Until the advent of the new taste the devising of book-plates was almost
invariably left to the routine skill of the heraldic stationer. Of late
years the composition of personal book-tokens has become recognized as a
minor branch of a higher art, and there has come into fashion an
entirely new class of designs which, for all their wonderful variety,
bear as unmistakable a character as that of the most definite styles of
bygone days. Broadly speaking, it may be said that the purely heraldic
element tends to become subsidiary and the allegorical or symbolic to
assert itself more strongly. Among modern English artists who have more
specially paid attention to the devising of book-plates, and have
produced admirable designs, may be mentioned C.W. Sherborn, G.W. Eve,
Robert Anning Bell, J.D. Batten, Erat Harrison, J. Forbes Nixon, Charles
Ricketts, John Vinycomb, John Leighton and Warrington Hogg. The
development in various directions of process work, by facilitating and
cheapening the reproduction of beautiful and elaborate designs, has no
doubt helped much to popularize the book-plate--a thing which in older
days was almost invariably restricted to ancestral libraries or to
collections otherwise important. Thus the great majority of modern
plates are reproduced by process. There are, however, a few artists left
who devote to book-plates their skill with the graver. Some of the work
they produce challenges comparison with the finest productions of bygone
engravers. Of these the best-known are C.W. Sherborn (see Plate) and
G.W. Eve in England, and in America J.W. Spenceley of Boston, Mass.,
K.W.F. Hopson of New Haven, Conn., and E.D. French of New York City (see
Plate).
AUTHORITIES.--The curious in the matter of book-plate composition will
find it treated in the various volumes of the Ex-libris Series
(London). See also A. Poulet-Malassis, _Les Ex-libris francais_
(1875); Hon. J. Leicester Warren (Lord de Tabley), _A Guide to the
Study of Book-plates_ (1880); Sir A.W. Franks, _Notes on Book-plates_,
1574-1800 (private, 1887); Friedrich Warnecke, _Die deutschen
Bucherzeichen_ (1890); Henri Bouchot, _Les Ex-libris et les marques de
possession du livre_ (1891); Egerton Castle, _English Book-plates_
(1892); Walter Hamilton, _French Book-plates_ (1892), _Dated
Book-plates_ (1895); H.W. Fincham, _Artists and Engravers of British
and American Book-plates_ (1897); _German Book-plates_, by Count K.E.
zu Leiningen-Westerburg, translated by G.R. Denis (1901). (E. Ca.)
BOOK-SCORPION, or FALSE SCORPION, minute arachnids superficially
resembling tailless scorpions and belonging to the order
Pseudoscorpiones of the class Arachnida. Occurring in all temperate and
tropical countries, book-scorpions live for the most part under stones,
beneath the bark of trees or in vegetable detritus. A few species,
however, like the common British forms _Chelifer cancroides_ and
_Chiridium museorum_, frequent human dwellings and are found in books,
old chests, furniture, &c; others like _Ganypus littoralis_ and allied
species may be found under stones or pieces of coral between tide-marks;
while others, which are for the most part blind, live permanently in
dark caves. Their food consists of minute insects or mites. It is
possibly for the purpose of feeding on parasitic mites that
book-scorpions lodge themselves beneath the wing-cases of large tropical
beetles; and the same explanation, in default of a better, may be
extended to their well-known and oft-recorded habit of seizing hold of
the legs of horse-flies or other two-winged insects. For safety during
hibernation and moulting, book-scorpions spin a small spherical cocoon.
They are oviparous; and the eggs after being laid are carried about by
the mother, attached to the lower surface of her body, the young
remaining with their parent until they have acquired their definite
form and are able to shift for themselves. (R. I. P.)
BOOKSELLING. The trade in books is of a very ancient date. The early
poets and orators recited their effusions in public to induce their
hearers to possess written copies of their poems or orations. Frequently
they were taken down _viva voce_, and transcripts sold to such as were
wealthy enough to purchase. In the book of Jeremiah the prophet is
represented as dictating to Baruch the scribe, who, when questioned,
described the mode in which his book was written. These scribes were, in
fact, the earliest booksellers, and supplied copies as they were
demanded. Aristotle, we are told, possessed a somewhat extensive
library; and Plato is recorded to have paid the large sum of one hundred
minae for three small treatises of Philolaus the Pythagorean. When the
Alexandrian library was founded about 300 B.C., various expedients were
resorted to for the purpose of procuring books, and this appears to have
stimulated the energies of the Athenian booksellers, who were termed
[Greek: biblion kapaeloi]. In Rome, towards the end of the republic, it
became the fashion to have a library as part of the household furniture;
and the booksellers, _librarii_ (Cic. _D. Leg._ iii. 20) or
_bibliopolae_ (Martial iv. 71, xiii. 3), carried on a flourishing trade.
Their shops (_taberna librarii_, Cicero, _Phil._ ii. 9) were chiefly in
the Argiletum, and in the Vicus Sandalarius. On the door, or on the side
posts, was a list of the books on sale; and Martial (i. 118), who
mentions this also, says that a copy of his First Book of Epigrams might
be purchased for five denarii. In the time of Augustus the great
booksellers were the Sosii. According to Justinian (ii. I. 33), a law
was passed securing to the scribes the property in the materials used;
and in this may, perhaps, be traced the first germ of the modern law of
copyright.
The spread of Christianity naturally created a great demand for copies
of the Gospels and other sacred books, and later on for missals and
other devotional volumes for church and private use. Benedict Biscop,
the founder of the abbey at Wearmouth in England, brought home with him
from France (671) a whole cargo of books, part of which he had "bought,"
but from whom is not mentioned. Passing by the intermediate ages we find
that previous to the Reformation, the text writers or stationers
(_stacyoneres_), who sold copies of the books then in use--the ABC, the
Paternoster, Creed, Ave Maria and other MS. copies of prayers, in the
neighbourhood of St Paul's, London,--were, in 1403, formed into a gild.
Some of these "stacyoneres" had stalls or stations built against the
very walls of the cathedral itself, in the same manner as they are still
to be found in some of the older continental cities. In Henry Anstey's
_Munimenta Academica_, published under the direction of the master of
the rolls, we catch a glimpse of the "sworn" university bookseller or
stationer, John More of Oxford, who apparently first supplied pupils
with their books, and then acted the part of a pawnbroker. Anstey says
(p. 77), "The fact is that they (the students) mostly could not afford
to buy books, and had they been able, would not have found the advantage
so considerable as might be supposed, the instruction given being almost
wholly oral. The chief source of supplying books was by purchase from
the university sworn stationers, who had to a great extent a monopoly.
Of such books there were plainly very large numbers constantly changing
hands." Besides the sworn stationers there were many booksellers in
Oxford who were not sworn; for one of the statutes, passed in the year
1373, expressly recites that, in consequence of their presence, "books
of great value are sold and carried away from Oxford, the owners of them
are cheated, and the sworn stationers are deprived of their lawful
business." It was, therefore, enacted that no bookseller except two
sworn stationers or their deputies, should sell any book being either
his own property or that of another, exceeding half a mark in value,
under a pain of imprisonment, or, if the offence was repeated, of
abjuring his trade within the university.
"The trade in bookselling seems," says Hallam, "to have been established
at Paris and Bologna in the 12th century; the lawyers and universities
called it into life. It is very improbable that it existed in what we
properly call the dark ages. Peter of Blois mentions a book which he
had bought of a public dealer (_a quodam publico mangone librorum_); but
we do not find many distinct accounts of them till the next age. These
dealers were denominated _stationarii_, perhaps from the open stalls at
which they carried on their business, though _statio_ is a general word
for a shop in low Latin. They appear, by the old statutes of the
university of Paris, and by those of Bologna, to have sold books upon
commission, and are sometimes, though not uniformly, distinguished from
the _librarii_, a word which, having originally been confined to the
copyists of books, was afterwards applied to those who traded in them.
They sold parchment and other materials of writing, which have retained
the name of stationery, and they naturally exercised the kindred
occupations of binding and decorating. They probably employed
transcribers; we find at least that there was a profession of copyists
in the universities and in large cities."
The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction
of printing. The earliest printers were also editors and booksellers;
but being unable to sell every copy of the works they printed, they had
agents at most of the seats of learning. Antony Koburger, who introduced
the art of printing into Nuremberg in 1470, although a printer, was more
of a bookseller; for, besides his own sixteen shops, we are informed by
his biographers that he had agents for the sale of his books in every
city of Christendom. Wynkyn de Worde, who succeeded to Caxton's press in
Westminster, had a shop in Fleet Street.
