[1] Lydekker, in _Proc. Zool. Soc._, 1897, p. 412.
BEAR-BAITING and BULL-BAITING, sports formerly very popular in England
but now suppressed on account of their cruelty. They took place in
arenas built in the form of theatres which were the common resort even
of cultivated people. In the bear-gardens, which are known to have
existed since the time of Henry II., the bear was chained to a stake by
one hind leg or by the neck and worried by dogs. Erasmus, writing (about
1500) from the house of Sir Thomas More, spoke of "many herds of bears
maintained in the country for the purpose of baiting." Sunday was the
favourite day for these sports. Hentzner, writing in 1598, describes the
bear-garden at Bankside as "another place, built in the form of a
theatre, which serves for the baiting of Bulls and Bears. They are
fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs, but not
without great risk to the dogs from the horns of the one and the teeth
of the other, and it sometimes happens they are killed upon the spot;
fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those that are
wounded or tired." He also describes the whipping of a blinded bear, a
favourite variation of bear-baiting. For a famous baiting which took
place before Queen Elizabeth in 1575 thirteen bears were provided. Of it
Robert Laneham (fl. 1575) wrote, "it was a sport very pleasant to see,
to see the bear, with his pink eyes, tearing after his enemies'
approach; the nimbleness and wait of the dog to take his advantage and
the force and experience of the bear again to avoid his assaults: if he
were bitten in one place how he would pinch in another to get free; that
if he were taken once, then by what shift with biting, with clawing,
with roaring, with tossing and tumbling he would work and wind himself
from them; and when he was loose to shake his ears twice or thrice with
the blood and the slaver hanging about his physiognomy." The famous
"Paris Garden" in Southwark was the chief bear-garden in London. A
Spanish nobleman of the time, who was taken to see a pony baited that
had an ape tied to its back, expressed himself to the effect that "to
see the animal kicking amongst the dogs, with the screaming of the ape,
beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very
laughable." Butler describes a bear-baiting at length in the first canto
of his _Hudibras_.
The Puritans endeavoured to put an end to animal-baiting, although
Macaulay sarcastically suggested that this was "not because it gave pain
to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." The
efforts of the Puritans seem, however, to have had little effect, for we
find the sport flourishing at the Restoration; but the conscience of
cultivated people seems to have been touched, for Evelyn wrote in his
_Diary_, under the date of June 16th, 1670: "I went with some friends to
the bear-garden, where was cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear and bull
baiting, it being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather
barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish
wolf-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a stately creature
indeed, who beat a cruel mastiff. One of the bulls tossed a dog full
into a lady's lap, as she sat in one of the boxes at a considerable
height from the arena. Two poor dogs were killed, and so all ended with
the ape on horseback, and I most heartily weary of the rude and dirty
pastime, which I had not seen, I think, in twenty years before." Steele
also attacked these cruel sports in the _Tatler_. Nevertheless, when the
tsar Nicholas I. visited England as cesarevich, he was taken to see a
prize-fight and a bull-baiting. In this latter form of the sport the
bull's nose was usually blown full of pepper to render him the more
furious. The bull was often allowed a hole in the ground, into which to
thrust his nose and lips, his most vulnerable parts. Sometimes the bull
was tethered, and dogs, trained for the purpose, set upon him one by
one, a successful attack resulting in the dog fastening his teeth firmly
in the bull's snout. This was called "pinning the bull." A sport called
bull-running was popular in several towns of England, particularly at
Tutbury and Stamford. Its establishment at Tutbury was due to John of
Gaunt, to whose minstrels, on the occasion of their annual festival on
August 16th the prior of Tutbury, for his tenure, delivered a bull,
which had his horns sawn off, his ears and tail cut off, his nostrils
filled with pepper and his whole body smeared with soap. The minstrels
gave chase to the bull, which became the property of any minstrel of the
county of Stafford who succeeded in holding him long enough to cut off a
lock of his hair. Otherwise he was returned to the prior. At the
dissolution of the monasteries this tenure devolved upon the dukes of
Devonshire, who suppressed it in 1788. At Stamford the running took
place annually on November 13th, the bull being provided by the butchers
of the town, the townspeople taking part in the chase, which was carried
on until both people and beast were exhausted, and ended in the killing
of the bull. Certain rules were strictly observed, such as the
prohibition of carrying sticks or staves that were shod with iron. The
Stamford bull-running survived well into the 19th century. Bear-baiting
and bull-baiting were prohibited by act of parliament in 1835.
BEARD, WILLIAM HOLBROOK (1825-1900), American painter, was born on the
13th of April 1825 at Painesville, Ohio. He studied abroad, and in 1861
removed to New York City, where in 1862 he became a member of the
National Academy of Design. He was a prolific worker and a man of much
inventiveness and originality, though of modest artistic endowment. His
humorous treatment of cats, dogs, horses and monkeys, generally with
some human occupation and expression, usually satirical, gave him a
great vogue at one time, and his pictures were largely reproduced. His
brother, James Henry Beard (1814-1893), was also a painter.
BEARD (A.S. _beard_, O.H. and Mod. Ger. _Bart_, Dan. _baard_, Icel.
_bar_, rim, edge, beak of a ship, &c., O. Slav, _barda_, Russ. _baroda_.
Cf. Welsh _barf_, Lat. _barba_, though, according to the _New English
Dictionary_, the connexion is for phonetic reasons doubtful). Modern
usage applies this word to the hair grown upon a man's chin and cheek.
When the chin is shaven, what remains upon the cheeks is called
whiskers. "Moustache" or "moustaches" describes the hair upon the upper
lip. But the words have in the past had less exact meaning. Beard has
stood alone for all these things, and whisker has in its time signified
what we now call moustache, as in the case of Robinson Crusoe's great
pair of "Turkish whiskers."
The bearded races of mankind have ever held the beard in high honour. It
is the sign of full manhood; the lad or the eunuch is beardless, and the
bearded woman is reckoned a witch, a loathsome thing to all ages. Also
the beard shrinks from the profane hand; a tug at the beard is sudden
pain and dishonour. The Roman senator sat like a carven thing until the
wondering Goth touched his long beard; but then he struck, although he
died for the blow. The future King John gave deadly offence to the
native chieftains, when visiting Ireland in 1185, by plucking at their
flowing beards.
David's ambassadors had their beards despitefully shaven by a bold
heathen. Their own king mercifully covered their shame--"Tarry ye at
Jericho until your beards be grown"--but war answered the insult. The
oath on the beard is as old as history, and we have an echo of it in the
first English political ballad when Sir Simon de Montfort swears "by his
chin" revenge on Warenne.
