[1] There are no late returns for Iceland, but the last available
statistics gave 3400 per million. A paper written in 1903 on
blindness in Egypt stated that 1 in every 50 of the population was
blind.
[2] Previous returns from Finland have shown a much larger number of
blind persons, but these statistics were supplied by the British
consul in St Petersburg from the last census.
[3] Its principal (responsible, with Dr Armitage, the duke of
Westminster and others, for its foundation) was Sir F.J. Campbell,
LL.D., F.R.G.S., F.S.A., himself a blind man, who, born in Tennessee,
U.S.A., in 1832, and educated at the Nashville school, and afterwards
in music at Leipzig and Berlin, had from 1858 to 1869 been associated
with Dr Howe at the Perkins Institution, Boston. He was knighted in
1909.
BLISS, CORNELIUS NEWTON (1833- ), American merchant and politician,
was born at Fall River, Massachusetts, on the 26th of January 1833. He
was educated in his native city and in New Orleans, where he early
entered his step-father's counting-house. Returning to Massachusetts in
1849, he became a clerk and subsequently a junior partner in a prominent
Boston commercial house. Later he removed to New York City to establish
a branch of the firm. In 1881 he organized and became president of
Bliss, Fabyan & Company, one of the largest wholesale dry-goods houses
in the country. A consistent advocate of the protective tariff, he was
one of the organizers, and for many years president, of the American
Protective Tariff League. In politics an active Republican, he was
chairman of the Republican state committee in 1887 and 1888, and
contributed much to the success of the Harrison ticket in New York in
the latter year. He was treasurer of the Republican national committee
from 1892 to 1904, and was secretary of the interior in President
McKinley's cabinet from 1897 to 1899.
BLISTER (a word found in many forms in Teutonic languages, cf. Ger.
_Blase_; it is ultimately connected with the same root as in "blow," cf.
"bladder"), a small vesicle filled with serous fluid raised on the skin
by a burn, by rubbing on a hard surface, as on the hand in rowing, or by
other injury; the term is also used of a similar condition of the skin
caused artificially, as a counter-irritant in cases of inflammation, by
the application of mustard, of various kinds of fly (see CANTHARIDES)
and of other vesicatories. Similar small swellings, filled with fluid or
air, on plants and on the surface of steel or paint, &c., are also
called "blisters."
BLIZZARD (origin probably onomatopoeic, cf. "blast," "bluster"), a
furious wind driving fine particles of choking, blinding snow whirling
in icy clouds. The conditions to which the name was originally given
occur with the northerly winds in rear of the cyclones crossing the
eastern states of America during winter.
BLOCK, MARK ELIEZER (c. 1723-1799), German naturalist, was born at
Ansbach, of poor Jewish parents, about 1723. After taking his degree as
doctor at Frankfort-on-Oder he established himself as a physician at
Berlin. His first scientific work of importance was an essay on
intestinal worms, which gained a prize from the Academy of Copenhagen,
but he is best known by his important work on fishes (see ICHTHYOLOGY).
Bloch was fifty-six when he began to write on ichthyological subjects.
To begin at his time of life a work in which he intended not only to
give full descriptions of the species known to him from specimens or
drawings, but also to illustrate each species in a style truly
magnificent for his time, was an undertaking the execution of which most
men would have despaired of. Yet he accomplished not only this task, but
even more than he at first contemplated. He died at Carlsbad on the 6th
of August 1799.
BLOCK, MAURICE (1816-1901), French statistician, was born in Berlin of
Jewish parents on the 18th of February 1816. He studied at Bonn and
Giessen, but settled in Paris, becoming naturalized there. In 1844 he
entered the French ministry of agriculture, becoming in 1852 one of the
heads of the statistical department. He retired in 1862, and thenceforth
devoted himself entirely to statistical studies, which have gained for
him a wide reputation. He was elected a member of the Academie des
Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1880. He died in Paris on the 9th of
January 1901. His principal works are: _Dictionnaire de l'administration
francaise_ (1856); _Statistique de la France_ (1860); _Dictionnaire
general de la politique_ (1862); _L'Europe polilique et sociale_ (1869);
_Traite theorique et pratique de statistique_ (1878); Les Progres de
l'economie politique depuis Adam Smith_ (1890); he also edited from 1856
_L'Annuaire de l'economie politique et de la statistique_, and wrote in
German _Die Bevolkerung des franzosischen Kaiserreichs_ (1861); Die
Bevolkerung Spaniens und Portugals_ (1861); and _Die Machtstellung der
europaischen Staaten_ (1862).