The religious dissensions of the continent, and the Reformation in
England under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., created a great demand for
books; but in England neither Tudor nor Stuart could tolerate a free
press, and various efforts were made to curb it. The first patent for
the office of king's printer was granted to Thomas Berthelet by Henry
VIII. in 1529, but only such books as were first licensed were to be
printed. At that time even the purchase or possession of an unlicensed
book was a punishable offence. In 1556 the Company of Stationers was
incorporated, and very extensive powers were granted in order that
obnoxious books might be repressed. In the following reigns the Star
Chamber exercised a pretty effectual censorship; but, in spite of all
precaution, such was the demand for books of a polemical nature, that
many were printed abroad and surreptitiously introduced into England.
Queen Elizabeth interfered but little with books except when they
emanated from Roman Catholics, or touched upon her royal prerogatives;
and towards the end of her reign, and during that of her pedantic
successor, James, bookselling flourished. Archbishop Laud, who was no
friend to booksellers, introduced many arbitrary restrictions; but they
were all, or nearly all, removed during the time of the Commonwealth. So
much had bookselling increased during the Protectorate that, in 1658,
was published _A Catalogue of the most Vendible Books in England,
digested under the heads of Divinity, History, Physic, &c., with School
Books, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and an Introduction, for the use of
Schools_, by W. London. A bad time immediately followed. The Restoration
also restored the office of Licenser of the Press, which continued till
1694.
In the first English Copyright Act (1709), which specially relates to
booksellers, it is enacted that, if any person shall think the published
price of a book unreasonably high, he may thereupon make complaint to
the archbishop of Canterbury, and to certain other persons named, who
shall thereupon examine into his complaint, and if well founded reduce
the price; and any bookseller charging more than the price so fixed
shall be fined L5 for every copy sold. Apparently this enactment
remained a dead letter.
For later times it is necessary to make a gradual distinction between
_booksellers_, whose trade consists in selling books, either by retail
or wholesale, and _publishers_, whose business involves the production
of the books from the author's manuscripts, and who are the
intermediaries between author and bookseller, just as the booksellers
(in the restricted sense) are intermediaries between the author and
publisher and the public. The article on PUBLISHING (q.v.) deals more
particularly with this second class, who, though originally booksellers,
gradually took a higher rank in the book-trade, and whose influence
upon the history of literature has often been very great. The
convenience of this distinction is not impaired by the fact either that
a publisher is also a wholesale bookseller, or that a still more recent
development in publishing (as in the instance of the direct sale in
1902, by the London _Times_, of the supplementary volumes to the 9th
edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, which were also "published"
by _The Times_) started a reaction to some extent in the way of
amalgamating the two functions. The scheme of _The Times_ Book Club
(started in 1905) was, again, a combination of a subscription library
with the business of bookselling (see NEWSPAPERS); and it brought the
organization of a newspaper, with all its means of achieving publicity,
into the work of pushing the sale of books, in a way which practically
introduced a new factor into the bookselling business.
During the 19th century it remains the fact that the distinction between
publisher and bookseller--literary promoter and shopkeeper--became
fundamental. The booksellers, as such, were engaged either in wholesale
bookselling, or in the retail, the old or second-hand, and the
periodical trades.
Coming between the publisher and the retail bookseller is the
important distributing agency of the _wholesale bookseller_. It is to
him that the retailer looks for his miscellaneous supplies, as it is
simply impossible for him to stock one-half of the books published. In
Paternoster Row, London, which has for over a hundred years been the
centre of this industry, may be seen the collectors from the shops of
the retail booksellers, busily engaged in obtaining the books ordered
by the book-buying public. It is also through these agencies that the
country bookseller obtains his miscellaneous supplies. At the leading
house in this department of bookselling almost any book can be found,
or information obtained concerning it. At one of these establishments
over 1,000,000 books are constantly kept in stock. It is here that the
publisher calls first on showing or "subscribing" a new book, a
critical process, for by the number thus subscribed the fate of a book
is sometimes determined.
What may be termed the third partner in publishing and its
ramification is the _retail bookseller_; and to protect his interests
there was established in 1890 a London booksellers' society, which had
for its object the restriction of discounts to 25%, and also to
arrange prices generally and control all details connected with the
trade. The society a few years afterwards widened its field of
operations so as to include the whole of the United Kingdom, and its
designation then became "The Associated Booksellers of Great Britain
and Ireland."
The trade in old or (as they are sometimes called) second-hand books
is in a sense, no doubt, a higher class of business, requiring a
knowledge of bibliography, while the transactions are with individual
books rather than with numbers of copies. Occasionally dealers in this
class of books replenish their stocks by purchasing remainders of
books, which, having ceased from one cause or another to sell with the
publisher, they offer to the public as bargains. The periodical trade
grew up during the 19th century, and was in its infancy when the
_Penny Magazine_, _Chambers's Journal_, and similar publications first
appeared. The growth of this important part of the business was
greatly promoted by the abolition of the newspaper stamp and of the
duty upon paper, the introduction of attractive illustrations, and the
facilities offered for purchasing books by instalments.
The history of bookselling in America has a special interest. The
Spanish settlements drew away from the old country much of its
enterprise and best talent, and the presses of Mexico and other cities
teemed with publications mostly of a religious character, but many
others, especially linguistic and historical, were also published.
Bookselling in the United States was of a somewhat later growth,
although printing was introduced into Boston as early as 1676,
Philadelphia in 1685, and New York in 1693. Franklin had served to make
the trade illustrious, yet few persons were engaged in it at the
commencement of the 19th century. Books chiefly for scholars and
libraries were imported from Europe; but after the second war
printing-presses multiplied rapidly, and with the spread of newspapers
and education there also arose a demand for books, and publishers set to
work to secure the advantages offered by the wide field of English
literature, the whole of which they had the liberty of reaping free of
all cost beyond that of production. The works of Scott, Byron, Moore,
Southey, Wordsworth, and indeed of every author of note, were reprinted
without the smallest payment to author or proprietor. Half the names of
the authors in the so-called "American" catalogue of books printed
between 1820 and 1852 are British. By this means the works of the best
authors were brought to the doors of all classes in the cheapest
variety of forms. In consequence of the Civil War, the high price of
labour, and the restrictive duties laid on in order to protect native
industry, coupled with the frequent intercourse with England, a great
change took place, and American publishers and booksellers, while there
was still no international copyright, made liberal offers for early
sheets of new publications. Boston, New York and Philadelphia still
retained their old supremacy as bookselling centres. Meanwhile, the
distinct publishing business also grew, till gradually the conditions of
business became assimilated to those of Europe.
In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Low Countries for a
time became the chief centre of the bookselling world, and many of the
finest folios and quartos in our libraries bear the names of Jansen,
Blauw or Plantin, with the imprint of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Leiden or
Antwerp, while the Elzevirs besides other works produced their charming
little pocket classics. The southern towns of Douai and St Omer at the
same time furnished polemical works in English.
Under PUBLISHING are noticed various further developments of this
subject. Much interesting information on the history of the book trade
will be found in Charles Knight's _Biography of William Caxton_, and
in the same author's _Shadows of the Old Booksellers_ (1865). See also
Henry Curwen, _History of Booksellers_ (1873); and Heinrich Lempertz,
_Bilder-Hefte zur Geschichte des Bucherhandels_ (Cologne, 1854).
BOOLE, GEORGE (1815-1864), English logician and mathematician, was born
in Lincoln on the 2nd of November 1815. His father was a tradesman of
limited means, but of studious character and active mind. Being
especially interested in mathematical science, the father gave his son
his first lessons; but the extraordinary mathematical powers of George
Boole did not manifest themselves in early life. At first his favourite
subject was classics. Not until the age of seventeen did he attack the
higher mathematics, and his progress was much retarded by the want of
efficient help. When about sixteen years of age he became
assistant-master in a private school at Doncaster, and he maintained
himself to the end of his life in one grade or other of the scholastic
profession. Few distinguished men, indeed, have had a less eventful
life. Almost the only changes which can be called events are his
successful establishment of a school at Lincoln, its removal to
Waddington, his appointment in 1849 as professor of mathematics in the
Queen's College at Cork, and his marriage in 1855 to Miss Mary Everest,
who, as Mrs Boole, afterwards wrote several useful educational works on
her husband's principles.