Adam, our first father, was by tradition created with a beard: Zeus
Allfather is bearded, and the old painters and carvers who hardily
pictured the first person of the Trinity gave Him the long beard of his
fatherhood. The race-fathers have it and the ancient heroes. Abraham and
Agamemnon, Woden and King Arthur and Charlemagne, must all be bearded in
our pictures. With the Mahommedan peoples the beard as worn by an
unshaven prophet has ever been in high renown, the more so that amongst
most of the conquering tribes who first acknowledged the unity of God
and prophethood of Mahomet it grows freely. But before Mahomet's day,
kings of Persia had plaited their sacred beards with golden thread, and
the lords of Nineveh had curiously curled and oiled beards such as their
winged bull wears. Bohadin tells us that Saladin's little son wept for
terror when he saw the crusaders' envoys "with their clean-shaven
chins." Selim I. (1512-1521) comes down as a Turkish sultan who broke
into holy custom and cut off his beard, telling a remonstrating Mufti
that his vizier should now have nothing to lead him by. But such
tampering with tradition has its dangers, and the absolute rule of Peter
the Great is made clear when we know that he taxed Russian beards and
shaved his own, and yet died in his bed. Alexander the Great did as much
and more with his well-drilled Macedonians, and was obeyed when he bade
them shave off the handle by which an enemy could seize them.
With other traditions of their feudal age, the Japanese nation has
broken with its ancient custom of the razor, and their emperor has beard
and moustache; a short moustache is common amongst Japanese officers and
statesmen, and generals and admirals of Nippon follow the imperial
example. The Nearer East also is abandoning the full beard, even in
Mahommedan lands. Earlier shahs of the Kajar house have glorious beards
below their girdles, but Nasiru'd-Din and his successor have shaved
their chins. In later years the sultan of Turkey has added a beard to
his moustache; the khedive of Egypt, son of a bearded father, has a
soldier's moustache only. In Europe the great Russian people is faithful
to the beard, Peter's law being forgotten. The tsar Alexander III.'s
beard might have satisfied Ivan the Terrible, whose hands played
delightedly with the five-foot beard of Queen Elizabeth's agent George
Killingworth. Indeed the royal houses of Europe are for the most part
bearded or whiskered. It may be that the race of Olivier le Dain, of the
man who can be trusted with a sharp razor near a crowned king's throat,
is extinct. Leopold II., king of the Belgians, however, was in 1909 the
only sovereign with the full beard unclipped. The Austrian emperor,
Francis Joseph, retained the moustache and whiskers of the 'sixties, and
the German emperor, William II., for a short period, commemorated by a
few very rare photographs, had a beard, although it was never suffered
to reach the length of that beard which gave his father an air of
Charlemagne or Barbarossa. In France bearded presidents have followed
each other, but it may be noted that the waxed moustache and "imperial"
beard of the Second Empire is now all but abandoned to the Frenchman of
English comedy. The modern English fashion of shaving clean is rare in
France save among actors, and during 1907 many Parisian waiters struck
against the rule which forbade them to grow the moustache.
For the most part the clergy of the Roman obedience shave clean, as have
done the popes for two centuries and more. But missionary bishops
cultivate the long beard with some pride, and the orders have varying
customs, the Dominican shaving and the Franciscan allowing the hair to
grow. The Roman Catholic clergy of Dalmatia, secular and regular, are
allowed to wear the moustache without beard or whiskers, as a concession
to national prejudices.
Amongst English people, always ready to be swayed by fashion, the hair
of the face has been, age by age, cherished or shaved away, curled or
clipped into a hundred devices. Before the immigration from Sleswick the
Briton knew the use of the razor, sometimes shaving his chin, but
leaving the moustaches long. The old English also wore moustaches and
forked beards, but, save for aged men, the beard had passed out of
fashion before the Norman Conquest. Thus, in the Bayeux needlework,
Edward the king is venerable with a long beard, but Harold and his
younger fighting men have their chins reaped. "The English," says
William of Malmesbury, "leave the upper lip unshaven, suffering the hair
continually to increase," and to Harold's spies the Conqueror's knights,
who had "the whole face with both lips shaven," were strange and
priest-like. Matthew Paris had a strange idea that the beard was
distinctive of Englishmen; he asserts that those who remained in England
were compelled to shave their beards, while the native nobles who went
into exile kept their beards and flowing locks "like the Easterns and
especially the Trojans." He even believed that "William with the beard,"
who headed a rising in London under Richard I., came of a stock which
had scorned to shave, out of hatred for the Normans, a statement which
Thierry developed.
The _Chanson de Roland_ shows us "the pride of France" as "that good
bearded folk," with their beards hanging over coats of mail, and it
makes the great emperor swear to Naimes by his beard. It was only about
the year 1000, according to Rodolf Glaber, that men began in the north
of France to wear short hair and shave "like actors"; and even in the
Bayeux tapestry the old Norman shipwrights wear the beard. But so rare
was hair on the face amongst the Norman invaders that William, the
forefather of the Percys, was known in his lifetime and remembered after
his death as William "Asgernuns" or "Oht les gernuns," i.e. "William
with the moustaches," the epithet revived by one of his descendants
making our modern name of Algernon. Count Eustace of Boulogne was
similarly distinguished. Fashion swung about after the Conquest, and, in
the day of Henry I., Serle the bishop could compare bearded men of the
Norman-English court with "filthy goats and bristly Saracens." The
crusades, perhaps, were accountable for the beards which were oddly
denounced as effeminate in the young courtiers of William Rufus. Not
only the Greeks but the Latins in the East sometimes adopted the Saracen
fashion, and the siege of Antioch (1098) was as unfavourable to the use
of the razor as that of Sevastopol. When the Latins stormed the town by
night, bearded knights owed their death to the assumption that every
Christian would be a shaven man. But for more than four centuries
diversity is allowed, beards, moustaches and shaven faces being found
side by side, although now and again one fashion or another comes
uppermost to be followed by those nice in such matters. Henry II. is a
close-shaven king, and Richard II.'s effigy shows but a little tuft on
each side of the chin, tufts which are two curled locks on the chin of
Henry IV. But Henry III. is long-bearded, Edward II. curls his beard in
three great ringlets, and the third Edward's long forked beard flows
down his breast in patriarchal style. The mid-13th century, as seen in
the drawings attributed to Matthew Paris, is an age of many full and
curled beards, although the region about the lips is sometimes clipped
or shaved. The beard is common in the 14th century, the forked pattern
being favoured and the long drooping moustache. Amongst those who ride
with him to Canterbury, Chaucer, a bearded poet, notes the merchant's
"forked beard," the white beard of the franklin and the red beard of the
miller, but the reeve's beard is "shave as ny as ever he can." Henry of
Monmouth and his son are shaven, and thereafter beards are rare save
with a few old folk until they come slowly back with the 16th century.
In Ireland the statute enacted by a parliament at Trim in 1447 recited
that no manner of man who will be taken for an Englishman should have
beard above his mouth--the upper lip must be shaven at least every
fortnight or be of equal growth with the nether lip,--and this statute
remained unrepealed for nigh upon two hundred years. Henry VIII., always
a law to himself, brought back the beard to favour, Stowe's annals
giving 1535 as the year in which he caused his beard "to be knotted and
no more shaven," his hair being polled at the same time. Many portraits
give his fashion of wearing a thin moustache, whose ends met a short and
squarely trimmed beard parted at the chin, a fashion in which he was
followed by his brother-in-law Charles Brandon. But it is remarkable
that those about him rarely imitated their most dread sovereign. While
Cromwell and Howard the Admiral go clean shaven, the Seymour brothers,
Denny and Russell, have the beard long and flowing. Even the forty
shilling a year man, says Hooper in 1548, will waste his morning time
while he sets his beard in order. About this time the clergy began to
break with the long tradition of smooth faces. A priest in 1531 is
commanded to abstain from wearing a beard, and Cardinal Pole, coming
from the court of a bearded pope, appears bearded like a Greek
patriarch. The law too, the church's kinswoman, begins to forbid, a sign
of the change, and from 1542 the society of Lincoln's Inn makes rules
for fining and expelling those who appear bearded at their mess, rules
which the example of exalted lawyers caused to be withdrawn in 1560.
