Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE MADISON, JAMES: "On the 26th of December 1785 Jefferson's
Bill for establishing religious freedom in Virginia, which had been
introduced by Madison, was passed. In the Virginia House of
Delegates, as in the Continental Congress ..." 'Virginia' amended
from 'Viginia'.
ARTICLE MADRAS: "... the college of agriculture at Coimbatore; the
teachers' college at Saidapet; the school of arts at Madras; and
the military orphanage at Ootacamund, in memory of Sir Henry
Lawrence." 'orphanage' amended from 'ophanage'.
ARTICLE MAGNETISM: "... the ratio of magnetization to magnetizing
force remained sensibly constant at 6.4, which may therefore with
great probability be assumed to represent the initial value ..."
'which' amended from 'wihch'.
ARTICLE MAGNETISM: "From experiments of both classes it appears
that for a given field there is a certain value of the load for
which the magnetization is a maximum, the maximum occurring at a
smaller load the stronger the field." 'occurring' amended from
'occuring'.
ARTICLE MAGNETISM: "Recent researches have shown that other
important changes in its properties occur at the same critical
temperature." 'important' amended from 'imporant'.
ARTICLE MAGNETISM: "Wills found that the susceptibility was
constant in fields ranging from 4200 to 15,000." 'susceptibility'
amended from 'suceptibility'.
ARTICLE MAGNETISM, TERRESTRIAL: "As explained above, a would
represent the range in a year of no sun-spots, while 100 b would
represent the excess over this shown by the range in a year when
Wolf's sun-spot frequency is 100." "Wolf's" amended from
"Wolfer's".
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XVII, SLICE III
McKinley, William to Magnetism, Terrestrial
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
McKINLEY, WILLIAM MADISON (Wisconsin, U.S.A.)
McKINNEY (Texas, U.S.A.) MADOU, JEAN BAPTISTE
MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES MADOZ, PASCUAL
MACKLIN, CHARLES MADRAS (Indian presidency)
MACK VON LEIBERICH, KARL MADRAS (Indian city)
McLANE, LOUIS MADRAZO Y KUNT, DON FEDERICO DE
MACLAREN, CHARLES MADRID (province of Spain)
MACLAREN, IAN MADRID (the capital of Spain)
MACLAURIN, COLIN MADRIGAL
M'LENNAN, JOHN FERGUSON MADURA (island)
MACLEOD, HENRY DUNNING MADURA (city)
MACLEOD, NORMAN MADVIG, JOHAN NICOLAI
MACLISE, DANIEL MAECENAS, GAIUS
MACLURE, WILLIAM MAECIANUS, LUCIUS VOLUSIUS
MacMAHON, MARIE EDMÉ MAURICE DE MAELDUIN, VOYAGE OF
McMASTER, JOHN BACH MAELIUS, SPURIUS
MACMILLAN MAELSTROM
MACMONNIES, FREDERICK WILLIAM MAENADS
MACNAGHTEN, SIR WILLIAM HAY MAENIUS, GAIUS
MacNALLY, LEONARD MAERLANT, JACOB VAN
MACNEE, SIR DANIEL MAES, NICOLAS
MACNEIL, HERMON ATKINS MAESTRO
McNEILE, HUGH MAETERLINCK, MAURICE
MACNEILL, HECTOR MAFEKING
MACOMB MAFFEI, FRANCESCO SCIPIONE
MACOMER MAFIA
MACON, NATHANIEL MAFRA
MÂCON (town of France) MAGADHA
MACON (Georgia, U.S.A.) MAGALDÁN
MACPHERSON, SIR DAVID LEWIS MAGALLANES
MACPHERSON, JAMES MAGAZINE
McPHERSON, JAMES BIRDSEYE MAGDALA
MACQUARIE MAGDEBURG
MACRAUCHENIA MAGEE, WILLIAM
MACREADY, WILLIAM CHARLES MAGEE, WILLIAM CONNOR
MACROBIUS, AMBROSIUS THEODOSIUS MAGELLAN, FERDINAND
MACROOM MAGELLANIC CLOUDS
MACUGNAGA MAGENTA
MacVEAGH, WAYNE MAGGIORE, LAGO
MADÁCH, IMRE MAGIC
MADAGASCAR MAGIC SQUARE
MADAN, MARTIN MAGINN, WILLIAM
MADDALONI MAGISTRATE
MADDEN, SIR FREDERIC MAGLIABECHI, ANTONIO DA MARCO
MADDER MAGLIANI, AGOSTINO
MADEC, RENÉ-MARIE MAGNA CARTA
MADEIRA MAGNA GRAECIA
MADELENIAN MAGNATE
MADELEY MAGNES
MADHAVA ACHARYA MAGNESIA
MADI MAGNESITE
MADISON, JAMES MAGNESIUM
MADISON (Indiana, U.S.A.) MAGNETISM
MADISON (New Jersey, U.S.A.) MAGNETISM, TERRESTRIAL
McKINLEY, WILLIAM (1843-1901), twenty-fifth president of the United
States, was born in Niles, Trumbull county, Ohio, on the 29th of January
1843. His ancestors on the paternal side were Scotch-Irish who lived at
Dervock, Co. Antrim, and spelled the family name "McKinlay." His
great-great-grandfather settled in York county, Pennsylvania, about
1743, and from Chester county, Pennsylvania, his great-grandfather,
David McKinley, who served as a private during the War of Independence,
moved to Ohio in 1814. David's son James had gone in 1809 to Columbiana
county, Ohio. His son William McKinley (b. 1807), like his father an
iron manufacturer, was married in 1829 to Nancy Campbell Allison, and to
them were born nine children, of whom William, the president, was the
seventh. In 1852 the family removed to Poland, Mahoning county, where
the younger William was placed at school. At seventeen he entered the
junior class of Allegheny College, at Meadville, Pennsylvania; but he
studied beyond his strength, and returned to Poland, where for a time he
taught in a neighbouring country school. When the Civil War broke out in
1861 he promptly enlisted as a private in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer
Infantry. He saw service in West Virginia, at South Mountain, where this
regiment lost heavily, and at Antietam, where he brought up hot coffee
and provisions to the fighting line; for this he was promoted second
lieutenant on the 24th of September 1862. McKinley was promoted first
lieutenant in February 1864, and for his services at Winchester was
promoted captain on the 25th of July 1864. He was on the staff of
General George Crook at the battles of Opequan, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar
Creek in the Shenandoah valley, and on the 14th of March 1865 was
brevetted major of volunteers for gallant and meritorious services. He
also served on the staff of General Rutherford B. Hayes, who spoke
highly of his soldierly qualities. He was mustered out with his regiment
on the 26th of July 1865. Four years of army life had changed him from a
pale and sickly lad into a man of superb figure and health.
After the war McKinley returned to Poland, and bent all his energy upon
the study of law. He completed his preparatory reading at the Albany
(N.Y.) law school, and was admitted to the bar at Warren, Ohio, in March
1867. On the advice of an elder sister, who had been for several years a
teacher in Canton, Stark county, Ohio, he began his law practice in that
place, which was to be his permanent home. He identified himself
immediately with the Republican party, campaigned in the Democratic
county of Stark in favour of negro suffrage in 1867, and took part in
the campaign work on behalf of Grant's presidential candidature in 1868.
In the following year he was elected prosecuting attorney on the
Republican ticket; in 1871 he failed of re-election by 45 votes, and
again devoted himself to his profession, while not relaxing his interest
in politics.
In 1875 he first became known as an able campaign speaker by his
speeches favouring the resumption of specie payments, and in behalf of
Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio. In
1876 he was elected by a majority of 3304 to the national House of
Representatives. Conditions both in Ohio and in Congress had placed him,
and were to keep him for twenty years, in an attitude of aggressive and
uncompromising partisanship. His Congressional district was naturally
Democratic, and its boundaries were changed two or three times by
Democratic legislatures for the purpose of so grouping Democratic
strongholds as to cause his defeat. But he overcame what had threatened
to be adverse majorities on all occasions from 1876 to 1890, with the
single exception of 1882, when, although he received a certificate of
election showing that he had been re-elected by a majority of 8, and
although he served nearly through the long session of 1883-1884, his
seat was contested and taken (May 28, 1884) by his Democratic opponent,
Jonathan H. Wallace. McKinley reflected the strong sentiment of his
manufacturing constituency in behalf of a high protective tariff, and he
soon became known in Congress (where he particularly attracted the
attention of James G. Blaine) as one of the most diligent students of
industrial policy and question affecting national taxation. In 1878 he
took part in the debates over the Wood Tariff Bill, proposing lower
import duties; and in the same year he voted for the Bland-Allison
Silver Bill. In December 1880 he was appointed a member of the Ways and
Means committee, succeeding General James A. Garfield, who had been
elected president in the preceding month, and to whose friendship, as to
that of Rutherford B. Hayes, McKinley owed much in his earlier years in
Congress. He was prominent in the debate which resulted in the defeat of
the Democratic Morrison Tariff Bill in 1884, and, as minority leader of
the Ways and Means committee, in the defeat of the Mills Bill for the
revision of the tariff in 1887-1888. In 1889 he became chairman of the
Ways and Means committee and Republican leader in the House of
Representatives, after having been defeated by Thomas B. Reed on the
third ballot in the Republican caucus for speaker of the House. On the
16th of April 1890 he introduced from the Ways and Means committee the
tariff measure known commonly as the McKinley Bill, which passed the
House on the 21st of May, passed the Senate (in an amended form, with a
reciprocity clause, which McKinley had not been able to get through the
House) on the 10th of September, was passed as amended, by the House,
and was approved by the president on the 1st of October 1890. The
McKinley Bill reduced revenues by its high and in many cases almost
prohibitive duties; it put sugar on the free list with a discriminating
duty of (1/10)th of one cent a pound on sugar imported from countries
giving a bounty for sugar exported, and it gave bounties to American
sugar growers; it attempted to protect many "infant" industries such as
the manufacture of tin-plate; under its provision for reciprocal trade
agreements (a favourite project of James G. Blaine, who opposed many of
the "protective" features of the Bill) reciprocity treaties were made
with Germany, France, Italy, and Belgium, which secured a market in
those countries for American pork. Abroad, where the Bill made
McKinley's name known everywhere, there was bitter opposition to it and
reprisals were threatened by several European states. In the United
States the McKinley Tariff Bill was one of the main causes of the
Democratic victory in the Congressional elections of 1890, in which
McKinley himself was defeated by an extraordinary Democratic gerrymander
of his Congressional district. In November 1891 he was elected governor
of Ohio with a plurality of more than 21,000 votes in a total of 795,000
votes cast. He was governor of Ohio in 1892-1895, being re-elected in
1893. His administration was marked by no important events, except that
he had on several occasions in his second term to call out the militia
of the state to preserve order; but it may be considered important
because of the training it gave him in executive as distinguished from
legislative work.
McKinley had been prominent in national politics even before the passage
of the tariff measure bearing his name. In 1888 in the National
Republican Convention in Chicago he was chairman of the committee on
resolutions (i.e. the platform committee) and was leader of the
delegation from Ohio, which had been instructed for John Sherman; after
James G. Blaine withdrew his name there was a movement, begun by
Republican congressmen, to nominate McKinley, who received 16 votes on
the seventh ballot, but passionately refused to be a candidate,
considering that his acquiescence would be a breach of faith toward
Sherman. In 1892 McKinley was the permanent president of the National
Republican Convention which met in Minneapolis and which renominated
Benjamin Harrison on the first ballot, on which James G. Blaine received
182(5/6) votes, and McKinley, in spite of his efforts to the contrary,
received 182 votes. In 1894 he made an extended campaign tour before the
Congressional elections, and spoke even in the South. In 1896 he seemed
for many reasons the most "available" candidate of his party for the
presidency: he had no personal enemies in the party; he had carried the
crucial state of Ohio by a large majority in 1893; his attitude on the
coinage question had never been so pronounced as to make him unpopular
either with the radical silver wing or with the conservative
"gold-standard" members of the party. The campaign for his nomination
was conducted with the greatest adroitness by his friend, Marcus A.
Hanna, and in the National Republican Convention held in St Louis in
June he was nominated for the presidency on the first ballot by 661½ out
of a total of 906 votes. The convention adopted a tariff plank drafted
by McKinley, and, of far greater immediate importance, a plank, which
declared that the Republican party was "opposed to the free coinage of
silver, except by international agreement with the leading commercial
nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until
such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be
preserved." This "gold standard" plank drove out of the Republican party
the Silver Republicans of the West, headed by Senator Henry M. Teller of
Colorado. The Republican convention nominated for the vice-presidency
Garrett A. Hobart of New Jersey. The National Democratic Convention
declared for the immediate opening of the mints to the free and
unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio with gold of 16 to 1; and it
nominated for the presidency William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, who
also received the nomination of the People's party and of the National
Silver party. There was a secession from the Democratic party of
conservatives who called themselves the National Democratic party, who
were commonly called Gold Democrats, and who nominated John M. Palmer
(1817-1900) of Illinois for president. In this re-alignment of parties
McKinley, who had expected to make the campaign on the issue of a high
protective tariff, was diverted to the defence of the gold standard as
the main issue. While his opponent travelled throughout the country
making speeches, McKinley remained in Canton, where he was visited by
and addressed many Republican delegations. The campaign was
enthusiastic: the Republican candidate was called the "advance agent of
prosperity"; "Bill McKinley and the McKinley Bill" became a campaign
cry; the panic of 1893 was charged to the repeal of the McKinley tariff
measure; and "business men" throughout the states were enlisted in the
cause of "sound money" to support McKinley, who was elected in November
by a popular vote of 7,106,779 to 6,502,925 for Bryan, and by an
electoral vote of 271 to 176.
McKinley was inaugurated president of the United States on the 4th of
March 1897. The members of his cabinet were: secretary of state, John
Sherman (whose appointment created a vacancy in the Senate to which
Marcus A. Hanna was elected), who was succeeded in April 1898 by William
R. Day, who in turn was followed in September 1898 by John Hay;
secretary of the treasury, Lyman J. Gage, a Gold Democrat; secretary of
war, Russell A. Alger, who was succeeded in 1899 by Elihu Root;
secretary of the navy, John D. Long; attorney-general, Joseph McKenna,
succeeded in January 1898 by John William Griggs; postmaster-general,
James A. Gary, succeeded in April 1898 by Charles Emory Smith; secretary
of the interior, Cornelius N. Bliss, succeeded in February 1899 by Ethan
Allen Hitchcock; and secretary of agriculture, James Wilson. (For the
political history of McKinley's administration see UNITED STATES:
_History_). Immediately after his inauguration the president summoned
Congress to assemble in an extra session on the 15th of March. The
Democratic tariff in 1893 had been enacted as part of the general
revenue measure, which included an income-tax. The income-tax having
been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the measure had
failed to produce a sufficient revenue, and it had been necessary to
increase the public debt. McKinley's message to the new Congress dwelt
upon the necessity of an immediate revision of the tariff and revenue
system of the country, and the so-called Dingley Tariff Bill was
accordingly passed through both houses, and was approved by the
president on the 24th of July.
The regular session of Congress which opened in December was occupied
chiefly with the situation in Cuba. President McKinley showed himself
singularly patient and self-controlled in the midst of the popular
excitement against Spain and the clamour for intervention by the United
States in behalf of the Cubans; but finally, on the 23rd of March, he
presented an ultimatum to the Spanish government, and on the 25th of
April, on his recommendation. Congress declared war upon Spain. During
the war itself he devoted himself with great energy to the mastery of
military details; but there was bitter criticism of the war department
resulting in the resignation of the secretary of war, Russell A. Alger
(q.v.). The signing of a peace protocol on the 12th of August was
followed by the signature at Paris on the 10th of December of articles
of peace between the United States and Spain. After a long discussion
the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on the 6th of
February 1899; and in accordance with its terms Porto Rico, the
Philippine Archipelago, and Guam were transferred by Spain to the United
States, and Cuba came under American jurisdiction pending the
establishment there of an independent government. Two days before the
ratification of the peace treaty, a conflict took place between armed
Filipinos under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo and the American
forces that were in possession of Manila. The six months that had
elapsed between the signing of the peace protocol and the ratification
of the treaty had constituted a virtual interregnum, Spain's authority
having been practically destroyed in the Philippines and that of the
United States not having begun. In this period a formidable native
Filipino army had been organized and a provisional government created.
The warfare waged by these Filipinos against the United States, while
having for the most part a desultory and guerilla character, was of a
very protracted and troublesome nature. Sovereignty over the Filipinos
having been accepted by virtue of the ratification of the Paris treaty,
President McKinley was not at liberty to do otherwise than assert the
authority of the United States and use every endeavour to suppress the
insurrection. But there was bitter protest against this "imperialism,"
both within the party by such men as Senators George F. Hoar and Eugene
Hale, and Thomas B. Reed and Carl Schurz, and, often for purely
political reasons, from the leaders of the Democratic party. In the
foreign relations of the United States, as directed by President
McKinley, the most significant change was the cordial understanding
established with the British government, to which much was contributed
by his secretary of state, John Hay, appointed to that portfolio when he
was ambassador to the court of St James, and which was due to some
extent to the friendliness of the British press and even more markedly
of the British navy in the Pacific during the Spanish War. Other
important foreign events during McKinley's administration were: the
annexation of the Hawaiian Islands (see HAWAII) in August 1898, and the
formation of the Territory of Hawaii in April 1900; the cessation in
1899 of the tripartite (German, British, and French) government of the
Samoan Islands, and the annexation by the United States of those of the
islands east of 171°, including the harbour of Pago-Pago; the
participation of American troops in the march of the allies on Pekin in
August 1900, and the part played by McKinley's secretary of state, John
Hay, in securing a guarantee of the integrity of the Chinese empire. In
1900 McKinley was unanimously renominated by the National Republican
Convention which met in Philadelphia on the 19th of June, and which
nominated Theodore Roosevelt, governor of New York, for the
vice-presidency. The Republican convention demanded the maintenance of
the gold standard, and pointed to the fulfilment of some of the most
important of the pledges given by the Republican party four years
earlier. The intervening period had been one of very exceptional
prosperity in the United States, foreign commerce having reached an
unprecedented volume, and agriculture and manufactures having made
greater advancement than in any previous period of the country's
history. The tendency towards the concentration of capital in great
industrial corporations had been active to an extent previously undreamt
of, with incidental consequences that had aroused much apprehension; and
the Democrats accused President McKinley and the Republican party of
having fostered the "trusts." But the campaign against McKinley and the
Republican party was not only "anti-trust" but "anti-imperialistic."
William Jennings Bryan, renominated by the Democratic party in July (and
in May by the Fusion People's party) on a free silver platform, declared
that imperialism was the "paramount issue" and made a second vigorous
campaign; and the opposition to McKinley's re-election, whether based on
opposition to his economic or to his foreign policy, was not entirely
outside of his own party. As the result of the polling in November, 292
Republican presidential electors were chosen, and 155 Democratic
electors, elected in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and the Southern
states, represented the final strength of the Bryan and Stevenson
ticket. The Republican popular vote was 7,207,923, and the Democratic
6,358,133. Since 1872 no president had been re-elected for a second
consecutive term.
In the term of Congress immediately following the presidential election
it was found possible to reduce materially the war taxes which had been
levied on the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Arrangements were
perfected for the termination of the American military occupation of
Cuba and the inauguration of a Cuban Republic as a virtual protectorate
of the United States, the American government having arranged with the
Cuban constitutional convention for the retention of certain naval
stations on the Cuban coast. In the Philippines advanced steps had been
taken in the substitution of civil government for military occupation,
and a governor-general, Judge William H. Taft, had been appointed and
sent to Manila. Prosperity at home was great, and foreign relations were
free from complications. The problems which had devolved upon McKinley's
administration had been far advanced towards final settlement. He
retained without change the cabinet of his first administration. After
an arduous and anxious term, the president had reached a period that
promised to give him comparative repose and freedom from care. He had
secured, through the co-operation of Congress, the permanent
reorganization of the army and a very considerable development of the
navy. In these circumstances. President McKinley, accompanied by the
greater part of his cabinet, set forth in the early summer on a tour to
visit the Pacific coast, where he was to witness the launching of the
battleship "Ohio" at San Francisco. The route chosen was through the
Southern states, where many stops were made, and where the president
delivered brief addresses. The heartiness of the welcome accorded him
seemed to mark the disappearance of the last vestige of sectional
feeling that had survived the Civil War, in which McKinley had
participated as a young man. After his return he spent a month in a
visit at his old home in Canton, Ohio, and at the end of this visit, by
previous arrangement, he visited the city of Buffalo, New York, in order
to attend the Pan-American exposition and deliver a public address. This
address (Sept. 5, 1901) was a public utterance designed by McKinley to
affect American opinion and public policy, and apparently to show that
he had modified his views upon the tariff. It declared that henceforth
the progress of the nations must be through harmony and co-operation, in
view of the fast-changing conditions of communication and trade, and it
maintained that the time had come for wide-reaching modifications in the
tariff policy of the United States, the method preferred by McKinley
being that of commercial reciprocity arrangements with various nations.
On the following day, the 6th of September 1901, a great reception was
held for President McKinley in one of the public buildings of the
exposition, all sorts and conditions of men being welcome. Advantage of
this opportunity was taken by a young man of Polish parentage, by name
Leon Czolgosz, to shoot at the president with a revolver at close range.
One of the two bullets fired penetrated the abdomen. After the world had
been assured that the patient was doing well and would recover, he
collapsed and died on the 14th. The assassin, who, it was for a time
supposed, had been inflamed by the editorials and cartoons of the
demagogic opposition press, but who professed to hold the views of that
branch of anarchists who believe in the assassination of rulers and
persons exercising political authority, was promptly seized, and was
convicted and executed in October 1901. McKinley's conduct and
utterances in his last days revealed a loftiness of personal character
that everywhere elicited admiration and praise. Immediately after his
death Vice-President Roosevelt took the oath of office, announcing that
it would be his purpose to continue McKinley's policy, while also
retaining the cabinet and the principal officers of the government.
McKinley's funeral took place at Canton, Ohio, on the 19th of September,
the occasion being remarkable for the public manifestations of mourning,
not only in the United States, but in Great Britain and other countries;
in Canton a memorial tomb has been erected.
Though he had not the personal magnetism of James G. Blaine, whom he
succeeded as a leader of the Republican party and whose views of
reciprocity he formally adopted in his last public address, McKinley had
great personal suavity and dignity, and was thoroughly well liked by his
party colleagues. As a politician he was always more the people's
representative than their leader, and that he "kept his ear to the
ground" was the source of much of his power and at the same time was his
greatest weakness: his address at Buffalo the day before his
assassination seems to voice his appreciation of the change in popular
sentiment regarding the tariff laws of the United States and is the more
remarkable as coming from the foremost champion for years of a form of
tariff legislation devised to stifle international competition. His
apparently inconsistent record on the coinage question becomes
consistent if considered in the same way, as the expression of the
gradually changing views of his constituency. And it may not be fanciful
to suggest that the obvious growth of McKinley in breadth and power
during his term as president was due to his being the representative of
a larger constituency, less local and less narrow-minded. He was an able
but far from brilliant campaign speaker. His greatest administrative
gift was a fine intuition in choosing men to serve him. McKinley's
private life was irreproachable; and very fine was his devotion to his
wife, Ida Saxton (d. 1907), whom he had married in Canton in 1871, who
was throughout his political career a confirmed invalid. He was from his
early manhood a prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
His _Speeches and Addresses_ were printed in two volumes (New York,
1893 and 1901).
McKINNEY, a city and the county-seat of Collin county, Texas, U.S.A.,
about 30 m. N. by E. of Dallas. Pop. (1890), 2489; (1900), 4342 (917
negroes); (1910) 4714. It is served by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and
the Houston & Texas Central railways, and by the Dallas & Sherman
inter-urban (electric) line, the central power plant of which is
immediately north of the city. McKinney is in a fine farming region;
there are also manufactures. The municipal water supply is obtained from
artesian wells. The first settlement in Collin county was made about 10
m. north of what is now McKinney in 1841. McKinney was named, as was the
county, in honour of Collin McKinney, a pioneer in the region and a
signer of the Declaration of the Independence of Texas. It was settled
in 1844, was laid out and became the county-seat in 1846, and was first
chartered as a city in 1874.
MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES (1765-1832), Scottish publicist, was born at
Aldourie, 7 m. from Inverness, on the 24th of October 1765. He came of
old Highland families on both sides. He went in 1780 to college at
Aberdeen, where he made a friend of Robert Hall, afterwards the famous
preacher. In 1784 he proceeded for the study of medicine to Edinburgh,
where he participated to the full in the intellectual ferment, but did
not quite neglect his medical studies, and took his degree in 1787.
In 1788 Mackintosh removed to London, then agitated by the trial of
Warren Hastings and the king's first lapse into insanity. He was much
more interested in these and other political events than in his
professional prospects; and his attention was specially directed to the
events and tendencies which caused or preceded the Revolution in France.
In 1789 he married his first wife, Catherine Stuart, whose brother
Daniel afterwards became editor of the _Morning Post_. His wife's
prudence was a corrective to his own unpractical temperament, and his
efforts in journalism became fairly profitable. Mackintosh was soon
absorbed in the question of the time; and in April 1791, after long
meditation, he published his _Vindiciae Gallicae_, a reply to Burke's
_Reflections on the French Revolution_. It was the only worthy answer to
Burke that appeared. It placed the author in the front rank of European
publicists, and won him the friendship of some of the most distinguished
men of the time, including Burke himself. The success of the _Vindiciae_
finally decided him to give up the medical for the legal profession. He
was called to the bar in 1795, and gained a considerable reputation
there as well as a tolerable practice. In 1797 his wife died, and next
year he married Catherine Allen, sister-in-law of Josiah and John
Wedgwood, through whom he introduced Coleridge to the _Morning Post_. As
a lawyer his greatest public efforts were his lectures (1799) at
Lincoln's Inn on the law of nature and nations, of which the
introductory discourse was published, and his eloquent defence (1803) of
Jean Gabriel Peltier, a French refugee, tried at the instance of the
French government for a libel against the first consul. In 1803 he was
knighted, and received the post of recorder at Bombay. The spoilt child
of London society was not at home in India, and he was glad to return to
England, where he arrived in 1812.
He courteously declined the offer of Perceval to resume political life
under the auspices of the dominant Tory party, though tempting prospects
of office in connexion with India were opened up. He entered parliament
in the Whig interest as member for Nairn. He sat for that county, and
afterwards for Knaresborough, till his death. In London society, and in
Paris during his occasional visits, he was a recognized favourite for
his genial wisdom and his great conversational power. On Mme de Stael's
visit to London he was the only Englishman capable of representing his
country in talk with her. His parliamentary career was marked by the
same wide and candid liberalism as his private life. He opposed the
reactionary measures of the Tory government, supported and afterwards
succeeded Romilly in his efforts for reforming the criminal code, and
took a leading part both in Catholic emancipation and in the Reform
Bill. But he was too little of a partisan, too widely sympathetic and
candid, as well as too elaborate, to be a telling speaker in parliament,
and was consequently surpassed by more practical men whose powers were
incomparably inferior. From 1818 to 1824 he was professor of law and
general politics in the East India Company's College at Haileybury.
In the midst of the attractions of London society and of his
parliamentary avocations Mackintosh felt that the real work of his life
was being neglected. His great ambition was to write a history of
England. His studies both in English and foreign speculation led him to
cherish the design also of making some worthy contribution to
philosophy. It was not till 1828 that he set about the first task of his
literary ambition. This was the _Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical
Philosophy_, prefixed to the seventh edition of the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_. The dissertation, written mostly in ill-health and in
snatches of time taken from his parliamentary engagements, was published
in 1831. It was severely attacked in 1835 by James Mill in his _Fragment
on Mackintosh_. About the same time he wrote for the _Cabinet
Cyclopaedia_ a "History of England from the Earliest Times to the Final
Establishment of the Reformation." His more elaborate _History of the
Revolution_, for which he had made great researches and collections, was
not published till after his death. Already a privy councillor,
Mackintosh was appointed commissioner for the affairs of India under the
Whig administration of 1830. He died on the 30th of May 1832.
Mackintosh was undoubtedly one of the most cultured and catholic-minded
men of his time. His studies and sympathies embraced almost every human
interest, except pure science. But the width of his intellectual
sympathies, joined to a constitutional indecision and _vis inertiae_,
prevented him from doing more enduring work. _Vindiciae Gallicae_ was
the verdict of a philosophic Liberal on the development of the French
Revolution up to the spring of 1791, and though the excesses of the
revolutionists compelled him a few years after to express his entire
agreement with the opinions of Burke, its defence of the "rights of man"
is a valuable statement of the cultured Whig's point of view at the
time. The _History of the Revolution in England_, breaking off at the
point where William of Orange is preparing to intervene in the affairs
of England, is chiefly interesting because of Macaulay's admiring essay
on it and its author.
A _Life_, by his son R. J. Mackintosh, was published in 1836.
MACKLIN, CHARLES (c. 1699-1797), Irish actor and playwright, whose
real name was McLaughlin, was born in Ireland, and had an adventurous
youth before coming to Bristol, where he made his first appearance on
the stage as Richmond in _Richard III_. He was at Lincoln's Inn Fields
about 1725, and by 1733 was at Drury Lane, where the quarrel between the
manager and the principal actors resulted in his getting better parts.
When the trouble was over and these were taken from him, he went to the
Haymarket, but he returned in 1734 to Drury Lane and acted there almost
continuously until 1748. Then for two seasons he and his wife (d. _c._
1758), an excellent actress, were in Dublin under Sheridan, then back in
London at Covent Garden. He played a great number of characters,
principally in comedy, although Shylock was his greatest part, and Iago
and the Ghost in _Hamlet_ were in his repertory. At the end of 1753
Macklin bade farewell to the stage to open a tavern, near the theatre,
where he personally supervised the serving of dinner. He also delivered
an evening lecture, followed by a debate, which was soon a hopeless
subject of ridicule. The tavern failed, and Macklin returned to the
stage, and played for a number of years in London and Dublin. His quick
temper got him into constant trouble. In a foolish quarrel over a wig in
1735 he killed a fellow actor in the green-room at Drury Lane, and he
was constantly at law over his various contracts and quarrels. The
bitterest of these arose on account of his appearing as Macbeth at
Covent Garden in 1772. The part was usually played there by William
Smith, and the public would not brook a change. A few nights later the
audience refused to hear Macklin as Shylock, and shouted their wish, in
response to the manager's question, to have him discharged. This was
done in order to quell the riot. His lawsuit, well conducted by himself,
against the leaders of the disturbance resulted in an award of £600 and
costs, but Macklin magnanimously elected instead that the defendants
should take £100 in tickets at three benefits--for himself, his daughter
and the management. He returned to Covent Garden, but his appearances
thereafter were less frequent, ending in 1789, when as Shylock, at his
benefit, he was only able to begin the play, apologize for his wandering
memory, and retire. He lived until the 11th of July 1797, and his last
years were provided for by a subscription edition of two of his best
plays, _The Man of the World_ and _Love in a Maze_. Macklin's daughter,
Mary Macklin (_c._ 1734-1781), was a well-known actress in her day.
See Edward A. Parry, _Charles Macklin_ (1891).
MACK VON LEIBERICH, KARL, FREIHERR (1752-1828), Austrian soldier, was
born at Nenslingen, in Bavaria, on the 25th of August 1752. In 1770 he
joined an Austrian cavalry regiment, in which his uncle, Leiberich, was a
squadron commander, becoming an officer seven years later. During the
brief war of the Bavarian Succession he was selected for service on the
staff of Count Kinsky, under whom, and subsequently under the
commander-in-chief Field Marshal Count Lacy, he did excellent work. He
was promoted first lieutenant in 1778, and captain on the
quartermaster-general's staff in 1783. Count Lacy, then the foremost
soldier of the Austrian army, had the highest opinion of his young
assistant. In 1785 Mack married Katherine Gabrieul, and was ennobled
under the name of Mack von Leiberich. In the Turkish war he was employed
on the headquarter staff, becoming in 1788 major and personal
aide-de-camp to the emperor, and in 1789 lieutenant-colonel. He
distinguished himself greatly in the storming of Belgrade. Shortly after
this, disagreements between Mack and Loudon, now commander-in-chief, led
to the former's demanding a court-martial and leaving the front. He was,
however, given a colonelcy (1789) and the order of Maria Theresa, and in
1790 Loudon and Mack, having become reconciled, were again on the field
together. During these campaigns Mack received a severe injury to his
head, from which he never fully recovered. In 1793 he was made
quartermaster-general (chief of staff) to Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg,
commanding in the Netherlands; and he enhanced his reputation by the
ensuing campaign. The young Archduke Charles, who won his own first
laurels in the action of the 1st of March 1793, wrote after the battle,
"Above all we have to thank Colonel Mack for these successes." Mack
distinguished himself again on the field of Neerwinden; and had a leading
part in the negotiations between Coburg and Dumouriez. He continued to
serve as quartermaster-general, and was now made titular chief
(_Inhaber_) of a cuirassier regiment. He received a wound at Famars, but
in 1794 was once more engaged, having at last been made a major-general.
But the failure of the allies, due though it was to political and
military factors and ideas, over which Mack had no control, was ascribed
to him, as their successes of March-April 1793 had been, and he fell into
disfavour in consequence. In 1797 he was promoted lieutenant field
marshal, and in the following year he accepted, at the personal request
of the emperor, the command of the Neapolitan army. But with the
unpromising material of his new command he could do nothing against the
French revolutionary troops, and before long, being in actual danger of
being murdered by his men, he took refuge in the French camp. He was
promised a free pass to his own country, but Napoleon ordered that he
should be sent to France as a prisoner of war. Two years later he escaped
from Paris in disguise. The allegation that he broke his parole is false.
He was not employed for some years, but in 1804, when the war party in
the Austrian court needed a general to oppose the peace policy of the
Archduke Charles, Mack was made quartermaster-general of the army, with
instructions to prepare for a war with France. He did all that was
possible within the available time to reform the army, and on the opening
of the war of 1805 he was made quartermaster-general to the titular
commander-in-chief in Germany, the Archduke Ferdinand. He was the real
responsible commander of the army which opposed Napoleon in Bavaria, but
his position was ill-defined and his authority treated with slight
respect by the other general officers. For the events of the Ulm campaign
and an estimate of Mack's responsibility for the disaster, see NAPOLEONIC
CAMPAIGNS. After Austerlitz, Mack was tried by a court-martial, sitting
from February 1806 to June 1807, and sentenced to be deprived of his
rank, his regiment, and the order of Maria Theresa, and to be imprisoned
for two years. He was released in 1808, and in 1819, when the ultimate
victory of the allies had obliterated the memory of earlier disasters, he
was, at the request of Prince Schwarzenberg, reinstated in the army as
lieutenant field marshal and a member of the order of Maria Theresa. He
died on the 22nd of October 1828 at S. Pölten.
See Schweigerd, _Oesterreichs Helden_ (Vienna, 1854); Würzbach,
_Biogr. Lexikon d. Kaiserthums Oesterr._ (Vienna, 1867); Ritter von
Rittersberg, _Biogr. d. ausgezeichneten Feldherren d. oest. Armee_
(Prague, 1828); Raumer's _Hist. Taschenbuch_ (1873) contains Mack's
vindication. A short critical memoir will be found in _Streffleur_ for
January 1907.
McLANE, LOUIS (1786-1857), American political leader, was born in
Smyrna, Delaware, on the 28th of May 1786, son of Allan McLane
(1746-1829), a well-known Revolutionary soldier. He was admitted to the
bar in 1807. He entered politics as a Democrat, and served in the
Federal House of Representatives in 1817-1827 and in the Senate in
1827-1829. He was minister to England in 1829-1831, and secretary of the
treasury in Jackson's cabinet from 1831 (when in his annual report he
argued for the United States Bank) until May 1833, when he was
transferred to the state department. He retired from the cabinet in June
1834. He was president of the Baltimore & Ohio railway in 1837-1847,
minister to England in 1845-1846, and delegate to the Maryland
constitutional convention of 1850-1851. He died in Baltimore, Maryland,
on the 7th of October 1857.
His son, ROBERT MILLIGAN MCLANE (1815-1898), graduated at West Point in
1837, resigned from the army in 1843, and practised law in Baltimore. He
was a Democratic representative in Congress in 1847-1851 and again in
1879-1883, governor of Maryland in 1884-1885, U.S. commissioner to China
in 1853-1854, and minister to Mexico in 1859-1860 and to France in
1885-1889.
See R. M. McLane's _Reminiscences_, 1827-1897 (privately printed,
1897).
MACLAREN, CHARLES (1782-1866), Scottish editor, was born at Ormiston,
Haddingtonshire, on the 7th of October 1782, the son of a farmer and
cattle-dealer. He was almost entirely self-educated, and when a young
man became a clerk in Edinburgh. In 1817, with others, he established
the _Scotsman_ newspaper in Edinburgh and at first acted as its editor.
Offered a post as clerk in the custom house, he resigned his editorial
position, resuming it in 1820, and resigning it again in 1845. In 1820
Maclaren was made editor of the sixth edition of the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_. From 1864-1866 he was president of the Geological Society
of Edinburgh, in which city he died on the 10th of September 1866.
MACLAREN, IAN, the pseudonym of JOHN WATSON (1850-1907), Scottish author
and divine. The son of John Watson, a civil servant, he was born at
Manningtree, Essex, on the 3rd of November 1850, and was educated at
Stirling and at Edinburgh University, afterwards studying theology at
New College, Edinburgh, and at Tübingen. In 1874 he entered the ministry
of the Free Church of Scotland and became assistant minister of Barclay
Church, Edinburgh. Subsequently he was minister at Logiealmond in
Perthshire and at Glasgow, and in 1880 he became minister of Sefton Park
Presbyterian church, Liverpool, from which he retired in 1905. In 1896
he was Lyman Beecher lecturer at Yale University, and in 1900 he was
moderator of the synod of the English Presbyterian church. While
travelling in America he died at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, on the 6th of May
1907. Ian Maclaren's first sketches of rural Scottish life, _Beside the
Bonnie Briar Bush_ (1894), achieved extraordinary popularity and were
followed by other successful books, _The Days of Auld Lang Syne_ (1895),
_Kate Carnegie and those Ministers_ (1896) and _Afterwards and other
Stories_ (1898). Under his own name Watson published several volumes of
sermons, among them being _The Upper Room_ (1895); _The Mind of the
Master_ (1896) and _The Potter's Wheel_ (1897).
See Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, _Ian Maclaren_ (1908).
MACLAURIN, COLIN (1698-1746), Scottish mathematician, was the son of a
clergyman, and born at Kilmodan, Argyllshire. In 1709 he entered the
university of Glasgow, where he exhibited a decided genius for
mathematics, more especially for geometry; it is said that before the
end of his sixteenth year he had discovered many of the theorems
afterwards published in his _Geometria organica_. In 1717 he was elected
professor of mathematics in Marischal College, Aberdeen, as the result
of a competitive examination. Two years later he was admitted F.R.S. and
made the acquaintance of Sir Isaac Newton. In 1719 he published his
_Geometria organica, sive descriptio linearum curvarum universalis_. In
it Maclaurin developed several theorems due to Newton, and introduced
the method of generating conics which bears his name, and showed that
many curves of the third and fourth degrees can be described by the
intersection of two movable angles. In 1721 he wrote a supplement to the
_Geometria organica_, which he afterwards published, with extensions, in
the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1735. This paper is principally
based on the following general theorem, which is a remarkable extension
of Pascal's hexagram: "If a polygon move so that each of its sides
passes through a fixed point, and if all its summits except one describe
curves of the degrees _m_, _n_, _p_, &c., respectively, then the free
summit moves on a curve of the degree _2mnp_... which reduces to _mnp_
... when the fixed points all lie on a right line." In 1722 Maclaurin
travelled as tutor and companion to the eldest son of Lord Polwarth, and
after a short stay in Paris resided for some time in Lorraine, where he
wrote an essay on the percussion of bodies, which obtained the prize of
the French Academy of Sciences for the year 1724. The following year he
was elected professor of mathematics in the university of Edinburgh on
the urgent recommendation of Newton. After the death of Newton, in 1728,
his nephew, John Conduitt, applied to Maclaurin for his assistance in
publishing an account of Newton's life and discoveries. This Maclaurin
gladly undertook, but the death of Conduitt put a stop to the project.
In 1740 Maclaurin divided with Leonhard Euler and Daniel Bernoulli the
prize offered by the French Academy of Sciences for an essay on tides.
His _Treatise on Fluxions_ was published at Edinburgh in 1742, in two
volumes. In the preface he states that the work was undertaken in
consequence of the attack on the method of fluxions made by George
Berkeley in 1734. Maclaurin's object was to found the doctrine of
fluxions on geometrical demonstration, and thus to answer all objections
to its method as being founded on false reasoning and full of mystery.
The most valuable part of the work is that devoted to physical
applications, in which he embodied his essay on the tides. In this he
showed that a homogeneous fluid mass revolving uniformly round an axis
under the action of gravity ought to assume the form of an ellipsoid of
revolution. The importance of this investigation in connexion with the
theory of the tides, the figure of the earth, and other kindred
questions, has always caused it to be regarded as one of the great
problems of mathematical physics. Maclaurin was the first to introduce
into mechanics, in this discussion, the important conception of
_surfaces of level_; namely, surfaces at each of whose points the total
force acts in the normal direction. He also gave in his _Fluxions_, for
the first time, the correct theory for distinguishing between maxima and
minima in general, and pointed out the importance of the distinction in
the theory of the multiple points of curves. In 1745, when the rebels
were marching on Edinburgh, Maclaurin took a most prominent part in
preparing trenches and barricades for its defence. The anxiety, fatigue
and cold to which he was thus exposed, affecting a constitution
naturally weak, laid the foundation of the disease to which he
afterwards succumbed. As soon as the rebel army got possession of
Edinburgh Maclaurin fled to England, to avoid making submission to the
Pretender. He accepted the invitation of T. Herring, then archbishop of
York, with whom he remained until it was safe to return to Edinburgh. He
died of dropsy on the 14th of June 1746, at Edinburgh. Maclaurin was
married in 1733 to Anne, daughter of Walter Stewart, solicitor-general
for Scotland. His eldest son John, born in 1734, was distinguished as an
advocate, and appointed one of the judges of the Scottish court of
session, with the title of Lord Dreghorn. He inherited an attachment to
scientific discovery, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh, in 1782.
After Maclaurin's death his account of Newton's philosophical
discoveries was published by Patrick Murdoch, and also his algebra in
1748. As an appendix to the latter appeared his _De linearum
geometricarum proprietatibus generalibus tractatus_, a treatise of
remarkable elegance. Of the more immediate successors of Newton in
Great Britain Maclaurin is probably the only one who can be placed in
competition with the great mathematicians of the continent of Europe
at the time. (B. W.)
M'LENNAN, JOHN FERGUSON (1827-1881), Scottish ethnologist, was born at
Inverness on the 14th of October 1827. He studied at King's college,
Aberdeen, where he graduated with distinction in 1849, thence proceeding
to Cambridge, where he remained till 1855 without taking a degree. He
was called to the Scottish bar in 1857, and in 1871 was appointed
parliamentary draughtsman for Scotland. In 1865 he published _Primitive
Marriage_, in which, arguing from the prevalence of the symbolical form
of capture in the marriage ceremonies of primitive races, he developed
an intelligible picture of the growth of the marriage relation and of
systems of kinship (see FAMILY) according to natural laws. In 1866 he
wrote in the _Fortnightly Review_ (April and May) an essay on "Kinship
in Ancient Greece," in which he proposed to test by early Greek facts
the theory of the history of kinship set forth in _Primitive Marriage_;
and three years later appeared a series of essays on "Totemism" in the
same periodical for 1869-1870 (the germ of which had been contained in
the paper just named), which mark the second great step in his
systematic study of early society. A reprint of _Primitive Marriage_,
with "Kinship in Ancient Greece" and some other essays not previously
published, appeared in 1876, under the title of _Studies in Ancient
History_. The new essays in this volume were mostly critical, but one of
them, in which perhaps his guessing talent is seen at its best, "The
Divisions of the Irish Family," is an elaborate discussion of a problem
which has long puzzled both Celtic scholars and jurists; and in another,
"On the Classificatory System of Relationship," he propounded a new
explanation of a series of facts which, he thought, might throw light
upon the early history of society, at the same time putting to the test
of those facts the theories he had set forth in _Primitive Marriage_.
Papers on "The Levirate and Polyandry," following up the line of his
previous investigations (_Fortnightly Review_, 1877), were the last work
he was able to publish. He died of consumption on the 14th of June 1881
at Hayes Common, Kent.
Besides the works already cited, M'Lennan wrote a _Life of Thomas
Drummond_ (1867). The vast materials which he had accumulated on
kinship were edited by his widow and A. Platt, under the title
_Studies in Ancient History: Second Series_ (1896).
MACLEOD, HENRY DUNNING (1821-1902), Scottish economist, was born in
Edinburgh, and educated at Eton, Edinburgh University, and Trinity
College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1843. He travelled in Europe,
and in 1849 was called to the English bar. He was employed in Scotland
on the work of poor-law reform, and devoted himself to the study of
economics. In 1856 he published his _Theory and Practice of Banking_, in
1858 _Elements of Political Economy_, and in 1859 _A Dictionary of
Political Economy_. In 1873 appeared his _Principles of Economist
Philosophy_, and other books on economics and banking were published
later. Between 1868 and 1870 he was employed by the government in
digesting and codifying the law of bills of exchange. He died on the
16th of July 1902. Macleod's principal contribution to the study of
economics consists in his work on the theory of credit, to which he was
the first to give due prominence.
For a judicious discussion of the value of Macleod's writings, see an
article on "The Revolt against Orthodox Economics" in the _Quarterly
Review_ for October 1901 (No. 388).
MACLEOD, NORMAN (1812-1872), Scottish divine, son of Rev. Norman Macleod
(1783-1862), and grandson of Rev. Norman Macleod, minister of Morven,
Argyllshire, was born at Campbeltown on the 3rd of June 1812. In 1827 he
became a student at Glasgow University, and in 1831 went to Edinburgh to
study divinity under Dr Thomas Chalmers. On the 18th of March 1838 he
became parish minister at Loudoun, Ayrshire. At this time the troubles
in the Scottish Church were already gathering to a head (see FREE CHURCH
OF SCOTLAND). Macleod, although he had no love for lay patronage, and
wished the Church to be free to do its proper work, clung firmly to the
idea of a national Established Church, and therefore remained in the
Establishment when the disruption took place. He was one of those who
took a middle course in the non-intrusion controversy, holding that the
fitness of those who were presented to parishes should be judged by the
presbyteries--the principle of Lord Aberdeen's Bill. On the secession of
1843 he was offered many different parishes, and having finally settled
at Dalkeith, devoted himself to parish work and to questions affecting
the Church as a whole. He was largely instrumental in the work of
strengthening the Church. In 1847 he became one of the founders of the
Evangelical Alliance, and from 1849 edited the _Christian Instructor_
(Edinburgh). In 1851 he was called to the Barony church, Glasgow, in
which city the rest of his days were passed. There the more liberal
theology rapidly made way among a people who judged it more by its
fruits than its arguments, and Macleod won many adherents by his
practical schemes for the social improvement of the people. He
instituted temperance refreshment rooms, a congregational penny savings
bank, and held services specially for the poor. In 1860 Macleod was
appointed editor of the new monthly magazine _Good Words_. Under his
control the magazine, which was mainly of a religious character, became
widely popular. His own literary work, nearly all of which originally
appeared in its pages--sermons, stories, travels, poems--was only a
by-product of a busy life. By far his best work was the spontaneous and
delightful _Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_ (1867). While _Good
Words_ made his name known, and helped the cause he had so deeply at
heart, his relations with the queen and the royal family strengthened
yet further his position in the country. Never since Principal Carstairs
had any Scottish clergyman been on such terms with his sovereign. In
1865 he risked an encounter with Scottish Sabbatarian ideas. The
presbytery of Glasgow issued a pastoral letter on the subject of Sunday
trains and other infringements of the Sabbath. Macleod protested
against the grounds on which its strictures were based. For a time,
owing partly to a misleading report of his statement, he became "the man
in all Scotland most profoundly distrusted." But four years later the
Church accorded him the highest honour in her power by choosing him as
moderator of her general assembly. In 1867, along with Dr Archibald
Watson, he was sent to India, to inquire into the state of the missions.
He undertook the journey in spite of failing health, and seems never to
have recovered from its effects. He returned resolved to devote the rest
of his days to rousing the Church to her duty in the sphere of foreign
missions, but his health was now broken, and his old energy flagged. He
died on the 16th of June 1872, and was buried at Campsie. He was one of
the greatest of Scottish religious leaders, a man of wide sympathy and
high ideals. His Glasgow church was named after him the "Macleod Parish
Church," and the "Macleod Missionary Institute" was erected by the
Barony church in Glasgow. Queen Victoria gave two memorial windows to
Crathie church as a testimony of her admiration for his work.
See _Memoir of Norman Macleod_, by his brother, Donald Macleod (1876).
MACLISE, DANIEL (1806-1870), Irish painter, was born at Cork, the son of
a Highland soldier. His education was of the plainest kind, but he was
eager for culture, fond of reading, and anxious to become an artist. His
father, however, placed him, in 1820, in Newenham's Bank, where he
remained for two years, and then left to study in the Cork school of
art. In 1825 it happened that Sir Walter Scott was travelling in
Ireland, and young Maclise, having seen him in a bookseller's shop, made
a surreptitious sketch of the great man, which he afterwards
lithographed. It was exceedingly popular, and the artist became
celebrated enough to receive many commissions for portraits, which he
executed, in pencil, with very careful treatment of detail and
accessory. Various influential friends perceived the genius and promise
of the lad, and were anxious to furnish him with the means of studying
in the metropolis; but with rare independence he refused all aid, and by
careful economy saved a sufficient sum to enable him to leave for
London. There he made a lucky hit by a sketch of the younger Kean,
which, like his portrait of Scott, was lithographed and published. He
entered the Academy schools in 1828, and carried off the highest prizes
open to the students. In 1829 he exhibited for the first time in the
Royal Academy. Gradually he began to confine himself more exclusively to
subject and historical pictures, varied occasionally by portraits of
Campbell, Miss Landon, Dickens, and other of his literary friends. In
1833 he exhibited two pictures which greatly increased his reputation,
and in 1835 the "Chivalric Vow of the Ladies and the Peacock" procured
his election as associate of the Academy, of which he became full member
in 1840. The years that followed were occupied with a long series of
figure pictures, deriving their subjects from history and tradition and
from the works of Shakespeare, Goldsmith and Le Sage. He also designed
illustrations for several of Dickens's Christmas books and other works.
