of Canterbury covers England and Wales south of
Cheshire and Yorkshire; and the diocese covers a great part of Kent with
a small part of Sussex. The following is a list of archbishops of
Canterbury:--
1. Augustine, 597 to 605. 55. Thomas Bradwardin, 1349.
2. Lawrence (Laurentius), 605 56. Simon Islip, 1349 to 1366.
to 619. 57. Simon Langham, 1366 to
3. Mellitus, 619 to 624. 1368.
4. Justin. 624 to 627. 58. William Whittlesea, 1368
5. Honorius, 627 to 653. to 1374.
6. Deusdedit (Frithona), 655 59. Simon Sudbury, 1375 to
to 664. 1381.
7. Theodore, 668 to 690. 60. William Courtenay, 1381 to
8. Brethwald (Berhtuald), 693 1396.
to 731. 61. Thomas Arundel, 1396 to
9. Taetwine. 731 to 734. 1414.
10. Nothelm, 734 to 740. 62. Henry Chicheley, 1414 to
11. Cuthbert, 740 to 758. 1443.
12. Breogwine, 759 to 762. 63. John Stafford, 1443 to 1452.
13. Jaenberht, 763 to 790. 64. John Kemp, 1452 to 1454.
14. Aethelhard, 790 to 803. 65. Thomas Bourchier, 1454 to
15. Wulfred, 803 to 829. 1486.
16. Fleogild, 829 to 830. 66. John Morton, 1486 to 1500.
17. Ceolnoth, 830 to 870. 67. Henry Dean (Dene), 1501 to
18. Æthelred, 870 to 889. 1503.
19. Plegemund, 889 to 914. 68. William Warham, 1503 to
20. Aethelm, 914 to 923. 1532.
21. Wulfelm, 923 to 942. 69. Thomas Cranmer, 1533 to
22. Odo, 942 to 959. 1556.
23. Aelsine, 959. 70. Reginald Pole, 1556 to 1558.
24. Dunstan, 960 to 988. 71. Matthew Parker, 1559 to
25. Aethelgar, 988 to 989. 1575.
26. Sigeric, 990 to 994. 72. Edmund Grindal, 1575 to
27. Aelfric, 995 to 1005. 1583.
28. Alphege (Aelfeah), 1005 to 73. John Whitgift, 1583 to 1604.
1012. 74. Richard Bancroft, 1604 to
29. Lyfing, 1013 to 1020. 1610.
30. Aethelnoth, 1020 to 1038. 75. George Abbot, 1610 to 1633.
31. Eadsige, 1038 to 1050. 76. William Laud, 1633 to 1645.
32. Robert of Jumièges, 1051 to 77. William Juxon, 1660 to 1663.
1052. 78. Gilbert Sheldon, 1663 to
33. Stigand, 1052 to 1070. 1677.
34. Lanfranc, 1070 to 1089. 79. William Sancroft, 1678 to
35. Anselm, 1093 to 1109. 1691.
36. Ralph de Turbine, 1114 to 80. John Tillotson, 1691 to 1694.
1122. 81. Thomas Tenison, 1694 to
37. William de Corbeuil 1715.
(Curbellio), 1123 to 1136. 82. William Wake, 1716 to 1737.
38. Theobald, 1139 to 1161. 83. John Potter, 1737 to 1747.
39. Thomas Becket, 1162 to 1170. 84. Thomas Herring, 1747 to
40. Richard, 1174 to 1184. 1757.
41. Baldwin, 1185 to 1190. 85. Matthew Hutton, 1757 to
42. Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn, 1191. 1758.
43. Hubert Walter, 1193 to 1205. 86. Thomas Secker, 1758 to
44. Stephen Langton, 1207 to 1768.
1228. 87. Frederick Cornwallis, 1768
45. Richard Wethershed, 1229 to 1783.
to 1231. 88. John Moore, 1783 to 1805.
46. Edmund Rich (de Abbendon) 89. Charles Manners-Sutton,
1234 to 1240. 1805 to 1828.
47. Boniface of Savoy, 1241 to 90. William Howley, 1828 to
1270. 1848.
48. Robert Kilwardby, 1273 to 91. John Bird Sumner, 1848 to
1278. 1862.
49. John Peckham, 1279 to 1292. 92. Charles Thomas Longley,
50. Robert Winchelsea, 1293 to 1862 to 1868.
1313. 93. Archibald Campbell Tait,
51. Walter Reynolds, 1313 to 1868 to 1882.
1327. 94. Edward White Benson, 1882
52. Simon de Meopham, 1328 to to 1896.
1333. 95. Frederick Temple, 1896 to
53. John Stratford, 1333 to 1348. 1903
54. John de Ufford, 1348 to 1349. 96. Randall Thomas Davidson.
The archbishop has a seat at Lambeth Palace, London. There are fragments
in Palace Street of the old archbishop's palace which have been
incorporated with a modern palace.
_Other Ecclesiastical Foundations._--Canterbury naturally abounded in
religious foundations. The most important, apart from the cathedral, was
the Benedictine abbey of St Augustine. This was erected on a site
granted by King Aethelberht outside his capital, in a tract called
Longport. Augustine dedicated it to St Peter and St Paul, but Archbishop
Dunstan added the sainted name of the founder to the dedication, and in
common use it came to exclude those of the apostles. The site is now
occupied by St Augustine's Missionary College, founded in 1844 when the
property was acquired by A.J.B. Beresford Hope. Some ancient remnants
are preserved, the principal being the entrance gateway (1300), with the
cemetery gate, dated a century later, and the guest hall, now the
refectory; but the scanty ruins of St Pancras' chapel are of high
interest, and embody Roman material. The chapel is said to have received
its dedication from St Augustine on account of the special association
of St Pancras with children, and in connexion with the famous story of
St Gregory, w hose attention was first attracted to Britain when he saw
the fair-faced children of the Angles who had been brought to Rome, and
termed them "not Angles but angels."
There were lesser houses of many religious orders in Canterbury, but
only two, those of the Dominicans near St Peter's church in St Peter's
Street, and the Franciscans, also in St Peter's Street, have left
notable remains. The Dominican refectory is used as a chapel. Among the
many churches, St Martin's, Longport, is of the first interest. This was
the scene of the earliest work of Augustine in Canterbury, and had seen
Christian service before his arrival. Its walls contain Roman masonry,
but whether it is in part a genuine remnant of a Romano-British
Christian church is open to doubt. There are Norman, Early English and
later portions; and the font may be in part pre-Norman, and is indeed
associated by tradition with the baptism of Aethelberht himself. St
Mildred's church exhibits Early English and Perpendicular work, and the
use of Roman material is again visible here. St Paul's is of Early
English origin; St Dunstan's, St Peter's and Holy Cross are mainly
Decorated and Perpendicular. The village of Harbledown, on the hill west
of Canterbury on the London road, from the neighbourhood of which a
beautiful view over the city is obtained, has many associations with the
ecclesiastical life of Canterbury. It is mentioned by Chaucer in his
pilgrimage under the name, appropriate to its site, of "Bob up and
down." The almshouses, which occupy the site of Lanfranc's hospital for
lepers, include an ancient hall and a chapel in which the west door and
northern nave arcade are Norman, and are doubtless part of Lanfranc's
buildings. The neighbouring parish church is in great part rebuilt.
Among the numerous charitable institutions in Canterbury there are
several which may be called the descendants of medieval ecclesiastical
foundations.
_City Buildings, &c._--The old city walls may be traced, and the public
walk called the Dane John (derived probably from _donjon_) follows the
summit of a high artificial mound within the lines. The cathedral is
finely seen from this point. Only the massive turreted west gate, of the
later part of the 14th century, remains out of the former six city
gates. The site of the castle is not far from the Dane John, and enough
remains of the Norman keep to show its strength and great size. Among
other buildings and institutions there may be mentioned the guildhall in
High Street, of the early part of the 18th century; the museum, which
includes a fine collection of local, including many Roman, relics; and
the school of art, under municipal management, but founded by the
painter T. Sidney Cooper (d. 1902), who was a resident at Harbledown. A
modern statue of a muse commemorates the poet Christopher Marlowe
(1564-1593), a native of the city; and a pillar indicates the place
where a number of persons were burnt at the stake in the reign of Mary.
The King's school, occupying buildings adjacent to the cathedral,
developed out of the early teaching furnished by the monastery. It was
refounded by Henry VIII. in 1541 (whence its name), and is managed on
the lines of ordinary public schools. It has about 250 boys; and there
is besides a junior or preparatory school. The school is still connected
with the ecclesiastical foundation, the dean and chapter being its
governors.
A noted occasion of festivity in Canterbury is the Canterbury
cricket-week, when the Kent county cricket eleven engages in matches
with other first-class teams, and many visitors are attracted to the
city.
Canterbury has a considerable agriculture trade, breweries, tanneries,
brickworks and other manufactures. The parliamentary borough returns one
member. The city is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors.
Area, 3955 acres.
_History of the City._--The existence of a Romano-British town on the
site of Canterbury has already been indicated. It was named
_Durovernum_, and was a flourishing county town on the road from the
Kentish ports to London. Mosaic pavements and other remains have been
found in considerable abundance. The city, known by the Saxons as
_Cantwaraburh_, the town of the men of Kent, was the metropolis of
Aethelberht's kingdom. At the time of the Domesday survey Canterbury
formed part of the royal demesne and was governed by a portreeve as it
had been before the Conquest. In the 13th and 14th centuries, two
bailiffs presided over the burghmote, assisted by a larger and smaller
council. Henry II., by an undated charter, confirmed former privileges
and granted to the citizens that no one should implead them outside the
city walls and that the pleas of the crown should be decided according
to the customs of the city. In 1256 Henry III. granted them the city at
an annual fee farm of £60, also the right of electing their bailiffs.
Confirmations of former charters with additional liberties were granted
by later sovereigns, and Henry VI. incorporated Canterbury, which he
called "one of our most ancient cities," under the style of the mayor
and commonalty, the mayor to be elected by the burgesses. James I. in
1609 confirmed these privileges, giving the burgesses the right to be
called a body corporate and to elect twelve aldermen and a common
council of twenty-four. Charles II., after calling in the charters of
corporations, granted a confirmation in 1684. Canterbury was first
represented in parliament in 1283, and it continued to return two
members until 1885, when the number was reduced to one. A fair was
granted by Henry VI. to the citizens to be held in the city or suburbs
on the 4th of August and the two days following; other fairs were in the
hands of the monasteries; the corn and cattle markets and a general
market have been held by prescription from time immemorial. Canterbury
was a great centre of the silk-weaving trade in the 17th century, large
numbers of Walloons, driven by persecution to England, having settled
there in the reign of Elizabeth. In 1676 Charles II. granted a charter
of incorporation to the Walloon congregation under style of the master,
wardens and fellowship of weavers in the city of Canterbury. The market
for the sale of corn and hops was regulated by a local act in 1801.
See A.P. Stanley, _Historical Memorials of Canterbury_ (London, 1855);
J. Brent, _Canterbury in the Olden Time_ (Canterbury, 1879); J.W. Legg
and W.H. St J. Hope, _Inventories of Christchurch, Canterbury_
(London, 1902); _Victoria County History, Kent_.
CANTHARIDES, or SPANISH FLIES, the common blister-beetles (_Cantharis
vesicatoria_) of European pharmacy. They are bright, iridescent,
golden-green or bluish-coloured beetles (see COLEOPTERA), with the
breast finely punctured and pubescent, head and thorax with a
longitudinal channel, and elytra with two slightly elevated lines. The
insect is from half-an-inch to an inch in length, and from one to two
lines broad, the female being broader in the abdomen and altogether
larger than the male. It is a native of the south of Europe, being found
in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and the south of Russia, and
it is also obtained in Siberia. The Spanish fly is also occasionally
found in the south of England. The insects feed upon ash, lilac, privet
and jasmine leaves, and are found more rarely on elder, rose, apple and
poplar trees. Their presence is made known by a powerful disagreeable
odour, which penetrates to a considerable distance. They are collected
for use at late evening or early morning, while in a dull bedewed
condition, by shaking them off the trees or shrubs into cloths spread on
the ground; and they are killed by dipping them into hot water or
vinegar, or by exposing them for some time over the vapour of vinegar.
They are then dried and put up for preservation in glass-stoppered
bottles; and they require to be very carefully guarded against mites and
various other minute insects, to the attacks of which they are
peculiarly liable. It has been shown by means of spectroscopic
observations that the green colour of the elytra, &c., is due to the
presence of chlorophyll; and that the variations of the spectral bands
are sufficient, after the lapse of many years, to indicate with some
certainty the kind of leaves on which the insects were feeding shortly
before they were killed.
Cantharides owe their value to the presence of a peculiar chemical
principle, to which the name _cantharidin_ has been given. It is most
abundant in large full-grown insects, while in very young specimens no
cantharidin at all has been found. From about one-fourth to rather more
than one-half per cent, of cantharidin has been obtained from different
samples; and it has been ascertained that the elytra or wing-sheaths of
the insect, which alone are used in pharmacy, contain more of the active
principle than the soft parts taken together; but apparently
cantharidin is most abundant in the eggs and generative organs.
Cantharidin constitutes from ½ to 1% of cantharides. It has the formula
C10H14O4, and on hydrolysis is converted into cantharinic acid,
C10H14O5. It crystallizes in colourless plates and is readily soluble in
alcohol, ether, &c., but not in water. The British Pharmacopeia contains
a large number of preparations of cantharides, but the only one needing
special mention is the tincture, which is meant for internal
administration; the small dose is noteworthy, five minims being probably
the maximum for safety.
The external action of cantharides or cantharidin is extremely
characteristic. When it is applied to the skin there are no obvious
consequences for some hours. Thereafter the part becomes warm and
painful, owing to marked local vascular dilatation. This is the typical
_rubefacient_ action. Soon afterwards there is an accumulation under the
epidermis of a serum derived from the dilated blood-vessels. The
numerous small blisters or vesicles thus derived coalesce, forming a
large sac full of "blister-fluid." The drug is described as a
counter-irritant, though the explanation of this action is very
doubtful. Apparently there is an influence on the afferent nerves of the
part which causes a reflex contraction--some authors say dilatation--of
the vessels in the internal organs that are under the control of the
same segment of the nervous system as that supplying the area of skin
from which the exciting impulse comes. When applied in this fashion a
certain quantity of the cantharides is absorbed.
Taken internally in any but minute doses, the drug causes the most
severe gastro-intestinal irritation, the vomited and evacuated matters
containing blood, and the patient suffering agonizing pain and extreme
depression. The further characteristic symptoms are displayed in the
genito-urinary tract. The drug circulates in the blood in the form of an
albuminate and is slowly excreted by the kidneys. The effect of large
doses is to cause great pain in the renal region and urgent wish to
micturate. The urine is nevertheless small in amount and contains
albumen and blood owing to the local inflammation produced in the kidney
by the passage of the poison through that organ. The drug often has a
marked aphrodisiac action, producing priapism, or in the female sex the
onset of the catamenia or abortion.
Cantharides is used externally for its counter-irritant action. There
are certain definite contra-indications to its use. It must not be
employed in cases of renal disease, owing to the risks attendant upon
absorption. It must always be employed with caution in the case of
elderly persons and children; and it must not be applied to a paralysed
limb (in which the power of healing is deficient), nor to parts upon
which the patient lies, as otherwise a bed-sore is likely to follow its
use. The drug is administered internally in certain cases of impotence
and occasionally in other conditions. Its criminal employment is usually
intended to heighten sexual desire, and has frequently led to death.
The toxic symptoms have already been detailed, the patient usually dying
from arrest of the renal functions. The treatment is far from
satisfactory, and consists in keeping up the strength and diluting the
poison in the blood and in the urine by the administration of bland
fluids, such as soda-water, milk and plain water, in quantities as large
as possible. External warmth should also be applied to the regions
specially affected by the drug.
A very large number of other insects belonging to the same family
possess blistering properties, owing to their containing cantharidin. Of
these the most remarkable is the Telini "fly" of India (_Mylabris
cichorii_), the range of which extends from Italy and Greece through
Egypt and central Asia as far as China. It is very rich in cantharidin,
yielding fully twice as much as ordinary cantharides. Several
green-coloured beetles are, on account of their colour, used as
adulterants to cantharides, but they are very easily detected by
examination with the eye, or, if powdered, with the microscope.
CANTICLES. The Old Testament book of Canticles, or the Song of Solomon,
is called in Hebrew _The Song of Songs_ (that is, _the choicest of
songs_), or, according to the full title which stands as the first verse
of the book, _The choicest of the songs of Solomon_. In the Western
versions the book holds the third place among the so-called Solomonic
writings, following Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In Hebrew Bibles it
stands among the _Megilloth_, the five books of the Hagiographa which
have a prominent place in the Synagogue service. In printed Bibles and
in German MSS. it is the first of these because it is read at the
Passover, which is the first great feast of the sacred year of the Jews.
No part of the Bible has called forth a greater diversity of opinions
than the Song of Solomon, and this for two reasons. In the first place,
the book holds so unique a position in the Old Testament, that the
general analogy of Hebrew literature is a very inadequate key to the
verbal difficulties, the artistic structure, and the general conception
and purpose of the poem. In point of language the departures from
ordinary Hebrew are almost always in the direction of Aramaic. Many
forms unique in Biblical Hebrew are at once explained by the Aramaic
dialects, but not a few are still obscure. The philological difficulties
of the book are, however, less fundamental than those which lie in the
unique character of the Song of Solomon in point of artistic form, and
in the whole atmosphere of thought and feeling in which it moves. Even
in these respects it is not absolutely isolated. Parallels to the
peculiar imagery may be found in the book of Hosea, in Ezekiel xvi. and
xxiii. and above all in the 45th Psalm; but such links of union to the
general mass of the Old Testament literature are too slight to be of
material assistance in the solution of the literary problem of the book.
Here, again, as in the lexical difficulties already referred to, we are
tempted or compelled to argue from the distant and insecure analogy of
other Eastern literatures, or are thrown back upon traditions of
uncertain origin and ambiguous authority.
The power of tradition has been the second great source of confusion of
opinion about the Song of Solomon. To tradition we owe the title, which
apparently indicates Solomon as the author and not merely as the subject
of the book. The authority of titles in the Old Testament is often
questionable, and in the present case it is certain on linguistic
grounds that the title is not from the hand that wrote the poem; while
to admit that it gives a correct account of the authorship is to cut
away at one stroke all the most certain threads of connexion between the
book and our historical knowledge of the Old Testament people and
literature.
To tradition, again, we owe the prejudice in favour of an allegorical
interpretation, that is, of the view that from verse to verse the Song
sets forth the history of a spiritual and not merely of an earthly love.
To apply such an exegesis to Canticles is to violate one of the first
principles of reasonable interpretation. True allegories are never
without internal marks of their allegorical design. The language of
symbol is not so perfect that a long chain of spiritual ideas can be
developed without the use of a single spiritual word or phrase; and even
were this possible it would be false art in the allegorist to hide away
his sacred thoughts behind a screen of sensuous and erotic imagery, so
complete and beautiful in itself as to give no suggestion that it is
only the vehicle of a deeper sense. Apart from tradition, no one, in the
present state of exegesis, would dream of allegorizing poetry which in
its natural sense is so full of purpose and meaning, so apt in
sentiment, and so perfect in imagery as the lyrics of Canticles. We are
not at liberty to seek for allegory except where the natural sense is
incomplete. This is not the case in the Song of Solomon. On the
contrary, every form of the allegorical interpretation which has been
devised carries its own condemnation in the fact that it takes away from
the artistic unity of the poem and breaks natural sequences of
thought.[1] The allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon bad
its rise in the very same conditions which forced a deeper sense, now
universally discarded, upon so many other parts of scripture. Yet
strangely enough there is no evidence that the Jews of Alexandria
extended to the book their favourite methods of interpretation. The
arguments which have been adduced to prove that the Septuagint
translation implies an allegorical exegesis are inadequate;[2] and Philo
does not mention the book. Nor is there any allusion to Canticles in the
New Testament. The first trace of an allegorical view identifying Israel
with the "spouse" appears to be in the Fourth Book of Ezra, near the
close of the 1st Christian century (v. 24, 26; vii. 26). Up to this time
the canonicity of the Canticles was not unquestioned; and the final
decision as to the sanctity of the book, so energetically carried
through by R. Aqiba, when he declared that "the whole world is not worth
the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the
scriptures (or Hagiographa) are holy, but the Canticles most holy," must
be understood as being at the same time a victory of the allegorical
interpretation over the last remains of a view which regarded the poem
as simply erotic.[3]
The form in which the allegorical theory became fixed in the synagogue
is contained in the Midrash _Chazita_ and in the Targum, which is a
commentary rather than a translation. The spouse is Israel, her royal
lover the divine king, and the poem is explained as tracing the great
events of the people's history from the Exodus to the Messianic glory
and final restoration.[4]
The authority of Origen, who, according to Jerome, surpassed himself in
his commentary of ten volumes on this book, established the allegorical
theory in the Christian church in the two main forms in which it has
since prevailed. The bridegroom is Christ, the bride either the church
or the believing soul. The latter conception is, of course, that which
lends itself most readily to purposes of mystical edification, and which
has made Canticles the manual in all ages of a wide-spread type of
religious contemplation. But the other view, which identifies the bride
with the church, must be regarded as the standard of orthodox exegesis.
Of course the allegorical principle admitted of very various
modifications, and readily adapted itself to new religious developments,
such as the rise of Mariolatry. Within the limits of the orthodox
traditions the allegory took various colours, according as its mystical
or its prophetical aspect was insisted on. Among medieval commentators
of the former class S. Bernard holds a pre-eminent place; while the
second class is represented by Nicolaus de Lyra, who, himself a
converted Jew, modified the Jewish interpretation so as to find in the
book an account of the _processus ecclesiae_ under the Old and New
Testaments. The prophetic exegesis reached its culminating point in the
post-Reformation period, when Cocceius found in the Canticles a complete
conspectus of church history. But the relaxation of traditional
authority opened the door to still stranger vagaries of interpretation.
Luther was tempted to understand the book of the political relations of
Solomon and his people. Others detected the loves of Solomon and
Wisdom--a view which found a supporter in Rosenmüller.
The history of the literal interpretation begins with the great
"commentator" of the Syrian Church, Theodorus of Mopsuestia (died 429),
who condemned equally the attempt to find in the book a prophecy of the
blessings given to the church, and the idea even at that time expressed
in some quarters that the book is immoral. Theodorus regarded the
Canticles as a poem written by Solomon in answer to the complaints of
his people about his Egyptian marriage; and this was one of the heresies
charged upon him after his death, which led to his condemnation at the
second council of Constantinople (553 A.D.). A literal interpretation
was not again attempted till in 1544 Chateillon (Castellio or Castalion)
lost his regency at Geneva for proposing to expel the book from the
canon as impure. Grotius (_Annot. in V.T._, 1644) took up a more
moderate position. Without denying the possibility of a secondary
reference designed by Solomon to give his poem a more permanent value,
he regards the Canticles as primarily an [Greek: oaristys] (conjugal
prattle) between Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter. The distinction of a
primary and secondary sense gradually became current not only among the
Remonstrants, but in England (Lightfoot, Lowth) and even in Catholic
circles (Bossuet, 1693). In the actual understanding of the book in its
literal sense no great progress was made. Solomon was still viewed as
the author, and for the most part the idea that the poem is a dramatic
epithalamium was borrowed from Origen and the allegorists, and applied
to the marriage of Pharaoh's daughter.
From Grotius to Lowth the idea of a typical reference designed by
Solomon himself appears as a mere excrescence on the natural
interpretation, but as an excrescence which could not be removed without
perilling the place of Canticles in the canon, which, indeed, was again
assailed by Whiston in 1723. But in his notes on Lowth's lectures, J.D.
Michaelis, who regarded the poem as a description of the enduring
happiness of true wedded love long after marriage, proposed to drop the
allegory altogether, and to rest the canonicity of the book, as of those
parts of Proverbs which treat of conjugal affection, on the moral
picture it presents (1758).
Then came Herder's exquisite little treatise on _Solomon's Songs of
Love, the Oldest and Sweetest of the East_ (1778). Herder, possessing
delicacy of taste and sympathetic poetical genius, delighted in the
Canticles as the transparently natural expression of innocent and tender
love. He expressed the idea that the poem is simply a sequence of
independent songs without inner unity, grouped so as to display various
phases and stages of love in a natural order, culminating in the placid
joys of wedded life. The theory of Herder, which refuses to acknowledge
any continuity in the book, was accepted by Eichhorn on the part of
scholars, and with some hesitation by Goethe on the part of the poets.
Commentaries based on this view are those of Döpke (1829), Magnus
(1842), Noyes (1846).
The prevalent view of the 19th century, however, recognizes in the poem
a more or less pronounced dramatic character, and following Jacobi
(1771) distinguishes the shepherd, the true love of the Shulamite, from
King Solomon, who is made to play an ignominious part. Propounded by
Stäudlin (1792) and Ammon (1795), this view was energetically carried
out by Umbreit (1820), and above all by Ewald, whose acuteness gave the
theory a new development, while his commanding influence among Hebrew
scholars acquired for it general recognition. Ewald assumed a very
simple dramatic structure, and did not in his first publication (1826)
venture to suppose that the poem had ever been acted on a stage. His
less cautious followers have been generally tempted to dispose of
difficulties by introducing more complicated action and additional
interlocutors (so, for example, Hitzig, 1855; Ginsburg, 1857; Renan,
1860); while Böttcher (1850) did his best to reduce the dramatic
exposition to absurdity by introducing the complexities and stage
effects of a modern operetta. Another view is that of Delitzsch (1851
and 1875) and his followers, who also plead for a dramatic form--though
without supposing that the piece was ever acted--but adhere to the
traditional notion that Solomon is the author, who celebrates his love
to a peasant maiden, whom he made his wife, and in whose company the
proud monarch learned to appreciate the sweetness of a true affection
and a simple rustic life.
In view of the prevalence of the "dramatic" theory of Canticles during
the 19th century, and its retention by some comparatively recent writers
(Oettli, Driver, Adeney, Harper), it seems desirable that this theory
should be presented in some detail. A convenient summary of the form it
assumed in the hands of Ewald (the shepherd-hypothesis) and of Delitzsch
(the king-hypothesis) is given by Driver (_Literature of the Old
Testament_, ch. x. § 1). The following presentation of the theory, on
the general lines of Ewald, gives that form of it which Robertson Smith
was able to accept in 1876.
The centre of attraction is throughout a female figure, and the unity of
this figure is the chief test of the unity of the book. In the long
canto, i. 1-ii. 7, the heroine appears in a royal palace (i. 4) among the
daughters of Jerusalem, who are thus presumably ladies of the court of
Zion. At i. 9, an additional interlocutor is introduced, who is plainly a
king, and apparently Solomon (i. 9, 12). He has just risen from table,
and praises the charms of the heroine with the air of a judge of beauty,
but without warmth. He addresses her simply as "my friend" (not as
English version, "my love"). The heroine, on the contrary, is
passionately in love, but nothing can be plainer than that the object of
her affection is not the king. She is not at home in the palace, for she
explains (i. 6) that she has spent her life as a peasant girl in the care
of vineyards. Her beloved, whom she knows not where to find (i. 7), but
who lies constantly on her heart and is cherished in her bosom like a
spray of the sweet henna flowers which Oriental ladies delight to wear
(i. 13, 14), is like herself a peasant--a shepherd lad (i. 7)--with whom
she was wont to sit in the fresh greenwood under the mighty boughs of
the cedars (i. 16, 17). Even before the king's entrance the ladies of the
court are impatient at so silly an affection, and advise her, "if she is
really so witless," to begone and rejoin her plebeian lover (i. 8). To
them she appeals in ii. 5, 6, where her self-control, strung to the
highest pitch as she meets the compliments of the king with
reminiscences of her absent lover, breaks down in a fit of
half-delirious sickness. The only words directed to the king are those
of i. 12, which, if past tenses are substituted for the presents of the
English version, contain a pointed rebuff. Finally, ii. 7 is, on the
plainest translation, a charge not to arouse love till it please. The
moral of the scene is the spontaneity of true affection.
Now, at viii. 5, a female figure advances leaning upon her beloved, with
whom she claims inseparable union,--"for love is strong as death, its
passion inflexible as the grave, its fire a divine flame which no waters
can quench or floods drown. Yea, if a man would give all his wealth for
love he would only be contemned." This is obviously the sentiment of ii.
7, and the suitor, whose wealth is despised, must almost of necessity be
identified with the king of chapter i., if, as seems reasonable, we
place viii. ii, 12 in the mouth of the same speaker--"King Solomon has
vineyards which bring him a princely revenue, and enrich even the
farmers. Let him and them keep their wealth; my vineyard is before me"
(i.e. I possess it in present fruition). The last expression is plainly
to be connected with i. 6. But this happiness has not been reached
without a struggle. The speaker has proved herself an impregnable
fortress (ver. 10), and, armed only with her own beauty and innocence,
has been in his eyes as one that found peace. The sense is that, like a
virgin fortress, she has compelled her assailant to leave her in peace.
To these marks of identity with the heroine of ch. i. are to be added
that she appears here as dwelling in gardens, there as a keeper of
vineyards (i. 6, and viii. 13), and that as there it was her brethren
that prescribed her duties, so here she apparently quotes words in which
her brothers, while she was still a child, speculated as to her future
conduct and its reward (viii. 8, 9).
If this analysis of the commencement and close of the book is correct,
it is certain that the poem is in a sense dramatic, that is, that it
uses dialogue and monologue to develop a story. The heroine appears in
the opening scene in a difficult and painful situation, from which in
the last chapter she is happily extricated. But the dramatic progress
which the poem exhibits scarcely involves a plot in the usual sense of
that word. The words of viii. 9, 10 clearly indicate that the
deliverance of the heroine is due to no combination of favouring
circumstances, but to her own inflexible fidelity and virtue.
The constant direction of the maiden's mind to her true love is partly
expressed in dialogue with the ladies of the court (the daughters of
Jerusalem), who have no dramatic individuality, and whose only function
in the economy of the piece is to give the heroine opportunity for a
more varied expression of her feelings. In i. 8 we found them
contemptuous. In chapter iii. they appear to be still indifferent; for
when the heroine relates a dream in which the dull pain of separation
and the uneasy consciousness of confinement and danger in the
unsympathetic city disappear for a moment in imagined reunion with her
lover, they are either altogether silent or reply only by taking up a
festal part song describing the marriage procession of King Solomon
(iii. 6-11), which stands in jarring contrast to the feelings of the
maiden.[5] A second dream (v. 2-8), more weird and melancholy, and
constructed with that singular psychological felicity which
characterizes the dreams of the Old Testament, gains more sympathy, and
the heroine is encouraged to describe her beloved at large (v. 10-vi.
3). The structure of these dialogues is so simple, and their purpose is
so strictly limited to the exhibition of the character and affection of
the maiden, that it is only natural to find them supplemented by a free
use of pure monologue, in which the heroine recalls the happiness of
past days, or expresses her rising hope of reunion with her shepherd,
and restoration to the simple joys of her rustic life. The vivid
reminiscence of ii. 8-17 takes the form of a dialogue within the main
dialogue of the poem, a picture within a picture--the picture of her
beloved as he stood at her window in the early spring time, and of her
own merry heart as she laughingly answered him in the song with which
watchers of the vineyards frighten away the foxes. It is, of course, a
fault of perspective that this reminiscence is as sharp in outline and
as strong in colour as the main action. But no one can expect
perspective in such early art, and recollection of the past is clearly
enough separated from present reality by ii. 16, 17. The last monologue
(vii. 10-viii. 3), in which the hope of immediate return with her lover
is tempered by maidenly shame, and a maiden's desire for her mother's
counsel, is of special value for a right appreciation of the psychology
of the love which the poem celebrates, and completes a picture of this
flower of the northern valleys which is not only firm in outline, but
delicate in touch. The subordinate action which supports the portraiture
of the maiden of Galilee is by no means easy to understand.
We come next to chapter vi., which again sings the praises of the
heroine, and takes occasion in this connexion to introduce, with the
same want of perspective as we observed in ch. ii., a dialogue
descriptive of Solomon's first meeting with the maiden. We learn that
she was an inhabitant of Shulem or Shunem in Issachar, whom the king and
his train surprised in a garden on the occasion of a royal progress
through the north. Her beauty drew from the ladies of the court a cry of
admiration. The maiden shrinks back with the reply--"I was gone down
into my garden to see its growth.... I know not how my soul hath brought
me among the chariots of princes"; but she is commanded to turn and let
herself be seen in spite of her bashful protest--"Why do ye gaze on the
Shulamite as at a dance of Mahanaim (a spectacle)?" Now the person in
whose mouth this relation is placed must be an eye-witness of the scene,
and so none other than the king. But in spite of the verbal repetition
of several of the figures of ch. iv.... the tone in which the king now
addresses the Shulamite is quite changed. She is not only beautiful but
terrible, her eyes trouble him, and he cannot endure their gaze. She is
unique among women, the choice and only one of her mother. The unity of
action can only be maintained by ignoring vii. 1-9, and taking the words
of Solomon in chapter vi. in their obvious sense as implying that the
king at length recognizes in the maiden qualities of soul unknown in the
harem, a character which compels respect, as well as a beauty that
inflames desire. The change of feeling which was wrought in the
daughters of Jerusalem in the previous scene now extends to Solomon
himself, and thus the glad utterances of vii. 10, seq., have a
sufficient motive, and the _dénouement_ is no longer violent and
unprepared.
The _nodus_ of the action is fully given in chapter i., the final issue
in chapter viii. The solution lies entirely in the character and
constancy of the heroine, which prevail, in the simplest possible way,
first over the ladies of the court and then over the king.