The age of Elizabeth saw lawyers, soldiers, courtiers and merchants all
bearded. Her Cecils, Greshams, Raleighs, Drakes, Dudleys and Walsinghams
have the beard. A shaven chin such as that seen in the portrait of
Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, is rare, but the beards take a hundred
fashions, and satirists and Puritan pamphleteers were busy with them and
with the men who wasted hours in perfuming or starching them, in dusting
them with orris powder, in curling them with irons and quills. Stubbs
gives them a place amongst his abuses. "It is a world to consider how
their mowchatowes must be preserved or laid out from one cheek to
another and turned up like two horns towards the forehead." Of the
English variety of beards Harrison has a good word: "beards of which
some are shaven from the chin like those of Turks, not a few cut short
like to the beard of Marquess Otto, some made round like a rubbing
brush, others with a _pique de vant_ (O! fine fashion) or now and then
suffered to grow long, the barbers being grown to be so cunning in this
behalf as the tailors. And therefore if a man have a lean and straight
face, a Marquess Otto's cut will make it broad and large; if it be
platter-like, a long slender beard will make it seem the narrower; if he
be weasel-becked, then much hair left on the cheeks will make the owner
look big like a bowdled hen, and as grim as a goose, if Cornelis of
Chelmersford say true." Nevertheless he adds that "many old men do wear
no beards at all." The Elizabethan fashions continued under King James,
the beard trimmed to a point being common wear; but under King Charles
there is a certain reaction, and the royal style of shaving the cheeks
and leaving the moustache whose points sweep upward and the chin beard
like a downward flame is followed by most of the gentry. With some the
beard disappears altogether or remains a mere fleck below the lip.
Archbishop Laud has a cavalier-like chin tuft and upturned moustache,
but Abbot his predecessor wore the spade beard, the "cathedral beard" of
Randle Holme, seen in all its dignity on the Chigwell brass of Samuel
Harsnett, archbishop of York (died 1631), a grim figure with his angry
moustache and a long and broad beard, cut square at the bottom.
From the Restoration year the razor comes more into use. Young men shave
clean. The restored king curls a few dark hairs of a moustache over each
cheek, but his brother James is shaven. With the reign of Queen Anne the
country enters the beardless age, and beards, moustaches and whiskers
are no more seen. In the 18th century the moustache indicated a soldier
from beyond sea. A Jew or a Turk was known by the beard, an appendage
loathsome as comic. Matthew Robinson, the second Lord Rokeby, was indeed
wearing a beard in 1798, but he was reckoned a madman therefor, and
Phillips's _Public Character_ pictures him as "the only peer and perhaps
the only gentleman of either Great Britain or Ireland who is thus
distinguished." That George III. in his madness should have been left
unshaved was a circumstance of his misery that wrung the hearts of all
loyal folk. But in the very year of 1798, when Lord Rokeby's image was
engraved for the curious, the Worcestershire militia officers quartered
near Brighton were copying the Austrian moustache of the foreign troops,
and we may note that the hair of the face, which disappeared when wigs
came in, began to reappear as wigs went out. Early in the 19th century
the bucks began to show a patch of whisker beside the ear, and the
soldier's moustache became a common sight. Before Waterloo, guardsmen
were complaining that officers of humbler regiments imitated their
fashion of the moustache, and by the Waterloo year most young cavalry
officers were moustached. The Horse Artillery were the next moustached
corps, the rest of the army, already whiskered, following their example
in the 'fifties. But for a civilian to grow a moustache was long
reckoned a piece of unseemly swagger. Clive Newcome, it will be
remembered, wore one until the taunting question whether he was "going
in the Guards" shamed him into shaving clean. When in 1840 Mr George
Frederick Muntz appeared in parliament with a full beard there were
those who felt that this tall Radical had taken his own strange method
of insulting English parliamentary institutions. James Ward, R.A. (d.
1859), painter of animals, was another breaker of the unwritten law,
defending his beard in a pamphlet of eighteen arguments as a thing
pleasing at once to the artist and to his Creator. Freedom in these
matters only came when the troops were home from the Crimea, when
officers who had grown beards and acquired the taste for tobacco during
the long months in the trenches showed their beards and their cigars in
Piccadilly. Then came the Volunteer movement, and every man was a
soldier, taking a soldier's licence. The dominant fashion was the
moustache, worn with long and drooping whiskers. But the "Piccadilly
weepers" of the 'sixties were out of the mode for the younger men when
the 'eighties began, and by the end of the century whiskers were seen in
the army only upon a few veteran officers. The fashion of clean shaving
had made some way, the popularity of the shaven actor having a part in
this. In 1909 all modes of dealing with the hair of the face might be
recognized, but the full beard had become somewhat rare in England and
the full whiskers rarer still. The upper class showed an inclination to
shave clean, although the army grudgingly recognized a rule which
ordered the moustache to be worn. Naval men, by regulation, shaved or
wore both beard and moustache, but their beards were always trimmed.
Most barristers shaved the lips, although the last judge unable to hear
an advocate whose voice a moustache interrupted had left the bench.
Clergymen followed the lay fashions as they did under the first Stuart
kings, although there was still some prejudice against the moustache as
an ornament military and inappropriate. A newspaper of 1857, describing
the appearance of Livingstone the missionary at a Mansion House meeting,
records that he came wearing a moustache, "braving the prejudices of his
countrymen and thus evincing a courage only inferior to that exhibited
by him amongst the savages of Central Africa." Even as late as 1884 the
_Pall Mall Gazette_ has some surprised comments on the beard of Bishop
Ryle, newly consecrated to the see of Liverpool.
The footman, whose full-dress livery is the court dress of a hundred
years ago, must show no more than the rudimentary whisker of the early
eighteen-hundreds, and butler, coachman and groom come under the same
rule. The jockey and the hunt whip are shaven likewise, but the courier
has the whiskers and moustache that once marked him as a foreigner in
the English milor's service, and the chauffeur, a servant with no
tradition behind him, is often moustached.
Lastly, we may speak of the practice of the royal house since England
came out of the beardless century. The regent took the new fashion, and
sat "in whiskered state," but his brother and successor shaved clean and
disliked even the hussar's moustache. The prince consort wore the
moustache as a young man, adding whiskers in later years. King Edward
VII. wore moustache and trimmed beard, and his heir apparent also
followed the fashion of many fellow admirals. (O. Ba.)