Between the years 1830 and 1836 he contributed to _Fraser's Magazine_,
under the pseudonym of Alfred Croquis, a remarkable series of portraits
of the literary and other celebrities of the time--character studies,
etched or lithographed in outline, and touched more or less with the
emphasis of the caricaturist, which were afterwards published as the
_Maclise Portrait Gallery_ (1871). In 1858 Maclise commenced one of the
two great monumental works of his life, the "Meeting of Wellington and
Blücher," on the walls of Westminster Palace. It was begun in fresco, a
process which proved unmanageable. The artist wished to resign the task;
but, encouraged by Prince Albert, he studied in Berlin the new method of
"water-glass" painting, and carried out the subject and its companion,
the "Death of Nelson," in that medium, completing the latter painting in
1864. The intense application which he gave to these great historic
works, and various circumstances connected with the commission, had a
serious effect on the artist's health. He began to shun the company in
which he formerly delighted; his old buoyancy of spirits was gone; and
when, in 1865, the presidentship of the Academy was offered to him he
declined the honour. He died of acute pneumonia on the 25th of April
1870. His works are distinguished by powerful intellectual and
imaginative qualities, but most of them are marred by harsh and dull
colouring, by metallic hardness of surface and texture, and by frequent
touches of the theatrical in the action and attitudes of the figures.
His fame rests most securely on his two greatest works at Westminster.
A memoir of Maclise, by his friend W. J. O'Driscoll, was published in
1871.
MACLURE, WILLIAM (1763-1840), American geologist, was born at Ayr in
Scotland in 1763. After a brief visit to New York in 1782 he began
active life as a partner in a London firm of American merchants. In 1796
business affairs took him to Virginia, U.S.A., which he thereafter made
his home. In 1803 he visited France as one of the commissioners
appointed to settle the claims of American citizens on the French
government; and during the few years then spent in Europe he applied
himself with enthusiasm to the study of geology. On his return home in
1807 he commenced the self-imposed task of making a geological survey of
the United States. Almost every state in the Union was traversed and
mapped by him, the Alleghany Mountains being crossed and recrossed some
fifty times. The results of his unaided labours were submitted to the
American Philosophical Society in a memoir entitled _Observations on the
Geology of the United States explanatory of a Geological Map_, and
published in the Society's _Transactions_ (vol. iv. 1809, p. 91)
together with the first geological map of that country. This antedates
William Smith's geological map of England by six years. In 1817 Maclure
brought before the same society a revised edition of his map, and his
great geological memoir was issued separately, with some additional
matter, under the title _Observations on the Geology of the United
States of America_. Subsequent survey has corroborated the general
accuracy of Maclure's observations. In 1819 he visited Spain, and
attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish an agricultural college near the
city of Alicante. Returning to America in 1824, he settled for some
years at New Harmony, Indiana, and sought to develop his scheme of the
agricultural college. Failing health ultimately constrained him to
relinquish the attempt, and to seek (in 1827) a more congenial climate
in Mexico. There, at San Angel, he died on the 23rd of March 1840.
See S. G. Morton, "Memoir of William Maclure," _Amer. Journ. Sci._,
vol. xlvii. (1844), p. 1.
MacMAHON, MARIE EDMÉ PATRICE MAURICE DE, duke of Magenta (1808-1893),
French marshal and president of the French republic, was born on the
13th of July 1808 at the château of Sully, near Autun. He was descended
from an Irish family which went into exile with James II. Educated at
the military school of St Cyr, in 1827 he entered the army, and soon saw
active service in the first French campaign in Algeria, where his
ability and bravery became conspicuous. Being recalled to France, he
gained renewed distinction in the expedition to Antwerp in 1832. He
became captain in 1833, and in that year returned to Algeria. He led
daring cavalry raids across plains infested with Bedouin, and especially
distinguished himself at the siege of Constantine in 1837. From then
until 1855 he was almost constantly in Algeria, and rose to the rank of
general of division. During the Crimean War MacMahon was given the
command of a division, and in September 1855 he successfully conducted
the assault upon the Malakoff works, which led to the fall of
Sebastopol. After his return to France honours were showered upon him,
and he was made a senator. Desiring a more active life, however, and
declining the highest command in France, he was once more sent out, at
his own request, to Algeria, where he completely defeated the Kabyles.
After his return to France he voted as a senator against the
unconstitutional law for general safety, which was brought forward in
consequence of Orsini's abortive attempt on the emperor's life. MacMahon
greatly distinguished himself in the Italian campaign of 1859. Partly
by good luck and partly by his boldness and sagacity in pushing forward
without orders at a critical moment at the battle of Magenta, he enabled
the French to secure the victory. For his brilliant services MacMahon
received his marshal's baton and was created duke of Magenta. In 1861 he
represented France at the coronation of William I. of Prussia, and in
1864 he was nominated governor-general of Algeria. MacMahon's action in
this capacity formed the least successful episode of his career.
Although he did institute some reforms in the colonies, complaints were
so numerous that twice in the early part of 1870 he sent in his
resignation to the emperor. When the ill-fated Ollivier cabinet was
formed the emperor abandoned his Algerian schemes and MacMahon was
recalled.
War being declared between France and Prussia in July 1870, MacMahon was
appointed to the command of the Alsace army detachment (see
FRANCO-GERMAN WAR). On the 6th of August MacMahon fought the battle of
Wörth (q.v.). His courage was always conspicuous on the field, but the
two-to-one numerical superiority of the Germans triumphed. MacMahon was
compelled to fall back upon Saverne, and thence to Toul. Though he
suffered further losses in the course of his retreat, his movements were
so ably conducted that the emperor confided to him the supreme command
of the new levies which he was mustering at Châlons, and he was directed
to effect a junction with Bazaine. This operation he undertook against
his will. He had an army of 120,000 men, with 324 guns; but large
numbers of the troops were disorganized and demoralized. Early on the
1st of September the decisive battle of Sedan began. MacMahon was
dangerously wounded in the thigh, whereupon General Ducrot, and soon
afterwards General de Wimpffen, took command. MacMahon shared the
captivity of his comrades, and resided at Wiesbaden until the conclusion
of peace.
In March 1871 MacMahon was appointed by Thiers commander-in-chief of the
army of Versailles; and in that capacity he suppressed the Communist
insurrection, and successfully conducted the second siege of Paris. In
the following December he was invited to become a candidate for Paris in
the elections to the National Assembly, but declined nomination. On the
resignation of Thiers as president of the Republic, on the 24th of May
1873, MacMahon was elected to the vacant office by an almost unanimous
vote, being supported by 390 members out of 392. The duc de Broglie was
empowered to form a Conservative administration, but the president also
took an early opportunity of showing that he intended to uphold the
sovereignty of the National Assembly. On the 5th of November 1873
General Changarnier presented a motion in the Assembly to confirm
MacMahon's powers for a period of ten years, and to provide for a
commission of thirty to draw up a form of constitutional law. The
president consented, but in a message to the Assembly he declared in
favour of a confirmation of his own powers for seven years, and
expressed his determination to use all his influence in the maintenance
of Conservative principles. After prolonged debates the Septennate was
adopted on the 19th of November by 378 votes to 310. There was no _coup
d'état_ in favour of "Henri V.," as had been expected, and the president
resolved to abide by "existing institutions." One of his earliest acts
was to receive the finding of the court-martial upon his old comrade in
arms, Marshal Bazaine, whose death sentence he commuted to one of twenty
years' imprisonment in a fortress. Though MacMahon's life as president
of the Republic was of the simplest possible character, his term of
office was marked by many brilliant displays, while his wife was a
leader in all works of charity and benevolence.
The president was very popular in the rural districts of France, through
which he made a successful tour shortly after the declaration of the
Septennate. But in Paris and other large cities his policy soon caused
great dissatisfaction, the Republican party especially being alienated
by press prosecutions and the attempted suppression of Republican ideas.
Matters were at a comparative deadlock in the National Assembly, until
the accession of some Orleanists to the Moderate Republican party in
1875 made it possible to pass various constitutional laws. In May 1877,
however, the constitutional crisis became once more acute. A peremptory
letter of censure from MacMahon to Jules Simon caused the latter to
resign with his colleagues. The duc de Broglie formed a ministry, but
Gambetta carried a resolution in the Chamber of Deputies in favour of
parliamentary government. The president declined to yield, and being
supported by the Senate, he dissolved the Chamber, by decree, on the
25th of June. The prosecution of Gambetta followed for a speech at
Lille, in which he had said "the marshal must, if the elections be
against him, _se soumettre ou se démettre_." In a manifesto respecting
the elections, the president referred to his successful government and
observed, "I cannot obey the injunctions of the demagogy; I can neither
become the instrument of Radicalism nor abandon the post in which the
constitution has placed me." His confidence in the result of the
elections was misplaced. Notwithstanding the great pressure put upon the
constituencies by the government, the elections in October resulted in
the return of 335 Republicans and only 198 anti-Republicans, the latter
including 30 MacMahonists, 89 Bonapartists, 41 Legitimists, and 38
Orleanists. The president endeavoured to ignore the significance of the
elections, and continued his reactionary policy. As a last resort he
called to power an extra-parliamentary cabinet under General Rochebouet,
but the Republican majority refused to vote supplies, and after a brief
interval the president was compelled to yield, and to accept a new
Republican ministry under Dufaure. The prolonged crisis terminated on
the 14th of December 1877, and no further constitutional difficulties
arose in 1878. But as the senatorial elections, held early in 1879, gave
the Republicans an effective working majority in the Upper Chamber, they
now called for the removal of the most conspicuous anti-Republicans
among the generals and officials. The president refused to supersede
them, and declined to sanction the law brought in with this object.
Perceiving further resistance to be useless, however, MacMahon resigned
the presidency on the 30th of January 1879, and Jules Grévy was elected
as his successor.
MacMahon now retired into private life. Relieved from the cares of
state, his simple and unostentatious mode of existence enabled him to
pass many years of dignified repose. He died at Paris on the 17th of
October 1893, in his eighty-sixth year. A fine, tall, soldierly man, of
a thoroughly Irish type, in private life MacMahon was universally
esteemed as generous and honourable; as a soldier he was brave and able,
without decided military genius; as a politician he was patriotic and
well-intentioned, but devoid of any real capacity for statecraft.
(G. B. S.)
McMASTER, JOHN BACH (1852- ), American historian, was born in Brooklyn,
New York, on the 29th of June 1852. He graduated from the college of the
City of New York in 1872, worked as a civil engineer in 1873-1877, was
instructor in civil engineering at Princeton University in 1877-1883,
and in 1883 became professor of American history in the university of
Pennsylvania. He is best known for his _History of the People of the
United States from the Revolution to the Civil War_ (1883 sqq.), a
valuable supplement to the more purely political writings of Schouler,
Von Holst and Henry Adams.
MACMILLAN, the name of a family of English publishers. The founders of
the firm were two Scotsmen, Daniel Macmillan (1813-1857) and his younger
brother Alexander (1818-1896). Daniel was a native of the Isle of Arran,
and Alexander was born in Irvine on the 3rd of October 1818. Daniel was
for some time assistant to the bookseller Johnson at Cambridge, but
entered the employ of Messrs Seeley in London in 1837; in 1843 he began
business in Aldersgate Street, and in the same year the two brothers
purchased the business of Newby in Cambridge. They did not confine
themselves to bookselling, but published educational works as early as
1844. In 1845 they became the proprietors of the more important business
of Stevenson, in Cambridge, the firm being styled Macmillan, Barclay &
Macmillan. In 1850 Barclay retired and the firm resumed the name of
Macmillan & Co. Daniel Macmillan died at Cambridge on the 27th of June
1857. In that year an impetus was given to the business by the
publication of Kingsley's _Two Years Ago_. A branch office was opened in
1858 in Henrietta Street, London, which led to a great extension of
trade. These premises were surrendered for larger ones in Bedford
Street, and in 1897 the buildings in St Martin's Street were opened.
Alexander Macmillan died in January 1896. By his great energy and
literary associations, and with the aid of his partners, there had been
built up in little over half a century one of the most important
publishing houses in the world. Besides the issue of many important
series of educational and scientific works, they published the works of
Kingsley, Huxley, Maurice, Tennyson, Lightfoot, Westcott, J. R. Green,
Lord Roberts, Lewis Carroll, and of many other well-known authors. In
1898 they took over the old-established publishing house of R. Bentley &
Son, and with it the works of Mrs Henry Wood, Miss Rhoda Broughton, _The
Ingoldsby Legends_, and also _Temple Bar_ and the _Argosy_. In 1893 the
firm was converted into a limited liability company, its chairman being
Frederick Macmillan (b. 1851), who was knighted in 1909. The American
firm of the Macmillan Company, of which he was also a director, is a
separate business.
See Thomas Hughes, _Memoir of Daniel Macmillan_ (1882); _A
Bibliographical Catalogue of Macmillan & Co's Publications from 1843
to 1889_ (1891), with portraits of the brothers Daniel and Alexander
after Lowes Dickinson and Hubert Herkomer; also articles in _Le Livre_
(September 1886), _Publishers' Circular_ (January 14, 1893), the
_Bookman_ (May 1901), &c.
MACMONNIES, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1863- ) American sculptor and painter,
was born at Brooklyn, New York, on the 20th of September 1863. His
mother was a niece of Benjamin West. At the age of sixteen MacMonnies
was received as an apprentice in the studio of Augustus St Gaudens, the
sculptor, where he remained for five years. In 1884 he went to Paris and
thence to Munich, where he painted for some months. Returning to Paris
next year he became the most prominent pupil of Falguière. His "Diana"
brought him a mention at the Salon of 1889. Three life-sized figures of
angels for the church of St Paul, New York, were followed by his "Nathan
Hale," in the City Hall Park, New York, and a portrait of James S. T.
Stranahan, for Brooklyn. This last brought him a "second medal" in the
Salon of 1891, the first time an American sculptor had been so honoured.
In 1893 he was chosen to design and carry out the Columbian Fountain for
the Chicago World's Fair, which placed him instantly in the front rank.
His largest work is a decoration for the Memorial Arch to Soldiers and
Sailors, in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, consisting of three enormous groups
in bronze. In Prospect Park, Brooklyn, MacMonnies has also a large
"Horse Tamer," a work of much distinction. A "Winged Victory" at the
U.S. military academy at West Point, New York, is of importance; and his
"Bacchante," an extraordinary combination of realism and imagination,
rejected by the Boston Public Library, is now at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York. He also became well known as a painter, mainly of
portraits. In 1888 he married Mary Fairchild, a figure painter of
distinction, but in 1909 they were divorced and she married Will H. Low.
MACNAGHTEN, SIR WILLIAM HAY, BART. (1793-1841), Anglo-Indian
diplomatist, was the second son of Sir Francis Macnaghten, Bart., judge
of the supreme courts of Madras and Calcutta. He was born in August
1793, and educated at Charterhouse. He went out to Madras as a cadet in
1809, but was appointed in 1816 to the Bengal Civil Service. He early
displayed a great talent for languages, and also published several
treatises on Hindu and Mahommedan law. His political career began in
1830 as secretary to Lord William Bentinck; and in 1837 he became one of
the most trusted advisers of the governor-general, Lord Auckland, with
whose policy of supporting Shah Shuja against Dost Mahommed, the
reigning amir of Kabul, Macnaghten was closely identified. As political
agent at Kabul he came into conflict with the military authorities and
subsequently with his subordinate Sir Alexander Burnes. Macnaghten
attempted to placate the Afghan chiefs with heavy subsidies, but when
the drain on the Indian exchequer became too great, and the allowances
were reduced, this policy led to an outbreak. Burnes was murdered on the
2nd of November 1841; and owing to the incapacity of the aged General
Elphinstone the British army in Kabul degenerated into a leaderless mob.
Macnaghten tried to save the situation by negotiating with the Afghan
chiefs and, independently of them, with Dost Mahommed's son, Akbar Khan,
by whom he was assassinated on the 23rd of December 1841; the disastrous
retreat from Kabul and the massacre of the British army in the Kurd
Kabul pass followed. These events threw doubt on Macnaghten's capacity
for dealing with the problems of Indian diplomacy, though his
fearlessness and integrity were unquestioned. He had been created a
baronet in 1840, and four months before his death was nominated to the
governorship of Bombay.
MacNALLY, LEONARD (1752-1820), Irish informer, was born in Dublin, the
son of a merchant. In 1776 he was called to the Irish, and in 1783 to
the English bar. He supported himself for some time in London by writing
plays and editing the _Public Ledger_. Returning to Dublin, he entered
upon a systematic course of informing against the members of the
revolutionary party, for whom his house had become the resort. He also
betrayed to the government prosecutors political clients whom he
defended eloquently in the courts. He made a fine defence for Robert
Emmet and cheered him in his last hours, although before appearing in
court he had sold, for £200, the contents of his brief to the lawyers
for the Crown. After living a professed Protestant all his life, he
received absolution on his deathbed from a Roman Catholic priest. He
died on the 13th of February 1820.
MACNEE, SIR DANIEL (1806-1882), Scottish portrait painter, was born at
Fintry in Stirlingshire. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed,
along with Horatio Macculloch and Leitch the water-colour painter, to
John Knox, a landscapist of some repute. He afterwards worked for a year
as a lithographer, was employed by the Smiths of Cumnock to paint the
ornamental lids of their planewood snuff-boxes, and, having studied in
Edinburgh at the "Trustees' Academy," supporting himself meanwhile by
designing and colouring book illustrations for Lizars the engraver, he
established himself as an artist in Glasgow, where he became a
fashionable portrait painter. He was in 1829 admitted a member of the
Royal Scottish Academy; and on the death of Sir George Harvey in 1876 he
was elected president, and received the honour of knighthood. From this
period till his death, on the 18th of January 1882, he resided in
Edinburgh, where his genial social qualities and his inimitable powers
as a teller of humorous Scottish anecdote rendered him popular.
MACNEIL, HERMON ATKINS (1866- ), American sculptor, was born at Chelsea,
Massachusetts. He was an instructor in industrial art at Cornell
University in 1886-1889, and was then a pupil of Henri M. Chapu and
Falguière in Paris. Returning to America, he aided Philip Martiny in the
preparation of sketch models for the Columbian exposition, and in 1896
he won the Rinehart scholarship, passing four years (1896-1900) in Rome.
In 1906 he became a National Academician. His first important work was
"The Moqui Runner," which was followed by "A Primitive Chant," and "The
Sun Vow," all figures of the North-American Indian. A "Fountain of
Liberty," for the St Louis exposition, and other Indian themes came
later; his "Agnese" and his "Beatrice," two fine busts of women, also
deserve mention. His principal work is the sculpture for a large
memorial arch, at Columbus, Ohio, in honour of President McKinley. In
1909 he won in competition a commission for a large soldiers' and
sailors' monument in Albany, New York. His wife, Carol Brooks MacNeil,
also a sculptor of distinction, was a pupil of F. W. MacMonnies.
McNEILE, HUGH (1795-1879), Anglican divine, younger son of Alexander
McNeile (or McNeill), was born at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, on the 15th
of July 1795. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1810. His
handsome presence, and his promise of exceptional gifts of oratory, led
a wealthy uncle, Major-General Daniel McNeill, to adopt him as his heir;
and he was destined for a parliamentary career. During a stay at
Florence, Hugh McNeile became temporarily intimate with Lord Byron and
Madame de Staël. On returning home, he determined to abandon the
prospect of political distinction for the clerical profession, and was
disinherited. In 1820 he was ordained, and after holding the curacy of
Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, for two years, was appointed to the living of
Albury, Surrey, by Henry Drummond.
Edward Irving endeavoured, not without success at first, to draw McNeile
into agreement with his doctrine and aims. Irving's increasing
extravagance, however, soon alienated McNeile. His preaching now
attracted much attention; in London he frequently was heard by large
congregations. In 1834 he accepted the incumbency of St Jude's,
Liverpool, where for the next thirty years he wielded great political as
well as ecclesiastical influence. He repudiated the notion that a
clergyman should be debarred from politics, maintaining at a public
meeting that "God when He made the minister did not unmake the citizen."
In 1835 McNeile entered upon a long contest, in which he was eventually
successful, with the Liverpool corporation, which had been captured by
the Whigs, after the passing of the Municipal Reform Act. A proposal was
carried that the elementary schools under the control of the corporation
should be secularized by the introduction of what was known as the Irish
National System. The threatened withdrawal of the Bible as the basis of
denominational religious teaching was met by a fierce agitation led by
McNeile, who so successfully enlisted public support that before the new
system could be introduced every child was provided for in new Church of
England schools established by public subscriptions. At the same time he
conducted a campaign which gradually reduced the Whig element in the
council, till in 1841 it almost entirely disappeared. To his influence
was also attributed the defeat of the Liberal parliamentary candidates
in the general election of 1837, followed by a long period of
Conservative predominance in Liverpool politics. McNeile had the Irish
Protestant's horror of Romanism, which he constantly denounced in the
pulpit and on the platform; and Macaulay, speaking in the House of
Commons on the Maynooth endowment in April 1845, singled him out for
attack as the most powerful representative of uncompromising Protestant
opinion in the country. As the Tractarian movement in the Church of
England developed, he became one of its most zealous opponents and the
most conspicuous leader of the evangelical party. In 1840 he published a
volume of _Lectures on the Church of England_, and in 1846 (the year
after Newman's secession to Rome) _The Church and the Churches_, in
which he maintained with much dialectical skill the evangelical doctrine
of the "invisible Church" in opposition to the teaching of Newman and
Pusey. Hugh McNeile was in close sympathy with the philanthropic work as
well as the religious views of the 7th earl of Shaftesbury, who more
than once tried to persuade Lord Palmerston to raise him to the
episcopal bench. But although Palmerston usually followed the advice of
Shaftesbury in the appointment of bishops, he would not consent to the
elevation to the House of Lords of so powerful a political opponent as
McNeile, whom Lord John Russell had accused of frustrating for thirty
years the education policy of the Liberal party. In 1860 he was
appointed a canon of Chester; and in 1868 Disraeli appointed him dean of
Ripon. This preferment he resigned in 1875, and he lived in retirement
at Bournemouth till his death on the 28th of January 1879. McNeile
married, in 1822, Anne, daughter of William Magee, archbishop of Dublin,
and aunt of William Connor Magee, archbishop of York, by whom he had a
large family.
Although a vehement controversialist, Hugh McNeile was a man of simple
and sincere piety of character. Sir Edward Russell, an opponent alike of
his religious and his political opinions, bears witness to the deep
spirituality of his teaching, and describes him as an absolutely unique
personality. "He made himself leader of the Liverpool people, and always
led with calm and majesty in the most excited times. His eloquence was
grave, flowing, emphatic--had a dignity in delivery, a perfection of
elocution, that only John Bright equalled in the latter half of the
19th century. Its fire was solemn force. McNeile's voice was probably
the finest organ ever heard in public oratory. His action was as
graceful as it was expressive. He ruled an audience."
See J. A. Picton, _Memorials of Liverpool_, vol. i. (1873); Sir Edward
Russell, "The Religious Life of Liverpool," in the _Sunday Magazine_
(June 1905); Charles Bullock, _Hugh McNeile and Reformation Truth_.
(R. J. M.)
MACNEILL, HECTOR (1746-1818), Scottish poet, was born near Roslin,
Midlothian, on the 22nd of October 1746, the son of an impoverished army
captain. He went to Bristol as a clerk at the age of fourteen, and soon
afterwards was despatched to the West Indies. From 1780 to 1786 he acted
as assistant secretary on board the flagships of Admiral Geary and Sir
Richard Bickerton (1727-1792). Most of his later life was spent in
Scotland, and it was in the house of a friend at Stirling that he wrote
most of his songs and his _Scotland's Skaith, or the History of Will and
Jean_ (1795), a narrative poem intended to show the deteriorating
influences of whisky and pothouse politics. A sequel, _The Waes of War_,
appeared next year. In 1800 he published _The Memoirs of Charles
Macpherson, Esq._, a novel understood to be a narrative of his own
hardships and adventures. A complete edition of the poems he wished to
own appeared in 1812. His songs "Mary of Castlecary," "Come under my
plaidy," "My boy Tammy," "O tell me how for to woo," "I lo'ed ne'er a
lassie but ane," "The plaid amang the hether," and "Jeanie's black e'e,"
are notable for their sweetness and simplicity. He died at Edinburgh on
the 15th of March 1818.
MACOMB, a city and the county-seat of McDonough county, Illinois,
U.S.A., in the W. part of the state, about 60 m. S.W. of Peoria. Pop.
(1890), 4052; (1900), 5375 (232 foreign-born); (1910), 5774. Macomb is
served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Macomb & Western
Illinois railways. The city is the seat of the Western Illinois state
normal school (opened in 1902), and has a Carnegie library and a city
park. Clay is found in the vicinity, and there are manufactures of
pottery, bricks, &c. The city was founded in 1830 as the county-seat of
McDonough county, and was called Washington by the settlers, but the
charter of incorporation, also granted in 1830, gave it the present name
in honour of General Alexander Macomb. Macomb was first chartered as a
city in 1856.
MACOMER, a village of Sardinia in the province of Cagliari, from which
it is 95 m. N.N.W. by rail, and the same distance S.W. of Golfo degli
Aranci. Pop. (1901), 3488. It is situated 1890 ft. above sea-level on
the southern ascent to the central plateau (the Campeda) of this part of
Sardinia; and it is the junction of narrow-gauge lines branching from
the main line eastwards to Nuoro and westwards to Bosa. The old parish
church of S. Pantaleone has three Roman mile-stones in front of it,
belonging to the Roman high-road from Carales to Turris Libisonis. The
modern high-road follows the ancient. The district, especially the
Campeda, is well fitted for grazing and horse and cattle breeding, which
is carried on to a considerable extent. It is perhaps richer in
_nuraghi_ than any other part of Sardinia.
MACON, NATHANIEL (1758-1837), American political leader, was born at
Macon Manor, Warren county, North Carolina, on the 17th of December
1758. He studied at the college of New Jersey (now Princeton University)
from 1774 to 1776, when the institution was closed on account of the
outbreak of the War of Independence; served for a short time in a New
Jersey militia company; studied law at Bute Court-house, North Carolina,
in 1777-1780, at the same time managing his tobacco plantation; was a
member of a Warren county militia company in 1780-1782, and served in
the North Carolina Senate in 1781-1785. In 1786 he was elected to the
Continental Congress, but declined to serve. In 1791-1815 he was a
member of the national House of Representatives, and in 1815-1828 of the
United States Senate. Macon's point of view was always local rather than
national. He was essentially a North Carolinian first, and an American
afterwards; and throughout his career he was an aggressive advocate of
state sovereignty and an adherent of the doctrines of the "Old
Republicans." He at first opposed the adoption of the Federal
constitution of 1787, as a member of the faction led by Willie Jones
(1731-1801) of Halifax, North Carolina, but later withdrew his
opposition. In Congress he denounced Hamilton's financial policy,
opposed the Jay Treaty (1795) and the Alien and Sedition Acts, and
advocated a continuance of the French alliance of 1778. His party came
into power in 1801, and he was Speaker of the house from December 1801
to October 1807. At first he was in accord with Jefferson's
administration; he approved the Louisiana Purchase, and as early as 1803
advocated the purchase of Florida. For a number of years, however, he
was politically allied with John Randolph.[1] As speaker, in spite of
strong opposition, he kept Randolph at the head of the important
committee on Ways and Means from 1801 to 1806; and in 1805-1808, with
Randolph and Joseph H. Nicholson (1770-1817) of Maryland, he was a
leader of the group of about ten independents, called the "Quids," who
strongly criticized Jefferson and opposed the presidential candidature
of Madison. By 1809, however, Macon was again in accord with his party,
and during the next two years he was one of the most influential of its
leaders. In December 1809 he introduced resolutions which combined the
ideas of Peter Early (1773-1817) of Georgia, David R. Williams
(1776-1830) of South Carolina, and Samuel W. Dana (1757-1830) of
Connecticut with his own. The resolutions recommended the complete
exclusion of foreign war vessels from United States ports and the
suppression of illegal trade carried on by foreign merchants under the
American flag. The substance of these resolutions was embodied in the
"Macon Bill, No. 1," which passed the House but was defeated in the
Senate. On the 7th of April 1810 Macon reported from committee the
"Macon Bill, No. 2," which had been drawn by John Taylor (1770-1832) of
South Carolina, and was not actively supported by him. This measure
(amended) became law on the 1st of May, and provided for the repeal of
the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, authorized the president, "in case
either Great Britain or France shall before the 3rd day of March next so
revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the
neutral commerce of the United States," to revive non-intercourse
against the other, and prohibited British and French vessels of war from
entering American waters. In 1812 Macon voted for the declaration of war
against Great Britain, and later was chairman of the Congressional
committee which made a report (July 1813) condemning Great Britain's
conduct of the war. He opposed the Bank Act of 1816, the "internal
improvements" policy of Calhoun (in the early part of his career) and
Clay, and the Missouri Compromise, his speech against the last being
especially able. In 1824 Macon received the electoral vote of Virginia
for the vice-presidency, and in 1826-1828 was president pro tempore of
the Senate. He was president of the North Carolina constitutional
convention in 1835, and was an elector on the Van Buren ticket in 1836.
He died at his home, Buck Springs, Warren county, North Carolina, on the
29th of June 1837.
See William E. Dodd, _The Life of Nathaniel Macon_ (Raleigh, N.C.,
1903); E. M. Wilson, _The Congressional Career of Nathaniel Macon_
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1900).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Their names are associated in Randolph-Macon College, named in
their honour in 1830.
MÂCON, a town of east-central France, capital of the department of
Saône-et-Loire, 45 m. N. of Lyons on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop.
(1906), 16,151. Mâcon is situated on the right bank of the Saône facing
the plain of the Bresse; a bridge of twelve arches connects it with the
suburb of St Laurent on the opposite bank. The most prominent building
is the modern Romanesque church of St Pierre, a large three-naved
basilica, with two fine spires. Of the old cathedral of St Vincent (12th
and 13th centuries), destroyed at the Revolution, nothing remains but
the Romanesque narthex, now used as a chapel, the façade and its two
flanking towers. The hôtel de ville contains a library, a theatre and
picture-gallery. Opposite to it stands a statue of the poet Alphonse
Lamartine, a native of the town. Mâcon is the seat of a prefecture, and
has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and a chamber of
commerce. There are lycées and training colleges. Copper-founding is an
important industry; manufactures include casks, mats, rope and utensils
for the wine-trade. The town has a large trade in wine of the district,
known as Mâcon. It is a railway centre of considerable importance, being
the point at which the line from Paris to Marseilles is joined by that
from Mont Cenis and Geneva, as well as by a branch from Moulins.
Mâcon (_Matisco_) was an important town of the Aedui, but under the
Romans it was supplanted by Autun and Lyons. It suffered a succession of
disasters at the hands of the Germans, Burgundians, Vandals, Huns,
Hungarians and even of the Carolingian kings. In the feudal period it
was an important countship which in 1228 was sold to the king of France,
but more than once afterwards passed into the possession of the dukes of
Burgundy, until the ownership of the French crown was established in the
time of Louis XI. In the 16th century Mâcon became a stronghold of the
Huguenots, but afterwards fell into the hands of the League, and did not
yield to Henry IV. until 1594. The bishopric, created by King
Childebert, was suppressed in 1790.
MACON, a city and the county-seat of Bibb county, Georgia, U.S.A., in
the central part of the state, on both sides of the Ocmulgee river (at
the head of navigation), about 90 m. S.S.E. of Atlanta. Pop. (1900),
23,272, of whom 11,550 were negroes; (1910 census) 40,665. Macon is,
next to Atlanta, the most important railway centre in the state, being
served by the Southern, the Central of Georgia, the Georgia, the Georgia
Southern & Florida, the Macon Dublin & Savannah, and the Macon &
Birmingham railways. It was formerly an important river port, especially
for the shipment of cotton, but lost this commercial advantage when
railway bridges made the river impassable. It is, however, partially
regaining the river trade in consequence of the compulsory substitution
of drawbridges for the stationary railway bridges. The city is the seat
of the Wesleyan female college (1836), which claims to be the first
college in the world chartered to grant academic degrees to women;
Mercer university (Baptist), which was established in 1833 as Mercer
Institute at Penfield, became a university in 1837, was removed to Macon
in 1871, and controls Hearn Academy (1839) at Cave Spring and Gibson
Mercer Academy (1903) at Bowman; the state academy for the blind (1852),
St Stanislaus' College (Jesuit), and Mt de Sales Academy (Roman
Catholic) for women. There are four orphan asylums for whites and two
for negroes, supported chiefly by the Protestant Episcopal and Methodist
Churches, and a public hospital. Immediately east of Macon are two large
Indian mounds, and there is a third mound 9 m. south of the city.
Situated in the heart of the "Cotton Belt," Macon has a large and
lucrative trade; it is one of the most important inland cotton markets
of the United States, its annual receipts averaging about 250,000 bales.
The city's factory products in 1905 were valued at $7,297,347 (33.8%
more than in 1900). In the vicinity are large beds of kaolin, 30 m.
wide, reaching nearly across the state, and frequently 35 to 70 ft. in
depth. Macon is near the fruit-growing region of Georgia, and large
quantities of peaches and of garden products are annually shipped from
the city.
Macon (named in honour of Nathaniel Macon) was surveyed in 1823 by order
of the Georgia legislature for the county-seat of Bibb county, and
received its first charter in 1824. It soon became the centre of trade
for Middle Georgia; in 1833 a steamboat line to Darien was opened, and
in the following year 69,000 bales of cotton were shipped by this route.
During the Civil War the city was a centre for Confederate commissary
supplies and the seat of a Treasury depository. In July 1864 General
George Stoneman (1822-1894) with 500 men was captured near the city by
the Confederate general, Howell Cobb. Macon was finally occupied by
Federal troops under General James H. Wilson (b. 1837) on the 20th of
April 1865. In 1900-1910 the area of the city was increased by the
annexation of several suburbs.
MACPHERSON, SIR DAVID LEWIS (1818-1896), Canadian financier and
politician, was born at Castle Leathers, near Inverness, Scotland, on
the 12th of September 1818. In 1835 he emigrated to Canada, settling in
Montreal, where he built up a large fortune by "forwarding" merchandise.
In 1853 he removed to Toronto, and in the same year obtained the
contract for building a line of railway from Toronto to Sarnia, a
project from which sprang the Grand Trunk railway, in the construction
of which line he greatly increased his wealth. In 1864 he was elected to
the Canadian parliament as member of the Legislative Council for
Saugeen, and on the formation of the Dominion, in 1867, was nominated to
the Senate. In the following years he published a number of pamphlets on
economic subjects, of which the best-known is _Banking and Currency_
(1869). In 1880 he was appointed Speaker of the Senate, and from October
1883 till 1885 was minister of the interior in the Conservative cabinet.
In 1884 he was knighted by Queen Victoria. He died on the 16th of August
1896.
MACPHERSON, JAMES (1736-1796), Scottish "translator" of the Ossianic
poems, was born at Ruthven in the parish of Kingussie, Inverness, on the
27th of October 1736. He was sent in 1753 to King's College, Aberdeen,
removing two years later to Marischal College. He also studied at
Edinburgh, but took no degree. He is said to have written over 4000
lines of verse while a student, but though some of this was published,
notably _The Highlander_ (1758), he afterwards tried to suppress it. On
leaving college he taught in the school of his native place. At Moffat
he met John Home, the author of _Douglas_, for whom he recited some
Gaelic verses from memory. He also showed him MSS. of Gaelic poetry,
supposed to have been picked up in the Highlands, and, encouraged by
Home and others, he produced a number of pieces translated from the
Gaelic, which he was induced to publish at Edinburgh in 1760 as
_Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland_. Dr
Hugh Blair, who was a firm believer in the authenticity of the poems,
got up a subscription to allow Macpherson to pursue his Gaelic
researches. In the autumn he set out to visit western Inverness, the
islands of Skye, North and South Uist and Benbecula. He obtained MSS.
which he translated with the assistance of Captain Morrison and the Rev.
A. Gallie. Later in the year he made an expedition to Mull, when he
obtained other MSS. In 1761 he announced the discovery of an epic on the
subject of Fingal, and in December he published _Fingal, an Ancient Epic
Poem in Six Books, together with Several Other Poems composed by Ossian,
the Son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic Language_, written in the
musical measured prose of which he had made use in his earlier volume.
_Temora_ followed in 1763, and a collected edition, _The Works of
Ossian_, in 1765.
The genuineness of these so-called translations from the works of a
3rd-century bard was immediately challenged in England, and Dr Johnson,
after some local investigation, asserted (_Journey to the Western
Islands of Scotland_, 1775) that Macpherson had only found fragments of
ancient poems and stories, which he had woven into a romance of his own
composition. Macpherson is said to have sent Johnson a challenge, to
which Johnson replied that he was not to be deterred from detecting what
he thought a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. Macpherson never
produced his originals, which he refused to publish on the ground of the
expense. In 1764 he was made secretary to General Johnstone at
Pensacola, West Florida, and when he returned, two years later, to
England, after a quarrel with Johnstone, he was allowed to retain his
salary as a pension. He occupied himself with writing several historical
works, the most important of which was _Original Papers, containing the
Secret History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of
the House of Hanover; to which are prefixed Extracts from the Life of
James II., as written by himself_ (1775). He enjoyed a salary for
defending the policy of Lord North's government, and held the lucrative
post of London agent to Mahommed Ali, nabob of Arcot. He entered
parliament in 1780, and continued to sit until his death. In his later
years he bought an estate, to which he gave the name of Belville, in his
native county of Inverness, where he died on the 17th of February 1796.
After Macpherson's death, Malcolm Laing, in an appendix to his _History
of Scotland_ (1800), propounded the extreme view that the so-called
Ossianic poems were altogether modern in origin, and that Macpherson's
authorities were practically non-existent. For a discussion of this
question see CELT: _Scottish Gaelic Literature_. Much of Macpherson's
matter is clearly his own, and he confounds the stories belonging to
different cycles. But apart from the doubtful morality of his
transactions he must still be regarded as one of the great Scottish
writers. The varied sources of his work and its worthlessness as a
transcript of actual Celtic poems do not alter the fact that he produced
a work of art which by its deep appreciation of natural beauty and the
melancholy tenderness of its treatment of the ancient legend did more
than any single work to bring about the romantic movement in European,
and especially in German, literature. It was speedily translated into
many European languages, and Herder and Goethe (in his earlier period)
were among its profound admirers. Cesarotti's Italian translation was
one of Napoleon's favourite books.
AUTHORITIES.--For Macpherson's life, see _The Life and Letters of
James Macpherson ..._ (1894, new ed., 1906), by T. Bailey Saunders,
who has laboured to redeem his character from the suspicions generally
current with English readers. The antiquity of the Ossianic poems was
defended in the introduction by Archibald Clerk to his edition of the
_Poems of Ossian_ (1870). Materials for arriving at a decision by
comparison with undoubtedly genuine fragments of the Ossianic legend
are available in _The Book of the Dean of Lismore_, Gaelic verses,
collected by J. McGregor, dean of Lismore, in the early 16th century
(ed. T. McLauchlan, 1862); the _Leabhar na Feinne_ (1871) of F. J.
Campbell, who also discusses the subject in _Popular Tales of the
Western Highlands_, iv. (1893). See also L. C. Stern, "Die ossianische
Heldenlieder" in _Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteratur-geschichte_
(1895; Eng. trans. by J. L. Robertson in _Trans. Gael. Soc. of
Inverness_, xxii., 1897-1898); Sir J. Sinclair, _A Dissertation on the
Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian_ (1806); _Transactions of the
Ossianic Society_ (Dublin, 1854-1861); _Cours de littérature
celtique_, by Arbois de Jubainville, editor of the _Revue celtique_
(1883, &c.); A. Nutt, _Ossian and the Ossianic Literature_ (1899),
with a valuable bibliographical appendix; J. S. Smart, _James
Macpherson: an Episode in Literature_ (1905).
McPHERSON, JAMES BIRDSEYE (1828-1864), American soldier, was born at
Sandusky, Ohio, on the 14th of November 1828. He entered West Point at
the age of twenty-one, and graduated (1853) at the head of his class,
which included Sheridan, Schofield and Hood. He was employed at the
military academy as instructor of practical military engineering (1853).
A year later he was sent to engineer duty at New York, and in 1857,
after constructing Fort Delaware, he was sent as superintending engineer
to San Francisco, becoming 1st lieutenant in 1858. He was promoted
captain during the first year of the Civil War, and towards the close of
1861 became lieutenant-colonel and aide-de-camp to General Halleck, who
in the spring of 1862 sent him to General Grant as chief engineer. He
remained with Grant during the Shiloh campaign, and acted as engineer
adviser to Halleck during the siege operations against Corinth in the
summer of 1862. In October he distinguished himself in command of an
infantry brigade at the battle of Corinth, and on the 8th of this month
was made major-general of volunteers and commander of a division. In the
second advance on Vicksburg (1863) McPherson commanded the XVII. corps,
fought at Port Gibson, Raymond and Jackson, and after the fall of
Vicksburg was strongly recommended by Grant for the rank of
brigadier-general in the regular army, to which he was promoted on the
1st of August 1863. He commanded at Vicksburg until the following
spring. He was about to go on leave of absence in order to be married in
Baltimore when he received his nomination to the command of the Army of
the Tennessee, Grant's and Sherman's old army, which was to take part
under Sherman's supreme command in the campaign against Atlanta (1864).
This nomination was made by Sherman and entirely approved by Grant, who
had the highest opinion of McPherson's military and personal qualities.
He was in command of his army at the actions of Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw
Mountain and the battles about Atlanta. On the 22nd of July, when the
Confederates under his old classmate Hood made a sudden and violent
attack on the lines held by the Army of the Tennessee, McPherson rode
up, in the woods, to the enemy's firing line and was killed. He was one
of the most heroic figures of the American Civil War, and Grant is
reported to have said when he heard of McPherson's death, "The country
has lost one of its best soldiers, and I have lost my best friend."
MACQUARIE, a British island in the South Pacific Ocean, in 54° 49´ S.
and 159° 49´ E. It is about 20 m. long, and covered with a grassy
vegetation, with some trees or shrubs in the sheltered places which
afford food to a parrot of the genus _Cyanorhamphus_, allied to those of
the Auckland Islands. Although it has no settled population, Macquarie
is constantly visited by sailors in quest of the seals which abound in
its waters.
MACRAUCHENIA, a long-necked and long-limbed, three-toed South American
ungulate mammal, typifying the suborder _Litopterna_ (q.v.).
MACREADY, WILLIAM CHARLES (1793-1873), English actor, was born in London
on the 3rd of March 1793, and educated at Rugby. It was his intention to
go up to Oxford, but in 1809 the embarrassed affairs of his father, the
lessee of several provincial theatres, called him to share the
responsibilities of theatrical management. On the 7th of June 1810 he
made a successful first appearance as Romeo at Birmingham. Other
Shakespearian parts followed, but a serious rupture between father and
son resulted in the young man's departure for Bath in 1814. Here he
remained for two years, with occasional professional visits to other
provincial towns. On the 16th of September 1816, Macready made his first
London appearance at Covent Garden as Orestes in _The Distressed
Mother_, a translation of Racine's _Andromaque_ by Ambrose Philips.
Macready's choice of characters was at first confined chiefly to the
romantic drama. In 1818 he won a permanent success in Isaac Pocock's
(1782-1835) adaptation of Scott's _Rob Roy_. He showed his capacity for
the highest tragedy when he played Richard III. at Covent Garden on the
25th of October 1819. Transferring his services to Drury Lane, he
gradually rose in public favour, his most conspicuous success being in
the title-rôle of Sheridan Knowles's _William Tell_ (May 11, 1825). In
1826 he completed a successful engagement in America, and in 1828 his
performances met with a very flattering reception in Paris. On the 15th
of December 1830 he appeared at Drury Lane as Werner, one of his most
powerful impersonations. In 1833 he played in _Antony and Cleopatra_, in
Byron's _Sardanapalus_, and in _King Lear_. Already Macready had done
something to encourage the creation of a modern English drama, and after
entering on the management of Covent Garden in 1837 he introduced Robert
Browning's _Strafford_, and in the following year Bulwer's _Lady of
Lyons_ and _Richelieu_, the principal characters in which were among his
most effective parts. On the 10th of June 1838 he gave a memorable
performance of _Henry V._, for which Stanfield prepared sketches, and
the mounting was superintended by Bulwer, Dickens, Forster, Maclise, W.
J. Fox and other friends. The first production of Bulwer's _Money_ took
place under the artistic direction of Count d'Orsay on the 8th of
December 1840, Macready winning unmistakable success in the character of
Alfred Evelyn. Both in his management of Covent Garden, which he
resigned in 1839, and of Drury Lane, which he held from 1841 to 1843, he
found his designs for the elevation of the stage frustrated by the
absence of adequate public support. In 1843-1844 he made a prosperous
tour in the United States, but his last visit to that country, in 1849,
was marred by a riot at the Astor Opera House, New York, arising from
the jealousy of the actor Edwin Forrest, and resulting in the death of
seventeen persons, who were shot by the military called out to quell the
disturbance. Macready took leave of the stage in a farewell performance
of _Macbeth_ at Drury Lane on the 26th of February 1851. The remainder
of his life was spent in happy retirement, and he died at Cheltenham on
the 27th of April 1873. He had married, in 1823, Catherine Frances
Atkins (d. 1852). Of a numerous family of children only one son and one
daughter survived. In 1860 he married Cecile Louise Frederica Spencer
(1827-1908), by whom he had a son.
Macready's performances always displayed fine artistic perceptions
developed to a high degree of perfection by very comprehensive culture,
and even his least successful personations had the interest resulting
from thorough intellectual study. He belonged to the school of Kean
rather than of Kemble; but, if his tastes were better disciplined and in
some respects more refined than those of Kean, his natural temperament
did not permit him to give proper effect to the great tragic parts of
Shakespeare, _King Lear_ perhaps excepted, which afforded scope for his
pathos and tenderness, the qualities in which he specially excelled.
With the exception of a voice of good compass and capable of very varied
expression, Macready had no especial physical gifts for acting, but the
defects of his face and figure cannot be said to have materially
affected his success.
See _Macready's Reminiscences_, edited by Sir Frederick Pollock, 2
vols. (1875); _William Charles Macready_, by William Archer (1890).
MACROBIUS, AMBROSIUS THEODOSIUS, Roman grammarian and philosopher,
flourished during the reigns of Honorius and Arcadius (395-423). He
himself states that he was not a Roman, but there is no certain evidence
whether he was of Greek or perhaps African descent. He is generally
supposed to have been praetorian praefect in Spain (399), proconsul of
Africa (410), and lord chamberlain (422). But the tenure of high office
at that date was limited to Christians, and there is no evidence in the
writings of Macrobius that he was a Christian. Hence the identification
is more than doubtful, unless it be assumed that his conversion to
Christianity was subsequent to the composition of his books. It is
possible, but by no means certain, that he was the Theodosius to whom
Avianus dedicates his fables.
The most important of his works is the _Saturnalia_, containing an
account of the discussions held at the house of Vettius Praetextatus (c.
325-385) during the holiday of the Saturnalia. It was written by the
author for the benefit of his son Eustathius (or Eustachius), and
contains a great variety of curious historical, mythological, critical
and grammatical disquisitions. There is but little attempt to give any
dramatic character to the dialogue; in each book some one of the
personages takes the leading part, and the remarks of the others serve
only as occasions for calling forth fresh displays of erudition. The
first book is devoted to an inquiry as to the origin of the Saturnalia
and the festivals of Janus, which leads to a history and discussion of
the Roman calendar, and to an attempt to derive all forms of worship
from that of the sun. The second book begins with a collection of _bons
mots_, to which all present make their contributions, many of them being
ascribed to Cicero and Augustus; a discussion of various pleasures,
especially of the senses, then seems to have taken place, but almost the
whole of this is lost. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth books are
devoted to Virgil, dwelling respectively on his learning in religious
matters, his rhetorical skill, his debt to Homer (with a comparison of
the art of the two) and to other Greek writers, and the nature and
extent of his borrowings from the earlier Latin poets. The latter part
of the third book is taken up with a dissertation upon luxury and the
sumptuary laws intended to check it, which is probably a dislocated
portion of the second book. The seventh book consists largely of the
discussion of various physiological questions. The value of the work
consists solely in the facts and opinions quoted from earlier writers,
for it is purely a compilation, and has little in its literary form to
recommend it. The form of the _Saturnalia_ is copied from Plato's
_Symposium_ and Gellius's _Noctes atticae_; the chief authorities (whose
names, however, are not quoted) are Gellius, Seneca the philosopher,
Plutarch (_Quaestiones conviviales_), Athenaeus and the commentaries of
Servius (excluded by some) and others on Virgil. We have also two books
of a commentary on the _Somnium Scipionis_ narrated by Cicero in his _De
republica_. The nature of the dream, in which the elder Scipio appears
to his (adopted) grandson, and describes the life of the good after
death and the constitution of the universe from the Stoic point of view,
gives occasion for Macrobius to discourse upon many points of physics in
a series of essays interesting as showing the astronomical notions then
current. The moral elevation of the fragment of Cicero thus preserved to
us gave the work a popularity in the middle ages to which its own merits
have little claim. Of a third work, _De differentiis et societatibus
graeci latinique verbi_, we only possess an abstract by a certain
Johannes, identified with Johannes Scotus Erigena (9th century).
See editions by L. von Jan (1848-1852, with bibliog. of previous
editions, and commentary) and F. Eyssenhardt (1893, Teubner text); on
the sources of the _Saturnalia_ see H. Linke (1880) and G. Wissowa
(1880). The grammatical treatise will be found in Jan's edition and H.
Keil's _Grammatici latini_, v.; see also G. F. Schömann, _Commentatio
macrobiana_ (1871).
MACROOM, a market town in the western part of county Cork, Ireland, on
the river Sullane, an affluent of the Lee, 24½ m. W. of Cork by the Cork
& Macroom railway, of which it is the terminus. Pop. (1901), 3016.
Besides a fine Roman Catholic church, a court house and barracks,
Macroom possesses a modernized castle, which is said to have been
founded by King John, though it is more probably attributable to Norman
invaders. It was besieged more than once in the 17th century, and is
said to have been the birthplace of Admiral Sir William Penn, whose more
famous son founded Pennsylvania. Here some rebels of 1798 were executed
and their heads exhibited on the spikes of the castle gate. Macroom has
trade in corn-milling, leather-work and dairy produce, and is a good
centre for salmon and trout fishing. It is governed by an urban district
council.
MACUGNAGA, a village of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Novara, 20
m. W.S.W. of Piedimulera, which is 7 m. S. of Domodossola by rail. Pop.
(1901), 798. It is situated 4047 ft. above sea-level, and is 10 m. N.E.
of the highest summit of Monte Rosa. It is frequented as a summer
resort.
MacVEAGH, WAYNE (1833- ), American lawyer and diplomatist, was born
near Phoenixville, Chester county, Pa., on the 19th of April 1833. He
graduated at Yale in 1853, was admitted to the bar in 1856, and was
district attorney of Chester county in 1859-1864. He held commands in
militia forces raised to meet threatened Confederate invasions of
Pennsylvania (1862-63). He became a leader in the Republican party, and
was a prominent opponent of his father-in-law, Simon Cameron, in the
fight within the party in 1871. MacVeagh was minister to Turkey in
1870-1871; was a member of the state constitutional convention of
1872-1873; was chairman of the "MacVeagh Commission," sent in 1877 by
President Hayes to Louisiana, which secured the settlement of the
contest between the two existing state governments and thus made
possible the withdrawal of Federal troops from the state; and was
attorney-general of the United States in 1881 under President Garfield,
but resigned immediately after Garfield's death. In 1892 he supported
Grover Cleveland, the Democratic nominee for the presidency, and from
1893 to 1897 was ambassador to Italy. He returned to the Republican
party in 1896. In 1903 he was chief counsel of the United States before
the Hague tribunal in the case regarding the claims of Germany, Great
Britain and Italy against the republic of Venezuela.