The attractiveness of the above theory cannot be denied; but it may be
asked whether the attraction does not lie in the appeal to modern taste
of a story which is largely the product of modern imagination. It
supposes a freedom of intercourse between lovers inconceivable for the
East. The initial situation of the maiden in the harem of Solomon is
left as a problem for the reader to discover, until he comes to its
supposed origin in vi. 11; the expedient might be granted in the case of
one of Browning's _Men and Women_, but seems very improbable in the
present case. The more elaborate dramatic theories can find no parallel
in Semitic literature to the "drama" of Canticles, the book of Job being
no exception to this statement; whilst even the simpler theories ask us
to believe that the essential parts of the story--the rape of the
Shulamite, the change in Solomon's disposition, her release from the
harem--are to be supplied by the reader from obscure and disputable
references. More serious still is the fact that any progress of action
from first to last is so difficult to prove. In the first chapter we
listen to a woman speaker desiring to be kissed by the man who has
brought her into his chambers, and speaking of "our bed"; in the last we
leave her "leaning upon her beloved." The difficulties of detail are
equally great. To suppose that all the male love-making, by hypothesis
unsuccessful, belongs to Solomon, whilst the heroine addresses her
passionate words to the continuously absent shepherd, is obviously
unconvincing; yet, if this shepherd speaks in iv. 8-v. 1, how are we to
explain his appearance in the royal harem? This and other difficulties
were acknowledged by Robertson Smith, notably the presence of vii. 1-9,
which he proposed to set aside as an interpolation, because of its
sensuality and of the difficulty of working it into the dramatic scheme.
The fact that this passage has subsequently become the central element
in the new interpretation of the book is, perhaps, a warning against
violent measures with difficulties.
Attention has already been drawn to Herder's proposal, accepted by some
later writers, including Diestel and Reuss, to regard the book as a
collection of detached songs. This received new and striking
confirmation from the anthropological data supplied by J.G. Wetstein
(1873), Prussian consul at Damascus. His observations of the wedding
customs of Syrian peasants led him to believe that Canticles is
substantially a collection of songs originally sung at such festivities.
Wetstein's contribution was republished shortly afterwards by Delitzsch,
in an appendix to his _Commentary_; but it received little attention.
The first amongst Old Testament scholars to perceive its importance
seems to have been Stade, who accepted Wetstein's view in a footnote to
his _History of the Jewish People_ (ii. p. 197), published in 1888; to
Budde, however, belongs the distinction of the systematic and detailed
use of Wetstein's suggestions, especially in his _Commentary_ (1898).
This interpretation of the book is accepted by Kautzsch (1896),
Siegfried (1898), Cheyne (1899), and other eminent scholars. The
last-named states the theory tersely as follows: "The book is an
anthology of songs used at marriage festivals in or near Jerusalem,
revised and loosely connected by an editor without regard to temporal
sequence" (_Ency. Bibl._ 691). The character of the evidence which has
contributed to the acceptance of this view may be indicated in
Wetstein's own statements:--
"The finest time in the life of the Syrian peasant consists of the
first seven days after his wedding, in which he and his young wife
play the part of king (_melik_) and queen (_melika_), both being so
treated and served by their village and the invited communities of the
neighbourhood. The majority of the greater village weddings fall in
the month of March, the finest of the Syrian year. The winter rains
being over, and the sun still refreshing, not oppressive as in the
following months, the weddings are celebrated in the open air on the
village threshing-floor, which at this time of the year is with few
exceptions a flowery mead. ...We pass over the wedding-day itself with
its displays, the sword-dance of the bride, and the great feast. On
the morrow, bridegroom and bride awake as king and queen. Already
before sunrise they receive the leader of the bridesmen, as their
vizier, and the bridesmen themselves; the latter thereupon fetch the
threshing-board and bring it to the threshing-floor, singing a rousing
song of battle or love, generally both. There it is erected as a
throne, and after the royal couple have taken their seats and the
necessary formalities are gone through, a great dance in honour of the
young couple begins; the accompanying song is concerned only with
themselves, its principal element being the inevitable _wasf_, i.e. a
description of the physical perfections of both and their ornaments.
The eulogy of the queen is more moderate, and praises her visible,
rather than veiled, charms; this is due to the fact that she is to-day
a married woman, and that the _wasf_ sung on the previous day during
her sword-dance has left nothing to desire. This _wasf_ is the weak
element in Syrian wedding-songs according to our taste; its
comparisons are to us frequently too clumsy and reveal the stereotyped
pattern. It is the same with the little collection of charming
wedding-songs and fragments of them which has been received into the
canon of the Old Testament under the name of Canticles; the _wasf_
(iv.--vii.) is considerably below the rest in poetical value. With
this dance begin the sports, lasting seven days, begun in the morning
on the first, shortly before midday on the other days, and continuing
far into the night by the light of the fires that are kindled; on the
last day alone all is over by sunset. During the whole week both
royalties are in marriage attire, must do no work and have no cares;
they have only to look down from the _merteba_ (throne) on the sports
carried on before them, in which they themselves take but a moderate
part; the queen, however, occasionally gives a short dance to attract
attention to her bridal attire."[6]
For the general application of these and the related customs to the
interpretation of the book, reference should be made to Budde's
_Commentary_, which recognizes four _wasfs_, viz. iv. 1-7 (describing
the bride from head to breasts), v. 10-16 (the bridegroom), vi. 4-7
(similar to and partly repeating iv. 1-7), and vii. 1-9, belonging to
the sword-dance of the bride, her physical charms being sung from feet
to head (cf. vii. 1; "Why look ye on the Shulamite as (on) a dance of
camps?" i.e. a war-dance). This dance receives its name from the fact
that she dances it with a sword in her hand in the firelight on the
evening of her wedding-day, and amid a circle of men and women, whilst
such a _wasf_ as this is sung by the leader of the choir. The passage
relating to the litter of Solomon (iii. 6-11)--an old difficulty with
the dramatizers--relates to the erection of the throne on the
threshing-floor.[7] The terms "Solomon" and "the Shulamite" are
explained as figurative references to the famous king, and to Abishag
the Shulamite, "fairest among women," on the lines of the use of "king"
and "queen" noted above. Other songs of Canticles are referred by Budde
to the seven days of festivities. It need hardly be said that
difficulties still remain in the analysis of this book of wedding-songs;
whilst Budde detects 23 songs, besides fragments, Siegfried divides the
book into 10.[8] Such differences are to be expected in the case of a
collection of songs, some admittedly in dialogue form, all concerned
with the common theme of the love of man and woman, and without any
external indication of the transition from one song to the next.
Further, we must ask whether the task has been complicated by any
editorial rearrangement or interpolation; the collector of these songs
has certainly not reproduced them in the order of their use at Syrian
weddings. Can we trace any principle, or even any dominant thought in
this arrangement? In this connexion we touch the reason for the
reluctance of some scholars to accept the above interpretation, viz. the
alleged marks of literary unity which the book contains (e.g. Driver,
_loc. cit._). These are (1) general similarity of treatment, seen in the
use of imagery (the bride as a garden, iv. 12; vi. 2, 3), the frequent
references to nature and to particular places, and the recurrence of
descriptions of male and female beauty; (2) references to "Solomon" or
"the king," to "the Shulamite" and to "the daughters of Jerusalem" (from
which, indeed, the dramatic theory has found its chief inspiration); (3)
indications that the same person is speaking in different places (cf.
the two dreams of a woman, and the vineyard references, i. 6; viii. 12);
(4) repetitions of words and phrases especially of the refrains,
"disturb not love" (ii. 7; iii. 5; viii. 4), and "until the day break"
(ii. 17; iv. 6). But of these (1) is no more than should be expected,
since the songs all relate to the same subject, and spring from a common
world of life and thought of the same group of people; (2) finds at
least a partial parallel and explanation in the use of "king" and
"queen" noted above; whilst (3) and (4) alone seem to require something
more than the work of a mere collector of the songs. It is, of course,
true that, in recurrent ceremonies, the same thought inevitably tends to
find expression in the same words. But this hardly meets the case of the
refrains, whilst the reference to the vineyard at beginning and end does
suggest some literary connexion. It is to be noted that the three
refrains "disturb not love" severally follow passages relating to the
consummation of the sexual relation, whilst the two refrains "until the
day break" appear to form an invitation and an answer in the same
connexion, whilst the "Omnia vincit Amor" passage in the last chapter
forms a natural climax (cf. Haupt's translation). So far, then, as this
somewhat scanty evidence goes, it may point to some one hand which has
given its semblance of unity to the book by underlining the joy of
consummated love--to which the vineyard and garden figures throughout
allude--and by so arranging the collection that the descriptions of this
joy find their climax in viii. 6-7.[9]
Whatever conclusion, however, may be reached as to the present
_arrangement_ of Canticles, the recognition of wedding-songs as forming
its nucleus marks an important stage in the interpretation of the book;
even Rothstein (1902), whilst attempting to resuscitate a dramatic
theory, "recognizes ... the possibility that older wedding-songs (as,
for instance, the _wasfs_) are worked up in the Song of Songs"
(Hastings' _D.B._ p. 594b). The drama he endeavours to construct might,
indeed, be called "The Tokens of Virginity," since he makes it culminate
in the procedure of Deut. xxii. 13 f., which still forms part of the
Syrian ceremonies. But his reconstruction is open to the same objection
as all similar attempts, in that the vital moments of the dramatic
action have to be supplied from without. Thus between v. 1 and v. 2, the
baffled king is supposed to have disappeared, and to have been replaced
by the happy lover; between viii. 7 and viii. 8, we are required to
imagine "the bridal night and its mysteries"; whilst between viii. 9 and
viii. 10, we must suppose the evidence that the bride has been found a
virgin is exhibited. He also attempts, with considerable ingenuity, to
trace the legend involved in the supposed drama to the fact that Abishag
remained a virgin in regard to David (1 Kings i. 4) whilst nothing is
said of her marriage to Solomon.[10]
On the view accepted above, Canticles describes in a number of separate
poems the central passion of human life, and is wholly without didactic
tendencies. Of its earliest history as a book we have no information. It
is already included in the Hebrew canon (though its right to be there is
disputed) when the first explicit mention of the book occurs. We have no
evidence, therefore, of the theory of interpretation prevalent at the
time of its incorporation with the other books of the canon. It seems,
however, fair to infer that it would hardly have found acceptance but
for a Solomonic theory of authorship and a "religious" theory of
meaning. The problem raised by its present place in the canon occurs in
relation to mistaken Jewish theories about other books also; it
suggests, at least, that divine inspiration may belong to the life of a
people rather than to the letter of their literature. Of that life
Canticles portrays a central element--the passion of love--in striking
imagery and graceful language, however far its oriental standard of
taste differs from that of the modern West.
From the nature of the book, it is impossible to assign a precise date
for its origin; the wedding-songs of which it chiefly consists must
belong to the folklore of more than one century. The only evidence we
possess as to date is drawn from the character of the Hebrew in which
the book is written, which shows frequent points of contact with new
Hebrew.[11] On this ground, we may suppose the present form of the work
to date from the Greek period, i.e. after 332 B.C. This is the date
accepted by most recent writers, e.g. Kautzsch, Cheyne, Budde,
Rothstein, Jacob, Haupt. This late date finds some confirmation in the
fact that Canticles belongs to the third and latest part of the Old
Testament canon, and that its canonicity was still in dispute at the end
of the 1st century A.D. The evidence offered for a north Israelite
origin, on the ground of linguistic parallels and topographical
familiarity (Driver, _loc. cit._), does not seem very convincing; Haupt,
however, places the compilation of the book in the neighbourhood of
Damascus.
LITERATURE.--Most of the older books of importance are named above;
Ginsburg, _The Song of Songs_ (1857), gives much information as to the
history of the exegesis of Canticles; Diestel's article, "Hohes Lied,"
in Schenkel's _Bibel Lexikon_ (1871), reviews well the history of
interpretation prior to Wetstein; cf. also Riedel, _Die Auslegung des
Hohenliedes in der jüdischen Gemeinde und der griechischen Kirche_
(1898). The most important commentary is that by Budde, in Marti's
_Kurzer Hand-Commentar (Die fünf Megilloth)_ (1898), where references
to the literature of the 19th century are given. To his list add
Siegfried, "Prediger und Hoheslied," in Nowack's _Handkommentar_
(1898); Cheyne's article "Canticles," in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_
(1899); Dalman, _Palästinischer Diwan_ (1901), parallels to the songs;
Rothstein's article, "Song of Songs," in Hastings' _Dictionary of the
Bible_ (1902); G. Jacob, _Das Hohelied auf Grund arabischer und
anderer Parallelen von neuem Untersucht_ (1902); A. Harper, _The Song
of Songs_ (1902); Haupt, "The Book of Canticles," in _The American
Journal of Semitic Languages_ (July 1902); Scholz, _Kommentar über das
Hohelied und Psalm 45_ (1904) (written from the Roman Catholic
dogmatic standpoint of allegorical interpretation, with a vigorous
criticism of other positions). No commentator in English, except
Haupt, in the article named above, has yet worked on the lines of the
above anthology theory. Haupt gives valuable notes, with a translation
and rearrangement of the separate songs. (W. R. S.; H. W. R.*)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] An argument for the allegorical interpretation has been often
drawn from Mahommedan mysticism--from the poems of Hafiz, and the
songs still sung by dervishes. See Jones, _Poëseos Asiaticae Com._
pt. in. cap. 9; Rosenmüller's remarks on Lowth's _Praelectio_, xxxi.,
and Lane's _Modern Egyptians_, ch. xxiv. But there is no true analogy
between the Old Testament and the pantheistic mysticism of Islam, and
there is every reason to believe that, where the allegory takes a
form really analogous to Canticles, the original sense of these songs
was purely erotic.
[2] Repeated recently by Scholz, _Kommentar_, pp. iii. and iv.
[3] The chief passages of Jewish writings referring to this dispute
are Mishna _Jadaim_, iii. 5 and Tosifta _Sanhedrin_, xii. For other
passages see Grätz's _Commentary_, p. 115, and in control of his
criticism the introduction to the commentary of Delitzsch.
[4] The text of the Targum in the Polyglots and in Buxtorf's Rabbinic
Bible is not complete. The complete text is given in the Venice
editions, and in Lagarde's _Hagiographa Chaldaice_ (Lipsiae, 1873).
The Polyglots add a Latin version. A German version is given by
Riedel in his very useful book, _Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes_
(1898), which also reviews the interpretation of Canticles by
Hippolytus, Origen and later Greek writers.
[5] Ewald and others make this song a distinct scene in the action of
the poem, supposing that the author here exhibits the honourable form
of espousal by which Solomon thought to vanquish the scruples of the
damsel. This view, however, seems to introduce a complication foreign
to the plan of the book.
[6] Wetstein, _Zeitschrift f. Ethn._, 1873, pp. 270-302; quoted and
condensed by Budde as above in _Comm_. p. xvii.; for a fuller
reproduction of Wetstein in English see Harper, _The Song of Songs_,
pp. 74-76.
[7] For the connexion of the threshing-floor with marriage through
the idea of sexual fertility, we may compare many primitive ideas and
customs, such as those described by Frazer (_The Golden Bough_, ii.
p. 181 f., 186).
[8] Castelli (_Il Cantico dei Cantici_, 1892) has written a very
attractive little book on Canticles (quite apart from the Wetstein
development) regarded as "a poem formed by a number of dialogues
mutually related by a certain succession"; they require for their
understanding nothing but some indication of the speaker at each
transition (such as we find in codex A of the Septuagint).
[9] On the erotic meaning of many of the figures employed see the
notes of Haupt in _The American Journal of Semitic Languages_ (July
1902); also G. Jacob, _Das Hohelied_ (1902), who rightly protests
against the limitation in the _Comm_. of Budde and Siegfried (p. 10)
of all the songs to the marriage relation. Haupt thinks that the
songs were not originally composed for weddings, though used there
(p. 207, _op. cit._). Diestel had pointed out, in another connexion
(_B.L._ 125), that nothing is said in the book of the blessing of
children, the chief end of _marriage_ from a Hebrew standpoint.
[10] Rothstein's criticism of Budde turns chiefly on the latter's
admission of redactional elements, introducing "movement and action,"
and may be summed up in the statement that "Budde himself by the
characteristics he assigns to the redactor points the way again past
his own hypothesis to the dramatical view of the Song" (_loc cit._
594b). A. Harper, "The Song of Songs" (_Cambridge Bible_) also
criticizes Budde at length in favour of the conventional dramatical
theory (Appendix).
[11] _E.g._ the late form of the relative pronoun used throughout
except in title; foreign words, Persian and Greek; Aramaic words and
usages (details in the _Comm_. or in _E.B._ 693).
CANTILEVER (a word of doubtful origin, probably derived from "lever," in
its ordinary meaning, and "cant," an angle or edge, or else from modern
Lat. _quanta libra_, of what weight), a building term for a stone, iron
or wooden bracket, considerably greater in length than depth, used to
support a gallery, &c.; and for a system of bridge-building (see
BRIDGES).
CANTILUPE, THOMAS DE (c. 1218-1282), English saint and prelate, was a
son of William de Cantilupe, the 2nd baron (d. 1251), one of King John's
ministers, and a nephew of Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester. He
was educated at Paris and Orleans, afterwards becoming a teacher of
canon law at Oxford and chancellor of the university in 1262. During the
Barons' War Thomas favoured Simon de Montfort and the baronial party. He
represented the barons before St Louis of France at Amiens in 1264; he
was made chancellor of England in February 1265, but was deprived of
this office after Montfort's death at Evesham, and lived out of England
for some time. Returning to England, he was again chancellor of Oxford
University, lectured on theology, and held several ecclesiastical
appointments. In 1274 he attended the second council of Lyons, and in
1275 he was appointed bishop of Hereford. Cantilupe was now a trusted
adviser of Edward I.; he attended the royal councils, and even when
differing from the king did not forfeit his favour. The archbishop of
Canterbury, Robert Kilwardby, was also his friend; but after Kilwardby's
death in 1279 a series of disputes arose between the bishop and the new
archbishop, John Peckham, and this was probably the cause which drove
Cantilupe to visit Italy. He died at Orvieto, on the 25th of August
1282, and he was canonized in 1330. Cantilupe appears to have been an
exemplary bishop both in spiritual and secular affairs. His charities
were large and his private life blameless; he was constantly visiting
his diocese, correcting offenders and discharging other episcopal
duties; and he compelled neighbouring landholders to restore estates
which rightly belonged to the see of Hereford. In 1905 the Cantilupe
Society was founded to publish the episcopal registers of Hereford, of
which Cantilupe's is the first in existence.
See the _Ada Sanctorum, Boll._, 1st October; and the _Register of
Thomas de Cantilupe_, with introduction by W.W. Capes (1906).
CANTILUPE, WALTER DE (d. 1265), bishop of Worcester, came of a family
which had risen by devoted service to the crown. His father and his
elder brother are named by Roger of Wendover among the "evil
counsellors" of John, apparently for no better reason than that they
were consistently loyal to an unpopular master. Walter at first followed
in his father's footsteps, entering the service of the Exchequer and
acting as an itinerant justice in the early years of Henry III. But he
also took minor orders, and, in 1236, although not yet a deacon,
received the see of Worcester. As bishop, he identified himself with the
party of ecclesiastical reform, which was then led by Edmund Rich and
Robert Grosseteste. Like his leaders he was sorely divided between his
theoretical belief in the papacy as a divine institution and his
instinctive condemnation of the policy which Gregory IX. and Innocent
IV. pursued in their dealings with the English church. At first a court
favourite, the bishop came at length to the belief that the evils of the
time arose from the unprincipled alliance of crown and papacy. He raised
his voice against papal demands for money, and after the death of
Grosseteste (1253) was the chief spokesman of the nationalist clergy. At
the parliament of Oxford (1258) he was elected by the popular party as
one of their representatives on the committee of twenty-four which
undertook to reform the administration; from that time till the outbreak
of civil war he was a man of mark in the councils of the baronial party.
During the war he sided with Montfort and, through his nephew, Thomas,
who was then chancellor of Oxford, brought over the university to the
popular side. He was present at Lewes and blessed the Montfortians
before they joined battle with the army of the king; he entertained
Simon de Montfort on the night before the final rout of Evesham. During
Simon's dictatorship, the bishop appeared only as a mediating influence;
in the triumvirate of "Electors" who controlled the administration, the
clergy were represented by the bishop of Chichester. Walter de Cantilupe
died in the year after Evesham (1266). He was respected by all parties,
and, though far inferior in versatility and force of will to
Grosseteste, fully merits the admiration which his moral character
inspired. He is one of the few constitutionalists of his day whom it is
impossible to accuse of interested motives.
See the _Chronica Maiora_ of Matthew Paris ("Rolls" series, ed.
Luard); the _Chronicon de Bellis_ (ed. Halliwell, Camden Society); and
the _Annales Monastici_ ("Rolls" series, ed. Luard); also T.F. Tout
in the _Political History of England_, vol. iii. (1905).
CANTO (from the Lat. _cantus_, a song), one of the divisions of a long
poem, a convenient division when poetry was more usually sung by the
minstrel to his own accompaniment than read. In music, the _canto_, in a
concerted piece, is that part to which the air is given. In modern
music this is nearly always the soprano. The old masters, however, more
frequently allotted it to the tenor. _Canto fermo_, or _cantus firmus_,
is that part of the melody which remains true to the original motive,
while the other parts vary with the counterpoint; also in Church music
the simple straightforward melody of the old chants as opposed to _canto
figurato_, which is full of embellishments of a florid character (see
PLAIN SONG).
CANTON, JOHN (1718-1772), English natural philosopher, was born at
Stroud, Gloucestershire, on the 31st of July 1718. At the age of
nineteen, he was articled for five years as clerk to the master of a
school in Spital Square, London, with whom at the end of that time he
entered into partnership. In 1750 he read a paper before the Royal
Society on a method of making artificial magnets, which procured him
election as a fellow of the society and the award of the Copley medal.
He was the first in England to verify Benjamin Franklin's hypothesis of
the identity of lightning and electricity, and he made several important
electrical discoveries. In 1762 and 1764 he published experiments in
refutation of the decision of the Florentine Academy, at that time
generally accepted, that water is incompressible; and in 1768 he
described the preparation, by calcining oyster-shell with sulphur, of
the phosphorescent material known as Canton's phosphorus. His
investigations were carried on without any intermission of his work as a
schoolmaster. He died in London on the 22nd of March 1772.
CANTON (more correctly KWANG-CHOW FU), a large and populous commercial
city of China, in the province of Kwangtung, situated on the eastern
bank of the Pearl river, which at Canton is somewhat broader than the
Thames at London Bridge, and is navigable 300 m. into the interior. The
Pearl river has an additional course of 80 m. to the sea, the first part
of which lies through a rich alluvial plain. Beyond this rises a range
of hills terminating in abrupt escarpments along the course of the
river. The bold shore thus formed compresses the stream at this point
into a narrow pass, to which the Chinese have given the name of Hu-mun,
or Tiger's Gate. This the Portuguese translated into Boca Tigre, whence
the designation of "the Bogue," by which it is commonly known among
Europeans. When viewed from the hills on the north, Canton appears to be
little more than an expanse of reddish roofs relieved by a few large
trees,--two pagodas shooting up within the walls, and a five-storeyed
tower near the northern gate, being the most conspicuous objects. These
hills rise 1200 ft. above the river. Little or no vegetation is seen on
them; and their acclivities, covered for miles with graves and tombs,
serve as the necropolis of this vast city. Three or four forts are built
on the points nearest the northern walls. Facing the city on the
opposite side of the river is the suburb and island of Honan. The part
of Canton enclosed by walls is about 6 m. in circumference, and has a
partition wall, running east and west, and dividing the city into two
unequal parts. The northern and larger division is called the old, and
the southern the new city. Including the suburbs, the city has a circuit
of nearly 10 m. The houses stretch along the river for 4 m., and the
banks are almost entirely concealed by boats and rafts. The walls of the
city are of brick, on a foundation of sandstone and granite, are 20 ft.
thick, and rise to an average height of 25 ft. On the north side the
wall rises to include a hill which it there meets with, and on the other
three sides the city is surrounded by a ditch, which is filled by the
rising tide, when, for a time, the revolting mass of filth that lies in
its bed is concealed from view. There are twelve outer gates--four of
which are in the partition wall, and two water gates, through which
boats pass from east to west across the new city. The gates are all shut
at night, and in the daytime a guard is stationed at them to preserve
order. The streets, amounting in all to upwards of 600, are long,
straight, and very narrow. They are mostly paved and are not as dirty as
those of some of the other cities in the empire; in fact, considering
the habits of the people and the inattention of the government to these
matters, Canton may be said to be a well-governed and comparatively
cleanly city. The houses are in general small, seldom consisting of more
than two storeys, the ground floor serving as a shop, and the rest of
the house, with the court behind, being used as a warehouse. Here are to
be found the productions of every quarter of the globe; and the
merchants are in general attentive, civil, expert men of business, and
generally assiduous.
The temples and public buildings of Canton are numerous, but none of
them presents features worthy of special remark. There are two pagodas
near the west gate of the old city, and 124 temples, pavilions, halls
and other religious edifices within the city. One of the pagodas called
the _Kwangtah_, or Plain Pagoda, is a Mahommedan mosque, which was
erected by the Arabian voyagers who were in the habit of visiting Canton
about ten centuries ago. It rises in an angular tapering tower to the
height of 160 ft. The other is an octagonal pagoda of nine storeys, 170
ft. in height, and was first erected more than thirteen centuries ago. A
Buddhist temple at Honan, opposite the foreign factories, and named in
Chinese _Hai-ch'wang-sze_, or the Temple of the Ocean Banner, is one of
the largest in Canton. Its grounds, which cover about seven acres, are
surrounded by a wall, and are divided into courts, gardens and a
burial-ground, where are deposited the ashes of priests, whose bodies
are burned. There are about 175 priests connected with this
establishment. Besides the _Hai-ch'wang-sze_ the most noteworthy temples
in and about the city are those of the Five Hundred Gods and of
Longevity, both in the western suburbs; the Tatar City Temple and the
Temple of the Five Genii. The number of priests and nuns in Canton is
not exactly known, but they probably exceed 2000, nine-tenths of whom
are Buddhists. The temples are gloomy-looking edifices. The areas in
front of them are usually occupied by hucksters, beggars and idlers, who
are occasionally driven off to make room for the mat-sheds in which the
theatrical performances got up by the wealthy inhabitants are acted. The
principal hall, where the idol sits enshrined, is lighted only in front,
and the inner apartments are inhabited by a class of men almost as
senseless as the idols they serve.
The residences of the high officers of government are all within the
walls of the old city. The residence of the governor-general used to be
in the south-west corner of the new city, but it was utterly destroyed by
the bombardment in 1856. The site remained desolate until 1860, when it
was taken possession of by the French authorities, who erected a Roman
Catholic cathedral upon it. The residence of the commander-in-chief is in
the old city, and is said to be one of the best houses in Canton. There
are four prisons in the city, all large edifices. For the space of 4 or 5
m. opposite Canton boats and vessels are ranged parallel to each other in
such close order as to resemble a floating city; and these marine
dwellings are occupied by numerous families, who reside almost constantly
on the water. In the middle of the river lie the Chinese junks, some of
them of from 600 to 1000 tons burden, which trade to the north and to the
Strait Settlements. The various gilds and associations among the people
and the merchants from other provinces have public halls each for its own
particular use. The number of these buildings is not less than 150.
Canton was long the only seat of British trade with China, and was no
doubt fixed upon by the Chinese government for the European trade, as
being the most distant from the capital Peking.
Formerly only a limited number of merchants, called the _hong_ or
security merchants, were allowed to trade with foreigners. They were
commonly men of large property and were famed for integrity in their
transactions. All foreign cargoes passed through the hands of these
merchants, and by them also the return cargoes were furnished. They
became security for the payment of customs duties, and it was criminal
for any other merchant to engage in the trade with foreigners.
Although it is in the same parallel of latitude as Calcutta, the climate
of Canton is much cooler, and is considered superior to that of most
places situated between the tropics. The extreme range of the
thermometer is from 38° to 100° F., though these extremes are rarely
reached. In ordinary years the winter minimum is about 42° and the
maximum in summer 96°. The hot season is considered to last from May to
October; during the rest of the year the weather is cool. In shallow
vessels ice sometimes forms at Canton; but so rarely is snow seen that
when in February 1835 a fall to the depth of 2 in. occurred, the
citizens hardly knew its proper name. Most of the rain falls during May
and June, but the amount is nothing in comparison with that which falls
during a rainy season in Calcutta. July, August and September are the
regular monsoon months, the wind coming from the south-west with
frequent showers, which allay the heat. In the succeeding months the
northerly winds begin, with some interruptions at first, but from
October to January the temperature is agreeable, the sky clear and the
air invigorating. Few large cities are more generally healthy than
Canton, and epidemics rarely prevail there.
Provisions and refreshments of all sorts are abundant, and in general
are excellent in quality and moderate in price. It is a singular fact
that the Chinese make no use of milk, either in its natural state or in
the form of butter or cheese. Among the delicacies of a Chinese market
are to be seen horse-flesh, dogs, cats, hawks, owls and edible
birds'-nests. The business between foreigners and natives at Canton is
generally transacted in a jargon known as "pidgin English," the Chinese
being extremely ready in acquiring a sufficient smattering of English
words to render themselves intelligible.
The intercourse between China and Europe by the way of the Cape of Good
Hope began in 1517, when Emanuel, king of Portugal, sent an ambassador,
accompanied by a fleet of eight ships, to Peking, on which occasion the
sanction of the emperor to establish a trade at Canton was obtained. It
was in 1596, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that the English first
attempted to open an intercourse with China, but ineffectually, for the
two ships which were despatched on this mission were lost on the outward
voyage, and it was not till about 1634 that English ships visited
Canton. Unfortunately at this time a misunderstanding having occurred
with the Chinese authorities owing to the treachery of the Portuguese, a
rupture and a battle took place, and it was with difficulty that peace
was again restored. In 1673 China was again visited by an English ship
which was subsequently refused admission into Japan, and in 1677 a
factory was established at Amoy. But during an irruption of the Tatars
three years later this building was destroyed, and it was not till 1685
that the emperor permitted any trade with Europeans at that port. Upon
the union of the two East India Companies in London, an imperial edict
was issued, restricting the foreign commerce to the port of Canton.
Tea was first imported into England about the year 1667, and in 1689 a
customs duty of 5s. per lb was for the first time imposed. From this
date to 1834 the East India Company held a monopolv of the trade at
Canton, and during this period the prosperity of the port increased and
multiplied, notwithstanding the obstructions which were constantly
thrown in the way of the "barbarians" by the Chinese government. The
termination of the Company's monopoly brought no alteration in the
conduct of the native authorities, whose oppressions became before long
so unbearable that in 1839 war was declared on the part of Great
Britain. In 1841, while the forces under Sir Hugh (afterwards Lord)
Gough were preparing to capture Canton, Captain Elliott entered into
negotiations with the Chinese, and consented to receive a pecuniary
ransom in lieu of occupying the city. Meanwhile the war was carried on
in central China, and finally resulted in the conclusion of the Nanking
treaty in August 1842, under the terms of which four additional ports,
viz. Shanghai, Ningpo, Fu-chow and Amoy, were thrown open to foreign
trade, and foreigners were granted permission to enter the city of
Canton, from which they had hitherto been excluded. This latter
provision of the treaty, however, the Chinese refused to carry out; and
after endless disputes about this and other improper acts of the Chinese
government, war was again declared in 1856, the immediate cause of which
was an insult offered to the British flag by the capture of certain
Chinese on board the "Arrow," a small craft trading under English
colours. The outbreak of hostilities was followed by the pillage and
destruction of the foreign "factories" in December 1856 by a Chinese
mob, and twelve months later Canton was taken by assault by a force
under Sir Charles Straubenzee, which had been sent out from England for
the purpose. From this time until October 1861 the city was occupied by
an English and French garrison, and the administration of affairs was
entrusted to an allied commission, consisting of two English officers
and one French officer, acting under the English general. Since the
withdrawal of this garrison, the city of Canton has been freely open to
foreigners of all nationalities, and the English consul has his
residence in the Yamun formerly occupied by the allied commissioners,
within the city walls.
On the conclusion of peace it became necessary to provide a foreign
settlement for the merchants whose "factories" had been destroyed, and
after some consultation it was determined to fill in and appropriate as
the British settlement an extensive mud flat lying to the westward of
the old factory site, and known as Sha-mien or "The Sand Flats." This
site having been leased, it was converted into an artificial island by
building a massive embankment of granite in an irregular oval form.
Between the northern face of the site and the Chinese suburb a canal of
100 ft. in width was constructed, thus forming an island of about 2850
ft. in length and 950 ft. in greatest breadth. The expense of making
this settlement was 325,000 Mexican dollars, four-fifths of which were
defrayed by the British government and one-fifth by the French
government. The British portion of the new settlement was laid out in
eighty-two lots; and so bright appeared the prospect of trade at the
time of their sale that 9000 dollars and upwards was paid in more than
one instance for a lot with a river frontage, measuring 12,645 sq. ft.
The depression in trade, however, which soon followed acted as a bar to
building, and it was not until the British consulate was erected in 1865
that the merchants began to occupy the settlement in any numbers. The
British consulate occupies six lots, with an area of 75,870 sq. ft. in
the centre of the site, overlooking the river, and is enclosed with a
substantial wall. A ground-rent of 15,000 cash (about £3) per _mow_ (a
third of an acre) is annually paid by the owners of lots to the Chinese
government.
The Sha-mien settlement possesses many advantages. It is close to the
western suburb of Canton, where reside all the wholesale dealers as well
as the principal merchants and brokers; it faces the broad channel known
as the Macao Passage, up which the cool breezes in summer are wafted
almost uninterruptedly, and the river opposite to it affords a safe and
commodious anchorage for steamers up to 1000 tons burden. Steamers only
are allowed to come up to Canton, sailing vessels being restricted to
the anchorage at Whampoa. There is daily communication by steamer with
Hong-Kong, and with the Portuguese colony of Macao which lies near the
mouth of the river. Inland communication by steam is now open by the
west river route to the cities of Wuchow and Nanking. The opening of
these inland towns to foreign trade, which has been effected, cannot but
add considerably to the volume of Canton traffic. The native population
is variously estimated at from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000, the former being
probably nearer the truth. The foreign residents number about 400.
Canton is the headquarters of the provincial government of Kwangtung and
Kwangsi, generally termed the two Kwang, at the head of which is a
governor-general or viceroy, an office which next to that of Nanking is
the most important in the empire. It possesses a mint built in 1889 by
the then viceroy Chang Chih-tung, and equipped with a very complete
plant supplied from England. It turns out silver subsidiary coinage and
copper cash. Contracts have been entered into to connect Canton by
railway with Hong-Kong (Kowlun), and by a grand trunk line with Hankow
on the Yangtsze. It is connected by telegraph with all parts. The value
of the trade of Canton for the year 1904 was £13,749,582, £7,555,090 of
which represented imports and £6,194,490 exports. (R. K. D.)