BEARDSLEY, AUBREY VINCENT (1872-1898), English artist in black and
white, was born at Brighton on the 24th of August 1872. In 1883 his
family settled in London, and in the following year he appeared in
public as an "infant musical phenomenon," playing at several concerts
with his sister. In 1888 he obtained a post in an architect's office,
and afterwards one in the Guardian Life and Fire Insurance Company
(1889). In 1891, under the advice of Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Puvis de
Chavannes, he took up art as a profession. In 1892 he attended the
classes at the Westminster School of Art, then under Professor Brown;
and from 1893 until his death, at Mentone, on the 16th of March 1898,
his work came continually before the public, arousing a storm of
criticism and much hostile feeling. Beardsley had an unswerving tendency
towards the fantastic of the gloomier and "unwholesome" sort. His
treatment of most subjects was revolutionary; he deliberately ignored
proportion and perspective, and the "freedom from convention" which he
displayed caused his work to be judged with harshness. In certain phases
of technique he especially excelled; and his earlier methods of dealing
with the single line in conjunction with masses of black are in their
way unsurpassed, except in the art of Japan, the country which probably
gave his ideas some assistance. He was always an ornamentist, rather
than an illustrator; and his work must be judged from that point of
view. His frontispiece to _Volpone_ is held by some to be, from this
purely technical standpoint, one of the best pen-drawings of the age.
His posters for the Avenue theatre and for Mr Fisher Unwin were among
the first of the modern cult of that art.
The following are the chief works which are illustrated with drawings
by Beardsley: the _Bon Mot_ Library, _The Pall Mall Budget_, and _The
Studio_ (1893), Sir Thomas Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ (1893-1894),
_Salome_ (1894), _The Yellow Book_ (1894-1895), _The Savoy Magazine_
(1896), _The Rape of the Lock_ (1896).
See also J. Pennell, _The Studio_ (1893); Symons, _Aubrey Beardsley_
(1898); R. Ross, _Volpone_ (1898); H.C. Marillier, _The Early Work of
Aubrey Beardsley_ (1899); Smithers, _Reproductions of Drawings by
Aubrey Beardsley_; John Lane, _The Later Works of Aubrey Beardsley_
(1901); R. Ross, _Aubrey Beardsley_ (1908). (E. F. S.)
BEARDSTOWN, a city of Cass county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the W. part of
the state, on the E. bank of the Illinois river, about 111 m. N. of St
Louis, Missouri. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio South-Western, and
the Burlington (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy) railways, and by
steamboats plying between it and St. Louis. Pop. (1890) 4226; (1900)
4827 (444 foreign-born); (1910) 6107. The industrial establishments of
the city include flour, planing and saw mills, the machine shops (of the
St Louis division) of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railway, ice
factories, pearl button factories and a shoe factory. The fishing
interests are also important. Beardstown was laid out in 1827 and was
incorporated as a city in 1896. It was named in honour of Thomas Beard,
who settled in the vicinity in 1820. During the Black Hawk War (1832) it
was a base of supplies for the Illinois troops. The old court house in
which Abraham Lincoln, in 1854, won his famous "Armstrong murder case,"
is now used for a city hall.
BEARER, strictly "one who carries," a term used in India for a
palanquin-bearer, and now especially for a body-servant. The term is
also used in connexion with military ambulances, and "bearer" companies
formed part of the Royal Army Medical Corps until amalgamated with the
field-hospitals to form field-ambulances (1905). In banking and commerce
the word is applied to the holder or presenter of a cheque or draft not
made payable to a specific person; it has also a technical use, as in
printing, of anything that supports pressure in machinery, &c.
BEARINGS. In engineering a "bearing" is that particular kind of support
which, besides carrying the load imposed upon it by the shaft associated
with it, allows the shaft freedom to revolve. Or, put in another way, a
bearing forms with the shaft a pair of elements having one degree of
freedom to turn relatively to one another about their common axis. The
part of the shaft in the bearing is commonly called the _journal_. The
component parts of a small bearing, pillow block, plummer block or
pedestal, as it is variously styled, are illustrated in fig. 1, and
these parts, put together, are further illustrated in fig. 2 with the
shaft added. Corresponding parts are similarly lettered in the two
illustrations. The shaft (S) is encircled by the _brasses_ (B1 and B2)
made of gun metal, phosphor bronze or other suitable material. The lower
brass fits into the main casting (A) in the semicircular seat provided
for it, and is prevented from moving endways by the flanges (F, F) and
from turning with the shaft by the projections (P, P), which fit into
corresponding recesses in the casting (A), one of which is shown at p.
After the shaft has been placed in position, the upper brass (B2) and
the cap (C) are put on and both are held in place by the bolts (Q1, Q2).
The brasses are bedded into the main casting (A) and the cap (C)
respectively at the surfaces D, D, D, D. The complete bearing is held to
the framework of the machine by bolts (R1, R2) passing through holes (H,
H) which are slotted to allow endwise adjustment of the whole bearing in
order to facilitate the alignment of the shaft. Oil or other lubricant
is introduced through the hole (G), and it passes through the top brass
to grooves or oilways cut into the surface of the brass for the purpose
of distributing the oil uniformly to the journal.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
Some form of lubricator is usually fitted at G in order to supply oil to
the bearing continuously. A form of lubricator used for this purpose is
shown in place, fig. 2, and an enlarged section is shown in fig. 3. It
will be seen that the lubricator consists essentially of a cup the base
of which is pierced centrally by a tube which reaches to within a small
distance of the lid of the cup inside, and projects into the oilway
leading to the journal outside. The annular space round the tube inside
is filled with oil which is transferred to the central tube and thence
to the bearing by the capillary action of a cotton wick thrust down on a
piece of wire. It is only necessary to withdraw the wick from the
central tube to stop the supply of oil. The lubricator is fitted through
a hole in the lid which is usually plugged with a piece of cane or
closed by more elaborate means. A line of shafting would be supported by
several bearings of the kind illustrated, themselves supported by
brackets projecting from or rigidly fixed to the walls of the workshop,
or on frames resting on the floor, or on hangers attached to the roof
girders or principals.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
In bearings of modern design for supporting a line shaft the general
arrangement shown in fig. 1 is modified so that the alignments of the
shaft can be made both vertically or horizontally by means of adjusting
screws, and the brass is jointed with the supporting main body so that
it is free to follow the small deflections of the shaft which take place
when the shaft is working. Another modern improvement is the formation
of an oil reservoir or well in the base of the bearing itself, and the
transference of the oil from this well to the shaft by means of one or
two rings riding loosely on the shaft. The bottom part of the ring dips
into the oil contained in the well of the bearing and, as the shaft
rotates, the ring rolls on the shaft and thus carries oil up to the
shaft continuously, from which it finds its way to the surfaces of the
shaft and bearing in contact. It should be understood that the upper
brass is slotted crossways to allow the ring to rest on the shaft. When
the direction of the load carried by the bearing is constant it is
unnecessary to provide more than one brass, and the construction is
modified accordingly. Figs. 4 and 5 show an axle box used for goods
wagons on the Great Eastern railway, and they also illustrate the method
of pad lubrication in general use for this kind of bearing. The main
casting, A, is now uppermost, and is designed so that the upper part
supports and constrains the spring buckle through which the load W is
transmitted to the bearing, and the lower part inside is arranged to
support the brass, B. The brass is jointed freely with the main casting
by means of a hemispherical hump resting in a corresponding recess in
the casting. What may be called the cap, C, forms the lower part of the
axle box, but instead of supporting a second brass it is formed into an
oil reservoir in which is arranged a pad of cotton wick woven on a tin
frame. The upper part of the pad is formed into a kind of brush, shaped
to fit the underside of the journal, whilst the lower part consists of
streamers of wick resting in the oil. The oil is fed to the brush by the
capillary action of the streamers. The reservoirs are filled with oil
through the apertures P and O. The bottom cap is held in position by the
T-headed bolts Q1 and Q2 (fig. 5). By slackening the nuts and turning
the T-heads fair with the slots in the cap, the cap comes right away and
the axle may be examined. A leather ring L is fitted as shown to prevent
dust from entering the axle box.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
_Footsteps._--A bearing arranged to support the lower end of a vertical
shaft is called a footstep, sometimes a pivot bearing. A simple form of
footstep is shown in fig 6. A casting A, designed so that it can be
conveniently bolted to a foundation block, cross beam, or bracket is
bored out and fitted with a brass B, which is turned inside to carry the
end of the shaft S. The whole vertical load on the shaft is carried by
the footstep, so that it is important to arrange efficient lubricating
apparatus. Results of experiments made on a footstep, reported in _Proc.