MADÁCH, IMRE (1829-1864), Hungarian dramatist, was born at
Alsó-Sztregova. He took part in the great revolution of 1848-49 and was
imprisoned; on his return to his small estate in the county of Nógrád,
he found that his family life had meanwhile been completely wrecked.
This only increased his natural tendency to melancholy, and he withdrew
from public life till 1861, devoting his time mainly to the composition
of his chief work, _Az ember tragoediája_ ("The Tragedy of Man"). John
Arany, then at the height of his fame as a poet, at once recognized the
great merits of that peculiar drama, and Madách enjoyed a short spell of
fame before his untimely death of heart-disease in 1864. In _The Tragedy
of Man_ Madách takes us from the hour when Adam and Eve were innocently
walking in the Garden of Eden to the times of the Pharaohs; then to the
Athens of Miltiades; to declining Rome; to the period of the crusades;
into the study of the astronomer Kepler; thence into the horrors of the
French Revolution; into greed-eaten and commerce-ridden modern London;
nay, into the ultra-Socialist state of the future, when all the former
ideals of man will by scientific formulae be shown up in their
hollowness; still further, the poet shows the future of ice-clad earth,
when man will be reduced to a degraded brute dragging on the misery of
his existence in a cave. In all these scenes, or rather anticipatory
dreams, Adam, Eve and the arch-fiend Lucifer are the chief and
constantly recurring _personae dramatis_. In the end, Adam, despairing
of his race, wants to commit suicide, when at the critical moment Eve
tells him that she is going to be a mother. Adam then prostrates himself
before God, who encourages him to hope and trust. The diction of the
drama is elevated and pure, and although not meant for the stage, it has
proved very effective at several public performances.
Concerning Madách there is an ample literature, consisting mostly of
elaborate articles by Charles Szász (1862), Augustus Greguss (1872),
B. Alexander (1871), M. Palágyi (1890), and others.
MADAGASCAR, an island in the Indian Ocean, and after New Guinea and
Borneo the largest island in the world, about 260 m. distant, at the
nearest point, from the S.E. coast of Africa, from which it is separated
by the Mozambique Channel. Since 1896 Madagascar has been a French
colony. It is 995 m. in length from N. to S., and about 250 m. in
average breadth, although near the centre it is nearly 360 m. across;
its area is about 228,000 sq. m., or not quite four times the extent of
England and Wales. It lies mainly between 44° and 50° E. Its
northernmost point, Cape Ambro, in 12° S., inclines 16° to the E. from
the longitude of Cape St Mary, the southernmost point, in 25° 35´ S., so
that the main axis of the island runs from N.N.E. to S.S.W. In its broad
structure Madagascar consists of an elevated mountainous region, from
3000 to 5000 ft. in altitude, occupying from two-fifths to a half of the
centre and the eastern side of the island, around which are extensive
plains at a much less elevation above the sea, and most developed on the
western and north-west sides. But this lower region is broken up by
masses of hills, with several elevated plateaus, especially in the
south-west and south.
_Physical Features._--Madagascar has a very regular and compact form,
with few indentations considering its great extent of shore-line. In
general outline it has a strong resemblance to the impression of a
human foot--the left side. Along two-thirds of its eastern side the
coast is almost a straight line, without any inlet, Tamatàve, the
chief port on this side of the island, being only protected by coral
reefs. North of this line, however, is Antongil Bay, a deep and wide
inlet running northwards for about 50 m.; farther north is Port
Louquez, and at almost the extreme point of the island is Diégo-Suarez
Bay, one of the finest harbours in the world. But the north-western
side of Madagascar is broken up by a number of inlets, some of them
land-locked and of considerable size. South of Cape St Andrew, the
north-west angle of the island, the coast-line is unbroken until the
estuary of the river Onilàhy, or St Augustine's Bay, is reached.
Rounding the southern end of the island, there is no other inlet save
the small bay north of Fort Dauphin, at the southern end of the
straight line of coast already mentioned.
The islands around Madagascar are few and unimportant. The largest are
Ste Marie, near the eastern coast, a narrow island about 35 m. long,
and Nossi-bé (q.v.), larger and more compact in form, opposite
Ampàsindàva Bay on the N.W. coast. Except the Minnow group, north of
Nossi-bé, the rest are merely rocky islets, chiefly of coral.
The shores of the greater portion of the southern half of the island
are low and flat, but in the northern half the coast is often bold and
precipitous, the high land occasionally approaching the sea. On the
eastern side the plains vary from 10 to 50 m. in breadth, but on the
western side they exceed in some localities 100 m. From these
coast-plains the ground rises by successive ranges of hills to the
high interior land. This elevated region is broken in all directions
by mountains, from which the crystalline rocks show most frequently as
huge bosses, and in certain regions present very varied and
picturesque outlines, resembling Titanic castles, cathedrals, domes,
pyramids and spires. The highest mountain mass is centrally situated
as regards the length of the island, but more to the eastern side.
This is the ancient extinct volcano Ankàratra, three of the highest
points varying in elevation from 7284 to 8635 ft. above the sea, and
from 4000 to 5000 ft. above the general level of the surrounding
country. The loftiest of these is named Tsi-àfa-jàvona, i.e. "That
which the mists cannot climb." It had been supposed that Ankàratra was
the highest point in the island, but in 1903 it was found that Ambòro,
in the northern province of Antankàrana, is about 9490 ft. in
altitude. Besides these highest points there are a considerable number
of mountains in the central provinces of Imèrina and Bétsiléo and the
intervening and surrounding districts; and in the Bàra country the
Isàlo range has been compared to the "Church Buttes" and other
striking features of the scenery of Utah. One of the finest of the
Madagascar mountains is an isolated mass near the northern point of
the island called Ambòhitra. This is 4460 ft. high, and rising from
land little above the sea-level, is well seen far out to sea.
In the elevated region of Madagascar are many fertile plains and
valleys, the former being the dried-up beds of ancient lakes. Among
these are Bètsimitàtatra in Imèrina, and Tsiènimparìhy in Bétsiléo,
supplying a large proportion of the rice required for the capitals of
these two provinces. Still more spacious valleys are the Antsihànaka
country and the Ankày district, between the two eastern lines of
forest. The extensive coast plains on the western side of the island
are chiefly in Ibòina (N.W.) and in Ménabé (S. of the Tsìribìhina
River); those on the east are widest in the Taifàsy country (S.E.).
The water-parting for six-sevenths of the whole length of the island
is much nearer the eastern than the western side, averaging from 80 to
90 m. from the sea. There are no arid districts, except in the extreme
south-west and towards the southern point of the island. The general
surface of the interior highland consists of bare rolling moor-like
country, with a great amount of red clay-like soil, while the valleys
have a rich humus of bluish-black alluvium.
The chief rivers flow to the west and north-west sides of the island.
The eastern streams are all less in size, except the Mangòro, which
flows parallel with the coast. Few of them therefore are of much
service for navigation, except for the light-draught native canoes;
and all of them are more or less closed at their outlets by sand-bars.
Beginning at the south-eastern point and going northwards, the
principal rivers are the Mànanàra, Mànampàtrana, Màtitànana,
Mànanjàry, Mangòro, with its great affluent Onivé, Vòhitra, Màningòry,
and the Antànambàlana at the head of Antongil Bay. On the N.W. coast,
going southwards, are the Sofià and Màhajàmba, falling into Màhajàmba
Bay, the Bétsiboka with the Ikòpa--the great drains of the northern
central provinces, forming unitedly the second largest river of the
island and falling into Bèmbatòka Bay--the Màhavàry, Mànambòlo,
Tsìribìhina or Onimàinty, the third largest river, with its
tributaries the Kìtsàmby, Màhajìlo and Manìa, the Mòrondàva, Mangòky,
probably the largest river in the country, with its important
tributaries the Matsìatra, Mànantànana and Rànomàitso, the Fiherènana
and Onilàhy. On the south coast are four considerable streams, the
largest of which is the Mènaràndra. Of the western rivers the
Bètsibòka can be ascended by small steamers for about 100 m., and the
Tsìribìhina is also navigable for a considerable distance. The former
is about 300 m. long; the latter somewhat less, but by its affluents
spreads over a greater extent of country, as also does the Mangòky.
The rivers are all crossed frequently by rocky bars, which often form
grand waterfalls. The eastern rivers cut their way through the
ramparts of the high land by magnificent gorges amidst dense forest,
and descend by a succession of rapids and cataracts. The Màtitànana,
whose falls were first seen by the writer in 1876, descends at one
plunge some 400 ft.; and on the Vòhitra River, whose valley is
followed by the railway, there are also many fine waterfalls.
On the eastern side of Madagascar the contest between the fresh water
of the rivers and the sea has caused the formation of a chain of
lagoons for nearly 300 m. In many places these look like a river
following the coast-line, but frequently they spread out into
extensive sheets of water. By cutting about 30 m. of canal to connect
them, a continuous waterway could be formed for 270 m. along the
coast. This has already been done for about 55 m. between Ivòndrona
and Andòvorànto, a service of small steamers forming part of the
communication between the coast and the capital. Besides these
lagoons, there are few lakes of any size in Madagascar, although there
were some very extensive lakes in a recent geological epoch. Of the
largest of these, the Alàotra Lake in the Antsihànaka plain is the
relic; it is about 25 m. long. Next comes Kinkòny, near Maròambitsy
Bay (N.W. coast), about 16 m. long, and then Itàsy, in western
Imèrina, about half as large. There is also a salt lake,
Tsimànampetsòtsa (S.W. coast), about as large as Alàotra.
There is now no active volcano in Madagascar, but a large number of
extinct cones are found, some apparently of very recent formation.
Some miles south of Diégo-Suarez is a huge volcanic mountain,
Ambòhitra, with scores of subsidiary cones on its slopes and around
its base. About 40 m. south-west of Antanànarìvo there is a still
larger extinct volcano, Ankàratra, with an extensive lava field
surrounding it; while near Lake Itàsy are some 200 volcanic cones.
Another group of extinct volcanoes is in the Vàkinankàratra district,
S.W. of Ankàratra. Many others exist in other parts of the island (see
§ _Geology_). Slight shocks of earthquake are felt every year, and hot
springs occur at many places. Several of these are sulphurous and
medicinal, and have been found efficacious in skin diseases and in
internal complaints.
_Geology._--Madagascar may be divided into two very distinct
geological regions, viz. (I.) the Archean Region, which extends over
the central and eastern portions of the island and occupies about
two-thirds of its whole area, and is composed of crystalline schists;
and (II.) the Western Region, of sedimentary rocks, including the
remaining third of the island, in the centre of which, however, is an
isolated patch of Archean rocks, near Cape St Andrew. There are also
found in both regions numerous masses of igneous rocks, both plutonic
and volcanic, in some places of considerable extent, which pierce
through and overflow the earlier formations.
[Illustration: Map of Madagascar.]
I. _The Archean Region._[1]--This region, nearly coincident with the
mountainous upper portion of the island, is chiefly composed of the
following crystalline rocks: gneiss, which is the most common of them
all, quartzite and quartz-schist, with occasional beds of crystalline
limestone and mica-schist, although this latter rock is very rare. The
gneiss is mostly grey, but occasionally pinkish, its essential
constituents (felspar and quartz) being almost always associated with
dark mica (biotite) and hornblende in variable quantity. The rock is
therefore a hornblende-granitite-gneiss. Granite--more frequently
granitite--occurs in several places, as well as pyroxene-granulite,
serpentine, argillate, &c.; and gold is found widely disseminated, as
well as other metals, but these latter, as far as at present known,
except iron, are not abundant. The general strike of the rocks is the
same as that of the trend of the island itself (N.N.E. to S.S.W.),
but in its western portion the strike is frequently from N.N.W. to
S.S.E. In both cases the strike of the rocks is coincident with the
direction of several large valleys, which mark huge faults in the
crystalline rocks. Almost the whole of this region is covered by a red
soil, often of great thickness, which resembles and is often described
as "clay," but is really decomposed rock, chiefly gneiss, reddened
with oxidized magnetite.
II. _The Sedimentary Region._--The sedimentary rocks extend
continuously along the western side of Madagascar, following the
coast-line; in the north these series of strata are only from 20 to 30
m. across, but farther south they reach a breadth of nearly 100 m.,
while opposite the Bétsiléo province they extend nearly half across
the island. A narrow band, of Cretaceous age, occurs also on the east
coast, for about 120 m., between Vàtomàndry and Mànanjàry. The
following formations are represented:--
1. _Primary._ It is thought that certain beds of slaty rocks, which
have been recognized at different places, may belong to some of the
Primary strata. Some siliceous schists of the Permian age were
discovered in 1908 in the valley of the Sàkamèira, south of the
Onilàhy, or Augustine river. (S.W. coast). These contain reptilian
remains, and also clear imprints of leaves of the _Glossopteris
indica_, as well as other indications of an ancient vegetation. In the
same region conglomerates have been found containing enormous blocks,
apparently brought by glacial action, and said to be identical in
character with those described as existing in the Transvaal. True coal
has also been obtained in the same district, the deposits varying from
a third to half a metre in thickness.
2. _Secondary._ The lowest members of these rest directly upon the
central mass of crystalline rocks, and consist of sandstones,
conglomerates and shales, which have been supposed by some to belong
to the Trias, without, however, the discovery of any fossil necessary
to confirm this supposition, except some silicified trunks of trees.
These beds are most probably lower members of the Jurassic series.
Westward of and above these strata, the Middle and Upper Jurassic
formations are found (Lias, Lower Oolite, Oxfordian, &c.), with
well-marked and numerous fossils (_Ammonites_, _Nerinaea_, _Natica_,
_Astarte_, _Rhynchonella_, _Echinodermata_, &c.); then the Cretaceous
rocks, both these and the Jurassic series being largely developed, the
Cretaceous fossils including _Nautilus_, _Belemnites_, _Ostrea_,
_Gryphaea_, &c., and some very large Ammonites (_Pachydiscus_). The
Secondary strata show generally a very slight dip westwards and are
consequently almost horizontal. They do not seem to have been greatly
disturbed, although faults occur here and there.
3. _Tertiary._ A small strip of coast of Eocene age is known near
Tullear (S.W. coast), and rocks of the same period occur in Nòssi-bé,
at Màhajamba Bay, and at Diégo-Suarez, with Nummulites and other
foraminifera. Near the latter locality, beds of Oligocene age have
been noticed, consisting of coarse limestones.
4. _Quaternary and Recent._ A narrow band of these deposits extends
along the west coast, from north of Cape St Andrew nearly to the
extreme southern point of the island. But the most noticeable of these
are those in the ancient bed of the Alàotra Lake, which formerly
extended far southwards along the valley of the Mangòro; also those in
the marshes of Antsìrabè and of Ifànja, in the Ikòpa valley (the great
rice plain west of the capital), and also in the plain of
Tsiénimpàrìhy in Bétsiléo, and especially the recent deposits of
Ampàsambazìmba, north-west of Lake Itàsy, discovered in 1902. These
beds, rich in subfossil remains, have yielded important additions to
our knowledge of the extinct fauna of the island. (See §
_Palaeontology_.)
_Igneous Rocks._ (1) _Plutonic rocks._--The ancient or plutonic
igneous rocks (including granite, syenite, diorite, gabbro, porphyry,
porphyrite, norite and retinite) appear at various points of the two
previously described regions. In the Archean region the gneiss is very
often found passing into granite, but certain granitic masses have a
sufficiently distinct character. In the midst of the sedimentary
region are two well-recognized masses of plutonic rocks, belonging to
the syenites, sometimes quartziferous in structure. (2) _Volcanic
rocks._--Recent volcanic eruptive rocks (including rhyolite, trachyte,
phonolite, andesite and basalt) have been examined at a number of
points throughout both the geological regions of the island. In the
Archean region these are very noticeable near Lake Itàsy, in the
_massif_ of Ankàratra (an ancient volcano) and in Vàkinankàratra (at
Bètàfo, Antsìrabé, &c.); while there are numerous outflows of
doleritic rocks, probably from faults, along the eastern side of the
island and almost parallel with the coast line. In the sedimentary
region volcanic rocks are very numerous; the most extensive of these
is a tract of country, more than 80 m. long, on the west coast, where
the basalt has overflowed the Cretaceous strata. It must be remembered
that the geology of Madagascar is still only known in its broad
features.[2]
_Minerals and Metals._--The country has considerable mineral wealth.
Gold is found almost all over the region of crystalline rocks, except
in and around the Antsihànaka province, the richest auriferous
districts being a band of country parallel with the east coast and
spreading at its southern end into the interior; and another tract,
whose centre is about 100 m. N. of the capital (see § _Industries_,
&c.). Silver has been detected in certain galenas, and also platinum;
copper has been found in various localities, as well as zinc, lead,
nickel, antimony and manganese, but none of these metals has yet been
discovered in sufficient quantities for profitable working. Iron, on
the contrary, especially magnetite, is found abundantly and has for
long been worked by the Malagasy with the simple appliances brought by
their ancestors from their original home in the Far East. The
principal seats of the native industry are on the edge of the upper
forest, where charcoal is easily procured. The following precious
stones are reported: corundum (rubies and sapphires), beryl, topaz,
zircon, garnet, amazon-stone, tourmaline, often in large crystals, and
variously coloured quartz, also often found in crystals of great size.
Bitumen and petroleum have been found; graphite is plentiful, and
sulphur, salt, saltpetre and lime are also procured. On the north-west
coast thin beds of lignite occur, and coal has been found in the
valley of the Sàkamèira.
_Palaeontology._--Researches in various parts of the island have
revealed the existence, in a subfossil state, of the bones of numerous
birds of the family _Struthidae_. These have been arranged in twelve
species, belonging to two genera, _Aepyornis_ and _Mullerornis_, which
varied in size from that of a bustard to birds much exceeding an
ostrich, and rivalling the recently extinct moa of New Zealand, the
largest species being about 10 ft. in height. One species of these
great wingless birds laid an egg which is the largest known, being 12½
in. by 9½ in. Associated with these remains there have been found
those of many other birds, including a hawk, a duck, a darter, a
spoonbill, a heron, a rail and a wild-goose, some of these being much
larger than any now inhabiting Madagascar. In the same beds the
remains of two, if not three, species of hippopotamus have been found,
about two-thirds the size of the living South African species; also
the bones and carapace, &c., of gigantic tortoises, and the bones of a
crocodile, now extinct on the coast and rivers, but still living in
the two chief lakes; also the remains of a river-hog, of a species of
swine, and of a slender-legged form of zebu-ox. Near the south-west
coast the skull of a large lemuroid animal was discovered in 1893,
much longer than that of any living lemur, the animal being probably
three times the size of any previously known Madagascar lemuroid.
Later still, in 1899 and subsequently, the bones of two other
creatures of the same suborder have been discovered, one of them
indicating an animal much larger than a man. Many of these birds and
animals were probably contemporaneous with the earliest human
inhabitants of Madagascar. The remains of two species of Edentata have
been found, as well as those of several species of small Rodents, also
of a Carnivore (_Cryptoprocta_), a larger variety of the species still
living in the island.
In the deposits of a much more remote era than those already spoken
of--the Jurassic--the bones of some enormous terrestrial lizards have
been brought to light, belonging to Sauropodous Dinosaurs of the
genera _Bothriospondylus_ and _Titanosaurus_, and to a Theropod of the
genus _Megalosaurus_. In the beds of the Lower Oolite portions of the
skull of a reptile resembling the gavial of the Ganges had been
previously discovered, from which a new genus called _Steneosaurus_
has been founded. Since the French occupation (1895) considerable
additions have been made to our knowledge of the fossil fauna of
Madagascar from researches made both on the west and south-west coast
(at Bèlo and Ambòlisatrana) and in the interior (at Antsìrabè),
especially in the rich deposits near Tsàrazàza (Ampàsambazimba), to
the north-west of Lake Itàsy. From these various localities the
subfossil remains of thirteen or fourteen extinct species of lemuroid
animals (including the gigantic species already mentioned) have been
obtained, and have been classified under five new genera: viz.
_Megaladapis_ (3 sp.), _Palaeopropithecus_ (3 sp.), _Archaeolemur_ (2
sp.), _Bradylemur_ (1 sp.) and _Hadropithecus_ (1 sp.), together with
three new species of lemur. Of these, the _Archaeolemurs_ seem to have
combined the characteristics of lemuroid animals with those of the
monkeys, while _Hadropithecus_ is pronounced to be the nearest known
link with them. A list of all the fossils of the island known in 1895,
but omitting the vertebrates above mentioned, included 140
species,[3] belonging to the Mollusca, Foraminifera, Echinodermata,
Actinozoa and Plantae; but the researches of French geologists made
the total number of Madagascar fossils known in 1907 to be not fewer
than 280 species.
_Climate._--In the high interior the climate resembles that of the
temperate zones, although six-sevenths of the island are within the
tropics; there is no intense heat, and it is quite cold, occasionally
touching freezing point, during the nights of the cool season. These
parts of the country are tolerably healthy for Europeans. But the
coasts are much hotter, especially on the western side, as is also the
interior west of the highland region; and from the large amount of
marsh and lagoon on the coasts, malarial fever is common and
frequently fatal, both to Europeans and to natives from the interior.
Epidemics of influenza and fever have been very prevalent of late
years in the central provinces. The seasons are two--the hot and rainy
season from November to April, and the cool and dry season during the
rest of the year; this remark applies chiefly to the interior, for
rain falls throughout the year on the eastern coast, which is exposed
to the vapour-laden south-east trade winds. The rainfall diminishes as
one goes westward and especially south-westward, there being very
little rain in the south-west corner of the island. No snow is known,
even on the loftiest mountains, but thin ice is occasionally seen; and
hail-showers, often very destructive, are frequent in the rainy
season. Terrific thunderstorms are also common at that period;
waterspouts are sometimes seen; and as the Indian Ocean cyclone region
touches the eastern coast, hurricanes occur every few years, at rare
intervals ascending into the interior highland. The yearly rainfall of
the Imèrina province (Antanànarìvo) averages about 54½ in.; accurate
statistics as to that of other parts of the island are not available;
but on the east coast it appears to be about double that of the
interior; in the south-east considerably more than that amount; while
at Mòrondàva (west coast) it is given as about 21 in. annually, and at
Tullear (south-west coast) as only 10 in. At Tamatàve (east coast) the
mean annual temperature is given as 76.5°, while at the capital it is
about 66°; the temperature of Antanànarìvo resembles that of Naples or
Palermo.[4] The following table gives the mean of two different sets
of government returns of mean rainfall: Antanànarìvo, 1369 mm.;
Tamatàve, E. coast, 1863 mm.; Fàrafangàna, S.E. coast, 2803 mm.;
Diégo-Suarez, N. end of island, 1196 mm.; Mòrondàva, W. coast, 543
mm.; Tullear, S.W. coast, 273 mm.; Màrovoày, W. interior, 1413 mm.
_Fauna._--The fauna of Madagascar, while deficient in most of the
characteristic tropical forms of life, is one of great interest to the
naturalist from its remote affinities, much of its animal life having
Asiatic rather than African relationships. The central portions of the
island, from their generally bare and treeless character, are poor in
living creatures; but the lower country, and especially the forests
and coast plains, are fairly well stocked. But it is noticeable that
many species have a very limited range. Although a continental island,
it possesses no large quadrupeds--none of the larger carnivorous,
ungulate, proboscoid or quadrumanous animals; but it is the
headquarters of the _Lemuroidea_, no fewer than thirty-nine species of
which are found in its forests and wooded plains. Some of these
creatures are highly specialized, while the curious aye-aye (_Chiromys
madagascariensis_), an allied form, is one of the most remarkable
animals known, forming a genus and family by itself. Its whole
structure is strangely modified to enable it to procure the
wood-boring larvae which form its food. Other peculiar animals are
twenty-three species of the _Centetidae_, a family of the Insectivora
almost confined to Madagascar; while of the _Carnivora_ there are
several small creatures belonging to the civets (_Viverridae_). The
largest of these ferocious animals, also forming a genus and family by
itself, is the _Cryptoprocta ferox_; it is a plantigrade animal, 3 ft.
long, but very like an enormous weasel, and attacks other animals with
the greatest ferocity. The island contains twenty-five species of
bats, mostly of African, but some of Indian, affinities. African
humped cattle were introduced several hundred years ago and now exist
in large herds all over the country. The fat-tailed sheep, goats and
swine have also been naturalized, as well as all kinds of domestic
poultry.
The avi-fauna is much richer than the mammalian, and, although wanting
the largest birds as well as the most brilliantly coloured, comprises
two hundred and sixty species, half of which are endemic. Many of the
birds are remarkable not so much for their shape or colouring as for
their distant relationships; many belong to peculiar genera, and some
are so isolated that new families have had to be formed for their
reception. There is a large variety of perching birds, including
several species of brilliant plumage--sun-birds, kingfishers, rollers
and flycatchers, &c.; kites, hawks and owls are numerous, and the
lakes and marshes abound with water-fowl and herons, ibises, &c.
The island is free from deadly serpents, but contains two or three
small species of boa; crocodiles abound in the rivers and lakes; and
numerous species of lizard, chameleon and tree-frog inhabit the woods.
Madagascar may be considered as one of the headquarters of the
_Chamaeleonidae_, for of the fifty known species no fewer than
twenty-five have already been described from the island. Many of these
are of curious form, with remarkable developments of the plates of the
head and projecting horns and spines. There are several peculiar
tortoises, but the gigantic species are now found alive only on the
little island of Aldabra, to the north. The insect life comprises many
brilliantly-coloured beetles, butterflies (about eight hundred species
of which are known), moths, locusts, spiders and flies, and also
noxious spiders, with scorpions and centipedes. The river fishes
belong chiefly to the family _Chromididae_; many of them are of
brilliant and bizarre appearance, with strongly contrasted colours in
bands and spots. Those found in the coast waters do not differ
materially from the widely spread Indian Ocean species.
As a whole, the Madagascar fauna is marked by a strong individuality,
which would appear to be the result of long isolation from the other
zoological "regions." The Asiatic and Malayan affinities of many of
its animals, as well as the physical conditions of the bed of the
Indian Ocean, make it highly probable that Madagascar, while once
forming part of Africa, is the chief relic of a considerable
archipelago formerly connecting that continent with Asia, its other
portions being shown by groups of small islands, and by coral atolls
and shoals, which are gradually disappearing beneath the waves. These
questions have been fully treated by Dr A. R. Wallace in his
_Geographical Distribution of Animals_ (vol. i. ch. ix., 1876) and
_Island Life_, ch. xix. (1880).
_Flora._--The flora of Madagascar is one of great interest. One of its
most prominent features is the belt of forest round a large part of
the island at no great distance from the sea, and generally following
the coast-line. This forest is densest on the east side, and for about
120 m. forms a double line, the lower one being much the broader and
averaging 30 m. across, but attaining a breadth of 60 or 70 m. on the
north-east, near Antongil Bay. The vegetation on the western side of
the island is much less dense, often appearing as scattered clumps of
trees on savannah-like plains rather than continuous forest; while in
the south-west, where the rainfall is very scanty, the vegetation is
largely of fleshy-leaved and spiny plants--aloes and cacti (the latter
introduced), with several species of Euphorbia, as well as numerous
lianas, one of which (_Intisy_) yields india-rubber. It is estimated
that there are about 30,000 sq. m. of forest-covered country in
Madagascar, or about one-eighth of its whole surface. The vegetation
of the forests, the abundant epiphytes, the tree-mosses, the filmy
ferns and the viviparous character of many of the ferns, show clearly
how abundant the rainfall is in the eastern forest region. This
contains a large variety of hard-wooded and valuable timber trees,
including species of _Weinmannia_ (_Lalòna_[5]), _Elaeocarpus_
(_Voànana_), _Dalbergia_ (_Vòambòana_), _Nuxia_ (_Vàlanìrana_),
_Podocarpus_, a pine, the sole species in the island (_Hètatra_),
_Tambourissa_ (_Ambòra_), _Neobaronia_ (_Hàrahàra_), _Ocotea_
(_Varòngy_) and probably ebony, _Diospyros_ sp., &c. The following
trees are characteristic of Madagascar vegetation, some of them being
endemic, and others very prominent features in the landscape: the
traveller's-tree (_Urania speciosa_), with its graceful crown of
plantain-like leaves growing like an enormous fan at the top of a tall
trunk, and affording a supply of pure cool water, every part of the
tree being of some service in building; the Raphia (rofia) palm
(_Sagus ruffia_); the tall fir-like _Casuarina equisetifolia_ or
beefwood tree, very prominent on the eastern coast, as well as several
species of screw-pine (_Pandanus_); the Madagascar spice (_Ravintsara
madagascariensis_), a large forest tree, with fragrant fruit, leaves
and bark; a beautiful-leaved species of _Calophyllum_; and the Tangèna
(_Tanghinia veneniflua_), formerly employed as a poison ordeal. On the
lagoons and lower reaches of the rivers the Vìha (_Typhonodorum
lindleyanum_), an arum endemic to Madagascar, grows in great profusion
to a height of 12 or 13 ft. and has a white spathe more than a foot in
length; and on the western coast dense thickets of mangrove line the
creeks and rivers. In the interior rivers is found the curious and
beautiful lace-leaf plant (_Ouvirandra fenestralis_), with an edible
tuberous root. On the western side of the island the baobab, the
tamarind, the ròtra (_Eugenia_ sp.), the rofia palm, and several
species of fan-palm (_Hyphaene_) and of _Ficus_ are prominent; and the
mango (introduced) grows to a large tree. In the generally bare
interior highlands, large trees, species of _Ficus_ (_Amòntana_,
_Aviàvy_, _Nònoka_, _Adàbo_, &c.), often mark the position of the old
towns; and some of these, as Ambòhimànga, Vòhilèna, &c., are
surrounded by remnants of the original forest, which formerly covered
large portions of the interior. The most prominent tree in the central
province is now the Cape-lilac (_Melia azederach_) introduced about
1825; and since the French conquest several species of eucalyptus have
been planted in vast numbers by the road sides. These have given quite
a new aspect to the vegetation, while bright colour is imparted by
species of _Bougainvillea_ and _Poinsettia_. In the eastern forests
palms, bamboos, lianas and tree-ferns, as well as species of
_Dracaena_, are found.
Although flowers growing on the ground or on shrubs are not
conspicuous for number or beauty, there are many fine flowering trees,
such as _Poinciana regia_, presenting a mass of scarlet flowers;
_Colvillia racemosa_, with yellow flowers; _Astrapaea Wallichii_,
striking attention from its abundant flowers; and species of
_Cryptostegia_, a purple-flowered creeper, and _Strongylodon_, another
creeper with cream-coloured blossoms. Among attractive plants are
species of _Hibiscus, Euphorbia, Buddleia, Ixora, Kitchingia,
Clematis_, &c. On the east coast two orchids, species of _Angraecum_,
with large white waxy flowers, one with an extraordinarily long spur
or nectary, attract the attention of every traveller during June and
July by their abundance and beauty. Some 320 species o£ fern have been
collected, and there are large numbers of spiny and prickly plants, as
well as numerous grasses, reeds and rushes, many of them of great
service in the native manufactures of mats, hats, baskets, &c.
The Rev R. Baron divides the flora into three distinctly marked
"regions," which run in a longitudinal direction, following
approximately the longer axis of the island, and are termed
respectively eastern, western and central. The central includes the
elevated highland of the interior, while the eastern and western
include the forest belts and most of the wooded country and coast
plains. Of the 4100 known plants--of which about three-fourths are
endemic--composing the Madagascar flora, there are 3492 Dicotyledons,
248 Monocotyledons and 360 Acotyledons. Of these, the orders most
largely represented (together with their species) are: Leguminosae,
346; Filices, 318; Compositae, 281; Euphorbiaceae, 228; Orchideae,
170; Cyperaceae, 160; Rubiaceae, 147; Acanthaceae, 131; Gramineae,
130. The number of endemic genera now known is 148. Of the 3178
species of plants whose localities have been determined, 35% are
peculiar to the eastern region, 27.5% to the central, and 22% to the
western. One natural order, Chlaenaceae, is strictly confined to
Madagascar. "A small proportion of the species are Asian, but not
African; and the flora of the mountains corresponds closely with that
of the great ranges of the tropical zone of Africa." "The general plan
of the flora follows thoroughly the same lines as that of the tropical
regions of the Old World."
Among the food-giving plants are rice--the staff of life to the
majority of the Malagasy--in many varieties, maize, millet, manioc,
yams, sweet-potatoes, arrowroot, which is largely used by the western
tribes--as well as numerous vegetables, many of them of foreign
introduction. The fruits--the majority of which are introduced--are
the banana, peach, loquat, pineapple, mango, melon, grape, quince,
plum, apple, mulberry, orange, lemon, citron, guava, Chinese-guava,
Cape-gooseberry, fig, raspberry, tomato, &c. Several spices are grown,
including ginger, capsicum, &c.; sugar-cane, coffee, indigo, vanilla,
tobacco, cotton, hemp, gourds, dye-woods, gums, mulberry and other
trees and plants for silk-culture, are also among the vegetable
productions; gum-copal was formerly, and india-rubber is still, an
important article of export.
_Provinces and Towns._--The island may be divided into districts or
provinces, which in the main indicate tribal divisions. Of these tribal
territories the following may be distinguished, taking them in three
main divisions, from north to south: (1) _Eastern_: Antankàrana,
occupying the northern peninsula; the country of the Bétsimisàraka, who
inhabit a long extent of the coast plains, about 500 m. in length;
parallel with this for about a third of it, and between the two lines of
forest, is the Bézànozàno country. South again are the districts of the
Taimbahòaka, the Taimòro, the Taifàsy and the Taisàka; and at the
south-eastern corner are the Tanòsy. (2) _Central_: the districts of
Tsimihèty and the Sihànaka; Imèrina, the Hòva province; the Bétsiléo;
the Tanàla or foresters; the Bàra; and the emigrant Tanòsy. (3)
_Western_: the people from almost the northern to the southern
extremities of the island are known as Sàkalàva, but consist of a number
of distinct tribes--the Tibòina, the Màilaka, the Taménabé, and the
Fiherènana, &c. South of these last are the Màhafàly, with the Tandròy
at the extreme south. There are no distinctly marked boundaries between
any of these tribal territories; and west of Imèrina and Bétsiléo there
is a considerable extent of country with hardly any population, a kind
of "no-man's-land." There are numerous subdivisions of most of the
tribes.
The capital, Antanànarìvo (pop. 69,000), in the highlands of Imèrina,
and Tamatàve (pop. 4600), on the east coast and the chief seaport, are
separately described. Majunga (properly Mojangà, pop. 5300) on the
north-west coast, just north of 16° S., and Diégo-Suarez, are important
ports for foreign trade, the latter being also a fortified naval and
military station. Other ports and towns are Màhanòro, Mànanjàry (S.E.
coast, pop. 4500), Tullear (S.W. coast), and Fianàrantsòa (pop. 6200),
the chief town of the Bétsiléo. There are very few places besides these
with as many as 2000 people.
_Inhabitants._--The population is somewhat under two and three-quarter
millions,[6] including some 10,000 or 11,000 Europeans, and a smaller
number of Indian, Arab, and other Asiatics, mostly small traders found
in the seaports, the Chinese being found in every town of any size. The
island, it will be seen, is very sparsely inhabited; the most densely
peopled province is that of Imèrina with (1905) 388,000 inhabitants. The
natives, collectively known as Malagasy, are divided into a considerable
number of tribes, each having its distinct customs. Although
geographically an African island, the majority of its inhabitants are
derived, the lighter portion of them from the Malayo-Polynesian stock,
and the darker races from the Melanesian. This is inferred from their
similarity to the peoples of the Indian and Pacific archipelagoes in
their physical appearance, mental habits, customs, and, above all, in
their language. Their traditions also point in the same direction. There
is, however, an undoubted African mixture in the western and some other
tribes. There is also an Arab element both on the north-west and
south-east coasts; and it appears that most of the families of the
ruling classes in all parts of the island are descended from Arabs, who
married native women. It is believed that there are traces of an
aboriginal people (the Vazimba), who occupied portions of the interior
before the advent of the present inhabitants, and these appear to have
been a somewhat dwarfish race, and lighter-coloured than the Malagasy
generally. The Hòva became the dominant tribe from the beginning of the
19th century; they appear to be the latest immigrants, and are the
lightest in colour; and they are also the most intelligent and civilized
of all the peoples inhabiting the island.
The most striking proof of the virtual unity of the inhabitants of
Madagascar is that substantially but one language is spoken over the
whole country. The Malay affinities of Malagasy were noted in the 16th
century; indeed, the second and fifth books published upon the country
(in 1603 and 1613) were comparative vocabularies of these two languages.
Later investigations have confirmed the conclusions thus early arrived
at; and Van der Tuuk, Marre de Marin and W. E. Cousins have shown
conclusively the close relationships between the language of the
Malagasy and those of the Malayo-Polynesian regions; similar connexions
exist, especially in grammatical construction, between the Malagasy and
Melanesian languages. The Malagasy had never invented for themselves a
written character, and had consequently no manuscripts, inscriptions or
books, until their language was reduced to writing, and its orthography
settled by English missionaries. Their speech nevertheless is very full
in many of its verbal and other forms, while it also exhibits some
curious deficiencies. It is very soft and musical, full of vowels and
liquids, and free from all harsh gutturals. Native oratory abounds in
figures, metaphors and parables; and a large number of folk-tales, songs
and legends, together with the very numerous proverbs, give ample
evidence of the mental ability and imaginative powers of the Malagasy.
Native society in Imèrina among the Hòva was formerly divided into
three great classes: the Andrìana, or nobles; the Hòva, freemen or
commoners; and the Andèvo, or slaves; but these last became free by a
proclamation issued in 1896. The Andrìana are, strictly speaking,
royal clans, being descendants of petty kings who were conquered or
otherwise lost their authority through the increasing power of the
ancestors of the reigning family. Their descendants retained certain
honours in virtue of their royal origin, such as special terms of
salutation, the use of the smaller scarlet umbrella (the larger one
was the mark of royal rank), the right to build a particular kind of
tomb, &c.; they also enjoyed exemption from certain government
service, and from some punishments for crime. The Hòva[7] or commoners
form the mass of the population of Imèrina. They are composed of a
large number of tribes, who usually intermarry strictly among
themselves, as indeed do families, so that property and land may be
kept together. The third great division was the slave population,
which since 1896 has become merged in the mass of the people. The
Mozambiques or African slaves, who had been brought from the African
coast by Arab dhows, were in 1877 formally set free by an agreement
with the British government.
Royalty and chieftainship in Madagascar had many peculiar customs. It
had a semi-sacred character; the chief was, in heathen tribes, while
living, the high priest for his people, and after death, was
worshipped as a god; in its modern development among the Hòva
sovereigns it gathered round it much state and ceremony. There were
many curious examples of the taboo with regard to actions connected
with royalty, and also in the words used which relate to Malagasy
sovereigns and their surroundings. These were particularly seen in
everything having to do with the burial of a monarch. While the
foregoing description of native society applied chiefly to the people
of the central province of Imèrina, it is applicable, with local
modifications, to most of the Malagasy tribes. But on the island
becoming a French colony, in 1896, royalty was formally abolished; and
little regard is paid to native rank by French officials.
The chief employment of the Malagasy is agriculture. In the
cultivation of rice they show very great ingenuity, the _kètsa_
grounds, where the rice is sown before transplanting, being formed
either on the margins of the streams or in the hollows of the hills in
a series of terraces, to which water is often conducted from a
considerable distance. In this agricultural engineering no people
surpass the Bétsiléo. No plough is used, all work being done by a
long-handled spade; and oxen are only employed to tread out the soft
mud preparatory to transplanting. The rice is threshed by being beaten
in bundles on stones set upright on the threshing-floor; and when
beaten out the grain is stored by the Hòva in rice-pits dug in the
hard red soil, but by the coast tribes in small timber houses raised
on posts. In preparing the rice for use it is pounded in a wooden
mortar to remove the husk, this work being almost always done by the
women. The manioc root is also largely consumed, together with several
other roots and vegetables; but little animal foods (save fish and
freshwater _Crustacea_) is taken by the mass of the people except at
festival times. Rice is used less by the western tribes than by those
of the central and eastern provinces, and the former people are more
nomadic in their habits than are the others. Large herds of fine
humped cattle are found almost all over the island.
The central and eastern peoples have considerable manual dexterity.
The women spin and weave, and with the rudest appliances manufacture a
variety of strong and durable cloths of silk, cotton and hemp, and of
ròfia palm, aloe and banana fibre, of elegant patterns, and often with
much taste in colour. They also make from straw and papyrus peel
strong and beautiful mats and baskets in great variety, some of much
fineness and delicacy, and also hats resembling those of Panama. The
people of the south and south-east make large use of soft rush matting
for covering, and they also prepare a rough cloth of bark. Their
non-employment of skins for clothing is a marked distinction between
the Malagasy and the South African races, and their use of vegetable
fibres an equally strong link between them and the Polynesian peoples.
The men wear a loincloth or _salàka_, the women a _kitàmby_ or apron
folded round the body from waist to heel, to which a jacket or dress
is usually added; both sexes use over these the _làmba_, a large
square of cloth folded round the body something like the Roman toga,
and which is the characteristic native dress. The Malagasy are skilful
in metal-working; with a few rude-looking tools they manufacture
silver chains of great fineness, and filagree ornaments both of gold
and silver. Their iron-work is of excellent quality, and in copper and
brass they can produce copies of anything made by Europeans. They
display considerable inventive power, and they are exceedingly quick
to adopt new ideas from Europeans.
There is a considerable variety in the houses of the different
Malagasy tribes. The majority of Hòva houses were formerly built of
layers of the hard red soil of the country, with high-pitched roofs
thatched with grass or rush; while the chiefs and wealthy people had
houses of framed timber, with massive upright planking, and lofty
roofs covered with shingles or tiles. But the introduction of
sun-dried and burnt bricks, and of roofing tiles in the central
provinces has led to the general use of these materials in the
building of houses, large numbers of which are made in two storeys and
in European fashion. The forest and coast tribes make their dwellings
chiefly of wood framing filled in with the leaf-stalks of the
traveller's tree, with the leaves themselves forming the roof
covering. The houses of the Bétsiléo and Sàkalàva are very small and
dirty, but those of the coast peoples are more cleanly and roomy.
Among the Hòva and Bétsiléo the old villages were always built for
security on the summits of lofty hills, around which were dug several
deep fosses, one within the other. In other districts the villages and
homesteads are enclosed within formidable defences of prickly-pear or
thorny mimosa.
Apart from the modern influence of religious teaching, the people are
very immoral and untruthful, disregardful of human life and suffering,
and cruel in war. Until lately polygamy has been common among all the
Malagasy tribes, and divorce effected in an absurdly easy fashion. At
the same time the position of woman is much higher in Madagascar than
in most heathen countries; and, the fact that for nearly seventy years
there were (with a few months' exception) only female sovereigns,
helped to give women considerable influence in native society. The
southern and western peoples still practise infanticide as regards
children born on several unlucky days in each month. This was formerly
the general practice all over the island. The old laws among the Hòva
were very barbarous in their punishments, and death in various cruel
forms was inflicted for very trifling offences. Drunkenness is very
prevalent in many parts of the island; and it can hardly be said of
many of the Malagasy that they are very industrious. But they are
courageous and loyal to their chiefs and tribe, and for short periods
are capable of much strenuous exertion. They are affectionate and firm
in their friendships, kind to their children and their aged and infirm
relatives, very respectful to old age, most courteous and polite and
very hospitable to strangers. Slavery had a patriarchal and family
character, and was seldom exercised in a cruel or oppressive way.
The Malagasy have never had any organized religious system or forms of
worship; there are no temples, images or stated seasons of devotion,
nor is there a priesthood, properly so-called. Yet they have never
been without some distinct recognition of a supreme being, whom they
call _Andriamànitra_, "The Fragrant One," and _Zànahàry_, "The
Creator"--words which are recognized all over the island. They have
also retained many ancient sayings, proverbial in their style, which
enforce many of the truths of natural religion as to the attributes of
God. With all this, however, there has long existed a kind of
idolatry, which in its origin is simply fetishism--the belief in
charms--as having power to procure various benefits and protect from
certain evils. Among the Hòva in modern times four or five of these
charms had acquired special sanctity and were each honoured as a kind
of national deity, being called "god," and brought out on all public
occasions. Together with this idolatry there is also a firm belief in
the power of witchcraft and sorcery, in divination, in lucky and
unlucky days and times, in ancestor worship, especially that of the
sovereign's predecessors, and in several curious ordeals for the
detection of crime. The chief of these was the celebrated tangèna
poison ordeal, in which there was implicit belief, and by which, until
its prohibition by an article in the Anglo-Malagasy treaty of 1865,
thousands of persons perished every year. Sacrifices of fowls and
sheep are made at many places at sacred stones and altars, both in
thanksgiving at times of harvest, &c., and as propitiatory offerings.
Blood and fat are used to anoint many of these stones, as well as the
tombs of ancestors, and especially those of the Vazimba. In some of
the southern districts it is said that human sacrifices were
occasionally offered. The chief festival among the Hòva, and almost
confined to them, was that of the New Year, at which time a kind of
sacrificial killing of oxen took place, and a ceremonial bathing, from
which the festival took its name of Fàndròana (the Bath). This
festival is now merged in the French national fête of the 14th of
July. Another great festival was at circumcision times. This rite was
observed by royal command at intervals of a few years; these were
occasions of great rejoicing, but also of much drunkenness and
licentiousness. Since 1868 circumcision has been observed by each
family at any time convenient to itself. It is practised by all the
Malagasy tribes. Funerals were also times of much feasting, and at the
death of people of rank and wealth numbers of bullocks were and are
still killed. Although there was no proper priesthood, the
idol-keepers, the diviners, the day-declarers and some others formed a
class of people closely connected with heathen customs and interested
in their continued observance.
_Industries and Commerce._--The rearing of cattle and the dressing of
hides, the collection of rubber and bee culture are important
industries. The chief food crops grown have been indicated (see
_Flora_), and the gold-mining is separately noticed below. Other
industries undertaken or developed by Europeans are silk and cotton
weaving and raphia-fibre preparation, and ostrich farming. Sugar, rice,
soap and other factories have been established. In 1904 the exportation
of straw and other fibre hats began; these resemble those of Panama and
promise to become an important item. Tanning bark, coffee and guano are
also recent exports.
Since 1862, when the country was thrown open to foreign trade, the
growth of over-sea commerce has been comparatively slow. In the early
days cattle were the chief export. About 1870 india-rubber began to be
exported in considerable quantities, and cattle, rubber and hides
continue staple products. Other important exports are raphia fibre and
beeswax. Since 1900 gold has become a leading export, the value of the
gold sent out of the country in the five years 1901-1906 being
£1,384,493. The imports consist chiefly of tissues (mostly cotton
goods), breadstuffs and rice, liquors, metal-ware and coal. Better means
of internal transport and increased production in the island have
greatly reduced the import of rice, which came mostly from Saigon.
Before the occupation of Madagascar by France the duty on imports and
exports was 10% _ad valorem_, and the foreign trade was very largely in
the hands of British and American merchants. In July 1897 the French
tariff was applied and increased rates levied on foreign goods, notably
cottons. This practically killed the American trade and reduced the
British trade to a very small proportion. In 1897 the British imports
were valued at £179,000; the next year, with the new tariff in force,
they had dropped to £42,000. The only export duties are: cattle 2s. per
head and rubber 2d. per lb.
In 1880-1885 the entire foreign trade of Madagascar, imports and
exports, was estimated to be about £1,000,000; in 1900-1906 the volume
of trade had increased to a little over £2,500,000 a year. But while
from 1900 onwards imports had a tendency to decrease (they were
£1,841,310 in 1901 and £1,247,936 in 1905), exports steadily increased,
owing to the working of gold-mines. The total value of the exports rose
from £359,019 in 1901 to £822,470 in 1906.[1] About 90% of the trade is
with France or other French colonies. The remaining trade is nearly all
British and German.
Banking business is in the hands of French companies. The legal currency
is the French 5-franc piece and the smaller French coins. There was no
native coinage, the French 5-franc piece or dollar being the standard,
and all sums under that amount were obtained by cutting up those coins
into all shapes and sizes, which were weighed with small weights and
scales into halves, quarters, eighths, twelfths and twenty-fourths of a
dollar, and even reckoned down to the seven hundred and twentieth
fraction of the same amount.
_Gold-mining._--Gold-mining has been carried on regularly since 1897,
and by 1900 the value of the ore extracted exceeded £100,000. Reports
of rich discoveries attracted considerable attention in South Africa
and Europe during 1904-1906, but experts, sent from the Transvaal,
came to the conclusion that Madagascar would not become one of the
rich goldfields of the world. The chief mining districts have been
already indicated (see under _Geology_). Rich finds were reported from
the north of the island during 1907, in which year the export of gold
was £320,000. The mines afford a lucrative occupation for some
thousands of persons, and many of the claim-holders are British.
Decrees of 1902 and 1905 regulate the conditions under which mining is
carried on. By decree of the 23rd of May 1907, the radius of the
circle within which claims may be pegged is 2 kilometres (1¼ m.), and
a tax of 5% is levied on the value of the gold extracted.
_Communications._--There is regular steamship communication between
the chief ports and Marseilles, Zanzibar and India (via Mauritius and
Ceylon); and a submarine cable to Mozambique places the island in
telegraphic connexion with the rest of the world. The French have
built carriage roads from the interior to the principal ports as well
as to connect the principal towns. On these roads large use is made of
bullock wagons, as well as carts drawn by men, and women also.
Tamatàve and Antanànarìvo are joined by coast canals and lakes and by
a railway service. Where other means are not available, goods are
carried by canoes, or on the shoulders of bearers along the native
footpaths.
There is a well-organized postal service, and all the towns of note
are linked by a telegraph system, which has a length of over 4000
miles.
_Government, Revenue, &c._--The colony is not represented in the French
Chambers, nor has it self-government. At the head of the administration
is a governor-general, who is assisted by a nominated council of
administration which includes unofficial members. This council must be
consulted on matters affecting the budget. In several towns there are
_chambres consultatives_, composed of local merchants and planters. The
island is divided into _circles_, placed under military officers, and
_provinces_, presided over by a civilian. As far as possible in local
affairs, each of the native races is granted autonomy, the dominion of
the Hòva over the other tribes being abolished. Each province has its
native governor and minor officials, the governor being generally
selected by popular vote. Each village has an organization (the _Fòkon'
òlona_) resembling that of a commune; at its head is a chief or
_mpiadidy_, who serves for three years.