CANTON, a city of Fulton county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the W. part of the
state, 12 m. N. of the Illinois river, and 28 m. S.W. of Peoria. Pop.
(1890) 5604; (1900) 6564 (424 foreign-born); (1910) 10,453. Canton is
served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Toledo, Peoria &
Western, and the Illinois Central Electric Interurban railways. About 1
m. from the centre of the city are the Canton Chautauqua grounds. The
city has a public library. Canton is situated in a rich agricultural
region, for which it is a supply point, and there are large coal-mines
in the vicinity. Among the manufactures are agricultural implements
(particularly ploughs), machine-shop and foundry products (particularly
mining-cars and equipment), flour, cigars, cigar-boxes, brooms, and
bricks and tile. The municipal water-works are supplied from a deep
artesian well. Canton was laid out in 1825; it was incorporated as a
town in 1837 and as a village in 1849, and was chartered as a city in
1854.
CANTON, a village and the county-seat of St Lawrence county, New York,
U.S.A., 17 m. S.E. of Ogdensburg, on the Grasse river. Pop. (1890) 2580;
(1900) 2757; (1905) 3083; (1910) 2701. The village is served by the
Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg division of the New York Central & Hudson
River railway. Canton is the seat of St Lawrence University
(co-educational; chartered in 1856; at first Universalist, afterwards
unsectarian), having a college of letters and science, which developed
from an academy, opened in 1859; a theological school (Universalist),
opened in 1858; a law school, established in 1869, discontinued in 1872
and re-established in Brooklyn, New York, in 1903 as the Brooklyn Law
School of St Lawrence University; and a state school of agriculture,
established in 1906 by the state legislature and opened in 1907. In
1907-1908 the university had 52 instructors, 168 students in the college
of letters and science, 14 students in the theological school, 287 in
the law school and 13 in the agricultural school. The Clinton Liberal
Institute (Universalist, 1832), which was removed in 1879 from Clinton
to Fort Plain, New York, was established in Canton in 1901. The Grasse
river furnishes water-power, and the village has saw-, planing- and
flour-mills, and plant for the building of small boats and launches. The
village corporation owns a fine water-supply system. Canton was first
settled in 1800 by Daniel Harrington of Connecticut and was incorporated
in 1845. It was for many years the home of Silas Wright, who was buried
here.
CANTON, a city and the county-seat of Stark county, Ohio, U.S.A., on
Nimisillen Creek, 60 m. S. by E. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 26,189;
(1900) 30,667, of whom 4018 were foreign-born; and (1910) 50,217. It is
served by the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Wheeling &
Lake Erie railways, and is connected by an interurban electric system
with all the important cities and towns within a radius of 50 m. It lies
at an elevation of about 1030 ft. above sea-level, in a wheat-growing
region, in which bituminous coal, limestone, and brick and potter's clay
abound. Meyer's Lake in the vicinity is a summer attraction. The
principal buildings are the post-office, court-house, city hall, an
auditorium with a seating capacity of 5000, a Masonic building, an
Oddfellows' temple, a Y.M.C.A. building and several handsome churches.
On Monument Hill, in West Lawn Cemetery, in a park of 26 acres--a site
which President McKinley had suggested for a monument to the soldiers
and sailors of Stark county--there is a beautiful monument to the memory
of McKinley, who lived in Canton. This memorial is built principally of
Milford (Mass.) granite, with a bronze statue of the president, and with
sarcophagi containing the bodies of the president and Mrs McKinley, and
has a total height, from the first step of the approaches to its top, of
163 ft. 6 in., the mausoleum itself being 98 ft. 6 in. high and 78 ft. 9
in. in diameter; it was dedicated on the 30th of September 1907, when an
address was delivered by President Roosevelt. Another monument
commemorates the American soldiers of the Spanish-American War. Among
the city's manufactures are agricultural implements, iron bridges and
other structural iron work, watches and watch-cases, steel, engines,
safes, locks, cutlery, hardware, wagons, carriages, paving-bricks,
furniture, dental and surgical chairs, paint and varnish, clay-working
machinery and saw-mill machinery. The value of the factory product in
1905 was $10,591,143, being 10.6% more than the product value of 1900.
Canton was laid out as a town in 1805, became the county-seat in 1808,
was incorporated as a village in 1822 and in 1854 was chartered as a
city.
CANTON (borrowed from the Ital. _cantone_, a corner or angle), a word
used for certain divisions of some European countries. In France, the
canton, which is a subdivision of the arrondissement, is a territorial,
rather than an administrative, unit. The canton, of which there are
2908, generally comprises, on an average, about twelve communes, though
very large communes are sometimes divided into several cantons. It is
the seat of a justice of the peace, and returns a member to the _conseil
d'arrondissement_ (see FRANCE). In Switzerland, canton is the name given
to each of the twenty-two states comprising the Swiss confederation (see
SWITZERLAND).
In heraldry, a "canton" is a corner or square division on a shield,
occupying the upper corner (usually the dexter). It is in area
two-thirds of the quarter (see HERALDRY).
CANTONMENT (Fr. _cantonnement_, from _cantonner_, to quarter; Ger.
_Ortsunterkunft_ or _Quartier_). When troops are distributed in small
parties amongst the houses of a town or village, they are said to be in
cantonments, which are also called quarters or billets. Formerly this
method of providing soldiers with shelter was rarely employed on active
service, though the normal method in "winter quarters," or at seasons
when active military operations were not in progress. In the field,
armies lived as a rule in camp (q.v.), and when the provision of canvas
shelter was impossible in bivouac. At the present time, however, it is
unusual, in Europe at any rate, for troops on active service to hamper
themselves with the enormous trains of tent wagons that would be
required, and cantonments or bivouacs, or a combination of the two have
therefore taken the place, in modern warfare, of the old long
rectilinear lines of tents that marked the resting-place and generally,
too, the order of battle of an 18th-century army. The greater part of an
army operating in Europe at the present day is accommodated in
widespread cantonments, an army corps occupying the villages and farms
found within an area of 4 m. by 5 or 6. This allowance of space has been
ascertained by experience to be sufficient, not only for comfort, but
also for subsistence for one day, provided that the density of the
ordinary civil population is not less than 200 persons to the square
mile. Under modern conditions there is little danger from such a
dissemination of the forces, as each fraction of each army corps is
within less than two hours' march of its concentration post. If the
troops halt for several days, of course they require either a more
densely populated country from which to requisition supplies, or a wider
area of cantonments. The difficulty of controlling the troops, when
scattered in private houses in parties of six or seven, is the principal
objection to this system of cantonments. But since Napoleon introduced
the "war of masses" the only alternative to cantoning the troops is
bivouacking, which if prolonged for several nights is more injurious to
the well-being of the troops than the slight relaxation of discipline
necessitated by the cantonment system, when the latter is well arranged
and policed. The troops nearest the enemy, however, which have to be
maintained in a state of constant readiness for battle, cannot as a rule
afford the time either for dispersing into quarters or for rallying on
an alarm, and in western Europe at any rate they are required to
bivouac. In India, the term "cantonment" means more generally a military
station or standing camp. The troops live, not in private houses, but in
barracks, huts, forts or occasionally camps. The large cantonments are
situated in the neighbourhood of the North-Western frontier, of the
large cities and of the capitals of important native states. Under Lord
Kitchener's redistribution of the Indian army in 1903, the chief
cantonments are Rawalpindi, Quetta, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Nowshera,
Sialkot, Mian Mir, Umballa, Muttra, Ferozepore, Meerut, Lucknow, Mhow,
Jubbulpore, Bolarum, Poona, Secunderabad and Bangalore.
CANTÙ, CESARE (1804-1895), Italian historian, was born at Brivio in
Lombardy and began his career as a teacher. His first literary essay
(1828) was a romantic poem entitled _Algiso, o la Lega Lombarda_ (new
ed., Milan, 1876), and in the following year he produced a _Storia di
Como_ in two volumes (Como, 1829). The death of his father then left
him in charge of a large family, and he worked very hard both as a
teacher and a writer to provide for them. His prodigious literary
activity led to his falling under the suspicions of the Austrian police,
and he was mixed up in a political trial and arrested in 1833. While in
prison writing materials were denied him, but he managed to write on
rags with a tooth-pick and candle smoke, and thus composed the novel
_Margherita Pusterla_ (Milan, 1838). On his release a year later, as he
was interdicted from teaching, literature became his only resource. In
1836 the Turinese publisher, Giuseppe Pomba, commissioned him to write a
universal history, which his vast reading enabled him to do. In six
years the work was completed in seventy-two volumes, and immediately
achieved a general popularity; the publisher made a fortune out of it,
and Cantù's royalties amounted, it is said, to 300,000 lire (£12.000).
Just before the revolution of 1848, being warned that he would be
arrested, he fled to Turin, but after the "Five Days" he returned to
Milan and edited a paper called _La Guardia Nazionale_. Between 1849 and
1850 he published his _Storia degli Italiani_ (Turin, 1855) and many
other works. In 1857 the archduke Maximilian tried to conciliate the
Milanese by the promise of a constitution, and Cantù was one of the few
Liberals who accepted the olive branch, and went about in company with
the archduke. This act was regarded as treason and caused Cantù much
annoyance in after years. He continued his literary activity after the
formation of the Italian kingdom, producing volume after volume until
his death. For a short time he was member of the Italian parliament; he
founded the Lombard historical society, and was appointed superintendent
of the Lombard archives. He died in March 1895. His views are coloured
by strong religious and political prejudice, and by a moralizing
tendency, and his historical work has little critical value and is for
the most part pure book-making, although he collected a vast amount of
material which has been of use to other writers. In dealing with modern
Italian history he is reactionary and often wilfully inaccurate. Besides
the above-mentioned works he wrote _Gli Eretici in Italia_ (Milan,
1873); _Cronistoria dell' Indipendenza italiana_ (Naples, 1872-1877);
_II Conciliatore e i Carbonari_ (Milan, 1878), &c. (L. V.*)
CANUSIUM (Gr. [Greek: Kanusion], mod. _Canosa_), an ancient city of
Apulia, on the right bank of the Aufidus (Ofanto), about 12 m. from its
mouth, and situated upon the Via Traiana, 85 m. E.N.E. of Beneventum. It
was said to have been founded by Diomede, and even at the time of Horace
(_Sat._ i. 10. 30) both Greek and Latin were spoken there. The legends
on the coins are Greek, and a very large number of Greek vases have been
found in the necropolis. The town came voluntarily under Roman
sovereignty in 318 B.C., afforded a refuge to the Roman fugitives after
Cannae, and remained faithful for the rest of the war. It revolted in
the Social War, in which it would appear to have suffered, inasmuch as
Strabo (vi. 283) speaks of Canusium and Arpi as having been, to judge
from the extent of their walls, the greatest towns in the plain of
Apulia, but as having shrunk considerably in his day. Its importance was
maintained, however, by its trade in agricultural products and in
Apulian wool (which was there dyed and cleaned), by its port (probably
Cannae) at the mouth of the Aufidus, and by its position on the
high-road. It was a _municipium_ under the early empire, but was
converted into a _colonia_ under Antoninus Pius by Herodes Atticus, who
provided it with a water-supply. In the 6th century it was still the
most important city of Apulia. Among the ancient buildings which are
still preserved, an amphitheatre, an aqueduct and a city gate may be
mentioned.
See N. Jacobone, _Ricerche sulla storia e la topografia di Canosa
Antica_ (Canosa di Puglia, 1905). (T. As.)
CANUTE (CNUT), known as "the Great" (c. 995-1035), king of Denmark and
England, second son of King Sweyn Forkbeard and his first wife, the
daughter of the Polish prince, Mieszko, was born c. 995. On the death
of his father he was compelled to quit England by a general rising of
the Anglo-Saxons, on which occasion in a fit of rage, for he was not
naturally cruel, he abandoned his hostages after cutting off their
hands, ears and noses. In the following year, 1015, he returned with a
great fleet manned by a picked host, "not a thrall or a freedman among
them." He speedily succeeded in subduing all England except London, now
the last refuge of King Æthelred and his heroic son, Edmund Ironside.
On the death of Æthelred (23rd of April 1016) Canute was elected king
by an assembly of notables at Southampton; but London clung loyally to
Edmund, who more than once succeeded in raising the western shires
against Canute. Edmund indeed approved himself the better general of the
two, and would doubtless have prevailed, but for the treachery of his
own ealdormen. This was notably the case at the great battle of
Assandun, in which by the desertion of Eadric an incipient Anglo-Saxon
victory was converted into a crushing defeat. Nevertheless, the
antagonists were so evenly matched that the great men on both sides,
fearing that the interminable war would utterly ruin the land, arranged
a conference between Canute and Edmund on an island in the Severn, when
they agreed to divide England between them, Canute retaining Mercia and
the north, while Edmund's territory comprised East Anglia and Wessex
with London. On the death of Edmund, a few months later (November 1016),
Canute was unanimously elected king of all England at the beginning of
1017. The young monarch at once showed himself equal to his
responsibilities. He did his utmost to deserve the confidence of his
Anglo-Saxon subjects, and the eighteen years of his reign were of
unspeakable benefit to his adopted country. He identified himself with
the past history of England and its native dynasty by wedding Emma, or
Aelgifu, to give her her Saxon name (the Northmen called her Alfifa),
who came over from Normandy at his bidding, Canute previously
repudiating his first wife, another Aelgifu, the daughter of the
ealdorman Aelfhem of Deira, who, with her sons, was banished to Denmark.
In 1018 Canute inherited the Danish throne, his elder brother Harold
having died without issue. He now withdrew most of his army from
England, so as to spare as much as possible the susceptibilities of the
Anglo-Saxons. For the same reason he had previously dispersed all his
warships but forty. On his return from Denmark he went a step farther.
In a remarkable letter, addressed to the prelates, ealdormen and people,
he declared his intention of ruling England by the English, and of
upholding the laws of King Edgar, at the same time threatening with his
vengeance all those who did not judge righteous judgment or who let
malefactors go free. The tone of this document, which is not merely
Christian but sacerdotal, shows that he had wisely resolved, in the
interests of law and order, to form a close alliance with the native
clergy. Those of his own fellow-countrymen who refused to co-operate
with him were summarily dismissed. Thus, in 1021, the stiffnecked jarl
Thorkil was banished the land, and his place taken by an Anglo-Saxon,
the subsequently famous Godwin, who became one of Canute's chief
counsellors. The humane and conciliatory character of his government is
also shown in his earnest efforts to atone for Danish barbarities in the
past. Thus he rebuilt the church of St Edmundsbury in memory of the
saintly king who had perished there at the hands of the earlier Vikings,
and with great ceremony transferred the relics of St Alphege from St
Paul's church at London to a worthier resting-place at Canterbury. His
work of reform and reconciliation was interrupted in 1026 by the attempt
of Olaf Haraldson, king of Norway, in conjunction with Anund Jakob, king
of Sweden, to conquer Denmark. Canute defeated the Swedish fleet at
Stangebjerg, and so seriously injured the combined squadrons at the
mouth of the Helgeaa in East Scania, that in 1028 he was able to subdue
the greater part of Norway "without hurling a dart or swinging a sword."
But the conquest was not permanent, the Norwegians ultimately rising
successfully against the tyranny of Alfifa, who misruled the country in
the name of her infant son Sweyn. Canute also succeeded in establishing
the dominion of Denmark over the southern shores of the Baltic, in
Witland and Samland, now forming part of the coast of Prussia. Of the
details of Canute's government in Denmark proper we know but little. His
most remarkable institution was the _Tinglid_, a military brotherhood,
originally 3000 in number, composed of members of the richest and
noblest families, who not only formed the royal bodyguard, but did
garrison duty and defended the marches or borders. They were subject to
strict discipline, embodied in written rules called the _Viderlog_ or
_Vederlag_, and were the nucleus not only of a standing army but of a
royal council. Canute is also said to have endeavoured to found
monasteries in Denmark, with but indifferent success, and he was
certainly the first Danish king who coined money, with the assistance of
Anglo-Saxon mint-masters. Of his alliance with the clergy we have
already spoken. Like the other great contemporary kingdom-builder,
Stephen of Hungary, he clearly recognized that the church was the one
civilizing element in a world of anarchic barbarism, and his submission
to her guidance is a striking proof of his perspicacity. But it was no
slavish submission. When, in 1027, he went to Rome, with Rudolf III. of
Burgundy, to be present at the coronation of the emperor Conrad II., it
was quite as much to benefit his subjects as to receive absolution for
the sins of his youth. He persuaded the pope to remit the excessive fees
for granting the _pallium_, which the English and Danish bishops had
found such a grievous burden, substituting therefor a moderate amount of
Peter's pence. He also induced the emperor and other German princes to
grant safe-conducts to those of his subjects who desired to make the
pilgrimage to Rome.
Canute died at Shaftesbury on the 12th of November 1035 in his 40th
year, and was buried at Winchester. He was cut off before he had had the
opportunity of developing most of his great plans; yet he lived long
enough to obtain the title of "Canute the Wealthy" (i.e. "Mighty"), and
posterity, still more appreciative, has well surnamed him "the Great." A
violent, irritable temper was his most salient defect, and more than one
homicide must be laid to his charge. But the fierce Viking nature was
gradually and completely subdued; for Canute was a Christian by
conviction and sincerely religious. His humility is finely illustrated
by the old Norman poem which describes how he commanded the rising tide
of the Thames at Westminster to go back. The homily he preached to his
courtiers on that occasion was to prepare them for his subsequent
journey to Rome and his submission to the Holy See. Like his father
Sweyn, Canute loved poetry, and the great Icelandic skalder, Thorar
Lovtunge and Thormod Kolbrunarskjöld, were as welcome visitors at his
court as the learned bishops. As an administrator Canute was excelled
only by Alfred. He possessed in an eminent degree the royal gift of
recognizing greatness, and the still more useful faculty of conciliating
enemies. No English king before him had levied such heavy taxes, yet
never were taxes more cheerfully paid; because the people felt that
every penny of the money was used for the benefit of the country.
According to the _Knytlinga Saga_ King Canute was huge of limb, of great
strength, and a very goodly man to look upon, save for his nose, which
was narrow, lofty and hooked; he had also long fair hair, and eyes
brighter and keener than those of any man living.
See _Danmarks Riges Historie. Old Tiden og den aeldre Middelalder_,
pp. 382-406 (Copenhagen, 1897-1905); Freeman, _Norman Conquest_
(Oxford, 1870-1875); Steenstrup, _Normannerne_ (Copenhagen,
1876-1882). (R. N. B.)
CANUTE VI. (1163-1202), king of Denmark, eldest son of Valdemar I., was
crowned in his seventh year (1170), as his father's co-regent, so as to
secure the succession. In 1182 he succeeded to the throne. During his
twenty years' reign Denmark advanced steadily along the path of
greatness and prosperity marked out for her by Valdemar I.,
consolidating and extending her dominion over the North Baltic coast and
adopting a more and more independent attitude towards Germany. The
emperor Frederick I.'s claim of overlordship was haughtily rejected at
the very outset, and his attempt to stir up Duke Bogislav of Pomerania
against Denmark's vassal, Jaromir of Rügen, was defeated by Archbishop
Absalon, who destroyed 465 of Bogislav's 500 ships in a naval action off
Strela (Stralsund) in 1184. In the following year Bogislav did homage to
Canute on the deck of his long-ship, off Jomsborg in Pomerania, Canute
henceforth styling himself king of the Danes and Wends. This victory
led two years later to the voluntary submission of the two Abodrite
princes Niklot and Borwin to the Danish crown, whereupon the bulk of the
Abodrite dominions, which extended from the Trave to the Warnow,
including modern Mecklenburg, were divided between them. The concluding
years of Canute's reign were peaceful, as became a prince who, though by
no means a coward, was not of an overwhelmingly martial temperament. In
1197, however, German jealousy of Denmark's ambitions, especially when
Canute led a fleet against the pirates of Esthonia, induced Otto,
margrave of Brandenburg, to invade Pomerania, while in the following
year Otto, in conjunction with Duke Adolf of Holstein, wasted the
dominions of the Danophil Abodrites. The war continued intermittently
till 1201, when Duke Valdemar, Canute's younger brother, conquered the
whole of Holstein, and Duke Adolf was subsequently captured at Hamburg
and sent in chains to Denmark. North Albingia, as the district between
the Eider and the Elbe was then called, now became Danish territory.
Canute died on the 12th of November 1202. Undoubtedly he owed the
triumphs of his reign very largely to the statesmanship of Absalon and
the valour of Valdemar. But he was certainly a prudent and circumspect
ruler of blameless life, possessing, as Arnold of Lübeck (c. 1160-1212)
expresses it, "the sober wisdom of old age even in his tender youth."
See _Danmarks Riges Historic. Oldtiden og den aeldre Middelalder_
(Copenhagen, 1897-1905), pp. 721-735. (R. N. B.)
CANVAS, a stout cloth which probably derives its name from _cannabis_,
the Latin word for hemp. This would appear to indicate that canvas was
originally made from yarns of the hemp fibre, and there is some ground
for the assumption. This fibre and that of flax have certainly been used
for ages for the production of cloth for furnishing sails, and for
certain classes of cloth used for this purpose the terms "sailcloth" and
"canvas" are synonymous. Warden, in his _Linen Trade_, states that the
manufacture of sailcloth was established in England in 1590, as appears
by the preamble of James I., cap. 23:--"Whereas the cloths called
_Mildernix_ and _Powel Davies_, whereof sails and other furniture for
the navy and shipping are made, were heretofore altogether brought out
of France and other parts beyond sea, and the skill and art of making
and weaving of the said sailcloths never known or used in England until
about the thirty-second year of the late Queen Elizabeth, about what
time and not before the perfect art or skill of making or weaving of the
said cloths was attained to, and since practised and continued in this
realm, to the great benefit and commodity thereof." But this, or a
similar cloth of the same name had been used for centuries before this
time by the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Since the introduction of the
power loom the cloth has undergone several modifications, and it is now
made both from flax, hemp, tow, jute and cotton, or a mixture of these,
but the quality of sailcloth for the British government is kept up to
the original standard. All flax canvas is essentially of double warp,
for it is invariably intended to withstand some pressure or rough usage.
In structure it is similar to jute tarpaulin; indeed, if it were not for
the difference in the fibre, it would be difficult to say where one type
stopped and the other began. "Bagging," "tarpaulin" and "canvas" form an
ascending series of cloths so far as fineness is concerned, although the
finest tarpaulins are finer than some of the lower canvases. The cloth
may be natural colour, bleached or dyed, a very common colour being tan.
It has an enormous number of different uses other than naval.
Amongst other articles made from it are:--receptacles for photographic
and other apparatus; bags for fishing, shooting, golf and other sporting
implements; shoes for cricket and other games, and for yachting;
travelling cases and hold-alls, letter-bags, school-bags and nose-bags
for horses. Large quantities of the various makes of flax and cotton
canvases are tarred, and then used for covering goods on railways,
wharves, docks, etc.
Sail canvas is, naturally, of a strong build, and is quite different
from the canvas cloth used for embroidery purposes, often called "art
canvas." The latter is similar in structure to cheese cloths and
strainers, the chief difference being that the yarns for art canvas are,
in general, of a superior nature. All kinds of vegetable fibres are used
in their production, chief among which are cotton, flax and jute. The
yarns are almost invariably two or more ply, an arrangement which tends
to obtain a uniform thickness--a very desirable element in these
open-built fabrics.
[Illustration.]
The plain weave A in the figure is extensively used for these fabrics,
but in many cases special weaves are used which leave the open spaces
well defined. Thus weave B is often employed, while the "imitation
gauze" weaves, C and D, are also largely utilized in the production of
these embroidery cloths. Weave B is known as the hopsack, and probably
owes its name to being originally used for the making of bags for hops.
The cloth for this purpose is now called "hop pocketing," and is of a
structure between bagging and tarpaulin. Another class of canvas, single
warp termed "artists' canvas," is used, as its name implies, for
paintings in oils. It is also much lighter than sail canvas, but must,
of necessity, be made of level yarns. The best qualities are made of
cream or bleached flax line, although it is not unusual to find an
admixture of tow, and even of cotton in the commoner kinds. When the
cloth comes from the loom, it undergoes a special treatment to prepare
the surface for the paint.
CANVASS (an older spelling of "canvas"), to sift by shaking in a sheet
of canvas, hence to discuss thoroughly; as a political term it means to
examine carefully the chances of the votes in a prospective election,
and to solicit the support of the electors.
CANYNGES, Canynge, WILLIAM (c. 1399-1474), English merchant, was born
at Bristol in 1399 or 1400, a member of a wealthy family of merchants
and cloth-manufacturers in that city. He entered, and in due course
greatly extended, the family business, becoming one of the richest
Englishmen of his day. Canynges was five times mayor of, and twice
member of parliament for, Bristol. He owned a fleet of ten ships, the
largest hitherto known in England, and employed, it is said, 800 seamen.
By special license from the king of Denmark he enjoyed for some time a
monopoly of the fish trade between Iceland, Finland and England, and he
also competed successfully with the Flemish merchants in the Baltic,
obtaining a large share of their business. In 1456 he entertained
Margaret of Anjou at Bristol, and in 1461 Edward IV. Canynges undertook
at his own expense the great work of rebuilding the famous Bristol
church of St Mary, Redcliffe, and for a long time had a hundred workmen
in his regular service for this purpose. In 1467 he himself took holy
orders, and in 1469 was made dean of Westbury. He died in 1474. The
statesman George Canning and the first viscount Stratford de Redcliffe
were descendants of his family.
See Pryce, _Memorials of the Canynges Family and their Times_
(Bristol, 1854).
CANYON (Anglicized form of Span. _cañon_, a tube, pipe or cannon; the
Spanish form being also frequently written), a type of valley with huge
precipitous sides, such as the Grand Canyons of the Colorado and the
Yellowstone livers, and the gorge of the Niagara river below the falls,
due to rapid stream erosion in a "young" land. A river saws its channel
vertically downwards, and a swift stream erodes chiefly at the bottom.
In rainy regions the valleys thus formed are widened out by slope-wash
and the resultant valley-slopes are gentle, but in arid regions there is
very little side-extension of the valleys and the river cuts its way
downwards, leaving almost vertical cliffs above the stream. If the
stream be swift as in the western plateau of North America, the cutting
action will be rapid. The ideal conditions for developing a canyon are:
great altitude and slope causing swift streams, arid conditions with
absence of side-wash, and hard rock horizontally bedded which will hold
the walls up.
CANZONE, a form of verse which has reached us from Italian literature,
where from the earliest times it has been assiduously cultivated. The
word is derived from the Provençal _cansò_, a song, but it was in
Italian first that the form became a literary one, and was dedicated to
the highest uses of poetry. The canzone-strophe consists of two parts,
the opening one being distinguished by Dante as the _fronte_, the
closing one as the _sirma_. These parts are connected by rhyme, it being
usual to make the rhyme of the last line of the _fronte_ identical with
that of the first line of the _sirma_. In other respects the canzone has
great liberty, as regards number and length of lines, arrangement of
rhymes and conduct of structure. An examination of the best Italian
models, however, shows that the tendency of the canzone-strophe is to
possess 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 or 16 verses, and that of these the strophe of
14 verses is so far the most frequent that it may almost be taken as the
type. In this form it resembles an irregular sonnet. The _Vita Nuova_
contains many examples of the canzone, and these are accompanied by so
many explanations of their form as to lead us to believe that the
canzone was originally invented or adopted by Dante. The following is
the _proemio_ or _fronte_ of one of the most celebrated canzoni in the
_Vita Nuova_ (which may be studied in English in Dante Gabriel
Rossetti's translation):--
"Donna pietosa e di novella etate,
Adorna assai di gentilezza umane,
Era là ov' io chiamava spesso Morte.
Veggendo gli occhi miei pien di pietate,
Ed ascoltando le parole vane,
Si mosse con paura a pianger forte;
Ed altro donne, che si furo accorte
Di me per quella che meco piangia,
Fecer lei partir via
Ed apprissârsi per farmi sentire.
Quel dicea: 'Non dormire';
E qual dicea: 'Perchè sì te sconforte?'
Allor lasciai la nuova fantasia,
Chiamando il nome della donna mia."
The _Canzoniere_ of Petrarch is of great authority as to the form of
this species of verse. In England the canzone was introduced at the end
of the sixteenth century by William Drummond of Hawthornden, who has
left some very beautiful examples. In German poetry it was cultivated by
A.W. von Schlegel and other poets of the Romantic period. It is
doubtful, however, whether it is in agreement with the genius of any
language but Italian, and whether the genuine "Canzone toscana" is a
form which can be reproduced elsewhere than in Italy. (E. G.)
CAPE BRETON, the north-east portion of Nova Scotia, Canada, separated
from the mainland by a narrow strait, known as the Gut of Canceau or
Canso. Its extreme length from north to south is about 110 m., greatest
breadth about 87 m., and area 3120 sq. m. It juts out so far into the
Atlantic that it has been called "the long wharf of Canada," the
distance to the west coast of Ireland being less by a thousand miles
than from New York. A headland on the east coast is also known as Cape
Breton, and is said by some to be the first land made by Cabot on his
voyage in 1497-1498. The large, irregularly-shaped, salt-water lakes of
Bras d'Or communicate with the sea by two channels on the north-east; a
short ship canal connects them with St Peter's bay on the south, thus
dividing the island into two parts. Except on the north-west, the
coast-line is very irregular, and indented with numerous bays, several
of which form excellent harbours. The most important are Aspy, St Ann's,
Sydney, Mira, Louisburg, Gabarus, St Peter's and Mabou; of these, Sydney
Harbour, on which are situated the towns of Sydney and North Sydney, is
one of the finest in North America. There are numerous rivers, chiefly
rapid hill streams not navigable for any distance; the largest are the
Denys, the Margaree, the Baddeck and the Mira. Lake Ainslie in the west
is the most extensive of several fresh-water lakes. The surface of the
island is broken in several places by ranges of hills of moderate
elevation, well wooded, and containing numerous picturesque glens and
gorges; the northern promontory consists of a plateau, rising at Cape
North to a height of 1800 ft. This northern projection is formed of
Laurentian gneiss, the only instance in Nova Scotia of this formation,
and is fringed by a narrow border of carboniferous rocks. South of this
extends a Cambrian belt, a continuation of the same formation on the
Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. On various portions of the west coast,
and on the south side of the island at Seacoal Bay and Little River
(Richmond county), valuable seams of coal are worked. Still more
important is the Sydney coal-field, which occupies the east coast from
Mira Bay to St Ann's. The outcrop is plainly visible at various points
along the coast, and coal has been mined in the neighbourhood from a
very early period. Since 1893 the operations have been greatly extended,
and over 3,000,000 tons a year are now shipped, chiefly to Montreal and
Boston. The coal is bituminous, of good quality and easily worked, most
of the seams dipping at a low angle. Several have been mined for some
distance beneath the ocean. Slate, marble, gypsum and limestone are
quarried, the latter, which is found in unlimited quantities, being of
great value as a flux in the blast-furnaces of Sydney. Copper and iron
are also found, though not in large quantities.
Its lumber, agricultural products and fisheries are also important.
Nearly covered with forest at the time of its discovery, it still
exports pine, oak, beech, maple and ash. Oats, wheat, turnips and
potatoes are cultivated, chiefly for home consumption; horses, cattle
and sheep are reared in considerable numbers; butter and cheese are
exported. The Bras d'Or lakes and the neighbouring seas supply an
abundance of cod, mackerel, herring and whitefish, and the fisheries
employ over 7000 men. Salmon are caught in several of the rivers, and
trout in almost every stream, so that it is visited by large numbers of
tourists and sportsmen from the other provinces and from the United
States. The Intercolonial railway has been extended to Sydney, and
crosses the Gut of Canso on a powerful ferry. From the same strait a
railway runs up the west coast, and several shorter lines are controlled
by the mining companies. Of these the most important is that connecting
Sydney and Louisburg. Numerous steamers, with Sydney as their
headquarters, ply upon the Bras d'Or lakes. The inhabitants are mainly
of Highland Scottish descent, and Gaelic is largely spoken in the
country districts. On the south and west coasts are found a number of
descendants of the original French settlers and of the Acadian exiles
(see NOVA SCOTIA), and in the mining towns numbers of Irish are
employed. Several hundred Mic Mac Indians, for the most part of mixed
blood, are principally employed in making baskets, fish-barrels and
butter-firkins. Nearly the whole population is divided between the Roman
and Presbyterian creeds, and the utmost cordiality marks the relations
between the two faiths. The population is steadily increasing, having
risen from 27,580 in 1851 to over 100,000 in 1906.
There is some evidence in favour of early Norse and Icelandic voyages to
Cape Breton, but they left no trace. It was probably visited by the
Cabots in 1497-1498, and its name may either have been bestowed in
remembrance of Cap Breton near Bayonne, by the Basque sailors who early
frequented the coast, or may commemorate the hardy mariners of Brittany
and Normandy.
In 1629 James Stewart, fourth Lord Ochiltree, settled a small colony at
Baleine, on the east side of the island; but he was soon after taken
prisoner with all his party by Captain Daniell of the French Company,
who caused a fort to be erected at Great Cibou (now St Ann's Harbour).
By the peace of St Germain in 1632, Cape Breton was formally assigned to
France; and in 1654 it formed part of the territory granted by patent to
Nicholas Denys, Sieur de Fronsac, who made several small settlements on
the island, which, however, had only a very temporary success. When by
the treaty of Utrecht (1713) the French were deprived of Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland, they were still left in possession of Cape Breton, and
their right to erect fortifications for its defence was formally
acknowledged. They accordingly transferred the inhabitants of Plaisance
in Newfoundland to the settlement of Havre à l'Anglois, which soon
after, under the name of Louisburg, became the capital of Cape Breton
(or Ile Royale, as it was then called), and an important military post.