To the public Boole was known only as the author of numerous abstruse
papers on mathematical topics, and of three or four distinct
publications which have become standard works. His earliest published
paper was one upon the "Theory of Analytical Transformations," printed
in the _Cambridge Mathematical Journal_ for 1839, and it led to a
friendship between Boole and D.F. Gregory, the editor of the journal,
which lasted until the premature death of the latter in 1844. A long
list of Boole's memoirs and detached papers, both on logical and
mathematical topics, will be found in the _Catalogue of Scientific
Memoirs_ published by the Royal Society, and in the supplementary volume
on _Differential Equations_, edited by Isaac Todhunter. To the
_Cambridge Mathematical Journal_ and its successor, the _Cambridge and
Dublin Mathematical Journal_, Boole contributed in all twenty-two
articles. In the third and fourth series of the _Philosophical Magazine_
will be found sixteen papers. The Royal Society printed six important
memoirs in the _Philosophical Transactions_, and a few other memoirs are
to be found in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_ and
of the _Royal Irish Academy_, in the _Bulletin de l'Academie de
St-Petersbourg_ for 1862 (under the name G. Boldt, vol. iv. pp.
198-215), and in _Crelle's Journal_. To these lists should be added a
paper on the mathematical basis of logic, published in the _Mechanic's
Magazine_ for 1848. The works of Boole are thus contained in about fifty
scattered articles and a few separate publications.
Only two systematic treatises on mathematical subjects were completed by
Boole during his lifetime. The well-known _Treatise on Differential
Equations_ appeared in 1859, and was followed, the next year, by a
_Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Differences_, designed to serve as a
sequel to the former work. These treatises are valuable contributions to
the important branches of mathematics in question, and Boole, in
composing them, seems to have combined elementary exposition with the
profound investigation of the philosophy of the subject in a manner
hardly admitting of improvement. To a certain extent these works embody
the more important discoveries of their author. In the 16th and 17th
chapters of the _Differential Equations_ we find, for instance, a lucid
account of the general symbolic method, the bold and skilful employment
of which led to Boole's chief discoveries, and of a general method in
analysis, originally described in his famous memoir printed in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ for 1844. Boole was one of the most eminent
of those who perceived that the symbols of operation could be separated
from those of quantity and treated as distinct objects of calculation.
His principal characteristic was perfect confidence in any result
obtained by the treatment of symbols in accordance with their primary
laws and conditions, and an almost unrivalled skill and power in tracing
out these results.
During the last few years of his life Boole was constantly engaged in
extending his researches with the object of producing a second edition
of his _Differential Equations_ much more complete than the first
edition; and part of his last vacation was spent in the libraries of the
Royal Society and the British Museum. But this new edition was never
completed. Even the manuscripts left at his death were so incomplete
that Todhunter, into whose hands they were put, found it impossible to
use them in the publication of a second edition of the original
treatise, and wisely printed them, in 1865, in a supplementary volume.
With the exception of Augustus de Morgan, Boole was probably the first
English mathematician since the time of John Wallis who had also written
upon logic. His novel views of logical method were due to the same
profound confidence in symbolic reasoning to which he had successfully
trusted in mathematical investigation. Speculations concerning a
calculus of reasoning had at different times occupied Boole's thoughts,
but it was not till the spring of 1847 that he put his ideas into the
pamphlet called _Mathematical Analysis of Logic_. Boole afterwards
regarded this as a hasty and imperfect exposition of his logical system,
and he desired that his much larger work, _An Investigation of the Laws
of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and
Probabilities_ (1854), should alone be considered as containing a mature
statement of his views. Nevertheless, there is a charm of originality
about his earlier logical work which no competent reader can fail to
appreciate. He did not regard logic as a branch of mathematics, as the
title of his earlier pamphlet might be taken to imply, but he pointed
out such a deep analogy between the symbols of algebra and those which
can be made, in his opinion, to represent logical forms and syllogisms,
that we can hardly help saying that logic is mathematics restricted to
the two quantities, 0 and 1. By unity Boole denoted the universe of
thinkable objects; literal symbols, such as x, y, z, v, u, &c., were
used with the elective meaning attaching to common adjectives and
substantives. Thus, if x=horned and y=sheep, then the successive acts of
election represented by x and y, if performed on unity, give the whole
of the class _horned sheep_. Boole showed that elective symbols of this
kind obey the same primary laws of combination as algebraical symbols,
whence it followed that they could be added, subtracted, multiplied and
even divided, almost exactly in the same manner as numbers. Thus, 1 - x
would represent the operation of selecting all things in the world
except _horned things_, that is, _all not horned things_, and (1 - x)(1
- y) would give us _all things neither horned nor sheep_. By the use of
such symbols propositions could be reduced to the form of equations, and
the syllogistic conclusion from two premises was obtained by eliminating
the middle term according to ordinary algebraic rules.
Still more original and remarkable, however, was that part of his
system, fully stated in his _Laws of Thought_, which formed a general
symbolic method of logical inference. Given any propositions involving
any number of terms, Boole showed how, by the purely symbolic treatment
of the premises, to draw any conclusion logically contained in those
premises. The second part of the _Laws of Thought_ contained a
corresponding attempt to discover a general method in probabilities,
which should enable us from the given probabilities of any system of
events to determine the consequent probability of any other event
logically connected with the given events.
Though Boole published little except his mathematical and logical works,
his acquaintance with general literature was wide and deep. Dante was
his favourite poet, and he preferred the _Paradiso_ to the _Inferno_.
The metaphysics of Aristotle, the ethics of Spinoza, the philosophical
works of Cicero, and many kindred works, were also frequent subjects of
study. His reflections upon scientific, philosophical and religious
questions are contained in four addresses upon _The Genius of Sir Isaac
Newton_, _The Right Use of Leisure_, _The Claims of Science_ and _The
Social Aspect of Intellectual Culture_, which he delivered and printed
at different times.
The personal character of Boole inspired all his friends with the
deepest esteem. He was marked by the modesty of true genius, and his
life was given to the single-minded pursuit of truth. Though he received
a medal from the Royal Society for his memoir of 1844, and the honorary
degree of LL.D. from the university of Dublin, he neither sought nor
received the ordinary rewards to which his discoveries would entitle
him. On the 8th of December 1864, in the full vigour of his intellectual
powers, he died of an attack of fever, ending in suffusion on the lungs.
An excellent sketch of his life and works, by the Rev. R. Harley,
F.R.S., is to be found in the _British Quarterly Review_ for July
1866, No. 87. (W. S. J.)
BOOM, a word of Teutonic origin (cf. the Ger. _Baum_, tree, and the Eng.
_beam_) for a pole, bar or barrier, used especially as a nautical term,
for a long spar, used to extend a sail at the foot (main-boom, jib-boom,
&c.). The "boom" of a cannon (note of a bell, cry of the bittern) is
distinct from this, being onomatopoeic. In the sense of a barrier, a
boom is generally formed of timber lashed together, or of chains, built
across the mouth of a river or harbour as a means of defence. Possibly
from the metaphor of a breaking boom, and the accompanying rush and
roar, or from the rush of rising waters (mingled with the onomatopoeic
use), "boom" began in America to be used of a sudden "spurt" or access
of industrial activity, as in the phrase "a boom in cotton." Hence the
verb "to boom," meaning to advertise or push into public favour.
BOOMERANG, a missile weapon of the Australian aborigines and other
peoples. The word is taken from the native name used by a single tribe
in New South Wales, and was mentioned in 1827 by Captain King as "the
Port Jackson term" (_Nav. Surv. Coasts Austral._ i. 355) It has been
erroneously connected with the _womera_ or spear-thrower, and equally
erroneously regarded as onomatopoeic--for it does not "boom" but
whistles in the air. Two main types may be distinguished: (a) the return
boomerang; (b) the non-return or war boomerang. Both types are found in
most parts of Australia; the return form was, according to General
Pitt-Rivers, used in ancient Egypt; and a weapon which has a close
resemblance to the boomerang survives to the present day in North-East
Africa, whence it has spread in allied forms made of metal (throwing
knives). Among the Dravidians of South India is found a boomerang-shaped
instrument which can be made to return. It is, however, still uncertain
whether the so-called boomerangs of Egypt and India have any real
resemblance to the Australian return boomerang. The Hopis (Moquis) of
Arizona use a non-return form. The general form of both weapons is the
same. They are sickle-shaped, and made of wood (in India of ivory or
steel), so modelled that the thickness is about 1/6th of the breadth,
which again is 1/12th of the length, the last varying from 6 in. to 3 or
4 ft. The return boomerang, which may have two straight arms at an angle
of from 70 deg. to 120 deg., but in Australia is always curved at an
angle of 90 deg. or more, is usually 2 to 3 ft. in length and weighs
some 8 oz.; the arms have a skew, being twisted 2 deg. or 3 deg. from
the plane running through the centre of the weapon, so that B and D
(fig. 1) are above it, A and E below it; the ends AB and DE are also to
some extent raised above the plane of the weapon at C; the cross section
is asymmetrical, the upper side in the figure being convex, the lower
flat or nearly so; this must be thrown with the right hand. The
non-return boomerang has a skew in the opposite direction but is
otherwise similar.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The peculiarity of the boomerang's flight depends mainly on its skew.