+-----------------+---------+----------+----------+
| Exports: | 1901 | 1906 | Increase.|
+-----------------+---------+----------+----------+
| Rubber | £26,679 | £301,518 | £274,839 |
| Hides and skins | 31,548 | 250,339 | 218,791 |
| Gold | 131,987 | 270,613 | 138,626 |
+-----------------+---------+----------+----------+
For Europeans and in suits between Europeans and natives the French
judicial code is applicable; suits between natives are tried by native
tribunals (established 1898) presided over by a European assisted by
two native assessors. These tribunals judge according to native law
and usages, except when such customs (e.g. polygamy and slavery) have
been expressly abolished. Arbitration councils are available
everywhere for the settlement of disputes between native workmen and
their employers. The native laws respecting land tenure have been
improved by the adoption of a method of registration based on the
Torrens system.
Revenue is derived from land, house and capitation taxes, from
customs, posts and telegraphs, ferries, licences and other indirect
imposts. The excess of expenditure over revenue is made good by
subventions from France. A considerable portion of the revenue is
expended on public works. Revenue and expenditure in 1905 were each
just beneath £1,000,000. This is exclusive of the sums spent by France
in the island on the army, and for the naval base at Diégo-Suarez.
There is a public debt amounting (1907) to £4,055,600. As stated in
the French senate (February 1909), everything is taxed in the island;
and no sooner has any enterprise become fairly successful than it is
so heavily taxed as to be no longer worth carrying on, and certain
crops have therefore been destroyed by the colonists who had planted
them. This has been the case with tobacco, sugar, rum, and also in
butter-making, cattle-breeding and other things. Notwithstanding this
taxation, from 1895 to 1908 £12,000,000 was required for Madagascar
from the home government, and the demand is constantly increasing.
_History._--From the earliest accounts given of the people of Madagascar
by European travellers, as well as from what may be inferred from their
present condition, they seem for many centuries to have been divided
into a number of tribes, often separated from one another by a wide
extent of uninhabited country. Each of these was under its own chief,
and was often at war with its neighbours. No one tribe seems to have
gained any great ascendancy over the rest until about the middle of the
17th century, when a small but warlike people called Sàkalàva, in the
south-west of Madagascar, advanced northward, conquered all the
inhabitants of the western half of the island, as well as some northern
and central tribes, and eventually founded two kingdoms which retained
their supremacy until the close of the 18th century. About that time,
the Hòva in the central province of Imèrina began to assert their own
position under two warlike and energetic chieftains, Andrianimpòina and
his son Radàma; they threw off the Sàkalàva authority, and after several
wars obtained a nominal allegiance from them; they also conquered the
surrounding tribes, and so made themselves virtual kings of Madagascar.
From that time until 1895 Hòva authority was retained over a large part
of the central and eastern provinces, but it was only nominal over much
of the western side of the island, while in the south-west the people
were quite independent and governed by their own chiefs.
Arab Intercourse and Influence.
While European intercourse with Madagascar is comparatively recent, the
connexion of the Arabs with the island dates from a very remote epoch;
and in very early times settlements were formed both on the north-west
and south-east coasts. In the latter locality there are still traces of
their influence in the knowledge of Arabic possessed by a few of the
people. But in these provinces they have become merged in the general
mass of the people. It is different, however, in the north-west and west
of the island. Here are several large Arab colonies, occupying the ports
of Anòrontsànga, Mòjangà, Màrovoày and Mòrondàva, and retaining their
distinct nationality. There is also in these districts a Hindu element
in the population, for intercourse has also been maintained for some
centuries between India and northern Madagascar, and in some towns the
Banyan Indian element is as prominent as the Arab element. In the early
times of their intercourse with Madagascar, the Arabs had a very
powerful influence upon the Malagasy. This is seen in the number of
words derived from the Arabic in the native language. Among these are
the names of the months and the days of the week, those used in
astrology and divination, some forms of salutation, words for dress and
bedding, money, musical instruments, books and writings, together with a
number of miscellaneous terms.
European Intercourse.
The island is mentioned by several of the early Arabic writers and
geographers, but medieval maps show curious ignorance of its size and
position. Marco Polo has a chapter upon it, and terms it "Madeigascar,"
but his accounts are confused with those of the mainland of Africa. The
first European voyager who saw Madagascar was a Portuguese named Diogo
Diaz, captain of one of the ships of a fleet commanded by Pedro Cabral
and bound for India. Separated from his companions by a storm near the
Cape, he sighted the eastern coast of the island on the 10th of August
1500. That day being the feast of St Lawrence, Madagascar was named the
"Isle of St Lawrence," and retained that name on all maps and charts for
a hundred years. The Portuguese gave names to most of the capes, but
made no persistent attempts at colonization. After them the Dutch
endeavoured, but with little success, to form colonies; and in the time
of Charles I. proposals were made to form an English "plantation," but
these were never carried into effect, although for a short time there
was a settlement formed on the south-west coast. In the latter part of
the 17th and during most of the 18th century the French attempted to
establish military positions on the east coast. For some time they held
the extreme south-east point of the island at Fort Dauphin; but several
of their commandants were so incapable and tyrannical that they were
frequently involved in war with the people, and more than once their
stations were destroyed and the French were massacred. Early in the 19th
century all their positions on the mainland were relinquished, and they
retained nothing but the island of Ste Marie on the east coast. In 1811
Tamatàve had been occupied by British troops, and the Treaty of Paris of
1814 recognized as British the "French settlements in Madagascar," but
as a matter of fact France had then no settlements on the mainland. The
then governor of Mauritius, Sir Robert Farquhar, endeavoured to
prosecute British claims and obtained a cession of Diégo-Suarez Bay.
These claims were not backed up by the home government, and a little
later the policy was adopted by Great Britain of supporting the Hòva
authority.
Radàma I.
Introduction of Christianity.
The political history of Madagascar as a whole may be said to date from
the reign of Radàma I. (1810-1828). He was a man much in advance of his
age--shrewd, enterprising, and undeterred by difficulty--a kind of Peter
the Great of his time. He saw that it was necessary for his people to be
educated and civilized if the country was to progress; and making a
treaty with the governor of Mauritius to abolish the export of slaves,
he received every year in compensation a subsidy of arms, ammunition,
and uniforms, as well as English training for his troops. He was thus
enabled to establish his authority over a large portion of the island.
For some years a British agent, Mr Hastie, resided at Radàma's court,
and exercised a powerful influence over the king, doing much for the
material advance of the country. At the same period (1820) Christian
teaching was commenced in the capital by the London Missionary Society,
and by its missionaries the language was reduced to a systematic written
form, and the art of printing introduced; books were prepared, the
Scriptures were translated, numerous schools were formed, and several
Christian congregations were gathered together. The knowledge of many of
the useful arts was also imparted, and many valuable natural productions
were discovered. The power of superstition was greatly broken, a result
partly due to the keen good sense of the king, but chiefly to the spread
of knowledge and religious teaching.
Rànavàlona I.
The bright prospects thus opening up were clouded by the death of Radàma
at the age of thirty-six, and the seizure of the royal authority by one
of his wives, the Princess Rànavàlona. She looked with much suspicion
upon the ideas then gaining power among many of her people, and
determined to strike a decisive blow at the new teaching. In 1835 the
profession of the Christian religion was declared illegal; all worship
was to cease, and all religious books were ordered to be given up. By
the middle of 1836 all the English missionaries were obliged to leave
the island, and for twenty-five years the most strenuous efforts were
made by the queen and her government to suppress all opposition to her
commands. This, however, only served to show in a very remarkable manner
the courage and faith of the Christian Malagasy, of whom about two
hundred suffered death in various cruel forms, while many hundreds were
punished more or less severely by fine, degradation, imprisonment and
slavery. During the queen's reign the political condition of the country
was deplorable; there were frequent rebellions, many of the distant
provinces were desolated by barbarous wars; and for some years all
Europeans were excluded, and foreign commerce almost ceased. This last
circumstance was partly owing to an ill-managed attack upon Tamatàve in
1846 by a combined British and French force, made to redress the wrongs
inflicted upon the foreign traders of that port. But for the leaven of
Christianity and education which had been introduced into the country it
would have reverted to a state of barbarism.
Radàma II.
This reign of terror was brought to a close in 1861 by the death of the
queen and the accession of her son Radàma II. The island was reopened to
European trade, and missionary efforts were recommenced. A determined
attempt was made by some Frenchmen to gain for their country an
overwhelming influence by means of a treaty which they induced the king
to sign. But this act, as well as the vices and insane follies into
which he was led by worthless foreign and native favourites, soon
brought his reign and his life to an end. He was put to death in his
palace (1863) and his wife was placed on the throne. The new sovereign
and her government refused to ratify the agreement which had been
illegally obtained, choosing rather to pay a million francs as
compensation to the French company. During the five years' reign of
Queen Rasohérina, quiet and steady advances were made in civilization
and education, and treaties were concluded with the British, French and
American governments.
Rànavàlona II.
At the death of Rasohérina in 1868, she was succeeded by her cousin,
Rànavàlona II. One of the first acts of the new queen was the public
recognition of Christianity; and very soon afterwards she and her
husband, the prime minister, were baptized, and the erection of a chapel
royal was commenced in the palace yard. These acts were followed in the
succeeding year by the burning of the royal idols, and immediately
afterwards by the destruction of the idols throughout the central
provinces, the people generally putting themselves under Christian
instruction. From that time education and enlightenment made great
progress, chiefly through the labours of missionaries of various
societies.
Native Government.
The native Malagasy government, though theoretically despotic, was
limited in various ways. Radàma I. and Rànavàlona I. were much more
absolute sovereigns than those before or after them, but even they were
largely restrained by public opinion. New laws were announced at large
assemblies of the people, whose consent was asked, and always given
through the headmen of the different divisions of native society; this
custom was no doubt a survival from a time when the popular assent was
not a merely formal act. The large disciplined army formed by Radàma I.
aided much in changing what was formerly a somewhat limited monarchy
into an absolute one. The Hòva queen's authority was maintained over the
central and eastern portions of Madagascar, and at almost all the ports,
by governors appointed by the queen, and supported by small garrisons of
Hòva troops. At the same time the chiefs of the various tribes were left
in possession of a good deal of their former honours and influence.
Rànavàlona II., her predecessor and her successor were successively
married to the prime minister, Ràinilaiàrivòny, a man of great ability
and sagacity, who, by his position as husband and chief adviser of the
sovereign, became virtual ruler of the country. Chiefly owing to his
influence, many measures tending to improve the administration were
introduced. The Hòva army was estimated at from 30,000 to 40,000 men,
several English non-commissioned officers and, latterly, others of
higher rank being engaged to train them in European methods. Revenue was
derived from customs duties, firstfruits, fines and confiscation of
offenders' property, and a money offering called _hàsina_, presented on
a great variety of occasions both to the sovereign in person and to her
representatives; and these were supplemented by "benevolences" (in the
medieval sense of the word) levied upon the people for occasional state
necessities. The government also claimed the unpaid service of all
classes of the community for every kind of public work.
Foreign Relations.
The Hòva government aspired to have Madagascar recognized as an
independent civilized state, and consuls appointed by the British,
French and American governments were accredited to the Malagasy
sovereign, the queen having a consul in England, and a consular agent at
Mauritius. The treaty with Great Britain, concluded in 1865, gave the
consuls of that nation jurisdiction over the British subjects in the
island. At this period, on the initiative of the 4th earl of Clarendon,
then foreign secretary, an understanding was come to between the British
and French governments by which it was agreed that each power should
respect the independence of Madagascar; and the future of the country
appeared to be bound up in the gradual consolidation of the central Hòva
authority over the whole island. While this prospect would have
satisfied the British interests in the island, it was otherwise with the
French. The tradition of their former settlements in and influence over
the island was strong; in 1840 they had taken under their protection the
Sàkalàva ruler of the small island of Nossi-bé, off the north-west
coast, and in virtue of that act claimed a vague protectorate over the
adjacent shores of the mainland. A treaty, concluded in 1868, while
establishing French consular jurisdiction in Madagascar, recognized
Rànavàlona II. as queen of Madagascar, and under the Second Empire
attempts to establish French political influence were discouraged, and
even as late as 1872 the subsidy enjoyed by the Jesuit missionaries was
withdrawn. In 1878 the French consul, Laborde, died, and a dispute arose
as to the disposal of his property. This dispute was the occasion of
further intervention on the part of the French, for the Paris government
supported the claims of Laborde's heirs, and revived their claim to a
protectorate over the Sàkalàva of the north-west coast, as based on
their agreement with them in 1840, ceding Nossi-bé to France. A policy
of colonial expansion generally, and in Africa in particular at this
time, was manifest in France, as in other European countries, and the
French claims on the Hòva were pressed with vigour.
Franco-Malagasy War of 1883-85.
French Protectorate, 1885-1894.
French Invasion and Conquest, 1895.
Towards the middle of 1882 the relations between the native government
and that of France became much strained, and to settle, if possible,
these causes of dispute, two Hòva officers of high rank were sent to
France as ambassadors, but as they were not authorized to concede any
territory, their visit accomplished very little. Treaties had been
concluded with Great Britain, Germany and America, giving improved
facilities for trade with Madagascar, but before the return of the
envoys matters had come to a crisis in the island. In May 1883 an
ultimatum was sent to the Malagasy queen, requiring immediate compliance
with the demands of France; and as these were refused by the Hòva
government, Tamatàve was bombarded by a French squadron and then
occupied by the marines. The war continued in a desultory fashion for
many months; but no serious attempt was made to invade the interior; and
in 1885 terms of peace were agreed to. By a treaty signed on the 17th of
December it was agreed that the foreign relations of Madagascar should
be directed by France; that a resident should live at the capital, with
a small guard of French soldiers; and that the Bay of Diégo-Suarez,
together with surrounding territory, should be ceded to France. The word
"protectorate" was carefully excluded from the treaty, although
doubtless the French envoys intended that this should be its practical
issue. It was at the same time agreed that there should be no foreign
interference with the internal government of the country, and that the
queen should retain her former position, with all its honours and
dignity. It should be here noticed that the queen, Rànavàlona II., died
just at the beginning of the war, on the 13th of July 1883, and was
succeeded by her niece, Princess Razàfindrahèty, under the title of
Rànavàlona III., who maintained the same policy as her predecessor, and
was much beloved by her people and respected by all. Several French
residents successively represented France at Antanànarìvo; but these
found themselves unable to obtain that influence which the home
authorities thought they had a right to demand. Although the British
government, in return for concessions in Zanzibar, had consented, in
1890, to recognize a French protectorate over Madagascar, the Malagasy
prime minister, Ràinilaiàrivòny, was not disposed to give any advantage
to France and continued to arm and train, by the help of British
officers, a large body of native soldiers. This state of tension and
irritation could not last, and at length, towards the close of 1894, the
French government sent an ultimatum to the Malagasy sovereign, demanding
such powers as would have made French authority supreme in the island.
These demands were refused by the native government, and other
conditions were offered; but the French envoy, together with the
resident's escort, left the capital, as also did the French traders and
others, including the large Jesuit mission. As soon as these had left
the island, the chief ports were occupied by French troops, and an
expeditionary force under General Duchesne was afterwards landed on the
north-west coast at Mòjangà--commonly, but incorrectly, written
Majunga--with the object of breaking the Hòva authority. Owing to the
necessity of making a road for the passage of artillery and military
stores, many months were spent on the march into the interior, and there
was considerable loss of life by fever and other disease among the
invading troops. But no effectual resistance was made by the Malagasy,
and at length, on the 30th of September 1895, the French forces appeared
on the heights north and east of Antanànarìvo, bombarded the city, which
surrendered in the afternoon, and on the evening of the same day the
French entered the capital.
Rebellion of 1896, and Gradual Subjection of the Malagasy.
The result was that the protectorate of France was re-established in the
central provinces, but the queen was allowed to retain her position.
Early in 1896, however, a serious rebellion broke out in several parts
of Imèrina. This movement was not only anti-French and anti-foreign, but
also distinctly anti-Christian. The French troops gradually broke up the
power of the rebellion in the central provinces, but as there appeared
to be considerable unrest in many other parts of the island, General
Gallieni, an officer with a reputation for vigour and ability in the
Sudan and Tongking campaigns, was sent out to relieve the then
resident-general.
Administration of General Gallieni.
General Gallieni had a difficult task in establishing the authority of
France throughout the island among numbers of tribes who had never
submitted to any control from others. Among the first steps he took were
to put the country under martial law, to abolish royalty and all
semblance of Hòva government, and to declare Madagascar to be henceforth
a colony of France. Queen Rànavàlona III. was exiled to Réunion, and
subsequently to Algeria. Meanwhile carriage roads were commenced to
connect all the chief centres, and the military posts were gradually
extended so as to consolidate French rule over all the outlying tribes.
French residents and numerous other officials were placed at every
important town, and various projects were started for the civilization
of the Malagasy in accordance with French ideas. At the close of 1899,
General Gallieni was able to report that only portions of the west and
south-west remained to be brought into submission. Not long afterwards
the authority of France was recognized throughout the island. General
Gallieni, whose firm and vigorous administration, and desire to treat
the Malagasy justly and kindly, made him liked by the people, retired in
1905, and was succeeded in that office by M. Victor Augagneur, late
mayor of Lyons. Since the French occupation the Malagasy have conformed
pretty readily to the new order of things, although many of the most
intelligent Hòva deeply regret that their country did not retain its
independence. Justice is administered, on the whole, with fairness and
impartiality; but the taxation seems too heavy for the means of the
people, indeed it is affirmed by trustworthy natives that the well-to-do
classes are being gradually drained of their property. To an outsider it
also appears that the staff of officials is very largely in excess of
any real needs of administration; several monopolies, which interfere
with the habits of the people, tend to produce discontent; and the
taking of their land and houses for public works, roads, &c., while but
a mere fraction of their real value is allowed as compensation, does not
help to increase their acquiescence in foreign control. But the most
serious cause for dislike to government action was the interference by
the governor-general, in 1907, with their religious customs, by the
suppression of hundreds of their congregational schools, and the closing
of numbers of their churches. In July 1910 M. Augagneur was replaced as
governor-general by N. Picquié, a prominent official of the Colonial
Department, who had previously served with acceptance as deputy
governor-general of French Indo-China, and who had a reputation for tact
and impartiality.
_Christian Missions and Education._--As already noticed, the Malagasy
owe to missionaries of the London Missionary Society their first
school system and their first literature, in 1820 and subsequent
years;[8] and for fifteen years all educational work was carried on by
them, some 10,000 to 12,000 children having been instructed in their
schools. On the reopening of the country to Europeans in 1862, the
L.M.S. mission was resumed and was carried on with vigour for several
years, stations being formed in several parts of Imèrina, in the
Bétsiléo and Antsihànaka provinces, and at the ports of Tamatàve,
Majunga and Fàrafangàna (south-east coast). In 1890 the number of
their churches was 1220; adherents, 248,000; and scholars, 68,000; so
that for long the greater part of the educational work was in their
hands, carried on not only in primary schools, but also in high
schools and colleges. In 1863 the Church of England began work in the
island through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the
Church Missionary Society. After some time, however, the latter
society withdrew, leaving the field to the S.P.G. A bishop is
stationed in the capital, with a theological college in its
neighbourhood, but the chief work of the Anglican mission is on the
east coast. In 1866 the Norwegian Lutheran Society began work in
Madagascar, and was joined in 1888 by an American Lutheran Society.
With a representative church at the capital, the chief work of these
missions is in the Vàkinankàratra district (south-west of Imèrina), in
the Bétsiléo province, and on the south-east and south-west coasts; in
these places they have a large number of converts and (until lately)
schools. In 1867 a mission was begun by the Society of Friends, who
gave great attention to education and literary work, and afterwards
took up as their field of labour the western and south-western parts
of Imèrina, where they have a large and well-organized mission.
Immediately after the island became a French possession the French
Protestant Churches began (in 1896) to take part in the evangelizing
of their new colony, and about half the area for long occupied by the
London Missionary Society was transferred to the Paris Society. The
bulk of the Malagasy Christians are Protestants, probably
three-fourths or four-fifths of those professing Christianity. A Roman
Catholic (Jesuit) mission was begun in 1861, and a large force of
priests with a bishop and lay brethren and sisters engaged in
education, have been at work in the island since then, except during
the two Franco-Malagasy wars.[9] Since the French conquest, the north
of the island has been occupied by a mission of priests of the Saint
Esprit, and the southern portion by the Lazarist mission, each with a
bishop at its head. The following table gives the statistics of the
various Protestant missions at the close of 1906:--
+-------------------+------------+--------+---------+--------+--------+
| Mission |Missionaries|Churches|Adherents| Members|Scholars|
+-------------------+------------+--------+---------+--------+--------+
| Lond. Miss. Soc. | 25 | 630 | 120,000 | 32,000 | 27,000 |
| Soc. Prop. Gospel.| 15 | 121 | 13,000 | 4,094 | 7,655 |
| Norweg. Luth. | 60 | 892 | 84,000 | 71,500 | 38,000 |
| Am. Luth. | 14 | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Soc. of Friends. | 27 | 178 | 15,000 | 2,540 | 7,122 |
| French Prot. Miss.| 29 | 491 | 110,660 | 10,500 | 18,200 |
+-------------------+------------+--------+---------+--------+--------+
Since 1897 high schools, and medical and technical schools, and a few
primary schools, have been formed by the French government; and all
other schools have been placed under regulations issued by an
educational department, the scholars being required to learn the
French language; but until the end of 1906 the bulk of the educational
work was carried on by the various missions. At that date the
anti-clerical movement in France began to affect Madagascar. In all
the missions the churches had, in the vast majority of cases, been
used as school-houses, but in November 1906 it was strictly forbidden
to use churches for educational purposes after two months from that
date; and the effect of the decree, with other provisions, was to
close hundreds of schools, probably three-fourths of the whole number.
For many years (1862-1896), all medical aid to the sick, the formation
of hospitals and dispensaries, the training of native doctors,
midwives and nurses, and the production of medical literature was
entirely due to the Protestant missionaries, viz. the London
Missionary Society, the Friends and the Norwegians. Numbers of young
men received a full course of medical and surgical training, and were
awarded diplomas after passing strict examinations. This work is now
mostly in charge of a government department, and mission medical work
is much restricted; but for thirty-five years the Malagasy owed all
such help to the benevolence of European Christians. Besides care for
the sick in ordinary diseases, asylums for lepers were for many years
carried on; two by the London Missionary Society, one, a large one,
with 800 or 900 inmates, by the Norwegian Society, and another by the
Roman Catholic mission. This last, with one of those of the L.M.S., is
now taken over by the government.
AUTHORITIES.--As regards the scientific aspects of the country, almost
everything of value in previous books and papers is included in the
magnificent work (1882 et seq.), in 28 4to vols., by Alfred
Grandidier, entitled _Histoire naturelle, physique, et politique de
Madagascar_. Many of the volumes consist of coloured lithograph plates
illustrating the natural history of the country, as well as atlases of
maps from the earliest period.
_General_: Étienne de Flacourt, _Histoire de la grande isle
Madagascar_ (Paris, 1658); _Madagascar, or Robert Drury's Journal
during Fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island_ (London, 1729; new
ed., 1890); _Voyages et mémoires de Maurice Auguste, comte de
Benyowski_ (Paris, 1791); Froberville, _Histoire de Madagascar_ (Isle
de France, 1809); Ellis, _History of Madagascar_ (London, 1838);
Guillain, _Documents sur ... la partie occidentale de Madagascar_
(Paris, 1845); Macé Descartes, _Histoire et géographie de Madagascar_
(Paris, 1846); Ellis, _Three Visits to Madagascar_ (London, 1859); J.
Sibree, _Madagascar and its People_ (London, 1870); _Tantara ny
Andrìana eto Madagascar: Histoire des rois d'Imérina d'après les
manuscrits malgaches_ (Antanànarìvo, 1875); Mullens, _Twelve Months in
Madagascar_ (London, 1875); Blanchard, _L'Île de Madagascar_ (Paris,
1875); Dahle, _Madagaskar og dets Beboere_ (Christiania, 1876-1878);
Sibree and Baron (eds.), _The Antanànarìvo Annual_, Nos. i-xxiv.
(1875-1900, pp. 3115); _Notes, reconnaissances, et explorations, revue
mensuelle_ (Antanànarìvo, 5 vols., 1897-1899, pp. 3041); Sibree, _A
Madagascar Bibliography_ (Antanànarìvo, 1885); Vaissière, _Histoire de
Madagascar_ (Paris, 1884), _Vingt ans à Madagascar_ (Paris, 1885);
Oliver, _Madagascar: an Historical and Descriptive Account_ (2 vols.,
London, 1886); Cousins, _Madagascar of To-day_ (London, 1895);
_Bulletin du comité de Madagascar_ (monthly) (Paris, 1895, et seq.);
Sibree, _Madagascar before the Conquest_ (London, 1896); Catat,
_Voyage à Madagascar_ (Paris, 1895); _Annuaire de Madagascar_
(Antanànarìvo, 1898, et seq.); J. S. Gallieni; _Rapport d'ensemble sur
la situation générale de Madagascar_ (2 vols., Paris, 1899); _Revue de
Madagascar, mensuelle, illustrée_ (1895, et seq.); _Guide de
l'immigrant à Madagascar_ (3 vols., with atlas, Paris, 1899);
_Collection des anciens ouvrages relatifs à Madagascar, par les soins
du comité de Madagascar_ (a collection and translation of all works
relating to the island from 1500 to 1800, in 10 vols.), (Paris, 1899
et seq.); _Bulletin trimestriel de l'académie de Malgache_ (quarterly)
(Antanànarìvo, 1902 et seq.); G, Grandidier et autres, _Madagascar au
début du xx^e siècle_ (Paris, 1902); G. Grandidier, _Bibliographie de
Madagascar_ (2 vols., Paris, 1905 and 1907).
_Political_: Sibree, "What are 'French Claims' on Madagascar?"
_Madagascar Tracts_ (1882); Oliver, _True Story of the French Dispute
in Madagascar_ (London, 1885); Shaw, _Madagascar and France_ (London,
1885); Saillens, _Nos droits sur Madagascar_ (Paris, 1885); K. Blind
"The Fictitious French Claim to Madagascar," _Contemp. Rev._ (1894);
Martineau, _Étude de politique contemporaine. Madagascar_ (Paris,
1894); Rentier, _Les droits de la France sur Madagascar_ (1895);
Corlay, _Notre campagne à Madagascar_ (Paris, 1896); Knight,
_Madagascar in War-time_ (London, 1896); Carol, _Chez les Hovas_
(Paris, 1898); Gallieni, _Neuf ans à Madagascar_ (Paris, 1908).
_Philology_: Houtman, _Spraak ende woord boek in de Maleische ende
Madagaskarsche talen_ (Amsterdam, 1603); _Voyage de C. van Heemskerk;
vocabulaire de la langue parlée dans l'Île Saint-Laurent_ (Amsterdam,
1603) Megiser, _Beschreibung der Mechtigen und Weitberhümbten Insul
Madagascar_, with dictionary and dialogues (Altenburg, 1609); Arthus,
_Colloquia latino-maleyica et madagascarica_ (Frankfort, 1613);
Challand, _Vocabulaire français-malgache et malgache-français_ (Île de
France, 1773); Froberville, _Dictionnaire français-madécasse_ (3
vols., Île de France, 1809); Freeman and Johns, _Dictionary of the
Malagasy Language (Eng.-Mal. and Mal.-Eng.)_, (Antanànarìvo, 1835);
Dalmond, _Vocabulaire et grammaire pour les langues malgaches,
Sàkalàva et Bétsimisàra_ (Bourbon, 1842); R. C. Missionaries'
_Dictionnaire français-malgache_ (Réunion, 1853); and _Dictionnaire
malgache-français_ (Réunion, 1855); Van der Tunk, "Outlines of a
Grammar of the Malagasy Language," _Jour. Roy. Asiat. Soc._ (1860);
Ailloud, _Grammaire malgache-hòva_ (Antanànarìvo, 1872); W. E.
Cousins, _Concise Introduction to the Study of the Malagasy Language
as spoken in Imèrina_ (Antanànarìvo, 1873); Marre de Marin, _Grammaire
malgache_ (Paris, 1876); id., _Essai sur le malgache, ou Étude
comparée des langues javanaise, malgache, et malayse_ (Paris, 1876);
id., _Le Jardin des racines océaniennes_ (Paris, 1876); Dahle,
_Specimens of Malagasy Folk-lore_ (Antanànarìvo, 1877); and W. E.
Cousins, "The Malagasy Language," in _Trans. Phil. Soc._ (1878).
Besides these there are several valuable papers by Dahle in the yearly
numbers of The _Antanànarìvo Annual_ (_ante_) (1876-1877); Richardson,
_A New Malagasy-English Dictionary_ (Antanànarìvo, 1885); Cousins and
Barrett, _Malagasy Proverbs_ (Antanànarìvo, 1885); Caussèque,
_Grammaire malgache_ (Antanànarìvo, 1886); Abinal et Malzac,
_Dictionnaire malgache-français_ (Antanànarìvo, 1889); Brandstetter,
"Die Beziehungen des Malagasy zum Malaiischen," _Malaio-polynesische
Forschungen_, pt. 2 (Lucerne, 1893).
_Missions and Religious History:_ Freeman and Johns, _Narrative of the
Persecutions of the Christians in Madagascar_ (London, 1840); Prout,
_Madagascar, its Missions and its Martyrs_ (London, 1863); Ellis,
_Madagascar Revisited_ (London, 1867); id., _The Martyr Church_
(London, 1869); "Religion in Madagascar," _Ch. Quar. Rev._ (1878);
Briggs, _The Madagascar Mission_ (L.M.S. 1879); id., _Ten Years'
Review of Mission Work in Madagascar_ (L.M.S. 1870-1880, 1881);
Johnson, _Review of Work of the Friends' Foreign Mission Association
in Madagascar_, 1867-1880 (Antanànarìvo, 1880); Vaissière, _Histoire
de Madagascar, ses habitants et ses missionaires_ (Paris, 1884); _The
Church in Madagascar_ (_S.P.G._, _15 years' progress_, 1874-1889,
1889); _La Liberté religieuse à Madagascar_ (Paris, 1897); Matthews,
_Thirty Years in Madagascar_ (London, 1904); Sibree, _The L.M.S.
Mission in Madagascar_ (L.M.S. Mission Hand Books, London, 1907); id.,
"Christian Missions in Madagascar and French Colonial Policy," _The
East and the West_ (Jan. 1909); and General Gallieni's "Neuf ans à
Madagascar", _Journal of the African Society_ (April 1909).
(J. Si.*)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In the apparent absence of any Cambrian formation above them,
there is little doubt that these rocks are Archean, although this
cannot be absolutely proved.
[2] For most of the information here given on the geology the writer
is indebted to Captain Mouneyres, chef de services des mines, and the
Rev. R. Baron, F.G.S., F.L.S.
[3] See "On a Collection of Fossils from Madagascar," by R. B.
Newton, _Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._ (Feb. 1895).
[4] The following are figures of mean temperature, kindly supplied by
the Rev. E. Colin, S. J., director of the observatory: Diégo-Suarez,
N., 79°; Fàrafangàna, S.E. coast, 75°; Màrovoày, W. intr., 81°;
Mòrondàva, W. coast, 77°; Tullear, S.W. coast, 78°.
[5] The words in parentheses are the native Malagasy names.
[6] The census taken in 1905 gives 2,664,000 as the total population,
but it is probably a little over that amount, as some localities are
still imperfectly known.
[7] This is a special and restricted use of the word, Hòva in its
widest sense being a tribal name, including all ranks of people in
Imèrina.
[8] It is true that 200 years earlier than this, persistent efforts
were made for nineteen years (1600-1619) by Portuguese Roman Catholic
missionaries to propagate their faith among the south-east coast
tribes. But although much zeal and self-denial were shown by these
men, their efforts were abortive, and the mission was at length
abandoned, leaving no fruit of their labours in a single church or
convert. Half a dozen small books of devotion are all that remain to
show their presence in Madagascar.
[9] The work of the "Frères chrétiens" was, however, almost broken up
by the anti-clerical policy of the French government.
MADAN, MARTIN (1726-1790), English writer, was educated at Westminster
School, and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1746. In
1748 he was called to the bar, and for some time lived a very gay life,
until he was persuaded to change his ways on hearing a sermon by John
Wesley. He took holy orders, and was appointed chaplain to the Lock
Hospital, London. He was closely connected with the Calvinistic
Methodist movement supported by the countess of Huntingdon, and from
time to time acted as an itinerant preacher. He was a first cousin of
William Cowper, with whom he had some correspondence on religious
matters. In 1767 much adverse comment was aroused by his support of his
friend Thomas Haweis in a controversy arising out of the latter's
possession of the living of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire (see _Monthly
Review_, xxxvii. 382, 390, 465). In 1780 Madan raised more serious storm
of opposition by the publication of his _Thelyphthora, or A Treatise on
Female Ruin_, in which he advocated polygamy as the remedy for the evils
he deplored. The author was no doubt sincere in his arguments, which he
based chiefly on scriptural authority; but his book called forth many
angry replies. Nineteen attacks on it are catalogued by Falconer Madan
in _Dict. Nat. Biog._ Madan resigned his chaplainship and retired to
Epsom, where he produced, among other works, _A New and Literal
Translation of Juvenal and Persius_ (1789). He died on the 2nd of May
1790.
MADDALONI, a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, about
3½ m. S.E. of Caserta, with stations on the railways from Caserta to
Benevento and from Caserta to Avellino, 200 ft. above sea-level. Pop.
(1901), 19,778 (town); 21,270 (commune). It is prettily situated at the
base of one of the Tifata hills, the towers of its medieval castle and
the church of San Michele crowning the heights above. The fine old
palace of the Caraffa family, once dukes of Maddaloni, the old college
now named after Giordano Bruno, and the institute for the sons of
soldiers are the chief points of interest. About 2½ m. east of Valle di
Maddaloni, the Ponte della Valle, an aqueduct built by the orders of
Charles III. of Naples and his son to convey the water of the Tiburno to
Caserta (19 m.), is carried across the valley between Monte Longano and
Monte Gargano by a threefold series of noble arches rising to a height
of 210 ft. The work was designed by Lodovico Vanvitelli, and
constructed between 1753 and 1759.
MADDEN, SIR FREDERIC (1801-1873), English palaeographer, the son of an
officer of Irish extraction, was born at Portsmouth on the 16th of
February 1801. From his earliest years he displayed a strong bent to
linguistic and antiquarian studies. In 1826 he was engaged by the
British Museum to assist in the preparation of the classified catalogue
of printed books then contemplated, and in 1828 he became assistant
keeper of manuscripts. In 1833 he was knighted, and in 1837 succeeded
Josiah Forshall as keeper of manuscripts. He was not entirely successful
in this office, partly owing to want of harmony with his colleagues; he
retired in 1866. He edited for the Roxburghe Club _Havelok the Dane_
(1828), discovered by himself among the Laudian MSS. in the Bodleian,
_William and the Werwolf_ (1832) and the old English versions of the
_Gesta Romanorum_ (1838). In 1839 he edited the ancient metrical
romances of _Syr Gawayne_ for the Bannatyne Club, and in 1847 Layamon's
_Brut_, with a prose translation, for the Society of Antiquaries. In
1850 the magnificent edition, in parallel columns, of what are known as
the "Wycliffite" versions of the Bible, from the original MSS., upon
which he and his coadjutor, Forshall, had been engaged for twenty years,
was published by the university of Oxford. In 1866-1869 he edited the
_Historia Minor_ of Matthew Paris for the Rolls Series. In 1833 he wrote
the text of Henry Shaw's _Illuminated Ornaments of the Middle Ages_; and
in 1850 edited the English translation of Silvestre's _Paléographie
universelle_. He died on the 8th of March 1873, bequeathing his journals
and other private papers to the Bodleian Library, where they were to
remain unopened until 1920.
Madden was perhaps the first palaeographer of his day. He was an acute
as well as a laborious antiquary, but his ignorance of German
prevented his ranking high as a philologist, although he paid much
attention to the early dialectical forms of French and English. His
minor contributions to antiquarian research were exceedingly numerous:
the best known, perhaps, was his dissertation on the orthography of
Shakespeare's name, which, mainly on the strength of the Florio
autograph, he contended should be "Shakspere."
MADDER, or DYERS' MADDER, the root of _Rubia tinctorum_ and perhaps also
of _R. peregrina_, both European, _R. cordifolia_, a native of the hilly
districts of India and of north-east Asia and Java, supplying the Indian
madder or _manjit_. _Rubia_ is a genus of about thirty-five species of
the tribe _Galieae_ of the order Rubiaceae, and much resembles the
familiar _Galiums_, e.g. lady's bedstraw (_G. verum_) and the cleavers
(_G. aparine_) of English hedges, having similarly whorled leaves, but
the parts of the flowers are in fives and not fours, while the fruit is
somewhat fleshy. The only British species is _R. peregrina_, which is
found in Wales, the south and west of England, and in east and south
Ireland. The use of madder appears to have been known from the earliest
times, as cloth dyed with it has been found on the Egyptian mummies. It
was the [Greek: ereuthedanon] used for dyeing the cloaks of the Libyan
women in the days of Herodotus (Herod. iv. 189). It is the [Greek:
eruthrodanon] of Dioscorides, who speaks of its cultivation in Caria
(iii. 160), and of Hippocrates (_De morb. mul._ i.), and the _Rubia_ of
Pliny (xix. 17). _R. tinctorum_, a native of western Europe, &c., has
been extensively cultivated in south Europe, France, where it is called
_garance_, and Holland, and to a small extent in the United States.
Large quantities have been imported into England from Smyrna, Trieste,
Leghorn, &c. The cultivation, however, decreased after alizarin, the red
colouring principle of madder, was made artificially. Madder was
employed medicinally by the ancients and in the middle ages. Gerard, in
1597, speaks of it as having been cultivated in many gardens in his day,
and describes its supposed many virtues (_Herball_, p. 960); but any
pharmacological or therapeutic action which madder may possess is
unrecognizable. Its most remarkable physiological effect is that of
colouring red the bones of animals fed upon it, as also the claws and
beaks of birds. This appears to be due to the chemical affinity of
phosphate of lime for the colouring matter (Pereira, _Mat. med._, vol.
ii. pt. 2, p. 52). This property has been of much use in enabling
physiologists to ascertain the manner in which bones develop, and the
functions of the various types of cells found in growing bone. _R.
chilensis_ has been used for dyeing red from time immemorial. The
chay-root, which furnishes a red dye in Coromandel and other parts of
India, is the root-bark of _Oldenlandia umbellata_, a low-growing plant
of the same family as madder.
MADEC, RENÉ-MARIE (1736-1784)--called Medoc in Anglo-Indian
writings--French adventurer in India, was born at Quimper in Brittany on
the 7th of February 1736, of poor parents. He went out to India and
served under Dupleix and Lally, but being taken prisoner by the British
he enlisted in the Bengal army. Deserting with some of his companions
shortly before the battle of Buxar (1764), he became military instructor
to various native princes, organizing successively the forces of
Shuja-ud-Dowlah, nawab of Oudh, and of the Jats and Rohillas. He took
service under the emperor Shah Alam in 1772, and when that prince was
defeated at Delhi by the Mahrattas, Madec rejoined his own countrymen in
Pondicherry, where he took an active part in the defence of the town
(1778). After the capitulation of Pondicherry he returned to France with
a considerable fortune, and died there in 1784. At one time he formed a
scheme for a French alliance with the Mogul emperor against the British,
but the project came to nothing.
See Émile Barbé, _Le Nabab René Madec_ (1894).
MADEIRA, or THE MADEIRAS, a group of islands in the North Atlantic
Ocean, which belong to Portugal, and consist of two inhabited islands
named Madeira and Porto Santo and two groups of uninhabited rocks named
the Desertas and Selvagens. Pop. (1900), 150,574; area, 314 sq. m.
Funchal, the capital of the archipelago, is on the south coast of
Madeira Island, in 32° 37´ 45´´ N. and 16° 54´ W. It is about 360 m.
from the coast of Africa, 535 from Lisbon, 1215 from Plymouth, 240 from
Teneriffe, and 480 from Santa Maria, the nearest of the Azores.
_Madeira_ (pop. 1900, 148,263), the largest island of the group, has a
length of 30 m., an extreme breadth of 12 m., and a coast-line of 80 or
90 m. Its longer axis lies east and west, in which direction it is
traversed by a mountain chain, the backbone of the island, having a mean
altitude of 4000 ft., up to which many deep ravines penetrate from both
coasts and render travel by land very difficult. Pico Ruivo, the highest
summit, stands in the centre of the island, and has a height of 6056
ft., while some of the adjacent summits are very little lower. The depth
and narrowness of the ravines, the loftiness of the rugged peaks, often
covered with snow, that tower above them, the bold precipices of the
coast, and the proximity of the sea, afford many scenes of picturesque
beauty or striking grandeur. The greater part of the interior is
uninhabited, though cultivated, for the towns, villages and scattered
huts are usually built either at the mouths of ravines or upon the lower
slopes that extend from the mountains to the coast. The ridges between
the ravines usually terminate in lofty headlands, one of which, called
Cabo Girão, has the height of 1920 ft., and much of the seaboard is
bound by precipices of dark basalt. The north coast, having been more
exposed to the erosion of the sea, is more precipitous than the south,
and presents everywhere a wilder aspect. On the south there is left very
little of the indigenous forest which once clothed the whole island and
gave it the name it bears (from the Portuguese _madeira_, Lat.
_materia_, wood), but on the north some of the valleys still contain
native trees of fine growth. A long, narrow and comparatively low rocky
promontory forms the eastern extremity of the island; and here is a
tract of calcareous sand, known as the Fossil Bed, containing land
shells and numerous bodies resembling the roots of trees, probably
produced by infiltration.
_Porto Santo_ is about 25 m. N.E. of Madeira. Pop. (1900), 2311. It has
a length of 6(1/3) m. and a width of 3 m. The capital is Porto Santo,
called locally the _villa_ or town. The island is very unproductive,
water being scarce and wood wholly absent. Around the little town there
is a considerable tract of pretty level ground covered by calcareous
sand containing fossil land-shells. At each end of the island are hills,
of which Pico do Facho, the highest, reaches the altitude of 1663 ft.
Barley, but little else, is grown here, the limited requirements of the
inhabitants being supplied from Funchal.
_The Desertas_ lie about 11 m. S.E. of Madeira, and consist of three
islands, Ilheo Chão, Bugio and Deserta Grande, together with Sail Rock
off the north end of Ilheo Chão. They present lofty precipices to the
sea on all sides. Rabbits and goats abound on them. The archil weed
grows on the rocks, and is gathered for exportation. The largest islet
(Deserta Grande) is 6½ m. long, and attains the height of 1610 ft. These
rocks are conspicuous objects in the sea-views from Funchal.
[Illustration: Map of Madeira Islands.]
The _Selvagens_ or _Salvages_ are a group of three islands, 156 m. from
Madeira, and between Madeira and the Canary Islands. The largest island
is the Great Piton, 3 m. long, and 1 m. broad. The inclusion of the
Selvagens in the Madeira Archipelago is due to political rather than to
geographical reasons.
_Geology._--All the islands of the group are of volcanic origin. They
are the summits of very lofty mountains which have their bases in an
abyssal ocean. The greater part of what is now visible in Madeira is
of subaerial formation, consisting of basaltic and trachytic lavas,
beds of tuff and other ejectamenta, the result of a long and
complicated series of eruptions from innumerable vents. Besides this
building up by the emission of matter from craters and clefts, a
certain amount of upheaval in mass has taken place, for at a spot
about 1200 ft. above the sea in the northern valley of São Vicente,
and again at about the same height in Porto Santo, there have been
found fragments of limestone accompanied by tuffs containing marine
shells and echinoderms of the Miocene Tertiary epoch. We have here
proof that during or since that epoch portions at least of these
islands have been bodily uplifted more than 1000 ft. The fossils are
sufficiently well preserved to admit of their genera, and in many
instances even their species, being made out.
There were pauses of considerable duration whilst the island of
Madeira was being increased in height. The leaf bed and the
accompanying carbonaceous matter, frequently termed lignite, although
it displays no trace of structure, which lie under 1200 ft. of lavas
in the valley of São Jorge, afford proof that there had been
sufficient time for the growth of a vegetation of high order, many of
the leaf impressions belonging to species of trees and shrubs which
still exist on the island. Moreover, great alterations and
dislocations had taken place in the rocks of various localities before
other lavas and tuffs had been thrown upon them.
There are no data for determining when volcanic action began in this
locality, but looking at the enormous depth of the surrounding sea it
is clear that a vast period of time must have elapsed to allow of a
great mountain reaching the surface and then rising several thousand
feet. Again, considering the comparatively feeble agents for effecting
the work of denudation (neither glaciers nor thick accumulations of
alpine snow being found here), and then the enormous erosion that has
actually taken place, the inference is inevitable that a very great
lapse of time was required to excavate the deep and wide ravines that
everywhere intersect the island. Nor is anything known as to the
period of the cessation of volcanic action. At the present day there
are no live craters or smoking crevices, as at the Canaries and Cape
Verdes, nor any hot springs, as at the Azores.
In one of the northern ravines of Madeira by Porto da Cruz some masses
of a coarsely crystalline Essexite are exposed to view; this rock is
evidently the deep-seated representative of the Trachydoleritic and
Nepheline basalt lavas. Fragments of a sodalite-syenite have also been
found at Soca in the same neighbourhood.
In the eastern part of the island several small crater rings are to be
seen; their rims are formed of spheroidal basalt, while within the
craters themselves masses of bauxite are found accompanied by
evidences of fumerolic action.
In the sections afforded by the ravines, which strike north and south
from the central ridge of Madeira to the sea, the nucleus of the
island is seen to consist of a confused mass of more or less
stratified rock, upon which rest beds of tuff, scoriae and lava, in
the shape of basalt, trap and trachyte, the whole traversed by dykes.
These beds are thinnest near the central axis; as they approach the
coast they become thicker and less intersected by dykes.
In various parts are elevated tracts of comparatively level ground.
These are supposed to have been formed by the meeting of numerous
streams of lava flowing from cones and points of eruption in close
proximity, various ejectamenta assisting at the same time to fill up
inequalities. Deep down in some of the lateral ravines may be seen
ancient cones of eruption which have been overwhelmed by streams of
melted matter issuing from the central region, and afterwards exposed
to view by the same causes that excavated the ravines. These ravines
may be regarded as having been formed at first by subterranean
movements, both gradual and violent, which dislocated the rocks and
cut clefts through which streams flowed to the sea. In course of time
the waters, periodically swollen by melted snows and the copious rains
of winter, would cut deeper and deeper into the heart of the
mountains, and would undermine the lateral cliffs, until the valleys
became as large as we now find them. Even the Curral, which from its
rounded shape and its position in the centre of the island has been
usually deemed the ruins of a crater, is thought to be nothing more
than a valley scooped out in the way described. The rarity of
crateriform cavities in Madeira is very remarkable. There exists,
however, to the east of Funchal, on a tract 2000 ft. high, the Lagoa,
a small but perfect crater, 500 ft. in diameter, and with a depth of
150 ft.; and there is another, which is a double one, in the district
known as Fanal, in the north-west of Madeira, nearly 5000 ft. above
the sea. The basalt, of which much of the outer part of the island is
composed, is of a dark colour and a tough texture, with small
disseminated crystals of olivine and augite. It is sometimes full of
vesicular cavities, formed by the expansion of imprisoned gases. A
rudely columnar structure is very often seen in the basalt, but there
is nothing so perfect as the columns of Staffa or the Giant's
Causeway. The trachytic rocks are small in quantity compared with
those of the basaltic class. The tufa is soft and friable, and
generally of a yellow colour; but where it has been overflowed by a
hot stream of lava it has assumed a red colour. Black ashes and
fragments of pumice are sometimes found in the tufaceous strata.
There are no metallic ores, nor has any sulphur been found; but a
little iron pyrites and specular iron are occasionally met with. The
basalt yields an excellent building-stone, various qualities of which
are quarried near Camara de Lobos, five or six miles west of Funchal.
In Porto Santo the trachytic rocks bear a much greater proportion to
the basaltic than in Madeira. An adjacent islet is formed of tuffs and
calcareous rock, indicating a submarine origin, upon which supramarine
lavas have been poured. The older series contains corals and shells
(also of the Miocene Tertiary epoch), with water-worn pebbles,
cemented together by carbonate of lime, the whole appearing to have
been a coral reef near an ancient beach. The calcareous rock is taken
in large quantities to Funchal, to be burnt into lime for building
purposes.
_Climate._--Observations taken at Funchal Observatory (80 ft. above
sea-level) in the last twenty years of the 19th century showed that
the mean annual temperature is about 65° F. The mean minimum for the
coldest part of the year (October to May inclusive) does not fall
below 55°, and the average daily variation of temperature in the same
period does not exceed 10°. Madeira thus has a remarkably mild
climate, though it lies only 10° north of the Tropic of Cancer. This
mildness is due to the surrounding ocean, from which the atmosphere
obtains a large supply of watery vapour. The mean humidity of the air
is about 75 (saturation = 100). The prevalent winds are from the north
or from a few points east or west of north, but these winds are much
mitigated on the south coast by the central range of mountains. The
west wind usually brings rain. That from the east is a dry wind. A hot
and dry wind, the leste of the natives, occasionally blows from the
east-south-east, the direction of the Sahara, and causes the hill
region to be hotter than below; but even on the coast the thermometer
under its influence sometimes indicates 93°. The _leste_ is often
accompanied by sandstorms. As the thermometer has never been known to
fall as low as 46° at Funchal, frost and snow are there wholly
unknown; but snow falls on the mountains once or twice during the
winter, very seldom, however, below the altitude of 2000 ft.
Thunderstorms are rare, and scarcely ever violent.
Madeira has long had a high reputation as a sanatory resort for
persons suffering from diseases of the chest. Notwithstanding the
ever-increasing competition of other winter resorts, a considerable
number of invalids, especially English and German, winter at Funchal.
_Fauna._--No species of land mammal is indigenous to the Madeiras.
Some of the early voyagers indeed speak of wild goats and swine, but
these animals must have escaped from confinement. The rabbit, black
rat, brown rat and mouse have been introduced. The first comers
encountered seals, and this amphibious mammal (_Monachus albiventer_)
still lingers at the Desertas. Amongst the thirty species of birds
which breed in these islands are the kestrel, buzzard and barn owl,
the blackbird, robin, wagtail, goldfinch, ring sparrow, linnet, two
swifts, three pigeons, the quail, red-legged partridge, woodcock,
tern, herring gull, two petrels and three puffins. Only one species is
endemic, and that is a wren (_Regulus madeirensis_), but five other
species are known elsewhere only at the Canaries. These are the green
canary (_Fringilla butyracea_, the parent of the domesticated yellow
variety), a chaffinch (_Fringilla tintillon_), a swift (_Cypselus
unicolor_), a wood pigeon (_Columba trocaz_) and a petrel
(_Thalassidroma Bulwerii_). There is also a local variety of the
blackcap, distinguishable from the common kind by the extension in the
male of the cap to the shoulder. About seventy other species have been
seen from time to time in Madeira, chiefly stragglers from the African
coast, many of them coming with the _leste_ wind.