Cod-fishing formed the staple industry, and a large contraband trade in
French wines, brandy and sugar, was carried on with the English colonies
to the south. In 1745 it was captured by a force of volunteers from New
England, under Sir William Pepperell (1696-1759) aided by a British
fleet under Commodore Warren (1703-1752). By the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, the town was restored to France; but in 1758 was again
captured by a British force under General Sir Jeffrey Amherst and
Admiral Boscawen. On the conclusion of hostilities the island was ceded
to England by the treaty of Paris; and on the 7th of October 1763 it was
united by royal proclamation to the government of Nova Scotia. In 1784
it was separated from Nova Scotia, and a new capital founded at the
mouth of the Spanish river by Governor Desbarres, which received the
name of Sydney in honour of Lord Sydney (Sir Thomas Townshend), then
secretary of state for the colonies. There was immediately a
considerable influx of settlers to the island, which received another
important accession by the immigration of Scottish Highlanders from 1800
to 1828. In 1820, in spite of strong opposition, it was again annexed to
Nova Scotia. Since then, its history has been uneventful, chiefly
centring in the development of the mining industry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Historical: Richard Brown, _A History of the Island of
Cape Breton_ (1869), and Sir John Bourinot, _Historical and
Descriptive Account of Cape Breton_ (1892), are both excellent. See
also Denys, _Description géogr. et hist, des côtes de l'Amérique
septentrionale_ (1672); Pichon, _Lettres et mémoires du Cap
Bréton_ (1760). General: _Reports_ of Geological Survey, 1872 to
1882-1886, and 1895 to 1899 (by Robb, H. Fletcher and Faribault); H.
Fletcher, _The Sydney Coal Fields, Cape Breton, N.S._ (1900); Richard
Brown, _The Coal Fields of Cape Breton_ (1871; reprinted, 1899).
CAPE COAST, a port on the Gold Coast, British West Africa, in 5° 5' N.,
1° 13' W., about 80 m. W. of Accra. Pop. (1901) 28,948, mostly Fantis.
There are about 100 Europeans and a colony of Krumen. The town is built
on a low bank of gneiss and micaceous slate which runs out into the sea
and affords some protection at the landing-place against the violence of
the surf. (This bank was the _Cabo Corso_ of the Portuguese, whence the
English corruption of Cape Coast.) The castle faces the sea and is of
considerable size and has a somewhat imposing appearance. Next to the
castle, used as quarters for military officers and as a prison, the
principal buildings are the residence of the district commissioner, the
churches and schools of various denominations, the government schools
and the colonial hospital. Many of the wealthy natives live in
brick-built residences. The streets are hilly, and the town is
surrounded on the east and north by high ground, whilst on the west is a
lagoon. Fort Victoria lies west of the town, and Fort William (used as a
lighthouse) on the east.
The first European settlement on the spot was that of the Portuguese in
1610. In 1652 the Swedes established themselves here and built the
castle, which they named Carolusburg. In 1659 the Dutch obtained
possession, but the castle was seized in 1664 by the English under
Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir) Robert Holmes, and it has not since
been captured in spite of an attack by De Ruyter in 1665, a French
attack in 1757, and various assaults by the native tribes. Next to
Elmina it was considered the strongest fort on the Guinea Coast. Up to
1876 the town was the capital of the British settlements on the coast,
the administration being then removed to Accra. It is still one of the
chief ports of the Gold Coast Colony, and from it starts the direct road
to Kumasi. In 1905 it was granted municipal government. In the courtyard
of the castle are buried George Maclean (governor of the colony
1830-1843) and his wife (Laetitia Elizabeth Landon). The graves are
marked by two stones bearing respectively the initials "L.E.L." and
"G.M." The land on the east side of the town is studded with disused
gold-diggers' pits. The natives are divided into seven clans called
companies, each under the rule of recognized captains and possessing
distinct customs and fetish.
See A. Ffoulkes, "The Company System in Cape Coast Castle," in _Jnl.
African Soc._ vol. vii., 1908; and GOLD COAST.
CAPE COLONY (officially, "PROVINCE OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE"), the most
southern part of Africa, a British possession since 1806. It was named
from the promontory on its south-west coast discovered in 1488 by the
Portuguese navigator Diaz, and near which the first settlement of
Europeans (Dutch) was made in 1652. From 1872 to 1910 a self-governing
colony, in the last-named year it entered the Union of South Africa as
an original province. Cape Colony as such then ceased to exist. In the
present article, however, the word "colony" is retained. The "provinces"
referred to are the colonial divisions existing before the passing of
the South Africa Act 1909, except in the sections _Constitution and
Government_ and _Law and Justice_, where the changes made by the
establishment of the Union are set forth. (See also SOUTH AFRICA.)
_Boundaries and Area._--The coast-line extends from the mouth of the
Orange (28° 38' S. 16° 27' E.) on the W. to the mouth of the Umtamvuna
river (31° 4' S. 30° 12' E.) on the E., a distance of over 1300 m.
Inland the Cape is bounded E. and N.E. by Natal, Basutoland, Orange Free
State and the Transvaal; N. by the Bechuanaland Protectorate and N.W. by
Great Namaqualand (German S.W. Africa). From N.W. to S.E. the colony has
a breadth of 800 m., from S.W. to N.E. 750 m. Its area is 276,995 sq.
m.--more than five times the size of England. Walfish Bay (q.v.) on the
west coast north of the Orange river is a detached part of Cape Colony.
_Physical Features._--The outstanding orographic feature of the country
is the terrace-formation of the land, which rises from sea-level by
well-marked steps to the immense plateau which forms seven-eighths of
South Africa. The coast region varies in width from a few miles to as
many as fifty, being narrowest on the south-east side. The western coast
line, from the mouth of the Orange to the Cape peninsula, runs in a
general south-east direction with no deep indentations save just south
of 33° S. where, in Saldanha Bay, is spacious and sheltered anchorage.
The shore is barren, consisting largely of stretches of white sand or
thin soil sparsely covered with scrub. The Cape peninsula, which forms
Table Bay on the north and False Bay on the south, juts pendant beyond
the normal coast line and consists of an isolated range of hills. The
scenery here becomes bold and picturesque. Dominating Table Bay is the
well-known Table Mountain (3549 ft.), flat-topped and often covered with
a "tablecloth" of cloud. On its lower slopes and around Table Bay is
built Cape Town, capital of the colony. Rounding the storm-vexed Cape of
Good Hope the shore trends south-east in a series of curves, forming
shallow bays, until at the saw-edged reefs of Cape Agulhas (Portuguese,
Needles) in 34° 51' 15" S. 20° E. the southernmost point of the African
continent is reached. Hence the coast, now very slightly indented, runs
north by east until at Algoa Bay (25° 45' E.) it takes a distinct
north-east bend, and so continues beyond the confines of the colony.
Along the southern and eastern shore the country is better watered, more
fertile and more picturesque than along the western seaboard. Cape Point
(Cape of Good Hope) stands 840 ft. above the sea; Cape Agulhas 455 ft.
Farther on the green-clad sides of the Uiteniquas Mountains are plainly
visible from the sea, and as the traveller by boat proceeds eastward,
stretches of forest are seen and numbers of mountain streams carrying
their waters to the ocean. In this part of the coast the only good
natural harbour is the spacious estuary of the Knysna river in 23° 5' E.
The entrance, which is over a bar with 14 ft. minimum depth of water, is
between two bold sandstone cliffs, called the Heads.
Off the coast are a few small islands, mainly mere rocks within the bay.
None is far from the mainland. The largest are Dassen Island, 20 m. S.
of Saldanha Bay, and Robben Island, at the entrance to Table Bay. St
Croix is a rock in Algoa Bay, upon which Diaz is stated to have erected
a cross. A number of small islands off the coast of German South-West
Africa, chiefly valuable for their guano deposits, also belong to Cape
Colony (see ANGRA PEQUENA).
_Ocean Currents._--Off the east and south shores of the colony the
Mozambique or Agulhas current sweeps south-westward with force
sufficient to set up a back drift. This back drift or counter current
flowing north-east is close in shore and is taken advantage of by
vessels going from Cape Town to Natal. On the west coast the current
runs northwards. It is a deflected stream from the west drift of the
"roaring forties" and coming from Antarctic regions is much colder than
the Agulhas current. Off the southern point of the continent the Agulhas
current meets the west drift, giving rise to alternate streams of warm
and cold water. This part of the coast, subject alike to strong westerly
and southeasterly winds, is often tempestuous, as is witnessed by the
name, Cabo Tormentoso, given to the Cape of Good Hope, and to the many
wrecks off the coast. The most famous was that of the British troopship
"Birkenhead," on the 26th of February 1852, off Danger Point, midway
between Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas.
[Illustration: CAPE COLONY MAP.]
_Mountains and Tablelands._--It has been stated that the land rises by
well-marked steps to a vast central plateau. Beyond the coast plain,
which here and there attains a height of 600 ft., are mountain ranges
running parallel to the shore. These mountains are the supporting walls
of successive terraces. When the steep southern sides of the ranges
nearest the sea are ascended the hills are often found to be flat-topped
with a gentle slope northward giving on to a plateau rarely more than 40
m. wide. This plateau is called the Southern or Little Karroo, Karroo
being a corruption of a Hottentot word meaning dry, arid. Having crossed
the Little Karroo, from which rise minor mountain chains, a second high
range has to be climbed. This done the traveller finds himself on
another tableland--the Great Karroo. It has an average width of 80 m.
and is about 350 m. long. Northwards the Karroo (q.v.) is bounded by the
ramparts of the great inner tableland, of which only a comparatively
small portion is in Cape Colony. This sequence of hill and plain--namely
(1) the coast plain, (2) first range of hills, (3) first plateau (Little
Karroo), (4) second range of hills, (5) second plateau (the Great
Karroo), (6) main chain of mountains guarding, (7) the vast interior
tableland--is characteristic of the greater part of the colony but is
not clearly marked in the south-east and north-west borders. The
innermost, and most lofty, chain of mountains follows a curve almost
identical with that of the coast at a general distance of 120 m. from
the ocean. It is known in different places under different names, and
the same name being also often given to one or more of the coast ranges
the nomenclature of the mountains is confusing (see the map). The most
elevated portion of the innermost range, the Drakensberg (q.v.) follows
the curve of the coast from south to north-east. Only the southern
slopes of the range are in Cape Colony, the highest peaks--over 10,000
ft.--being in Basutoland and Natal. Going westward from the Drakensberg
the rampart is known successively as the Stormberg, Zuurberg,
Sneeuwberg and Nieuwveld mountains. These four ranges face directly
south. In the Sneeuwberg range is Compass Berg, 8500 ft. above the sea,
the highest point in the colony. In the Nieuwveld are heights of over
6000 ft. The Komsberg range, which joins the Nieuwveld on the east,
sweeps from the south to the north-west and is followed by the Roggeveld
mountains, which face the western seaboard. North of the Roggeveld the
interior plateau approaches closer to the sea than in southern Cape
Colony. The slope of the plateau being also westward, the mountain
rampart is less elevated, and north of 32° S. few points attain 5000 ft.
The coast ranges are here, in Namaqualand and the district of Van Rhyns
Dorp, but the outer edges of the inner range. They attain their highest
point in the Kamies Berg, 5511 ft. above the sea. Northward the Orange
river, marking the frontier of the colony, cuts its way through the
hills to the Atlantic.
From the Olifants river on the west to the Kei river on the east the
series of parallel ranges, which are the walls of the terraces between
the inner tableland and the sea, are clearly traceable. Their general
direction is always that of the coast, and they are cut across by rugged
gorges or _kloofs_, through which the mountain streams make their way
towards the sea. The two chief chains, to distinguish them from the
inner chain already described, may be called the coast and central
chains. Each has many local names. West to east the central chain is
known as the Cedarberg, Groote Zwarteberg (highest point 6988 ft.),
Groote river, Winterhoek (with Cockscomb mountain 5773 ft. high) and
Zuurberg ranges. The Zuurberg, owing to the north-east trend of the
shore, becomes, east of Port Elizabeth, a coast range, and the central
chain is represented by a more northerly line of hills, with a dozen
different names, which are a south-easterly spur of the Sneeuwberg. In
this range the Great Winter Berg attains a height of 7800 ft.
The coast chain is represented west to east by the Olifants mountains
(with Great Winterhoek, 6618 ft. high), Drakenstein, Zonder Einde,
Langeberg (highest point 5614 ft.), Attaquas, Uiteniquas and various
other ranges. In consequence of the north-east trend of the coast,
already noted, several of these ranges end in the sea in bold bluffs.
From the coast plain rise many short ranges of considerable elevation,
and on the east side of False Bay parallel to Table Bay range is a
mountain chain with heights of 4000 and 5000 ft. East of the Kei river
the whole of the country within Cape Colony, save the narrow seaboard,
is mountainous. The southern part is largely occupied with spurs of the
Stormberg; the northern portion, Griqualand East and Pondoland, with the
flanks of the Drakensberg. Several peaks exceed 7000 ft. in height.
Zwart Berg, near the Basuto-Natal frontier, rises 7615 ft. above the
sea. Mount Currie, farther south, is 7296 ft. high. The Witte Bergen
(over 5000 ft. high) are an inner spur of the Drakensberg running
through the Herschel district.
That part of the inner tableland of South Africa which is in the colony
has an average elevation of 3000 ft., being higher in the eastern than
in the western districts. It consists of wide rolling treeless plains
scarred by the beds of many rivers, often dry for a great part of the
year. The tableland is broken by the Orange river, which traverses its
whole length. North of the river the plateau slopes northward to a level
sometimes as low as 2000 ft. The country is of an even more desolate
character than south of the Orange (see BECHUANALAND). Rising from the
plains are chains of isolated flat-topped hills such as the Karree
Bergen, the Asbestos mountains and Kuruman hills, comparatively
unimportant ranges.
Although the mountains present bold and picturesque outlines on their
outward faces, the general aspect of the country north of the
coast-lands, except in its south-eastern corner, is bare and monotonous.
The flat and round-topped hills (_kopjes_), which are very numerous on
the various plateaus, scarcely afford relief to the eye, which searches
the sun-scorched landscape, usually in vain, for running water. The
absence of water and of large trees is one of the most abiding
impressions of the traveller. Yet the vast arid plains are covered with
shallow beds of the richest soil, which only require the fertilizing
power of water to render them available for pasture or agriculture.
After the periodical rains, the Karroo and the great plains of
Bushmanland are converted into vast fields of grass and flowering
shrubs, but the summer sun reduces them again to a barren and burnt-up
aspect. The pastoral lands or _velds_ are distinguished according to the
nature of their herbage as "sweet" or "sour." Shallow sheets of water
termed _vleis_, usually brackish, accumulate after heavy rain at many
places in the plateaus; in the dry seasons these spots, where the soil
is not excessively saline, are covered with rich grass and afford
favourite grazing land for cattle. Only in the southern coast-land of
the colony is there a soil and moisture supply suited to forest growth.
_Rivers_.--The inner chain of mountains forms the watershed of the
colony. North of this great rampart the country drains to the Orange
(q.v.), which flows from east to west nearly across the continent. For a
considerable distance, both in its upper and lower courses, the river
forms the northern frontier of Cape Colony. In the middle section, where
both banks are in the colony, the Orange receives from the north-east
its greatest tributary, the Vaal (q.v.). The Vaal, within the boundaries
of the colony, is increased by the Harts river from the north-east and
the Riet river from the south-east, whilst just within the colony the
Riet is joined by the Modder. All these tributaries of the Orange flow,
in their lower courses, through the eastern part of Griqualand West, the
only well-watered portion of the colony north of the mountains. From the
north, below the Vaal confluence, the Nosob, Molopo and Kuruman,
intermittent streams which traverse Bechuanaland, send their occasional
surplus waters to the Orange. In general these rivers lose themselves in
some _vlei_ in the desert land. The Molopo and Nosob mark the frontier
between the Bechuanaland Protectorate and the Cape; the Kuruman lies
wholly within the colony. From the south a number of streams, the Brak
and Ongers, the Zak and Olifants Vlei (the two last uniting to form the
Hartebeest), flow north towards the Orange in its middle course. Dry for
a great part of the year, these streams rarely add anything to the
volume of the Orange.
South of the inner chain the drainage is direct to the Atlantic or
Indian Oceans. Rising at considerable elevations, the coast rivers fall
thousands of feet in comparatively short courses, and many are little
else than mountain torrents. They make their way down the mountain sides
through great gorges, and are noted in the eastern part of the country
for their extremely sinuous course. Impetuous and magnificent streams
after heavy rain, they become in the summer mere rivulets, or even dry
up altogether. In almost every instance the mouths of the rivers are
obstructed by sand bars. Thus, as is the case of the Orange river also,
they are, with rare exceptions, unnavigable.
Omitting small streams, the coast rivers running to the Atlantic are the
Buffalo, Olifants and Berg. It may be pointed out here that the same
name is repeatedly applied throughout South Africa to different streams,
Buffalo, Olifants (elephants') and Groote (great) being favourite
designations. They all occur more than once in Cape Colony. Of the west
coast rivers, the Buffalo, about 125 m. long, the most northern and
least important, flows through Little Namaqualand. The Olifants (150
m.), which generally contains a fair depth of water, rises in the
Winterhoek mountains and flows north between the Cedarberg and Olifants
ranges. The Doorn, a stream with a somewhat parallel but more easterly
course, joins the Olifants about 50 m. above its mouth, the Atlantic
being reached by a semicircular sweep to the south-west. The Berg river
(125 m.) rises in the district of French Hoek and flows through fertile
country, in a north-westerly direction, to the sea at St Helena Bay. It
is navigable for a few miles from its mouth.
On the south coast the most westerly stream of any size is the Breede
(about 165 m. long), so named from its low banks and broad channel.
Rising in the Warm Bokkeveld, it pierces the mountains by Mitchell's
Pass, flows by the picturesque towns of Ceres and Worcester, and
receives, beyond the last-named place, the waters which descend from
the famous Hex River Pass. The Breede thence follows the line of the
Langeberg mountains as far as Swellendam, where it turns south, and
traversing the coast plain, reaches the sea in St Sebastian Bay. From
its mouth the river is navigable by small vessels for from 30 to 40 m.
East of the Breede the following rivers, all having their rise on the
inner mountain chain, are passed in the order named:--Gouritz (200
m.),[1] Gamtoos (290 m.), Sunday (190 m.), Great Salt (230 m.), Kei (150
m.), Bashee (90 m.) and Umzimvuba or St John's (140 m.).
The Gouritz is formed by the junction of two streams, the Gamka and the
Olifants. The Gamka rises in the Nieuwveld not far from Beaufort West,
traverses the Great Karroo from north to south, and forces a passage
through the Zwarteberg. Crossing the Little Karroo, it is joined from
the east by the Olifants (115 m.), a stream which rises in the Great
Karroo, being known in its upper course as the Traka, and pierces the
Zwarteberg near its eastern end. Thence it flows west across the Little
Karroo past Oudtshoorn to its junction with the Gamka. The united
stream, which takes the name of Gouritz, flows south, and receives from
the west, a few miles above the point where it breaks through the coast
range, a tributary (125 m.) bearing the common name Groote, but known in
its upper course as the Buffels. Its headwaters are in the Komsberg. The
Touws (90 m.), which rises in the Great Karroo not far from the sources
of the Hex river, is a tributary of the Groote river. Below the Groote
the Gouritz receives no important tributaries and enters the Indian
Ocean at a point 20 m. south-west of Mossel Bay.
The Gamtoos is also formed by the junction of two streams, the Kouga, an
unimportant river which rises in the coast hills, and the Groote river.
This, _the_ Groote river of Cape Colony, has its rise in the Nieuwveld
near Nels Poort, being known in its upper course as the Salt river.
Flowing south-east, it is joined by the Kariega on the left, and
breaking through the escarpment of the Great Karroo, on the lower level
changes its name to the Groote, the hills which overhang it to the
north-east being known as Groote River Heights. Bending south, the
Groote river passes through the coast chain by Cockscomb mountain, and
being joined by the Kouga, flows on as the Gamtoos to the sea at St
Francis Bay.
Sunday river does not, like so many of the Cape streams, change its name
on passing from the Great to the Little Karroo and again on reaching the
coast plain. It rises in the Sneeuwberg north-west of Graaff Reinet,
flows south-east through one of the most fertile districts of the Great
Karroo, which it pierces at the western end of the Zuurberg (of the
coast chain), and reaches the ocean in Algoa Bay.
Great Salt river is formed by the junction of the Kat with the Great
Fish river, which is the main stream. Several small streams rising in
the Zuurberg (of the inner chain) unite to form the Great Fish river
which passes through Cradock, and crossing the Karroo, changes its
general direction from south to east, and is joined by the Kooner (or
Koonap) and Kat, both of which rise in the Winterberg. Thence, as the
Great Salt river, it winds south to the sea. Great Fish river is
distinguished for the sudden and great rise of its waters after heavy
rain and for its exceedingly sinuous course. Thus near Cookhouse railway
station it makes an almost circular bend of 20 m., the ends being
scarcely 2 m. apart, in which distance it falls 200 ft. Although, like
the other streams which cross the Karroo, the river is sometimes dry in
its upper course, it has an estimated annual discharge of 51,724,000,000
cubic ft.
The head-streams of the Kei, often called the Great Kei, rise in the
Stormberg, and the river, which resembles the Great Fish in its many
twists, flows in a general south-east direction through mountainous
country until it reaches the coast plain. Its mouth is 40 m. in a direct
line north-east of East London. In the history of the Cape the Kei
plays an important part as long marking the boundary between the colony
and the independent Kaffir tribes. (For the Umzimvuba and other Transkei
rivers see KAFFRARIA.)
Of the rivers rising in the coast chain the Knysna (30 m.), Kowie (40
m.), Keiskama (75 m.) and Buffalo (45 m.) may be mentioned. The Knysna
rises in the Uiteniquas hills and is of importance as a feeder of the
lagoon or estuary of the same name, one of the few good harbours on the
coast. The banks of the Knysna are very picturesque. Kowie river, which
rises in the Zuurberg mountains near Graham's Town, is also noted for
the beauty of its banks. At its mouth is Port Alfred. The water over the
bar permits the entrance of vessels of 10 to 12 ft. draught. The Buffalo
river rises in the hilly country north of King William's Town, past
which it flows. At the mouth of the river, where the scenery is very
fine, is East London, third in importance of the ports of Cape Colony.
The frequency of "fontein" among the place names of the colony bears
evidence of the number of springs in the country. They are often found
on the flat-topped hills which dot the Karroo. Besides the ordinary
springs, mineral and thermal springs are found in several places.
_Lakes and Caves._--Cape Colony does not possess any lakes properly so
called. There are, however, numerous natural basins which, filled after
heavy rain, rapidly dry up, leaving an incrustation of salt on the
ground, whence their name of salt pans. The largest, Commissioner's Salt
Pan, in the arid north-west district, is 18 to 20 m. in circumference.
Besides these pans there are in the interior plateaus many shallow pools
or _vleis_ whose extent varies according to the dryness or moisture of
the climate. West of Knysna, and separated from the seashore by a
sandbank only, are a series of five _vleis_, turned in flood times into
one sheet of water and sending occasional spills to the ocean. These
_vleis_ are known collectively as "the lakes." In the Zwarteberg of the
central chain are the Cango Caves, a remarkable series of caverns
containing many thousand of stalactites and stalagmites. These caves,
distant 20 m. from Oudtshoorn, have been formed in a dolomite limestone
bed about 800 ft. thick. There are over 120 separate chambers, the
caverns extending nearly a mile in a straight line.
_Climate_.--The climate of Cape Colony is noted for its healthiness. Its
chief characteristics are the dryness and clearness of the atmosphere
and the considerable daily range in temperature; whilst nevertheless the
extremes of heat and cold are rarely encountered. The mean annual
temperature over the greater part of the country is under 65° F. The
chief agents in determining the climate are the vast masses of water in
the southern hemisphere and the elevation of the land. The large extent
of ocean is primarily responsible for the lower temperature of the air
in places south of the tropics compared with that experienced in
countries in the same latitude north of the equator. Thus Cape Town,
about 34° S., has a mean temperature, 63° F., which corresponds with
that of the French and Italian Riviera, in 41° to 43° N. For the dryness
of the atmosphere the elevation of the country is responsible. The east
and south-east winds, which contain most moisture, dissipate their
strength against the Drakensberg and other mountain ranges which guard
the interior. Thus while the coast-lands, especially in the south-east,
enjoy an ample rainfall, the winds as they advance west and north
contain less and less moisture, so that over the larger part of the
country drought is common and severe. Along the valley of the lower
Orange rain does not fall for years together. The drought is increased
in intensity by the occasional hot dry wind from the desert region in
the north, though this wind is usually followed by violent
thunderstorms.
Whilst the general characteristics of the climate are as here outlined,
in a country of so large an area as Cape Colony there are many
variations in different districts. In the coast-lands the daily range of
the thermometer is less marked than in the interior and the humidity of
the atmosphere is much greater. Nevertheless, the west coast north of
the Olifants river is practically rainless and there is great difference
between day and night temperatures, this part of the coast sharing the
characteristics of the interior plateau. The division of the year into
four seasons is not clearly marked save in the Cape peninsula, where
exceptional conditions prevail. In general the seasons are but
two--summer and winter, summer lasting from September to April and
winter filling up the rest of the year. The greatest heat is experienced
in December, January and February, whilst June and July are the coldest
months. In the western part of the colony the winter is the rainy
season, in the eastern part the chief rains come in summer. A line drawn
from Port Elizabeth north-west across the Karroo in the direction of
Walfish Bay roughly divides the regions of the winter and summer rains.
All the country north of the central mountain chain and west of 23° E.,
including the western part of the Great Karroo, has a mean annual
rainfall of under 12 in. East of the 23° E. the plateaus have a mean
annual rainfall ranging from 12 to 25 in. The western coast-lands and
the Little Karroo have a rainfall of from 10 to 20 in.; the Cape
peninsula by exception having an average yearly rainfall of 40 in. (see
CAPE TOWN). Along the south coast and in the south-east the mean annual
rainfall exceeds 25 in., and is over 50 in. at some stations. The rain
falls, generally, in heavy and sudden storms, and frequently washes away
the surface soil. The mean annual temperature of the coast region,
which, as stated, is 63° F. at Cape Town, increases to the east, the
coast not only trending north towards the equator but feeling the effect
of the warm Mozambique or Agulhas current.
On the Karroo the mean maximum temperature is 77° F., the mean minimum
49°, the mean daily range about 27°. In summer the drought is severe,
the heat during the day great, the nights cool and clear. In winter
frost at night is not uncommon. The climate of the northern plains is
similar to that of the Karroo, but the extremes of cold and heat are
greater. In the summer the shade temperature reaches 110° F., whilst in
winter nights 12° of frost have been registered. The hot westerly winds
of summer make the air oppressive, though violent thunderstorms, in
which form the northern districts receive most of their scanty rainfall,
occasionally clear the atmosphere. Mirages are occasionally seen. The
keen air, accompanied by the brilliant sunshine, renders the winter
climate very enjoyable. Snow seldom falls in the coast region, but it
lies on the higher mountains for three or four months in the year, and
for as many days on the Karroo. Violent hailstorms, which do great
damage, sometimes follow periods of drought. The most disagreeable
feature of the climate of the colony is the abundance of dust, which
seems to be blown by every wind, and is especially prevalent in the
rainy season.
That white men can thrive and work in Cape Colony the history of South
Africa amply demonstrates. Ten generations of settlers, from northern
Europe have been born, lived and died there, and the race is as strong
and vigorous as that from which it sprang. Malarial fever is practically
non-existent in Cape Colony, and diseases of the chest are rare.
(F. R. C.)
_Geology_.--The colony affords the typical development of the geological
succession south of the Zambezi. The following general arrangement has
been determined:--
TABLE OF FORMATIONS.
_Post-Cretaceous and Recent._
Cretaceous / Pondoland Cretaceous Series \ Cretaceous
System \ Uitenhage Series /
/ Stormberg Series \
Karroo System < Beaufort Series > Carboniferous
| Ecca Series | to Jurassic
\ Dwyka Series /
/ Witteberg Series \
Cape System < Bokkeveld Series > Devonian
| Table Mountain Sandstone |
\ Series /
/ Includes several independent \
Pre-Cape Rocks < unfossiliferous formations > Archaean to
\ of pre-Devonian age / Silurian(?)
The general structure of the colony is simple. It may be regarded as a
shallow basin occupied by the almost horizontal rocks of the Karroo.
These form the plains and plateaus of the interior. Rocks of pre-Cape
age rise from beneath them on the north and west; on the south and east
the Lower Karroo and Cape systems are bent up into sharp folds, beneath
which, but in quite limited areas, the pre-Cape rocks emerge. In the
folded regions the strike conforms to the coastal outline on the south
and east.
Pre-Cape rocks occur in three regions, presenting a different
development in each:--
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------+
| North. | West. | South. |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------+
| Matsap Series | Nieuwerust Beds | Cango Beds |
| Ongeluk Volcanic Series | | |
| Griquatown Series | Ibiquas Beds | |
| Campbell Rand Series | | |
| Black Reef Series | | |
| Pniel Volcanic Series | | |
| Keis Series | | |
| Namaqualand Schists | Namaqualand Schists and | Malmesbury |
| | Malmesbury Beds | Beds |
+-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------+
The pre-Cape rocks are but little understood. They no doubt represent
formations of widely different ages, but all that can be said is that
they are greatly older than the Cape System. The hope that they will
yield fossils has been held out but not yet fulfilled. Their total
thickness amounts to several thousand feet. The rocks have been greatly
changed by pressure in most cases and by the intrusion of great masses
of igneous material, the Namaqualand schists and Malmesbury beds being
most altered.
The most prominent member of the Cango series is a coarse conglomerate;
the other rocks include slates, limestone and porphyroids. The Ibiquas
beds consist of conglomerates and grits. Both the Cango and Ibiquas
series have been invaded by granite of older date than the Table
Mountain series. The Nieuwerust beds contain quartzite, arkose and
shales. They rest indifferently on the Ibiquas series or Malmesbury
beds.
The pre-Cape rocks of the northern region occur in the Campbell Rand,
Asbestos mountains, Matsap and Langebergen, and in the Schuftebergen.
They contain a great variety of sediments and igneous rocks. The oldest,
or Keis, series consists of quartzites, quartz-schists, phyllites and
conglomerates. These are overlain, perhaps unconformably, by a great
thickness of lavas and volcanic breccias (Pniel volcanic series, Beer
Vley and Zeekoe Baard amygdaloids), and these in turn by the quartzites,
grits and shales of the Black Reef series. The chief rocks of the
Campbell Rand series are limestones and dolomites, with some interbedded
quartzites. Among the Griquatown series of quartzites, limestones and
shales are numerous bands of jasper and large quantities of crocidolite
(a fibrous amphibole); while at Blink Klip a curious breccia, over 200
ft. thick, is locally developed. Evidences of one of the oldest known
glaciations have been found near the summit in the district of Hay. The
Ongeluk volcanic series, consisting of lavas and breccias, conformably
overlies the Griquatown series; while the grits, quartzites and
conglomerates of the Matsap series rest on them with a great
discordance.
Rocks of the Cape System have only been met with in the southern and
eastern parts of South Africa. The lowest member (Table Mountain
Sandstone) consists of sandstones with subordinate bands of shale. It
forms the upper part of Table Mountain and enters largely into the
formation of the southern mountainous folded belt. It is unfossiliferous
except for a few obscure sheils obtained near the base. A bed of
conglomerate is regarded as of glacial origin.
The Table Mountain Sandstone passes up conformably into a sequence of
sandstones and shales (Bokkeveld Beds), well exposed in the Cold and
Warm Bokkevelds. The lowest beds contain many fossils, including
_Phacops, Homalonotus, Leptocoelia, Spirifer, Chonetes, Orthothetes,
Orthoceras, Bellerophon_. Many of the species are common to the Devonian
rocks of the Falkland Islands, North and South America and Europe, with
perhaps a closer resemblance to the Devonian fauna of South America than
to that of any other country.
The Bokkeveld beds are conformably succeeded by the sandstones,
quartzites and shales of the Witteberg series. So far imperfect remains
of plants (_Spirophyton_) are the only fossils, and these are not
sufficient to determine if the beds belong to the Devonian or
Carboniferous System.
The thickness of the rocks of the Cape System exceeds 5000 ft.
The Karroo System is _par excellence_ the geological formation of South
Africa. The greater part of the colony belongs to it, as do large tracts
in the Orange Free State and Transvaal. It includes the following
well-defined subdivisions:--
Feet.
/ Volcanic Beds . . . . 4000 \
Stormberg < Cave Sandstone . . . . 800 > Jurassic
Series | Red Beds . . . . . . 1400 /
\ Molteno Beds . . . . 2000 \
Beaufort / Burghersdorp Beds \ > Trias
Series < Dicynodon Beds > . . 5000 /
\ Pareiasaurus Beds / \ Permian
Ecca / Shales and Sandstones \ /
Series < Laingsburg Beds >. 2600 \
\ Shales / |
Dwyka / Upper Shales . . . . 600 > Carboniferus
Series < Conglomerates . . . . 1000 |
\ Lower Shales . . . . 700 /
In the southern areas the Karroo formation follows the Cape System
conformably; in the north it rests unconformably on very much older
rocks. The most remarkable deposits are the conglomerates of the Dwyka
series. These afford the clearest evidences of glaciation on a great
scale in early Carboniferous times. The deposit strictly resembles a
consolidated modern boulder clay. It is full of huge glaciated blocks,
and in different regions (Prieska chiefly) the underlying pavement is
remarkably striated and shows that the ice was moving southward. The
upper shales contain the small reptile _Mesosaurus tenuidens_.
Plants constitute the chief fossils of the Ecca series; among others
they include _Glossopteris, Gangamopteris, Phyllotheca_. The Beaufort
series is noted for the numerous remains of remarkable and often
gigantic reptiles it contains. The genera and species are numerous,
_Dicynodon, Oudenodon, Pareiasaurus_ being the best known. Among plants
_Glossopteris_ occurs for the last time. The Stormberg series occurs in
the mountainous regions of the Stormberg and Drakensberg. The Molteno
beds contain several workable seams of coal. The most remarkable feature
of the series is the evidence of volcanic activity on an extensive
scale. The greater part of the volcanic series is formed by lava streams
of great thickness. Dykes and intrusive sheets, most of which end at the
folded belt, are also numerous. The age of the intrusive sheets met with
in the Beaufort series is usually attributed to the Stormberg period.