BLOCK (from the Fr. _bloc_, and possibly connected with an Old Ger.
_Block_, obstruction, cf. "baulk"), a piece of wood. The word is used in
various senses, e.g. the block upon which people were beheaded, the
block or mould upon which a hat is shaped, a pulley-block, a
printing-block, &c. From the sense of a solid mass comes the expression,
a "block" of houses, i.e. a rectangular space covered with houses and
bounded by four streets. From the sense of "obstruction" comes a "block"
in traffic, a block in any proceedings, and the block system of
signalling on railways.
BLOCKADE (Fr. _blocus_, Ger. _Blokade_), a term used in maritime
warfare. Originally a blockade by sea was probably nothing more than the
equivalent in maritime warfare of a blockade or siege on land in which
the army investing the blockaded or besieged place is in actual physical
possession of a zone through which it can prevent and forbid ingress and
egress. An attempt to cross such a zone without the consent of the
investing army would be an act of hostility against the besiegers. A
maritime blockade, when it formed part of a siege, would obviously also
be a close blockade, being part of the military cordon drawn round the
besieged place. Even from the first, however, differences would begin to
grow up in the conditions arising out of the operations on land and on
sea. Thus whereas conveying merchandise across military lines would be a
deliberate act of hostility against the investing force, a neutral ship
which had sailed in ignorance of the blockade for the blockaded place
might in good faith cross the blockade line without committing a hostile
act against the investing force. With the development of recognition of
neutral rights the involuntary character of the breach would be taken
into account, and notice to neutral states and to approaching vessels
would come into use. With the employment in warfare of larger vessels in
the place of the more numerous small ones of an earlier age, notice,
moreover, would tend to take the place of _de facto_ investment, and at
a time when communication between governments was still slow and
precarious, such notice would sometimes be given as a possible measure
of belligerent tactics before the blockade could be actually carried
out. Out of these circumstances grew up the abuse of "paper blockades."
The climax was reached in the "Continental Blockade" decreed by Napoleon
in 1806, which continued till it was abolished by international
agreement in 1812. This blockade forbade all countries under French
dominion or allied with France to have any communication with Great
Britain. Great Britain replied in 1807 by a similar measure. The first
nation to protest against these fictitious blockades was the United
States. Already in 1800 John Marshall, secretary of state, wrote to the
American minister in Great Britain pointing out objections which have
since been universally admitted. In the following interesting passage he
said:--
"Ports not effectually blockaded by a force capable of completely
investing them have yet been declared in a state of blockade.... If
the effectiveness of the blockade be dispensed with, then every port
of the belligerent powers may at all times be declared in that state,
and the commerce of neutrals be thereby subjected to universal
capture. But if this principle be strictly adhered to, the capacity to
blockade will be limited by the naval force of the belligerent and, in
consequence, the mischief to neutral commerce cannot be very
extensive. It is, therefore, of the last importance to neutrals that
this principle be maintained unimpaired. I observe that you have
pressed this reasoning on the British minister, who replies that an
occasional absence of a fleet from a blockaded port ought not to
change the state of the place. Whatever force this observation may be
entitled to, where that occasional absence has been produced by an
accident, as a storm, which for a moment blows off a fleet and forces
it from its station, which station it immediately resumes, I am
persuaded that where a part of the fleet is applied, though only for a
time, to other objects or comes into port, the very principle
requiring an effective blockade, which is that the mischief can only
be coextensive with the naval force of the belligerent, requires that
during such temporary absence the commerce to the neutrals to the
place should be free."[1]
Again in 1803 James Madison wrote to the then American minister in
London:--
"The law of nations requires to constitute a blockade that there
should be the presence and position of a force rendering access to the
prohibited place manifestly difficult and dangerous."[2]
In 1826 and 1827 Great Britain as well as the United States asserted
that blockades in order to be binding must be effective. This became
gradually the recognized view, and when in 1856 the powers represented
at the congress of Paris inserted in the declaration there adopted that
"blockades in order to be binding must be effective, that is to say,
maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast
of an enemy," they were merely enunciating a rule which neutral states
had already become too powerful to allow belligerents to disregard.