The only land reptile is a small lizard (_Lacerta dugesii_), which is
abundant and is very destructive to the grape crop. The loggerhead
turtle (_Caouana caretta_, Gray) is frequently captured, and is cooked
for the table, but the soup is much inferior to that made from the
green turtle of the West Indies. A single variety of frog (_Rana
esculenta_) has been introduced; there are no other batrachians.
About 250 species of marine fishes taken at Madeira have been
scientifically determined, the largest families being _Scombridae_
with 35 species, the sharks with 24, the _Sparidae_ with 15, the rays
with 14, the _Labridae_ with 13, the _Gadidae_ with 12, the eels with
12, the _Percidae_ with 11, and the _Carangidae_ with 10. Many kinds,
such as the mackerel, horse mackerel, groper, mullet, braise, &c..,
are caught in abundance, and afford a cheap article of diet to the
people. Several species of tunny are taken plentifully in spring and
summer, one of them sometimes attaining the weight of 300 lb. The only
freshwater fish is the common eel, which is found in one or two of the
streams.
According to T. V. Wollaston (_Testacea atlantica_, 1878), there have
been found 158 species of mollusca on the land, 6 inhabiting fresh
water, and 7 littoral species, making a total of 171. A large majority
of the land shells are considered to be peculiar. Many of the species
are variable in form or colour, and some have an extraordinary number
of varieties. Of the land mollusca 91 species are assigned to the
genus _Helix_, 31 to the genus _Pupa_, and 15 to the genus _Achatina_
(or _Lovea_). About 43 species are found both living and fossil in
superficial deposits of calcareous sand in Madeira or Porto Santo.
These deposits were assigned by Lyell to the Newer Pliocene period.
Some 12 or 13 species have not been hitherto discovered alive. More
than 100 species of _Polyzoa_ (_Bryozoa_) have been collected, among
them are some highly interesting forms.
The only order of insects which has been thoroughly examined is that
of the _Coleoptera_. By the persevering researches of T. V. Wollaston
the astonishing number of 695 species of beetles has been brought to
light at the Madeiras. The proportion of endemic kinds is very large,
and it is remarkable that 200 of them are either wingless or their
wings are so poorly developed that they cannot fly, while 23 of the
endemic genera have all their species in this condition. With regard
to the _Lepidoptera_, 11 or 12 species of butterflies have been seen,
all of which belong to European genera. Some of the species are
geographical varieties of well-known types. Upward of 100 moths have
been collected, the majority of them being of a European stamp, but
probably a fourth of the total number are peculiar to the Madeiran
group. Thirty-seven species of _Neuroptera_ have been observed in
Madeira, 12 of them being so far as is known peculiar.
The bristle-footed worms of the coast have been studied by Professor
P. Langerhans, who has met with about 200 species, of which a large
number were new to science. There are no modern coral reefs, but
several species of stony and flexible corals have been collected,
though none are of commercial value. There is, however, a white stony
coral allied to the red coral of the Mediterranean which would be
valuable as an article of trade if it could be obtained in sufficient
quantity. Specimens of a rare and handsome red Paragorgia are in the
British Museum and Liverpool Museum.
_Flora._--The vegetation is strongly impressed with a south-European
character. Many of the plants in the lower region undoubtedly were
introduced and naturalized after the Portuguese colonization. A large
number of the remainder are found at the Canaries and the Azores, or
in one of these groups, but nowhere else. Lastly, there are about a
hundred plants which are peculiarly Madeiran, either as distinct
species or as strongly marked varieties. The flowering plants found
truly wild belong to about 363 genera and 717 species,--the
monocotyledons numbering 70 genera and 128 species, the dicotyledons
293 genera and 589 species. The three largest orders are the
_Compositae_, _Leguminosae_ and _Graminaceae_. Forty-one species of
ferns grow in Madeira, three of which are endemic species and six
others belong to the peculiar flora of the North Atlantic islands.
About 100 species of moss have been collected, and 47 species of
_Hepaticae_. A connexion between the flora of Madeira and that of the
West Indies and tropical America has been inferred from the presence
in the former of six ferns found nowhere in Europe or North Africa,
but existing on the islands of the east coast of America or on the
Isthmus of Panama. A further relationship to that continent is to be
traced by the presence in Madeira of the beautiful ericaceous tree
_Clethra arborea_, belonging to a genus which is otherwise wholly
American, and of a _Persea_, a tree laurel, also an American genus.
The dragon tree (_Dracaena Draco_) is almost extinct. Amongst the
trees most worthy of note are four of the laurel order belonging to
separate genera, an _Ardisia_, _Pittosporum_, _Sideroxylon_,
_Notelaea_, _Rhamnus_ and _Myrica_,--a strange mixture of genera to be
found on a small Atlantic island. Two heaths of arborescent growth and
a whortleberry cover large tracts on the mountains. In some parts
there is a belt of the Spanish chestnut about the height of 1500 ft.
There is no indigenous pine tree as at the Canaries; but large tracts
on the hills have been planted with _Pinus pinaster_, from which the
fuel of the inhabitants is mainly derived. A European juniper (_J.
Oxycedrus_), growing to the height of 40 or 50 ft., was formerly
abundant, but has been almost exterminated, as its scented wood is
prized by the cabinet-maker. Several of the native trees and shrubs
now grow only in situations which are nearly inaccessible, and some of
the indigenous plants are of the greatest rarity. But some plants of
foreign origin have spread in a remarkable manner. Among these is the
common cactus or prickly pear (_Opuntia Tuna_), which in many spots on
the coast is sufficiently abundant to give a character to the
landscape. As to _Algae_, the coast is too rocky and the sea too
unquiet for a luxuriant marine vegetation, consequently the species
are few and poor.
_Inhabitants._--The inhabitants are of Portuguese descent, with probably
some intermixture of Moorish and negro blood amongst the lower classes.
The dress of the peasantry, without being picturesque, is peculiar. Both
men and women in the outlying country districts wear the _carapuça_, a
small cap made of blue cloth in shape something like a funnel, with the
pipe standing upwards. The men have trousers of linen, drawn tight, and
terminating at the knees; a coarse shirt enveloping the upper part of
their person, covered by a short jacket, completes their attire, with
the exception of a pair of rough yellow boots. The women's outer
garments consist of a gaudily coloured gown, made from island material,
with a small cape of coarse scarlet or blue woollen cloth. The
population tends to increase rapidly. In 1900 it amounted to 150,574,
including 890 foreigners, of whom the majority were British. The number
of females exceeds that of males by about 6000, partly because many of
the able-bodied males emigrate to Brazil or the United States. The
density of population (479.5 per sq. m.) is very great for a district
containing no large town and chiefly dependent on agriculture and
viticulture.
_Agriculture._--A large portion of the land was formerly entailed in the
families of the landlords (_morgados_), but entails have been abolished
by the legislature, and the land is now absolutely free. The deficiency
of water is a great obstacle to the proper cultivation of the land, and
the rocky nature or steep inclination of the upper parts of the islands
is an effectual bar to all tillage. An incredible amount of labour has
been expended upon the soil, partly in the erection of walls intended to
prevent its being washed away by the rains, and to build up the plots of
ground in the form of terraces. Watercourses have been constructed for
purposes of irrigation, without which at regular intervals the island
would not produce a hundredth part of its present yield. These
watercourses originate high up in the ravines, are built of masonry or
driven through the rock, and wind about for miles until they reach the
cultivated land. Some of them are brought by tunnels from the north side
of the island through the central crest of hill. Each occupier takes his
turn at the running stream for so many hours in the day or night at a
time notified to him beforehand. In this climate flowing water has a
saleable value as well as land, which is useless without irrigation.
The agricultural implements employed are of the rudest kind, and the
system of cultivation is extremely primitive. Very few of the
occupiers own the land they cultivate; but they almost invariably own
the walls, cottages and trees standing thereon, the land alone
belonging to the landlord. The tenant can sell his share of the
property without the consent of the landlord, and if he does not so
dispose of it that share passes to his heirs. In this way the tenant
practically enjoys fixity of tenure, for the landlord is seldom in a
position to pay the price at which the tenant's share is valued. Money
rents are rare, the métayer system regulating almost universally the
relations between landlord and tenant; that is, the tenant pays to the
owner a certain portion of the produce, usually one half or one third.
The holdings are as a rule rarely larger than one man can cultivate
with a little occasional assistance. There are few meadows and
pastures, the cattle being stall-fed when not feeding on the
mountains. Horses are never employed for draught, all labour of that
kind being done by oxen.
Wine.
The two staple productions of the soil are wine and sugar. The vine
was introduced from Cyprus or Crete soon after the discovery of the
island by the Portuguese (1420), but it was not actively cultivated
until the early part of the 16th century. The vines, after having been
totally destroyed by the oidium disease, which made its first
appearance in the island in 1852, were replanted, and in a few years
wine was again made. The phylloxera also made its way to the island,
and every vineyard in Madeira was more or less affected by it. The
wine usually termed Madeira is made from a mixture of black and white
grapes, which are also made separately into wines called Tinta and
Verdelho, after the names of the grapes. Other high-class wines, known
as Bual, Sercial and Malmsey, are made from varieties of grapes
bearing the same names. (See also WINE.)
Sugar.
The sugar cane is said to have been brought from Sicily about 1452,
and in course of time its produce became the sole staple of the
island. The cultivation languished, however, as the more abundant
produce of tropical countries came into the European market, and sugar
had long ceased to be made when the destruction of the vines compelled
the peasants to turn their attention to other things. Its cultivation
was resumed and sugar machinery imported. A considerable quantity of
spirit is made by the distillation of the juice or of the molasses
left after extracting the sugar, and this is consumed on the island.
The cane does not flourish here as luxuriantly as within the tropics;
but in localities below 1000 ft., where there is a good supply of
water, it pays the cultivator well.
The grain produced on the island (principally wheat, barley and Indian
corn) is not sufficient for the consumption of the people. The common
potato, sweet potato and gourds of various kinds are extensively
grown, as well as the _Colocasia esculenta_, the _kalo_ of the Pacific
islanders, the root of which yields an insipid food. Most of the
common table vegetables of Europe are plentiful. Besides apples, pears
and peaches, all of poor quality, oranges, lemons, guavas, mangoes,
loquats, custard-apples, figs, bananas and pineapples are produced,
the last two forming articles of export. The date palm is occasionally
grown, but its fruit is scarcely edible. On the hills large quantities
of the Spanish chestnut afford an item in the food of the common
people. A little tobacco is grown, and is made into cigars of inferior
quality.
The total foreign trade of Madeira was valued at £628,000 in 1900. The
principal exports are wine, sugar, embroidery, vegetables, fruits and
wicker goods. Coal is imported for the ships calling at Funchal, which
is the headquarters of Madeiran commerce and industry. Spirits, beer,
olive oil, soap, butter, linen and woollen goods, straw hats and
leather, are manufactured for home consumption, and there are
important fisheries.
_Chief Towns and Communications._--Funchal (pop. 20,850) is described in
a separate article. The other chief towns are Camara de Lobos (7150),
Machico (6128), Santa Cruz (5876), Ponta do Sol (5665), São Vicente
(4896), Calheta (3475), Sant' Anna (3011) and Porto Santo (2311). Each
of these is the capital of a commune (_concelho_), to which it gives its
name. Madeira is connected by regular lines of steamships with Great
Britain, Germany, Portugal, Cape Colony, Brazil and the United States.
There is no railway in the archipelago, and partly owing to the
irregularities of the surface of the roads, of which there are some 580
m., are bad, except in the neighbourhood of Funchal. Wheel carriages are
rare, and all heavy goods are transported either on the backs of mules
or upon rude wooden sledges drawn by bullocks. When horses are not
employed, locomotion is effected either by means of hammocks or by
bullock cars. The hammock (_rêde_) is a piece of stout canvas gathered
up and secured at each end to a long pole carried by a couple of
bearers. In place of cabs, curtained cars on sledges, made to hold four
persons, and drawn by a pair of bullocks, are employed. They are
convenient, but the rate of progress is very slow.
_Administration._--The archipelago is officially styled the district of
Funchal; it returns members to the Portuguese Cortes, and is regarded as
an integral part of the kingdom. The district is subdivided into the
eight communes already enumerated, and is administered in accordance
with the same laws that regulate local government on the mainland (see
PORTUGAL). Funchal is a Roman Catholic bishopric in the archiepiscopal
province of Lisbon. Education is compulsory in name only, for less than
2% of the population could read when the census of 1900 was taken. An
infantry regiment and a battery of garrison artillery are permanently
stationed in Madeira.
_History._--It has been conjectured, but on insufficient evidence, that
the Phoenicians discovered Madeira at a very early period. Pliny
mentions certain Purple or Mauretanian Islands, the position of which
with reference to the Fortunate Islands or Canaries might seem to
indicate the Madeiras. There is a romantic story, to the effect that two
lovers, Robert Machim, à Machin, or Macham, and Anna d'Arfet, fleeing
from England to France (c. 1370) were driven out of their course by a
violent storm and cast on the coast of Madeira at the place subsequently
named Machico, in memory of one of them. Both perished here, but some of
their crew escaped to the Barbary coast, and were made slaves. Among
them was the pilot Pedro Morales of Seville, who is said to have been
ransomed and to have communicated his knowledge of Madeira to João
Gonçalvez Zarco (or Zargo). How far this story is true cannot now be
ascertained. It is, however, certain that Zarco first sighted Porto
Santo in 1418, having been driven thither by a storm while he was
exploring the coast of West Africa. Madeira itself was discovered in
1420. It is probable that the whole archipelago had been explored at an
earlier date by Genoese adventurers, and had been forgotten; for an
Italian map dated 1351 (the Laurentian portolano) shows the Madeiras
quite clearly, and there is some reason to believe that they were known
to the Genoese before 1339. When Zarco visited Madeira in 1420 the
islands were uninhabited, but Prince Henry the Navigator at once began
their colonization, aided by the knights of the Order of Christ.
Sanctioned by the pope and by two charters which the king of Portugal
granted in 1430 and 1433, the work proceeded apace; much land was
deforested and brought into cultivation, and the Madeiran sugar trade
soon became important. For the sixty years 1580-1640 Madeira, with
Portugal itself, was united with Spain. Slavery was abolished in Madeira
in 1775, by order of Pombal. In 1801 British troops, commanded by
General Beresford, occupied the island for a few months, and it was
again under the British flag from 1807 to 1814. It shared in the civil
disturbances brought about by the accession of Dom Miguel (see PORTUGAL:
_History_), but after 1833 its history is a record of peaceful
commercial development.
See A. S. Brown, _Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores_ (1903),
a comprehensive study of the three archipelagoes. _The Land of the
Wine_, by A. J. D. Biddle (Philadelphia, 1901) is generally valuable,
but its history cannot be trusted. See also P. Langerhaus, _Handbuch
für Madeira_ (1884) and Vahl, _Madeira's Vegetation_ (Copenhagen,
1904).
MADELENIAN, a term derived from La Madeleine, a cave in the Vézère,
about midway between Moustier and Les Eyzies, France, and given by the
French anthropologist Gabriel de Mortillet to the third stage of his
system of cave-chronology, synchronous with the fourth or most recent
division of the Quaternary Age. The Madelenian epoch was a long one,
represented by numerous stations, whose contents show progress in the
arts and general culture. It was characterized by a cold and dry
climate, the existence of man in association with the reindeer, and the
extinction of the mammoth. The use of bone and ivory for various
implements, already begun in the preceding Solutrian epoch, was much
increased, and the period is essentially a Bone age. The bone
instruments are very varied: spear-points, harpoon-heads, borers, hooks
and needles. Most remarkable is the evidence La Madeleine affords of
prehistoric art. Numbers of bones, reindeer antlers and animals' teeth
were found, with rude pictures, carved or etched on them, of seals,
fishes, reindeer, mammoths and other creatures. The best of these are a
mammoth engraved on a fragment of its own ivory; a dagger of reindeer
antler, with handle in form of a reindeer; a cave-bear cut on a flat
piece of schist; a seal on a bear's tooth; a fish well drawn on a
reindeer antler; and a complete picture, also on reindeer antler,
showing horses, an aurochs, trees, and a snake biting a man's leg. The
man is naked, and this and the snake suggest a warm climate, in spite
of the presence of the reindeer. The fauna of the Madelenian epoch
seems, indeed, to have included tigers and other tropical species side
by side with reindeer, blue foxes, Arctic hares and other polar
creatures. Madelenian man appears to have been of low stature,
dolichocephalic, with low retreating forehead and prominent brow ridges.
Besides La Madeleine the chief stations of the epoch are Les Eyzies,
Laugerie Basse, and Gorge d'Enfer in Dordogne; Grotte du Placard in
Charente and others in south-west France.
See G. de Mortillet, _Le Préhistorique_ (1900); Edouard Lartet and
Henry Christy, _Reliquiae Aquitanicae_ (1865-1875); Edouard Dupont,
_Le Temps préhistorique en Belgique_ (1872); Lord Avebury,
_Prehistoric Times_ (1900).
MADELEY, a market town in the municipal borough of Wenlock, and the
Wellington (Mid) parliamentary division of Shropshire, England, 159 m.
N.W. from London, with stations on the London & North Western (Madeley
Market) and Great Western railways (Madeley Court). Pop. of civil parish
(1901), 8442. There are large ironworks, ironstone and coal are mined,
and potter's clay is raised. The church of St Michael (1796) replaced a
Norman building. The living was held from 1760 to 1783 by John William
Fletcher or de la Flechêre, a close friend of the Wesleys. The parish
includes a portion of Coalbrookdale (q.v.), and the towns of Ironbridge
and Coalport. IRONBRIDGE, a town picturesquely situated on the steep
left bank of the Severn, adjoins Madeley on the south-west. It takes its
name from the iron bridge of one span crossing the river, erected in
1779. This bridge is a remarkable work considering its date; it was
probably the first erected, at any rate on so large a scale, and
attracted great attention. It is the work of Abraham Darby, the third of
the name, one of the famous family of iron-workers in Coalbrookdale.
Here are brick and tile works and lime-kilns. There is a station
(Ironbridge and Broseley) on the Great Western railway, across the
river. COALPORT lies also on the Severn, S. of Madeley and 2 m. S.E. of
Ironbridge, with a station on the Great Western railway. It has large
china works, founded at the close of the 18th century, which
subsequently incorporated those of Caughley, across the Severn, and of
Nantgarw in Glamorganshire.
MADHAVA ACHARYA (_fl._ c. 1380), Hindu statesman and philosopher, lived
at the court of Vijayanagar (the modern Humpi in the district of
Bellary), the vigorous Southern Hindu kingdom that so long withstood
Mahommedan influence and aggression. His younger brother Sayana (d.
1387) was associated with him in the administration and was a famous
commentator on the _Rigveda_. Sayana's commentaries were influenced by
and dedicated to Madhava, who is best known as the author of the
_Sarvadarsana Samgraha_ (_Compendium of Speculations_). With remarkable
mental detachment he places himself in the position of an adherent of
sixteen distinct systems. Madhava also wrote a commentary on the Mimamsa
Sutras. He died as abbot of the monastery of Sringeri.
MADI (A-MADI), a negro race of the Nile valley, occupying both banks of
the Bahr-el-Jebel immediately north of Albert Nyanza. Tradition makes
them immigrants from the north-west. They are remarkable for the
consideration shown to their women, who choose their own husbands, are
never ill-treated or hard-worked, and take part in tribal deliberations.
The Madi build sepulchral monuments of an elaborate type, two huge
narrow stones sloping towards each other with two smaller slabs covering
the opening between them. They have been much harried by the Azandeh and
Abarambo. They were visited by W. Junker in 1882-1883, and described by
him in _Petermann's Mittheilungen_ for May 1883.
MADISON, JAMES (1751-1836), fourth president of the United States, was
born at Port Conway, in King George county, Virginia, on the 16th of
March 1751. His first ancestor in America may possibly have been Captain
Isaac Maddyson, a colonist of 1623 mentioned by John Smith as an
excellent Indian fighter. His father, also named James Madison, was the
owner of large estates in Orange county, Virginia. In 1769 the son
entered the college of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where, in
the same year, he founded the well-known literary club, "The American
Whig Society." He graduated in 1771, but remained for another year at
Princeton studying, apparently for the ministry, under the direction of
John Witherspoon (1722-1794). In 1772 he returned to Virginia, where he
pursued his reading and studies, especially theology and Hebrew, and
acted as a tutor to the younger children of the family. In 1775 he
became chairman of the committee of public safety for Orange county, and
wrote its response to Patrick Henry's call for the arming of a colonial
militia, and in the spring of 1776 he was chosen a delegate to the new
Virginia convention, where he was on the committee which drafted the
constitution for the state, and proposed an amendment (not adopted)
which declared that "all men are equally entitled to the full and free
exercise" of religion, and was more radical than the similar one offered
by George Mason. In 1777, largely, it seems, because he refused to treat
the electors with rum and punch, after the custom of the time, he was
not re-elected, but in November of the same year he was chosen a member
of the privy council or council of state, in which he acted as
interpreter for a few months, as secretary prepared papers for the
governor, and in general took a prominent part from the 14th of January
1778 until the end of 1779, when he was elected a delegate to the
Continental Congress.
He was in Congress during the final stages of the War of Independence,
and in 1780 drafted instructions to Jay, then representing the United
States at Madrid, that in negotiations with Spain he should insist upon
the free navigation of the Mississippi and upon the principle that the
United States succeeded to British rights affirmed by the treaty of
Paris of 1763. When the confederation was almost in a state of collapse
because of the failure of the states to respond to requisitions of
Congress for supplies for the federal treasury, Madison was among the
first to advocate the granting of additional powers to Congress, and
urged that congress should forbid the states to issue more paper money.
In 1781 he favoured an amendment of the Articles of Confederation giving
Congress power to enforce its requisitions, and in 1783, in spite of the
open opposition of the Virginia legislature, which considered the
Virginian delegates wholly subject to its instructions, he advocated
that the states should grant to Congress for twenty-five years authority
to levy an import duty, and suggested a scheme to provide for the
interest on the debt not raised by the import duty--apportioning it
among the states on the basis of population, counting three-fifths of
the slaves, a ratio suggested by Madison himself. Accompanying this plan
was an address to the states drawn up by Madison, and one of the ablest
of his state papers. In the same year, with Oliver Ellsworth of
Connecticut, Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts. Gunning Bedford of
Delaware, and John Rutledge of South Carolina, he was a member of the
committee which reported on the Virginia proposal as to the terms of
cession to the Confederation of the "back lands," or unoccupied Western
territory, held by several of the states; the report was a skilful
compromise made by Madison, which secured the approval of the rather
exigent Virginia legislature.
In November 1783 Madison's term in Congress expired, and he returned to
Virginia and took up the study of the law. In the following year he was
elected to the House of Delegates. As a member of its committee on
religion, he opposed the giving of special privileges to the Episcopal
(or any other) church, and contended against a general assessment for
the support of the churches of the state. His petition of remonstrance
against the proposed assessment, drawn up at the suggestion of George
Nicholas (c. 1755-1799), was widely circulated and procured its defeat.
On the 26th of December 1785 Jefferson's Bill for establishing religious
freedom in Virginia, which had been introduced by Madison, was passed.
In the Virginia House of Delegates, as in the Continental Congress, he
opposed the further issue of paper money; and he tried to induce the
legislature to repeal the law confiscating British debts, but he did not
lose sight of the interests of the Confederacy. The boundary between
Virginia and Maryland, according to the Baltimore grant, was the south
shore of the Potomac, a line to which Virginia had agreed on condition
of free navigation of the river and the Chesapeake Bay. Virginia now
feared that too much had been given up, and desired joint regulation of
the navigation and commerce of the river by Maryland and Virginia. On
Madison's proposal commissioners from the two states met at Alexandria
(q.v.) and at Mount Vernon in March 1785. The Maryland legislature
approved the Mount Vernon agreement and proposed to invite Pennsylvania
and Delaware to join in the arrangement. Madison, seeing an opportunity
for more general concert in regard to commerce and trade (and possibly
for the increase of the power of Congress), proposed that all the states
should be invited to send commissioners to consider commercial
questions, and a resolution to that effect was adopted (on Jan. 21,
1786) by the Virginia legislature. This led to the Annapolis convention
of 1786, and that in turn led to the Philadelphia convention of 1787. In
April 1787 Madison had written a paper, _The Vices of the Political
System of the United States_, and from his study of confederacies,
ancient and modern, later summed up in numbers 17, 18, and 19 of _The
Federalist_, he had concluded that no confederacy could long endure if
it acted upon states only and not directly upon individuals. As the time
for the convention of 1787 approached he drew up an outline of a new
system of government, the basis of the "Virginia plan" presented in the
convention by Edmund Jennings Randolph. Madison's scheme, as expressed
in a letter to Washington dated the 16th of April 1787, was that
individual sovereignty of states was irreconcilable with aggregate
sovereignty, but that the "consolidation of the whole into one simple
republic would be as inexpedient as it is unattainable." He considered
as a practical middle ground changing the basis of representation in
Congress from states to population; giving the national government
"positive and complete authority in all cases which require uniformity";
giving it a negative on all state laws, a power which might best be
vested in the Senate, a comparatively permanent body; electing the lower
house, and the more numerous, for a short term; providing for a national
executive, for extending the national supremacy over the judiciary and
the militia, for a council to revise all laws, and for an express
statement of the right of coercion; and finally, obtaining the
ratification of a new constitutional instrument from the people, and not
merely from the legislatures. The "Virginia plan" was the basis of the
convention's deliberations which resulted in the constitution favourably
voted on by the convention on the 17th of September 1787. Among the
features of the plan which were not embodied in the constitution were
the following: proportionate representation in the Senate and the
election of its members by the lower house "out of a proper number of
persons nominated by the individual legislatures"; the vesting in the
national Congress of power to negative state acts; and the establishment
of a council of revision (the executive and a convenient number of
national judges) with veto power over all laws passed by the national
Congress. Madison, always an opponent of slavery, disapproved of the
compromise (in Art. I. § 9 and Art. V.) postponing to 1808 (or later)
the prohibition of the importation of slaves. He took a leading part in
the debates of the convention, of which he kept full and careful notes,
afterwards published by order of Congress (3 vols., Washington, 1843).
Many minute and wise provisions are due to him, and he spoke before the
convention more frequently than any delegate except James Wilson and
Gouverneur Morris. In spite of the opposition to the constitution of the
Virginia leaders George Mason and E. J. Randolph, Madison induced the
state's delegation to stand by the constitution in the convention. His
influence largely shaped the form of the final draft of the
constitution, but the labour was not finished with this draft; that the
constitution was accepted by the people was due in an eminent degree to
the efforts of Madison, who, to place the new constitution before the
public in its true light, and to meet the objections brought against it,
joined Alexander Hamilton (q.v.) and John Jay in writing _The
Federalist_, a series of eighty-five papers, out of which twenty
certainly, and nine others probably, were written by him. In the
Virginia convention for ratifying the constitution (June 1788), when
eight states had ratified and it seemed that Virginia's vote would be
needed to make the necessary nine (New Hampshire's favourable vote was
cast only shortly before that of Virginia), and it appeared that New
York would vote against the constitution if Virginia did not ratify it,
Madison was called upon to defend that instrument again, and he appeared
at his best against its opponents, Patrick Henry, George Mason, James
Monroe, Benjamin Harrison, William Grayson and John Tyler. He answered
their objections in detail, calmly and with an intellectual power and
earnestness that carried the convention. The result was a victory
against an originally adverse public opinion and against the eloquence
of the opponents of the constitution, for Madison and for his
lieutenants, Edmund Pendleton, John Marshall, George Nicholas, Harry
Innes and Henry Lee. At the same time Madison's labours in behalf of the
constitution alienated from him valuable political support in Virginia.
He was defeated by Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson in his
candidacy for the United States Senate, but in his own district he was
chosen a representative to Congress, defeating James Monroe, who seems
to have had the powerful support of Patrick Henry.
Madison took his seat in the House of Representatives in April 1789, and
assumed a leading part in the legislation necessary to the organization
of the new government. He drafted a Tariff Bill giving certain notable
advantages to nations with which the United States had commercial
treaties, hoping to force Great Britain into a similar treaty; but his
policy of discrimination against England was rejected by Congress. It
was his belief that such a system of retaliation would remove the
possibility of war arising from commercial quarrels. He introduced
resolutions calling for the establishment of three executive
departments, foreign affairs, treasury and war, the head of each
removable by the president. Most important of all, he proposed nine
amendments to the constitution, embodying suggestions made by a number
of the ratifying states, especially those made by Virginia at the
instance of George Mason; and the essential principles of Madison's
proposed amendments were included in a Bill of Rights, adopted by the
states in the form of ten amendments. The absence of a Bill of Rights
from the constitution as first adopted had been the point on which the
opposition had made common cause, and the adoption of this now greatly
weakened the same opposition. Although a staunch friend of the
constitution, Madison believed, however, that the instrument should be
interpreted conservatively and not be made the means of introducing
radical innovations. The tide of strict construction was setting in
strongly in his state, and he was borne along with the flood. It is very
probable that Jefferson's influence over Madison, which was greater than
Hamilton's, contributed to this result. Madison now opposed Hamilton's
measures for the funding of the debt, the assumption of state debts, and
the establishment of a National Bank, and on other questions he sided
more and more with the opposition, gradually assuming its leadership in
the House of Representatives and labouring to confine the powers of the
national government within the narrowest possible limits; his most
important argument against Hamilton's Bank was that the constitution did
not provide for it explicitly, and could not properly be construed into
permitting its creation. Madison, Jefferson and Randolph were consulted
by Washington, and they advised him not to sign the bill providing for
the Bank, but Hamilton's counter-argument was successful. On the same
constitutional grounds Madison objected to the carrying out of the
recommendations in Hamilton's famous report on manufactures (Dec. 5,
1791), which favoured a protective tariff. In the presidential campaign
of 1792 Madison seems to have lent his influence to the determined
efforts of the Jeffersonians to defeat John Adams by electing George
Clinton vice-president. In 1793-1796 he strongly criticized the
administration for maintaining a neutral position between Great Britain
and France, writing for the public press five papers (signed
"Helvidius"), attacking the "monarchical prerogative of the executive"
as exercised in the proclamation of neutrality in 1793 and denying the
president's right to recognize foreign states. He found in Washington's
attitude--as in Hamilton's failure to pay an instalment of the moneys
due France--an "Anglified complexion," in direct opposition to the
popular sympathy with France and French Republicanism. In 1794 he tried
again his commercial weapons, introducing in the House of
Representatives resolutions based on Jefferson's report on commerce,
advising retaliation against Great Britain and discrimination in
commercial and navigation laws in favour of France; and he declared that
the friends of Jay's treaty were "a British party systematically aiming
at an exclusive connexion with the British government," and in 1796
strenuously but unsuccessfully opposed the appropriation of money to
carry this treaty into effect. Still thinking that foreign nations could
be coerced through their commercial interests, he scouted as visionary
the idea that Great Britain would go to war on a refusal to carry Jay's
treaty into effect, thinking it inconceivable that Great Britain "would
wantonly make war" upon a country which was the best market she had in
the world for her manufactures, and one with which her export trade was
so much larger than her import.
In 1797 Madison retired from Congress, but not to a life of inactivity.
In 1798 he joined Jefferson in opposing the Alien and Sedition Laws, and
Madison himself wrote the resolutions of the Virginia legislature
declaring that it viewed "the powers of the Federal government as
resulting from the compact to which the states are parties, as limited
by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that
compact; as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants
enumerated in that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable
and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact,
the states, who are parties thereto, have the right and are in duty
bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and
liberties appertaining to them." The Virginia resolutions and the
Kentucky resolutions (the latter having been drafted by Jefferson) were
met by dissenting resolutions from the New England states, from New
York, and from Delaware. In answer to these, Madison, who had become a
member of the Virginia legislature in the autumn of 1799, wrote for the
committee to which they were referred a report elaborating and
sustaining in every point the phraseology of the Virginia
resolutions.[1]
Upon the accession of the Republican party to power in 1801, Madison
became secretary of state in Jefferson's cabinet, a position for which
he was well fitted both because he possessed to a remarkable degree the
gifts of careful thinking and discreet and able speaking, and of large
constructive ability; and because he was well versed in constitutional
and international law and practised a fairness in discussion essential
to a diplomat. During the eight years that he held the portfolio of
state, he had continually to defend the neutral rights of the United
States against the encroachments of European belligerents; in 1806 he
published _An Examination of the British Doctrine which subjects to
Capture a Neutral Trade not open in Time of Peace_, a careful
argument--with a minute examination of authorities on international
law--against the rule of war of 1756 extended by Great Britain in 1793
and 1803.
During Jefferson's presidency and whilst Madison was secretary of state,
by the purchase of Louisiana, Madison's campaign begun in 1780 for the
free navigation of the Mississippi was brought to a successful close.
The candidate in 1808 of the Republican party, although bitterly opposed
in the party by John Randolph and George Clinton, Madison was elected
president, defeating C. C. Pinckney, the Federalist candidate, by 122
votes to 47. Madison had no false hopes of placating the Federalist
opposition, but as the preceding administration was one with which he
was in harmony, his position was different from that of Jefferson in
1801, and he had less occasion for removing Federalists from office.
Jefferson's peace policy--or, more correctly, Madison's peace policy--of
commercial restrictions to coerce Great Britain and France he continued
to follow until 1812, when he was forced to change these futile
commercial weapons for a policy of war, which was very popular with the
extreme French wing of his party. There is a charge, which has never
been proved or disproved, that Madison's real desire was for peace, but
that in order to secure the renomination he yielded to that wing of his
party which was resolved on war with Great Britain. The only certain
fact is that Madison, whatever were his personal feelings in this
matter, acted according to the wishes of a majority of the Republicans;
but whether in doing so he was influenced by the desire of another
nomination is largely a matter of conjecture. Madison was renominated on
the 18th of May 1812, issued his war message on the 1st of June, and in
the November elections he was re-elected, defeating De Witt Clinton by
128 votes to 89. His administration during the war was pitiably weak.
His cabinet in great part had been dictated to him in 1809 by a
senatorial clique, and it was hopelessly discordant; for two years he
was to all intents and purposes his own secretary of state, Robert Smith
being a mere figure-head of whom he gladly got rid in 1811, giving
Monroe the vacant place. Madison himself had attempted alternately to
prevent war by his "commercial weapons" and to prepare the country for
war, but he had met with no success, because of the tricky diplomacy of
Great Britain and of France, and because of the general distrust of him
coupled with the particular opposition to the war of the prosperous New
England Federalists, who suggested with the utmost seriousness that his
resignation should be demanded. In brief, Madison was too much the mere
scholar to prove a strong leader in such a crisis. The supreme disgrace
of the administration was the capture and partial destruction in August
1814 of the city of Washington--this was due, however, to incompetence
of the military and not to any lack of prudence on the cabinet's part.
In general, Congress was more blamable than either the president or his
official family, or the army officers. With the declaration of peace the
president again gained a momentary popularity much like that he had won
in 1809 by his apparent willingness at that time to fight France.
Retiring from the presidency in 1817, Madison returned to his home,
Montpelier (in Orange county, Virginia), which he left in no official
capacity save in 1829, when he was a delegate to the state
constitutional convention and served on several of its committees.
Montpelier, like Jefferson's Monticello and Monroe's Oak-Hill, was an
expensive bit of "gentleman farming," which with his generous Virginia
hospitality nearly ruined its owner financially. Madison's home was
peculiarly a centre for literary travellers in his last years; when he
was eighty-three he was visited by Harriet Martineau, who reported her
conversations with him in her _Retrospect of Western Travel_ (1838). He
took a great interest in education--his library was left to the
university of Virginia, where it was burned in 1895--in emancipation,
and in agricultural questions, to the very last. He died at Montpelier
on the 28th of June 1836. Madison married, in 1794, Dorothy Payne Todd
(1772-1849), widow of John Todd, a Philadelphia lawyer. She had great
social charm, and upon Madison's entering Jefferson's cabinet became
"first lady" in Washington society. Her plump beauty was often
remarked--notably by Washington Irving--in contrast to her husband's
delicate and feeble figure and wizened face--for even in his prime
Madison was, as Henry Adams says, "a small man, quiet, somewhat precise
in manner, pleasant, fond of conversation, with a certain mixture of
ease and dignity in his address." Her son, spoiled by his mother and his
step-father, became a wild young fellow, and added his debts to the
heavy burden of Montpelier upon Madison.
Madison's portrait was painted by Gilbert Stuart and by Charles
Willson Peale; Giuseppe Ceracchi made a marble bust of him in 1792 and
John H. J. Browere another in 1827, now in possession of the Virginia
Historical Society at Richmond. Though commonly dignified and a little
stiff he seems to have had a strong sense of humour and he was fond of
telling a good story. Henry Clay, contrasting him with Jefferson, said
that Jefferson had more genius, Madison more judgment and common
sense; that Jefferson was a visionary and a theorist; Madison cool,
dispassionate, practical, and safe.[2] The broadest and most accurate
scholar among the "founders and fathers," he was particularly an
expert in constitutional history and theory. In the great causes for
which Madison fought in his earlier years--religious freedom and
separation of church and state, the free navigation of the
Mississippi, and the adoption of the constitution--he met with
success. His greatest and truest fame is as the "father of the
constitution." The "commercial weapons" with which he wished to
prevent armed conflict proved less useful in his day than they have
since been in international disputes.
AUTHORITIES.--Madison's personality is perplexingly vague; the
biographies of him are little more than histories of the period, and
the best history of the later period in which he was before the
public, Henry Adams's _History of the United States from 1801 to 1817_
(1889-1890), gives the clearest sketch and best criticism of him. The
lives of Madison are: J. Q. Adams's (Boston, 1850); W. C. Rives's
(Boston, 1859-1869, 3 vols.), covering the period previous to 1797; S.
H. Gay's (Boston, 1884) in the "American Statesmen Series"; and
Gaillard Hunt's (New York, 1902). Madison's _Writings_ (7 vols., New
York, 1900-1906) were edited by Hunt, who also edited _The Journal of
the Debates in the Convention which framed the Constitution of the
United States, as Recorded by James Madison_ (2 vols., New York,
1908). See also Mrs Madison's _Memoirs and Letters_ (Boston, 1887) and
Maud Wilder Goodwin, _Dolly Madison_ (New York, 1897).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Thirty years later Madison's arguments for the Virginia
resolutions and the resolutions themselves were freely used by
Calhoun and his followers in support of his doctrine of
nullification. But Madison insisted that the Resolutions of 1798 did
not involve the principles of nullification. Nearly all his
arguments, especially where he attempts to interpret Jefferson's
writings on the point, notably the Kentucky resolutions, are rather
strained and specious, but it does seem that the Virginia resolutions
were based on a different idea from Calhoun's doctrine of
nullification. Madison's theory was that the legislature of Virginia,
being one of the bodies which had chosen delegates to the
constitutional convention, was legally capable of considering the
question of the constitutionality of laws passed by the Federal
government, and that the state of Virginia might invite other states
to join her, but could not singly, as Calhoun argued, declare any law
of the Federal legislature null and void. (It is to be noted the
words "null and void" were in Madison's first draft of the Virginia
resolutions, but that they were omitted by the Virginia legislature.)
It is notable, besides, that Madison had always feared that the
national congress would assume too great power, that he had approved
of Supreme Court checks on the national legislature, and of veto
power by a council of revision.
[2] Clay's opinion is given in a report written by Mrs Samuel H.
Smith of a conversation in 1829 between Clay and her husband, a
prominent politician.
MADISON, a city and the county-seat of Jefferson county, Indiana,
U.S.A., on the N. bank of the Ohio river, about 90 m. below Cincinnati,
and 44 m. above Louisville, Kentucky. Pop. (1870), 10,709; (1890), 8936;
(1900), 7835 (554 foreign-born and 570 negroes); (1910), 6934. Madison
is served by the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railroad and
by river steamboats. The city is picturesquely situated on bluffs above
the river and has two public parks. In Madison are a King's Daughters'
Hospital, a children's home, and the Drusilla home for old ladies, and
immediately north of the city are the buildings of the Indiana
South-eastern Insane Hospital. Madison is a trading centre of the
surrounding farming region, whose principal products are burley tobacco,
grain and fruits (peaches, apples, pears, plums and small fruits). The
municipality owns and operates the waterworks. Madison was settled about
the beginning of the 19th century; was incorporated as a town in 1824,
and was first chartered as a city in 1836.
MADISON, a borough of Morris county, New Jersey, U.S.A., 27 m. (by rail)
W. of New York City and 4 m. S.E. of Morristown. Pop. (1890), 2469;
(1900), 3754, of whom 975 were foreign-born and 300 were negroes;
(1905), 4115; (1910), 4658. It is served by the Morris & Essex division
of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad. The borough is
attractively situated among the hills of Northern New Jersey, is
primarily a residential suburb of New York and Newark, and contains many
fine residences. There are a public library and a beautiful public park,
both given to the borough by Daniel Willis James (1832-1907), a
prominent metal manufacturer; the library is closely allied with the
public schools. Madison is the seat of the well-known Drew theological
seminary (Methodist Episcopal; founded in 1866 and opened in 1867),
named in honour of Daniel Drew (1788-1879), who, having acquired great
wealth from steamboat and railway enterprises, especially from trading
in railway stocks, presented the large and beautiful grounds and most of
the buildings. The seminary's course covers three years; no fee is
charged. In connexion with the seminary the Drew settlement in New York
City--officially the department of applied Christianity--has for its
object the "practical study of present-day problems in city evangelism,
church organization, and work among the poor." In 1907-1908 the seminary
had 9 instructors, 175 students, and a library of more than 100,000
volumes, especially rich in works dealing with the history of Methodism
and in Greek New Testament manuscripts. About 2 m. N.W. of Madison is
Convent Station, the seat of a convent of the Sisters of Charity, who
here conduct the college of St Elizabeth, for girls, founded in 1859;
also conducted by the Sisters of Charity is St Joseph's preparatory
school for boys, founded in 1862. The cultivation of roses and
chrysanthemums is practically the only industry of Madison. Madison owns
and operates its waterworks and electric-lighting plant. Before 1844
when it took its present name (in honour of President Madison), Madison
was called Bottle Hill; it is one of the older places of the state, and
its first church (Presbyterian) was built about 1748. The borough was
incorporated in 1889.
MADISON, the capital of Wisconsin, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Dane
County, situated between Lakes Mendota and Monona in the south central
part of the state, about 82 m. W. of Milwaukee and about 131 m. N.W. of
Chicago. Pop. (1890), 13,426; (1900) 19,164, of whom 3362 were
foreign-born and 69 were negroes; (1910 census) 25,531. Madison is
served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul,
and the Illinois Central railways (being the northern terminus of the
last), and by interurban electric lines, connecting with Janesville,
Beloit and Chicago. It has a picturesque situation in what is known as
"the Four-Lakes region"; this region takes its name from a chain of
lakes, Kegonsa, Waubesa, Monona and Mendota, which, lying in the order
named and connected with one another by the Yahara or Catfish River,
form the head-waters of Rock river flowing southward through Illinois
into the Mississippi. The city occupies a hilly isthmus about a mile
wide between Lakes Mendota and Monona, bodies of water of great
clearness and beauty, with bottoms of white sand and granite.
The state capitol is in a wooded park at the summit of a hill 85 ft.
high in the centre of the city. From this park the streets and avenues
radiate in all directions. The capitol, built in 1860-1867 (with an
addition in 1883) on the site of the original capitol building
(1837-1838), was partially destroyed by fire in 1904, and in 1909-1910
was replaced by a larger edifice. The principal business portion of the
city is built about the capitol park and the university. Among the
public buildings on or near the park are the federal building, housing
the post office and the United States courts, the city hall, the Dane
county court-house, the public library, the Fuller opera-house, the
county gaol, and the high school. Running directly west from the capitol
is State Street, at the western end of which lie the grounds of the
university of Wisconsin (q.v.), occupying a hilly wooded tract of 300
acres, and extending for a mile along the south shore of Lake Mendota.
University Hill, on which the main building of the university stands, is
125 ft. above the lake; at its foot stands the magnificent library
building of the State Historical Society. In it, in addition to the
interesting and valuable historical museum and art gallery, are the
Society's library of more than 350,000 books and pamphlets, the
university library of 150,000 volumes, and the library of the Wisconsin
academy of arts and sciences, 5000 volumes. Other libraries in the city
include the state law library (45,000 volumes) in the capitol, the
Madison public library (22,500 volumes), and the Woodman astronomical
library (7500 volumes). The Madison public library houses also the state
library school maintained by the Wisconsin library commission. Connected
with the university is the Washburn observatory. On the margin of the
city lies the extensive experimental farm of the state college of
agriculture. In addition to the state university, Madison is the seat of
several Roman Catholic and Lutheran parochial schools, two business
schools, and the Wisconsin academy, a non-sectarian preparatory school
of high grade. On the banks of Lake Monona are the beautiful grounds of
the Monona Lake assembly, a summer assembly on the Chautauqua model.
Near the city is one of the five fish-hatcheries maintained by the
state; it is largely devoted to the propagation of trout and other small
fish. North of the city, occupying a tract of 500 acres, on Lake
Mendota, are the buildings and grounds of the state hospital for the
insane, opened in 1860.
The city's streets are broad and heavily shaded with a profusion of elm,
oak and maple trees. There are many fine stone residences dating from
the middle of the 19th century. There are several parks of great beauty,
and along the shores of Lake Mendota there is a broad boulevarded drive
of 12 m. The municipality owns its waterworks, the water being obtained
from eleven artesian wells, and being chemically similar to that of
Waukesha Springs. The city and surrounding region are a summer resort,
the lakes affording opportunities for fishing and for yachting and
boating.
Madison is an important jobbing centre for central and south-western
Wisconsin; it has an extensive trade in farm, garden and dairy products,
poultry and tobacco; and there are various manufactures. In 1905 the
value of the total factory product was $3,291,143, an increase of 22.4%
over that in 1900.
At the time of the settlement by the whites the aboriginal inhabitants
of the Four-Lakes region were the Winnebago. Prehistoric earthworks are
to be seen in the neighbourhood, several animal-shaped mounds upon the
shores of Lakes Mendota, Monona and Waubesa being among the best
examples. A regular trading post is known to have been established on
Lake Mendota as early as 1820. The title to the Indian lands was
acquired by the United States by treaty in 1825. Colonel Ebenezer
Brigham established himself at Blue Mounds, in the western part of Dane
county, in 1827. In 1832 the "Four-Lakes" country was in the theatre of
hostilities during the Black Hawk War; Colonel Henry Dodge held a
conference with Winnebago chiefs on Lake Mendota, and there were several
skirmishes in the neighbourhood between his troops and the followers of
Black Hawk, one of which took place on the site of Madison. After Black
Hawk's defeat on the Bad Axe he fled to the Wisconsin river Dalles, near
the present Kilbourn, where he was betrayed by the Winnebago. In 1836
Stevens T. Mason, governor of Michigan, and James Duane Doty, then U.S.
district judge, who had visited the region as early as 1829, recorded a
tract of land, including most of the present site of Madison. Here they
surveyed a "paper" city which they named in honour of James Madison. On
the 3rd of December 1836 the territorial legislature in session at
Belmont, after a protracted and acrimonious debate, determined, largely
through Doty's influence, to make Madison the permanent capital. The
construction of houses began in the early spring of 1837. The first
constitutional convention met here in 1846, the second in 1847. Madison
was chartered as a city in 1856. In 1862 a large number of Confederate
prisoners were confined in Camp Randall, at Madison, and many of them
died in hospital.
See D. S. Durrie, _History of Madison, Wisconsin_ (Madison, 1874);
Lyman C. Draper, _Madison the Capital of Wisconsin_ (Madison, 1857);
J. D. Butler, "The Four Lakes Country" in _Wisconsin Historical
Society Collections_, vol. 10 (1888), and R. G. Thwaites, "Madison" in
_Historic Towns of the Western States_ (New York, 1900), and his
"Story of Madison" in _The University of Wisconsin_ (Madison, 1900).
MADOU, JEAN BAPTISTE (1796-1877), Belgian painter and lithographer, was
born at Brussels on the 3rd of February 1796. He studied at the Brussels
Academy of Fine Arts and was a pupil of François. While draughtsman to
the topographical military division at Courtrai, he received a
commission for lithographic work from a Brussels publisher. It was about
1820 that he began his artistic career. Between 1825 and 1827 he
contributed to _Les Vues pittoresques de la Belgique, to a Life of
Napoleon_, and to works on the costumes of the Netherlands, and later
made a great reputation by his work in _La Physionomie de la société en
Europe depuis 1400 jusqu' à nos jours_ (1836) and _Les Scènes de la vie
des peintres_. It was not until about 1840 that he began to paint in
oils, and the success of his early efforts in this medium resulted in a
long series of pictures representing scenes of village and city life,
including "The Fiddler," "The Jewel Merchant," "The Police Court," "The
Drunkard," "The Ill-regulated Household," and "The Village Politicians."
Among his numerous works mention may also be made of "The Feast at the
Château" (1851), "The Unwelcome Guests" (1852, Brussels Gallery),
generally regarded as his masterpiece, "The Rat Hunt" (acquired by
Leopold II., king of the Belgians), "The Arquebusier" (1860), and "The
Stirrup Cup." At the age of sixty-eight he decorated a hall in his house
with a series of large paintings representing scenes from La Fontaine's
fables, and ten years later made for King Leopold a series of decorative
paintings for the château of Ciergnon. Madou died at Brussels on the
31st of March 1877.
For a list of his paintings see the annual report of the Academy of
Belgium for 1879. (F. K.*)
MADOZ, PASCUAL (1806-1870), Spanish statistician, was born at Pampeluna
on the 7th of May 1806. In early life he was settled in Barcelona, as a
writer and journalist. He joined the Progresista party formed during the
first Carlist war, 1833-40. He saw some service against the Carlists;
was elected deputy to the Cortes of 1836; took part for Espartero, and
then against him; was imprisoned in 1843; went into exile and returned;
was governor of Barcelona in 1854, and minister of finance in 1855; had
a large share in secularizing the Church lands; and after the revolution
of 1868 was governor of Madrid. He had, however, no great influence as a
leader and soon went abroad, dying at Genoa in 1870. Madoz was
distinguished from most of the politicians of his generation by the fact
that in middle life he compiled what is still a book of value--a
geographical, statistical and historical dictionary of Spain and its
possessions oversea, _Diccionario geográfico, estadístico y historico de
España, y sus posesiones de Ultramar_ (Madrid, 1848-1850).
MADRAS, a presidency of British India--officially styled Fort St
George--occupying, with its dependencies, the entire south of the Indian
peninsula. The north boundary is extremely irregular. On the extreme
N.E. is the Bengal province of Orissa; then the wild highlands of the
Central Provinces; next the dominions of the nizam of Hyderabad; and
lastly, on the N.W., the Bombay districts of Dharwar and North Kanara.
Geographically Mysore and Coorg lie within the bounds of Madras, and
politically it includes the Laccadive Islands, off the Malabar coast, in
the Indian Ocean. Its total area, including native states, is 151,695
sq. m., and its population in 1901 was 42,397,522, showing an increase
of 7.7% in the decade. The seat of government is at Madras city (q.v.).