Inst. Mech. Eng._, 1891, show that if a diametral groove be cut in the
brass, as indicated at g (fig 6), and if the oil is led to the centre of
this groove by a channel c communicating with the exterior, the rotation
of the shaft draws in a plentiful supply of oil which radiates from the
centre and makes its way vertically between the shaft and the brass and
finally overflows at the top of the brass. The overflowing oil may be
led away and may be re-introduced into the footsteps at c. The rotation
of the shaft thus causes a continuous circulation of oil through the
footstep. One experiment from the report mentioned above may be quoted.
A 3-in. shaft, revolving 128 times per minute and supported on a
manganese bronze bearing lubricated in the way explained above sustained
increasing loads until, at a load of 300 pounds per square inch of the
area of the end of the shaft, it seized. The mechanical details of a
footstep may be varied for purposes of adjustment in a variety of ways
similarly to the variations of a common bearing already explained.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
_Thrust Block Bearing._--In cases where a bearing is required to resist
a longitudinal movement of the shaft through it, as for example in the
case of the propeller shaft of a marine engine or a vertical shaft
supporting a heavy load not carried on a footstep, the shaft is provided
with one or more collars which are grooved with corresponding recesses
in the brasses of the bearing. A general sketch of a thrust block for a
propeller shaft is shown in fig. 7. There are seven collars turned on
the shaft and into the circumferential grooves between them fit
corresponding circumferential projections on the brasses, these
projections being formed in the case illustrated by means of half rings
which are fitted into grooves turned in the brasses. This method of
construction allows an individual ring to be replaced or adjusted if it
should get hot. The total area of the rubbing surfaces should be
proportioned so that the average load is not more than from 50 to 70 lb.
per sq. in. Arrangements are usually made for cooling a thrust block
with water in case of heating. The spindles of drilling machines, boring
machine spindles, turbine shafts may be cited as examples of vertical
shafts supported on one collar. Experiments on the friction of a collar
bearing have been made by the Research Committee of the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers (_Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng._, 1888).
_Roller and Ball Bearings._--If rollers are placed between two surfaces
having relative tangential motion the frictional resistance to be
overcome is the small resistance to rolling. The rollers move along with
a velocity equal to one half the relative velocity of the surfaces. This
way of reducing frictional resistance has been applied to all kinds of
mechanical contrivances, including bearings for shafts, railway axle
boxes, and axle boxes for tramcars. An example of a roller bearing for a
line shaft is illustrated in figs. 8 and 9. The main casting, A, and
cap, C, bolted together, form a spherical seating for the part of the
bearing E corresponding to the brasses in a bearing of the usual type.
Between the inside of the casting E and the journal are placed rollers
held in position relatively to one another by a "squirrel cage" casting,
the section of the bars of which are clearly shown in the half sectional
elevation, fig. 9. This squirrel cage ensures that the several axes of
the rollers keep parallel to the axis of the journal during the rolling
motion. The rollers are made of hard tool steel, and the surfaces of the
journal and bearing between which they roll are hardened.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
Two rings of balls may be used instead of a single ring of rollers, and
the kind of ball bearing thus obtained is in general use principally in
connexion with bicycles and motor cars (see BICYCLE). In ball bearings
the load is concentrated at a few points, the points where the balls
touch the race, and in the roller bearing at a few lines, the lines of
contact between the rollers and the surfaces of the journal and bearing;
consequently the load which bearings of this kind carry must not be
great enough to cause any indentation at the points or lines of contact.
Both rollers and balls, and the paths on which they roll, therefore, are
made of hard material; further, balls and rollers must all be exactly
the same size in an individual bearing in order to distribute the load
between the points or lines of contact as uniformly as possible. The
finest workmanship is required therefore to make good roller or good
ball bearings.
_Bearings for High Speeds and Forced Lubrication._--When the shaft turns
the metallic surfaces of the brass and the journal are prevented from
actual contact by a film of oil which is formed and maintained by the
motion of the shaft and which sustains the pressure between the journal
and the brass provided the surfaces are accurately formed and the supply
of oil is unlimited. This film changes what would otherwise be the
friction between metallic surfaces into a viscous resistance within the
film itself. When through a limited supply of oil or imperfect
lubrication this film is imperfect or fails altogether and allows the
journal to make metallic contact with the brass, the friction increases;
and it may increase so much that the bearing rapidly becomes hot and may
ultimately seize, that is to say the rubbing surfaces may become stuck
together. With the object of reducing the friction at the points of
metallic contact and of confining the damage of a hot bearing to the
easily renewable brass, the latter is partially, sometimes wholly, lined
with a soft fusible metal, technically known as white metal, which melts
away before actual seizure takes place, and thus saves the journal which
is more expensive because it is generally formed on a large and
expensive shaft. However perfectly the film fulfils its function, the
work required to overcome the viscous resistance of the film during the
continuous rotation of the shaft appears as heat, and in consequence the
temperature of the bearing gradually rises until the rate at which heat
is produced is equal to the rate at which it is radiated from the
bearing. Hence in order that a journal may revolve with a minimum
resistance and without undue heating two precautions must be taken: (1)
means must be taken to ensure that the film of oil is complete and never
fails; and (2) arrangements must be made for controlling the temperature
should it rise too high. The various lubricating devices already
explained supply sufficient oil to form a partial film, since
experiments have shown that the friction of bearings lubricated in this
way is akin to solid friction, thus indicating at least partial metallic
contact. In order to supply enough oil to form and maintain a film with
certainty the journal should be run in an oil bath, or oil should be
supplied to the bearing under pressure sufficient to force it in between
the surfaces against the load. A bearing to which forced lubrication and
water cooling are applied is illustrated in fig. 10, which represents
one of the bearings of a Westinghouse turbo-alternator installed at the
power station of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London at
Lots Road, Chelsea. Oil flows under pressure from a tank on the top of a
tower along a supply pipe to the oil inlet O, and after passing through
the bearing and performing its duty as a film it falls away from each
end of the journal into the bottom of the main casting, from which a
pipe, E, conveys the oil back to the base of the tank tower where it is
cooled and finally pumped back into the tank. There is thus a continuous
circulation of oil through the bearing. The space C is for cooling
water; in fact the bearing is water jacketed and the jacket is connected
to a supply pipe and a drain pipe so that a continuous circulation may
be maintained if desired. This bearing is 12 in. in diameter and 48 in.
long, and it carries a load of about 12.8 tons. The rise in temperature
of the bearing under normal conditions of working without water
circulating in the jacket is approximately 38 deg. F. The speed of
rotation is such that the surface velocity is about 50 ft. per second.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
Forced lubrication in connexion with the bearings of high-speed engines
was introduced in 1890 by Messrs Belliss & Morcom, Ltd., under patents
taken out in the name of A.C. Pain. It should be understood that
providing the film of oil in the bearing of an engine can be properly
maintained a double-acting engine can be driven at a high speed without
any knocking, and without perceptible wear of the rubbing surfaces. Fig.