The return boomerang is held vertically, the concave side forward, and
thrown in a plane parallel to the surface of the ground, as much
rotation as possible being imparted to it. It travels straight for 30
yds. or more, with nearly vertical rotation; then it inclines to the
left, lying over on the flat side and rising in the air; after
describing a circle of 50 or more yards in diameter it returns to the
thrower. Some observers state that it returns after striking the object;
it is certainly possible to strike the ground without affecting the
return. Throws of 100 yds. or more, before the leftward curve begins,
can be accomplished by Australian natives, the weapon rising as much as
150 ft. in the air and circling five times before returning. The
non-return type may also be made to return in a nearly straight line by
throwing it at an angle of 45 deg., but normally it is thrown like the
return type, and will then travel an immense distance. No accurate
measurements of Australian throws are available, but an English throw of
180 yds. has been recorded, compared with the same thrower's 70 yds.
with the cricket ball.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Flight in Horizontal Plane.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Flight in Vertical Plane.]
The war boomerang in an expert's hand is a deadly weapon, and the
lighter hunting boomerang is also effective. The return boomerang is
chiefly used as a plaything or for killing birds, and is often as
dangerous to the thrower as to the object at which it is aimed.
See Pitt-Rivers (Lane Fox) in _Anthropological and Archaeological
Fragments_, "Primitive Warfare"; also in _Journ. Royal United Service
Inst._ xii. No. 51; _British Ass. Report_ (1872); _Catalogue of
Bethnal Green Collection_, p. 28; Buchner in _Globus_, lxxxviii. 39,
63; G.T. Walker in _Phil. Trans._ cxc. 23; _Wide World Mag._ ii. 626;
_Nature_, xiv. 248, lxiv. 338; Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_,
i. 310-329; Roth, _Ethnological Studies_. (N. W. T.)
BOONE, DANIEL (1734-1820), American pioneer and backwoodsman, of English
descent, was born near the present city of Reading, Pennsylvania, on the
2nd of November (N.S.) 1734. About 1751 his father, Squire Boone, with
his family settled in the Yadkin Valley in what is now Davie county,
North Carolina, then on the frontier. Daniel worked on his father's
farm, and spent much of his time hunting and trapping. In 1755 he served
as a wagoner and blacksmith in Braddock's disastrous expedition against
the Indians. In 1765 he visited Florida, and in 1767 he first visited
the Kentucky region. With several companions, including John Finley, who
had been there as early as 1752, he spent two years, 1769-1771, roaming
about what is now Kentucky, meeting with numberless adventures, coming
in conflict with roving bands of Indians, and collecting bear, beaver
and deer skins. He served in Lord Dunmore's War (1774), and in 1775 led
to Kentucky the party of settlers who founded Boonesborough, long an
important settlement. On the 7th of February 1778 he, and the party he
led, were captured by a band of Shawnees. He was adopted into the
Shawnee tribe, was taken to Detroit, and on the return from that place
escaped, reaching Boonesborough, after a perilous journey of 160 m.,
within four days, in time to give warning of a formidable attack by his
captors. In repelling this attack, which lasted from the 8th to the 17th
of September, he bore a conspicuous part. He also took part in the
sanguinary "Battle of Blue Licks" in 1782. For a time he represented the
settlers in the Virginia legislature (Kentucky then being a part of
Virginia), and he also served as deputy surveyor, sheriff and county
lieutenant of Fayette county, one of the three counties into which
Kentucky was then divided. Having lost all his land through his
carelessness in regard to titles, he removed in 1788 to Point Pleasant,
Virginia (now W. Va.), whence about 1799 he removed to a place in what
is now Missouri, about 45 m. west of St Louis, in territory then owned
by Spain. He received a grant of 1000 arpents (about 845 acres) of land,
and was appointed syndic of the district. After the United States gained
possession of "Louisiana" in 1803, Boone's title was found to be
defective, and he was again dispossessed. He died on the 22nd of
September 1820, and in 1845 his remains were removed to Frankfort,
Kentucky, where a monument has been erected to his memory. Boone was a
typical American pioneer and backwoodsman, a great hunter and trapper,
highly skilled in all the arts of woodcraft, familiar with the Indians
and their methods of warfare, a famous Indian fighter, restless,
resourceful and fearless. His services, however, have been greatly
over-estimated, and he was not, as is popularly believed, either the
first to explore or the first to settle the Kentucky region.
The best biography is that by Reuben G. Thwaites, _Daniel Boone_ (New
York, 1902).
BOONE, a city and the county-seat of Boone county, Iowa, U.S.A., a short
distance from the Des Moines river and near the centre of the state.
Pop. (1890) 6520; (1900) 8880; (1905, state census) 9500 (1334
foreign-born); (1910) 10,347. It is served by the Chicago &
North-Western (which has construction and repair shops here), the
Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by the Fort Dodge, Des Moines
& Southern (inter-urban) railway, which connects with Des Moines, Ames,
&c. Boone is an important coal centre; bricks and tiles are manufactured
from the clay obtained near by; there is a packing plant for the
manufacture of beef and pork products; and from the rich farming section
by which the city is surrounded come large quantities of grain, some of
which is milled here, and live-stock. Boone was laid out in 1865, was
incorporated as a town in 1866, and was chartered as a city in 1868.
BOONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Cooper county, Missouri,
U.S.A., on the right bank of the Missouri river, about 210 m. W. by N.
of St Louis. Pop. (1890) 4141; (1900) 4377, including 1111 negroes;
(1910) 4252. It is served by the Missouri Pacific, and the Missouri,
Kansas & Texas railways. The city lies along a bluff about 100 ft. above
the river. It is the seat of the Missouri training school for boys
(1889), and of the Kemper military school (1844). Among its manufactures
are earthenware, tobacco, vinegar, flour, farm-gates (iron), sash and
doors, marble and granite monuments, carriages and bricks. Iron, zinc
and lead are found in the vicinity, and some coal is mined. Boonville,
named in honour of Daniel Boone, was settled in 1810, was laid out in
1817, incorporated as a village in 1839, and chartered as a city of the
third class in 1896. Here on the 17th of June 1861, Captain
(Major-General) Nathaniel Lyon, commanding about 2000 Union troops,
defeated a slightly larger, but undisciplined Confederate force under
Brigadier-General John S. Marmaduke. David Barton (d. 1837), one of the
first two United States senators from Missouri, was buried here.
BOORDE (or BORDE), ANDREW (1490?-1549), English physician and author,
was born at Boord's Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex. He was educated at Oxford,
and was admitted a member of the Carthusian order while under age. In
1521 he was "dispensed from religion" in order that he might act as
suffragan bishop of Chichester, though he never actually filled the
office, and in 1529 he was freed from his monastic vows, not being able
to endure, as he said, the "rugorosite off your relygyon." He then went
abroad to study medicine, and on his return was summoned to attend the
duke of Norfolk. He subsequently visited the universities of Orleans,
Poitiers, Toulouse, Montpellier and Wittenberg, saw the practice of
surgery at Rome, and went on pilgrimage with others of his nation to
Compostella in Navarre. In 1534 Boorde was again in London at the
Charterhouse, and in 1536 wrote to Thomas Cromwell, complaining that he
was in "thraldom" there. Cromwell set him at liberty, and after
entertaining him at his house at Bishops Waltham in Hampshire, seems to
have entrusted him with a mission to find out the state of public
feeling abroad with regard to the English king. He writes to Cromwell
from various places, and from Catalonia he sends him the seeds of
rhubarb, two hundred years before that plant was generally cultivated in
England. Two letters in 1535 and 1536 to the prior of the Charterhouse
anxiously argue for his complete release from monastic vows. In 1536 he
was studying medicine at Glasgow and gathering his observations about
the Scots and the "devellyshe dysposicion of a Scottysh man, not to love
nor favour an Englishe man." About 1538 Boorde set out on his most
extensive journey, visiting nearly all the countries of Europe except
Russia and Turkey, and making his way to Jerusalem. Of these travels he
wrote a full itinerary, lost unfortunately by Cromwell, to whom it was
sent. He finally settled at Montpellier and before 1542 had completed
his _Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge_, which ranks as the
earliest continental guide book, his _Dietary_ and his _Brevyary_. He
probably returned to England in 1542, and lived at Winchester and
perhaps at Pevensey. John Ponet, bishop of Winchester, in an _Apology_
against Bishop Gardiner, relates as matter of common knowledge that in
1547 Doctor Boord, a physician and a holy man, who still kept the
Carthusian rules of fasting and wearing a hair shirt, was convicted in
Winchester of keeping in his house three loose women. For this offence,
apparently, he was imprisoned in the Fleet, where he made his will on
the 9th of April 1549. It was proved on the 25th of the same month.