_Physical Aspect._--The Madras presidency may be roughly divided into
three tracts: (1) the long and broad east coast, (2) the shorter and
narrower west coast, and (3) the high interior table-land. These
divisions are determined by the great mountain ranges of the Eastern
and Western Ghats (q.v.). Between these two ranges lies the central
table-land, with an elevation of 1000 to 3000 ft., which includes the
whole of Mysore, and extends over about half a dozen districts of
Madras. The Anaimudi mountain (8837 ft.) in Travancore is the highest
in southern India. The Nilgiri hills, which join the Ghats, culminate
in Dodabetta (8760 ft.). There are besides many outlying spurs and
tangled masses of hills, of which the Shevaroys, Anamalais and Palnis
are the most important. The Godavari, Kistna and Cauvery rivers, each
having a large tributary system, all rise in the Western Ghats, and
run across the peninsula in a south-east direction into the Bay of
Bengal. In the upper parts of their course they drain rather than
water the country through which they flow, and are comparatively
valueless either for navigation or irrigation; but before reaching the
sea they spread over alluvial deltas. Smaller rivers of the same
character are the Pennar and South Pennar or Ponniar, Palar, Vaigai,
Vellar and Tambraparni. The principal lake is that of Pulicat on the
east coast, which is 37 m. long from north to south, and forms an
important means of communication between Madras city and the northern
districts. On the west coast are a remarkable series of backwaters or
lagoons, fringing the seaboard of Kanara, Malabar and Travancore. The
largest is the backwater of Cochin, which extends 120 m. from north to
south.
_Geology._--By far the greater part of Madras is occupied by granitic
and gneissic rocks of very ancient date. Among them are the
"charnockites," a series of associated eruptive rocks characterized by
the presence of rhombic pyroxenes. In Bellary and Anantapur districts,
as well as in Mysore and Hyderabad, several long narrow strips of a
later formation, known as the Dharwar system, are folded or faulted
into the gneissic floor. They run from N.N.W. to S.S.E., and consist
of conglomerates, lavas and schists. All the quartz reefs which
contain gold in paying quantities are found within these Dharwar
bands, those of the Kolar goldfield in Mysore being the most
important. The gneissic and Dharwar rocks are overlaid unconformably
by the sandstones, limestones, shales, &c., of the Cuddapah and
Kurnool series. It is in the sandstones and shales of the Kurnool
group that most of the diamonds of southern India are found; but as
these rocks are of sedimentary origin, it is probable that the
diamonds were originally derived from some still unknown source. A
strip of Gondwana beds follows approximately the course of the
Godavari. In Hyderabad it includes the important Singareni coalfield,
but in the Presidency no good coal seams have yet been found. Upper
Gondwana beds also occur in small patches at several other places near
the east coast. Marine cretaceous deposits are found in three detached
areas, near Trichinopoly, Viruddhachalam and Pondicherry. Some of the
coastal sandstones may be of late Tertiary age, but Tertiary fossils
have not been found except in a few small patches on the west coast,
the most southerly being near Quilon in Travancore.
_Climate._--The climate varies in accordance with the height of the
mountain chain on the western coast. Where this chain is lofty, as
between Malabar and Coimbatore, the rainclouds are intercepted and
give a rainfall of 150 in. on the side of the sea, and only 20 in. on
the landward side. Where the range is lower, the rainclouds pass over
the hills and carry their moisture to the interior districts. The
Nilgiri hills enjoy the climate of the temperate zone, with a moderate
rainfall. The Malabar coast has a rainfall of 150 in., and the clouds
on the Western Ghats sometimes obscure the sun for months at a time.
Along the eastern coasts and central table-lands the rainfall is low
and the heat excessive. At Madras city the average rainfall is 50 in.,
but this is considerably above the mean of the east coast.
_Minerals._--The mineral wealth of the province is undeveloped. Iron
of excellent quality has been smelted by native smiths in many
localities from time immemorial; but attempts to work the beds after
European methods have proved unsuccessful. Carboniferous sandstone
extends across the Godavari valley as far as Ellore, but the coal has
been found to be of inferior quality. Among other minerals may be
mentioned manganese in Vizagapatam, and mica in Nellore. Garnets are
abundant in the sandstone of the Northern Circars, and diamonds of
moderate value are found in the same region. Stone and gravel quarries
are very numerous.
_Forests._--The forest department of Madras was first organized in
1856, and it is estimated that forests cover a total area of more than
19,600 sq. m., the whole of which is under conservancy rules. An area
of about 1500 sq. m. is strictly conserved. In the remaining forests,
after supplying local wants, timber is either sold direct by the
department or licences are granted to wood-cutters. The more valuable
timber trees comprise teak, ebony, rosewood, sandal-wood and redwood.
The trees artificially reared are teak, sandal-wood, _Casuarina_ and
eucalyptus. The finest teak plantation is near Beypur in Malabar. At
Mudumalli there are plantations of both teak and sandal-wood; and the
eucalyptus or Australian gum-tree grows on the Nilgiris in magnificent
clumps.
_Fauna._--The wild animals include the elephant, bison, sambur and
ibex of the Western Ghats and the Nilgiris. Bison are found also in
the hill tracts of the Northern Circars. In Travancore state the black
leopard is not uncommon. The elephant is protected by law from
indiscriminate destruction. The cattle are small, but in Nellore and
along the Mysore frontier a superior breed is carefully kept up by the
wealthier farmers. The best buffaloes are imported from the Bombay
district of Dharwar.
_Population._--The population in 1901 was divided into Hindus
(37,026,471), Mahommedans (2,732,931), and Christians (1,934,480). The
Hindus may be subdivided into Sivaites, Vishnuvites and Lingayats. The
Sivaites are most numerous in the extreme south and on the west coast,
while the Vishnuvites are chiefly found in the northern districts. The
Lingayats, a sect of Sivaite puritans, derive their name from their
practice of carrying about on their persons the _linga_ or emblem of
Siva. The Brahmans follow various pursuits, and some of them are recent
immigrants, who came south in the train of the Mahratta armies. A
peculiar caste of Brahmans, called Nambudri, is found in Malabar. The
most numerous of the hill tribes are the Kondhs and Savaras, two cognate
races who inhabit the mountainous tracts of the Eastern Ghats, attached
to several of the large estates of Ganjam and Vizagapatam. On the
Nilgiris the best known aboriginal tribe is the Todas (q.v.). The
Mahommedans are subdivided into Labbai, Moplah, Arab, Sheikh, Sayad,
Pathan and Mogul. The Labbais are the descendants of Hindu converts, and
are traders by hereditary occupation, although many now employ
themselves as sailors and fishermen. The Moplahs are the descendants of
Malayalam converts to Islam--the head of the tribe, the raja of
Cannanore, being descended from a fisher family in Malabar. They are a
hard-working, frugal people, but quite uneducated and fanatical, and
under the influence of religious excitement have often disturbed the
public peace. Christians are more numerous in Madras than in any other
part of India. In Travancore and Cochin states the native Christians
constitute as much as one-fourth of the population. The Roman Catholics,
whose number throughout southern India is estimated at upwards of
650,000, owe their establishment to St Francis Xavier and the famous
Jesuit mission of Madura; they are partly under the authority of the
archbishop of Goa, and partly under twelve Jesuit vicariates. Protestant
missions date from the beginning of the 18th century. The Danes were the
pioneers; but their work was taken up by the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, under whom laboured the great Lutherans of the 18th
century--Schultz, Sartorius, Fabricius and Schwartz. The Church
Missionary Society entered the field in 1814; and subsequently an
American mission joined in the work.
_Languages._--Broadly speaking, the entire population of Madras belongs
to the five linguistic offshoots of the great Dravidian stock, dominant
throughout southern India. At an early period, before the dawn of
history, these races appear to have accepted some form of the
Brahmanical or Buddhist faiths. Many storms of conquest have since swept
over the land, and colonies of Mogul and Mahratta origin are to be found
here and there. But the evidence of language proves that the ethnical
character of the population has remained stable under all these
influences, and that the Madras Hindu, Mahommedan, Jain and Christian
are of the same stock. Of the five Dravidian languages in British
territory Telugu is spoken by over 14,000,000 persons; Tamil by over
15,000,000 persons; Kanarese by over 1,500,000 persons; Malayalam by
nearly 3,000,000 persons; and Tulu by about 500,000 persons. Oriya is
the native tongue in the extreme north of Ganjam, bordering on Orissa;
and various sub-dialects of Dravidian origin are used by the hill tribes
of the Eastern Ghats, of whom the Kondhs may be taken as the type.
_Agriculture._--Over the greater part of the area of Madras artificial
irrigation is impossible, and cultivation is dependent upon the local
rainfall, which rarely exceeds 40 in. a year, and is liable to fall
irregularly. The Malabar coast is the only part where the rainfall
brought by the south-west monsoon may be trusted both for its amount
and regularity. Other districts, such as Bellary, are also dependent
upon this monsoon; but in their case the rainclouds have spent
themselves in passing over the Western Ghats, and cultivation becomes
a matter of hazard. Over the greater part of the presidency the rainy
season is caused by the south-east monsoon, which breaks about the end
of September. The deltas of the Godavari, Kistna and Cauvery rivers
are the only spots on the east coast which artificial irrigation is
able to save from the risk of occasional scarcity. The principal food
staples are rice, cholam, cambu, ragi and varagu (four kinds of
millet). The most common oil-seed is gingelly (sesamum). Garden crops
comprise tobacco, sugar-cane, chillies, betel-leaf and plantains.
Sugar is chiefly derived from the sap of palms. The fruit trees are
coco-nut, areca-nut, palmyra palm, jack, tamarind and mango. Special
crops include cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cinchona. The best cotton
is grown in Tinnevelly. The principal coffee tract stretches along the
slopes of the Western Ghats from the north of Mysore almost down to
Cape Comorin. The larger portion of this area lies within Mysore,
Coorg and Travancore states, but the Wynaad and the Nilgiri hills are
within Madras. The first coffee plantation was opened in the Wynaad in
1840. Many of the early clearings proved unprofitable, and the
enterprise made little progress till about 1855. Coffee, which is much
cultivated on the Nilgiris, covers about 100 sq. m., though the area
fluctuates. The tea plant was also introduced into the Nilgiri hills
about 1840, but was not taken up as a commercial speculation till
1865, and is still unimportant. The cinchona plant was successfully
introduced into the Nilgiri hills by the government in 1860, and there
are now a few plantations belonging to private owners.
The greater part of the soil in Madras is held by the cultivators
direct from the government under the tenure known as _ryotwari_.
Besides these lands in the hands of the government, there are also
proprietary or _zamindari_ estates in all parts of the country. These
estates are either the remains of ancient principalities, which the
holder cannot sell or encumber beyond his own life interest, or they
are creations of British rule and subject to the usual Hindu custom of
partition. The total area of the _zamindari_ estates is about 26
million acres, more than one-fourth of the whole presidency. The
_peshkash_ or tribute payable to government in perpetuity amounts to
about £330,000 a year. _Ináms_, revenue-free or quit-rent grants of
lands made for religious endowments or for services rendered to the
state, occupy an aggregate area of nearly 8 million acres.
_Manufactures._--Madras possesses few staple manufactures. The chief
industries of the presidency are cotton-ginning, coffee-curing,
fish-curing, indigo-pressing, oil-pressing, printing, rice-curing,
rope-making, sugar-refining, tanning, tile and brick-making, and
tobacco-curing. Up to the close of the 18th century cotton goods
constituted the main article of export. Masulipatam, where the first
English factory on the Coromandel coast was established in 1620,
enjoyed a special reputation for its chintzes, which were valued for
the freshness and permanency of their dyes. There is still a small
demand for these articles in Burma, the Straits and the Persian Gulf;
but Manchester goods have nearly beaten the Indian exporter out of the
field. Native looms, however, still hold their own in the local
market, in face of strenuous opposition. After weaving, working in
metals appears to be the most widespread native industry. Among local
specialities which have attracted European curiosity may be mentioned
the jewelry of Trichinopoly, ornaments of ivory and horn worked at
Vizagapatam, and sandal-wood carving in Kanara.
_Commerce and Trade._--The continuous seaboard of the Madras
presidency, without any natural harbours of the first rank, has tended
to create a widely diffused trade. Madras city conducts nearly
one-half of the total sea-borne commerce; next comes Malabar,
containing the western railway terminus near Calicut; then Godavari,
with its cluster of ports along the fringe of the delta; Tinnevelly,
with the harbour at Tuticorin, which has opened large dealings with
Ceylon and Burma; Tanjore, South Kanara, Ganjam and Vizagapatam. As
compared with the other provinces, the trade of Madras is broadly
marked by the larger proportion assigned to coasting trade with other
Indian ports and with Ceylon. The chief staples of the export trade
are hides and skins, coffee and raw cotton.
_Railways and Irrigation._--The presidency is well supplied with
railways, which naturally have their centre in Madras city, the chief
seaport. The broad-gauge line of the Madras & Southern Mahratta
railway connects with Bombay and Bangalore, and also crosses the
peninsula to Calicut on the western coast. The South Indian
(narrow-gauge) serves the extreme south, with its terminus at
Tuticorin, and branches to Tinnevelly, Negapatam, Erade, Pondicherry
and Nellore. The narrow-gauge line of the Madras & Southern Mahratta
railway traverses the Deccan districts; and the East Coast line
(broad-gauge), through the Northern Circars, has brought Madras into
direct communication with Calcutta. The Madras system of irrigation
has been most successful in the case of the three great eastern
rivers, the Godavari, Kistna and Cauvery. Each of these is intercepted
by an _anicut_ or dam at the head of its delta, from which canals
diverge on each side for navigation as well as irrigation. The scheme
for diverting the waters of the Tungabhadra (a tributary of the
Kistna) over the thirsty uplands of Kurnool proved a failure. The bold
project of leading the Periyar river through a tunnel across the
watershed of the Travancore hills on to the plain of Madura has been
more successful.
_Administration._--The Madras presidency is administered by a governor
and a council, consisting of two members of the civil service, which
number may be increased to four. There is also a board of revenue of
three members. The number of districts is 24, each under the charge of a
collector, with sub-collectors and assistants. The districts are not
grouped into divisions or commissionerships, as in other provinces. For
legislative purposes the council of the governor is augmented by
additional members, numbering 45 in all, of whom not more than 17 may be
nominated officials, while 19 are elected by various representative
constituencies. Members of the legislative council enjoy the right of
interpellation, of proposing resolutions on matters of public interest,
and of discussing the annual financial statement. The principle of local
devolution is carried somewhat further in Madras than in other
provinces. At the bottom are union _panchayats_ or village committees,
whose chief duty is to attend to sanitation. Above them come _taluk_ or
subdivisional boards. At the head of all are district boards, a portion
of whose members are elected by the _taluk_ boards.
_Education._--The chief educational institutions are the Madras
University, the Presidency College, Madras Christian College, and
Pachayyappa's College at Madras; the government arts colleges at
Combaconum and Rajahmundry; the law college, medical college and
engineering college at Madras; the college of agriculture at Coimbatore;
the teachers' college at Saidapet; the school of arts at Madras; and the
military orphanage at Ootacamund, in memory of Sir Henry Lawrence. In
1907, the total number of pupils at all institutions was 1,007,118, of
whom 164,706 were females, and 132,857 were learning English.
_History._--Until the British conquest the whole of southern India had
never acknowledged a single ruler. The difficult nature of the hill
passes and the warlike character of the highland tribes forbade the
growth of great empires, such as succeeded one another on the plains of
Hindustan. The Tamil country in the extreme south is traditionally
divided between the three kingdoms of Pandya, Chola and Chera. The west
coast supplied the nucleus of a monarchy which afterwards extended over
the highlands of Mysore, and took its name from the Carnatic. On the
north-east the kings of Kalinga at one time ruled over the entire line
of seaboard from the Kistna to the Ganges. Hindu legend has preserved
marvellous stories of these early dynasties, but our only authentic
evidence consists in their inscriptions on stone and brass, and their
noble architecture (see India). The Mahommedan invader first established
himself in the south in the beginning of the 14th century. Ala-ud-din,
the second monarch of the Khilji dynasty at Delhi, and his general Malik
Kafur conquered the Deccan, and overthrew the kingdoms of Karnataka and
Telingana, which were then the most powerful in southern India. But
after the withdrawal of the Mussulman armies the native monarchy of
Vijayanagar arose out of the ruins. This dynasty gradually extended its
dominions from sea to sea, and reached a pitch of prosperity before
unknown. At last, in 1565, it was overwhelmed by a combination of the
four Mahommedan principalities of the Deccan. At the close of the reign
of Aurangzeb, although that emperor nominally extended his sovereignty
as far as Cape Comorin, in reality South India had again fallen under a
number of rulers who owned no regular allegiance. The nizam of the
Deccan, himself an independent sovereign, represented the distant court
of Delhi. The most powerful of his feudatories was the nawab of the
Carnatic, with his capital at Arcot. In Tanjore, a descendant of Sivaji
ruled; and on the central table-land a Hindu chieftain was gradually
establishing his authority and founding the state of Mysore, destined
soon to pass to a Mahommedan usurper.
Vasco da Gama cast anchor off Calicut on the 20th of May 1498, and for a
century the Portuguese retained in their control the commerce of India.
The Dutch began to establish themselves on the ruin of the Portuguese at
the beginning of the 17th century, and were quickly followed by the
English, who established themselves at Calicut and Cranganore in 1616.
Tellicherry became the principal English emporium on the west coast of
Madras. The Portuguese eventually retired to Goa, and the Dutch to the
Spice Islands. The first English settlement on the east coast was in
1611, at Masulipatam, even then celebrated for its fabrics. Farther
south a fort, the nucleus of Madras city, was erected in 1640.
Pondicherry was purchased by the French in 1762. For many years the
English and French traders lived peacefully side by side, and with no
ambition for territorial aggrandisement. The war of the Austrian
succession in Europe lit the first flame of hostility on the Coromandel
coast. In 1746 Madras was forced to surrender to La Bourdonnais, and
Fort St David remained the only English possession in southern India. By
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle Madras was restored to the English; but
from this time the rivalry of the two nations was keen, and found its
opportunities in the disputed successions which always fill a large
place in Oriental politics. English influence was generally able to
secure the favour of the rulers of the Carnatic and Tanjore, while the
French succeeded in placing their own nominee on the throne at
Hyderabad. At last Dupleix rose to be the temporary arbiter of the fate
of southern India, but he was overthrown by Clive, whose defence of
Arcot in 1751 forms the turning point in Indian history. In 1760 the
crowning victory of Wandewash was won by Colonel (afterwards Sir Eyre)
Coote, over Lally, and in the following year, despite help from Mysore,
Pondicherry was captured.
Though the English had no longer any European rival, they had yet to
deal with Mahommedan fanaticism and the warlike population of the
highlands of Mysore. The dynasty founded by Hyder Ali, and terminating
in his son Tippoo Sultan, proved itself in four several wars, which
terminated only in 1799, the most formidable antagonist which the
English had ever encountered (see HYDER ALI and INDIA). Since the
beginning of the 19th century Madras has known no regular war, but
occasional disturbances have called for measures of repression. The
_pálegárs_ or local chieftains long clung to their independence after
their country was ceded to the British. On the west coast, the feudal
aristocracy of the Nairs, and the religious fanaticism of the Moplahs,
have more than once led to rebellion and bloodshed. In the extreme
north, the wild tribes occupying the hills of Ganjam and Vizagapatam
have only lately learned the habit of subordination. In 1836 the
_zamíndarí_ of Gumsur in this remote tract was attached by government
for the rebellious conduct of its chief. An inquiry then instituted
revealed the wide prevalence among the tribe of Kondhs of human
sacrifice, under the name of _meriah_. The practice has since been
suppressed by a special agency. In 1879 the country round Rampa on the
northern frontier was the scene of riots sufficiently serious to lead to
the necessity of calling out troops. The same necessity arose three
years later, when the Hindus and Mahommedans of Salem came into
collision over a question of religious ceremonial. A more serious
disturbance was that known as the "Anti-Shanar riots" of 1899. The
Maravans of Tinnevelly and parts of Madura, resenting the pretensions of
the Shanans, a toddy-drawing caste, to a higher social and religious
status, organized attacks on Shanan villages. The town of Sivakasi was
looted and burnt by five thousand Maravans. Quiet was restored by the
military, and a punitive police force was stationed in the disturbed
area.
The different territories comprising the Madras presidency were acquired
by the British at various dates. In 1763 the tract encircling Madras
city, then known as the Jagir now Chingleput district, was ceded by the
nawab of Arcot. In 1765 the Northern Circars, out of which the French
had recently been driven, were granted to the Company by the Mogul
emperor, but at the price of an annual tribute of £90,000 to the nizam
of Hyderabad. Full rights of dominion were not acquired till 1823, when
the tribute was commuted for a lump payment. In 1792 Tippoo was
compelled to cede the Baramahal (now part of Salem district), Malabar
and Dindigul subdivision of Madura. In 1799, on the reconstruction of
Mysore state after Tippoo's death, Coimbatore and Kanara were
appropriated as the British share; and in the same year the Mahratta
raja of Tanjore resigned the administration of his territory, though his
descendant retained titular rank till 1855. In 1800 Bellary and Cuddapah
were made over by the nizam of Hyderabad to defray the expense of an
increased subsidiary force. In the following year the dominions of the
nawab of the Carnatic, extending along the east coast almost
continuously from Nellore to Tinnevelly, were resigned into the hands of
the British by a puppet who had been put upon the throne for the
purpose. The last titular nawab of the Carnatic died in 1855; but his
representative still bears the title of prince of Arcot, and is
recognized as the first native nobleman in Madras. In 1839 the nawab of
Kurnool was deposed for misgovernment and suspicion of treason, and his
territories annexed.
See _Madras Manual of Administration_, 3 vols. (Madras, 1885 and
1893); S. Ayyangar, _Forty Years' Progress in Madras_ (Madras, 1893);
J. P. Rees, _Madras_ (Society of Arts, 1901); _Madras Provincial
Gazetteer_ (2 vols., Calcutta, 1908).
MADRAS, the capital of Madras presidency, and the chief seaport on the
eastern coast of India, is situated in 13° 4´ N. and 80° 17´ E. The
city, with its suburbs, extends nine miles along the sea and nearly
four miles inland, intersected by the little river Cooum. Area, 27 sq.
m.; pop. (1901), 509,346, showing an increase of 12.6% in the decade.
Madras is the third city in India.
Although at first sight the city presents a disappointing appearance,
and possesses not a single handsome street, it has several buildings of
architectural pretensions, and many spots of historical interest. It is
spread over a very wide area, and many parts of it are almost rural in
character. Seen from the roadstead, the fort, a row of merchants'
offices, a few spires and public buildings are all that strike the eye.
Roughly speaking, the city consists of the following divisions. (1)
George Town (formerly Black Town, but renamed after the visit of the
Prince of Wales in 1906), an ill-built, densely populated block, about a
mile square, is the business part of the town, containing the banks,
custom house, high court, and all the mercantile offices. The last, for
the most part handsome structures, lie along the beach. On the sea-face
of George Town are the pier and the new harbour. Immediately south of
George Town there is (2) an open space which contains Fort St George,
the Marina, or fashionable drive and promenade by the seashore,
Government House, and several handsome public buildings on the sea-face.
(3) West and south of this lung of the city are crowded quarters known
by native names--Chintadrapet, Turuvaleswarampet, Pudupak, Royapet,
Kistnampet and Mylapur, which bend to the sea again at the old town of
Saint Thomé. (4) To the west of George Town are the quarters of Veperi
and Pudupet, chiefly inhabited by Eurasians, and the suburbs of Egmore,
Nangambakam, and Perambur, adorned with handsome European mansions and
their spacious "compounds" or parks, which make Madras a city of
magnificent distances. (5) South-west and south lie the European
quarters of Tanampet and aristocratic Adyar. Among the most notable
buildings are the cathedral, Scottish church, Government House,
Pachayappa's Hall, senate house, Chepauk palace (now the revenue board),
and the Central railway station.
Madras possesses no special industries. There are several cotton mills,
large cement works, iron foundries and cigar factories. Large sums of
money have from time to time been spent upon the harbour works, but
without any great success. The port remains practically an open
roadstead, protected by two breakwaters, and the P. & O. steamers ceased
to call in 1898. Passengers or cargo are landed or embarked in
flat-bottomed _masula_ boats. The sea bottom is unusually flat, reaching
a depth of ten fathoms only at a mile from the shore. The harbour is not
safe during a cyclone, and vessels have to put out to sea. Madras
conducts about 56% of the foreign trade of the presidency, but a much
smaller share of the coasting trade. As the capital of southern India,
Madras is the centre on which all the great military roads converge. It
is also the terminal station of two lines of railway, the Madras &
Southern Mahratta line and the Madras & Tanjore section of the South
Indian railway. The Buckingham canal, which passes through an outlying
part of the city, connects South Arcot district with Nellore and the
Kistna and Godavari system of canal navigation. The municipal government
of the city was framed by an act of the Madras legislature passed in
1884. The governing body consists of 32 commissioners, of whom 24 are
elected by the ratepayers, together with a paid president. The Madras
University was constituted in 1857, as an examining body, on the model
of the university of London. The chief educational institutions in
Madras city are the Presidency College; six missionary colleges and one
native college; the medical college, the law college, the college of
engineering, the teachers' college in the suburb of Saidapet, all
maintained by government; and the government school of arts.
The foundation of Madras dates from 1640, when Francis Day, chief of the
East India Company's settlement at Armagon, obtained a grant of the
present site of the city from a native ruler. A fort--called Fort St
George, presumably from having been finished on St George's Day (April
23)--was at once constructed, and a gradually increasing population
settled around its walls. In 1653 Madras, which had previously been
subordinate to the settlement of Bantam in Java, was raised to the rank
of an independent presidency. In 1702 Daud Khan, Aurangzeb's general,
blockaded the town for a few weeks, and in 1741 the Mahrattas
unsuccessfully attacked the place. In 1746 La Bourdonnais bombarded and
captured Madras. The settlement was restored to the English two years
later by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, but the government of the
presidency did not return to Madras till 1762. In 1758 the French under
Lally occupied the Black Town and invested the fort. The siege was
conducted on both sides with great skill and vigour. After two months
the arrival of an English fleet relieved the garrison, and the besiegers
retired with some precipitancy. With the exception of the threatening
approach of Hyder Ali's horsemen in 1769, and again in 1780, Madras has
since the French siege been free from external attack. The town of Saint
Thomé, now part of Madras city, was founded and fortified by the
Portuguese in 1504, and was held by the French from 1672 to 1674.
See Mrs F. Penny, _Fort St George_ (1900); W. Foster, _Founding of
Fort St George_ (1902).
MADRAZO Y KUNT, DON FEDERICO DE (1815-1894), Spanish painter, was born
in Rome on the 12th of February 1815. He was the son of the painter
Madrazo y Agudo (1781-1859), and received his first instruction from his
father. While still attending the classes at the Academy of San Fernando
he painted his first picture, "The Resurrection of Christ" (1829), which
was purchased by Queen Christina. Not long afterwards he painted
"Achilles in his Tent," and subsequently presented to the Academy "The
Continence of Scipio," which secured him admission as a member "for
merit." While decorating the palace of Vista Alegre he took up
portraiture. In 1852 he went to Paris, where he studied under
Winterhalter, and painted portraits of Baron Taylor and of Ingres. In
1837 he was commissioned to produce a picture for the gallery at
Versailles, and painted "Godfrey de Bouillon proclaimed King of
Jerusalem." The artist then went to Rome, where he worked at various
subjects, sacred and profane. Then he painted "Maria Christina in the
Dress of a Nun by the bedside of Ferdinand III." (1843), "Queen
Isabella," "The Duchess of Medina-Coeli," and "The Countess de Vilchès"
(1845-1847), besides a number of portraits of the Spanish aristocracy,
some of which were sent to the exhibition of 1855. He received the
Legion of Honour in 1846. He was made a corresponding member of the
Paris Academy of Fine Arts on the 10th of December 1853, and in 1873, on
the death of Schnorr, the painter, he was chosen foreign member. After
his father's death he succeeded him as director of the Prado Gallery and
president of the Academy of San Fernando. He originated in Spain the
production of art reviews and journals, such as _El Artista_, _El
Renacimiento_ and _El Semanario pintoresco_. He died at Madrid on the
11th of June 1894. His brother, DON LOUIS DE MADRAZO, was also known as
a painter, chiefly by his "Burial of Saint Cecilia" (1855). Don
Federico's best-known pupil was his son, DON RAIMUNDO DE MADRAZO (b.
1841).
MADRID, a province of central Spain, formed in 1833 of districts
previously included in New Castile, and bounded on the W. and N. by
Ávila and Segovia, E. by Guadalajara, S.E. by Cuenca and S. by Toledo.
Pop. (1900), 775,034, of whom 539,835 inhabit the city of Madrid; area,
3084 sq. m. Madrid belongs to the basin of the Tagus, being separated
from that of the Douro by the Sierra de Guadarrama on the N.W. and N.,
and by the Sierra de Gredos on the S.W. The Tagus is the southern
boundary for some distance, its chief tributary being the Jarama, which
rises in the Somosierra in the north and terminates at Aranjuez. The
Jarama, in turn, is joined by the Henares and Tajuña on the left, and by
the Lozoya and Manzanares on the right. The Guadarrama, another
tributary of the Tagus, has its upper course within the province. Like
the rest of Castile, Madrid is chiefly of Tertiary formation; the soil
is mostly clayey, but there are tracts of sandy soil. Agriculture is
somewhat backward; the rainfall is deficient, and the rivers are not
utilized as they might be for irrigation. The south-eastern districts
are the best watered, and produce in abundance fruit, vegetables, wheat,
olives, esparto grass and excellent wine. Gardening and viticulture are
carried on to some extent near the capital, though the markets of Madrid
receive their most liberal supply of fruits and vegetables from
Valencia. Sheep, goats and horned cattle are reared, and fish are found
in the Jarama and other rivers. Much timber is extracted from the
forests of the northern and north-eastern parts of the province for
building purposes and for firewood and charcoal. The royal domains of
the Escorial, Aranjuez and El Pardo, and the preserves of the nobility,
are all well wooded and contain much game. Efforts have also been made
by the local authorities to cover the large stretches of waste ground
and commons with pines and other trees.
The Sierra de Guadarrama has quarries of granite, lime and gypsum, and
is known to contain iron, copper and argentiferous lead; but these
resources are undeveloped. Other industries are chiefly confined to the
capital; but cloth, leather, paper, earthenware, porcelain, glass,
bricks and tiles, ironware, soap, candles, chocolate and lace are also
manufactured on a small scale beyond its boundaries. There is very
little commerce except for the supply of the capital with necessaries.
Besides the local lines, all the great railways in the kingdom converge
in this province, and it contains in all 221 m. of line. Besides Madrid,
the towns of Aranjuez (12,670) and Alcalá de Henares (11,206) and the
Escorial are described in separate articles. The other towns with more
than 5000 inhabitants are Vallecas (10,128), Colmenar de Oreja (6182),
Colmenar Viejo (5255) and Carabanchel Bajo (5862).
MADRID, the capital of Spain and of the province of Madrid, on the left
bank of the river Manzanares, a right-hand tributary of the Jarama,
which flows south into the Tagus. Pop. (1877), 397,816; (1887), 472,228;
(1897), 512,150; (1900), 539,835. Madrid was the largest city in Spain
in 1900; it is the see of an archbishop, the focus of the principal
Spanish railways, the headquarters of an army corps, the seat of a
university, the meeting-place of parliament, and the chief residence of
the king, the court, and the captain-general of New Castile. It is,
however, surpassed in ecclesiastical importance by Toledo and in
commerce by Barcelona.
_Situation and Climate._--Madrid is built on an elevated and
undulating plateau of sand and clay, which is bounded on the north by
the Sierra Guadarrama and merges on all other sides into the barren
and treeless table-land of New Castile. Numerous water-courses
(_arroyos_), dry except at rare intervals, furrow the surface of the
plateau; these as they pass through the city have in certain cases
been converted into roads--e.g. the Paseo de Recoletos and Prado,
which are still so liable to be flooded after prolonged rain that
special channels have been constructed to carry away the water. The
highest point in Madrid is 2372 ft. above sea-level. The city is close
to the geographical centre of the peninsula, nearly equidistant from
the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Owing to its
high altitude and open situation it is liable to sudden and frequent
variations of climate, and the daily range of temperature sometimes
exceeds 50° F. In summer the heat is rendered doubly oppressive by the
fiery, dust-laden winds which sweep across the Castilian table-land;
at this season a temperature of 109° has been registered in the shade.
In winter the northerly gales from the Sierra Guadarrama bring intense
cold; snow falls frequently, and skating is carried on in the Buen
Retiro park. A Spanish proverb describes the wind of Madrid as so
deadly and subtle that "it will kill a man when it will not blow out a
candle"; but, though pulmonary diseases are not uncommon, the climate
appears to be exceptionally healthy. In 1901 the death-rate was 22.07
per 1000, or lower than that of any other town on the Spanish
mainland. The Sierra Guadarrama renders the atmosphere unusually dry
and clear by intercepting the moisture of the north-western winds
which prevail in summer; hence the average dally number of deaths
decreases from 80 in winter to about 25 in summer. The sanitation of
the older quarters is defective, and overcrowding is common, partly
owing to the royal decrees which formerly prohibited the extension of
the city; but much has been done in modern times to remove or mitigate
these evils.
_The Inner City._--The form of Madrid proper (exclusive of the modern
suburbs) is almost that of a square with the corners rounded off; from
east to west it measures rather less than from north to south. It was
formerly surrounded by a poor wall, partly of brick, partly of earth,
some 20 ft. in height, and pierced by five principal gates (_puertas_)
and eleven doorways (_portillos_). Of these only three, the Puerta de
Alcalá on the east, the Puerta de Toledo on the south and the Portillo
de San Vicente on the west, actually exist; the first and the third were
erected in the time of Charles III. (1759-1788), and the second in
honour of the restoration of Ferdinand VII. (1827). The Manzanares--or
rather its bed, for the stream is at most seasons of the year quite
insignificant--is spanned by six bridges, the Puente de Toledo and
Puente de Segovia being the chief.
The Puerta del Sol is the centre of Madrid, the largest of its many
plazas, and the place of most traffic. It derived its name from the
former east gate of the city, which stood here until 1570, and had on
its front a representation of the sun. On its south side stands the
Palacio de la Gobernacion, or ministry of the interior, a heavy square
building by a French architect, J. Marquet, dating from 1768. From the
Puerta del Sol diverge, immediately or mediately, ten of the principal
streets of Madrid--eastward by north, the Calle de Alcalá, terminating
beyond the Buen Retiro park; eastward, the Carrera de San Jeronimo,
terminating by the Plaza de las Cortes in the Prado; southward, the
Calle de Carretas; westward, the Calle Mayor, which leads to the council
chamber and to the palace, and the Calle del Arenal, terminating in the
Plaza de Isabel II. and the royal opera house; north-westward, the
Calles de Preciados and Del Carmen; and northward, the Calle de la
Montera, which afterwards divides into the Calle de Fuencarral to the
left and the Calle de Hortaleza to the right. The contract for another
wide street through central Madrid, to be called the Gran Via, was given
to an English firm in 1905.
The Calle de Alcalá is bordered on both sides with acacias, and
contains the Real Academia de Bellas Artes, founded in 1752 as an
academy of art and music; its collection of paintings by Spanish
masters includes some of the best-known works of Murillo. The handsome
Bank of Spain (1884-1891) stands where the Calle de Alcalá meets the
Prado; in the oval Plaza de Madrid, at the same point, is a fine
18th-century fountain with a marble group representing the goddess
Cybele drawn in a chariot by two lions. The Calle de Alcalá is
continued eastward past the Buen Retiro gardens and park, and through
the Plaza de Independencia, in the middle of which is the Puerta de
Alcalá. The Plaza de las Cortes is so called from the Congreso de los
Diputados, or House of Commons, on its north side. The square contains
a bronze statue of Cervantes, by Antonio Sola, erected in 1835. The
Calle de Carretas, on the west side of which is the General Post
Office, ranks with the Carrera de San Jeronimo and Calle de la Montera
for the excellence of its shops. From the Calle Mayor is entered the
Plaza Mayor, a rectangle of about 430 ft. by 330 ft., formerly the
scene of tournaments, bull fights, autos de fé, acts of canonization
(including that of Ignatius Loyola in 1622) and similar exhibitions,
which used to be viewed by the royal family from the balcony of one of
the houses called the Panaderia (belonging to the guild of bakers).
The square, which was built under Philip III. in 1619, is surrounded
by an arcade; the houses are uniform in height and decoration. In the
centre stands a bronze equestrian statue of Philip III., designed by
Giovanni da Bologna, after a painting by Pantoja de la Cruz, and
finished by Pietro Tacca. From the south-east angle of the Plaza Mayor
the Calle de Atocha, one of the principal thoroughfares of Madrid,
leads to the outskirts of the inner city; it contains two large
hospitals and part of the university buildings (faculty of medicine).
The house occupied by Cervantes from 1606 until his death in 1616
stands at the point where it meets the Calle de Léon; in this street
is the Real Academia de la Historia, with a valuable library and
collections of MSS. and plate. From the south-west angle of the Plaza
Mayor begins the Calle de Toledo, the chief mart for the various
woollen and silken fabrics from which the picturesque costumes
peculiar to the peninsula are made. In the Plaza de Isabel II., at the
western extremity of the Calle del Arenal, stands the royal
opera-house, the principal front of which faces the Plaza del Oriente
and the royal palace. In the centre of the plaza is a fine bronze
equestrian statue of Philip IV. (1621-1665); it was designed by
Velazquez and cast by Tacca, while Galileo is said to have suggested
the means by which the balance is preserved. The gift of the grand
duke of Tuscany in 1640, it stood in the Buen Retiro gardens until
1844.
_Modern Development of the City._--The north and east of the city--the
new suburbs--have developed past the Retiro Park as far as the
Bull-ring, and have covered all the vast space included between the
Retiro, the Bull-ring, the long Castellana Drive to the race-course and
the exhibition building. On the slopes of the other side of the
Castellana, and along what were the northern limits of Madrid in 1875,
the modern suburbs have extended to the vicinity of the fine cellular
prison that was built at the close of the reign of King Alphonso XII. to
replace the gloomy building known as El Saladero.
The new parts of the capital, with their broad streets and squares, and
their villas sometimes surrounded with gardens, their boulevards lined
by rather stunted trees, and their modern public buildings, all resemble
the similar features of other European capitals, and contrast with the
old Madrid that has preserved so many of its traits in architecture,
popular life and habits. Some of the streets have been slightly widened,
and in many thoroughfares new houses are being built among the ugly,
irregular dwelling-places of the 18th and earlier centuries. This
contrast is to be seen especially in and about the Calle Mayor, the
Plaza Mayor, the Calle de Toledo, the Rastro, and the heart of the city.
Few capitals have more extensively developed their electric and horse
tramways, gas and electric light installations and telephones. Much
was done to improve the sanitary conditions of the city in the last
twenty years of the 19th century. The streets are deluged three times
a day with fire-hose, but even that has little effect upon the dust.
Unfortunately the water supply, which used to be famed for its
abundance and purity, became wholly insufficient owing to the growth
of the city. The old reservoir of the Lozoya canal, a cutting 32 m.
long, and the additional reservoir opened in 1883, are quite
inadequate for the requirements of modern Madrid, and were formerly
kept in such an unsatisfactory state that for several months in 1898
and 1899 the water not only was on the point of giving out, but at
times was of such inferior quality that the people had recourse to the
many wells and fountains available. The construction of new waterworks
was delayed by a terrible accident, which occurred on the 8th of April
1905; the whole structure collapsed, and nearly 400 persons lost their
lives in the flooded ruins. A decided improvement has been made in the
burial customs of Madrid. No bodies are allowed to be interred in the
churches and convents. Some of the older burial grounds in the
northern suburbs have been closed altogether, and in those which
remain open few coffins are placed in the niche vaults in the depth of
the thick walls, as was once the practice. A large modern necropolis
has been established a few miles to the north-east.
_Principal Buildings._--As compared with other capitals Madrid has very
few buildings of much architectural interest. The Basilica de Nuestra
Señora de Atocha, on the Paseo de Atocha, a continuation of the Calle de
Atocha, was originally founded in 1523. After being almost destroyed by
the French, it was restored by Ferdinand VII., and rebuilt after 1896.
The modern church is Romanesque in style; it contains a much venerated
statue of the Virgin, attributed to St Luke. The collegiate church of
San Isidro el Real, in the Calle de Toledo, dates from 1651; it has no
architectural merit, but contains one or two valuable pictures and other
works of art. It was originally owned by the Jesuits, but after their
expulsion in 1769 it was reconsecrated, and dedicated to St Isidore the
Labourer (d. 1170), the patron saint of Madrid, whose remains were
entombed here. When the diocese of Madrid was separated from that of
Toledo San Isidro was chosen as the cathedral. The modern Gothic church
of San Jeronimo el Real occupies a conspicuous site eastward of the
town. The church of San Francisco el Grande, which contains many
interesting monuments, is also known as the National Pantheon. An act
was passed in 1837 declaring that the remains of all the most
distinguished Spaniards should be buried here; but no attempt to enforce
the act systematically was made until 1869, and even then the attempt
failed. Towards the close of the 19th century the church was splendidly
restored at the expense of the state. Its interior was decorated with
paintings and statuary by most of the leading Spanish artists of the
time. Of secular buildings unquestionably the most important is the
royal palace (Palacio Real), on the west side of the town, on rising
ground overhanging the Manzanares. It occupies the site of the ancient
Moorish alcázar (citadel), where a hunting seat was built by Henry IV.;
this was enlarged and improved by Charles V. when he first made Madrid
his residence in 1532; was further developed by Phillip II., but
ultimately was destroyed by fire in 1734. The present edifice was begun
under Philip V. in 1737 by Sacchetti of Turin, and was finished in 1764.
It is in the Tuscan style, and is 470 ft. square and 100 ft. in height,
the material being white Colmenar granite, resembling marble. To the
north of the palace are the royal stables and coach-houses, remarkable
for their extent; to the south is the armoury (Museo de la Real
Armería), containing what is possibly the best collection of the kind in
existence. After the Palacio Real may be mentioned the royal picture
gallery (Real Museo de Pinturas), adjoining the Salon del Prado; it was
built about 1785 for Charles III. by Juan de Villanueva as a museum of
natural history and academy of sciences. It contains the collections of
Charles V., Philip II. and Philip IV., and the pictures number upwards
of two thousand. The specimens of Titian, Raphael, Tintoretto,
Velazquez, Vandyck, Rubens and Teniers give it a claim to be considered
the finest picture gallery in the world. The Biblioteca Nacional, in the
Paseo de Recoletos, was founded in 1866, and completed in 1892. Not only
the national library, with its important collections of MSS. and
documents, but the archaeological museum, the museums of modern painting
and sculpture, and the fine arts academy of San Fernando, are within its
walls. The two houses of the Cortes meet in separate buildings. The
deputies have a handsome building with a very valuable library in the
Carrera San Jeronimo; the senators have an old Augustinian convent which
contains some fine pictures. A large and handsome building near the
Retiro Park contains the offices of the ministers of public works,
agriculture and commerce, and of fine arts and education; nearly
opposite stands the new station of the Southern Railway Company. The
Great Northern and the Spain to Portugal Railway Companies have also
replaced their old stations by very spacious, handsome structures, much
resembling those of Paris. In 1896 the Royal Exchange was installed in a
large monumental building with a fine colonnade facing the Dos de Mayo
monument, not far from the museum of paintings.
Of the promenades and open places of public resort the most fashionable
and most frequented is the Prado (Paseo del Prado, Salon del Prado) on
the east side of the town, with its northward continuation--the Paseo de
Recoletos. To the south of the town is the Paseo de las Delicias, and on
the west, below the royal palace, and skirting the Manzanares, is the
Paseo de la Virgen del Puerto, used chiefly by the poorer classes.
Eastward from the Prado are the Buen Retiro Gardens, with ponds and
pavilions, and a menagerie. The gardens were formerly the grounds
surrounding a royal hunting seat, on the site of which a palace was
built for Philip IV. in 1633; it was destroyed during the French
occupation.
_Education, Religion and Charity._--Madrid University developed
gradually out of the college of Doña Maria de Aragon, established in
1590 by Alphonso Orozco. Schools of mathematics and natural science were
added in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in 1786 the medical and
surgical college of San Carlos was opened. In 1836-1837 the university
of Alcalá de Henares (q.v.) was transferred to the capital and the older
foundations incorporated with it. The university of Madrid thenceforth
became the headquarters of education in central Spain. It has an
observatory, and a library containing more than 2,000,000 printed books
and about 5500 MSS. It gives instruction, chiefly in law and medicine,
but also in literature, philosophy, mathematics and physics, to about
5000 students. Associated with the university is the preparatory school
of San Isidro, founded by Philip IV. (1621-1665), and reorganized by
Charles III. in 1770.
There are upwards of 100 official primary schools and a large number
of private ones, among which the schools conducted by the Jesuits and
the Scolapian fathers claim special mention. Madrid also has schools
of agriculture, architecture, civil and mining engineering, the fine
arts, veterinary science and music. The school of military engineering
is at Guadalajara. Besides these special schools there are a
self-supporting institute for preparing girls for the higher degrees
and for certificates as primary teachers, and an institute for
secondary education, conducted chiefly by ecclesiastics. Among the
educational institutions may be reckoned the botanical garden, dating
from 1781, the libraries of the palace, the university, and San
Isidro, and the museum of natural science, exceedingly rich in the
mineralogical department. The principal learned society is the royal
Spanish Academy, founded in 1713 for the cultivation and improvement
of the Spanish tongue. The Academy of History possesses a good
library, rich in MSS. and incunabula, as well as a fine collection of
coins and medals. In addition to the academies of fine arts, the exact
sciences, moral and political science, medicine and surgery, and
jurisprudence and legislation, all of which possess libraries, there
are also anthropological, economic and geographical societies, and a
scientific and literary athenaeum. Madrid has a British cemetery
opened in 1853, when the older Protestant cemetery in the Paseo de
Recoletos was closed. The town also contains a British embassy chapel,
a German chapel, and several Spanish Protestant chapels, attended by
over 1200 native Protestants, while the Protestant schools, chiefly
supported by British, German and American contributions, are attended
by more than 2500 children. The first Protestant bishop of Madrid was
consecrated in 1895 by Archbishop Plunkett of Dublin. The charitable
institutions were greatly improved between 1885 and 1905. The Princess
Hospital was completely restored on modern methods, and can
accommodate several hundred patients. The old contagious diseases
hospital of San Juan de Dios was pulled down and a fine new hospital
built in the suburbs beyond the Retiro Park, to hold 700 patients. The
military hospital was demolished and a very good one built in the
suburbs. There are in all twenty hospitals in Madrid, and a lunatic
asylum on the outskirts of the capital, founded by one of the most
eminent of Spanish surgeons, and admirably conducted. New buildings
have been provided for the orphanages, and for the asylums for the
blind, deaf and dumb, incurables and aged paupers. There are hospitals
supported by the French, Italian and Belgian colonies; these are old
and well-endowed foundations. Public charity generally is very active.
In Madrid, as in the rest of Spain, there has been an unprecedented
increase in convents, monasteries and religious institutions,
societies and Roman Catholic workmen's clubs and classes.
Apart from private institutions for such purposes, the state maintains
in the capital a savings bank for the poorer classes, and acts as
pawnbroker for their benefit. The mercantile and industrial classes
are organized in gilds, which themselves collect the lump sum of
taxation exacted by the exchequer and the municipality from each
_gremio_ or class of taxpayers. The working classes also have
commercial and industrial _circulos_ or clubs that are obeyed by the
gilds with great _esprit de corps_, a chamber of commerce and
industries, and "associations of productions" for the defence of
economic interests.
_Industries._--The industries of the capital have developed
extraordinarily since 1890. In the town, and within the municipal
boundaries in the suburbs, many manufactories have been established,
giving employment to more than 30,000 hands, besides the 4000 women and
girls of the Tobacco Monopoly Company's factory. Among the most
important factories are those which make every article in leather,
especially cigar and card cases, purses and pocket-books. Next come the
manufactures of fans, umbrellas, sunshades, chemicals, varnishes,
buttons, wax candles, beds, cardboard, porcelain, coarse pottery,
matches, baskets, sweets and preserves, gloves, guitars, biscuits,
furniture, carpets, corks, cards, carriages, jewelry, drinks of all
kinds, plate and plated goods. There are also tanneries, saw and flour
mills, glass and porcelain works, soap works, brickfields, paper mills,
zinc, bronze, copper and iron foundries. The working classes are
strongly imbued with socialistic ideas. Strikes and May Day
demonstrations have often been troublesome. Order is kept by a garrison
of 12,500 men in the barracks of the town and cantonments around, and by
a strong force of civil guards or gendarmes quartered in the town
itself. The civil and municipal authorities can employ beside the
gendarmes the police, about 1400 strong, and what is called the
_guardias urbanos_, another police force whose special duty it is to
regulate the street traffic and prevent breaches of the municipal
regulations. There is not, on the average, more crime in Madrid than in
the provinces.
_History._--Spanish archaeologists have frequently claimed for Madrid a
very high antiquity, but the earliest authentic historical mention of
the town (Majrít, Majoritum) occurs in the Arab chronicle, and does not
take us farther back than to the first half of the 10th century. The
place was finally taken from the Moors by Alphonso VI. (1083), and was
made a hunting-seat by Henry IV., but first rose into importance when
Charles V., benefiting by its keen air, made it his occasional
residence. Philip II. created it his capital and "only court" (_única
corte_) in 1560. It is, however, only classed as a town (_villa_),
having never received the title of city (_ciudad_). Fruitless attempts
were made by Philip III. and Charles III. respectively to transfer the
seat of government to Valladolid and to Seville. (See also SPAIN:
_History_).
See J. Amador de los Rios, _Historia de la villa y corte de Madrid_
(Madrid, 1861-1864); Valverdey Alvarez, _La Capitol de España_
(Madrid, 1883); E. Sepúlveda, _La Vida en Madrid en 1886_ (Madrid,
1887); H. Peñasco, _Las Calles de Madrid_ (Madrid, 1889); C. Perez
Pastor, _Bibliografia madrileña, siglo XVI._ (Madrid, 1891); F. X. de
Palacio y Garcia, count of las Almenas, _La Municipalidad de Madrid_
(Madrid, 1896); E. Sepúlveda, _El Madrid de los recuerdos: colección
de artículos_ (Madrid, 1897); P. Hauser, _Madrid bajo el punto de
vista medico-social_ (Madrid, 1902); L. Williams, _Toledo and Madrid,
their Records and Romances_ (London, 1903).
MADRIGAL (Ital. _madrigale_), the name of a form of verse, the exact
nature of which has never been decided in English, and of a form of
vocal music.