11 shows that the general arrangement of the bearings of a Belliss &
Morcom engine arranged for forced lubrication. A small force-pump F,
driven from the eccentric strap X, delivers oil into the pipe P, along
which it passes to A, the centre of the right-hand main bearing. There
is a groove turned on the inside of the brass from which a slanting hole
leads to B. The oil when it arrives at A thus has two paths open to it,
one to the right and left of the groove through the bearing, the other
along the slanting hole to B. At B it divides again into two streams,
one stream going upwards to the eccentric sheave, and a part continuing
up the pipe Q to the eccentric pin. The second stream from B follows the
slanting hole in the crank shaft to C, where it is led to the big end
journal through the pipe R to the crosshead pin, and through the
slanting hole to D, where it finds its way into the left main bearing.
The oil forced through each bearing falls away to the right and to the
left of the journal and drops into the bottom of the engine framing,
whence it is again fed to the pump through a strainer. The parts of an
engine lubricated in this way must be entirely enclosed.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
_Load on bearings._--The distribution of pressure over the film of
lubricant separating the rubbing surfaces of a bearing is variable,
being greatest at a point near but not at the crown of the brass, and
falling away to zero in all directions towards the boundaries of the
film. It is usual in practice to ignore this variation of pressure
through the film, and to indicate the severity with which the bearing is
loaded by stating the load per square inch of the rubbing surfaces
projected on to the diametral plane of the journal. Thus the projected
area of the surfaces of a journal 6 in. in diameter and 8 in. long is 48
sq. in., and if the total load carried by the bearing is 20,000 pounds,
the bearing would be said to carry a load of 417 pounds per square inch.
When a shaft rotates in a bearing continuously in one direction the load
per square inch with which it is safe to load the bearing in order to
avoid undue heating is much less than if the motion is intermittent. A
table of a few values of the bearing loads used in practice is given in
the article LUBRICANTS.
_Bearing Friction._--If W is the total load on a bearing, and if [mu]
is the coefficient of friction between the rubbing surfaces, the
tangential resistance to turning is expressed by the product [mu]W. If
v is the relative velocity of the rubbing surfaces, the work done per
second against friction is [mu]Wv foot pounds. This quantity of work
is converted into heat, and the heat produced per second is therefore
[mu]Wv/778 British Thermal Units. The coefficient [mu] is a variable
quantity, and bearing in mind that a properly lubricated journal is
separated from its supporting brass by a film of lubricant it might be
expected that [mu] would have values characteristic of the coefficient
of friction between two metallic surfaces, merging into the
characteristics properly belonging to fluid friction, according as the
oil film varied from an imperfect to a perfect condition, that is,
according as the lubrication is partial or complete, completeness
being attained by the use of an oil bath or by some method of forced
lubrication. This expectation is entirely borne out by experimental
researches. Beauchamp Tower ("Report on Friction Experiments," _Proc.
Inst. Mech. Eng._, November 1883) found that when oil was supplied to
a bearing by means of a pad the coefficient of friction was
approximately constant with the value of 1/100, thus following the law
of solid friction; but when the journal was lubricated by means of an
oil bath the coefficient of friction varied nearly inversely as the
load on the bearing, thus making [mu]W = constant. The tangential
resistance in this case is characteristic of fluid friction since it
is independent of the pressure. Tower's experiments were carried out
at a nearly constant temperature. The later experiments of O. Lasche
(_Zeitsch. Verein deutsche Ingenieure_, 1902, 46, pp. 1881 et seq.)
show how [mu] depends upon the temperature. Lasche's main results with
regard to the variation of [mu] are briefly:--[mu]W is a constant
quantity, thus confirming Tower's earlier experiments; [mu] is
practically independent of the relative velocity of the rubbing
surfaces within the limits of 3 to 50 ft. per second; and the product
[mu]t is constant, t being the temperature of the bearing. Writing p
for the load per unit of projected area of the bearing, Lasche found
that the result of the experiments could be expressed by the simple
formula p[mu]t = constant = 2, where p = the pressure in kilograms per
square centimetre, and t = the temperature in degrees centigrade. If p
is changed to pounds per square inch the constant in the expression is
approximately 30. The expression is valid between limits of pressure
14 to 213 pounds per square inch, limits of temperature 30 deg. to 100
deg. C., and between limits of velocity 3 to 50 ft. per second.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
_Theory of Lubrication._--After the publication of Tower's experiments
on journal friction Professor Osborne Reynolds showed (_Phil. Trans._,
1886, p. 157) that the facts observed in connexion with a journal
lubricated by means of an oil bath could be explained by a theory
based upon the general principles of the motion of a viscous fluid. It
is first established as an essential part of the theory that the
radius of the brass must be slightly greater than the radius of the
journal as indicated in fig. 12, where J is the centre of the journal
and I the centre of the brass. Given this difference of curvature and
a sufficient supply of oil, the rotation of the journal produces and
maintains an oil film between the rubbing surfaces, the
circumferential extent of which depends upon the rate of the oil
supply and the external load. With an unlimited supply of oil, that is
with oil-bath lubrication, the film extends continuously to the
extremities of the brass, unless such extension would lead to negative
pressures and therefore to a discontinuity, in which case the film
ends where the pressures in the film become negative. The minimum
distance between the journal and the brass occurs at the point H (fig.
12), on the off side of the point O where the line of action of the
load cuts the surface of the journal. To the right and left of H the
thickness of the film gradually increases, this being the condition
that the oil-flow to and from the film may be automatically
maintained. With an unlimited supply of oil the point H moves farther
from O as the load increases until it reaches a maximum distance, and
then it moves back again towards O as the load is further increased
until a limiting load is reached at which the pressure in the film
becomes negative at the boundaries of the film, when the boundaries
recede from the edges of the brass as though the supply of oil were
limited.