They form the kopjes, or characteristic flat-topped hills of the Great
Karroo. The Stormberg series contains the remains of numerous reptiles.
A true crocodile, _Notochampsa_, has been discovered in the Red Beds and
Cave Sandstone. Among the plants, _Thinnfeldia_ and _Taeniopteris_ are
common. Three genera of fossil fishes, _Cleithrolepis, Semionotus_ and
_Ceratodus_, ascend from the Beaufort series into the Cave Sandstone.
Cretaceous rocks occur only near the coast. The plants of the Uitenhage
beds bear a close resemblance to those of the Wealden. The marine fauna
of Sunday river indicates a Neocomian age. The chief genera are
_Hamites, Baculites, Crioceras, Olcostephanus_ and certain _Trigoniae_.
The superficial post-Cretaceous and Recent deposits are widely spread.
High-level gravels occur from 600 to 2000 ft. above the sea. The remains
of a gigantic ox, _Bubalus Baini_, have been obtained from the alluvium
near the Modder river. The recent deposits indicate that the land has
risen for a long period. (W. G.*)
_Fauna._--The fauna is very varied, but some of the wild animals common
in the early days of the colony have been exterminated (e.g. quagga and
blaauwbok), and others (e.g. the lion, rhinoceros, giraffe) driven
beyond the confines of the Cape. Other game have been so reduced in
numbers as to require special protection. This class includes the
elephant (now found only in the Knysna and neighbouring forest regions),
buffalo and zebra (strictly preserved, and confined to much the same
regions as the elephant), eland, oribi, koodoo, haartebeest and other
kinds of antelope and gnu. The leopard is not protected, but lingers in
the mountainous districts. Cheetahs are also found, including a rare
woolly variety peculiar to the Karroo. Both the leopards and cheetahs
are commonly spoken of in South Africa as tigers. Other carnivora more
or less common to the colony are the spotted hyena, aard-wolf (or
_Proteles_), silver jackal, the _Otocyon_ or Cape wild dog, and various
kinds of wild cats. Of ungulata, besides a few hundreds of rare
varieties, there are the springbuck, of which great herds still wander
on the open veld, the steinbok, a small and beautiful animal which is
sometimes coursed like a hare, the klipspringer or "chamois of South
Africa," common in the mountains, the wart-hog and the dassie or rock
rabbit. There are two or three varieties of hares, and a species of
jerboa and several genera of mongooses. The English rabbit has been
introduced into Robben Island, but is excluded from the mainland. The
ant-bear, with very long snout, tongue and ears, is found on the Karroo,
where it makes inroads on the ant-heaps which dot the plain. There is
also a scaly ant-eater and various species of pangolins, of arboreal
habit, which live on ants. Baboons are found in the mountains and
forests, otters in the rivers. Of reptiles there are the crocodile,
confined to the Transkei rivers, several kinds of snakes, including the
cobra di capello and puff adder, numerous lizards and various tortoises,
including the leopard tortoise, the largest of the continental land
forms. Of birds the ostrich may still be found wild in some regions. The
great kori bustard is sometimes as much as 5 ft. high. Other game birds
include the francolin, quail, guinea-fowl, sand-grouse, snipe, wild
duck, wild goose, widgeon, teal, plover and rail. Birds of prey include
the bearded vulture, aasvogel and several varieties of eagles, hawks,
falcons and owls. Cranes, storks, flamingoes and pelicans are found in
large variety.
Parrots are rarely seen. The greater number of birds belong to the order
Passeres; starlings, weavers and larks are very common, the Cape canary,
long-tailed sugar bird, pipits and wagtails are fairly numerous. The
English starling is stated to be the only European bird to have
thoroughly established itself in the colony. The Cape sparrow has
completely acclimatized itself to town life and prevented the English
sparrow obtaining a footing.
Large toads and frogs are common, as are scorpions, tarantula spiders,
butterflies, hornets and stinging ants. In some districts the tsetse fly
causes great havoc. The most interesting of the endemic insectivora is
the _Chrysochloris_ or "golden mole," so called from the brilliant
yellow lustre of its fur. There are not many varieties of freshwater
fish, the commonest being the baba or cat-fish and the yellow fish. Both
are of large size, the baba weighing as much as 70 lb. The smallest
variety is the culper or burrowing perch. In some of the _vleis_ and
streams in which the water is intermittent the fish preserve life by
burrowing into the ooze. Trout have been introduced into several rivers
and have become acclimatized. Of sea fish there are more than forty
edible varieties. The snock, the steenbrass and geelbeck are common in
the estuaries and bays. Seals and sharks are also common in the waters
of the Cape. Whales visit the coast for the purpose of calving.
Of the domestic animals, sheep, cattle and dogs were possessed by the
natives when the country was discovered by Europeans. The various farm
animals introduced by the whites have thriven well (see below,
_Agriculture_).
_Flora_.--The flora is rich and remarkably varied in the coast
districts. On the Karroo and the interior plateau there is less variety.
In all, some 10,000 different species have been noted in the colony,
about 450 genera being peculiar to the Cape. The bush of the coast
districts and lower hills consists largely of heaths, of which there are
over 400 species. The heaths and the rhenoster or rhinoceros wood, a
plant 1 to 2 ft. high resembling heather, form the characteristic
features of the flora of the districts indicated. The prevailing bloom
is pink coloured. The deciduous plants lose their foliage in the dry
season but revive with the winter rains. Notable among the flowers are
the arum lily and the iris. The pelargonium group, including many
varieties of geranium, is widely represented. In the eastern
coast-lands the vegetation becomes distinctly sub-tropical. Of
pod-bearing plants there are upwards of eighty genera: Cape
"everlasting" flowers (generally species of _Helichrysum_) are in great
numbers. Several species of aloe are indigenous to the Cape. The
so-called American aloe has also been naturalized. The castor-oil plant
and many other plants of great value in medicine are indigenous in great
abundance. Among plants remarkable in their appearance and structure may
be noted the cactus-like Euphorbiae or spurge plants, the _Stapelia_ or
carrion flower, and the elephant's foot or Hottentots' bread, a plant of
the same order as the yam. Hooks, thorns and prickles are characteristic
of many South African plants.
Forests are confined to the seaward slopes of the coast ranges facing
south. They cover between 500 and 600 sq. m. The forests contain a great
variety of useful woods, affording excellent timber; among the commonest
trees are the yellow wood, which is also one of the largest, belonging
to the yew species; black iron wood; heavy, close-grained and durable
stinkhout; melkhout, a white wood used for wheel work; nieshout; and the
assegai or Cape lancewood. Forest trees rarely exceed 30 ft. in height
and scarcely any attain a greater height than 60 ft. A characteristic
Cape tree is _Leucadendron argenteum_ or silver tree, so named from the
silver-like lustre of stem and leaves. The so-called cedars, whence the
Cedarberg got its name, exist no longer. Among trees introduced by the
Dutch or British colonists the oak, poplar, various pines, the
Australian blue-gum (eucalyptus) and wattle flourish. The silver wattle
grows freely in shifting sands and by its means waste lands, e.g. the
Cape Flats, have been reclaimed. The oak grows more rapidly and more
luxuriantly than in Europe. There are few indigenous fruits; the kei
apple is the fruit of a small tree or shrub found in Kaffraria and the
eastern districts, where also the wild and Kaffir plums are common; hard
pears, gourds, water melons and species of almond, chestnut and lemon
are also native. Almost all the fruits of other countries have been
introduced and flourish. On the Karroo the bush consists of dwarf
mimosas, wax-heaths and other shrubs, which after the spring rains are
gorgeous in blossom (see KARROO). The grass of the interior plains is of
a coarse character and yellowish colour, very different from the meadow
grasses of England. The "Indian" doab grass is also indigenous.
With regard to mountain flora arborescent shrubs do not reach beyond
about 4000 ft. Higher up the slopes are covered with small heath,
_Bruniaceae, Rutaceae_, &c. All plants with permanent foliage are
thickly covered with hair. Above 6000 ft. over seventy species of plants
of Alpine character have been found.
_Races and Population_.--The first inhabitants of Cape Colony of whom
there is any record were Bushmen and Hottentots (q.v.). The last-named
were originally called Quaequaes, and received the name Hottentots from
the Dutch. They dwelt chiefly in the south-west and north-west parts of
the country; elsewhere the inhabitants were of Bantu negroid stock, and
to them was applied the name Kaffir. When the Cape was discovered by
Europeans, the population, except along the coast, was very scanty and
it is so still. The advent of Dutch settlers and a few Huguenot families
in the 17th century was followed in the 19th century by that of English
and German immigrants. The Bushmen retreated before the white races and
now few are to be found in the colony. These live chiefly in the
districts bordering the Orange river. The tribal organization of the
Hottentots has been broken up, and probably no _pure bred_
representatives of the race survive in the colony.
Half-breeds of mixed Hottentot, Dutch and Kaffir blood now form the bulk
of the native population west of the Great Fish river. Of Kaffir tribes
the most important living north of the Orange river are the Bechuanas,
whilst in the eastern province and Kaffraria live the Fingoes, Tembus
and Pondos. The Amaxosa are the principal Kaffir tribe in Cape Colony
proper. The Griquas (or Bastaards) are descendants of Dutch-Hottentot
half-castes. They give their name to two tracts of country. During the
slavery period many thousands of negroes were imported, chiefly from
the Guinea coast. The negroes have been largely assimilated by the
Kaffir tribes. (For particulars of the native races see their separate
articles.) Of the white races in the Colony the French element has been
completely absorbed in the Dutch. They and the German settlers are
mainly pastoral people. The Dutch, who have retained in a debased form
their own language, also engage largely in agriculture and viticulture.
Of fine physique and hardy constitution, they are of strongly
independent character; patriarchal in their family life; shrewd, _slim_
and courageous; in religion Protestants of a somewhat austere type.
Education is somewhat neglected by them, and the percentage of
illiteracy among adults is high. They are firm believers in the
inferiority of the black races and regard servitude as their natural
lot. The British settlers have developed few characteristics differing
from the home type. The British element of the community is largely
resident in the towns, and is generally engaged in trade or in
professional pursuits; but in the eastern provinces the bulk of the
farmers are English or German; the German farmers being found in the
district between King William's Town and East London, and on the Cape
Peninsula. Numbers of them retain their own language. The term
"Africander" is sometimes applied to all white residents in Cape Colony
and throughout British South Africa, but is often restricted to the
Dutch-speaking colonists. "Boer," i.e. farmer, as a synonym for "Dutch,"
is not in general use in Cape Colony.
Besides the black and white races there is a large colony of Malays in
Cape Town and district, originally introduced by the Dutch as slaves.
These people are largely leavened with foreign elements and, professing
Mahommedanism, religion rather than race is their bond of union. They
add greatly by their picturesque dress to the gaiety of the street
scenes. They are generally small traders, but many are wealthy. There
are also a number of Indians in the colony. English is the language of
the towns; elsewhere, except in the eastern provinces, the _taal_ or
vernacular Dutch is the tongue of the majority of the whites, as it is
of the natives in the western provinces.
The first census was taken in 1865 when the population of the colony,
which then had an area of 195,000 sq. m., and did not include the
comparatively densely-populated Native Territories, was 566,158. Of
these the Europeans numbered 187,400 or about 33% of the whole. Of the
coloured races the Hottentots and Bushmen were estimated at 82,000,
whilst the Kaffirs formed about 50% of the population. Since 1865
censuses have been taken--in 1875, 1891 and 1904. In 1875 Basutoland
formed part of the colony; in 1891 Transkei, Tembuland, Griqualand East,
Griqualand West and Walfish Bay had been incorporated, and Basutoland
had been disannexed; and in 1904 Pondoland and British Bechuanaland had
been added. The following table gives the area and population at each of
the three periods.
+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+
| 1875. | 1891. | 1904. |
+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Area. | Pop. | Area. | Pop. | Area. | Pop. |
| sq. m. | | sq. m. | | sq. m. | |
+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 201,136 | 849,160 | 260,918 |1,527,224| 276,995 |2,409,804|
+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
The 1875 census gave the population of the colony proper at 720,984, and
that of Basutoland at 128,176. The colony is officially divided into
nine provinces, but is more conveniently treated as consisting of three
regions, to which may be added the detached area of Walfish Bay and the
islands along the coast of Namaqualand. The table on the next page shows
the distribution of population in the various areas.
The white population, which as stated was 187,400 in 1865 and 579,741 in
1904, was at the intermediate censuses 236,783 in 1875 and 376,987 in
1891. The proportion of Dutch descended whites to those of British
origin is about 3 to 2. No exact comparison can be made showing the
increase in the native population owing to the varying areas of the
colony, but the natives have multiplied more rapidly than the whites;
the increase in the numbers of the last-named being due, in considerable
measure, to immigration. The whites who form about 25% of the total
population are in the proportion of 4 to 6 in the colony proper. The
great bulk of the people inhabit the coast region. The population is
densest in the south-west corner (which includes Cape Town, the capital)
where the white outnumbers the coloured population. Here in an area of
1711 sq. m. the inhabitants exceed 264,000, being 154 to the sq. m. The
urban population, reckoning as such dwellers in the nine largest towns
and their suburbs, exceeds 331,000, being nearly 25% of the total
population of the colony proper. Of the coloured inhabitants at the 1904
census 15,682 were returned as Malay, 8489 as Indians, 85,892 as
Hottentots,[2] 4168 as Bushmen and 6289 as Griquas. The Kaffir and
Bechuana tribes numbered 1,114,067 individuals, besides 310,720 Fingoes
separately classified, while 279,662 persons were described as of mixed
race. Divided by sex (including white and black) the males numbered
(1904) 1,218,940, the females 1,190,864, females being in the proportion
of 97.70 to 100 males. By race the proportion is:--whites, 82.16 females
to every 100 males (a decrease of 10% compared with 1891); coloured,
103.22 females to every 100 males. Of the total population over 14 years
old--1,409,975--the number married was 738,563 or over 50%. Among the
white population this percentage was only reached in adults over 17.
+-------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| | Population (1904). |
+-------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+-------+
| | Area in | White. | Coloured. | Total. | Per |
| | sq. m. | | | | sq. m.|
+-------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+-------+
| Cape Colony Proper | 206,613 | 553,452 | 936,239 | 1,489,691 | 7.21 |
| British Bechuanaland | 51,424 | 9,368 | 75,104 | 84,472 | 1.64 |
| Native Territories | 18,310 | 16,777 | 817,867 | 834,644 | 45.50 |
| Walfish Bay and Islands | 648 | 144 | 853 | 977 | 1.50 |
+-------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+-------+
| Total | 276,995 | 579,741 | 1,830,063 | 2,409,804 | 8.70 |
+-------------------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+-------+
The professional, commercial and industrial occupations employ about ¼th
of the white population. In 1904 whites engaged in such pursuits
numbered respectively only 32,202, 46,750 and 67,278, whereas 99,319
were engaged in domestic employment, and 111,175 in agricultural
employment, while 214,982 (mostly children) were dependants. The natives
follow domestic and agricultural pursuits almost exclusively.
Registration of births and deaths did not become compulsory till 1895.
Among the European population the birth-rate is about 33.00 per
thousand, and the death-rate 14.00 per thousand. The birth-rate among
the coloured inhabitants is about the same as with the whites, but the
death-rate is higher--about 25.00 per thousand.
_Immigration and Emigration_.--From 1873 to 1884 only 23,337 persons
availed themselves of the government aid to immigrants from England to
the Cape, and in 1886 this aid was stopped. The total number of adult
immigrants by sea, however, steadily increased from 11,559 in 1891 to
38,669 in 1896, while during the same period the number of departures by
sea only increased from 8415 to 17,695, and most of this increase took
place in the last year. But from 1896 onwards the uncertainty of the
political position caused a falling off in the number of immigrants,
while the emigration figures still continued to grow; thus in 1900 there
were 29,848 adult arrivals by sea, as compared with 21,163 departures.
Following the close of the Anglo-Boer War the immigration figures rose
in 1903 to 61,870, whereas the departures numbered 29,615. This great
increase proved transitory; in 1904 and 1905 the immigrants numbered
32,282 and 33,775 respectively, while in the same years the emigrants
numbered 33,651 and 34,533. At the census of 1904, 21.68% of the
European population was born outside Africa, persons of Russian
extraction constituting the strongest foreign element.
_Provinces_.--The first division of the colony for the purposes of
administration and election of members for the legislative council was
into two provinces, a western and an eastern, the western being largely
Dutch in sentiment, the eastern chiefly British. With the growth of the
colony these provinces were found to be inconveniently large, and by an
act of government, which became law in 1874, the country was portioned
out into seven provinces; about the same time new fiscal divisions were
formed within them by the reduction of those already existing. The seven
provinces are named from their geographical position: western,
north-western, south-western, eastern, north-eastern, south-eastern and
midland. In general usage the distinction made is into western and
eastern provinces, according to the area of the primary division.
Griqualand West on its incorporation with the colony in 1880 became a
separate province, and when the crown colony of British Bechuanaland was
taken over by the Cape in 1895 it also became a separate province (see
GRIQUALAND and BECHUANALAND). For electoral purposes the Native
Territories (see KAFFRARIA) are included in the eastern province.
_Chief Towns_.--With the exception of Kimberley the principal towns (see
separate notices) are on the coast. The capital, Cape Town, had a
population (1904) of 77,668, or including the suburbs, 169,641. The most
important of these suburbs, which form separate municipalities, are
Woodstock (28,990), Wynberg (18,477), and Claremont (14,972). Kimberley,
the centre of the diamond mining industry, 647 m. up country from Cape
Town, had a pop. of 34,331, exclusive of the adjoining municipality of
Beaconsfield (9378). Port Elizabeth, in Algoa Bay, had 32,959
inhabitants, East London, at the mouth of the Buffalo river, 25,220.
Cambridge (pop. 3480) is a suburb of East London. Uitenhage (pop.
12,193) is 21 m. N.N.W. of Port Elizabeth. Of the other towns Somerset
West (2613), Somerset West Strand (3059), Stellenbosch (4969), Paarl
(11,293), Wellington (4881), Ceres (2410), Malmesbury (3811), Caledon
(3508), Worcester (7885), Robertson (3244) and Swellendam (2406) are
named in the order of proximity to Cape Town, from which Swellendam is
distant 134 m. Other towns in the western half of the colony are
Riversdale (2643), Oudtshoorn (8849), Beaufort West (5478), Victoria
West (2762), De Aar (3271), and the ports of Mossel Bay (4206) and
George (3506). Graaff Reinet (10,083), Middleburg (6137), Cradock
(7762), Aberdeen (2553), Steynsburg (2250) and Colesberg (2668) are more
centrally situated, while in the east are Graham's Town (13,887), King
William's Town (9506), Queenstown (9616), Molteno (2725), Burghersdorp
(2894), Tarkastad (2270), Dordrecht (2052), Aliwal North (5566), the
largest town on the banks of the Orange, and Somerset East (5216).
Simon's Town (6643) in False Bay is a station of the British navy.
Mafeking (2713), in the extreme north of the colony near the Transvaal
frontier, Taungs (2715) and Vryburg (2985) are in Bechuanaland. Kokstad
(2903) is the capital of Griqualand East, Umtata (2342) the capital of
Tembuland.
Port Nolloth is the seaport for the Namaqualand copper mines, whose
headquarters are at O'okiep (2106). Knysna, Port Alfred and Port St
Johns are minor seaports. Barkly East and Barkly West are two widely
separated towns, the first being E.S.E. of Aliwal North and Barkly West
in Griqualand West. Hopetown and Prieska are on the south side of the
middle course of the Orange river. Upington (2508) lies further west on
the north bank of the Orange and is the largest town in the western part
of Bechuanaland. Indwe (2608) is the centre of the coal-mining region in
the east of the colony. The general plan of the small country towns is
that of streets laid out at right angles, and a large central market
square near which are the chief church, town hall and other public
buildings. In several of the towns, notably those founded by the early
Dutch settlers, the streets are tree-lined. Those towns for which no
population figures are given had at the 1904 census fewer than 2000
inhabitants.
_Agriculture and Allied Industries._--Owing to the scarcity of water
over a large part of the country the area of land under cultivation is
restricted. The farmers, in many instances, are pastoralists, whose
wealth consists in their stock of cattle, sheep and goats, horses, and,
in some cases, ostriches. In the lack of adequate irrigation much
fertile soil is left untouched.
The principal cereal crops are wheat, with a yield of 1,701,000 bushels
in 1904, oats, barley, rye, mealies (Indian corn) and Kaffir corn (a
kind of millet). The principal wheat-growing districts are in the
south-western and eastern provinces. The yield per acre is fully up to
the average of the world's yield, computed at twelve bushels to the
acre. The quality of Cape wheat is stated to be unsurpassed. Rye gives
its name to the Roggeveld, and is chiefly grown there and in the lower
hills of Namaqualand. Mealies (extensively used as food for cattle and
horses) are very largely grown by the coloured population and Kaffir
corn almost exclusively so. Oats are grown over a wider area than any
other crop, and next to mealies are the heaviest crop grown. They are
often cut whilst still tender, dried and used as forage being known as
oat hay (67,742,000 bundles of about 5½ lb each were produced in 1904).
The principal vegetables cultivated are potatoes, onions, mangold and
beet, beans and peas. Farms in tillage are comparatively small, whilst
those devoted to the rearing of sheep are very large, ranging from 3000
acres to 15,000 acres and more. For the most part the graziers own the
farms they occupy.
The rearing of sheep and other live-stock is one of the chief
occupations followed. At the census of 1904 over 8,465,000 woolled and
3,353,000 other sheep were enumerated. There were 2,775,000 angora and
4,386,000 other goats, some 2,000,000 cattle, 250,000 horses and 100,000
asses. These figures showed in most cases a large decrease compared with
those obtained in 1891, the cause being largely the ravages of
rinderpest. Lucerne and clover are extensively grown for fodder. Ostrich
farms are maintained in the Karroo and in other parts of the country,
young birds having been first enclosed in 1857. A farm of 6000 acres
supports about 300 ostriches. The number of domesticated ostriches in
1904 was 357,000, showing an increase of over 200,000 since 1891. There
are large mule-breeding establishments on the veld.
Viticulture plays an important part in the life of the colony. It is
doubtful whether or not a species of vine is indigenous to the Cape. The
first Dutch settlers planted small vineyards, while the cuttings of
French vines introduced by the Huguenots about 1688 have given rise to
an extensive culture in the south-western districts of the colony. The
grapes are among the finest in the world, whilst the fruit is produced
in almost unrivalled abundance. It is computed that over 600 gallons of
wine are produced from 1000 vines. The vines number about 80,000,000,
and the annual output of wine is about 6,000,000 gallons, besides
1,500,000 gallons of brandy. The Cape wines are chiefly those known as
Hermitage, Muscadel, Pontac, Stein and Hanepoot. The high reputation
which they had in the first half of the 19th century was afterwards lost
to a large extent. Owing to greater care on the part of growers, and the
introduction of French-American resistant stocks to replace vines
attacked by the phylloxera, the wines in the early years of the 20th
century again acquired a limited sale in England. By far the greater
part of the vintage has been, however, always consumed in the colony.
The chief wine-producing districts are those of the Paarl, Worcester,
Robertson, Malmesbury, Stellenbosch and the Cape, all in the
south-western regions. Beyond the colony proper there are promising vine
stocks in the Gordonia division of Bechuanaland and in the Umtata
district of Tembuland.
Fruit culture has become an important industry with the facilities
afforded by rapid steamers for the sale of produce in Europe. The trees
whose fruit reaches the greatest perfection and yield the largest
harvest are the apricot, peach, orange and apple. Large quantities of
table grapes are also grown. Many millions of each of the fruits named
are produced annually. The pear, lemon, plum, fig and other trees
likewise flourish. Cherry trees are scarce. The cultivation of the olive
was begun in the western provinces, c. 1900. In the Oudtshoorn,
Stockenstroom, Uniondale, Piquetberg and other districts tobacco is
grown. The output for 1904 was 5,309,000 lb.
Flour-milling is an industry second only in importance to that of
diamond mining (see below). The chief milling centres are Port Elizabeth
and the Cape district. In 1904 the output of the mills was valued at
over £2,200,000, more than 7,000,000 bushels of wheat being ground.
Forestry is a growing industry. Most of the forests are crown property
and are under the care of conservators. Fisheries were little developed
before 1897 when government experiments were begun, which proved that
large quantities of fish were easily procurable by trawling. Large
quantities of soles are obtained from a trawling ground near Cape
Agulhas. The collection of guano from the islands near Walfish Bay is
under government control.
_Mining_.--The mineral wealth of the country is very great. The most
valuable of the minerals is the diamond, found in Griqualand West and
also at Hopetown, and other districts along the Orange river. The
diamond-mining industry is almost entirely under the control of the De
Beers Mining Company. From the De Beers mines at Kimberley have come
larger numbers of diamonds than from all the other diamond mines of the
world combined. Basing the calculation on the figures for the ten years
1896-1905, the average annual production is slightly over two and a half
million carats, of the average annual value of £4,250,000, the average
price per carat being £1:13:3. From the other districts alluvial
diamonds are obtained of the average annual value of £250,000-£400,000.
They are finer stones than the Kimberley diamonds, having an average
value of £3:2:7 per carat.
Next in importance among mineral products are coal and copper. The
collieries are in the Stormberg district and are of considerable extent.
The Indwe mines are the most productive. The colonial output increased
from 23,000 tons in 1891 to 188,000 tons in 1904. The copper mines are
in Namaqualand, an average of 50,000 to 70,000 tons of ore being mined
yearly. Copper was the first metal worked by white men in the colony,
operations beginning in 1852.
Gold is obtained from mines on the Madibi Reserve, near Mafeking--the
outcrop extending about 30 m.---and, in small quantities, from mines in
the Knysna district. In the Cape and Paarl districts are valuable stone
and granite quarries. Asbestos is mined near Prieska, in which
neighbourhood there are also nitrate beds. Salt is produced in several
districts, there being large pans in the Prieska, Hopetown and Uitenhage
divisions. Tin is obtained from Kuils river, near Cape Town. Many other
minerals exist but are not put to industrial purposes.
_Trade_.--The colony has not only a large trade in its own commodities,
but owes much of its commerce to the transit of goods to and from the
Transvaal, Orange River Colony and Rhodesia. The staple exports are
diamonds, gold (from the Witwatersrand mines), wool, copper ore, ostrich
feathers, mohair, hides and skins. The export of wool, over 23,000,000
lb in 1860, had doubled by 1871, and was over 63,473,000 lb in 1905 when
the export was valued at £1,887,459. In the same year (1905) 471,024 lb
of ostrich feathers were exported valued at £1,081,187. The chief
imports are textiles, food stuffs, wines and whisky, timber, hardware
and machinery. The value of the total imports rose from £13,612,405 in
1895 to £33,761,831 in 1903, but dropped to £20,000,913 in 1905. The
exports in 1895 were valued at £16,798,137 and rose to £23,247,258 in
1899. The dislocation of trade caused by the war with the Boer Republics
brought down the exports in 1900 to £7,646,682 (in which year the value
of the gold exported was only £336,795). They rose to £10,000,000 and
£16,000,000 in 1901 and 1902 respectively, and in 1905 had reached
£33,812,210. (This figure included raw gold valued at £20,731,159.)
About 75% of the imports come from the United Kingdom or British
colonies, and nearly the whole of the exports go to the United Kingdom.
The tonnage of ships entered and cleared at colonial ports rose from
10,175,903 in 1895 to 22,518,286 in 1905. In that year 9/11ths of the
tonnage was British. It is interesting to compare the figures already
given with those of earlier days, as they illustrate the growth of the
colony over a longer period. In 1836 the total trade of the country was
under £1,000,000, in 1860 it had risen to over £4,500,000, in 1874 it
exceeded £10,500,000. It remained at about this figure until the
development of the Witwatersrand gold mines. The consequent great
increase in the carrying trade with the Transvaal led to some neglect of
the internal resources of the colony. Trade depression following the war
of 1899-1902 turned attention to these resources, with satisfactory
results. The value of imports for local consumption in 1906 was
£12,847,188, the value of exports, the produce of the colony being
£15,302,854. A "trade balance-sheet" for 1906 drawn up for the Cape Town
chamber of commerce by its president showed, however, a debtor account
of £18,751,000 compared with a credit account of £17,931,000, figures
representing with fair accuracy the then economic condition of the
country.
Cape Colony is a member of the South African Customs Union. The tariff,
revised in 1906, is protective with a general _ad valorem_ rate of 15%
on goods not specifically enumerated. On machinery generally there is a
3% _ad valorem_ duty. Books, engravings, paintings, sculptures, &c., are
on the free list. There is a rebate of 3% on most goods from the United
Kingdom, machinery from Great Britain thus entering free.
_Communications_.--There is regular communication between Europe and the
colony by several lines of steamships. The British mails are carried
under contract with the colonial government by packets of the
Union-Castle Steamship Co., which leave Southampton every Saturday and
Cape Town every Wednesday. The distance varies from 5866 m. to 6146 m.,
according to the route followed, and the mail boats cover the distance
in seventeen days. From Cape Town mail steamers sail once a week, or
oftener, to Port Elizabeth (436 m., two days) East London (543 m., three
days) and Durban (823 m., four or five days); Mossel Bay being called at
once a fortnight. Steamers also leave Cape Town at frequent and stated
intervals for Port Nolloth.
Steamers of the D.O.A.L. (_Deutsche Ost Afrika Linie_), starting from
Hamburg circumnavigate Africa, touching at the three chief Cape ports.
The western route is via Dover to Cape Town, the eastern route is via
the Suez Canal and Natal. Several lines of steamers ply between Cape
Town and Australian ports, and others between Cape Colony and India.
There are over 8000 m. of roads in the colony proper and rivers crossing
main routes are bridged. The finest bridge in the colony is that which
spans the Orange at Hopetown. It is 1480 ft. long and cost £114,000. Of
the roads in general it may be said that they are merely tracks across
the veld made at the pleasure of the traveller. The ox is very generally
used as a draught animal in country districts remote from railways;
sixteen or eighteen oxen being harnessed to a wagon carrying 3 to 4
tons. Traction-engines have in some places supplanted the ox-wagon for
bringing agricultural produce to market. The "Scotch cart," a light
two-wheeled vehicle is also much used.
_Railways_.--Railway construction began in 1859 when a private company
built a line from Cape Town to Wellington. This line, 64 m. long, was
the only railway in the colony for nearly fifteen years. In 1871
parliament resolved to build railways at the public expense, and in 1873
(the year following the conferment of responsible government on the
colony) a beginning was made with the work, £5,000,000 having been voted
for the purpose. In the same year the Cape Town-Wellington line was
bought by the state. Subsequently powers were again given to private
companies to construct lines, these companies usually receiving
subsidies from the government, which owns and works the greater part of
the railways in the colony.
The plan adopted in 1873 was to build independent lines from the
seaports into the interior, and the great trunk lines then begun
determined the development of the whole system. The standard gauge in
South Africa is 3 ft., 6 in. and all railways mentioned are of that
gauge unless otherwise stated.
The railways, which have a mileage exceeding 4000, are classified under
three great systems:--the Western, the Midland and the Eastern.
The Western system--the southern section of the Cape to Cairo
route--starts from Cape Town and runs by Kimberley (647 m.) to Vryburg
(774 m.), whence it is continued by the Rhodesia Railway Co. to Mafeking
(870 m.), Bulawayo (1360 m.), the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi (1623
m.) and the Belgian Congo frontier, whilst a branch from Bulawayo runs
via Salisbury to Beira, 2037 m. from Cape Town. From Fourteen Streams, a
station 47 m. north of Kimberley, a line goes via Klerksdorp to
Johannesburg and Pretoria, this being the most direct route between Cape
Town and the Transvaal. (Distance from Cape Town to Johannesburg, 955
m.)
The Midland system starts from Port Elizabeth, and the main line runs by
Cradock and Naauwpoort to Norval's Pont on the Orange river, whence it
is continued through the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal by
Bloemfontein to Johannesburg (714 m. from Port Elizabeth) and Pretoria
(741 m.). From Kroonstad, a station midway between Bloemfontein and
Johannesburg, a railway, opened in 1906, goes via Ladysmith to Durban,
and provides the shortest railway route between Cape Town and Port
Elizabeth and Natal. From Port Elizabeth a second line (186 m.) runs by
Uitenhage and Graaff Reinet, rejoining the main line at Rosmead, from
which a junction line (83 m.) runs eastwards, connecting with the
Eastern system at Stormberg. From Naauwpoort another junction line (69
m.) runs north-west, connecting the Midland with the Western system at
De Aar, and affords an alternative route to that via Kimberley from Cape
Town to the Transvaal. (Distance from Cape Town to Johannesburg via
Naauwpoort, 1012 m.)
The Eastern system starts from East London, and the principal line runs
to Springfontein (314 m.) in the Orange River Colony, where it joins the
line to Bloemfontein and the Transvaal. (Distance from East London to
Johannesburg, 665 m.) From Albert junction (246 m. from East London) a
branch, originally the main line, goes east to Aliwal North (280 m.).
The west to east connexion is made by a series of railways running for
the most part parallel with the coast. Starting from Worcester, 109 m.
from Cape Town on the western main line a railway runs to Mossel Bay via
Swellendair and Riversdale. From Mossel Bay another line runs by George,
Oudtshoorn and Willowmore to Klipplaat, a station on the line from
Graaff Reinet to Port Elizabeth. (Distance from Cape Town 666 m.) From
Somerset East a line (164 m.) goes via King William's Town to Blaney
junction on the eastern main line and 31 m. from East London. The
Somerset East line crosses, at Cookhouse station, the Midland main line
from Port Elizabeth to the north, and by this route the distance between
Port Elizabeth and East London is 307 m. Before the completion in 1905
of the Somerset East-King William's Town line, the nearest railway
connexion between the two seaports was via Rosmead and Stormberg
junction--a distance of 547 m. From Sterkstroom junction on the eastern
main line a branch railway goes through the Transkei to connect at
Riverside, the frontier station, with the Natal railways. It runs via
the Indwe coal-mines (66 m. from Sterkstroom), Maclear (173 m.) and
Kokstad. From Kokstad to Durban is 232 m. The eastern system is also
connected with the Transkei by another railway. From Amabele, a station
51 m. from East London, a line goes east to Umtata (180 m. distant).