(1) _In Verse._--The definition given in the _New English Dictionary_,
"a short lyrical poem of amatory character," offers no distinctive
formula; some madrigals are long, and many have nothing whatever to do
with love. The most important English collection of madrigals, not set
to music, was published by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649)
in his _Poems_ of 1616. Perhaps the best way of ascertaining what was
looked upon in the 17th century as a madrigal is to quote one of
Drummond's:--
The beauty and the life
Of life's and beauty's fairest paragon,
O tears! O grief! hung at a feeble thread.
To which pale Atropos had set her knife;
The soul with many a groan
Had left each outward part,
And now did take his last leave of the heart;
Nought else did want, save death, even to be dead;
When the afflicted band about her bed.
Seeing so fair him come in lips, cheeks, eyes,
Cried ah! and can death enter Paradise?
This may be taken as a type of Drummond's madrigals, of which he has
left us about eighty. They are serious, brief, irregular lyrics, in
which neither the amatory nor the complimentary tone is by any means
obligatory. Some of these pieces contain as few as six lines, one as
many as fourteen, but they average from nine to eleven. In the majority
of examples the little poem opens with a line of six syllables, and no
line extends beyond ten syllables. The madrigal appears to be a short
canzone of the Tuscan type, but less rigidly constructed. In French the
madrigal has not this Italian character. It is simply a short piece of
verse, ingenious in its turn and of a gallant tendency. The idea of
compliment is essential. J. F. Guichard (1730-1811) writes:--
Orgon, poète marital,
À Venus compare sa femme;
C'est pour la belle un madrigal,
C'est pour Venus une épigramme.
This quatrain emphasizes the fact that in French a madrigal is a
trifling piece of erotic compliment, neatly turned but not seriously
meant. The credit of inventing the old French verse-form of madrigal
belongs to Clément Marot, and one of his may be quoted in contrast to
that of Drummond:--
Un doux nenni avec un doux sourire
Est tant honneste, il le vous faut apprendre;
Quant est de oui, si veniez à le dire,
D'avoir trop dit je voudrois vous reprendre;
Non que je sois ennuyé d'entreprendre
D'avoir le fruit dont le désir me point;
Mais je voudrois qu'en ne le laissant prendre,
Vous me disiez: vous ne l'aurez point.
In English, when the word first occurred--it has not been traced farther
back than 1588 (in the preface to Nicholas Yonge's _Musica
transalpina_)--it was identified with the chief form of secular vocal
music in the 16th century. In 1741 John Immyns (d. 1764) founded the
Madrigal Society, which met in an ale-house in Bride Lane, Fleet Street;
this association still exists, and is the oldest musical society in
Europe.
The word "madrigal" is frequently also used to designate a sentimental
or trifling expression in a half-contemptuous sense. (E. G.)
(2) _In Music._--As a definite musical art-form, the madrigal was known
in the Netherlands by the middle of the 15th century; like the motet, it
obviously originated in the treatment of counterpoint on a canto fermo,
some early examples even combining an ecclesiastical canto fermo in the
tenor with secular counterpoint in the other parts. Thus Josquin's
_Déploration de Jehan Okenheim_ (see MUSIC) might equally well be called
a madrigal or motet, if the word "madrigal" were used for compositions
to French texts at all. But by the middle of the 16th century the
Italian supremacy in music had developed the madrigal into the greatest
of secular musical forms, and made it independent of the form of the
words; and thus when Lasso sets Marot's madrigals to appropriately witty
and tuneful music he calls the result a "chanson"; while when Palestrina
composes Petrarca's Sonnets to the Virgin in memory of Laura, the result
appears as a volume of _Madrigali spirituali_. Elegiac madrigals,
whether spiritual or secular, were thus as common as any other kind; so
that when the _Musica transalpina_ brought the word "madrigal" to
England it brought a precedent for the poet Drummond's melancholy type
of madrigal poetry.
Italian madrigals, however, are by no means always elegiac; but the term
always means a highly organized and flowing polyphonic piece, often as
developed as the motet, though, in the mature classical period, distinct
in style. Yet masses were often founded on the themes of madrigals, just
as they were on the themes of motets (see MASS; MOTET); and it is
interesting, in such beautiful cases as Palestrina's _Missa gia fu chi
m'ebbe cara_, to detect the slight strain the mildly scandalous origin
of the themes puts upon the ecclesiastical style.
The breaking strain was put on the madrigal style at the end of the 16th
century, in one way by the new discords of Monteverde and (with more
musical invention) Schütz; and in another way by the brilliant musical
character-drawing of Vecchi, whose _Amfiparnasso_ is a veritable comic
opera in the form of a set of fourteen madrigals, all riotously witty in
the purest and most masterly polyphonic style. It was probably meant, or
at least made use of, to laugh down the earliest pioneers of opera
(q.v.); but it is the beginning of the end for the madrigal as a living
art. Long afterwards we occasionally meet with the word again, when a
17th or 18th century composer sets to some kind of accompanied singing a
poem of madrigalesque character. But this does not indicate any
continuation of the true musical history of the madrigal. The strict
meaning of the word in its musical sense is, then, a musical setting of
an Italian or English non-ecclesiastical poem (typically a canzone) for
unaccompanied chorus, in a 16th-century style less ecclesiastical than
the motet, but as like it in organization as the form and sentiment of
the words admit. The greatest classics in the madrigal style are those
of Italy; and but little, if at all, below them come the English. The
form, though not the name, of course, exists in the 16th-century music
of other languages whenever the poetry is not too light for it.
It is important but easy to distinguish the madrigal from the lighter
16th-century forms, such as the Italian _villanella_ and the English
ballet, these being very homophonic and distinguished by the strong lilt
of their rhythm.
The madrigal has been very successfully revived in modern English music
with a more or less strict adherence to the 16th century principles; the
compositions of De Pearsall being of high artistic merit, while the
_Madrigale spirituale_ in Stanford's oratorio _Eden_ is a movement of
rare beauty. (D. F. T.)
MADURA (Dutch _Madoera_), an island of the Dutch East Indies, separated
by the shallow Strait of Madura from the N.E. coast of Java. Pop.
(1897), 1,652,580, of whom 1,646,071 were natives, 4252 Chinese and 558
Europeans. It extends from about 112° 32´ to 114° 7´ E., and is divided
into two nearly equal portions by the parallel of 7° S.; the area is
estimated at 1725 sq. m. It is a plateau-like prolongation of the
limestone range of northern Java, with hills (1300 to 1600 ft. high) and
dales. The formation of the coast and plains is Tertiary and recent
alluvium. Hot springs are not infrequent; and in the valley between
Gunong Geger and Banjar lies the mud volcano of Banju Ening. The coasts
are clothed with tropical vegetation; but the soil is better fitted for
pastoral than agricultural purposes. Fishing and cattle-rearing are the
chief means of subsistence. Besides rice and maize, Madura yields
coco-nut oil and _jati_. The manufacture of salt for the government,
abolished in other places, continues in Madura. Hence perhaps the name
is derived (Sansk. _mandura_, salt). Petroleum is found in small
quantities.
The principal town is Sumenep; and there are populous Malay, Arab and
Chinese villages between the town and the European settlement of
Maringan. On a hill in the neighbourhood lies Asta, the burial-place of
the Sumenep princes. Pamekasan is the seat of government. Bangkalang is
a large town with the old palace of the sultan of Madura and the
residences of the princes of the blood; the mosque is adorned with the
first three suras of the Koran, thus differing from nearly all the
mosques in Java and Madura, though resembling those of western Islam. In
the vicinity once stood the Erfprins fort. Arisbaya (less correctly
Arosbaya) is the place where the first mosque was built in Madura, and
where the Dutch sailors first made acquaintance with the natives. The
once excellent harbour is now silted up. Sampang is the seat of an
important market. The Kangean and Sapudi islands, belonging to Madura,
yield timber, trepang, turtle, pisang and other products.
Madura formerly consisted of three native states--Madura or Bangkalang,
Pamekasan and Sumenep. The whole island was considered part of the Java
residency of Surabaya. The separate residency of Madura was constituted
in 1857; it now consists of four "departments"--Pamekasan, Madura,
Sumenep and Sampang.
See P. J. Veth, Java, vol. iii.; Kielstra, "Het Eiland Madoera," in
_De Gids_ (1890); H. van Lennep, "De Madoereezen," in _De Indische
Gids_ (1895), with detailed bibliography.
MADURA, a city and district of British India, in the Madras Presidency.
The city is situated on the right bank of the river Vaigai, and has a
station on the South Indian railway 345 m. S.E. of Madras. Pop. (1901),
105,984. The city was the capital of the old Pandyan dynasty, which
ruled over this part of India from the 5th century B.C. to the end of
the 11th century A.D. Its great temple forms a parallelogram about 847
ft. by 729 ft., and is surrounded by nine _gopuras_, of which the
largest is 152 ft. high. These ornamental pyramids begin with doorposts
of single stones 60 ft. in height, and rise course upon course, carved
with rows of gods and goddesses, peacocks, bulls, elephants, horses,
lions, and a bewildering entanglement of symbolical ornament all
coloured and gilded, diminishing with distance until the stone _trisul_
at the top looks like the finest jeweller's work. The temple, which
contains some of the finest carving in southern India, is said to have
been built in the reign of Viswanath, first ruler of the Nayak dynasty.
Its chief feature is the sculptured "Hall of a Thousand Pillars." The
palace of Tirumala Nayak is the most perfect relic of secular
architecture in Madras. This palace, which covers a large area of
ground, has been restored, and is utilized for public offices. The
Vasanta, a hall 333 ft. long, probably dedicated to the god
Sundareswara, and the Tamakam, a pleasure-palace, now the residence of
the collector, are the other principal buildings of this period.
The last of the old Pandyan kings is said to have exterminated the Jains
and conquered the neighbouring kingdom of Chola; but he was in his turn
overthrown by an invader from the north, conjectured to have been a
Mahommedan. In 1324 a Moslem army under Malik Kafur occupied Madura, and
the Hindus were held in subjection for a period of fifty years.
Subsequently Madura became a province of the Hindu Empire of
Vijayanagar. In the middle of the 16th century the governor Viswanath
established the Nayak dynasty, which lasted for a century. The greatest
of the line was Tirumala Nayak (reigned 1623-1659), whose military
exploits are recorded in the contemporary letters of the Jesuit
missionaries. He adorned Madura with many public buildings, and extended
his empire over the adjoining districts of Tinnevelly, Travancore,
Coimbatore, Salem and Trichinopoly. His repudiation of the nominal
allegiance paid to the raja of Vijayanagar brought him into collision
with the sultan of Bijapur, and after a lapse of three centuries
Mahommedans again invaded Madura and compelled him to pay them tribute.
After the death of Tirumala the kingdom of Madura gradually fell to
pieces, being invaded by both Mahommedans and Mahrattas. About 1736 the
district fell into the hands of the nawab of the Carnatic, and the line
of the Nayaks was extinguished. About 1764 British officers took charge
of Madura in trust for Mahommed Ali (Wallah Jah), the last independent
nawab of the Carnatic, whose son finally ceded his rights of sovereignty
to the East India Company in 1801.
The DISTRICT OF MADURA has an area of 8701 sq. m. Pop. (1901),
2,831,280, an increase of 8.5% in the decade. It consists of a section
of the plain stretching from the mountains east to the sea, coinciding
with the basin of the Vaigai river, and gradually sloping to the S.E.
The plain is broken by the outlying spurs of the Ghats, and by a few
isolated hills and masses of rock scattered over the country. The most
important spur of the Ghats is known as the Palni hills, which project
E.N.E. across the district for a distance of about 54 m. Their highest
peaks are more than 8000 ft. above sea-level, and they enclose a plateau
of about 100 sq. m., with an average height of 7000 ft. On this plateau
is situated the sanatorium of Kodaikanal, and coffee-planting is
successfully carried on. The other principal crops of the district are
millets, rice, other food-grains, oil-seeds and cotton. Tobacco is grown
chiefly in the neighbourhood of Dindigul, whence it is exported to
Trichinopoly, to be made into cigars. There are several cigar factories
and a number of saltpetre refineries. The only other large industry is
that of coffee-cleaning. Madura is traversed by the main line of the
South Indian railway. It has four small seaports, whose trade is chiefly
carried on with Ceylon. The most important irrigation work, known as the
Periyar project, consists of a tunnel through the Travancore hills, to
convey the rainfall across the watershed.
See _Madura District Gazetteer_ (Madras, 1906).
MADVIG, JOHAN NICOLAI (1804-1886), Danish philologist, was born on the
island of Bornholm, on the 7th of August 1804. He was educated at the
classical school of Frederiksborg and the university of Copenhagen. In
1828 he became reader, and in 1829 professor, of Latin language and
literature at Copenhagen, and in 1832 was appointed university
librarian. In 1848 Madvig entered parliament as a member of what was
called the "Eider-Danish" party, because they desired the Eider to be
the boundary of the country. When this party came into power Madvig
became minister of education. In 1852 be became director of public
instruction. Some years later, from 1856 to 1863, Madvig was president
of the Danish parliament and leader of the National Liberal party. With
these brief interruptions the greater part of his life was devoted to
the study and teaching of Latin and the improvement of the classical
schools, of which he was chief inspector. As a critic he was
distinguished for learning and acumen. He devoted much attention to
Cicero, and revolutionized the study of his philosophical writings by an
edition of _De Finibus_ (1839; 3rd ed., 1876). Perhaps his most widely
known works are those on Latin grammar and Greek syntax, especially his
Latin grammar for schools (Eng. trans. by G. Woods). In 1874 his sight
began to fail, and he was forced to give up much of his work. He still,
however, continued to lecture, and in 1879 he was chosen rector for the
sixth time. In 1880 he resigned his professorship, but went on with his
work on the Roman constitution, which was completed and published before
his death. In this book Madvig takes a strongly conservative standpoint
and attacks Mommsen's views on Caesar's programme of reforms. It is a
clear exposition, though rather too dogmatic and without sufficient
regard for the views of other scholars. His last work was his
autobiography, _Livserindringer_ (published 1887). Madvig died at
Copenhagen on the 12th of December 1886.
See J. E. Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_ (1908), iii.,
319-324.
MAECENAS, GAIUS (CILNIUS), Roman patron of letters, was probably born
between 74 and 64 B.C., perhaps at Arretium. Expressions in Propertius
(ii. 1, 25-30) seem to imply that he had taken some part in the
campaigns of Mutina, Philippi and Perusia. He prided himself on his
ancient Etruscan lineage, and claimed descent from the princely house of
the Cilnii, who excited the jealousy of their townsmen by their
preponderating wealth and influence at Arretium in the 4th century B.C.
(Livy x. 3). The Gaius Maecenas mentioned in Cicero (_Pro Cluentio_, 56)
as an influential member of the equestrian order in 91 B.C. may have
been his grandfather, or even his father. The testimony of Horace
(_Odes_ iii. 8, 5) and Maecenas's own literary tastes imply that he had
profited by the highest education of his time. His great wealth may have
been in part hereditary, but he owed his position and influence to his
close connexion with the emperor Augustus. He first appears in history
in 40 B.C., when he was employed by Octavian in arranging his marriage
with Scribonia, and afterwards in assisting to negotiate the peace of
Brundusium and the reconciliation with Antony. It was in 39 B.C. that
Horace was introduced to Maecenas, who had before this received Varius
and Virgil into his intimacy. In the "Journey to Brundusium," (Horace,
_Satires_, i. 5) in 37, Maecenas and Cocceius Nerva are described as
having been sent on an important mission, and they were successful in
patching up, by the Treaty of Tarentum, a reconciliation between the two
claimants for supreme power. During the Sicilian war against Sextus
Pompeius in 36, Maecenas was sent back to Rome, and was entrusted with
supreme administrative control in the city and in Italy. He was
vice-gerent of Octavian during the campaign of Actium, when, with great
promptness and secrecy, he crushed the conspiracy of the younger
Lepidus; and during the subsequent absences of his chief in the
provinces he again held the same position. During the latter years of
his life he fell somewhat out of favour with his master. Suetonius
(_Augustus_, 66) attributes the loss of the imperial favour to Maecenas
having indiscreetly revealed to Terentia, his wife, the discovery of the
conspiracy in which her brother Murena was implicated. But according to
Dio Cassius (liv. 19) it was due to the emperor's relations with
Terentia. Maecenas died in 8 B.C., leaving, the emperor heir to his
wealth.
Opinions were much divided in ancient times as to the personal character
of Maecenas; but the testimony as to his administrative and diplomatic
ability was unanimous. He enjoyed the credit of sharing largely in the
establishment of the new order of things, of reconciling parties, and of
carrying the new empire safely through many dangers. To his influence
especially was attributed the humaner policy of Octavian after his first
alliance with Antony and Lepidus. The best summary of his character as a
man and a statesman is that of Velleius Paterculus (ii. 88), who
describes him as "of sleepless vigilance in critical emergencies,
far-seeing and knowing how to act, but in his relaxation from business
more luxurious and effeminate than a woman."
Expressions in the _Odes_ of Horace (ii. 17. i) seem to imply that
Maecenas was deficient in the robustness of fibre characteristic of the
average Roman. His character as a munificent patron of literature--which
has made his name a household word--is gratefully acknowledged by the
recipients of it and attested by the regrets of the men of letters of a
later age, expressed by Martial and Juvenal. His patronage was
exercised, not from vanity or a mere dilettante love of letters, but
with a view to the higher interest of the state. He recognized in the
genius of the poets of that time, not only the truest ornament of the
court, but a power of reconciling men's minds to the new order of
things, and of investing the actual state of affairs with an ideal glory
and majesty. The change in seriousness of purpose between the _Eclogues_
and the _Georgics_ of Virgil was in a great measure the result of the
direction given by the statesman to the poet's genius. A similar change
between the earlier odes of Horace, in which he declares his epicurean
indifference to affairs of state, and the great national odes of the
third book is to be ascribed to the same guidance. Maecenas endeavoured
also to divert the less masculine genius of Propertius from harping
continually on his love to themes of public interest. But if the motive
of his patronage had been merely politic it never could have inspired
the affection which it did in its recipients. The great charm of
Maecenas in his relation to the men of genius who formed his circle was
his simplicity, cordiality and sincerity. Although not particular in the
choice of some of the associates of his pleasures, he admitted none but
men of worth to his intimacy, and when once admitted they were treated
like equals. Much of the wisdom of Maecenas probably lives in the
_Satires_ and _Epistles_ of Horace. It has fallen to the lot of no other
patron of literature to have his name associated with works of such
lasting interest as the _Georgics_ of Virgil, the first three books of
Horace's _Odes_, and the first book of his _Epistles_.
Maecenas himself wrote in both prose and verse. The few fragments that
remain show that he was less successful as an author than as a judge and
patron of literature. His prose works on various subjects--_Prometheus_,
_Symposium_ (a banquet at which Virgil, Horace and Messalla were
present), _De cultu suo_ (on his manner of life)--were ridiculed by
Augustus, Seneca and Quintilian for their strange style, the use of rare
words and awkward transpositions. According to Dio Cassius, Maecenas was
the inventor of a system of shorthand.
There is no good modern biography of Maecenas. The best known is that
by P. S. Frandsen (1843), See "Horace et Mecène" by J. Girard, in _La
Révue politique et littéraire_ (Dec. 27, 1873); V. Gardthausen,
_Augustus und seine Zeit_, i. 762 seq.; ii. 432 seq. The chief ancient
authorities for his life are Horace (_Odes_ with Scholia), Dio
Cassius, Tacitus (_Annals_), Suetonius (_Augustus_). The fragments
have been collected and edited by F. Harder (1889).
MAECIANUS, LUCIUS VOLUSIUS (2nd cent.) Roman jurist, was the tutor in
law of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. When governor of Alexandria he was
slain by the soldiers, as having participated in the rebellion of
Avidius Cassius (175). Maecianus was the author of works on trusts
(_Fideicommissa_), on the _Judicia publica_, and of a collection of the
Rhodian laws relating to maritime affairs. His treatise on numerical
divisions, weights and measures (_Distributio_) is extant, with the
exception of the concluding portion.
See Capitolinus, _Antoninus_, 3; Vulcacius Gallicanus, _Avidius
Cassius_, 7; edition of the metrological work by F. Hultsch in
_Metrologicorum scriptorum reliquiae,_ ii. (1866); Mommsen in
_Abhandlungen der sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, iii.
(1853).
MAELDUIN (or MAELDUNE), VOYAGE OF (_Imram Maeleduin_), an early Irish
romance. The text exists in an 11th-century redaction, by a certain Aed
the Fair, described as the "chief sage of Ireland," but it may be
gathered from internal evidence that the tale itself dates back to the
8th century. It belongs to the group of Irish romance, the _Navigations_
(_Imrama_), the common type of which was probably imitated from the
classical tales of the wanderings of Jason, of Ulysses and of Aeneas.
Maelduin, the foster-son of an Irish queen, learnt on reaching manhood
that he was the son of a nun, and that his father, Ailill of the edge of
battle, had been slain by a marauder from Leix. He set sail to seek his
father's murderer, taking with him, in accordance with the instructions
of a sorcerer, seventeen men. His three foster-brothers swam after him,
and were taken on board. This increase of the fateful number caused
Maelduin's vengeance to be deferred for three years and seven months,
until the last of the intruders had perished. The travellers visited
many strange islands, and met with a long series of adventures, some of
which are familiar from other sources. The _Voyage of St Brendan_ (q.v.)
has very close similarities with the _Maelduin_, of which it is possibly
a clerical imitation, with the important addition of the whale-island
episode, which it has in common with "Sindbad the Sailor."
_Imram Curaig Mailduin_ is preserved, in each case imperfectly, in the
_Lebor na h Uidre_, a MS. in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin; and in
the _Yellow Book of Lecan_, MS. H. 216 in the Trinity College Library,
Dublin; fragments are in Harleian MS. 5280 and Egerton MS. 1782 in the
British Museum. There are translations by Patrick Joyce, _Old Celtic
Romances_ (1879), by Whitley Stokes (a more critical version, printed
together with the text) in _Revue celtique_, vols. ix. and x.
(1888-1889). See H. Zimmer, "Brendan's Meerfahrt" in _Zeitschrift für
deutsches Altertum_, vol. xxxiii. (1889). Tennyson's _Voyage of
Maeldune_, suggested by the Irish romance, borrows little more than
its framework.
MAELIUS, SPURIUS (d. 439 B.C.), a wealthy Roman plebeian, who during a
severe famine bought up a large amount of corn and sold it at a low
price to the people. Lucius (or Gaius) Minucius, the patrician
_praefectus annonae_ (president of the market), thereupon accused him of
courting popularity with a view to making himself king. The cry was
taken up. Maelius, summoned before the aged Cincinnatus (specially
appointed dictator), refused to appear, and was slain by Gaius Servilius
Ahala; his house was razed to the ground, his corn distributed amongst
the people, and his property confiscated. The open space called
Aequimaelium, on which his house had stood, preserved the memory of his
death. Cicero calls Ahala's deed a glorious one, but, whether Maelius
entertained any ambitious projects or not, his summary execution was an
act of murder, since by the Valerio-Horatian laws the dictator was bound
to allow the right of appeal.
See Niebuhr's _History of Rome_, ii. 418 (Eng. trans., 1851); G.
Cornewall Lewis, _Credibility of early Roman History_, ii.; Livy, iv.
13; Cicero, _De senectute_ 16, _De amicitia_ 8, _De republica_, ii.
27; Floras, i. 26; Dion. Halic. xii. i.
MAELSTROM (whirlpool), a term originally applied to a strong current
running past the south end of the island of Moskenaes, a member of the
group of Lofoten Islands on the west coast of Norway. It is known also
as the Moskenstrom. Though dangerous in certain states of wind and tide,
the tales of ships being swallowed in this whirlpool are fables. The
word is probably of Dutch origin, from _malen_, to grind or whirl, and
_strom_ or _stroom_, a stream or current. It appears on Mercator's
_Atlas_ of 1595.
MAENADS (Gr. [Greek: Mainades], frenzied women), the female attendants
of Dionysus. They are known by other names--Bacchae, Thyiades, Clodones
and Mimallones (the last two probably of Thracian origin)--all more or
less synonymous.
See the exhaustive articles by A. Legrand in Daremberg and Saglio's
_Dictionnaire des antiquités_ and A. Rapp in Roscher's _Lexikon der
Mythologie_; also editions of Euripides, _Bacchae_ (e.g. J. E.
Sandys).
MAENIUS, GAIUS, Roman statesman and general. Having completed (when
consul in 338 B.C.) the subjugation of Latium, which with Campania had
revolted against Rome, he was honoured by a triumph, and a column was
erected to him in the Forum. When censor in 318, in order that the
spectators might have more room for seeing the games that were
celebrated in the Forum, he provided the buildings in the neighbourhood
with balconies, which were called after him _maeniana_.
See Festus, s.v. Maeniana; Livy viii. 13, ix. 34; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._
xxxiv. 11 (5).
MAERLANT, JACOB VAN (c. 1235-c. 1300), Flemish poet, was born in the
Franc de Burges (tradition says at Damme) between 1230 and 1240. He was
sacristan of Maerlant, in the island of Ost-Voorne, and afterwards clerk
to the magistrates at Damme. His early works are translations of French
romances. Maerlant's most serious work in the field of romance was his
_Ystorien van Troyen_ (c. 1264), a poem of some forty thousand lines,
translated and amplified from the _Roman de Troie_ of Benoît de
Sainte-More. From this time Maerlant rejected romance as idle, and
devoted himself to writing scientific and historical works for the
education and enlightenment of the Flemish people. His _Heimelicheit der
Heimelicheden_ (c. 1266) is a translation of the _Secreta secretorum_, a
manual for the education of princes, ascribed throughout the middle ages
to Aristotle. _Van der Naturen Bloeme_ is a free translation of _De
natura rerum_, a natural history in twenty books by a native of Brabant,
Thomas de Cantimpré; and his _Rijmbijbel_ is taken, with many omissions
and additions, from the _Historia scholastica_ of Petrus Comestor. He
supplemented this metrical paraphrase of Scripture history by _Die Wrake
van Jherusalem_ (1271) from Josephus. Although Maerlant was an orthodox
Catholic, he is said to have been called to account by the priests for
translating the Bible into the vulgar tongue. In 1284 he began his
_magnum opus_, the _Spiegel historiael_, a history of the world, derived
chiefly from the third part of the _Speculum majus_ of Vincent de
Beauvais. This work was completed by two other writers, Philipp
Utenbroeke and Lodowijk van Velthem. Maerlant died in the closing years
of the 13th century, his last poem, _Van den lande van oversee_, dating
from 1291. The greater part of his work consists of translations, but he
also produced poems which prove him to have had real original poetic
faculty. Among these are _Die Clausule van der Bible_, _Der Kerken
Clage_, imitated from the _Complaintes_ of Rutebeuf, and the three
dialogues entitled _Martijn_, in which the fundamental questions of
theology and ethics were discussed. In spite of his orthodoxy, Maerlant
was a keen satirist of the corruptions of the clergy. He was one of the
most learned men of his age, and for two centuries was the most
celebrated of Flemish poets.
See monographs by J. van Beers (Ghent, 1860); C. A. Serrure (Ghent,
1861); K. Versnaeyen (Ghent, 1861); J. te Winkel (Leiden, 1877, 2nd
ed., Ghent, 1892); and editions of _Torec_ (Leiden, 1875) by J. te
Winkel; of _Naturen Bloeme_, by Eelco Verwijs; of _Alexanders Geesten_
(Groningen, 1882), by J. Franck; _Merlijn_ (Leiden, 1880-1882), by J.
van Bloten; _Heimelicheit der Heimelicheden_ (Dordrecht, 1838), by
Clarisse; _Der Naturen Bloeme_ (Groningen, 1878), by Verwijs; of
_Rijmbijbel_ (Brussels, 1858-1869), by David; _Spiegel historiael_
(Leiden 1857-1863), by Verwijs and de Vries; selections from the
_Ystorien van Troyen_ (1873), by J. Verdam.
MAES, NICOLAS (1632-1693), Dutch painter, was born at Dordrecht, and
went about 1650 to Amsterdam, where he entered Rembrandt's studio.
Before his return to Dordrecht in 1654 Maes painted a few Rembrandtesque
genre pictures, with life-size figures and in a deep glowing scheme of
colour, like the "Reverie" at the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam, the "Card
Players" at the National Gallery, and the "Children with a Goat
Carriage," belonging to Baroness N. de Rothschild. So closely did his
early style resemble that of Rembrandt, that the last-named picture, and
other canvases in the Leipzig and Budapest galleries and in the
collection of Lord Radnor, were or are still ascribed to Rembrandt. In
his best period, from 1655 to 1665, Maes devoted himself to domestic
genre on a smaller scale, retaining to a great extent the magic of
colour he had learnt from Rembrandt. Only on rare occasions did he treat
scriptural subjects, as in the earl of Denbigh's "Hagar's Departure,"
which has been ascribed to Rembrandt. His favourite subjects were women
spinning, or reading the Bible, or preparing a meal. In 1665 he went to
Antwerp, where he remained till 1678, in which year he probably returned
to Amsterdam. His Antwerp period coincides with a complete change in
style and subject. He devoted himself almost exclusively to portraiture,
and abandoned the intimacy and glowing colour harmonies of his earlier
work for a careless elegance which suggests the influence of Van Dyck.
So great indeed was the change, that it gave rise to the theory of the
existence of another Maes, of Brussels. Maes is well represented at the
National Gallery by five paintings: "The Cradle," "The Dutch Housewife,"
"The Idle Servant," "The Card Players," and a man's portrait. At
Amsterdam, besides the splendid examples to be found at the Ryks Museum,
is the "Inquisitive Servant" of the Six collection. At Buckingham Palace
is "The Listening Girl" (repetitions exist), and at Apsley House
"Selling Milk" and "The Listener." Other notable examples are at the
Berlin, Brussels, St Petersburg, the Hague, Frankfort, Hanover and
Munich galleries.
MAESTRO, a north-westerly wind observed in the Adriatic and surrounding
regions, chiefly during summer. The maestro is a "fine weather" wind,
and is the counterpart of the sirocco.
MAETERLINCK, MAURICE (1862- ), Belgian-French dramatist and poet, of
Flemish extraction, was born at Ghent on the 29th of August 1862. He was
educated at the Collège Sainte-Barbe, and then at the university of his
native city, where, at the age of twenty-four, he was enrolled as a
barrister. In 1887 he settled in Paris, where he immediately became
acquainted with Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and the leaders of the symbolist
school of French poetry. At the death of his father, Maeterlinck
returned to Belgium, where he thenceforth mainly resided: in the winter
at Ghent, in the summer on an estate at Oostacker. He had by this time
determined to devote his whole life to poetry, a dedication which his
fortune permitted. His career as an author began in 1889, when he
published a volume of verse, _Serres chaudes_, and a play, _La Princesse
Maleine_, the latter originally composed in metre, but afterwards
carefully rewritten in prose, the vehicle which the author continued to
use for his dramatic work. Maeterlinck was at this time totally unknown,
but he became famous through an article by Octave Mirbeau, prominently
published in the Paris _Figaro_, entitled "A Belgian Shakespeare." The
enthusiasm of this review and the excellence of the passages quoted
combined to make Maeterlinck the talk of the town. Maeterlinck, among
his Belgian roses, continued to work with extreme deliberation. In 1890
he published, in Brussels, two more plays, _L'Intruse_ and _Les
Aveugles_; followed in 1891 by _Les Sept princesses_. His strong leaning
to mysticism was now explained, or defined, by a translation of the
Flemish medieval visionary, the Admirable Ruysbroeck, which Maeterlinck
brought out in 1891. In 1892 appeared what has been perhaps the most
successful of all his plays on the stage, _Pelléas et Mélisande_,
followed in 1894 by those very curious and powerful little dramas
written to be performed by marionettes: _Alladine el Palomides_,
_Intérieur_ and _La Mort de Tintagiles_. In 1895 Maeterlinck brought
out, under the title of _Annabella_, a translation of Ford's _'Tis Pity
She's a Whore_, with a preface. Two philosophical works followed, a
study on Novalis (1895) and _Le Trésor des humbles_ (1896). In 1896 he
returned to drama with _Aglavaine el Sélysette_ and to lyric verse with
_Douze chansons_. A monograph on the ethics of mysticism, entitled _La
Sagesse et la destinée_, was issued, as a kind of commentary on his own
dramas, in 1898; and in 1901 Maeterlinck produced a fascinating volume
of prose, founded upon observations made in his apiaries at Oostacker,
in which philosophy, fancy and natural history were surprisingly
mingled--_La Vie des abeilles_. In 1902 he published _Le Temple
enseveli_ and _Monna Vanna_; in 1903 _Joyzelle_. In 1901 he began to
issue, in Brussels, an edition of his complete dramatic works.
The nature of Maeterlinck's writings, whether in prose or verse, has
been strictly homogeneous. Few poets have kept so rigorously to a
certain defined direction in the practice of their art. Whether in
philosophy, or drama, or lyric, Maeterlinck is exclusively occupied in
revealing, or indicating, the mystery which lies, only just out of
sight, beneath the surface of ordinary life. In order to produce this
effect of the mysterious he aims at an extreme simplicity of diction,
and a symbolism so realistic as to be almost bare. He allows life itself
to astonish us by its strangeness, by its inexplicable elements. Many of
his plays are really highly pathetic records of unseen emotion; they are
occupied with the spiritual adventures of souls, and the ordinary facts
of time and space have no influence upon the movements of the
characters. We know not who these orphan princesses, these blind
persons, these pale Arthurian knights, these aged guardians of desolate
castles, may be; we are not informed whence they come, nor whither they
go; there is nothing concrete or circumstantial about them. Their life
is intense and consistent, but it is wholly of a spiritual character;
they are mysterious with the mystery of the movements of a soul. These
characteristics, which make the dramatic work of Maeterlinck so curious
and unique, are familiar to most readers in _Pelléas et Mélisande_, but
are carried, perhaps, to their farthest intensity in _Aglavaine et
Sélysette_, which seems to be written for a phantom stage and to be
acted by disembodied spirits. In spite of the violence of his early
admirers, and of the fact that the form of his dramas easily lent itself
to the cheap ridicule of parodists, the talent of Maeterlinck has hardly
met with opposition from the criticism of his time. It has been
universally felt that his spirit is one of grave and disinterested
attachment to the highest moral beauty, and his seriousness, his
serenity and his extreme originality have impressed even those who are
bewildered by his diaphanous graces and offended at his nebulous
mysticism. While the crude enthusiasm which compared him with
Shakespeare has been shown to be ridiculous, the best judges combine
with Camille Mauclair when he says: "Maurice Maeterlinck est un homme
de génie authentique, un très grand phénomène de puissance mentale à la
fin du xix^e siècle." In spite of the shadowy action of Maeterlinck's
plays, which indeed require some special conditions and contrivances for
their performance, they are frequently produced with remarkable success
before audiences who cannot be suspected of mysticism, in most of the
countries of Europe. In his philosophical writings Maeterlinck shows
himself a disciple of Novalis, of Emerson, of Hello, of the Flemish
Catholic mystics, and he evolves from the teachings of those thinkers a
system of aesthetics applicable to the theatre as he conceives it.
(E. G.)
MAFEKING, a town in the British Bechuanaland division of the Cape, 870
m. N.E. of Cape Town and 492 m. S.S.W. of Bulawayo by rail, and 162 m.
in a direct line W. by N. of Johannesburg. (Pop. 1904), 2713. It is
built on the open veld, at an elevation of 4194 ft., by the banks of the
Upper Molopo, is 9 m. W. of the western frontier of the Transvaal and 15
m. S. of the southern boundary of the Bechuanaland protectorate. The
Madibi goldfields are some 10 m. south of the town. Mafeking is thus an
important trading and distributing centre for Bechuanaland and the
western Transvaal. Here are, too, the chief railway workshops between
Kimberley and Bulawayo. The headquarters of the administration for the
Bechuanaland protectorate are in the town. The chief buildings are the
town-hall, Anglican church, Masonic temple, and hospital.
Mafeking was originally the headquarters of the Barolong tribe of
Bechuana and is still their largest station, the native location (pop.
2860) being about a mile distant from the town. It was from Pitsani
Pothlugo (or Potlogo), 24 m. north of Mafeking, that Dr Jameson started,
on the 29th of December 1895, on his raid into the Transvaal. On the
outbreak of the Anglo-Boer war in 1899 Mafeking was invested by a Boer
force. Colonel R. S. S. Baden-Powell was in command of the defence,
which was stubbornly maintained for 217 days (Oct. 12 to May 17), when a
relief column arrived and the Boers dispersed (see TRANSVAAL:
_History_). The fate of the town had excited the liveliest sympathy in
England, and the exuberant rejoicings in London on the news of its
relief led to the coining of the word _mafficking_ to describe the
behaviour of crowds on occasions of extravagant demonstrations of a
national kind. In September 1904 Lord Roberts unveiled at Mafeking an
obelisk bearing the names of those who fell in defence of the town.
R. S. S. Baden-Powell's _Sketches in Mafeking and East Africa_ (1907)
and Lady Sarah Wilson's _South African Memories_ (1909) deal largely
with the siege of Mafeking.
MAFFEI, FRANCESCO SCIPIONE, MARCHESE DI (1675-1755); Italian
archaeologist and man of letters, was born at Verona on the 1st of June
1675. He studied for five years in Parma, at the Jesuit College, and
afterwards from 1698 at Rome; and in 1703-1704 he took part as a
volunteer in the war of succession, fighting on the Bavarian side at
Donauwerth. In 1709 he began at Padua along with Apostolo Zeno and
Valisnieri the _Giornale dei letterati d'Italia_, a literary periodical
which had but a short career; and subsequently an acquaintance with the
actor Riccoboni led him to exert himself for the improvement of dramatic
art in Italy. His _Merope_, a tragedy, appeared in 1713; _Teatro
italiano_, a small collection of works for presentation on the stage, in
1723-1725; and _Le Ceremonie_, an original comedy, in 1728. From 1718 he
became specially interested in the archaeology of his native town, and
his investigations resulted in the valuable _Verona illustrata_
(1731-1732). Maffei afterwards devoted four years to travel in France,
England, Holland and Germany. He died at Verona on the 11th of February
1755.
A complete edition of his works appeared at Venice (28 vols., 8vo) in
1790.
MAFIA (MAFFIA), a secret society of Sicily. Its organization and
purposes much resemble those of the Camorra (q.v.).
Various derivations are found for the name. Some hold it to be a
Tuscan synonym for _miseria_; others, a corruption of Fr. _mauvais_
(bad). Others connect it with the name of an alleged Arab tribe,
Mà-âfir, once settled at Palermo. Giuseppe Pitré asserts that the word
is peculiar to western Sicily and that, with its derivatives, it
formerly meant, in Il Borgo, a district of Palermo, beauty or
excellence. Thus, a handsome woman showily dressed was said "to have
_mafia_," or to be _mafiusa_. Often in Palermo the street merchants
call _arance-mafiuse_ (fine oranges). Thus, Pitré argues, _mafia_,
applied to a man to express manly carriage and bravery, would
naturally become the title of a society the members of which were all
"bravos." A less credible explanation of the term is connected with
Mazzini, who is said to have formed a secret society the members of
which were called _Mafiusi_, from _Mafia_, a word composed of the
initial letters of five Italian words, _Mazzini autorizza furti,
incendi, avvelenamenti_, "Mazzini authorizes theft, arson and
poisoning." This theory suggests that the word was unknown before 1859
or 1860.
The Mafia, however named, existed long before Mazzini's day. In its
crudest form it was co-operative brigandage, blended with the Vendetta
(q.v.). The more strictly organized Mafia was the result of the
disorders consequent upon the expulsion of the king of Naples by
Napoleon. When the Bourbon court took refuge in Sicily there were a
large number of armed retainers in the service of the Sicilian feudal
nobility. Ferdinand IV., at the bidding of England, granted a
constitution to the island in 1812, and with the destruction of
feudalism most of the feudal troops became brigands. Powerless to
suppress them, Ferdinand organized the bandits into a rural
_gendarmerie_, and they soon established a reign of terror. The abject
poverty of the poorer classes, unable to eke out existence by work in
the sulphur mines or on the fields, fostered the growth of two classes
of _mafiusi_--the vast majority of the inhabitants who were glad to put
themselves as passive members under the protection of the Mafia, while
the active members shared in the plunder. The Mafia thus became a
loosely organized society under an unwritten code of laws or ethics
known as _Omertà_, i.e., manliness (from Sicil. _omu_, Ital. _uomo_, a
man), which embodied the rules of the Vendetta. Candidates were admitted
after trial by duel, and were sworn to resist law and defeat justice.
Like the Camorra, the Mafia was soon powerful in all classes, and even
the commander of the royal troops acted in collusion with it. The real
home of Mafia was in and around Palermo, where no traveller was safe
from robbery and the knife. In an organized form the Mafia survives only
in isolated districts. Generally speaking, it is to-day not a compact
criminal association but a complex social phenomenon, the consequence of
centuries of misgovernment. The Mafiuso is governed by a sentiment akin
to arrogance which imposes a special line of conduct upon him. He
considers it dishonourable to have recourse to lawful authority to
obtain redress for a wrong or a crime committed against him. He
therefore hides the identity of the offender from the police, reserving
vengeance to himself or to his friends and dependants. This sentiment,
still widely diffused among the lower classes of many districts, and not
entirely unknown to the upper classes, renders difficult legal proof of
culpability for acts of violence, and multiplies sanguinary private
reprisals. In September 1892 about 150 Mafiusi were arrested at Catania,
but all repressive measures proved useless. The only result was to drive
some of the members abroad, with disastrous results to other countries.
In October 1890 David Hennessy, chief of police in New Orleans, was
murdered. Subsequent legal inquiry proved the crime to be the work of
the Mafia, which had been introduced into the United States thirty years
before. In May 1890 a band of Italians living in New Orleans had
ambushed another gang of their fellow-countrymen belonging to a society
called _Stoppaghera_. The severe police measures taken brought the
vengeance of the society upon Hennessy. Eleven Italians were indicted on
suspicion of being implicated in his murder; but the jury was terrorized
and acquitted six. On the 14th of March 1891 a mob led by well-known New
Orleans citizens broke into the gaol where nineteen Italians were
imprisoned and lynched eleven of them.
See W. Agnew Paton, _Picturesque Sicily_ (1898); C. W. Heckethorn,
_Secret Societies of all Ages_ (1897); Alongi, _La Maffia_ (Turin,
1887); Le Faure, _La Maffia_ (Paris, 1892).
MAFRA, a town of Portugal, in the district of Lisbon (formerly in the
province of Estremadura); near the Atlantic coast and the right bank of
the river Lizandro, and 20 m. N.W. of Lisbon. Pop. (1900), 4769. Mafra
is remarkable for its monastery, church, and palace, built by John V. in
1717-1732, in consequence of a vow made during a dangerous illness to
build a convent for the poorest friary of the kingdom--which proved to
be a small Franciscan settlement here. The architects, Johann Friedrich
Ludwig of Regensburg, and his son Johann Peter, took the Escurial for
their model; but the imitation is less successful than the original,
though the cost exceeded £4,000,000. The building is in the form of a
parallelogram measuring upwards of 800 ft. from north to south and 700
ft. from east to west; it is said to contain 866 rooms, and to be
lighted by no fewer than 5200 windows. The centre is occupied by the
church, sumptuously built of marble, and richly adorned with statues and
other objects of art. In each of the twin towers there is a chime of 57
bells. Part of the palace, originally designed as barracks, is used as a
military academy. Adjoining the palace are fine gardens and a royal
model farm.
MAGADHA, an ancient kingdom of India, mentioned in both the _Ramayana_
and the _Mahabharata_. It comprised that portion of Behar lying S. of
the Ganges, with its capital at Pataliputra or Patna. As the scene of
many incidents in the life of Gautama Buddha, it was a holy land. It was
also the seat of the Maurya Empire, founded by Chandragupta, which
extended over all India under Asoka; and, later, of the powerful Gupta
dynasty.
MAGALDÁN, a town in the northern part of the province of Pangasinan,
Luzon, Philippine Islands, about 2 m. from the shore of the Gulf of
Lingayen. Pop. (1903), 15,841. In 1903 the adjacent municipality of
Mapandan (pop. in 1903, 4198) was annexed to Magaldán. Most of its
inhabitants are engaged in rice culture. The principal language is
Pangasinan; Ilocano is also spoken.
MAGALLANES (Spanish form of _Magellan_), a territory of southern Chile
extending from 47° S. to Cape Horn and including the mainland from the
Argentine frontier to the Pacific coast, the islands extending along
that coast, the Fuegian archipelago, and the western half of Tierra del
Fuego. Area, about 71,127 sq. m.; pop. (1895), 5170. It is one of the
most inhospitable regions of the world, being exposed to cold westerly
storms for most of the year. The islands are barren, but the mainland is
covered with forests, practically inaccessible to exploitation because
of the inclement climate and the wet spongy soil. The coast is indented
with bays and fjords and affords remarkable scenery. There is little
animal life on land, but the coast is frequented by the seal and
sea-otter and the sheltered waters by countless sea-fowl. The only
permanent settlements are at Punta Arenas, the capital, on the Straits
of Magellan, Palomares on Otway Water, Mina Marta on Skyring Water, and
Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope) on the east shore of Worsley Sound. All are
east of the Andean ranges and partially sheltered from the westerly
storms. In this sheltered region there are open plains where sheep are
grazed. A few sheep ranges have been established on Tierra del Fuego.
Some nomadic tribes of Indians inhabit Tierra del Fuego and the extreme
southern end of the mainland, but their numbers are small. Coal has been
found in the vicinity of Punta Arenas, and gold occurs.
See _The Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle_ (1839).
MAGAZINE, primarily a warehouse for goods or merchandise (Arab.
_makhzan_, a storehouse, from _khazana_, to store up). In Morocco
_makhzan_ (or _maghzen_) has come to be used as the name of the
government. The Spaniards adopted the Arabic in the form _magacen_, and
the English form comes through the older French _magazin_, modern
_magasin_. The meaning of a storehouse or large shop, common in French,
is rare in English except in the military use of the term for a building
for the storage of explosives and ammunition. It is applied to the
chamber of a repeating rifle or machine-gun containing the supply of
cartridges. The name as applied to a periodical publication containing
articles on various subjects was first used in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_ (1731), described as "a monthly collection, to treasure up as
in a magazine" articles on the subjects with which it was proposed to
deal.
MAGDALA (more correctly MAKDALA), a natural stronghold in the country of
the Wollo Gallas, Abyssinia, about 250 m. W. of Jibuti on the Gulf of
Aden, in 11° 22´ N., 39° 25´ E. The basaltic plateau of which it
consists rises 9110 ft. above the sea. It is about three-quarters of a
mile in length by less than half a mile in breadth, and lies more than a
thousand feet higher than the neighbouring plain of Arogié. Chosen about
1860 by the emperor Theodore of Abyssinia as his principal stronghold in
the south, Magdala owes its celebrity to the fact that, as the place of
imprisonment of the English captives, it became the goal of the great
English Expedition of 1868. At the time of its capture it contained huts
for a population of about three thousand. The whole rock was burned bare
by order of the commander of the British force, Sir Robert Napier, who,
on being raised to the peerage for his services on this occasion, took
the title of Lord Napier of Magdala. The plateau was subsequently
refortified by the Abyssinians.
See Clements Markham, _History of the Abyssinian Expedition_ (1869);
and H. Rassam, _British Mission to Theodore_ (1869).
MAGDEBURG, a city of Germany, capital of the Prussian province of
Saxony, a fortress of the first rank and one of the principal commercial
towns of the German Empire. It lies in a broad and fertile plain, mainly
on the left bank of the Elbe, 88 m. S.W. from Berlin and at the junction
of main lines to Leipzig, Brunswick, Cassel and Hamburg. Pop. (1885),
159,520; (1890), 202,234; (1905), 240,661. It consists of the town
proper, and of the five suburbs of Friedrichstadt, Wilhelmstadt,
Neustadt, Sudenburg and Buckau; the last four are separated from the
town by the ramparts and glacis, but are all included within the new
line of advanced bastions, while Friedrichstadt lies on the right bank
of the river. In the Elbe, between the old town and the Friedrichstadt,
lies an island whereon stands the citadel; this is united with both
banks by bridges. With the exception of the Breite Weg, a handsome
thoroughfare running from north to south, the streets of the town proper
are narrow and crooked. Along the Elbe, however, extend fine promenades,
the Fürstenwall and the Fürsten Üfer. To the south of the inner town is
the Friedrich Wilhelms Garten, a beautiful park laid out on the site of
the celebrated convent of Berge, which was founded in 968 and suppressed
in 1809. By far the most important building in Magdeburg is the
cathedral, dedicated to SS Maurice and Catherine, a handsome and massive
structure of the 14th century, exhibiting an interesting blending of
Romanesque and Gothic architecture. The two fine western towers were
completed about 1520. The interior contains the tombs of the emperor
Otto the Great and his wife Edith, an English princess, and the fine
monument of Archbishop Ernest (d. 1513), executed in 1495 by Peter
Vischer of Nüremberg. The Liebfrauenkirche, the oldest church in
Magdeburg, is an interesting Romanesque edifice of the 12th and 13th
centuries, which was restored in 1890-1891. The chief secular buildings
are the town-hall (Rathaus), built in 1691 and enlarged in 1866, the
government offices, the palace of justice, the central railway station
and the exchange. The Breite Weg and the old market contain numerous
fine gable-ended private houses in the style of the Renaissance. In
front of the town-hall stands an equestrian statue of Otto the Great,
erected about 1290. The modern streets are spacious, and the houses
well-built though monotonous. There are two theatres, an agricultural
college, an art school, several gymnasia, a commercial and other
schools, an observatory, and two fine hospitals. The first place amongst
the industries is taken by the ironworks (one being a branch of the
Krupp firm, the Grusonwerke, employing about 4000 hands), which produce
naval armour and munitions of war. Of almost equal importance are the
sugar refineries and chicory factories. Then come establishments for
making tobacco, gloves, chocolate, artificial manure, cement, varnish,
chemicals and pottery. There are also distilleries and breweries, and
factories for the manufacture of cotton and silk goods. Magdeburg is
the central market in Germany for sugar and chicory, but trades
extensively also in cereals, fruit, vegetables, groceries, cattle,
horses, wool, cloth, yarn, leather, coal and books. A new winter
harbour, made at a cost of £400,000, facilitates the river traffic along
the Elbe. Three million tons of merchandise pass Magdeburg, going
upstream, and nearly 1 million tons, going downstream, annually.
Magdeburg is the headquarters of the IV. corps of the German army and
the seat of the provincial court of appeal and administrative offices,
and of a Lutheran consistory.