In the mathematical development of the theory it is first necessary to
define the coefficient of viscosity. This is done as follows:--If two
parallel surfaces AB, CD are separated by a viscous film, and if
whilst CD is fixed AB moves in a tangential direction with velocity U,
the surface of the film in contact with CD clings to it and remains at
rest, whilst the lower surface of the film clings to and moves with
the surface AB. At intermediate points in the film the tangential
motion of the fluid will vary uniformly from zero to U, and the
tangential resistance will be F = [mu]U/h, where [mu] is the
coefficient of viscosity and h is the thickness of the film. With this
definition of viscosity and from the general equations representing
the stress in a viscous fluid, the following equation is established,
giving the relations between p, the pressure at any point in the film,
h the thickness of the film at a point x measured round the
circumference of the journal in the direction of relative motion, and
U the relative tangential velocity of the surfaces,
d / dp\ dh
-- ( h^3-- ) = 6[mu]U -- (1)
dx \ dx/ dx
In this equation all the quantities are independent of the co-ordinate
parallel to the axis of the journal, and U is constant. The thickness
of the film h is some function of x, and for a journal Professor
Reynolds takes the form,
h = a {1 + c sin([theta] - [phi]0)}
in which the various quantities have the significance indicated in
fig. 12. Reducing and integrating equation (1) with this value of h it
becomes
dp 6R_[mu]U_c {sin([theta] - [phi]0) - sin([phi]1 - [phi]0)}
-------- = --------------------------------------------------------- (2)
d[theta] a^2{1 + c sin([theta] - [phi]0)}^3
[phi]1 being the value of [theta] for which the pressure is a maximum.
In order to integrate this the right-hand side is expanded into a
trigonometrical series, the values of the coefficients are computed,
and the integration is effected term by term. If, as suggested by
Professor J. Perry, the value of h is taken to be h = h0 + ax^2, where
h0 is the minimum thickness of the film, the equation reduces to the
form
dp 6[mu]U C
- -- = ------------- + ------------- (3)
dx (h0 + ax^2)^2 (h0 + ax^2)^3
and this can be integrated. The process of reduction from the form (1)
to the form (3) with the latter value of h, is shown in full in _The
Calculus for Engineers_ by Professor Perry (p. 331), and also the
final solution of equation (3), giving the pressure in terms of x.
Professor Reynolds, applying the results of his investigation to one
of Tower's experiments, plotted the pressures through the film both
circumferentially and longitudinally, and the agreement with the
observed pressure of the experiment was exceedingly close. The whole
investigation of Professor Reynolds is a remarkable one, and is in
fact the first real explanation of the fact that oil is able to
insinuate itself between the journal and the brass of a bearing
carrying a heavy load. (See also LUBRICATION.) (W. E. D.)
BEAR-LEADER, formerly a man who led bears about the country. In the
middle ages and Tudor times these animals were chiefly used in the
brutal sport of bear-baiting and were led from village to village.
Performing bears were also common, and are even still sometimes seen
perambulating the country with their keepers, generally Frenchmen or
Italians. The phrase "bear-leader" has now come colloquially to mean a
tutor or guardian, who escorts any lad of rank or wealth on his travels.
BEARN, formerly a small frontier province in the south of France, now
included within the department of Basses-Pyrenees. It was bounded on the
W. by Soule and Lower Navarre, on the N. by Chalosse, Tursan and
Astarac, E. by Bigorre and S. by the Pyrenees. Its name can be traced
back to the town of Beneharnum (Lescar). The _civitas Beneharnensium_
was included in the _Novempopulania_. It was conquered by the Vascones
in the 6th century, and in 819 became a viscounty dependent on the dukes
of Aquitaine--a feudal link which was broken in the 11th century, when
the viscounts ceased to acknowledge any suzerain. They then reigned over
the two dioceses of Lescar and Oloron; but their capital was Morlaas,
where they had a mint which was famous throughout the middle ages. In
the 13th century Gaston VII., of the Catalonian house of Moncade, made
Orthez his seat of government. His long reign (1229-1290) was a
perpetual struggle with the kings of France and England, each anxious to
assert his suzerainty over Bearn. As Gaston left only daughters, the
viscounty passed at his death to the family of Foix, from whom it was
transmitted through the houses of Grailly and Albret to the Bourbons,
and they, in the person of Henry IV., king of Navarre, made it an
apanage of the crown of France. It was not formally incorporated in the
royal domains, however, until 1620. None of these political changes
weakened the independent spirit of the Bearnais. From the 11th century
onward, they were governed by their own special customs or _fors_. These
were drawn up in the language of the country, a Romance dialect (1288
being the date of the most ancient written code), and are remarkable for
the manner in which they define the rights of the sovereign, determining
the reciprocal obligations of the viscount and his subjects or vassals.
Moreover, from the 12th century Bearn enjoyed a kind of representative
government, with _cours plenieres_ composed of deputies from the three
estates. From 1220 onward, the judiciary powers of these assemblies were
exercised by a _cour majour_ of twelve barons _jurats_ charged with the
duty of maintaining the integrity of the _fors_. When Gaston-Phoebus
wished to establish a regular annual hearth-tax (_fouage_) in the
viscounty, he convoked the deputies of the three estates in assemblies
called _etats_. These soon acquired extensive political and financial
powers, which continued in operation till 1789. Although, when Bearn was
annexed to the domains of the crown, it was granted a _conseil d'etat_
and a parlement, which sat at Pau, the province also retained its _fors_
until the Revolution.
See also Olhagaray, _Histoire de Foix, Bearn et Navarre_ (1609);
Pierre de Marca, _Histoire de Bearn_ (1640). This work does not go
beyond the end of the 13th century; it contains a large number of
documents. Faget de Baure, _Essais historiques sur le Bearn_ (1818);
_Les Fors de Bearn_, by Mazure and Hatoulet (1839), completed by J.
Brissaud and P. Roge in _Textes additionnels aux anciens Fors de
Bearn_ (1905); Leon Cadier, _Les Etats de Bearn depuis leur origine
jusqu'au commencement du XVI^e siecle_ (1888). (C. B.*)
BEAS or BIAS, a river of India. The Beas, which was the Hyphasis of the
Greeks, is one of the Five Rivers of the Punjab. It issues in the snowy
mountains of Kulu at an altitude of 13,326 ft. above sea-level, flows
through the Kangra valley and the plains of the Punjab, and finally
joins the Sutlej after a course of 290 m. It is crossed by a railway
bridge near Jullundur.
BEAT (a word common in various forms to the Teutonic languages; it is
connected with the similar Romanic words derived from the Late Lat.
_battere_), a blow or stroke; from the many applications of the verb "to
beat" come various meanings of the substantive, in some of which the
primary sense has become obscure. It is applied to the throbbing of the
pulse or heart, to the beating of a drum, either for retreat, or charge,
or to quarters; in music to the alternating sound produced by the
striking together of two notes not exactly of the same pitch (see
SOUND), and also to the movement of the baton by which a conductor of an
orchestra or chorus indicates the time, and to the divisions of a bar.
As a nautical term, a "beat" is the zigzag course taken by a ship in
sailing against the wind. The application of the word to a policeman's
or sentry's round comes either from beating a covert for game and hence
the term means an exhaustive search of a district, or from the repeated
strokes of the foot in constantly walking up and down. In this sense the
word is used in America, particularly in Alabama and Mississippi, of a
voting precinct.
BEATIFICATION (from the Lat. _beatus_, happy, blessed, and _facere_, to
make), the act of making blessed; in the Roman Catholic Church, a stage
in the process of canonization (q.v.).
BEATON (or BETHUNE), DAVID, (c. 1494-1546), Scottish cardinal and
archbishop of St Andrews, was a younger son of John Beaton of Balfour in
the county of Fife, and is said to have been born in the year 1494. He
was educated at the universities of St Andrews and Glasgow, and in his
sixteenth year was sent to Paris, where he studied civil and canon law.