Blockade is universally admitted to be a belligerent right to which
under international law neutrals are obliged to submit. It is now also
universally admitted that the above-quoted rule of the Declaration of
Paris forms part of international law, independently of the declaration.
Being, however, exclusively a belligerent right, it cannot be exercised
except by a belligerent force. Even a _de facto_ belligerent has the
right to institute a blockade binding on neutrals if it has the means of
making it effective, though the force opposed to it may treat the _de
facto_ belligerent as rebels.
It is also admitted that, being exclusively a belligerent right, it
cannot be exercised in time of peace, but there has been some
inconsistency in practice (see PACIFIC BLOCKADE) which will probably
lead governments, in order to avoid protests of neutral powers against
belligerent rights being exercised in mere coercive proceedings, to
exercise all the rights of belligerents and carry on _de facto_ war to
entitle them to use violence against neutral infringers. This was done
in the case of the blockade of Venezuela by Great Britain, Germany and
Italy in 1902-1903.
The points upon which controversy still arises are as to what
constitutes an "effective" blockade and what a sufficient notice of
blockade to warrant the penalties of violation, viz. confiscation of the
ship and of the cargo unless the evidence demonstrates the innocence of
the cargo owners. A blockade to be effective must be maintained by a
sufficient force to prevent the entrance of neutral vessels into the
blockaded port or ports, and it must be duly proclaimed. Subject to
these principles being complied with, "the question of the legitimacy
and effectiveness of a blockade is one of fact to be determined in each
case upon the evidence presented" (Thomas F. Bayard, American secretary
of state, to Messrs Kamer & Co., 19th of February 1889). The British
manual of naval prize law sums up the cases in which a blockade, validly
instituted, ceases to be effectively maintained, as follows:--(1) If the
blockading force abandons its position, unless the abandonment be merely
temporary or caused by stress of weather, or (2) if it be driven away by
the enemy, or (3) if it be negligent in its duties, or (4) if it be
partial in the execution of its duties towards one ship rather than
another, or towards the ships of one nation rather than those of
another. These cases, however, are based on decisions of the British
admiralty court and cannot be relied on absolutely as a statement of
international law.
As regards notice the following American instructions vere given to
blockading officers in June 1898:--
"Neutral vessels are entitled to notification of a blockade before
they can be made prize for its attempted violation. The character of
this notification is not material. It may be actual, as by a vessel of
the blockading force, or _constructive, as by a proclamation of the
government maintaining the blockade, or by common notoriety_. If a
neutral vessel can be shown to have had notice of the blockade in any
way, she is good prize, and should be sent in for adjudication; but
should formal notice not have been given, _the rule of constructive
knowledge arising from notoriety_ should be construed in a manner
liberal to the neutral.
"Vessels appearing before a blockaded port, having sailed without
notification, are entitled to actual notice by a blockading vessel.
They should be boarded by an officer, who should enter in the ship's
log the fact of such notice, such entry to include the name of the
blockading vessel giving notice, the extent of the blockade, the date
and place, verified by his official signature. The vessel is then to
be set free; and should she again attempt to enter the same or any
other blockaded port as to which she has had notice, she is good
prize. Should it appear from a vessel's clearance that she sailed
after notice of blockade had been communicated to the country of her
port of departure, or _after the fact of blockade had, by a fair
presumption, become commonly known_ at that port, she should be sent
in as a prize."
The passages in italics are not in accordance with the views held by
other states, which do not recognize the binding character of a
diplomatic notification or of constructive notice from notoriety.
The subject was brought up at the second Hague Conference (1907). The
Italian and Mexican delegations submitted projects, but after a
declaration by the British delegate in charge of the subject (Sir E.