Thence the line is continued to Port St Johns (307 m. from East London),
whence another line 142 m. long goes to Kokstad.
Besides the main lines there are many smaller lines. Thus all the towns
within a 50 m. radius of Cape Town are linked to it by railway. Longer
branches run from the capital S.E. to Caledon (87 m.) and N.W. via
Malmesbury (47 m.), and Piquetberg (107 m.) to Graaf Water (176 m.). A
line runs N.W. across the veld from Hutchinson on the western main line
via Victoria West to Carnarvon (86 m.). From De Aar junction, a line
(111 m.) goes N.W. via Britstown to Prieska on the Orange river. From
Port Elizabeth a line (35 m.) runs east to Grahamstown, whence another
line (43 m.) goes south-east to Port Alfred at the mouth of the Kowie
river. Another line (179 m.) on a two-foot gauge runs N.W. from Port
Elizabeth via Humansdorp to Avontuur.
A line, unconnected with any other in the colony, runs from Port
Nolloth on the west coast to the O'okiep copper mines (92 m.). It has a
gauge of 2 ft. 6 in.
The railways going north have to cross, within a comparatively short
distance of the coast, the mountains which lead to the Karroo. The
steepest gradient is on the western main line. Having entered the hilly
district at Tulbagh Road, where the railway ascends 500 ft. in 9 m., the
Hex River Pass is reached soon after leaving Worcester, 794 ft. above
the sea. In the next 36 m. the line rises 2400 ft., over 20 m. of that
distance being at gradients of 1 in 40 to 1 in 45. The eastern line is
the most continuously steep in the colony. In the first 18 m. from East
London the railway rises 1000 ft.; at Kei Road, 46 m. from its
starting-point, it has reached an altitude of 2332 ft., at Cathcart (109
m.) it is 3906 ft. above the sea, and at Cyphergat, where it pierces the
Stormberg, 204 m. from East London, the rails are 5450 ft. above the
sea. From Sterkstroom to Cyphergat, 15 m., the line rises 1044 ft. The
highest railway station in the colony is Krom Hooghte, 5543 ft., in the
Zuurberg, on the branch line connecting the Eastern and Western systems.
The capital expended on government railways to the end of 1905 was
£29,973,024, showing a cost per mile of £10,034. The gross earnings in
1905 were £4,047,065 (as compared with £3,390,093 in 1895); the expenses
£3,076,920 (as compared with £1,596,013 in 1895). Passengers conveyed in
1905 numbered 20,611,384, and the tonnage of goods 1,836,946 (of 2000
lb).
_Posts and Telegraphs_.--Direct telegraphic communication between London
and Cape Town was established on Christmas day 1879. Cables connect the
colony with Europe (1) via Loanda and Bathurst, (2) via St Helena,
Ascension and St Vincent; with Europe and Asia (3) via Natal, Zanzibar
and Aden, and with Australia (4) via Natal, Mauritius and Cocos.
An overland telegraph wire connects Cape Town and Ujiji, on Lake
Tanganyika, via Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Other lines connect Cape Town
with all other South African states, while within the colony there is a
complete system of telegraphic communication, over 8000 m. of lines
being open in 1906. The telephone service is largely developed in the
chief towns. The telegraph lines are owned and have been almost entirely
built, at a cost up to 1906 of £865,670, by the government, which in
1873 took over the then existing lines (781 m.).
The postal service is well organized, and to places beyond the reach of
the railway there is a service of mail carts, and in parts of Gordonia
(Bechuanaland) camels are used to carry the mails. Since 1890 a yearly
average of over 50,000,000 has passed through the post. Of these about
four-fifths are letters.
_Constitution and Government_.--Under the constitution established in
1872 Cape Colony enjoyed self-government. The legislature consisted of
two chambers, a Legislative Council and a House of Assembly. Members of
the Legislative Council or Upper House represented the provinces into
which the colony was divided and were elected for seven years; members
of the House of Assembly, a much more numerous body, elected for five
years, represented the towns and divisions of the provinces. At the head
of the executive was a governor appointed by the crown. By the South
Africa Act 1909 this constitution was abolished as from the
establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Cape Colony entered
the Union as an original province, being represented in the Union
parliament by eight members in the Senate and fifty-one in the House of
Assembly. The qualifications of voters for the election of members of
the House of Assembly are the same as those existing in Cape Colony at
the establishment of the Union, and are as follows:--Voters must be born
or naturalized British subjects residing in the Cape province at least
twelve months, must be males aged 21 (no distinction being made as to
race or colour), must be in possession of property worth £75, or in
receipt of salary or wages of not less than £50 a year. No one not an
elector in 1892 can be registered as a voter unless he can sign his name
and write his address and occupation. A share in tribal occupancy does
not qualify for a vote. A voter of non-European descent is not qualified
for election to parliament (see further SOUTH AFRICA). The number of
registered electors in 1907 was 152,135, of whom over 20,000 were
non-Europeans.
For provincial purposes there is a provincial council consisting of the
same number of members as are elected by the province to the House of
Assembly. The qualifications of voters for the council are the same as
for the House of Assembly. All voters, European and non-European, are
eligible for seats on the council, but any councillor who becomes a
member of parliament thereupon ceases to be a member of the provincial
council. The council passes ordinances dealing with direct taxation
within the province for purely local purposes, and generally controls
all matters of a merely local or private nature in the province. The
council was also given, for five years following the establishment of
the Union, control of elementary education. All ordinances passed by the
council must have the sanction of the Union government before coming
into force. The council is elected for three years and is not subject to
dissolution save by effluxion of time. The chief executive officer is an
official appointed by the Union government and styled administrator of
the province. The administrator holds his post for a period of five
years. He is assisted by an executive committee consisting of four
persons elected by the provincial council but not necessarily members of
that body.
To the provincial council is entrusted the oversight of the divisional
and municipal councils of the province, but the powers of such
subordinate bodies can also be varied or withdrawn by the Union
parliament acting directly. Divisional councils, which are elected
triennially, were established in 1855. In 1908 they numbered eighty-one.
The councils are presided over by a civil commissioner who is also
usually resident magistrate. They have to maintain all roads in the
division; can nominate field cornets (magistrates); may borrow money on
the security of the rates for public works; and return three members
yearly to the district licensing court. Their receipts in 1908 were
£269,000; their expenditure in the same period was £283,000. The
electors to the divisional councils are the owners or occupiers of
immovable property. Members of the councils must be registered voters
and owners of immovable property in the division valued at not less than
£500.
Municipalities at the Cape date from 1836, and are now, for the most
part, subject to the provisions of the General Municipal Act of 1882.
Certain municipalities have, however, obtained special acts for their
governance. In 1907 there were 110 municipalities in the province. Under
the act of 1882 the municipalities were given power to levy annually an
owner's rate assessed upon the capital value of rateable property, and a
tenant's rate assessed upon the annual value of such property. No rate
may exceed 2d. in the £ on the capital value or 8d. in the £ on the
annual value. The receipts of the municipalities in 1907 amounted to
£1,430,000. During the same period the expenditure amounted to
£1,539,000.
_Law and Justice_.--The basis of the judicial system is the Roman-Dutch
law, which has been, however, modified by legislation of the Cape
parliament. In each division of the province there is a resident
magistrate with primary jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters. The
South Africa Act 1909 created a Supreme Court of South Africa, the
supreme court of the Cape of Good Hope, which sits at Cape Town,
becoming a provincial division of the new supreme court, presided over
by a judge-president. The two other superior courts of Cape Colony,
namely the eastern districts court which sits at Graham's Town, and the
high court of Griqualand which sits at Kimberley, became local divisions
of the Supreme Court of South Africa. Each of these courts consists of a
judge-president and two puisne judges. The provincial and local courts,
besides their original powers, have jurisdiction in all matters in which
the government of the Union is a party and in all matters in which the
validity of any provincial ordinance shall come into question. From the
decisions of these courts appeals may be made to the appellate division
of the Supreme Court. The judges of the divisional courts go on circuit
twice a year. In addition, since 1888 a special court has been held at
Kimberley for trying cases relating to illicit diamond buying
("I.D.B."). This court consists of two judges of the supreme court and
one other member, hitherto the civil commissioner or the resident
magistrate of Kimberley. The Transkeian territories, which fall under
the jurisdiction of the eastern district court, are subject to a Native
Territories Penal Code, which came into force in 1887. Besides the usual
magistrates in these territories, there is a chief magistrate, resident
at Cape Town, with two assistants in the territories.
_Religion_.--Up to the year 1876 government provided an annual grant for
ecclesiastical purposes which was divided among the various churches,
Congregationalists alone declining to receive state aid. From that date,
in accordance with the provisions of the Voluntary Act of 1875, grants
were only continued to the then holders of office. The Dutch Reformed
Church, as might be anticipated from the early history of the country,
is by far the most numerous community. Next in number of adherents among
the white community come the Anglicans--Cape Colony forming part of the
Province of South Africa. In 1847 a bishop of Cape Town was appointed to
preside over this church, whose diocese extended not only over Cape
Colony and Natal, but also over the island of St Helena. Later, however,
separate bishops were appointed for the eastern province (with the seat
at Graham's Town) and for Natal. Subsequently another bishopric, St
John's, Kaffraria, was created and the Cape Town diocesan raised to the
rank of archbishop. Of other Protestant bodies the Methodists outnumber
the Anglicans, eight-ninths of their members being coloured people. The
Roman Catholics have bishops in Cape Town and Graham's Town, but are
comparatively few. There are, besides, several foreign missions in the
colony, the most important being the Moravian, London and Rhenish
missionary societies. The Moravians have been established since 1732.
The following figures are extracted from the census returns of
1904:--Protestants, 1,305,453; Roman Catholics, 38,118; Jews, 19,537;
Mahommedans, 22,623; other sects, 4297; "no religion," 1,016,255. In
this last category are placed the pagan natives. The figures for the
chief Protestant sects were:--Dutch Reformed Church, 399,487;
Gereformeerde Kerk, 6209; Lutherans, 80,902; Anglicans, 281,433;
Presbyterians, 88,660; Congregationalists, 112,202; Wesleyan and other
Methodists, 290,264; Baptists, 14,105. Of the Hottentots 77%, of the
Fingoes 50%, of the mixed races 89%, and of the Kaffirs and Bechuanas
26% were returned as Christians.
_Education_.--There is a state system of primary education controlled by
a superintendent-general of education and the education department which
administers the parliamentary grants. As early as 1839 a scheme of
public schools, drawn up by Sir John Herschel, the astronomer, came into
operation, and was continued until 1865, when a more comprehensive
scheme was adopted. In 1905 an act was passed dividing the colony into
school districts under the control of popularly elected school boards,
which were established during 1905-1906. These boards levy, through
municipal or divisional councils, a rate for school purposes and
supervise all public and poor schools. The schools are divided into
public undenominational elementary schools; day schools and industrial
institutions for the natives; mission schools to which government aid
for secular instruction is granted; private farm schools, district
boarding schools, training schools for teachers, industrial schools for
poor whites, &c. In 1905 2930 primary schools of various classes were
open. Education is not compulsory, but at the 1904 census 95% of the
white population over fourteen years old could read and write. In the
same year 186,000 natives could read and write, and 53,000 could read
but not write. There are also numbers of private schools receiving no
government aid. These include schools maintained by the German
community, in which the medium of instruction is German.
The university of the Cape of Good Hope, modelled on that of London,
stands at the head of the educational system of the colony. It arose out
of and superseded the board of public examiners (which had been
constituted in 1858), was established in 1874 and was granted a royal
charter in 1877. It is governed by a chancellor, a vice-chancellor (who
is chairman of the university council) and a council consisting (1909)
of 38 members, including representatives of Natal. The university is
empowered to grant degrees ranking equally with those of any university
in Great Britain. Originally only B.A., M.A., LL.B., LL.D., M.B., and
M.D. degrees were conferred, but degrees in literature, science and
music and (in 1908) in divinity were added. The number of students who
matriculated rose from 34 in 1875 to 118 in 1885, 242 in 1895 and 539 in
1905. The examinations are open to candidates irrespective of where they
have studied, but under the Higher Education Act grants are paid to
seven colleges that specially devote themselves to preparing students
for the graduation courses. These are the South African College at Cape
Town (founded in 1829), the Victoria College at Stellenbosch, the
Diocesan College at Rondebosch, Rhodes University College, Graham's
Town, Gill College at Somerset East, the School of Mines at Kimberley
and the Huguenot Ladies' College at Wellington. Several denominational
colleges, receiving no government aid, do the same work in a greater or
less degree, the best known being St Aidan's (Roman Catholic) College
and Kingswood (Wesleyan) College, both at Graham's Town. Graaff Reinet
College, Dale College, King William's Town, and the Grey Institute, Port
Elizabeth, occupy the place of high schools under the education
department. The Theological Seminary at Stellenbosch prepares
theological students for the ministry of the Dutch Church. At Cape Town
is a Royal Observatory, founded in 1829, one of the most important
institutions of its kind in the world. It is under the control of a
royal astronomer and its expenses are defrayed by the British admiralty.
_Defence_.--The Cape peninsula is fortified with a view to repelling
attacks from the sea. Simon's Town, which is on the east side of the
peninsula, is the headquarters of the Cape and West Coast naval
squadron. It is strongly fortified, as is also Table Bay. Port Elizabeth
is likewise fortified against naval attack. A strong garrison of the
British army is stationed in the colony, with headquarters at Cape Town.
The cost of this garrison is borne by the imperial government. For
purposes of local defence a force named the Frontier Armed and Mounted
Police was organized in 1853, and a permanent colonial force has been
maintained since that date. It is now known as the Cape Mounted Riflemen
and is about 700 strong. Its ordinary duty is to preserve order in the
Transkeian territories. The Cape Mounted Police, over 1600 strong, are
also available for the defence of the colony and are fully armed. There
are numerous volunteer corps, which receive a capitation grant from the
government. By a law passed in 1878 every able-bodied man between
eighteen and fifty is liable to military service without as well as
within the limits of the state. There is also a volunteer naval force.
_Revenue, Debt, &c._--The following table shows the total receipts
(including loans) and payments (including that under Loan Acts) of the
colony in various financial years, from 1880 to 1905:--
+-------------+----------------+--------------------+------------+
| | Receipts. | |
| Year ending +----------------+--------------------+ Payments. |
| 30th June. | Total. | Loans | |
| | |(included in total).| |
+-------------+----------------+--------------------+------------+
| 1880 | £3,556,601 | £3,742,665 |
| 1885 | £3,814,947 | £496,795 | 4,211,832 |
| 1890 | 5,571,907 | 1,141,857 | 5,327,496 |
| 1895 | 5,416,611 | 26,441 | 5,388,157 |
| 1900 | 6,565,752 | 128,376 | 7,773,230 |
| 1905 | 13,856,247 | 5,214,290 | 10,914,784 |
+-------------+----------------+--------------------+------------+
The colony had a public debt of £42,109,561 on the 31st of December
1905, including sums raised for corporate bodies, harbour boards, &c.,
but guaranteed in the general revenue. The greater part of the loans
were issued at 3½ or 4% interest. Nearly the whole of the loans raised
have been spent on railways, harbours, irrigation and other public
works. The value of assessed property for divisional council purposes
was returned in 1905 at £87,078,268. The total revenue of the divisional
councils increased from £160,558 in 1901 to £273,543 in 1905, and the
expenditure from £170,892 in 1901 to £243,241 in 1905. The receipts
from municipal rates and taxes rose from £520,587 in 1901 to £700,103 in
1905; the total municipal receipts in the same period from £978,867 to
£1,752,105. At the end of 1905 the total indebtedness of the
municipalities was £5,775,420, and the value of assessed property within
the municipal bounds £53,948,224.
_Banks._--The following table gives statistics of the banks under trust
laws:--
+----------+------------------------------------+--------------+------------+
| | Including Head Offices. | | Assets and |
| 31st +------------+-----------+-----------+ Circulation, |Liabilities |
| December.| Capital | Capital | Reserve | Colony only. |Colony only.|
| | Subscribed.| Paid up. | | | |
+----------+------------+-----------+-----------+--------------+------------+
| 1890 | £5,780,610 |£1,558,612 | £850,489 | £740,210 | £9,221,661 |
| 1895 | 7,189,090 | 2,382,003 | 1,008,837 | 612,266 | 11,864,152 |
| 1900 | 12,166,800 | 6,508,308 | 1,810,621 | 1,361,637 | 20,537,343 |
| 1905 | 11,510,900 | 4,456,925 | 2,948,428 | 1,065,251 | 20,749,988 |
+----------+------------+-----------+-----------+--------------+------------+
_Standard Time, Money, Weights and Measures_.--Since 1903 a standard
time has been adopted throughout South Africa, being that of 30° or two
hours east of Greenwich. In other words noon in South Africa corresponds
to 10.0 A.M. in London. The actual difference between the meridians of
Greenwich and Cape Town is one hour fourteen minutes. The monetary
system is that of Great Britain and the coins in circulation are
exclusively British. Though all the standard weights and measures are
British, the following old Dutch measures are still used:--_Liquid
Measure_: Leaguer = about 128 imperial gallons; half aum = 15½ imperial
gallons; anker = 7½ imperial gallons. _Capacity_: Muid = 3 bushels. The
general surface measure is the old Amsterdam _Morgen_, reckoned equal to
2.11654 acres; 1000 Cape lineal feet are equal to 1033 British imperial
feet. The Cape ton is 2000 lb.
_The Press_.--The first newspaper of the colony, written in Dutch and
English, was published in 1824, and its appearance marked an era not
only in the literary but in the political history of the colony, since
it drew to a crisis the disputes which had arisen between the colonists
and the governor, Lord Charles Somerset, who had issued a decree
prohibiting all persons from convening or attending public meetings. Its
criticisms on public affairs soon led to its suppression by the
governor, and a memorial from the colonists to the king petitioning for
a free press was the result. This boon was secured to the colony in
1828, and the press soon became a powerful agent, characterized by
public spirit and literary ability. In politics the newspapers are
divided, principally on racial lines, appealing either to the British or
the Dutch section of the community, rarely to both sides. There are
about one hundred newspapers in English or Dutch published in the
colony.
The chief papers are the _Cape Times, Cape Argus, South African News_
(Bond), both daily and weekly; the _Diamond Fields Advertiser_
(Kimberley) and the _Eastern Province Herald_ (Port Elizabeth). _Ons
Land_ and _Het Dagblad_ are Dutch papers published at Cape Town.
(F. R. C.)
HISTORY
_Discovery and Settlement_.--Bartholomew Diaz, the Portuguese navigator,
discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and Vasco da Gama in 1497
sailed along the whole coast of South Africa on his way to India. The
Portuguese, attracted by the riches of the East, made no permanent
settlement at the Cape. But the Dutch, who, on the decline of the
Portuguese power, established themselves in the East, early saw the
importance of the place as a station where their vessels might take in
water and provisions. They did not, however, establish any post at the
Cape until 1652, when a small garrison under Jan van Riebeek were sent
there by the Dutch East India Company. Riebeek landed at Table Bay and
founded Cape Town. In 1671 the first purchase of land from the
Hottentots beyond the limits of the fort built by Riebeek marked the
beginning of the Colony proper. The earliest colonists were for the most
part people of low station or indifferent character, but as the result
of the investigations of a commissioner sent out in 1685 a better class
of immigrants was introduced. About 1686 the European population was
increased by a number of the French refugees who left their country on
the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The influence of this small body
of immigrants on the character of the Dutch settlers was marked. The
Huguenots, however, owing to the policy of the Company, which in 1701
directed that Dutch only should be taught in the schools, ceased by the
middle of the 18th century to be a distinct body, and the knowledge of
French disappeared. Advancing north and east from their base at Cape
Town the colonists gradually acquired--partly by so-called contracts,
partly by force--all the land of the Hottentots, large numbers of whom
they slew. Besides those who died in warfare, whole tribes of Hottentots
were destroyed by epidemics of smallpox in 1713 and in 1755. Straggling
remnants still maintained their independence, but the mass of the
Hottentots took service with the colonists as herdsmen, while others
became hangers-on about the company's posts and grazing-farms or roamed
about the country. In 1787 the Dutch government passed a law subjecting
these wanderers to certain restrictions. The effect of this law was to
place the Hottentots in more immediate dependence upon the farmers, or
to compel them to migrate northward beyond the colonial border. Those
who chose the latter alternative had to encounter the hostility of their
old foes, the Bushmen, who were widely spread over the plains from the
Nieuwveld and Sneeuwberg mountains to the Orange river. The colonists
also, pressing forward to those territories, came in contact with these
Ishmaelites--the farmers' cattle and sheep, guarded only by a Hottentot
herdsman, offering the strongest temptation to the Bushman. Reprisals
followed; and the position became so desperate that the extermination of
the Bushmen appeared to the government the only safe alternative.
"Commandoes" or war-bands were sent out against them, and they were
hunted down like wild beasts. Within a period of six years, it is said,
upwards of 3000 were either killed or captured. Out of the organization
of these commandoes, with their field-commandants and field-cornets, has
grown the common system of local government in the Dutch-settled
districts of South Africa.
It was not to the hostility of the natives, nor to the hard struggle
with nature necessary to make agriculture profitable on Karroo or veld,
that the slow progress made by the colonists was due, so much as to the
narrow and tyrannical policy adopted by the East India Company, which
closed the colony against free immigration, kept the whole of the trade
in its own hands, combined the administrative, legislative and judicial
powers in one body, prescribed to the farmers the nature of the crops
they were to grow, demanded from them a large part of their produce, and
harassed them with other exactions tending to discourage industry and
enterprise. (See further SOUTH AFRICA, where the methods and results of
Dutch colonial government are considered in their broader aspects.) To
this mischievous policy is ascribed that dislike to orderly government,
and that desire to escape from its control, which characterized for many
generations the "boer" or farmer class of Dutch settlers--qualities
utterly at variance with the character of the Dutch in their native
country. It was largely to escape oppression that the farmers trekked
farther and farther from the seat of government. The company, to control
the emigrants, established a magistracy at Swellendam in 1745 and
another at Graaff Reinet in 1786. The Gamtoos river had been declared,
c. 1740, the eastern frontier of the colony, but it was soon passed. In
1780, however, the Dutch, to avoid collision with the warlike Kaffir
tribes advancing south and west from east central Africa, agreed with
them to make the Great Fish river the common boundary. In 1795 the
heavily taxed burghers of the frontier districts, who were afforded no
protection against the Kaffirs, expelled the officials of the East India
Company, and set up independent governments at Swellendam and Graaff
Reinet. In the same year, Holland having fallen under the revolutionary
government of France, a British force under General Sir James Craig was
sent to Cape Town to secure the colony for the prince of Orange--a
refugee in England--against the French. The governor of Cape Town at
first refused to obey the instructions from the prince, but on the
British proceeding to take forcible possession he capitulated.[3] His
action was hastened by the fact that the Hottentots, deserting their
former masters, flocked to the British standard. The burghers of Graaff
Reinet did not surrender until a force had been sent against them, while
in 1799 and again in 1801 they rose in revolt. In February 1803, as a
result of the peace of Amiens, the colony was handed over to the
Batavian Republic, which introduced many needful reforms, as had the
British during their eight years' rule. (One of the first acts of
General Craig had been to abolish torture in the administration of
justice.) War having again broken out, a British force was once more
sent to the Cape. After an engagement (Jan. 1806) on the shores of Table
Bay the Dutch garrison of Cape Castle surrendered to the British under
Sir David Baird, and in 1814 the colony was ceded outright by Holland to
the British crown. At that time the colony extended to the line of
mountains guarding the vast central plateau, then called Bushmansland,
and had an area of about 120,000 sq. m. and a population of some 60,000,
of whom 27,000 were whites, 17,000 free Hottentots and the rest slaves.
These slaves were mostly imported negroes and Malays. Their introduction
was the chief cause leading the white settlers to despise manual labour.
_The First and Second Kaffir Wars_.--At the time of the cession to Great
Britain the first of several wars with the Kaffirs had been fought. (The
numerous minor conflicts which since 1789 had taken place between the
colonists and the Kaffirs--the latter sometimes aided by Hottentot
allies--are not reckoned in the usual enumeration of the Kaffir wars.)
The Kaffirs, who had crossed the colonial frontier, had been expelled
from the district between the Sunday and Great Fish rivers known as the
Zuurveld, which became a sort of neutral ground. For some time previous
to 1811 the Kaffirs, however, had taken possession of the neutral ground
and committed depredations on the colonists. In order to expel them from
the Zuurveld, Colonel John Graham took the field with a mixed force in
December 1811, and in the end the Kaffirs were driven beyond the Fish
river. On the site of Colonel Graham's headquarters arose the town which
bears his name. In 1817 further trouble arose with the Kaffirs, the
immediate cause of quarrel being an attempt by the colonial authorities
to enforce the restitution of some stolen cattle. Routed in 1818 the
Kaffirs rallied, and in the early part of 1819 poured into the colony in
vast hordes. Led by a prophet-chief named Makana, they attacked Graham's
Town on the 22nd of April, then held by a handful of white troops. Help
arrived in time and the enemy were beaten back. It was then arranged
that the land between the Fish and Keiskamma rivers should be neutral
territory.
_The British Settlers of 1820_.--The war of 1817-19 led to the first
introduction of English settlers on a considerable scale, an event
fraught with far-reaching consequences. The then governor, Lord Charles
Somerset, whose treaty arrangements with the Kaffir chiefs had proved
unfortunate, desired to erect a barrier against the Kaffirs by settling
white colonists in the border district. In 1820, on the advice of Lord
Charles, parliament voted £50,000 to promote emigration to the Cape, and
4000 British were sent out. These people formed what was known as the
Albany settlement, founding Port Elizabeth and making Graham's Town
their headquarters. Intended primarily as a measure to secure the safety
of the frontier, and regarded by the British government chiefly as a
better means of affording a livelihood to a few thousands of the surplus
population, this emigration scheme accomplished a far greater work than
its authors contemplated. The new settlers, drawn from every part of the
British Isles and from almost every grade of society, retained, and
their descendants retain, strong sympathy with their native land. In
course of time they formed a valuable counterpoise to the Dutch
colonists, and they now constitute the most progressive element in the
colony. The advent of these immigrants was also the means of introducing
the English language at the Cape. In 1825, for the first time,
ordinances were issued in English, and in 1827 its use was extended to
the conduct of judicial proceedings. Dutch was not, however, ousted, the
colonists becoming to a large extent bilingual.
_Dislike of British Rule_.--Although the colony was fairly prosperous,
many of the Dutch farmers were as dissatisfied with British rule as they
had been with that of the Dutch East India Company, though their ground
of complaint was not the same. In 1792 Moravian missions had been
established for the benefit of the Hottentots,[4] and in 1799 the London
Missionary Society began work among both Hottentots and Kaffirs. The
championship of Hottentot grievances by the missionaries caused much
dissatisfaction among the majority of the colonists, whose views, it may
be noted, temporarily prevailed, for in 1812 an ordinance was issued
which empowered magistrates to bind Hottentot children as apprentices
under conditions differing little from that of slavery. Meantime,
however, the movement for the abolition of slavery was gaining strength
in England, and the missionaries at length appealed from the colonists
to the mother country. An incident which occurred in 1815-1816 did much
to make permanent the hostility of the frontiersmen to the British. A
farmer named Bezuidenhout refused to obey a summons issued on the
complaint of a Hottentot, and firing on the party sent to arrest him,
was himself killed by the return fire. This caused a miniature
rebellion, and on its suppression five ringleaders were publicly hanged
at the spot--Slachters Nek--where they had sworn to expel "the English
tyrants." The feeling caused by the hanging of these men was deepened by
the circumstances of the execution--for the scaffold on which the rebels
were simultaneously swung, broke down from their united weight and the
men were afterwards hanged one by one. An ordinance passed in 1827,
abolishing the old Dutch courts of _landroost_ and _heemraden_ (resident
magistrates being substituted) and decreeing that henceforth all legal
proceedings should be conducted in English; the granting in 1828, as a
result of the representations of the missionaries, of equal rights with
whites to the Hottentots and other free coloured people; the imposition
(1830) of heavy penalties for harsh treatment of slaves, and finally the
emancipation of the slaves in 1834,[5]--all these things increased the
dislike of the farmers to the government. Moreover, the inadequate
compensation awarded to slave-owners, and the suspicions engendered by
the method of payment, caused much resentment, and in 1835 the trekking
of farmers into unknown country in order to escape from an unloved
government, which had characterized the 18th century, recommenced.
Emigration beyond the colonial border had in fact been continuous for
150 years, but it now took on larger proportions.
_The Third Kaffir War_.--On the eastern border further trouble arose
with the Kaffirs, towards whom the policy of the Cape government was
marked by much vacillation. On the 11th of December 1834 a chief of high
rank was killed while resisting a commando party. This set the whole of
the Kaffir tribes in a blaze. A force of 10,000 fighting men, led by
Macomo, a brother of the chief who was killed, swept across the
frontier, pillaged and burned the homesteads and murdered all who dared
to resist. Among the worst sufferers were a colony of freed Hottentots
who, in 1829, had been settled in the Kat river valley by the British
authorities. The fighting power of the colony was scanty, but the
governor, Sir Benjamin D'Urban (q.v.), acted with promptitude, and all
available forces were mustered under Colonel (afterwards Sir Harry)
Smith, who reached Graham's Town on the 6th of January 1835, six days
after news of the rising reached Cape Town. The enemy's territory was
invaded, and after nine months' fighting the Kaffirs were completely
subdued, and a new treaty of peace concluded (on the 17th of September).
By this treaty all the country as far as the river Kei was acknowledged
to be British, and its inhabitants declared British subjects. A site for
the seat of government was selected and named King Wiliam's Town.
_The Great Trek_.--The action of Sir Benjamin D'Urban was not approved
by the home government, and on the instruction of Lord Glenelg,
secretary for the colonies, who declared that "the great evil of the
Cape Colony consists in its magnitude," the colonial boundary was moved
back to the Great Fish river, and eventually (in 1837) Sir Benjamin was
dismissed from office. "The Kaffirs," in the opinion of Lord Glenelg,
"had an ample justification for war; they had to resent, and endeavoured
justly, though impotently, to avenge a series of encroachments"
(despatch of the 26th of December 1835). This attitude towards the
Kaffirs was one of the many reasons given by the Trek Boers for leaving
Cape Colony. The Great Trek, as it is called, lasted from 1836 to 1840,
the trekkers, who numbered about 7000, founding communities with a
republican form of government beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers, and in
Natal, where they had been preceded, however, by British emigrants. From
this time Cape Colony ceased to be the only civilized community in South
Africa, though for long it maintained its predominance. Up to 1856 Natal
was, in fact, a dependency of the Cape (see SOUTH AFRICA). Considerable
trouble was caused by the emigrant Boers on either side of the Orange
river, where the new comers, the Basutos and other Kaffir tribes,
Bushmen and Griquas contended for mastery. The Cape government
endeavoured to protect the rights of the natives. On the advice of the
missionaries, who exercised great influence with all the non-Dutch
races, a number of native states were recognized and subsidized by the
Cape government, with the object--not realized--of obtaining peace on
this northern frontier. The first of these "Treaty States" recognized
was that of the Griquas of Griqualand West. Others were recognized in
1843 and 1844--in the last-named year a treaty was made with the Pondoes
on the eastern border. During this period the condition of affairs on
the eastern frontier was deplorable, the government being unable or
unwilling to afford protection to the farmers from the depredations of
the Kaffirs. Elsewhere, however, the colony was making progress. The
change from slave to free labour proved to be advantageous to the
farmers in the western provinces; an efficient educational system, which
owed its initiation to Sir John Herschel, the astronomer (who lived in
Cape Colony from 1834 to 1838), was adopted; Road Boards were
established and did much good work; to the staple industries--the
growing of wheat, the rearing of cattle and the making of wine--was
added sheep-raising; and by 1846 wool became the most valuable export
from the country. The creation, in 1835, of a legislative council, on
which unofficial members had seats, was the first step in giving the
colonists a share in the government.
_The War of the Axe_.--Another war with the Kaffirs broke out in 1846
and was known as the War of the Axe, from the murder of a Hottentot, to
whom an old Kaffir thief was manacled, while being conveyed to Graham's
Town for trial for stealing an axe. The escort was attacked by a party
of Kaffirs and the Hottentot killed. The surrender of the murderer was
refused, and war was declared in March 1846. The Gaikas were the chief
tribe engaged in the war, assisted during the course of it by the
Tambukies. After some reverses the Kaffirs were signally defeated on the
7th of June by General Somerset on the Gwangu, a few miles from Fort
Peddie. Still the war went on, till at length Sandili, the chief of the
Gaikas, surrendered, followed gradually by the other chiefs; and by the
beginning of 1848 the Kaffirs were again subdued, after twenty-one
months' fighting.
_Extension of British Sovereignty_.--In the last month of the war
(December 1847) Sir Harry Smith reached Cape Town as governor of the
colony, and with his arrival the Glenelg policy was reversed. By
proclamation, on the 17th of December, he extended the frontier of the
colony northward to the Orange river and eastward to the Keiskamma
river, and on the 23rd, at a meeting of the Kaffir chiefs, announced the
annexation of the country between the Keiskamma and the Kei rivers to
the British crown, thus reabsorbing the territory abandoned by order of
Lord Glenelg. It was not, however, incorporated with the Cape, but made
a crown dependency under the name of British Kaffraria. For a time the
Kaffirs accepted quietly the new order of things. The governor had other
serious matters to contend with, including the assertion of British
authority over the Boers beyond the Orange river, and the establishment
of amicable relations with the Transvaal Boers. In the colony itself a
crisis arose out of the proposal to make it a convict station.
_The Convict Agitation and Granting of a Constitution_.--In 1848 a
circular was sent by the 3rd Earl Grey, then colonial secretary, to the
governor of the Cape (and to other colonial governors), asking him to
ascertain the feelings of the colonists regarding the reception of a
certain class of convicts, the intention being to send to South Africa
Irish peasants who had been driven into crime by the famine of 1845.