About this time he was presented to the rectory of Campsie by his uncle
James Beaton, then archbishop of Glasgow. When James Beaton was
translated to St Andrews in 1522 he resigned the rich abbacy of Arbroath
in his nephew's favour, under reservation of one half of the revenues to
himself during his lifetime. The great ability of Beaton and the
patronage of his uncle ensured his rapid promotion to high offices in
the church and kingdom. He was sent by King James V. on various missions
to France, and in 1528 was appointed keeper of the privy seal. He took a
leading part in the negotiations connected with the king's marriages,
first with Madeleine of France, and afterwards with Mary of Guise. At
the French court he was held in high estimation by King Francis I., and
was consecrated bishop of Mirepoix in Languedoc in December 1537. On the
20th of December 1538 he was appointed a cardinal priest by Pope Paul
III., under the title of St Stephen in the Coelian Hill. He was the only
Scotsman who had been named to that high office by an undisputed right,
Cardinal Wardlaw, bishop of Glasgow, having received his appointment
from the anti-pope Clement VII. On the death of Archbishop James Beaton
in 1539, the cardinal was raised to the primatial see of Scotland.
Beaton was one of King James's most trusted advisers, and it was mainly
due to his influence that the king drew closer the French alliance and
refused Henry VIII.'s overtures to follow him in his religious policy.
On the death of James in December 1542 he attempted to assume office as
one of the regents for the infant sovereign Mary, founding his
pretensions on an alleged will of the late king; but his claims were
disregarded, and the earl of Arran, head of the great house of Hamilton,
and next heir to the throne, was declared regent by the estates. The
cardinal was, by order of the regent, committed to the custody of Lord
Seaton; but his imprisonment was merely nominal, and he was soon again
at liberty and at the head of the party opposed to the English alliance.
Arran too was soon won over to his views, dismissed the preachers by
whom he had been surrounded, and joined the cardinal at Stirling, where
in September 1543 Beaton crowned the young queen. In the same year he
was raised to the office of chancellor of Scotland, and was appointed
protonotary apostolic and legate _a latere_ by the pope. Had Beaton
confined himself to secular politics, his strenuous opposition to the
plans of Henry VIII. for the subjugation of Scotland would have earned
him the lasting gratitude of his countrymen. Unfortunately politics were
inextricably interwoven with the religious controversies of the time,
and resistance to English influence involved resistance to the
activities of the reformers in the church, whose ultimate victory has
obscured the cardinal's genuine merits as a statesman. During the
lifetime of his uncle, Beaton had shared in the efforts of the hierarchy
to suppress the reformed doctrines, and pursued the same line of conduct
still more systematically after his elevation to the primacy. The
popular accounts of the persecution for which he was responsible are no
doubt exaggerated, and it sometimes ceased for considerable periods so
far as capital punishments were concerned. When the sufferers were of
humble rank not much notice was taken of them. It was otherwise when a
more distinguished victim was selected in the person of George Wishart.
Wishart had returned to Scotland, after an absence of several years,
about the end of 1544. His sermons produced a great effect, and he was
protected by several barons of the English faction. These barons, with
the knowledge and approbation of King Henry, were engaged in a plot to
assassinate the cardinal, and in this plot Wishart is now proved to have
been a willing agent. The cardinal, though ignorant of the details of
the plot, perhaps suspected Wishart's knowledge of it, and in any case
was not sorry to have an excuse for seizing one of the most eloquent
supporters of the new opinions. For some time he was unsuccessful; but
at last, with the aid of the regent, he arrested the preacher, and
carried him to his castle of St Andrews. On the 28th of February 1546
Wishart was brought to trial in the cathedral before the cardinal and
other judges, the regent declining to take any active part, and, being
found guilty of heresy, was condemned to death and burnt.
The death of Wishart produced a deep effect on the Scottish people, and
the cardinal became an object of general dislike, which encouraged his
enemies to proceed with the design they had formed against him.
Naturally resolute and fearless, he seems to have under-estimated his
danger, the more so since his power had never seemed more secure. He
crossed over to Angus, and took part in the wedding of his illegitimate
daughter with the heir of the earl of Crawford. On his return to St
Andrews he took up his residence in the castle. The conspirators, the
chief of whom were Norman Leslie, master of Rothes, and William Kirkaldy
of Grange, contrived to obtain admission at daybreak of the 29th of May
1546, and murdered the cardinal under circumstances of horrible mockery
and atrocity.
The character of Beaton has already been indicated. As a statesman he
was able, resolute, and in his general policy patriotic. As an
ecclesiastic he maintained the privileges of the hierarchy and the
dominant system of belief conscientiously, but always with harshness and
sometimes with cruelty. His immoralities, like his acts of persecution,
were exaggerated by his opponents; but his private life was undoubtedly
a scandal to religion, and has only the excuse that it was not worse
than that of most of his order at the time. The authorship of the
writings ascribed to him in several biographical notices rests on no
better authority than the apocryphal statements of Thomas Dempster.
Beaton's uncle, James Beaton, or Bethune (d. 1539), archbishop of
Glasgow and St Andrews, was lord treasurer of Scotland before he became
archbishop of Glasgow in 1509, was chancellor from 1513 to 1526, and was
appointed archbishop of St Andrews and primate of Scotland in 1522. He
was one of the regents during the minority of James V., and was chiefly
responsible for this king's action in allying himself with France and
not with England. He burned Patrick Hamilton and other heretics, and
died at St Andrews in September 1539.
This prelate must not be confused with another, James Beaton, or Bethune
(1517-1603), the last Roman Catholic archbishop of Glasgow. A son of
John Bethune of Auchmuty and a nephew of Cardinal Beaton, James was a
trusted adviser of the Scottish regent, Mary of Lorraine, widow of James
V., and a determined foe of the reformers. In 1552 he was consecrated
archbishop of Glasgow, but from 1560 until his death in 1603 he lived in
Paris, acting as ambassador for Scotland at the French court.
See John Knox, _Hist. of the Reformation in Scotland_, ed. D. Laing
(1846-1864); John Spottiswoode, archbishop of St Andrews, _Hist. of
the Church of Scotland_ (Spottiswoode Soc., 1847-1851); Art. in _Dict.
of Nat. Biog._ and works there quoted; and A. Lang, _Hist. of
Scotland_, vols. i. and ii. (1900-1902).
BEATRICE, a city and the county-seat of Gage county, in S.E. Nebraska,
U.S.A., about 40 m. S. of Lincoln. Pop. (1900) 7875 (852 foreign-born);
(1910) 9356. It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Union Pacific railways. Beatrice
is the seat of the state institute for feeble-minded youth, and has a
Carnegie library. The city is very prettily situated in the valley of
the Big Blue river, in the midst of a fine agricultural region. Among
its manufactures are dairy products (there is a large creamery), canned
goods, flour and grist mill products, gasoline engines, well-machinery,
barbed wire, tiles, ploughs, windmills, corn-huskers, and hay-balers.
Beatrice was founded in 1857, becoming the county-seat in the same year.
It was reached by its first railway and was incorporated as a town in
1871, was chartered as a city in 1873, and in 1901 became a city of the
first class.