Satow) that blockade not having been included in the Russian programme,
his government had given him no instructions upon it, the subject, at
his suggestion, was dropped. A _Voeu_, however, was adopted in favour of
formulating rules on all branches of the laws and customs of naval war,
and a convention was agreed to for the establishment of an international
Prize Court (see PRIZE). Under Art. 7 of the latter convention the Court
was to apply the "rules of international law," and in their absence the
"general principles of justice and equity." As soon as possible after
the close of the second Hague Conference the British government took
steps to call a special conference of the maritime powers, which sat
from December 4, 1908 to February 26, 1909. Among the subjects dealt
with was Blockade, the rules relating to which are as follow:--
Art. 1. A blockade must not extend beyond the ports and coasts
belonging to or occupied by the enemy.
Art. 2. In accordance with the Declaration of Paris of 1856, a
blockade, in order to be binding, must be effective--that is to say,
it must be maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access
to the enemy coastline.
Art. 3. The question whether a blockade is effective is a question of
fact.
Art. 4. A blockade is not regarded as raised if the blockading force
is temporarily withdrawn on account of stress of weather.
Art. 5. A blockade must be applied impartially to the ships of all
nations.
Art. 6. The commander of a blockading force may give permission to a
warship to enter, and subsequently to leave, a blockaded port.
Art. 7. In circumstances of distress, acknowledged by an officer of
the blockading force, a neutral vessel may enter a place under
blockade and subsequently leave it, provided that she has neither
discharged nor shipped any cargo there.
Art. 8. A blockade, in order to be binding, must be declared in
accordance with Article 9, and notified in accordance with Articles 11
and 16.
Art. 9. A declaration of blockade is made either by the blockading
power or by the naval authorities acting in its name. It specifies (1)
the date when the blockade begins; (2) the geographical limits of the
coastline under blockade; (3) the period within which neutral vessels
may come out.
Art. 10. If the operations of the blockading power, or of the naval
authorities acting in its name, do not tally with the particulars,
which, in accordance with Article 9 (1) and (2), must be inserted in
the declaration of blockade, the declaration is void, and a new
declaration is necessary in order to make the blockade operative.
Art. 11. A declaration of blockade is notified: (1) to neutral powers,
by the blockading power by means of a communication addressed to the
governments direct, or to their representatives accredited to it; (2)
to the local authorities, by the officer commanding the blockading
force. The local authorities will, in turn, inform the foreign
consular officers at the port or on the coastline under blockade as
soon as possible.
Art. 12. The rules as to declaration and notification of blockade
apply to cases where the limits of a blockade are extended, or where a
blockade is re-established after having been raised.
Art. 13. The voluntary raising of a blockade, as also any restriction
in the limits of a blockade, must be notified in the manner prescribed
by Article 11.
Art. 14. The liability of a neutral vessel to capture for breach of
blockade is contingent on her knowledge, actual or presumptive, of the
blockade.
Art. 15. Failing proof to the contrary, knowledge of the blockade is
presumed if the vessel left a neutral port subsequently to the
notification of the blockade to the power to which such port belongs,
provided that such notification was made in sufficient time.
Art. 16. If a vessel approaching a blockaded port has no knowledge,
actual or presumptive, of the blockade, the notification must be made
to the vessel itself by an officer of one of the ships of the
blockading force. This notification should be entered in the vessel's
logbook, and must state the day and hour, and the geographical
position of the vessel at the time. If through the negligence of the
officer commanding the blockading force no declaration of blockade has
been notified to the local authorities, or if in the declaration, as
notified, no period has been mentioned within which neutral vessels
may come out, a neutral vessel coming out of the blockaded port must
be allowed to pass free.
Art. 17. Neutral vessels may not be captured for breach of blockade
except within the area of operations of the warships detailed to
render the blockade effective.
Art. 18. The blockading forces must not bar access to neutral ports or
coasts.
Art. 19. Whatever may be the ulterior destination of a vessel or of
her cargo, she cannot be captured for breach of blockade, if, at the
moment, she is on her way to a non-blockaded port.
Art. 20. A vessel which has broken blockade outwards, or which has
attempted to break blockade inwards, is liable to capture so long as
she is pursued by a ship of the blockading force. If the pursuit is
abandoned, or if the blockade is raised, her capture can no longer be
effected.
Art. 21. A vessel found guilty of breach of blockade is liable to
condemnation. The cargo is also condemned, unless it is proved that at
the time of the shipment of the goods the shipper neither knew nor
could have known of the intention to break the blockade. (T. Ba.)