Owing to some misunderstanding, a vessel, the "Neptune," was despatched
to the Cape before the opinion of the colonists had been received,
having on board 289 convicts, among whom were John Mitchell, the Irish
rebel, and his colleagues. When the news reached the Cape that this
vessel was on her way, the people of the colony became violently
excited; and they established an anti-convict association, by which they
bound themselves to cease from all intercourse of every kind with
persons in any way connected "with the landing, supplying or employing
convicts." On the 19th of September 1849 the "Neptune" arrived in
Simon's Bay. Sir Harry Smith, confronted by a violent public agitation,
agreed not to land the convicts, but to keep them on board ship in
Simon's Bay till he received orders to send them elsewhere. When the
home government became aware of the state of affairs orders were sent
directing the "Neptune" to proceed to Tasmania, and it did so after
having been in Simon's Bay for five months. The agitation did not,
however, pass away without other important results, since it led to
another movement, the object of which was to obtain a free
representative government for the colony. This concession, which had
been previously promised by Lord Grey, was granted by the British
government, and, in 1854, a constitution was established of almost
unprecedented liberality.
_The Kaffir War of 1850-1853_.--The anti-convict agitation had scarcely
ceased when the colony was once again involved in war. The Kaffirs
bitterly resented their loss of independence, and ever since the last
war had been secretly preparing to renew the struggle. Sir Harry Smith,
informed of the threatening attitude of the natives, proceeded to the
frontier, and summoned Sandili and the other chiefs to an interview.
Sandili refused obedience; upon which, at an assembly of other chiefs
(October 1850), the governor declared him deposed from his chiefship,
and appointed an Englishman, Mr Brownlee, a magistrate, to be temporary
chief of the Gaika tribe. The governor appears to have believed that the
measures he took would prevent a war and that Sandili could be arrested
without armed resistance. On the 24th of December Col. Geo. Mackinnon,
being sent with a small force with the object of securing the chief, was
attacked in a narrow defile by a large body of Kaffirs, and compelled to
retreat with some loss. This was the signal for a general rising of the
Gaika tribe. The settlers in the military villages, which had been
established along the frontier, assembled in fancied security to
celebrate Christmas Day, were surprised, many of them murdered, and
their houses given to the flames. Other disasters followed in quick
succession. A small patrol of military was cut off to a man. The greater
part of the Kaffir police deserted, many of them carrying off their arms
and accoutrements. Emboldened by success, the enemy in immense force
surrounded and attacked Fort Cox, where the governor was stationed with
an inconsiderable force. More than one unsuccessful attempt was made to
relieve Sir Harry; but his dauntless spirit was equal to the occasion.
At the head of 150 mounted riflemen, accompanied by Colonel Mackinnon,
he dashed out of the fort, and, through a heavy fire of the enemy, rode
to King William's Town--a distance of 12 m. Meantime, a new enemy
appeared. Some 900 of the Kat river Hottentots, who had in former wars
been firm allies of the British, threw in their lot with their
hereditary enemies--the Kaffirs. They were not without excuses. They
complained that while doing burgher duty in former wars--the Cape
Mounted Rifles consisted largely of Hottentot levies--they had not
received the same treatment as others serving in defence of the colony,
that they got no compensation for the losses they had sustained, and
that they were in various ways made to feel they were a wronged and
injured race. A secret combination was formed with the Kaffirs to take
up arms to sweep the Europeans away and establish a Hottentot republic.
Within a fortnight of the attack on Colonel Mackinnon the Kat river
Hottentots were also in arms. Their revolt was followed by that of the
Hottentots at other missionary stations; and part of the Hottentots of
the Cape Mounted Rifles followed their example, including the very men
who had escorted the governor from Fort Cox. But numbers of Hottentots
remained loyal and the Fingo Kaffirs likewise sided with the British.
After the confusion caused by the sudden outbreak had subsided, and
preparations had been made, Sir Harry Smith and his gallant force turned
the tide of war against the Kaffirs. The Amatola mountains were stormed;
and the paramount chief Kreli, who all along covertly assisted the
Gaikas, was severely punished. In April 1852 Sir Harry Smith was
recalled by Earl Grey, who accused him--unjustly, in the opinion of the
duke of Wellington--of a want of energy and judgment in conducting the
war, and he was succeeded by Lieutenant-General Cathcart. Kreli was
again attacked and reduced to submission. The Amatolas were finally
cleared of the Kaffirs, and small forts erected among them to prevent
their reoccupation. The British commanders were hampered throughout by
the insufficiency of their forces, and it was not till March 1853 that
this most sanguinary of Kaffir wars was brought to a conclusion, after a
loss of many hundred British soldiers. Shortly afterwards, British
Kaffraria was made a crown colony. The Hottentot settlement at Kat river
remained, but the Hottentot power within the colony was now finally
crushed.
_The Great Amaxosa Delusion._--From 1853 the Kaffir tribes on the east
gave little trouble to the colony. This was due, in large measure, to an
extraordinary delusion which arose among the Amaxosa in 1856, and led in
1857 to the death of some 50,000 persons. This incident is one of the
most remarkable instances of misplaced faith recorded in history. The
Amaxosa had not accepted their defeat in 1853 as decisive and were
preparing to renew the struggle with the white men. At this juncture,
May 1856, a girl named Nongkwase told her father that on going to draw
water from a stream she had met strangers of commanding aspect. The
father, Mhlakza, went to see the men, who told him that they were
spirits of the dead, who had come, if their behests were obeyed, to aid
the Kaffirs with their invincible power to drive the white man from the
land. Mhlakza repeated the message to his chief, Sarili, one of the most
powerful Kaffir rulers. Sarili ordered the commands of the spirits to be
obeyed. These orders were, at first, that the Amaxosa were to destroy
their fat cattle. The girl Nongkwase, standing in the river where the
spirits had first appeared, heard unearthly noises, interpreted by her
father as orders to kill more and more cattle. At length the spirits
commanded that not an animal of all their herds was to be left alive,
and every grain of corn was to be destroyed. If that were done, on a
given date myriads of cattle more beautiful than those destroyed would
issue from the earth, while great fields of corn, ripe and ready for
harvest, would instantly appear. The dead would rise, trouble and
sickness vanish, and youth and beauty come to all alike. Unbelievers and
the hated white man would on that day utterly perish. The people heard
and obeyed. Sarili is believed by many persons to have been the
instigator of the prophecies. Certainly some of the principal chiefs
regarded all that was done simply as the preparation for a last struggle
with the whites, their plan being to throw the whole Amaxosa nation
fully armed and in a famishing condition upon the colony. There were
those who neither believed the predictions nor looked for success in
war, but destroyed their last particle of food in unquestioning
obedience to their chief's command. Either in faith that reached the
sublime, or in obedience equally great, vast numbers of the people
acted. Great kraals were also prepared for the promised cattle, and huge
skin sacks to hold the milk that was soon to be more plentiful than
water. At length the day dawned which, according to the prophecies, was
to usher in the terrestrial paradise. The sun rose and sank, bat the
expected miracle did not come to pass. The chiefs who had planned to
hurl the famished warrior host upon the colony had committed an
incredible blunder in neglecting to call the nation together under
pretext of witnessing the resurrection. This error they realized too
late, and endeavoured by fixing the resurrection for another day to
gather the clans, but blank despair had taken the place of hope and
faith, and it was only as starving suppliants that the Amaxosa sought
the British. The colonists did what they could to save life, but
thousands perished miserably. In their extremity many of the Kaffirs
turned cannibals, and one instance of parents eating their own child is
authenticated. Among the survivors was the girl Nongkwase; her father
perished. A vivid narrative of the whole incident will be found in G.M.
Theal's _History and Geography of South Africa_ (3rd ed., London, 1878),
from which this account is condensed. The country depopulated as the
result of this delusion was afterwards peopled by European settlers,
among whom were members of the German legion which had served with the
British army in the Crimea, and some 2000 industrious North German
emigrants, who proved a valuable acquisition to the colony.
_Sir George Grey's Governorship._--In 1854 Sir George Grey became
governor of the Cape, and the colony owed much to his wise
administration. The policy, imposed by the home government, of
abandoning responsibility beyond the Orange river, was, he perceived, a
mistaken one, and the scheme he prepared in 1858 for a confederation of
all South Africa (q.v.) was rejected by Great Britain. By his energetic
action, however, in support of the missionaries Moffat and Livingstone,
Sir George kept open for the British the road through Bechuanaland to
the far interior. To Sir George was also due the first attempt,
missionary effort apart, to educate the Kaffirs and to establish British
authority firmly among them, a result which the self-destruction of the
Amaxosa rendered easy. Beyond the Kei the natives were left to their own
devices. Sir George Grey left the Cape in 1861. During his governorship
the resources of the colony had been increased by the opening up of the
copper mines in Little Namaqualand, the mohair wool industry had been
established and Natal made a separate colony. The opening, in November
1863, of the railway from Cape Town to Wellington, begun in 1859, and
the construction in 1860 of the great breakwater in Table Bay, long
needed on that perilous coast, marked the beginning in the colony of
public works on a large scale. They were the more or less direct result
of the granting to the colony of a large share in its own government. In
1865 the province of British Kaffraria was incorporated with the colony,
under the title of the Electoral Divisions of King William's Town and
East London. The transfer was marked by the removal of the prohibition
of the sale of alcoholic liquors to the natives, and the free trade in
intoxicants which followed had most deplorable results among the Kaffir
tribes. A severe drought, affecting almost the entire colony for several
years, caused great depression of trade, and many farmers suffered
severely. It was at this period (1869) that ostrich-farming was
successfully established as a separate industry.
Whether by or against the wish of the home government, the limits of
British authority continued to extend. The Basutos, who dwelt in the
upper valleys of the Orange river, had subsisted under a
semi-protectorate of the British government from 1843 to 1854; but
having been left to their own resources on the abandonment of the Orange
sovereignty, they fell into a long exhaustive warfare with the Boers of
the Free State. On the urgent petition of their chief Moshesh, they were
proclaimed British subjects in 1868, and their territory became part of
the colony in 1871 (see BASUTOLAND). In the same year the south-eastern
part of Bechuanaland was annexed to Great Britain under the title of
Griqualand West. This annexation was a consequence of the discovery
there of rich diamond mines, an event which was destined to have
far-reaching results. (F. R. C.)
_Development of Modern Conditions._--The year 1870 marks the dawn of a
new era in South Africa. From that date the development of modern South
Africa may be said to have fairly started, and in spite of political
complications, arising from time to time, the progress of Cape Colony
down to the outbreak of the Transvaal War of 1899 was steadily forward.
The discovery of diamonds on the Orange river in 1867, followed
immediately afterwards by the discovery of diamonds on the Vaal river,
led to the rapid occupation and development of a tract of country which
had hitherto been but sparsely inhabited. In 1870 Dutoitspan and
Bultfontein diamond mines were discovered, and in 1871 the still richer
mines of Kimberley and De Beers. These four great deposits of mineral
wealth are still richly productive, and constitute the greatest
industrial asset which the colony possesses. At the time of the
beginning of the diamond industry, not only the territory of Cape Colony
and the Boer Republics, but all South Africa, was in a very depressed
condition. Ostrich-farming was in its infancy, and agriculture but
little developed. The Boers, except in the immediate vicinity of Cape
Town, were a primitive people. Their wants were few, they lacked
enterprise, and the trade of the colony was restricted. Even the British
colonists at that time were far from rich. The diamond industry
therefore offered considerable attractions, especially to colonists of
British origin. It was also the means at length of demonstrating the
fact that South Africa, barren and poor on the surface, was rich below
the surface. It takes ten acres of Karroo to feed a sheep, but it was
now seen that a few square yards of diamondiferous blue ground would
feed a dozen families. By the end of 1871 a large population had already
gathered at the diamond fields, and immigration continued steadily,
bringing new-comers to the rich fields. Among the first to seek a
fortune at the diamond fields was Cecil Rhodes.
In 1858 the scheme of Sir George Grey for the federation of the various
colonies and states of South Africa had been rejected, as has been
stated, by the home authorities. In 1874 the 4th earl of Carnarvon,
secretary of state for the colonies, who had been successful in aiding
to bring about the federation of Canada, turned his attention to a
similar scheme for the confederation of South Africa. The representative
government in Cape Colony had been replaced in 1872 by responsible, i.e.
self-government, and the new parliament at Cape Town resented the manner
in which Lord Carnarvon propounded his suggestions. A resolution was
passed (June 11, 1875) stating that any scheme in favour of
confederation must in its opinion originate within South Africa itself.
James Anthony Froude, the distinguished historian, was sent out by Lord
Carnarvon to further his policy in South Africa. As a diplomatist and a
representative of the British government, the general opinion in South
Africa was that Froude was not a success, and he entirely failed to
induce the colonists to adopt Lord Carnarvon's views. In 1876,
Fingoland, the Idutywa reserve, and Noman's-land, tracts of country on
the Kaffir frontier, were annexed by Great Britain, on the understanding
that the Cape government should provide for their government. Lord
Carnarvon, still bent on confederation, now appointed Sir Bartle Frere
governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner of South Africa.
Frere had no sooner taken office as high commissioner than he found
himself confronted with serious native troubles in Zululand and on the
Kaffir frontier of Cape Colony. In 1877 there occurred an outbreak on
the part of the Galekas and the Gaikas. A considerable force of imperial
and colonial troops was employed to put down this rising, and the war
was subsequently known as the Ninth Kaffir war. It was in this war that
the famous Kaffir chief, Sandili, lost his life. At its conclusion the
Transkei, the territory of the Galeka tribe, under Kreli, was annexed by
the British. In the meantime Lord Carnarvon had resigned his position in
the British cabinet, and the scheme for confederation which he had been
pushing forward was abandoned. As a matter of fact, at that time Cape
Colony was too fully occupied with native troubles to take into
consideration very seriously so great a question as confederation. A
wave of feeling spread amongst the different Kaffir tribes on the
colonial frontier, and after the Gaika-Galeka War there followed in 1879
a rising in Basutoland under Moirosi, whose cattle-raiding had for some
time past caused considerable trouble. His stronghold was taken after
very severe fighting by a colonial force, but, their defeat
notwithstanding, the Basutos remained in a restless and aggressive
condition for several years. In 1880 the colonial authorities
endeavoured to extend to Basutoland the Peace Preservation Act of 1878,
under which a general disarmament of the Basutos was attempted. Further
fighting followed on this proclamation, which was by no means
successful, and although peace was declared in the country in December
1882, the colonial authorities were very glad in 1884 to be relieved of
the administration of a country which had already cost them £3,000,000.
The imperial government then took over Basutoland as a crown colony, on
the understanding that Cape Colony should contribute for administrative
purposes £18,000 annually. In 1880, Sir Bartle Frere, who by his
energetic and statesmanlike attitude on the relations with the native
states, as well as on all other questions, had won the esteem and regard
of loyal South African colonists, was recalled by the 1st earl of
Kimberley, the liberal secretary of state for the colonies, and was
succeeded by Sir Hercules Robinson. Griqualand West, which included the
diamond fields, was now incorporated as a portion of Cape Colony.
_Origin of the Afrikander Bond._--The Boer War of 1881, with its
disastrous termination, naturally reacted throughout South Africa; and
as one of the most important results, in the year 1882 the first
Afrikander Bond congress was held at Graaff Reinet. The organization of
the Bond developed into one embracing the Transvaal, the Orange Free
State and Cape Colony. Each country had a provincial committee with
district committees, and branches were distributed throughout the whole
of South Africa. At a later date the Bond in the Cape Colony dissociated
itself from its Republican branches. The general lines of policy which
this organization endeavoured to promote may best be gathered from _De
Patriot_, a paper published in the colony, and an avowed supporter of
the organization. The following extracts from articles published in 1882
will illustrate, better than anything else, the ambition entertained by
some of the promoters of this remarkable organization.
"The Afrikander Bond has for its object the establishment of a South
African nationality by spreading a true love for what is really our
fatherland. No better time could be found for establishing the Bond
than the present, when the consciousness of nationality has been
thoroughly aroused by the Transvaal war." ... "The British government
keep on talking about a confederation under the British flag, but that
will never be brought about. They can be quite certain of that. There
is just one obstacle in the way of confederation, and that is the
British flag. Let them remove that, and in less than a year the
confederation would be established under the Free Afrikander flag."
"After a time the English will realize that the advice given them by
Froude was the best--they must just have Simon's Bay as a naval and
military station on the way to India, and give over all the rest of
South Africa to the Afrikanders." ... "Our principal weapon in the
social war must be the destruction of English trade by our
establishing trading companies for ourselves." ... "It is the duty of
each true Afrikander not to spend anything with the English that he
can avoid."
_De Patriot_ afterwards became imperialist, but _Ons Land_, another Bond
organ, continued in much the same strain.
In addition to having its press organs, the Bond from time to time
published official utterances less frank in their tone than the
statements of its press. Some of the Articles of the Bond's original
manifesto are entirely praiseworthy, e.g. those referring to the
administration of justice, the honour of the people, &c.; such clauses as
these, however, were meaningless in view of the enlightened government
which obtained in Cape Colony, and for the true "inwardness" of this
document it is necessary to note Article 3, which distinctly speaks of
the promotion of South Africa's independence (_Zelfstandigheid_). If the
Bond aroused disloyalty and mistaken aspirations in one section of the
Cape inhabitants, it is equally certain that it caused a great wave of
loyal and patriotic enthusiasm to pass through another and more
enlightened section. A pamphlet written in 1885 for an association called
the Empire League by Mr Charles Leonard, who afterwards consistently
championed the cause of civil equality and impartial justice in South
Africa, maintained as follows:--
"(1) That the establishment of the English government here was
beneficial to all classes; and (2) that the withdrawal of that
government would be disastrous to every one having vested interests in
the colony.... England never can, never will, give up this colony, and
we colonists will never give up England.... Let us, the inhabitants of
the Cape Colony, be swift to recognize that we are one people, cast
together under a glorious flag of liberty, with heads clear enough to
appreciate the freedom we enjoy, and hearts resolute to maintain our
true privileges; let us desist from reproaching and insulting one
another, and, rejoicing that we have this goodly land as a common
heritage, remember that by united action only can we realize its grand
possibilities. We belong both of us to a home-loving stock, and the
peace and prosperity of every home in the land is at stake. On our
action now depends the question whether our children shall curse or
bless us; whether we shall live in their memory as promoters of civil
strife, with all its miserable consequences, or as joint architects of
a happy, prosperous and united state. Each of us looks back to a noble
past. United, we may ensure to our descendants a not unworthy future.
Disunited, we can hope for nothing but stagnation, misery and ruin. Is
this a light thing?"
It is probable that many Englishmen reading Mr Leonard's manifesto at
the time regarded it as unduly alarming, but subsequent events proved
the soundness of the views it expressed. The fact is that, from 1881
onwards, two great rival ideas came into being, each strongly opposed to
the other. One was that of Imperialism--full civil rights for every
civilized man, whatever his race might be, under the supremacy and
protection of Great Britain. The other was nominally republican, but in
fact exclusively oligarchical and Dutch. The policy of the extremists of
this last party was summed up in the appeal which President Kruger made
to the Free State in February 1881, when he bade them "Come and help us.
God is with us. It is his will to unite us as a people"--"to make a
united South Africa free from British authority." The two actual
founders of the Bond party were Mr Borckenhagen, a German who was
residing in Bloemfontein, and Mr Reitz, afterwards state secretary of
the Transvaal. Two interviews have been recorded which show the true
aims of these two promoters of the Bond at the outset. One occurred
between Mr Borckenhagen and Cecil Rhodes, the other between Mr Reitz and
Mr T. Schreiner, whose brother became, at a later date, prime minister
of Cape Colony. In the first interview Mr Borckenhagen remarked to
Rhodes: "We want a united Africa," and Rhodes replied: "So do I." Mr
Borckenhagen then continued: "There is nothing in the way; we will take
you as our leader. There is only one small thing: we must, of caurse, be
independent of the rest of the world." Rhodes replied: "You take me
either for a rogue or a fool. I should be a rogue to forfeit all my
history and my traditions; and I should be a fool, because I should be
hated by my own countrymen and mistrusted by yours." But as Rhodes truly
said at Cape Town in 1898, "The only chance of a true union is the
overshadowing protection of a supreme power, and any German, Frenchman,
or Russian would tell you that the best and most liberal power is that
over which Her Majesty reigns." The other interview took place at the
beginning of the Bond's existence. Being approached by Mr Reitz, Mr T.
Schreiner objected that the Bond aimed ultimately at the overthrow of
British rule and the expulsion of the British flag from South Africa. To
this Mr Reitz replied: "Well, what if it is so?" Mr Schreiner
expostulated in the following terms: "You do not suppose that that flag
is going to disappear without a tremendous struggle and hard fighting?"
"Well, I suppose not, but even so, what of that?" rejoined Mr Reitz. In
the face of this testimony with reference to two of the most prominent
of the Bond's promoters, it is impossible to deny that from its
beginning the great underlying idea of the Bond was an independent South
Africa.
_Mr Hofmeyr's Policy_.--In 1882 an act was passed in the Cape
legislative assembly, empowering members to speak in the Dutch language
on the floor of the House, if they so desired. The intention of this act
was a liberal one, but the moment of its introduction was inopportune,
and its effect was to give an additional stimulus to the policy of the
Bond. It was probably also the means of bringing into the House a number
of Dutchmen, by no means well educated, who would not have been returned
had they been obliged to speak English. By this act an increase of
influence was given to the Dutch leaders. The head of the Afrikander
Bond at this time in Cape Colony, and the leader of Dutch opinion, was
Mr J.H. Hofmeyr, a man of undoubted ability and astuteness. Although he
was recognized leader of the Dutch party in Cape Colony, he consistently
refused to take office, preferring to direct the policy and the action
of others from an independent position. Mr Hofmeyr sat in the house of
assembly as member for Stellenbosch, a strong Dutch constituency. His
influence over the Dutch members was supreme, and in addition to
directing the policy of the Bond within the Cape Colony, he supported
and defended the aggressive expansion policy of President Kruger and the
Transvaal Boers. In 1883, during a debate on the Basutoland
Dis-annexation Bill, Rhodes openly charged Mr Hofmeyr in the House with
a desire to see a "United States of South Africa under its own flag." In
1884 Mr Hofmeyr led the Bond in strongly supporting the Transvaal Boers
who had invaded Bechuanaland (q.v.), proclaiming that if the
Bechuanaland freebooters were not permitted to retain the territories
they had seized, in total disregard of the terms of the conventions of
1881 and 1884, there would be rebellion among the Dutch of Cape Colony.
Fortunately, however, for the peace of Cape Colony at that time, Sir
Charles Warren, sent by the imperial government to maintain British
rights, removed the invading Boers from Stellaland and Goshen--two
so-called republics set up by the Boer freebooters--in March 1885 and no
rebellion occurred. Nevertheless the Bond party was so strong in the
House that they compelled the ministry under Sir Thomas Scanlen to
resign in 1884. The logical and constitutional course for Mr Hofmeyr to
have followed in these circumstances would have been to accept office
and himself form a government. This he refused to do. He preferred to
put in a nominee of his own who should be entirely dependent on him. Mr
Upington, a clever Irish barrister, was the man he selected, and under
him was formed in 1884 what will always be known in Cape history as the
"Warming-pan" ministry. This action was denounced by many British
colonists, who were sufficiently loyal, not only to Great Britain, but
also to that constitution which had been conferred by Great Britain upon
Cape Colony, to desire to see the man who really wielded political power
also acting as the responsible head of the party. It was Mr Hofmeyr's
refusal to accept this responsibility, as well as the nature of his Bond
policy, which won for him the political sobriquet of the "Mole." Open
and responsible exercise of a power conferred under the constitution of
the country, Englishmen and English colonists would have accepted and
even welcomed. But that subterranean method of Dutch policy which found
its strongest expression in Pretoria, and which operated from Pretoria
to Cape Town, could not but be resented by loyal colonists. From 1881
down to 1898, Mr Hofmeyr practically determined how Dutch members should
vote, and also what policy the Bond should adopt at every juncture in
its history. In 1895 he resigned his seat in parliament--an action which
made his political dictatorship still more remarkable. This influence on
Cape politics was a demoralizing one. Other well-known politicians at
the Cape subsequently found it convenient to adapt their views a good
deal too readily to those held by the Bond. In justice to Mr Hofmeyr,
however, it is only fair to say that after the Warren expedition in
1885, which was at least evidence that Great Britain did not intend to
renounce her supremacy in South Africa altogether, he adopted a less
hostile or anti-British attitude. The views and attitude of Mr Hofmeyr
between 1881 and 1884--when even loyal British colonists, looking to the
events which followed Majuba, had almost come to believe that Great
Britain had little desire to maintain her supremacy--can scarcely be
wondered at.
_Rhodes and Dutch Sentiment._--Recognizing the difficulties of the
position, Cecil Rhodes from the outset of his political career showed
his desire to conciliate Dutch sentiment by considerate treatment and
regard for Dutch prejudices. Rhodes was first returned as member of the
House of Assembly for Barkly West in 1880, and in spite of all
vicissitudes this constituency remained loyal to him. He supported the
bill permitting Dutch to be used in the House of Assembly in 1882, and
early in 1884 he first took office, as treasurer-general, under Sir
Thomas Scanlen. Rhodes had only held this position for six weeks when
Sir Thomas Scanlen resigned, and in August of the same year he was sent
by Sir Hercules Robinson to British Bechuanaland as deputy-commissioner
in succession to the Rev. John Mackenzie, the London Missionary
Society's representative at Kuruman, who in the previous May had
proclaimed the queen's authority over the district. Rhodes's efforts to
conciliate the Boers failed--hence the necessity for the Warren mission.
In 1885 the territories of Cape Colony were farther extended, and
Tembuland, Bomvanaland and Galekaland were formally added to the colony.
In 1886 Sir Gordon Sprigg succeeded Sir Thomas Upington as prime
minister.
_South Affican Customs Union._--The period from 1878 to 1885 in Cape
Colony had been one of considerable unrest. In this short time, in
addition to the chronic troubles with the Basutos--which led the Cape to
hand them over to the imperial authorities--there occurred a series of
native disturbances which were followed by the Boer War of 1881, and the
Bechuanaland disturbances of 1884. In spite, however, of these
drawbacks, the development of the country proceeded. The diamond
industry was flourishing. In 1887 a conference was held in London for
"promoting a closer union between the various parts of the British
empire by means of an imperial tariff of customs." At this conference it
is worthy of note that Mr Hofmeyr propounded a sort of "Zollverein"
scheme, in which imperial customs were to be levied independently of the
duties payable on all goods entering the empire from abroad. In making
the proposition he stated that his objects were "to promote the union of
the empire, and at the same time to obtain revenue for the purposes of
general defence." The scheme was not at the time found practicable. But
its authorship, as well as the sentiments accompanying it, created a
favourable view of Mr Hofmeyr's attitude. In the year 1888, in spite of
the failure of statesmen and high commissioners to bring about political
confederation, the members of the Cape parliament set about the
establishment of a South African Customs Union. A Customs Union Bill was
passed, and this in itself constituted a considerable development of the
idea of federation. Shortly after the passing of the bill the Orange
Free State entered the union. An endeavour was also made then, and for
many years afterwards, to get the Transvaal to join. But President
Kruger, consistently pursuing his own policy, hoped through the Delagoa
Bay railway to make the South African Republic entirely independent of
Cape Colony. The endeavour to bring about a customs union which would
embrace the Transvaal was also little to the taste of President Kruger's
Hollander advisers, interested as they were in the schemes of the
Netherlands Railway Company, who owned the railways of the Transvaal.
_Diamonds and Railways._--Another event of considerable commercial
importance to the Cape Colony, and indeed to South Africa, was the
amalgamation of the diamond-mining companies, chiefly brought about by
Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Beit and "Barney" Barnato, in 1889. One of the
principal and most beneficent results of the discovery and development
of the diamond mines was the great impetus which it gave to railway
extension. Lines were opened up to Worcester and Beaufort West, to
Graham's Town, Graaff Reinet and Queenstown. Kimberley was reached in
1885. In 1890 the line was extended northwards on the western frontier
of the Transvaal as far as Vryburg in Bechuanaland. In 1889 the Free
State entered into an arrangement with the Cape Colony whereby the main
trunk railway was extended to Bloemfontein, the Free State receiving
half the profits. Subsequently the Free State bought at cost price the
portion of the railway in its own territory. In 1891 the Free State
railway was still farther extended to Viljoen's Drift on the Vaal river,
and in 1892 it reached Pretoria and Johannesburg.
_Rhodes as Prime Minister: Native Policy_.--In 1889 Sir Henry Loch was
appointed high commissioner and governor of Cape Colony in succession to
Sir Hercules Robinson. In 1890 Sir Gordon Sprigg, the premier of the
colony, resigned, and a Rhodes government was formed. Prior to the
formation of this ministry (see table at end of article), and while Sir
Gordon Sprigg was still in office, Mr Hofmeyr approached Rhodes and
offered to put him in office as a Bond nominee. This offer was declined.
When, however, Rhodes was invited to take office after the downfall of
the Sprigg ministry, he asked the Bond leaders to meet him and discuss
the situation. His policy of customs and railway unions between the
various states, added to the personal esteem in which he was at this
time held by many of the Dutchmen, enabled him to undertake and to carry
on successfully the business of government.
The colonies of British Bechuanaland and Basutoland were now taken into
the customs union existing between the Orange Free State and Cape
Colony. Pondoland, another native territory, was added to the colony in
1894, and the year was marked by the Glen Grey Act, a departure in
native policy for which Rhodes was chiefly responsible. It dealt with
the natives residing in certain native reserves, and in addition to
providing for their interests and holdings, and in other ways protecting
the privileges accorded to them, the principle of the duty of some
degree of labour devolving upon every able-bodied native enjoying these
privileges was asserted, and a small labour tax was levied.[6] This is
in many respects the most statesmanlike act dealing with natives on the
statute-book; and in the session of 1895 Rhodes was able to report to
the Cape parliament that the act then applied to 160,000 natives. In
1905 the labour clauses of this act, which had fallen into desuetude,
were repealed. The clauses had, however, achieved success, in that they
had caused many thousands of natives to fulfil the conditions requisite
to claim exemption.
In other respects Rhodes's native policy was marked by combined
consideration and firmness. Ever since the granting of self-government
the natives had enjoyed the franchise. An act passed in 1892, at the
instance of Rhodes, imposed an educational test on applicants for
registration, and made other provisions, all tending to restrict the
acquisition of the franchise by "tribal" natives, the possible danger
arising from a large native vote being already obvious (see section
_Constitution_).
Rhodes opposed the native liquor traffic, and at the risk of offending
some of his supporters among the brandy-farmers of the western
provinces, he suppressed it entirely on the diamond mines, and
restricted it as far as he was able in the native reserves and
territories. Nevertheless the continuance of this traffic on colonial
farms, as well as to some extent in the native territories and reserves,
is a black spot in the annals of the Cape Colony. The Hottentots have
been terribly demoralized, and even partially destroyed by it in the
western province.
Another and little-known instance of Rhodes's keen insight in dealing
with native affairs--an action which had lasting results on the history
of the colony--may be given. After the native territories east of the
Kei had been added to Cape Colony, a case of claim to inheritance came
up for trial, and in accordance with the law of the colony, the court
held that the eldest son of a native was his heir. This decision created
the strongest resentment among the people of the territory, as it was in
distinct contradiction to native tribal law, which recognized the great
son, or son of the chief wife, as heir. The government were threatened
with a native disturbance, when Rhodes telegraphed his assurance that
compensation should be granted, and that such a decision should never be
given again. This assurance was accepted and tranquillity restored. At
the close of the next session (that of 1894), after this incident had
occurred, Rhodes laid on the table a bill drafted by himself, the
shortest the House had ever seen. It provided that all civil cases were
to be tried by magistrates, an appeal to lie only to the chief
magistrate of the territory with an assessor. Criminal cases were to be
tried before the judges of supreme court on circuit. The bill was
passed, and the effect of it was, inasmuch as the magistrates
administered according to native law, that native marriage customs and
laws (including polygamy) were legalized in these territories. Rhodes
had retrieved his promise, and no one who has studied and lived amongst
the Bantu will question that the action taken was both beneficent and
wise.
During 1895 Sir Hercules Robinson was reappointed governor and high
commissioner of South Africa in succession to Sir Henry Loch, and in the
same year Mr Chamberlain became secretary of state for the colonies.
_Movement for Commercial Federation_.--With the development of railways,
and the extension of trade between Cape Colony and the Transvaal, there
had grown up a closer relationship on political questions. Whilst
premier of Cape Colony, by means of the customs union and in every other
way, Rhodes endeavoured to bring about a friendly measure of at least
commercial federation among the states and colonies of South Africa. He
hoped to establish both a commercial and a railway union, and a speech
which he made in 1894 at Cape Town admirably describes this policy:--
"With full affection for the flag which I have been born under, and
the flag I represent, I can understand the sentiment and feeling of a
republican who has created his independence, and values that before
all; but I can say fairly that I believe in the future that I can
assimilate the system, which I have been connected with, with the Cape
Colony, and it is not an impossible idea that the neighbouring
republics, retaining their independence, should share with us as to
certain general principles. If I might put it to you, I would say the
principles of tariffs, the principle of railway connexion, the
principle of appeal in law, the principle of coinage, and in fact all
those principles which exist at the present moment in the United
States, irrespective of the local assemblies which exist in each
separate state in that country."
To this policy President Kruger and the Transvaal government offered
every possible opposition. Their action in what is known as the Vaal
River Drift question will best illustrate the line of action which the
Transvaal government believed it expedient to adopt. A difficulty arose
at the termination of the agreement in 1894 between the Cape government
railway and the Netherlands railway. The Cape government, for the
purposes of carrying the railway from the Vaal river to Johannesburg,
had advanced the sum of £600,000 to the Netherlands railway and the
Transvaal government conjointly; at the same time it was stipulated that
the Cape government should have the right to fix the traffic rate until
the end of 1894, or until such time as the Delagoa Bay-Pretoria line was
completed. These rates were fixed by the Cape government at 2d. per ton
per mile, but at the beginning of 1895 the rate for the 52 m. of railway
from the Vaal river to Johannesburg was raised by the Netherlands
railway to no less a sum than 8d. per ton per mile. It is quite evident
from the action which President Kruger subsequently took in the matter
that this charge was put on with his approval, and with the object of
compelling traffic to be brought to the Transvaal by the Delagoa route,
instead of as heretofore by the colonial railway. In order to compete
against this very high rate, the merchants of Johannesburg began
removing their goods from the Vaal river by waggon. Thereupon President
Kruger arbitrarily closed the drifts (fords) on the Vaal river, and thus
prevented through waggon traffic, causing an enormous block of waggons
on the banks of the Vaal. A protest was then made by the Cape government
against the action of the Transvaal, on the ground that it was a breach
of the London Convention. President Kruger took no notice of this
remonstrance, and an appeal was made to the imperial government;
whereupon the latter entered into an agreement with the Cape government,
to the effect that if the Cape would bear half the cost of any
expedition which should be necessary, assist with troops, and give full
use of the Cape railway for military purposes if required, a protest
should be sent to President Kruger on the subject. These terms were
accepted by Rhodes and his colleagues, of whom Mr W.P. Schreiner was
one, and a protest was then sent by Mr Chamberlain stating that the
government would regard the closing of the drifts as a breach of the
London Convention, and as an unfriendly action calling for the gravest
remonstrance. President Kruger at once reopened the drifts, and
undertook that he would issue no further proclamation on the subject
except after consultation with the imperial government.