Thomas Hearne (_Benedictus Abbas_, i, p. 52) says that he went round
like a quack doctor to country fairs, and therefore rashly supposed him
to have been the original merry-andrew.
Andrew Boorde was no doubt a learned physician, and he has left two
amusing and often sensible works on domestic hygiene and medicine, but
his most entertaining book is _The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of
Knowledge. The whyche dothe teache a man to speake parte of all maner of
languages, and to know the usage and fashion of all maner of countreys.
And for to know the moste parte of all maner of coynes of money, the
whych is currant in every region. Made by Andrew Borde, of Physycke
Doctor. Dedycated to the right honourable, and gracious lady Mary
daughter of our soverayne Lorde Kyng Henry the eyght_ (c. 1547). The
Englishman describes himself and his foibles--his fickleness, his
fondness for new fashions and his obstinacy--in lively verse. Then
follows a geographical description of the country, followed by a model
dialogue in the Cornish language. Each country in turn is dealt with on
similar lines. His other authentic works are: _Here foloweth a
Compendyous Regimente or Dyetary of health, made in Mountpyllor_ (Thomas
Colwell, 1562), of which there are undated and doubtless earlier
editions; _The Brevyary of Health_ (1547?); _The Princyples of
Astronamy_ (1547?); "The Peregrination of Doctor Board," printed by
Thomas Hearne in _Benedictus Abbas Petroburgensis_, vol. ii. (1735); _A
Pronostycacyon or an Almanacke for the yere of our lorde MCCCCCXLV. made
by Andrew Boorde_. His _Itinerary of Europe_ and _Treatyse upon Berdes_
are lost. Several jest-books are attributed to him without
authority--_The Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam_ (earliest extant
edition, 1630), _Scogin's Jests_ (1626), _A mery jest of the Mylner of
Abyngton, with his wyfe, and his daughter, and of two poore scholers of
Cambridge_ (printed by Wynkyn de Worde), and a Latin poem, _Nos
Vagabunduli_.
See Dr F.J. Furnivall's reprint of the _Introduction_ and some other
selections for the Early English Text Society (new series, 1870).
BOOS, MARTIN (1762-1825), German Roman Catholic theologian, was born at
Huttenried in Bavaria on the 25th of December 1762. Orphaned at the age
of four, he was reared by an uncle at Augsburg, who finally sent him to
the university of Dillingen. There he laid the foundation of the modest
piety by which his whole life was distinguished. After serving as priest
in several Bavarian towns, he made his way in 1799 to Linz in Austria,
where he was welcomed by Bishop Gall, and set to work first at Leonding
and then at Waldneukirchen, becoming in 1806 pastor at Gallneukirchen.
His pietistic movement won considerable way among the Catholic laity,
and even attracted some fifty or sixty priests. The death of Gall and
other powerful friends, however, exposed him to bitter enmity and
persecution from about 1812, and he had to answer endless accusations in
the consistorial courts. His enemies followed him when he returned to
Bavaria, but in 1817 the Prussian government appointed him to a
professorship at Dusseldorf, and in 1819 gave him the pastorate at Sayn
near Neuwied. He died on the 29th of August 1825.
See _Life_ by J. Gossner (1831).
BOOT, (1) (From the O. Eng. _bot_, a word common to Teutonic languages,
e.g. Goth, _bota_, "good, advantage," O.H.G. _Buoza_, Mod. Ger.
_Busse_, "penance, fine"; cf. "better," the comparative of "good"),
profit or advantage. The word survives in "bootless," i.e. useless or
unavailing, and in such expressions, chiefly archaistic, as "what boots
it?" "Bote," an old form, survives in some old compound legal words,
such as "house-bote," "fire-bote," "hedge-bote," &c., for particular
rights of "estover," the Norman French word corresponding to the Saxon
"bote" (see ESTOVERS and COMMONS). The same form survives also in such
expressions as "thief-bote" for the Old English customary compensation
paid for injuries.
(2) (A word of uncertain origin, which came into English through the O.
Fr. _bote_, modern _botte_; Med. Lat. _botta_ or _bota_), a covering for
the foot. Properly a boot covers the whole lower part of the leg,
sometimes reaching to or above the knee, but in common usage it is
applied to one which reaches only above the ankle, and is thus
distinguished from "shoe" (see COSTUME and SHOE).
The "boot" of a coach has the same derivation. It was originally applied
to the fixed outside step, the French _botte_, then to the uncovered
spaces on or beside the step on which the attendants sat facing
sideways. Both senses are now obsolete, the term now being applied to
the covered receptacles under the seats of the guard and coachman.
THE BOOT, BOOTS or BOOTIKIN was an instrument of torture formerly in use
to extort confessions from suspected persons, or obtain evidence from
unwilling witnesses. It originated in Scotland, but the date of its
first use is unknown. It was certainly frequently employed there in the
latter years of the 16th century. In a case of forgery in 1579 two
witnesses, a clergyman and an attorney, were so tortured. In a letter
dated 1583 at the Record Office in London, Walsingham instructs the
English ambassador at Edinburgh to have Father Holt, an English Jesuit,
"put to the boots." It seems to have fallen into disuse after 1630, but
was revived in 1666 on the occasion of the Covenanters' rebellion, and
was employed during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. Upon the
accession of William III. the Scottish convention denounced "the use of
torture, without evidence and in ordinary crimes, as contrary to law."
However, a year or so later, one Neville Payne, an Englishman suspected
of treasonable motives for visiting Scotland, was put to the torture
under the authority of a warrant signed by the king. This is the last
recorded case of its use, torture being finally abolished in Scotland in
1709. It was not used in England after 1640. The boot was made of iron
or wood and iron fastened on the leg, between which and the boot wedges
were driven by blows from a mallet. After each blow a question was put
to the victim, and the ordeal was continued until he gave the
information or fainted. The wedges were usually placed against the calf
of the leg, but Bishop Burnet says that they were sometimes put against
the shin-bone. A similar instrument, called "Spanish boots," was used in
Germany. There were also iron boots which were heated on the victim's
foot. A less cruel form was a boot or buskin made wet and drawn upon the
legs and then dried with fire.
BOOTES (Gr. [Greek: bootaes], a ploughman, from [Greek: bous], an ox), a
constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th
century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.), and perhaps alluded to in
the book of Job (see ARCTURUS), and by Homer and Hesiod. The ancient
Greeks symbolized it as a man walking, with his right hand grasping a
club, and his left extending upwards and holding the leash of two dogs,
which are apparently barking at the Great Bear. Ptolemy catalogues
twenty-three stars, Tycho Brahe twenty-eight, Hevelius fifty-two. In
addition to Arcturus, the brightest in the group, the most interesting
stars of this constellation are: _[epsilon] Bootis_, a beautiful double
star composed of a yellow star of magnitude 3, and a blue star of
magnitude 6-1/2; _[xi] Bootis_, a double star composed of a yellow star,
magnitude 4-1/2, and a purple star, magnitude 6-1/2; and _W. Bootis_, an
irregularly variable star. This constellation has been known by many
other names--Arcas, Arctophylax, Arcturus minor, Bubuleus, Bubulus,
Canis latrans, Clamator, Icarus, Lycaon, Philometus, Plaustri custos,
Plorans, Thegnis, Vociferator; the Arabs termed it Aramech or Archamech;
Hesychius named it Orion; Jules Schiller, St Sylvester; Schickard,
Nimrod; and Weigelius, the Three Swedish Crowns.
