[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. Konig in
1727; see also L. Fulda, _Die Gegner der zweiten schlesischen Schule_,
ii. (1883).
CANIZARES, JOSE 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 Canizares recast a play by
Lope de Vega under the title of _Las Cuentas del Gran Capitan_, and he
speedily became a fashionable playwright. His originality, however, is
slight, and _El Domine Lucas_, the only one of his pieces that is still
read, is an adaptation from Lope de Vega. Canizares produced a version
of Racine's _Iphigenie_ 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 Esperance; 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 (3-1/2
m.), where Napoleon landed on the 1st of March 1815, on his return from
Elba. From Cannes a railway runs north in 12-1/2 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 Lerins),
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 Lerins is the famous monastery (5th century to 1788), in
connexion with which grew up the school of Lerins, which had a wide
influence upon piety and literature in the 5th and 6th centuries.
See L. Alliez, _Histoire du monastere de Lerins_ (2 vols., Paris,
1862); and _Les Iles de Lerins, Cannes, et les rivages environnants_
(Paris, 1860); _Cartulaire du monastere de Lerins_ (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 Lerins_ (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 Egede, 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 Naturvolker_, i. 121-200;
Schaffhausen, _Anthropologische Studien, Internat. Archiv_ iii. 69-73;
xii. 78; E.S. Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, vol. ii.; _Dictionnaire
des sci. med., 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 L200 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 L100,000, 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 L700 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.
Cloez (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 Anglice 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 1-1/2 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.