On the 29th of December 1895 Dr Jameson (q.v.) made his famous raid into
the Transvaal, and Rhodes's complicity in this movement compelled him to
resign the premiership of Cape Colony in January 1896, the vacant post
being taken by Sir Gordon Sprigg. As Rhodes's complicity in the raid
became known, there naturally arose a strong feeling of resentment and
astonishment among his colleagues in the Cape ministry, who had been
kept in complete ignorance of his connexion with any such scheme. Mr
Hofmeyr and the Bond were loud in their denunciation of him, nor can it
be denied that the circumstances of the raid greatly embittered against
England the Dutch element in Cape Colony, and influenced their
subsequent attitude towards the Transvaal Boers.
In 1897 a native rising occurred under Galeshwe, a Bantu chief, in
Griqualand West. Galeshwe was arrested and the rebellion repressed. On
cross-examination Galeshwe stated that Bosnian, a magistrate of the
Transvaal, had supplied ammunition to him, and urged him to rebel
against the government of Cape Colony. There is every reason to suppose
that this charge was true, and it is consistent with the intrigues which
the Boers from time to time practised among the natives.
In 1897 Sir Alfred Milner was appointed high commissioner of South
Africa and governor of Cape Colony, in succession to Sir Hercules
Robinson, who had been created a peer under the title of Baron Rosmead
in August 1896.
_Mr Schreiner's Policy_.--In 1898 commercial federation in South Africa
advanced another stage, Natal entering the customs union. A fresh
convention was drafted at this time, and under it "a uniform tariff on
all imported goods consumed within such union, and an equitable
distribution of the duties collected on such goods amongst the parties
to such union, and free trade between the colonies and state in respect
of all South African products," was arranged. In the same year, too, the
Cape parliamentary election occurred, and the result was the return to
power of a Bond ministry under Mr W.P. Schreiner. From this time, until
June 1900, Mr Schreiner remained in office as head of the Cape
government. During the negotiations (see TRANSVAAL) which preceded the
war in 1899, feeling at the Cape ran very high, and Mr Schreiner's
attitude was very freely discussed. As head of a party, dependent for
its position in power on the Bond's support, his position was
undoubtedly a trying one. At the same time, as prime minister of a
British colony, it was strongly felt by loyal colonists that he should
at least have refrained from openly interfering between the Transvaal
and the imperial government during the course of most difficult
negotiations. His public expressions of opinion were hostile in tone to
the policy pursued by Mr Chamberlain and Sir Alfred Milner. The effect
of them, it was believed, might conceivably be to encourage President
Kruger in persisting in his rejection of the British terms. Mr
Schreiner, it is true, used directly what influence he possessed to
induce President Kruger to adopt a reasonable course. But however
excellent his intentions, his publicly expressed disapproval of the
Chamberlain-Milner policy probably did more harm than his private
influence with Mr Kruger could possibly do good. On the 11th of June
1899, shortly after the Bloemfontein conference, from which Sir Alfred
Milner had just returned, Mr Schreiner asked the high commissioner to
inform Mr Chamberlain that he and his colleagues agreed in regarding
President Kruger's Bloemfontein proposals as "practical, reasonable and
a considerable step in the right direction." Early in June, however, the
Cape Dutch politicians began to realize that President Kruger's attitude
was not so reasonable as they had endeavoured to persuade themselves,
and Mr Hofmeyr, accompanied by Mr Herholdt, the Cape minister of
agriculture, visited Pretoria. On arrival, they found that the Transvaal
Volksraad, in a spirit of defiance and even levity, had just passed a
resolution offering four new seats in the Volksraad to the mining
districts, and fifteen to exclusively burgher districts. Mr Hofmeyr, on
meeting the executive, freely expressed indignation at these
proceedings. Unfortunately, Mr Hofmeyr's influence was more than
counterbalanced by an emissary from the Free State, Mr Abraham Fischer,
who, while purporting to be a peacemaker, practically encouraged the
Boer executive to take extreme measures. Mr Hofmeyr's established
reputation as an astute diplomatist, and as the trusted leader for years
of the Cape Dutch party, made him as powerful a delegate as it was
possible to find. If any emissary could accomplish anything in the way
of persuading Mr Kruger, it was assuredly Mr Hofmeyr. Much was looked
for from his mission by moderate men of all parties, and by none more
so, it is fair to believe, than by Mr Schreiner. But Mr Hofmeyr's
mission, like every other mission to Mr Kruger to induce him to take a
reasonable and equitable course, proved entirely fruitless. He returned
to Cape Town disappointed, but probably not altogether surprised at the
failure of his mission. Meanwhile a new proposal was drafted by the Boer
executive, which, before it was received in its entirety, or at least
before it was clearly understood, elicited from Mr Schreiner a letter on
the 7th of July to the _South African News_, in which, referring to his
government, he said:--
"While anxious and continually active with good hope in the cause of
securing reasonable modifications of the existing representative
system of the South African Republic, this government is convinced
that no ground whatever exists for active interference in the internal
affairs of that republic."
This letter was precipitate and unfortunate. On the 11th of July, after
seeing Mr Hofmeyr on his return, Mr Schreiner made a personal appeal to
President Kruger to approach the imperial government in a friendly
spirit. At this time an incident occurred which raised the feeling
against Mr Schreiner to a very high pitch. On the 7th of July 500 rifles
and 1,000,000 rounds of ammunition were landed at Port Elizabeth,
consigned to the Free State government, and forwarded to Bloemfontein.
Mr Schreiner's attention was called to this consignment at the time, but
he refused to stop it, alleging as his reason that, inasmuch as Great
Britain was at peace with the Free State, he had no right to interdict
the passage of arms through the Cape Colony. The British colonist is as
capable of a grim jest as the Transvaal Boer, and this action of Mr
Schreiner's won for him the nickname "Ammunition Bill." At a later date
he was accused of delay in forwarding artillery and rifles for the
defence of Kimberley, Mafeking and other towns of the colony. The reason
he gave for delay was that he did not anticipate war; and that he did
not wish to excite unwarrantable suspicions in the minds of the Free
State. His conduct in both instances was perhaps technically correct,
but it was much resented by loyal colonists.
On the 28th of July Mr Chamberlain sent a conciliatory despatch to
President Kruger, suggesting a meeting of delegates to consider and
report on his last franchise proposals, which were complex to a degree.
Mr Schreiner, on the 3rd of August, telegraphed to Mr Fischer begging
the Transvaal to welcome Mr Chamberlain's proposal. At a later date, on
receiving an inquiry from the Free State as to the movements of British
troops, Mr Schreiner curtly refused any information, and referred the
Free State to the high commissioner. On the 28th of August Sir Gordon
Sprigg in the House of Assembly moved the adjournment of the debate, to
discuss the removal of arms to the Free State. Mr Schreiner, in reply,
used expressions which called down upon him the severest censure and
indignation, both in the colony and in Great Britain. He stated that,
should the storm burst, he would keep the colony aloof with regard both
to its forces and its people. In the course of the speech he also read a
telegram from President Steyn, in which the president repudiated all
contemplated aggressive action on the part of the Free State as absurd.
The speech created a great sensation in the British press. It was
probably forgotten at the time (though Lord Kimberley afterwards
publicly stated it) that one of the chief reasons why the Gladstone
government had granted the retrocession of the Transvaal after Majuba,
was the fear that the Cape Colonial Dutch would join their kinsmen if
the war continued. What was a danger in 1881, Mr Schreiner knew to be a
still greater danger in 1899. At the same time it is quite obvious, from
a review of Mr Schreiner's conduct through the latter half of 1899, that
he took an entirely mistaken view of the Transvaal situation. He
evinced, as premier of the Cape Colony, the same inability to understand
the Uitlanders' grievances, the same futile belief in the eventual
fairness of President Kruger, as he had shown when giving evidence
before the British South Africa Select Committee into the causes of the
Jameson Raid. Actual experience taught him that President Kruger was
beyond an appeal to reason, and that the protestations of President
Steyn were insincere. War had no sooner commenced with the ultimatum of
the Transvaal Republic on the 9th of October 1899, than Mr Schreiner
found himself called upon to deal with the conduct of Cape rebels. The
rebels joined the invading forces of President Steyn, whose false
assurances Mr Schreiner had offered to an indignant House of Assembly
only a few weeks before. The war on the part of the Republics was
evidently not to be merely one of self-defence. It was one of aggression
and aggrandisement. Mr Schreiner ultimately addressed, as prime
minister, a sharp remonstrance to President Steyn for allowing his
burghers to invade the colony. He also co-operated with Sir Alfred
Milner, and used his influence to restrain the Bond.
_The War of 1899-1902._[7]--The first shot actually fired in the war
was at Kraipan, a small railway station within the colony, 40 m. south
of Mafeking, a train being derailed, and ammunition intended for Colonel
Baden-Powell seized. The effect of this was entirely to cut off
Mafeking, the northernmost town in Cape Colony, and it remained in a
state of siege for over seven months. On the 16th of October Kimberley
was also isolated. Proclamations by the Transvaal and Free State
annexing portions of Cape Colony were actually issued on the 18th of
October, and included British Bechuanaland and Griqualand West, with the
diamond fields. On the 28th of October Mr Schreiner signed a
proclamation issued by Sir Alfred Milner as high commissioner, declaring
the Boer annexations of territory within Cape Colony to be null and
void.
Then came the British reverses at Magersfontein (on the 11th of
December) and Stormberg (on the 10th of December). The effect of these
engagements at the very outset of the war, occurring as they did within
Cape Colony, was to offer every inducement to a number of the frontier
colonial Boers to join their kinsmen of the republics. The Boers were
prolific, and their families large. Many younger sons from the colony,
with nothing to lose, left their homes with horse and rifle to join the
republican forces.
Meanwhile the loyal Cape colonists were chafing at the tardy manner in
which they were enrolled by the imperial authorities. It was not until
after the arrival of Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener at Cape Town on the
10th of January 1900 that these invaluable, and many of them
experienced, men were freely invited to come forward. So strongly did
Lord Roberts feel on the subject, that he at once made Colonel Brabant,
a well-known and respected colonial veteran and member of the House of
Assembly, a brigadier-general, and started recruiting loyal colonists in
earnest. On the 15th of February Kimberley was relieved by General
French, and the Boer general, Cronje, evacuated Magersfontein, and
retreated towards Bloemfontein. Cecil Rhodes was shut up in Kimberley
during the whole of the siege, and his presence there undoubtedly
offered an additional incentive to the Boers to endeavour to capture the
town, but his unique position and influence with the De Beers workmen
enabled him to render yeoman service, and infused enthusiasm and courage
into the inhabitants. The manufacture of a big gun, which was able to
compete with the Boer "Long Tom," at the De Beers workshops, under
Rhodes's orders, and by the ingenuity of an American, Mr. Labram, who
was killed a few days after its completion, forms one of the most
striking incidents of the period.
With the relief of Mafeking on the 17th of May, the Cape rebellion
ended, and the colony was, at least for a time, delivered of the
presence of hostile forces.
On the 20th of March Mr (afterwards Sir James) Rose-Innes, a prominent
member of the House of Assembly, who for several years had held aloof
from either party, and who also had defended Mr Schreiner's action with
regard to the passage of arms to the Free State, addressed his
constituents at Claremont in support of the annexation of both
republics; and in the course of an eloquent speech he stated that in
Canada, in spite of rebellions, loyalty had been secured from the French
Canadians by free institutions. In South Africa they might hope that a
similar policy would attain a similar result with the Boers. In June, Mr
Schreiner, whose recent support of Sir Alfred Milner had incensed many
of his Bond followers, resigned in consequence of the refusal of some of
his colleagues to support the disfranchisement bill which he was
prepared, in accordance with the views of the home government, to
introduce for the punishment of Cape rebels. The bill certainly did not
err on the side of severity, but disfranchisement for their supporters
in large numbers was more distasteful to the Bond extremists than any
stringency towards individuals. Sir Gordon Sprigg, who after a political
crisis of considerable delicacy, succeeded Mr Schreiner and for the
fourth time became prime minister, was able to pass the Bill with the
co-operation of Mr Schreiner and his section. Towards the end of the
year 1900 the war entered on a new phase, and took the form of guerilla
skirmishes with scattered forces of marauding Boers. In December some of
these bands entered the Cape Colony and endeavoured to induce colonial
Boers to join them. In this endeavour they met at first with little or
no success; but as the year 1901 progressed and the Boers still managed
to keep the various districts in a ferment, it was deemed necessary by
the authorities to proclaim martial law over the whole colony, and this
was done on the 9th of October 1901.
On the 4th of January 1901 Sir Alfred Milner was gazetted governor of
the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, being shortly afterwards created
a peer as Lord Milner, and Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, governor of
Natal, was appointed his successor as governor of the Cape Colony. The
office of high commissioner in South Africa was now separated from the
governorship of the Cape and associated with that of the Transvaal--an
indication of the changed conditions in South Africa. The division of
the colonists into those who favoured the Boer states and those firmly
attached to the British connexion was reflected, to the detriment of the
public weal, in the parties in the Cape parliament. Proposals were made
to suspend the constitution, but this drastic course was not adopted.
The Progressive party, the name taken by those who sought a permanent
settlement under the British flag, lost their leader, and South Africa
its foremost statesman by the death, in May 1902, of Cecil Rhodes, a few
weeks before the end of the war.
_After the War_.--The acknowledgment of defeat by the Boers in the
field, and the surrender of some 10,000 rebels, did not weaken the
endeavours of the Dutch to obtain political supremacy in the colony.
Moreover, in the autumn of 1902 Sir Gordon Sprigg, the prime minister,
nominally the leader of the Progressives, sought to maintain his
position by securing the support of the Bond party in parliament. In the
early part of 1903 Mr Chamberlain included Cape Town in his visit to
South Africa, and had conferences with the political leaders of all
parties. Reconciliation between the Bond and British elements in the
colony was, however, still impossible, and the two parties concentrated
their efforts in a struggle for victory at the coming election. Mr
Hofmeyr, who had chosen to spend the greater part of the war period in
Europe, returned to the Cape to reorganize the Bond. On the other side
Dr Jameson came forward as the leader of the Progressives. Parliament
was dissolved in September 1903. It had passed, since the war, two
measures of importance--one (1902) restricting alien immigration, the
other (1903) ratifying the first customs convention between all the
South African colonies. This convention was notable for its grant of
preferential treatment (in general, a rebate of 25% on the customs
already levied) to imports from the United Kingdom.
The election turned on the issue of British or Bond supremacy. It was
fought on a register purged of the rebel voters, many of whom, besides
being disfranchised, were in prison. The issue was doubtful, and each
side sought to secure the support of the native voters, who in several
constituencies held the balance of power. The Bondsmen were more lavish
than their opponents in their promises to the natives and even invited a
Kaffir journalist (who declined) to stand for a seat in the Assembly. In
view of the agitation then proceeding for the introduction of Chinese
coolies to work the mines on the Rand, the Progressives declared their
intention, if returned, to exclude them from the colony, and this
declaration gained them some native votes. The polling (in January and
February 1904) resulted in a Progressive majority of five in a house of
95 members. The rejected candidates included prominent Bond supporters
like Mr Merriman and Mr Sauer, and also Sir Gordon Sprigg and Mr A.
Douglass, another member of the cabinet. Mr W.P. Schreiner, the
ex-premier, who stood as an Independent, was also rejected.
_The Jameson Ministry_.--On the 18th of February Sir Gordon Sprigg
resigned and was succeeded by Dr L.S. Jameson, who formed a ministry
wholly British in character. The first task of the new government was to
introduce (on the 4th of March) an Additional Representation Bill, to
rectify--in part--the disparity in electoral power of the rural and
urban districts. Twelve new seats in the House of Assembly were divided
among the larger towns, and three members were added to the legislative
council. The town voter being mainly British, the bill met with the
bitter opposition of the Bond members, who declared that its object was
the extinction of their parliamentary power. In fact, the bill was
called for by the glaring anomalies in the distribution of seats by
which a minority of voters in the country districts returned a majority
of members, and it left the towns still inadequately represented. The
bill was supported by two or three Dutch members, who were the object of
violent attack by the Bondsmen. It became law, and the elections for the
additional seats were held in July, after the close of the session. They
resulted in strengthening the Progressive majority both in the House of
Assembly and in the legislative council--where the Progressives
previously had a majority of one only.
At the outset of its career the Jameson ministry had to face a serious
financial situation. During the war the supplying of the army in the
field had caused an artificial inflation of trade, and the Sprigg
ministry had pursued a policy of extravagant expenditure not warranted
by the finances of the colony. The slow recovery of the gold-mining and
other industries in the Transvaal after the war was reflected in a great
decline in trade in Cape Colony during the last half of 1903, the
distress being aggravated by severe drought. When Dr Jameson assumed
office he found an empty treasury, and considerable temporary loans had
to be raised. Throughout 1904, moreover, revenue continued to
shrink--compared with 1903 receipts dropped from £11,701,000 to
£9,913,000. The government, besides cutting down official salaries and
exercising strict economy, contracted (July 1904) a loan for £3,000,000.
It also passed a bill imposing a graduated tax (6d. to 1s. in the £) on
all incomes over £1000. A substantial excise duty was placed on spirits
and beer, measures of relief for the brandy-farmers being taken at the
same time. The result was that while there was a deficit on the budget
of 1904-1905 of £731,000, the budget of 1905-1906 showed a surplus of
£5161. This small surplus was obtained notwithstanding a further
shrinkage in revenue.
Dr Jameson's programme was largely one of material development. In the
words of the speech opening the 1905 session of parliament, "without a
considerable development of our agricultural and pastoral resources our
position as a self-sustaining colony cannot be assured." This reliance
on its own resources was the more necessary for the Cape because of the
keen rivalry of Natal and Delagoa Bay for the carrying trade of the
Transvaal. The opening up of backward districts by railways was
vigorously pursued, and in other ways great efforts were made to assist
agriculture. These efforts to help the country districts met with
cordial recognition from the Dutch farmers, and the release, in May
1904, of all rebel prisoners was another step towards reconciliation. On
the exclusion of Chinese from the colony the Bond party were also in
agreement with the ministry. An education act passed in 1905 established
school boards on a popular franchise and provided for the gradual
introduction of compulsory education. The cultivation of friendly
relations with the neighbouring colonies was also one of the leading
objects of Dr Jameson's policy. The Bond, on its side, sought to draw
closer to Het Volk, the Boer organization in the Transvaal, and similar
bodies, and at its 1906 congress, held in March that year at Ceres, a
resolution with that aim was passed, the design being to unify, in
accordance with the original conception of the Bond, Dutch sentiment and
action throughout South Africa.
Native affairs proved a source of considerable anxiety. In January 1905
an inter-colonial native affairs commission reported on the native
question as it affected South Africa as a whole, proposals being made
for an alteration of the laws in Cape Colony respecting the franchise
exercised by natives. In the opinion of the commission the possession of
the franchise by the Cape natives under existing conditions was sure to
create in time an intolerable situation, and was an unwise and dangerous
thing. (The registration of 1905 showed that there were over 23,000
coloured voters in the colony.) The commission proposed separate voting
by natives only for a fixed number of members of the legislature--the
plan adopted in New Zealand with the Maori voters. The privileged
position of the Cape native was seen to be an obstacle to the federation
of South Africa. The discussion which followed, based partly on the
reports that the ministry contemplated disfranchising the natives, led,
however, to no immediate results.
Another disturbing factor in connexion with native affairs was the
revolt of the Hottentots and Hereros in German South-West Africa (q.v.).
In 1904 and the following years large numbers of refugees, including
some of the most important chiefs, fled into British territory, and
charges were made in Germany that sufficient control over these refugees
was not exercised by the Cape government. This trouble, however, came to
an end in September 1907. In that month Morenga, a chief who had been
interned by the colonial authorities, but had escaped and recommenced
hostilities against the Germans, was once more on the British side of
the frontier and, refusing to surrender, was pursued by the Cape Mounted
Police and killed after a smart action. The revolt in the German
protectorate had been, nearly a year before the death of Morenga, the
indirect occasion of a "Boer raid" into Cape Colony. In November 1906 a
small party of Transvaal Boers, who had been employed by the Germans
against the Hottentots, entered the colony under the leadership of a man
named Ferreira, and began raiding farms and forcibly enrolling recruits.
Within a week the filibusters were all captured. Ferreira and four
companions were tried for murder and convicted, February 1907, the death
sentences being commuted to terms of penal servitude.
As the result of an inter-colonial conference held in Pietermaritzburg
in the early months of 1906, a new customs convention of a strongly
protective character came into force on the 1st of June of that year. At
the same time the rebate on goods from Great Britain and reciprocating
colonies was increased. The session of parliament which sanctioned this
change was notable for the attention devoted to irrigation and railway
schemes. But one important measure of a political character was passed
in 1906, namely an amnesty act. Under its provisions over 7000
ex-rebels, who would otherwise have had no vote at the ensuing general
election, were readmitted to the franchise in 1907.
While the efforts made to develop the agricultural and mineral resources
of the country proved successful, the towns continued to suffer from the
inflation--over-buying, over-building and over-speculation--which marked
the war period. As a consequence, imports further declined during
1906-1907, and receipts being largely dependent on customs the result
was a considerably diminished revenue. The accounts for the year ending
30th of June 1907 showed a deficit of £640,455. The decline in revenue,
£4,000,000 in four years, while not a true reflection of the economic
condition of the country--yearly becoming more self-supporting by the
increase in home produce--caused general disquietude and injuriously
affected the position of the ministry. In the session of 1907 the
Opposition in the legislative council brought on a crisis by refusing to
grant supplies voted by the lower chamber. Dr Jameson contested the
constitutional right of the council so to act, and on his advice the
governor dissolved parliament in September. Before its dissolution
parliament passed an act imposing a profit tax of 10% on diamond- and
copper-mining companies earning over £50,000 per annum, and another act
establishing an agricultural credit bank.
_Mr Merriman, Premier_.--The elections for the legislative council were
held in January 1908 and resulted in a Bond victory. Its supporters, who
called themselves the South African party, the Progressives being
renamed Unionists, obtained 17 seats out of a total of 26. Dr Jameson
thereupon resigned (31st of January), and a ministry was formed with Mr
J.X. Merriman as premier and treasurer, and Mr J.W. Sauer as minister of
public works. Neither of these politicians was a member of the Bond, and
both had held office under Cecil Rhodes and W.P. Schreiner. They had,
however, been the leading parliamentary exponents of Bond policy for a
considerable time. The elections for the legislative assembly followed
in April and, partly in consequence of the reinfranchisement of the
ex-rebels, resulted in a decisive majority for the Merriman ministry.
There were returned 69 members of the South African party, 33 Unionists
and 5 Independents, among them the ex-premiers Sir Gordon Sprigg and Mr
Schreiner. The change of ministry was not accompanied by any relief in
the financial situation. While the country districts remained fairly
prosperous (agricultural and pastoral products increasing), the transit
trade and the urban industries continued to decline. The depression was
accentuated by the financial crisis in America, which affected adversely
the wool trade, and in a more marked degree the diamond trade, leading
to the partial stoppage of the Kimberley mines. (The "slump" in the
diamond trade is shown by a comparison of the value of diamonds exported
from the Cape in the years 1907 and 1908; in 1907 they were valued at
£8,973,148, in 1908 at £4,796,655.) This seriously diminished the
revenue returns, and the public accounts for the year 1907-1908 showed a
deficit of £996,000, and a prospective deficit for the ensuing year of
an almost equal amount. To balance the budget, Mr Merriman proposed
drastic remedies, including the suspension of the sinking fund, the
reduction of salaries of all civil servants, and taxes on incomes of £50
per annum. Partly in consequence of the serious economic situation the
renewed movement for the closer union of the various South African
colonies, formally initiated by Dr Jameson in 1907, received the support
of the Cape parliament. During 1907-1908 a national convention decided
upon unification, and in 1910 the Union of South Africa was established
(see SOUTH AFRICA: _History_).
_Leading Personalities_.--The public life of Cape Colony has produced
many men of singular ability and accomplishments. The careers of Cecil
Rhodes, of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, and of Dr L.S. Jameson have been
sufficiently indicated (see also their separate biographies). Sir Gordon
Sprigg, four times premier, was associated with the Cape parliament from
1873 to 1904, and was once more elected to that assembly in 1908. In and
out of office his zeal was unflagging, and if he lacked those qualities
which inspire enthusiasm and are requisite in a great leader, he was at
least a model of industry. Among other prominent politicians were Sir
James Rose-Innes, Mr J.X. Merriman and Mr W.P. Schreiner. The two last
named both held the premiership; their attitude and views have been
indicated in the historical sketch. Sir James Rose-Innes, a lawyer whose
intellectual gifts and patriotism have never been impugned, was not a
"party man," and this made him, on more than one occasion, a somewhat
difficult political ally. On the native question he held a consistently
strong attitude, defending their rights, and uncompromisingly opposing
the native liquor traffic. In 1901 he went to the Transvaal as chief
justice of that colony. Sir Thomas Fuller, a Cape Town representative,
though he remained outside office, gave staunch support to every
enlightened liberal and progressive measure which was brought forward. A
man of exceptional culture and eloquence, he made his influence felt,
not only in politics, but in journalism and the best social life of the
Cape peninsula. From 1902 to 1908 he held the office of agent-general of
the colony in London.
In literature, the colony has produced at least two authors whose works
have taken their place among those of the best English writers of their
day. The _History of South Africa_, by Mr G. McCall Theal, will remain a
classic work of reference. The careful industry and the lucidity which
characterize Mr Theal's work stamp him as a historian of whom South
Africa may well be proud. In fiction, Olive Schreiner (Mrs
Cronwright-Schreiner) produced, while still in her teens, the _Story of
an African Farm_, a work which gave great promise of original literary
genius. Unfortunately, she, in common with the rest of South Africa, was
subsequently swept into the seething vortex of contemporary politics and
controversy. In music and painting there have been artists of talent in
the Cape Colony, but the country is still too young, and the conditions
of life too disturbed, to allow such a development as has already
occurred in Australia.
GOVERNORS AT THE CAPE SINCE INTRODUCTION OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
1870. Sir Henry Barkly.
1877. Sir Bartle Frere.
1880. Sir Hercules Robinson.
1889. Sir Henry Loch.
1895. Sir Hercules Robinson (Lord Rosmead).
1897. Sir Alfred Milner.
1901. Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson.
PRIME MINISTERS.
1872. Mr J.C. Molteno. 1890. Mr C.J. Rhodes.
1878. Mr J. Gordon Sprigg. 1896. Sir J. Gordon Sprigg.
1881. Mr T.C. Scanlen. 1898. Mr W.P. Schreiner.
1884. Mr Upington. 1900. Sir J. Gordon Sprigg.
1886. Sir J. Gordon Sprigg. 1904. Dr L.S. Jameson.
1908. Mr J.X. Merriman.
(A. P. H.; F. R. C.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY--The majority of the books concerning Cape Colony deal
also with South Africa as a whole (see SOUTH AFRICA: _Bibliography_).
The following list gives books specially relating to the Cape. For
ethnography see the works mentioned under BUSHMEN, HOTTENTOTS, KAFFIRS
and BECHUANA.
(a) Descriptive accounts, geography, commerce and economics:--The best
early accounts of the colony are found in de la Caille's _Journal
historique du voyage fait au Cap de Bonne Espérance_ (Paris, 1763),
the _Nouvelle Description du Cap de Bonne Espérance_ (Amsterdam,
1778); F. le Vaillant's _Voyage dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique_ (Paris,
1790), and _Second Voyage_ (Paris, _an_ III. [1794-1795]); C.P.
Thunberg's "Account of the Cape of Good Hope" in vol. xvi. of
Pinkerton's _Travels_ (London, 1814); A. Sparman's _Voyage to the Cape
of Good Hope ... 1772-1776_ (translated into English from the Swedish,
London, 1785)--an excellent work; and W. Paterson's _A Narrative of
Four Journeys ... 1777-1779_ (London, 1789). P. Kolbe or Kolben's
_Present State of the Cape of Good Hope_ (English translation from the
German, London, 1731) is less trustworthy. Sir J. Barrow's _Account of
Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa in 1797-1798_ (2 vols.,
London, 1801-1804); H. Lichtenstein's _Travels in Southern Africa in
1803-1806_ (translated from the German, 2 vols., London, 1812-1815),
and W.J. Burchell's _Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa_ (2
vols., London, 1822-1824) are standard works. Burchell's book contains
the best map of the Cape published up to that time. W.P. Greswell's
_Geography of Africa south of the Zambesi_ (Oxford, 1892) deals
specially with Cape Colony; the _Illustrated Official Handbook of the
Cape and South Africa_ (Cape Town, 1893) includes chapters on the
zoology, flora, productions and resources of the colony. A.R.E.
Burton, _Cape Colony To-day_ (Cape Town, 1907), a useful guide to the
country and its resources. A _Statistical Register_ is issued yearly
by the Cape government. The _Census of the Colony, 1904: General
Report_ (Cape Town, 1905) and previous census reports contain much
valuable matter.
(b) Special subjects:--For detailed information on special subjects
consult _The Natives of South Africa_ (London, 1901); R. Wallace,
_Farming Industries of Cape Colony_ (London, 1896); A.R.E. Burton,
_Cape Colony for the Settler_ (London, 1903); _The Agricultural
Journal of the Cape of Good Hope_; Gardner F. Williams, _The Diamond
Mines of South Africa_, revised ed. (New York, 1905), an authoritative
work by a former manager of the De Beers mine; A.W. Rogers, _An
Introduction to the Geology of Cape Colony_ (London, 1905) and "The
Campbell Rand and Griquatown Series in Hay," _Trans. Geol. Soc S.
Africa_, vol. ix. (1906); _Reports_, Geological Commission of the Cape
of Good Hope (1896 et seq.); _Science in South Africa_ (Cape Town,
1905); H.A. Bryden, _Kloof and Karoo_; sport, legend and natural
history in Cape Colony (London, 1889); _South African Education
Yearbook_ (Cape Colony edition, Cape Town, 1906 et seq.). For books
dealing with Roman-Dutch law, see SOUTH AFRICA.
(c) History:--H.C.V. Leibbrandt, _Précis of the Archives of the Cape
of Good Hope_ (15 vols., vols. v.-vii. contain van Riebeek's
_Journal_, Cape Town, 1896--1902); _The Rebellion of 1815, generally
known as Slachter's Nek_ (Cape Town, 1902); G.M. Theal, _Chronicles of
Cape Commanders ... 1651-1691_ ... (Cape Town, 1882), and _Records of
the Cape Colony from February 1793 to April 1831_, from MS. in the
Record Office, London (36 vols., Cape Town, 1897-1905); _History of
South Africa under the Administration of the Dutch East India Company,
1652 to 1795_ (2 vols., London, 1897); _History of South Africa from
1795 to 1834_ (London, 1891); E.B. Watermeyer, _Three Lectures on the
Cape ... under the ... Dutch East India Company_ (Cape Town, 1857); A.
Wilmot and J.C. Chase, _History of the ... Cape ... from its Discovery
to ... 1868_ (Cape Town, 1869); Lady Anne Barnard, _South Africa a
Hundred Years Ago: Letters-written from the Cape, 1797-1801_ (London,
1901), a vivid picture of social life, &c.; Mrs A.F. Trotter, _Old
Cape Colony ... Her Men and Houses from 1652 to 1806_ (London, 1903);
C.T. Campbell, _British South Africa, 1795-1825_ (London, 1897), the
story of the British settlers of 1820. Consult also J. Martineau's
_Life of Sir Bartle Frere_; the _Autobiography_ of Sir Harry Smith;
P.A. Molteno's _Life and Times of Sir John Charles Molteno_ (first
premier of Cape Colony) (2 vols., London, 1900); A. Wilmot's _Life of
Sir Richard Southey_ (London, 1904), and G.C. Henderson's _Sir George
Grey_ (London, 1907). B. Worsfold's _Lord Milner's Work in South
Africa, 1897-1902_ (London, 1906), is largely concerned with Cape
politics. For Blue-books, &c., relating to the colony published by the
British parliament, see the _Colonial Office List_ (London, yearly)
(F. R. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The distances given after the names of rivers indicate the length
of the river valleys, including those of the main upper branch. In
nearly all instances the rivers, owing to their sinuous course, are
much longer.
[2] This is an overstatement. The director of the census estimated
the true number of Hottentots at about 56,000.
[3] It is stated that Colonel R.J. Gordon (the explorer of the Orange
river), who commanded the Dutch forces at the Cape, chagrined by the
occupation of the country by the British, committed suicide.
[4] From 1737 to 1744 George Schmidt, "The apostle to the
Hottentots," had a mission at Genadendal--"The Vale of Grace."
[5] Masters were allowed to keep their ex-slaves as "apprentices"
until the 1st of December 1838.
[6] The act enjoined that "every male native residing in the
district, exclusive of natives in possession of lands under ordinary
quit-rent titles, or in freehold, who, in the judgment of the
resident magistrate, is fit for and capable of labour, shall pay to
the public revenue a tax of ten shillings per annum unless he can
show to the satisfaction of the magistrate that he has been in
service beyond the borders of the district for at least three months
out of the previous twelve, when he will be exempt from the tax for
that year, or unless he can show that he has been employed for a
total period of three years, when he will be exempt altogether."
[7] See also TRANSVAAL.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 2 - "Camorra" to "Cape Colony"" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.