BOOTH, BARTON (1681-1733), English actor, who came of a good Lancashire
family, was educated at Westminster school, where his success in the
Latin play _Andria_ gave him an inclination for the stage. He was
intended for the church; but in 1698 he ran away from Trinity College,
Cambridge, and obtained employment in a theatrical company in Dublin,
where he made his first appearance as Oroonoko. After two seasons in
Ireland he returned to London, where Betterton, who on an earlier
application had withheld his active aid, probably out of regard for
Booth's family, now gave him all the assistance in his power. At
Lincoln's Inn Fields (1700-1704) he first appeared as Maximus in
_Valentinian_, and his success was immediate. He was at the Haymarket
with Betterton from 1705 to 1708, and for the next twenty years at Drury
Lane. Booth died on the 10th of May 1733, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey. His greatest parts, after the title-part of Addison's _Cato_,
which established his reputation as a tragedian, were probably Hotspur
and Brutus. His Lear was deemed worthy of comparison with Garrick's. As
the ghost in _Hamlet_ he is said never to have had a superior. Among his
other Shakespearian roles were Mark Antony, Timon of Athens and Othello.
He also played to perfection the gay Lothario in Rowe's _Fair Penitent_.
Booth was twice married; his second wife, Hester Santlow, an actress of
some merit, survived him.
See Cibber, _Lives and Characters of the most eminent Actors and
Actresses_ (1753); Victor, _Memoirs of the Life of Barton Booth_
(1733).
BOOTH, CHARLES (1840- ), English sociologist, was born at Liverpool on
the 30th of March 1840. In 1862 he became a partner in Alfred Booth &
Company, a Liverpool firm engaged in the Brazil trade, and subsequently
chairman of the Booth Steamship Company. He devoted much time, and no
inconsiderable sums of money, to inquiries into the statistical aspects
of social questions. The results of these are chiefly embodied in a work
entitled _Life and Labour of the People in London_ (1891-1903), of which
the earlier portion appeared under the title of _Life and Labour_ in
1889. The book is designed to show "the numerical relation which
poverty, misery and depravity bear to regular earnings and comparative
comfort, and to describe the general conditions under which each class
lives." It contains a most striking series of maps, in which the varying
degrees of poverty are represented street by street, by shades of
colour. The data for the work were derived in part from the detailed
records kept by school-board "visitors," partly from systematic
inquiries directed by Mr Booth himself, supplemented by information
derived from relieving officers and the Charity Organization Society. Mr
Booth also paid much attention to a kindred subject--the lot of the aged
poor. In 1894 he published a volume of statistics on the subject, and,
in 1891 and 1899, works on Old-age pensions, his scheme for the latter
depending on a general provision of pensions of five shillings a week to
all aged persons, irrespective of the cost to the state. He married, in
1871, the daughter of Charles Zachary Macaulay. In 1904 he was made a
privy councillor.
BOOTH, EDWIN [THOMAS] (1833-1893), American actor, was the second son of
the actor Junius Brutus Booth, and was born in Belair, Maryland, on the
13th of November 1833. His father (1796-1852) was born in London on the
1st of May 1796, and, after trying printing, law, painting and the sea,
made his first appearance on the stage in 1813, and appeared in London
at Covent Garden in 1815. He became almost at once a great favourite,
and a rival of Kean, whom he was thought to resemble. To Kean's Othello
nevertheless he played Iago on several occasions. Richard III., Hamlet,
King Lear, Shylock and Sir Giles Overreach were his best parts, and in
America, whither he removed in 1821, they brought him great popularity.
His eccentricities sometimes bordered on insanity, and his excited and
furious fencing as Richard III. and as Hamlet frequently compelled the
Richmond and Laertes to fight for their lives in deadly earnest.
Edwin Booth's first regular appearance was at the Boston Museum on the
10th of September 1849, as Tressel to his father's Richard, in Colley
Cibber's version of _Richard III._ He was lithe and graceful in figure,
buoyant in spirits; his dark hair fell in waving curls across his brow,
and his eyes were soft, luminous and most expressive. His father watched
him with great interest, but with evident disappointment, and the
members of the theatrical profession, who held the acting of the elder
Booth in great reverence, seemed to agree that the genius of the father
had not descended to the son. Edwin Booth's first appearance in New York
was in the character of Wilford in _The Iron Chest_, which he played at
the National theatre in Chatham Street, on the 27th of September 1850. A
year later, on the illness of the father, the son took his place in the
character of Richard III. It was not until after his parent's death that
the son conquered for himself an unassailable position on the stage.
Between 1852 and 1856 he played in California, Australia and the
Sandwich Islands, and those who had known him in the east were surprised
when the news came that he had captivated his audiences with his
brilliant acting. From this time forward his dramatic triumphs were
warmly acknowledged. His Hamlet, Richard and Richelieu were pronounced
to be superior to the performances of Edwin Forrest; his success as Sir
Giles Overreach in _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_ surpassed his father's.
In 1862 he became manager of the Winter Garden theatre, New York, where
he gave a series of Shakespearian productions of then unexampled
magnificence (1864-1867), including _Hamlet_, _Othello_ and _The
Merchant of Venice_. The splendour of this period in his career was
dashed for many months when in 1865 his brother, John Wilkes Booth,
assassinated President Lincoln (see LINCOLN, ABRAHAM). The three Booth
brothers, Junius Brutus (1821-1853), Edwin and John Wilkes (1839-1865),
had played together in _Julius Caesar_ in the autumn of the previous
year--the performance being memorable both for its own excellence, and
for the tragic situation into which two of the principal performers were
subsequently hurled by the crime of the third. Edwin Booth did not
reappear on the stage until the 3rd of January 1866, when he played
Hamlet at the Winter Garden theatre, the audience showing by unstinted
applause their conviction that the glory of the one brother would never
be imperilled by the infamy of the other.
In 1868-1869 Edwin Booth built a theatre of his own--Booth's theatre, at
the corner of 23rd Street and 6th Avenue, New York--and organized an
excellent stock company, which produced _Romeo and Juliet_, _The
Winter's Tale_, _Julius Caesar_, _Macbeth_, _Much Ado about Nothing_,
_The Merchant of Venice_ and other plays. In all cases Booth used the
true text of Shakespeare, thus antedating by many years a similar reform
in England. Almost invariably his ventures were successful, but he was
of a generous and confiding nature, and his management was not
economical. In 1874 the grand dramatic structure he had raised was taken
from him, and with it went his entire fortune. By arduous toil,
however, he again accumulated wealth, in the use of which his generous
nature was shown. He converted his spacious residence in Gramercy Park,
New York, into a club--The Players'--for the elect of his profession,
and for such members of other professions as they might choose. The
house, with all his books and works of art, and many invaluable mementos
of the stage, became the property of the club. A single apartment he
kept for himself. In this he died on the 7th of June 1893. Among his
parts were Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Iago, Shylock, Wolsey, Richard II.,
Richard III., Benedick, Petruccio, Richelieu, Sir Giles Overreach,
Brutus (Payne's), Bertuccio (in Tom Taylor's _The Fool's Revenge_), Ruy
Blas, Don Cesar de Bazan, and many more. His most famous part was
Hamlet, for which his extraordinary grace and beauty and his eloquent
sensibility peculiarly fitted him. He probably played the part oftener
than any other actor before or since. He visited London in 1851, and
again in 1880 and in 1882, playing at the Haymarket theatre with
brilliant success. In the last year he also visited Germany, where his
acting was received with the highest enthusiasm. His last appearance was
in Brooklyn as Hamlet in 1891. Booth was twice married: in 1860 to Mary
Devlin (d. 1863), and in 1869 to Mary F. McVicker (d. 1881). He left by
his first wife one daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman, who published _Edwin
Booth: Recollections_ (New York, 1894).
Edwin Booth's prompt-books were edited by William Winter (1878). In a
series of volumes, _Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and
America_, edited by Lawrence Hutton and Brander Matthews, Edwin Booth
contributed recollections of his father, which contain much valuable
autobiographic material. For the same series Lawrence Barrett
contributed an article on Edwin Booth. See also William Winter, _Life
and Art of Edwin Booth_ (1893); Lawrence Hutton, _Edwin Booth_ (1893);
Henry A. Clapp, _Reminiscences of a Dramatic Critic_ (Boston, 1902);
A.B. Clarke. _The Elder and the Younger Booth_ (Boston, 1882).
(J. J.*)
BOOTH, WILLIAM (1829- ), founder and "general" of the Salvation Army
(q.v.), was born at Nottingham on the 10th of April 1829. At the age
of fifteen his mind took a strongly religious turn, under the influence
of the Wesleyan Methodists, in which body he became a local preacher. In
1849 he came to London, where, according to his own account, his passion
for open-air preaching caused his severance from the Wesleyans. Joining
the Methodist New Connexion, he was ordained a minister, but, not being
employed as he wished in active "travelling evangelization," left that
body also in 1861. Meanwhile he had (1855) married Miss Catherine
Mumford, and had a family of four children. Both he and his wife
occupied themselves with preaching, first in Cornwall and then in
Cardiff and Walsall. At the last-named place was first organized a
"Hallelujah band" of converted criminals and others, who testified in
public of their conversion. In 1864 Booth went to London and continued
his services in tents and in the open air, and founded a body which was
successively known as the East London Revival Society, the East London
Christian Mission, the Christian Mission and (in 1878) the Salvation
Army. The Army operates (1) by outdoor meetings and processions; (2) by
visiting public-houses, prisons, private houses; (3) by holding meetings
in theatres, factories and other unusual buildings; (4) by using the
most popular song-tunes and the language of everyday life, &c.; (5) by
making every convert a daily witness for Christ, both in public and
private. The army is a quasi-military organization, and Booth modelled
its "Orders and Regulations" on those of the British army. Its early
"campaigns" excited violent opposition, a "Skeleton Army" being
organized to break up the meetings, and for many years Booth's followers
were subjected to fine and imprisonment as breakers of the peace. Since
1889, however, these disorders have been little heard of. The operations
of the army were extended in 1880 to the United States, in 1881 to
Australia, and spread to the European continent, to India, Ceylon and
elsewhere, "General" Booth himself being an indefatigable traveller,
organizer and speaker. His wife (b. 1829) died in 1890. By her preaching
at Gateshead, where her husband was circuit minister, in 1860, she began
the women's ministry which is so prominent a feature of the army's work.
A biography of her by Mr Booth Tucker appeared in 1892.
In 1890 "General" Booth attracted further public attention by the
publication of a work entitled _In Darkest England, and the Way Out_, in
which he proposed to remedy pauperism and vice by a series of ten
expedients: (1) the city colony; (2) the farm colony; (3) the over-sea
colony; (4) the household salvage brigade; (5) the rescue homes for
fallen women; (6) deliverance for the drunkard; (7) the prison-gate
brigade; (8) the poor man's bank; (9) the poor man's lawyer; (10)
Whitechapel-by-the-Sea. Money was liberally subscribed and a large part
of the scheme was carried out. The opposition and ridicule with which
Booth's work was for many years received gave way, towards the end of
the 19th century, to very widespread sympathy as his genius and its
results were more fully realized.
The active encouragement of King Edward VII., at whose instance in 1902
he was invited officially to be present at the coronation ceremony,
marked the completeness of the change; and when, in 1905, the "general"
went on a progress through England, he was received in state by the
mayors and corporations of many towns. In the United States also, and
elsewhere, his work was cordially encouraged by the authorities.
See T.F. Coates, _The Life Story of General Booth_ (2nd ed., London,
1906), and bibliography under SALVATION ARMY.
BOOTH (connected with a Teutonic root meaning to dwell, whence also
"bower"), primarily a temporary dwelling of boughs or other slight
materials. Later the word gained the special meaning of a market stall
or any non-permanent erection, such as a tent at a fair, where goods
were on sale. Later still it was applied to the temporary structure
where votes were registered, viz. polling-booth. Temporary booths
erected for the weekly markets naturally tended to become permanent
shops. Thus Stow states that the houses in Old Fish Street, London,
"were at first but movable boards set out on market days to show their
fish there to be sold; but procuring licence to set up sheds, they grew
to shops, and by little and little, to tall houses." As _bothy_ or
_bothie_, in Scotland, meaning generally a hut or cottage, the word was
specially applied to a barrack-like room on large farms where the
unmarried labourers were lodged. This, known as the _Bothy system_, was
formerly common in Aberdeenshire and other parts of northern Scotland.
BOOTHIA (_Boothia Felix_), a peninsula of British North America,
belonging to Franklin district, and having an area of 13,100 sq. m.,
between 69 deg. 30' and 71 deg. 50' N. and 91 deg. 30' and 97 deg. W.
Its northernmost promontory, Murchison Point, is also the northernmost
point of the American mainland. It was discovered by Captain (afterwards
Sir James) Ross, during his expedition of 1829-1833, and was named after
Sir Felix Booth, who had been chiefly instrumental in fitting out the
expedition. Boothia forms the western side of Boothia Gulf. From the
main mass of the continent the peninsula is almost separated by lakes
and inlets; and a narrow channel known as Bellot Strait intervenes
between it and North Somerset Island, which was discovered by Sir E.
Parry in 1819. The peninsula is not only interesting for its connexion
with the Franklin expedition and the Franklin search, but is of
scientific importance from the north magnetic pole having been first
distinctly localized here by Ross, on the western side, in 70 deg. 5'
N., 96 deg. 47' W.
Boothia Gulf separates the north-western portion of Baffin Land and
Melville Peninsula from Boothia Peninsula. It is connected with Barrow
Strait and Lancaster Sound by Prince Regent Inlet, with Franklin Strait
by Bellot Strait, and with Fox Channel by Fury and Hecla Strait. The
principal bays are Committee and Pelly in the southern portion, and Lord
Mayor in the western.
BOOTLE, a municipal and county borough in the Bootle parliamentary
division of Lancashire, England; at the mouth of the Mersey, forming a
northern suburb of Liverpool. Pop. (1901) 58,566; an increase by nearly
nine times in forty years. The great docks on this, the east bank of the
Mersey, extend into the borough, but are considered as a whole under
LIVERPOOL (q.v.). Such features, moreover, as communications,
water-supply, &c., may be considered as part of the greater systems of
the same city. The chief buildings and institutions are a handsome town
hall, a museum, free libraries, technical schools, and several public
pleasure grounds. Bootle was incorporated in 1868 and was created a
county borough in 1888; the corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen
and 30 councillors. A proposal to include it within the city of
Liverpool was rejected in parliament in July 1903. Area, 1576 acres.
BOOTY (apparently influenced by "boot," 0. Eng. _bot_, advantage or
profit, through an adaptation from an earlier form cognate with Ger.
_Beute_ and Fr. _butin_), plunder or gain. The phrase "to play booty,"
dating from the 16th century, means to play into a confederate's hands,
or to play intentionally badly at first in order to deceive an opponent.
BOPP, FRANZ (1791-1867), German philologist, was born at Mainz on the
14th of September 1791. In consequence of the political troubles of that
time, his parents removed to Aschaffenburg, in Bavaria, where he
received a liberal education at the Lyceum. It was here that his
attention was drawn to the languages and literature of the East by the
eloquent lectures of Karl J. Windischmann, who, with G.F. Creuzer, J.J.
Gorres, and the brothers Schlegel, was full of enthusiasm for Indian
wisdom and philosophy. And further, Fr. Schlegel's book, _Uber die
Sprache und Weisheit der Indier_ (Heidelberg, 1808), which was just then
exerting a powerful influence on the minds of German philosophers and
historians, could not fail to stimulate also Bopp's interest in the
sacred language of the Hindus. In 1812 he went to Paris at the expense
of the Bavarian government, with a view to devote himself vigorously to
the study of Sanskrit. There he enjoyed the society of such eminent men
as A.L. Chezy, S. de Sacy, L.M. Langles, and, above all, of Alexander
Hamilton (1762-1824), who had acquired, when in India, an acquaintance
with Sanskrit, and had brought out, conjointly with Langles, a
descriptive catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts of the Imperial
library. At that library Bopp had access not only to the rich collection
of Sanskrit manuscripts, most of which had been brought from India by
Father Pons early in the 18th century, but also to the Sanskrit books
which had up to that time issued from the Calcutta and Serampore
presses. The first fruit of his four years' study in Paris appeared at
Frankfort-On-Main in 1816, under the title _Uber das Conjugationssystem
der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen,
lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache_, and it was
accompanied with a preface from the pen of Windischmann. In this first
book Bopp entered at once on the path on which the philological
researches of his whole subsequent life were concentrated. It was not
that he wished to prove the common parentage of Sanskrit with Persian,
Greek, Latin and German, for that had long been established; but his
object was to trace the common origin of their grammatical forms, of
their inflections from composition,--a task which had never been
attempted. By a historical analysis of those forms, as applied to the
verb, he furnished the first trustworthy materials for a history of the
languages compared.
After a brief sojourn in Germany, Bopp came to London, where he made the
acquaintance of Sir Charles Wilkins and H.T. Colebrooke, and became the
friend of Wilhelm von Humboldt, then Prussian ambassador at the court of
St James's, to whom he gave instruction in Sanskrit. He brought out, in
the _Annals of Oriental Literature_ (London, 1820), an essay entitled,
"Analytical Comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Teutonic
Languages," in which he extended to all parts of the grammar what he had
done in his first book for the verb alone. He had previously published a
critical edition, with a Latin translation and notes, of the story of
_Nala and Damayanti_ (London, 1819), the most beautiful episode of the
Mahabharata. Other episodes of the Mahabharata--_Indralokagamanam_,
and three others (Berlin, 1824); _Diluvium_, and three others (Berlin,
1829); and a new edition of _Nala_ (Berlin, 1832)--followed in due
course, all of which, with A.W. Schlegel's edition of the _Bhagavadgita_
(1823), proved excellent aids in initiating the early student into the
reading of Sanskrit texts. On the publication, in Calcutta, of the whole
Mahabharata, Bopp discontinued editing Sanskrit texts, and confined
himself thenceforth exclusively to grammatical investigations.
After a short residence at Gottingen, Bopp was, on the recommendation of
Humboldt, appointed to the chair of Sanskrit and comparative grammar at
Berlin in 1821, and was elected member of the Royal Prussian Academy in
the following year. He brought out, in 1827, his _Ausfuhrliches
Lehrgebaude der Sanskrita-Sprache_, on which he had been engaged since
1821. A new edition, in Latin, was commenced in the following year, and
completed in 1832; and a shorter grammar appeared in 1834. At the same
time he compiled a Sanskrit and Latin glossary (1830) in which, more
especially in the second and third editions (1847 and 1867), account was
also taken of the cognate languages. His chief activity, however,
centred on the elaboration of his _Comparative Grammar_, which appeared
in six parts at considerable intervals (Berlin, 1833, 1835, 1842, 1847,
1849, 1852), under the title _Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit,
Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Altslavischen,
Gothischen, und Deutschen_. How carefully this work was matured may be
gathered from the series of monographs printed in the _Transactions of
the Berlin Academy_ (1824 to 1831), by which it was preceded. They bear
the general title, _Vergleichende Zergliederung des Sanskrits und der
mit ihm verwandten Sprachen_. Two other essays (on the "Numerals," 1835)
followed the publication of the first part of the _Comparative Grammar_.
The Old-Slavonian began to take its stand among the languages compared
from the second part onwards. The work was translated into English by
E.B. Eastwick in 1845. A second German edition, thoroughly revised
(1856-1861), comprised also the Old-Armenian. From this edition an
excellent French translation was made by Professor Michel Breal in 1866.
The task which Bopp endeavoured to carry out in his _Comparative
Grammar_ was threefold,--to give a description of the original
grammatical structure of the languages as deduced from their
intercomparison, to trace their phonetic laws, and to investigate the
origin of their grammatical forms. The first and second points were
subservient to the third. As Bopp's researches were based on the best
available sources, and incorporated every new item of information that
came to light, so they continued to widen and deepen in their progress.
Witness his monographs on the vowel system in the Teutonic languages
(1836), on the Celtic languages (1839), on the Old-Prussian (1853) and
Albanian languages (1854), on the accent in Sanskrit and Greek (1854),
on the relationship of the Malayo-Polynesian with the Indo-European
languages (1840), and on the Caucasian languages (1846). In the two last
mentioned the impetus of his genius led him on a wrong track. Bopp has
been charged with neglecting the study of the native Sanskrit grammars,
but in those early days of Sanskrit studies the requisite materials were
not accessible in the great libraries of Europe; and if they had been,
they would have absorbed his exclusive attention for years, while such
grammars as those of Wilkins and Colebrooke, from which his grammatical
knowledge was derived, were all based on native grammars. The further
charge that Bopp, in his _Comparative Grammar_, gave undue prominence to
Sanskrit may be disproved by his own words; for, as early as the year
1820, he gave it as his opinion that frequently the cognate languages
serve to elucidate grammatical forms lost in Sanskrit (_Annals of Or.
Lit._ i. 3),--an opinion which he further developed in all his
subsequent writings.
Bopp's researches, carried with wonderful penetration into the most
minute and almost microscopical details of linguistic phenomena, have
led to the opening up of a wide and distant view into the original
seats, the closer or more distant affinity, and the tenets, practices
and domestic usages of the ancient Indo-European nations, and the
science of comparative grammar may truly be said to date from his
earliest publication. In grateful recognition of that fact, on the
fiftieth anniversary (May 16, 1866) of the date of Windischmann's
preface to that work, a fund called _Die Bopp-Stiftung_, for the
promotion of the study of Sanskrit and comparative grammar, was
established at Berlin, to which liberal contributions were made by his
numerous pupils and admirers in all parts of the globe. Bopp lived to
see the results of his labours everywhere accepted, and his name justly
celebrated. But he died, on the 23rd of October 1867, a poor
man,--though his genuine kindliness and unselfishness, his devotion to
his family and friends, and his rare modesty, endeared him to all who
knew him.
See M. Breal's translation of Bopp's _Vergl. Gramm._ (1866)
introduction; Th. Benfey, _Gesch. der Sprachwissenschaft_ (1869); A.
Kuhn in _Unsere Zeit_, Neue Folge, iv. i (1868); Lefmann, _Franz Bopp_
(Berlin, 1891-1897).
BOPPARD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the left
bank of the Rhine, 12 m. S. of Coblenz on the mainline to Cologne. Pop.
(1900) 5806. It is an old town still partly surrounded by medieval
walls, and its most noteworthy buildings are the Roman Catholic parish
church (12th and 13th centuries); the Carmelite church (1318), the
former castle, now used for administrative offices; the Evangelical
church (1851, enlarged in 1887); and the former Benedictine motnastery
of the Marienberg, founded 1123 and since 1839 a hydropathic
establishment, crowning a hill 100 ft. above the Rhine. Boppard is a
favourite tourist centre, and being less pent in by hills than many
other places in this part of the picturesque gorge of the Rhine, has in
modern times become a residential town. It has some comparatively
insignificant industries, such as tanning and tobacco manufacture; its
direct trade is in wine and fruit.
Boppard (_Baudobriga_) was founded by the Romans; under the Merovingian
dynasty it became a royal residence. During the middle ages it was a
considerable centre of commerce and shipping, and under the Hohenstaufen
emperors was raised to the rank of a free imperial city. In 1312,
however, the emperor Henry VII. pledged the town to his brother Baldwin,
archbishop-elector of Trier, and it remained in the possession of the
electors until it was absorbed by France during the Revolutionary epoch.
It was assigned by the congress of Vienna in 1815 to Prussia.
BORA, an Italian name for a violent cold northerly and northeasterly
wind, common in the Adriatic, especially on the Istrian and Dalmatian
coasts. There is always a northern tendency in the winds on the north
Mediterranean shores in winter owing to the cold air of the mountains
sliding down to the sea where the pressure is less. When, therefore, a
cyclone is formed over the Mediterranean, the currents in its
north-western area draw the air from the cold northern regions, and
during the passage of the cyclone the bora prevails. The bora also
occurs at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. It is precisely similar in
character to the mistral which prevails in Provence and along the French
Mediterranean littoral.
BORACITE, a mineral of special interest on account of its optical
anomalies. Small crystals bounded on all sides by sharply defined faces
are found in considerable numbers embedded in gypsum and anhydrite in
the salt deposits at Luneburg in Hanover, where it was first observed in
1787. In external form these crystals are cubic with inclined
hemihedrism, the symmetry being the same as in blende and tetrahedrite.
Their habit varies according to whether the tetrahedron (fig. 1), the
cube (fig. 2). or the rhombic dodecahedron (fig. 3) predominates.
Penetration twins with a tetrahedron face as twin-plane are sometimes
observed. The crystals vary from translucent to transparent, are
possessed of a vitreous lustre, and are colourless or white, though
often tinged with grey, yellow or green. The hardness is as high as 7 on
Mohs' scale; specific gravity 3.0. As first observed by R.J. Hauy in
1791, the crystals are markedly pyroelectric; a cube when heated becomes
positively electrified on four of its corners and negatively on the four
opposite corners. In a crystal such as represented in fig. 3, the
smaller and dull tetrahedral faces s are situated at the analogous poles
(which become positively electrified when the crystal is heated), and
the larger and bright tetrahedral faces _s'_ at the antilogous poles.
[Illustration: Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3