_History._--Magdeburg, which was in existence as a small trading
settlement at the beginning of the 9th century, owes its early
prosperity chiefly to the emperor Otto the Great, who established a
convent here about 937. In 968 it became the seat of an archbishop, who
exercised sway over an extensive territory. Although it was burnt down
in 1188, Magdeburg became a flourishing commercial town during the 13th
century, and was soon an important member of the Hanseatic League. Its
bench of jurats (_Schöppenstuhl_) became celebrated, and "Magdeburg law"
(_Magdeburger Recht_), securing the administrative independence of
municipalities, was adopted in many parts of Germany, Poland and
Bohemia. During the middle ages the citizens were almost constantly at
variance with the archbishops, and by the end of the 15th century had
become nearly independent of them. It should, however, be noted that
Magdeburg never became a free city of the Empire. The town embraced the
Reformation in 1524, and was thenceforth governed by Protestant titular
archbishops (see BISHOP). On the refusal of the citizens to accept the
"Interim," issued by the emperor Charles V., Magdeburg was besieged by
Maurice of Saxony in 1550, and capitulated on favourable terms in
November 1551. During the Thirty Years' War it was twice besieged, and
suffered terribly. It successfully resisted Wallenstein for seven months
in 1629, but was stormed and sacked by Tilly in May 1631. The whole
town, with the exception of the cathedral, and about 140 houses, was
burned to the ground, and the greater part of its 36,000 inhabitants
were butchered without regard to age or sex, but it recovered from this
deadly blow with wonderful rapidity. By the peace of Westphalia (1648)
the archbishopric was converted into a secular duchy, to fall to
Brandenburg on the death of the last administrator, which happened in
1680. In 1806 Magdeburg was taken by the French and annexed to the
kingdom of Westphalia, but it was restored to Prussia in 1814, on the
downfall of Napoleon. Otto von Guericke (1602-1686), the inventor of the
air-pump, was burgomaster of Magdeburg. Count Lazare Carnot died here in
exile, and was buried in the cemetery, but his remains were exhumed in
1889 and conveyed to Paris. Luther was at school here, and sang in the
streets for bread with other poor choristers.
See W. Kawerau, _Aus Magdeburgs Vergangenheit_ (Halle, 1886) O. von
Guericke, _Geschichte der Belagerung, Eroberung und Zerstörung von
Magdeburg_ (Magdeburg, 1887); M. Dittmar, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der
Stadt Magdeburg_ (Halle, 1885); F. W. Hoffmann, _Geschichte der Stadt
Magdeburg_ (Magdeburg, 1885-1886); F. Hülsse, _Die Einführung der
Reformation in der Stadt Magdeburg_ (Magdeburg, 1883); R. Volkholz,
_Die Zerstörung Magdeburgs_ 1631 (Magdeburg, 1892); W. Leinung and R.
Stumvoll, _Aus Magdeburgs Sage und Geschichte_ (Magdeburg, 1894); and
the _Urkundenbuch der Stadt Magdeburg_ (1892).
THE ARCHBISHOPRIC OF MAGDEBURG was carved out of the bishopric of
Halberstadt when it was founded in 968, and its history is largely bound
up with that of the city and of the prelates who have ruled the see. The
first archbishop was Adalbert, and he and his successors had six or
seven suffragan bishops. Several of the archbishops took very prominent
parts in German politics. Early in the 15th century their residence was
fixed at Halle, and about the same time it became the custom to select
them from one of the reigning families of Germany, most often from the
house of Brandenburg. The doctrines of the reformers made their
appearance in the diocese early in the 16th century, and soon Archbishop
Sigismund, a son of Joachim II., elector of Brandenburg, openly avowed
his adherence to Lutheranism. After the issue of the edict of
restitution by the emperor Ferdinand II. in 1629, there were three
rival candidates for the see, and their struggles added to the confusion
caused by the Thirty Years' War. By the peace of Prague, however, in
1635, the archbishopric was given to Augustus, prince of
Saxe-Weissenfels, who retained it until his death in 1680. In 1773 the
area of the see was over 2000 sq. m. It included 29 towns and over 400
villages and contained about 250,000 inhabitants.
See the _Regesta archiepiscopatus magdeburgensis_, edited by G. A. von
Mülverstedt (Magdeburg, 1876-1899); and K. Uhlirz, _Geschichte des
Erzbistums Magdeburg unter den Kaisern aus sächsischem Hause_
(Magdeburg, 1887).
Distinct both from the archbishopric and from the city was the
BURGRAVIATE OF MAGDEBURG. The office of burgrave dates from the time of
Charlemagne, although its holder was not at first called by this name,
and it soon became one of great importance. The burgrave was the king's
representative; he was charged with the administration of the royal
estates in a given district, and in general with watching the royal
interests therein. The burgraviate of Magdeburg was held by several
countly families in turn until 1269, when it was purchased by Archbishop
Conrad II., who, however, soon sold it. In 1294 it was again united with
the archbishopric and the prelates retained it until 1538; then in 1579
Augustus, elector of Saxony, made an arrangement which again gave the
office to the archbishops, who held it until the secularization of the
see.
The MAGDEBURG CENTURIES (_Magdeburger Zenturien_) is the name given to
the first general history of the Christian Church written from a
Protestant point of view. It was compiled in Magdeburg, and the history
is divided into periods of one hundred years each. It was written in
Latin in 1562, its principal author being the reformer Matthias Flacius,
who was assisted by other Lutheran theologians. The cost of the
undertaking was borne by some of the German Protestant princes. As the
_Historia ecclesiae Christi_ it was first published at Basel in seven
volumes (1559-1574). It deals with the history of the Church down to
1400, and considering the time at which it was written it is a
remarkable monument to the scholarship of its authors. The earlier part
of it has been translated into German (Jena, 1560-1565).
See E. Schaumkell, _Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Magdeburger
Zenturien_ (Ludwigslust, 1898).
MAGEE, WILLIAM (1766-1831), archbishop of Dublin, was born at
Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
where he was elected fellow in 1788. He was ordained in 1790. Two
sermons, preached in the college chapel in 1798 and 1799, form the basis
of his _Discourses on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and
Sacrifice_ (1801), a polemic against Unitarian theology which was
answered by Lant Carpenter. Magee was appointed professor of mathematics
and senior fellow of Trinity in 1800, but in 1812 he resigned, and
undertook the charge of the livings of Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, and
Killeleagh, Co. Down. Next year he became dean of Cork. He was well
known as a preacher and promoter of the Irish reformation, and in 1819
he was consecrated bishop of Raphoe. In 1822 the archbishop of Dublin
was translated to Armagh, and Magee succeeded him at Dublin. Though in
most respects a tolerant man, he steadily opposed the movement for
Catholic Emancipation. He died on the 18th of August 1831.
A memoir of his life is included with the _Works of the Most Reverend
William Magee_, D.D. (1842), by A. H. Kenney.
MAGEE, WILLIAM CONNOR (1821-1891), Anglican divine, archbishop of York,
was born at Cork in 1821. His father was curate of the parish attached
to the Protestant cathedral in that city; his grandfather was archbishop
of Dublin. Young Magee entered Trinity College, Dublin, with a
scholarship at thirteen. He was ordained to the curacy of St Thomas's,
Dublin, but, being threatened with consumption, went after two years to
Malaga. On his return he took a curacy at Bath, and was speedily
appointed to the Octagon Chapel, where his fame both as preacher and
platform speaker continued to spread. Some years afterwards he was made
prebendary of Wells Cathedral. In 1860 the delicate state of his health
caused him to accept the living of Enniskillen. In 1864 he was made
dean of Cork and chaplain to the lord lieutenant. Here he manifested
those great gifts which ultimately raised him to high office; a powerful
grasp of mental, moral and political problems, combined with eloquence
of a high order, and illuminated with brilliant flashes of wit. In 1868
the question of the disestablishment of the Irish Church came to the
front, and Magee threw himself into the task of its defence with his
usual energy and vivacity. The success of his orations caused Disraeli
to offer him the bishopric of Peterborough. He justified his appointment
by his magnificent speech when the Disestablishment Bill reached the
House of Lords in 1869, and then plunged into diocesan and general work
in England. He preached three remarkable sermons on Christian Evidence
in Norwich Cathedral in 1871. He took up the temperance question, and
declared in the House of Lords that he would rather see "England free
than England compulsorily sober," an utterance which the extreme
advocates of total abstinence misquoted and attacked. He was also a
supporter of the movement for abolishing the recitation of the
Athanasian Creed in the public services of the Church of England,
believing, as he said, that the "presence" of the damnatory clauses, "as
they stand and where they stand, is a real peril to the Church and to
Christianity itself," and that those clauses "are no essential part" of
the creed. The project was laid aside in consequence of the hostility of
a large body of the clergy, reinforced by the threat of Dr Pusey and
Canon Liddon to abandon their offices if it were carried. Magee took a
prominent part in the Ritual controversy, opposing what he conceived to
be romanizing excess in ritual, as well as the endeavour of the opposite
party to "put down Ritualism," as Disraeli expressed it, by the
operation of the civil law. His incisive way of putting things earned
for him the title of the "Militant Bishop," but, as he himself remarked
in relation to this title, his efforts were ever for peace.
Unfortunately for the Church, he was not elevated to the see of York
until his energies were exhausted. He died on the 5th of May 1891, about
four months after his appointment. Magee's manifold activities, his
capability as an administrator, his sound judgment, and his remarkable
insight into the ecclesiastical problems of his time, rank him among the
most distinguished of English prelates.
See _Life and Letters_, by Canon MacDonnell (2 vols. 1896).
MAGELLAN, FERDINAND (in Sp. FERNANDO MAGALLANES, in Port. FERNÃO DE
MAGALHÃES) (c. 1480-1521), the first circumnavigator of the globe, was
born at Sabrosa in the Villa Real district of the Traz-os-Montes
province of Portugal. He was a son of Pedro de Magalhães, and belonged
to the fourth order of Portuguese nobility (_fidalgos de cota de
armas_). He was brought up as one of the pages of Queen Leonor, consort
of King John (João) II "the Perfect." In 1495 he entered the service of
Manuel "the Fortunate," John's successor, and in 1504 enlisted as a
volunteer for the Indian voyage of the first Portuguese viceroy in the
East, Francisco d'Almeida. He sailed on the 25th of March 1505; was
wounded at Cannanore on the 16th of March 1506; was then sent with Nuno
Vaz Pereira to Sofala to build a Portuguese fortress at that place;
returned to India early in 1508; and was again wounded at the battle of
Diu on the 3rd of February 1509. At Cochin (Aug. 19, 1509) he joined
Diogo Lopes de Sequeira on his famous voyage intended for the Spice
Islands, when the Portuguese almost fell victims to Malay treachery at
Malacca. In this crisis he fought bravely and skilfully (though it is
not true, as often asserted, that he discovered the Malay plot); and
before the 10th of October 1510 he had been rewarded for his many
services with the rank of captain. He again distinguished himself at the
taking of Malacca by Albuquerque (July-Aug., 1511), and was then sent on
by the viceroy with Antonio d'Abreu to explore the Spice Islands
(Moluccas). Leaving Malacca at the end of December 1511, this squadron
sailed along the north of Java, passed between Java and Madura, left
Celebes on their left, coasted by the Gunong Api volcano, touched at
Bura, and so reached Amboyna and Banda. At the last-named they found
such abundance of spices that they came straight back to Malacca
without visiting Ternate, as had been intended.
Magellan returned to Portugal in 1512. On the 14th of July of that year
he was raised to the rank of _fidalgo escudeiro_; and in 1513 he
accompanied a Portuguese expedition against Azamor in Morocco. The city
was taken on the 28th-29th of August 1513; but Magellan was subsequently
wounded, and lamed for life, in a sortie; he was also accused of trading
with the Moors. The accusation was subsequently dropped, but Magellan
fell into disfavour with King Manuel, who let him understand that he
would have no further employment in his country's service (after the
15th of May 1514). Magellan formally renounced his nationality, and went
to offer his services to the court of Spain. He reached Seville on the
20th of October 1517, and thence went to Valladolid to see Charles V.
With the help of Juan de Aranda, one of the three chief officials of the
India House at Seville, and of other friends, especially Diogo Barbosa,
a Portuguese like himself, naturalized as a Spaniard, who had acquired
great influence in Seville, and whose daughter he now married, he gained
the ear of Charles and of the powerful minister, Juan Rodriguez de
Fonseca, bishop of Burgos, the persistent enemy of Columbus, the steady
supporter of his great successor. Magellan proposed to reach the Spice
Islands of the East Indies by the west; for that purpose he hoped to
discover a strait at the extreme south of South America, and is said to
have declared himself ready to sail southwards to 75° to realize his
project. Ruy Faleiro the astronomer, another Portuguese exile, aided him
in the working out of his plan, and he found an invaluable financial
ally in Christopher de Haro, a member of a great Antwerp firm, who owed
a grudge to the king of Portugal. On the 22nd of March 1518, Magellan
and Faleiro, as joint captains-general, signed an agreement with Charles
V., by which one-twentieth of the clear profits were to fall to them;
further, the government of any lands discovered was vested in them and
their heirs, with the title of _Adelantados_. On the 10th of August
1519, the fleet of five vessels, under Magellan's command, left Seville
and dropped down the Guadalquivir to S. Lucar de Barrameda, at the mouth
of the river, where they remained more than five weeks. On the 20th of
September the armada put to sea. Of the vessels which composed it, the
"Trinidad" was the flagship, and the "Vittoria" the only one which
accomplished the circumnavigation. The crew, officers, volunteers, &c.,
numbered about 270-280, of whom the names of 268 are preserved; 237 of
these received pay; at least 37 were Portuguese, 30 or more Italians
(mostly Genoese), 19 French, 1 English, 1 German. Only 31 returned in
the "Vittoria"; 4 survivors of the crew of the "Trinidad" reappeared
later. Antonio Pigafetta of Vicenza, an Italian gentleman who has left
the best history of the voyage, went as a volunteer in Magellan's suite.
Faleiro stayed behind, having cast his horoscope and found that the
venture would be fatal to him. The fleet was well armed, and the total
cost of equipment was 8,751,000 maravedis, or £5032 (equal to over
£50,000 in present value). Three-quarters were defrayed by the Spanish
Crown, one-quarter by Christopher Haro and his friends. Before starting,
Magellan made his will and addressed a memorandum to Charles V.,
assigning geographical positions connected with the controversy he was
intending to settle: viz., the proper drawing of a demarcation-line
between the spheres of Spain and Portugal in the East Indies, and the
inclusion of the Moluccas within the Spanish sphere.
Steering south-west and calling at Teneriffe (Sept. 26-Oct. 3), Magellan
sighted South America at Cape St Augustine, near Pernambuco on the 29th
of November; thence he followed the east coast of the New World down to
the La Plata estuary, which he examined in the hope of finding a passage
at this point (Jan. 11-Feb. 6, 1520). On the 31st of March following, he
arrived at Port St Julian (in 49° 20´ S.) where he wintered. Here he
crushed a formidable mutiny (April 1-2), and made acquaintance with the
natives, whom he called _Patagonians_ ("Big Feet"), whose great size and
lofty stature are magnified by Pigafetta to gigantic proportions.
Leaving Port St Julian on the 24th of August 1520, he discovered on the
21st of October the cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, the eastern
entrance of the long-sought passage. Through this strait, 360 m. long,
often narrow and very tortuous, fringed by snow-clad mountains, he
guided his armada for thirty-eight days, weakened by the desertion of
one vessel (the "S. Antonio"). On the 21st of November a council of
pilots and captains was held to consider the continuation of the voyage,
and on the 28th of November the fleet rounded Cabo Deseado, the
"desired" western terminus of the strait, variously called by the first
discoverers, "Victoria Strait," "Strait of the Patagonians," "of all
Saints," "of the Eleven Thousand Virgins," or "of Magellan," now only
known by the last of these names. To the south of the passage lay the
forbidding land "stark with eternal cold," which from the many fires
here observed Magellan named "Tierra del Fuego." The expedition now
entered the "Great South Sea," first sighted by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa
(q.v.), which, from the steady and gentle winds that drove the fleet
across the immeasurable expanse, was by Magellan called "Pacific." For
ninety-eight days Magellan crossed this sea, almost beyond the grasp of
man's mind for vastness (as Maximilian of Transylvania puts it), from
Cabo Deseado to the Ladrones. On the whole transit he discovered only
two islands, sterile and uninhabited, which he called "St Paul's" (Jan.
24, 1521) and "Shark Island" (Feb. 3). The first of these has been
identified with Puka Puka in the Tuamotu Archipelago, the second with
Flint Island in the Manihiki group; neither identification seems
convincing. For most of these ninety-eight days the explorers had no
fresh provisions, little water (and that bad), and putrid biscuit; the
ravages of scurvy became terrible. The worst anticipations of Magellan
("he would push on, if they had to eat the leather of the rigging") were
realized; ox-hides, sawdust, and rats became coveted food. At last, on
the 6th of March 1521, the Ladrones (so named by Magellan from the
thievish habits of the natives) came in sight, Guam being probably the
first port of call. Here the fleet rested, watered, revictualled and
refitted; on the 9th of March they started again westward; and on the
16th of March sighted the southern point of Samar Island in the
archipelago, since 1542 called the Philippines, but named by Magellan,
its first discoverer, after St Lazarus. On the 7th of April the squadron
arrived at Cebu, south-west of Samar, in the heart of the Philippines;
here Magellan contracted a close friendship and alliance with the
treacherous native sovereign, who professed Christianity the better to
please and utilize his Catholic friends. Undertaking an expedition to
conquer, for the Catholic faith and the king of Cebu, the neighbouring
island of Mactan, Magellan was killed there in a fight with the
islanders (April 27, 1521). The king of Cebu after this got into his
power several of the leading personages of the squadron, including Juan
Serrano, one of the two admirals elected to replace Magellan, and
murdered them. The survivors, burning one of the three remaining
vessels, left the Philippines, and made their way to the Moluccas (Nov.
6), visiting Borneo on the way (July 9-Sept. 27, 1521). At Tidor a heavy
cargo of cloves was taken in; the "Trinidad," becoming leaky, stayed
behind with her crew; and the "Vittoria," under Juan Sebastian del Cano,
proceeded to Europe alone (Dec. 21, 1521). To double the Cape of Good
Hope the "Vittoria" reached between 40° and 41° S. (April 7-16, 1522)
and suffered from contrary winds, heavy seas, scurvy and starvation. In
the Cape Verde Islands (July 9-15, 1522) thirteen of the crew were
detained prisoners by the Portuguese. Only thirty-one men returned with
del Cano to Seville in the first vessel that had ever made the tour of
the earth. Though Magellan had not quite reached the Spice Islands when
he fell at Mactan, his task had then been accomplished. He had already
reached and passed the longitude of the Moluccas, where he had already
been; the way home from the Philippines by the Indian Ocean and the Cape
of Good Hope was perfectly known to the Portuguese, himself included.
Magellan's name has never received its due recognition in general
history. It ranks with those of Columbus, Marco Polo, and Henry the
Navigator. The circumnavigation of the globe is as great an event as the
discovery of America. Magellan achieved what Columbus planned--the
linking of west Europe with east Asia by direct transit over the western
ocean. Had America not intervened, the project of 1492 must have failed;
by 1519 European pioneers had formed a more adequate notion of the task
and its magnitude.
Magellan's Straits, the Magellanic clouds (not first observed by him),
and Magellan's Land--a name long given to Patagonia and that
hypothetical southern continent of which Tierra del Fuego was considered
only a portion, and now again bestowed by Chile on her territory in the
extreme south--preserve the memory of the first circumnavigator. The
largest of the oceans has also kept the flattering name given to it by
the man who first crossed it.
No record of his exploits was left by Magellan himself; and
contemporary accounts are less detailed and consistent than could be
wished. The best is that of Antonio Pigafetta, a volunteer in the
fleet. It is printed in Ramusio, and exists in four early MS. copies,
one in Italian and three in French. The latter was perhaps the
original language of this work, which was addressed by Pigafetta, as a
knight of Rhodes, to the Frenchman Villiers de l'Isle Adam, grand
master of the order of the Hospital of St John. But this view is
rejected by J. A. Robertson (see below), who believes the Ambrosian
MS. to be the ultimate text. See the _Primo viaggio intorno al mondo_,
otherwise the _Navigation et descouvrement de la Indie supérieure
faicte par moi Anthoyne Pigapheta, Vincentin, chevallier de Rhodes_,
probably published in 1524 (in August of that year Pigafetta obtained
leave to print his book in Venice). Of the three French MSS., two are
in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (5650 and 24,224 Fr.), the latter
is wrongly supposed by Thomassy, followed by Lord Stanley of Alderley,
to have been the copy presented by Pigafetta to the regent of France,
Marie Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. The third French MS.,
often called the MS. of Nancy, first noticed by Thomassy in 1841, was
bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps at Libri's sale, and became MS.
Phillipps 16,405. The Italian MS. is in the Ambrosian library at
Milan. From this Carlo Amoretti, prefect of the Ambrosiana, published
his Italian edition of Pigafetta in 1800; a French translation of
this, by Amoretti himself, was issued by H. J. Jansen, 1801. An
English version of Pigafetta was made by Richard Eden in his _Decades
of the Newe Worlde_ (London, 1555). The earliest printed edition,
apparently a summary of the Italian MS., was issued in French by Simon
de Colines of Paris about 1525. The earliest Italian edition is of
1534 (or 1536).
Other authorities are: (1) The narrative of an unknown Portuguese in
Ramusio's _Navigationi et viaggi_; (2) the _Derrotero_ or Log-Book in
the Seville Archives, supposed to be the work of Francisco Albo,
_contramaestre_ of Magellan's flagship, the "Trinidad": this consists
mainly of nautical observations; (3) the narrative of the so-called
Genoese pilot, written in excellent Portuguese, and printed in vol.
iv. of the _Collecão de noticias_ of the Lisbon Academy; (4) various
_informaciones_ and other papers in the Seville Archives, especially
bearing on the mutiny; (5) the letter of Maximilian of Transylvania,
under-secretary to Charles V., to the cardinal of Salzburg; (6) the
references in Correa and Herrera, often based on good information, and
adding points of interest to other records. Of these (1)-(3), (5), and
an instance of (6) are translated in the Hakluyt Society's volume.
Magellan's two wills (i) executed at Belem on the 17th of December
1504, on the eve of his departure with Almeida, (ii) executed at
Seville on the 24th of August, 1519, just before starting on his
voyage round the world, are both of some value for his life.
See also Lord Stanley of Alderley, _The First Voyage round the World
by Magellan, translated from ... Pigafetta, &c._, Hakluyt Society
(London, 1874); Diego de Barros Arana, _Vida e viagems de Fernão de
Magalhães_, a trans. of the Spanish life by Fernando de Magalhães
Villas Boas (Lisbon, 1881); F. H. H. Guillemard, _Life of Magellan_
(London, 1890); _Magellan ... the original text of the Ambrosian MS_.
(of Pigafetta), with English translation, notes, bibliography, &c., by
J. A. Robertson (Cleveland, U.S.A., 1906). Before the appearance of
this indispensable work, the best edition of Pigafetta had been in
vol. iii. part 5 of the _Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati
nella r. commissione colombiana_, edited by Andrea da Mosto (Rome,
Ministry of Public Instruction, 1894). (C. R. B.)
MAGELLANIC CLOUDS (named after Ferdinand Magellan), two cloud-like
condensations of stars in the southern constellation of Mensa about 69°
S. Dec. and between 5° and 5° 40´ of R. A. They are remarkable in the
resemblance of their stars as regards spectra and physical constitution
to the stars of the Milky Way, though entirely detached from that
object.
MAGENTA, a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, 16 m. by
rail W. of Milan city, 364 ft. about sea-level situated in the midst of
rice-fields. Pop. (1901), 8012. It manufactures silks and matches, and
is famous for the battle (1859) in which the allied French and
Piedmontese defeated the Austrians (see ITALIAN WARS). A memorial chapel
and a monument were erected on the battle-field in 1862. A
crimson-purple aniline dye, discovered about the time of the battle, was
given from it the name of "magenta."
MAGGIORE, LAGO (_Lacus Verbanus_ of the Romans; Fr. _Lac Majeur_; Ger.
_Langensee_), the most extensive of the lakes that extend along the foot
of the Alps in Lombardy, N. Italy. Its area is about 83 sq. m., its
length 37 m., its greatest width 5½ m., and its greatest depth 1198 ft.,
while its surface is 646 ft. about sea-level. It is mainly formed by the
Ticino (Tessin) River, flowing in at the north and out at the south end,
on its way to join the Po, but on the west the lake receives a very
important tributary, the Toce or Tosa River, which flows down through
the Val d'Ossola from the mountains around the Simplon Pass. Other
important affluents are the Maggia (N.W.) and the Tresa (E.). The upper
end of the lake (about 16 sq. m.) is in the Swiss canton of Ticino
(Tessin). Locarno, at the northern or Swiss end, is 14 m. by rail S.W.
of Bellinzona on the St Gotthard line. There is a railway along the
south-eastern shore, from Magadino (10½ m. S.W. of Bellinzona) to Sesto
Calende (36½ m.), at the southern end of the lake and 20 m. by rail from
Novara. The east shore of the lake is reached at Luino by a steam
tramway from Ponte Tresa on the lake of Lugano (8 m.), while the direct
Simplon line runs along the west shore of the lake for 15½ m. from near
Pallanza past Baveno and Stresa to Arona, which is 23 m. by rail from
Novara. On the east shore are Luino (Ital. Luvino) and Laveno. On the
west shore are (reckoning from N. to S.) Cannobio, Pallanza, Baveno,
Stresa and Arona. Opposite (S.E.) Baveno are the famous Borromean
Islands, on the largest of which (Isola Bella) are very remarkable
gardens (formed about 1617), wherein many tropical plants flourish
abundantly, while south-west of Baveno rises the glorious view-point of
the Monte Mottarone (4892 ft.) between Lago Maggiore and the northern
end of the Lake of Orta. In the morning the _tramontana_ wind blows from
the north down the lake, while in the afternoon the _inverna_, blowing
from the south, prevails. The first steamer was placed on the lake in
1826. (W. A. B. C.)
MAGIC[1] (i.e. "art magic"; Lat. _ars magica_), the general term for the
practice and power of wonder-working, as depending on the employment of
supposed supernatural agencies. Etymologically the Gr. [Greek: mageia]
meant the science and religion of the _magi_, or priests of Zoroaster,
as known among the Greeks; in this sense it was opposed to [Greek:
goêteia] (? necromancy) and [Greek: pharmakeia] (the use of drugs); but
this distinction was not universally recognized, and [Greek: goêteia] is
often used as a synonym of [Greek: mageia]. There is no general
agreement as to the proper definition of "magic," which depends on the
view taken of "religion."
I.--NATURE OF MAGIC
_Theories of Magic._--Existing theories of magic may be classified as
_objective_ or _subjective_. The objective school regards magic as a
thing by itself, entirely distinct from religion, recognizable by
certain characteristics, and traceable to a definite psychological
origin. Magic, on this view, is a system of savage science based on
imaginary laws supposed to operate with the regularity ascribed to
natural laws by the science of to-day. If practices prima facie magical
form part of the recognized ritual of religion, it is because the older
ideas have persisted and at most assumed a veneer of religion. For the
subjective school, on the other hand, only those rites are magical which
their practitioners qualify with the name of magic; there is no inherent
quality which makes a rite magical; practices based on a belief in the
law of sympathy may be religious as well as magical; rites may pass from
the category of religion to that of magic when public recognition is
withdrawn from them.
a. For E. B. Tylor the distinguishing characteristic of magic is its
unreality; it is a confused mass of beliefs and practices, and their
unity consists in the absence of the ordinary nexus of natural cause
and effect. Under the general head of magic he distinguishes (i) a
spiritual and (ii) a non-spiritual element. (i) The former is made up
of such rites as involve the intervention of spiritual beings, ghosts
of the dead, demons or gods; hence, in Tylor's view, this form of
magic is merely an inferior branch of religion. (ii) The non-spiritual
part, but for which the category of magic would be unnecessary,
depends on imagined powers and correspondences in nature; it is merely
imperfect reasoning, the mistaking of an ideal connexion for a real
one. When the American Indian medicine man draws the picture of a deer
on a piece of bark and expects that shooting at it will cause him to
kill a real deer the next day, he mistakes a connexion which exists
only in the mind of the sorcerer for a real bond independent of the
human mind.
b. In J. G. Frazer's view all magic is based on the law of
sympathy--i.e. the assumption that things act on one another at a
distance through a secret link, due either to the fact that there is
some similarity between them or to the fact that they have at one time
been in contact, or that one has formed part of the other. These two
branches of "sympathetic magic" Frazer denominates "homoeopathic
magic" and "contagious magic." Homoeopathic or imitative (mimetic)
magic may be practised by itself, but contagious magic generally
involves the application of the imitative principle. (i) One of the
most familiar applications of the former is the belief that an enemy
may be destroyed or injured by destroying or injuring an image of him.
(ii) Under the head of contagious magic are included such beliefs as
that which causes the peasant to anoint the weapon with which he has
been injured, which, according to Frazer, is founded on the
supposition that the blood on the weapon continues to feel with the
blood in the body. (iii) Implicitly Frazer seems to distinguish a
third kind of magic; "the rain-charm," he says, "operates partly or
wholly through the dead ... in Halmahera there is a practice of
throwing stones on a grave, in order that the ghost may fall into a
passion and avenge the disturbance, as he imagines, by sending heavy
rain." Here there is no assumption of an invariable course of nature
set in motion by magical rites; save that it is coercive and not
propitiatory, the practice does not differ from ordinary religious
rites.
In his theory of the origin of magic Frazer follows the associationist
school. But, as R. R. Marett has pointed out in a criticism of the
associationist position, it is proved beyond question that even in the
individual mind association by similarity, contiguity or contrast, is
but the passive condition, the important element being interest and
attention. Frazer assumes that magic has everywhere preceded religion:
man tried to control nature by using what he conceived to be immutable
laws; failing in this he came to believe in the existence of higher
powers whom he could propitiate but not coerce; with this
transformation religion appeared on the scene; the priest supplanted
the magician, at least in part, and the first blows were struck in the
perennial warfare of magic and religion. Frazer recognizes, however,
that magical and religious rites are at the present day, and have been
in historical times, frequently intermingled; it should be noted that
for him religion means propitiation and that he does not recognize the
existence of anything beyond magic among the aborigines of Australia.
His theory is based on a selection of facts, and not on the whole body
of beliefs and rites recognized as magical, among which are many
wherein spirits figure. Frazer's position appears to be that such
rites are relatively late and may be neglected in framing a definition
of magic. It may be perfectly true that the idea of magic has been
progressively extended; but belief in transformation is also for Dr
Frazer magical; this belief is certainly primitive; yet sympathy will
not explain it, as it should if Frazer's theory is correct.
c. L. Marillier distinguished three classes of magic: (i) the magic
of the word or act; (ii) the magic of the human being, independent of
rite or formula, &c.; (iii) the magic which demands at once a human
being of special powers (or in a special state) and the use of certain
forms. (i) Under the first head he included such rites as mimetic
dances, rain-making, disease-making, and sympathetic magic generally.
Some of these rites are conceived to affect the course of nature
directly, as by influencing winds or the sun, others do so through the
intermediary of a god or spirit, who controls the course of nature,
and is himself coerced by man with magical acts and incantations. (ii)
Other rites cannot be performed by all and sundry: ceremonial purity,
initiation or other conditions may be needed to make the charm
effective. (iii) Individuals are found who are invested with magical
power (_mana_), whose will rules the universe, whose simple words
bring rain or sunshine, and whose presence gives fertility to the
fields. Sometimes this power is an attribute of the individual,
sometimes it is bound up with the office which he fills. In many cases
the magical powers of both men and other objects, animate and
inanimate, are put down to the fact that a god resides in them.
d. Hubert and Mauss have made the most complete and systematic study
of magic which has yet appeared. They hold that, implicitly at any
rate, magic is everywhere distinguished from other systems of social
facts; in order to be magical an act or belief must be common to the
whole of a society; the acts which the whole of a group does not
regard as efficacious are not, for this school of thought, magical:
consequently the practices of gamesters, &c., do not come under the
head of magic. Magic is essentially traditional; a distinguishing
characteristic of primitive thought is that the individual mind is
markedly unoriginal; and this feature is as prominent, if not more so,
in magic as in technology or any other important element in human
life. The correspondence between magic and technology can be traced
far; for the gestures of the craftsman are as strictly prescribed as
the ritual acts of the magician or priest: but in magic the results of
the gestures are not of the same order as the results of the
craftsman's movements, and herein lies the distinction between magic
and technic. The distinction between magic and religion is to be
sought not in the sympathetic character of the former, nor in any
supposed necessary sequence of cause and effect, nor yet in its
maleficent character. Religion is prescribed, official, an organized
cult. Magic is prohibited, secret; at most it is permitted, without
being prescribed. Three important laws may be traced in the machinery
of magical operations--magical power flows along channels determined
by the contiguity, similarity or contrast of the object of the act and
the object to be affected; but these laws do not suffice to explain
magic: equally insufficient are the demonological theory and the
theory of properties inherent in the objects used in magical
operations. The underlying idea of magic is dynamical; to this power
may be given the name of _mana_ (see below), of which sanctity is a
special development. This _mana_ operates in a _milieu_ different from
the ordinary material world; distance is no obstacle to contact;
wishes are immediately realized; but law reigns in the milieu in
question, necessary relations are conceived as existing. The notion of
time as it is found in the world of magic is even more alien from
European ideas; the notion of sanctity enters into it, but time in
magic and religion is qualitative rather than quantitative. The
homogeneity of periods of time not depending on their duration,
conventional numbers are employed; successive periods of time
apparently equal are not so for the primitive consciousness; and both
in magic and religion periods are homogeneous by reason of occupying
the same position in the calendar.
e. For A. Lehmann magic is the practice of superstitions, and his
explanation of magic is purely psychological. Relying mainly on modern
spiritualism for his examples, he traces magic back to illusions,
prejudices and false precepts due to strained attention. This is
ultimately also the view of Hubert and Mauss, who hold that "at the
root of magic are states of consciousness which generate illusions;
and that these states are not individual but collective and arise from
the amalgamation of the ideas of a given person with those current in
the society of which he forms a part." The reunion of a group supplies
a soil in which illusions flourish readily, and it is important to
note that in magic and religion attention is above all necessary for
the success of a rite, witness the frequent rule imposing silence; but
this concentration of attention is precisely calculated to favour
illusions; it is indeed the ordinary condition of successful
hypnotism; even in civilized countries collective hallucinations
without verbal suggestion are not unknown.
f. R. R. Marett regards religion and magic as two forms of a social
phenomenon originally one and indivisible; primitive man had an
institution which dealt with the supernatural, and in this institution
were the germs of both magic and religion, which were gradually
differentiated; magic and religion differ in respectability; religion
is always the higher, the accepted cult; but between what is
definitely religious and what is definitely magical lies a mass of
indeterminate elements, such as "white-magic," which do not attain to
the public recognition of religion, nor suffer the condemnation meted
out to the indisputably magical. For primitive man the abnormal was
the supernormal, and the supernormal was the supernatural, the object
of fear; this is especially evident when we consider the case of
taboo; it may be regarded as a public scare for which no particular
individual is responsible, which becomes traditional along fairly
constant lines, growing as it goes. _Mana_ was attributed to taboo
objects, among which were men in any way abnormal, whether as geniuses
or idiots; and such men were expected to exercise their powers for the
good of society; hence came into existence the professional medicine
man; man originally argued from cause to effect and not vice versa.
Priest and magician were originally one; but the former, learning
humility in the face of might greater than his own, discarded the
spell for the prayer and prostrated himself before a higher power.
_Definition of Magic._--To arrive at a definition of magic we may either
follow the a priori road mapped out by Frazer and decline to recognize
the distinction actually drawn by various societies between magical and
religious practices; or we may ask what magic and corresponding terms
actually connote. Frazer's method ignores the fact that magic, like
religion, is an institution, i.e. a product of society, not of any
single individual; there is no more reason to suppose that a child
reared in isolation would develop any kind of magical practices than
that it would invent for itself a religion; but if this is the case,
the associationist account of magic cannot be true. It is therefore by
an analysis of actually existing practices that we must define and limit
the term magic. There is, however, a serious difficulty in the way of
determining the attitude of non-European peoples towards religio-magical
practices; general terms are things of slow growth; it is therefore
prima facie improbable that peoples in the lower stages of culture will
have anything corresponding to our terms "religion" and "magic";
moreover, if we are right in assuming the fundamental unity of the two,
it is by no means certain that they have even the consciousness of any
distinction. Even when this consciousness is present, it by no means
follows that the whole of the field is mapped out according to our
categories; there will be a large indeterminate area which is neither
magical nor religious. This suggests that the consciousness of the
educated Occidental, for which the spheres of magic and religion in
civilized society are sharply defined and contrasted, should be the
ultimate arbiter; but here again we are confronted by a difficulty, for,
to the educated man, the characteristic of magic is its unreality, and
this does not help us to distinguish primitive magic and religion.
We must, it appears, determine the relation of magic to religion by an
analysis of the conceptions of those who believe in both; but in so
doing we must consider that, like all other institutions, magic has a
history. Even if we go back to the 16th century and take the view of
magic then held by the average European, it is still a complex idea.
When we ask what the most primitive races now on the earth regard as
magic, we are applying to their ideas a touchstone made for a very
different age and culture; as well might we ask what their theory of
knowledge is. If, however, we reverse the process and ask what elements
of primitive institutions correspond most nearly to later conceptions of
magic, we can at once say that the forbidden and private arts are the
prototypes of the magic of later times. Magic is therefore the practice
of maleficent arts which involve the use of religio-magical power, with
perhaps a secondary idea of the use of private arts, which are to
benefit, not the community as a whole, but a single individual. Religion
in the lower stages of culture is essentially the tribal creed which all
practise and in which all believe; if therefore an individual has a cult
of his own, even if otherwise indistinguishable from a public cult, it
is for this very reason on a lower plane, and probably corresponds in a
degree to what is later regarded as magic. But our information as to the
attitude of the uncivilized towards magico-religious rites in general is
seldom sufficiently clear; our terminology is influenced by the
prepossession of alien observers whose accounts cannot be assumed to
correspond to the native view of the case.
_Magico-religious Force._--The mere fact that we cannot draw an exact
line between magic and religion suggests that they may have some
fundamental feature in common. Both terms have greatly changed their
connotation in the course of their existence; _religio_ seems to have
meant originally [Greek: katadesmos] (magical spell), and Pliny says
that [Greek: mageia] is a deceptive art compounded of medicine, religion
and astrology. Among the Greeks, on the other hand, [Greek: mageia]
occupied a respectable position. More important is the fact that taboo
(q.v.) is both religious and magical. There is a universal tendency to
regard as magical the religions of alien races, as well as national
religions which have been superseded; Leland tells us that witchcraft in
Italy is known as _la vecchia religione_. An examination of the ideas of
primitive peoples shows that there is a widely found notion of a power
which manifests itself both in religion and magic. Observers have often
been content to describe ceremonies without attempting to penetrate to
the fundamental ideas which underlie them; this is particularly the case
with magic, and only recently have anthropologists realized that in many
primitive societies exists a fairly well-defined idea of
magico-religious power, to which the generic name of _mana_, from the
Melanesian word, has been given.
a. _Mana_ in Melanesia is a force, a being, an action, a quality, or a
state; it is transmissible and contagious, and is hence associated
with taboo; it may be regarded as material and seen in the form of
flames or heard; it is the power which is inherent in certain spirits,
among which are included such of the dead as are denominated
_tindalos_; it may also be a force inherent in some inanimate object,
such as a stone which causes the yams to grow, but it is a spiritual
force and does not act mechanically; it is the power of the magician
and of the rite; the magic formula is itself _mana_. There seem to be
a variety of _manas_, but probably the underlying idea is essentially
one, though it does not follow that the Melanesians have arrived at
the consciousness of this unity. Hubert and Mauss go even further and
regard all force as _mana_; it is a quality added to objects without
prejudice to their other qualities, one which supplements without
destroying their mechanical action.
b. Similar ideas are found in other areas. (i) The continental Malays
have a word _Kramât_ (_hrm_), which means sacred or magical; in
Indo-China the Bahnars use the word _deng_; in Madagascar _hasina_
seems to embody in part the same notion. (ii) In Africa the idea is
less apparent; perhaps the _ngai_ of the Tanganika tribes comes
nearest to the notion of _mana_; on the Congo _nkici_ has a similar
but more restricted sense. (iii) In Australia there are two, or
perhaps three, kinds of magical power distinguished by the aborigines;
all over the continent we find the maleficent power, _boolya_ in West
Australia, _arungquiltha_ in the central tribes, _koochie_ in New
South Wales; the central tribes have certain objects termed
_churinga_, to which magical power (which we may term _churinga_) is
attributed; the power of magicians is held to reside in certain
stones, called _atnongara_, and in this we must, provisionally at any
rate, see a third kind of magical power: _churinga_ is beneficent and
seems to originate with the mythical ancestors, whereas _arungquiltha_
is of immediate origin, created by means of incantations or acquired
by contact with certain objects; the power of the magicians seems to
proceed from the ancestors in like manner. (iv) In America these ideas
are widely found; the _orenda_ of the Hurons has been elaborately
described by J. N. B. Hewitt; everything in nature, and particularly
all animate objects, have their _orenda_; so have gods and spirits;
and natural phenomena are the product of the _orenda_ of their
spirits. _Orenda_ is distinct from the things to which it is attached;
the cry of birds, the rustle of the trees, the soughing of the wind,
are expressions of their _orenda_; the voice of the magician is
_orenda_, so are the prayer and the spell, and in fact all rites;
_orenda_ is above all the power of the medicine man. Among the
Algonquins we find the word _manitu_, among the Sioux _wakanda_,
_mahowa_, &c., among the Shoshones pokunt; all of which seem to carry,
at least in part, the same signification. In Central America,
according to Hubert and Mauss, _naual_ or _nagual_ is the
corresponding term. (v) Traces of similar ideas may be found in more
advanced nations; the Hindu _brahman_ is identified by Hubert and
Mauss as the correlative of _mana_; in Greece [Greek: physis] is
possibly the echo of a similar idea; but we are yet far from having
adequately fathomed the dynamical theories of pre-scientific days.
_Origin of Magic._--The associationist theory of magic sets out with the
assumption that primitive man began with general conceptions; he started
with certain means at his disposal--the law of sympathy--by which he
could, in his own belief, influence the outer world. But it is more
probable that he argued from concrete instances and arrived little by
little at abstract ideas of magical power.
a. Death and disease are universally regarded by uncivilized people as
due to so-called "magic," i.e. to non-natural causes. Primitive man
was familiar with the wounds and bruises caused by physical means; he
would naturally attribute any pain not so caused to the operation of
analogous but invisible weapons, and eventually attempt to discover
how he himself could apply on his own behalf the forces thus used
against him. Similarly he may have asked himself to what causes were
to be attributed the superiority of one man over another; he may have
decided the problem by referring it to the superior power of the one,
and then inquired in what way this power could in individual instances
be increased. In fact we may say generally that man probably explained
the already existing and happening by reference to the supernormal,
and then endeavoured to guide the supernormal for his own benefit,
direct or indirect.
b. Ritual, however (the primitive magico-religious plasm), is negative
as well as positive. The corpse is uncanny, and man's dread of the
corpse may well have been an early development; this dread, become
traditional, with accretions of various sorts, crystallized into
_taboo_, the magico-religious prohibition. The notion of the uncanny,
once arrived at, may have been exploited positively; psychical
abnormalities are present among savage races in very different
degrees; but if they were developed at an early stage in human history
they doubtless suggested the possibility that man might exploit them
for the collective advantage. But it by no means follows that
beneficent rites were originally regarded as magical; and it should be
noted that the initiator of the so-called magician in Australia is
often the god of the tribe or nation. The limits of magic or its
correlatives in the lower stages of culture are thus far undecided.
c. Magic as it represents itself to the Occidental mind of the present
day, and perhaps to the great part of the inhabitants of the world,
seems to be a thing of gradual growth. (i) In the earlier stages
there was probably no animistic feature about magic; it was
essentially "the prohibited." (ii) Then with the rise of animistic
beliefs and practices came the association of the magician with
demons--the spirits of the dead, or of animals, or unattached
spirits--upon whose co-operation the powers of the magician are often
now held to depend. These spirits were not in the position of gods;
such recognition, worship, or cult as they received was often not a
social institution, but the work of individuals, liable to fall into
desuetude at the death of the individual, if not earlier. (iii) Again,
the magical tends to be the less important and eventually the less
respectable; therefore ancient cults which are conquered, like the
religion of Rome by Christianity, come to be reckoned as within the
sphere of magic and witchcraft. (iv) All non-animistic practices tend
to become _ipso facto_ magical; many ritual prohibitions fall under
the head of negative magic. Religion is predominantly animistic, and
with the rise of gods magic and religion become antagonistic. Thus
rites of a neutral character, such as leechcraft, and perhaps
agricultural ceremonies which are not absorbed by religion, tend to
acquire the reputation of being magical, as also do all amulets and
talismans, and, in fact, everything not directly associated with
religion. We therefore arrive at a period when magic is distinguished
as _white_, i.e. the laudable, or at least permitted form, and
_black_, i.e. the prohibited form.
_Magic and Demonology._--Primitive psychology tends to anthropomorphize
and personify; it is in many of its stages inclined to an animistic
philosophy. To this is due in part the difficulty of distinguishing
magic from religion. In many rites there is no obvious indication that a
spirit or personal being is concerned. A portion of the ceremonies in
which the spirits of the dead are concerned falls under the head of
religion (see ANCESTOR WORSHIP), but in the very name "necromancy"
([Greek: nekros], corpse) lies an implication of magic; and dealings
with the departed are viewed in this light in many parts of the world,
sometimes concurrently with a cult of ancestors. Side by side with the
human souls we find demons (see DEMONOLOGY); but on the whole only a
small proportion of the world of spirits is recognized as powerful in
magic; others, such as disease-spirits, are objects, not sources, of
magical influence. Magic is sometimes made to depend upon the activity
of demons and spirits, and it is true that the magician usually if not
invariably has a spirit helper, often an animal; but there is no
evidence that magical power had ever been confined to those who are thus
aided. It is not easy to define the relation of fetishism (q.v.) to
magic.
_Magic and Science._--It is a commonplace that the sciences have
developed from non-scientific beginnings; the root of astronomy is to be
sought in astrology (q.v.), of chemistry in alchemy (q.v.), of
leechcraft in the practices of the savage magician, who depends for much
of his success on suggestion, conscious or unconscious, but also relies
on a pharmacopeia of no mean extent. The dynamical theory of magic and
religion brings primitive man from one point of view far nearer to the
modern man of science than was previously suspected, we may fairly say
that the Australians have an idea not unlike that of the transformation
and conservation of energy, that this energy they store in accumulators,
transmit by means of conductors, and so on. The discovery of these
complicated ideas only serves to show how far the present-day peoples in
the lower stages of culture have travelled from the primitive man who
knew neither magic nor religion. But it is perhaps less in respect of
abstract ideas than by its concrete investigations into properties,
experiment and otherwise that magic has been the forerunner of science.
_Magic and Divination._--Magic is an attempt to influence the course of
events, divination (q.v.) to foresee them; but divination is frequently
regarded as magical. It is certain that a large part of divination is
religious, and the knowledge is explained as a message from the gods;
but necromancy, the practice of discovering the future by consulting the
dead, is in many respects essentially magical. Perhaps the magical
character of divination may be in part explained, when we regard it as a
group of practices in many varieties of which animism plays no part; for
non-animistic ceremonies tend to be regarded as magical (cf.
rain-making). Thus, heteroscopic divination seems to involve the idea of
what may be termed a return current of magico-religious force; the event
is not influenced, but itself determines the issue of the diviner's
experiment.
II.--LAWS AND RITUAL OF MAGIC
The practice of magic involves the belief in the operation of certain
laws, and demands certain conditions. The number of positive rites is
not unlimited; a certain rite tends to become stable and is finally used
for all sorts of purposes; and each magician tends to specialize in this
respect. Just as there are well-marked schools of magic, and the
rain-maker is not the same as the fetish-man, so within the school there
are various groups, differentiated not by the purposes at which they aim
nor by the powers they claim to possess, but by the ceremonies which
they practise. Chief among the laws lying at the base of magical
practice is that of sympathy.
_Sympathy._--That the law of sympathy is an essential element of magic
is admitted equally by the associationist school and by its critics.
Under the head of sympathy are embraced the laws of contiguity or
contagion, of similarity or homoeopathy, and of contrariety or
antipathy.
a. In its simplest form the law of contiguity asserts that whatever
has once formed part of a body continues to form part of it or to
represent it for magical purposes; thus, by obtaining possession of
the parings of a person's nails, or the clippings of his hair, and by
working magic upon them, it is held to be possible to produce on the
actual human body the effects which are in reality produced on the
object of the magical rite. As is clear by the well-known case of the
"life index," the current of magical power may pass in either
direction; if the life of a man is supposed to be bound up with the
life of a tree, so that any injury to the tree reacts on the man, it
is equally believed that the death of the man will not fail to be
manifest by the state of the tree. In particular this sympathetic
relation is predicated of wizards or witches and their animal
familiars; it is then known by the name of "repercussion." It is not
only upon parts of the body that contagious magic can be worked;
anything which has been in contact with the body, such as clothes,
anything which has been in part assimilated by the body, such as the
remains of food, and even representations of the body or of parts of
it such as footprints, &c., may be used as objects of magical rites,
in order to transmit to the human being some influence, maleficent or
otherwise. The contact demanded may be actual, or mediate, for in
Australia it suffices to connect the magician and his patient by a
thread in order that the disease may be removed. (i) The use of
clothes for magical purposes gives us perhaps the clue to the
widespread custom of "rag-trees"; in nearly every part of the world it
is the practice to suspend wool or rags to trees associated with some
spirit, or, in Christian countries, with some saint, in order to reap
a benefit; similarly nails are driven into trees or images; pins are
dropped into wells, stones are cast upon cairns, and missiles aimed at
various holy objects; but it cannot be assumed that the same
explanation lies at the root of the whole group of practices. (ii)
This law may perhaps be taken as the explanation of the "couvade"; in
many parts of the world relatives, and in particular the father of a
new-born child, are compelled to practise various abstinences, in
order that the health of the child may not be affected, membership of
the same family therefore establishes a sympathetic relation. (iii) In
this direct transference of qualities is exemplified another magical
process, which may also be referred to the operation of the law of
sympathy; it is a world-wide belief that the assimilation of food
involves the transference to the eater of the qualities, or of some of
them, inherent in the source of the food; a South African warrior, for
example, may not eat hedgehog, because the animal is held to be
cowardly and the eater would himself become a coward; on the other
hand, the flesh of lions is fit meat for brave men, because they at
the same time transfer its courage to themselves.
b. The law of homoeopathy takes two forms. (i) The magician may
proceed on the assumption that like produces like; he may, for
example, take an image of wax or wood, and subject it to heat or other
influences under the belief that it represents the human being against
whom his malefice is directed, and that without any contact, real or
pretended; so that any results produced on the image, which may be
replaced by an animal or a portion of one, are equally produced in the
human being. There need not even be any resemblance between the
representation and the person or thing represented; a pot may serve to
represent a village; hence step by step we pass from the
representation to the symbol. (ii) The law of homoeopathy also
manifests itself in the formula _similia similibus curantur_; the
Brahman in India treated dropsy with ablutions, not in order to add
to, but to subtract from, the quantity of liquid in the patient's
body. So, too, the yellow turmeric was held to be a specific for
jaundice.
c. Here we approach the third class of sympathetic rites; it is clear
that a remedy produces the contrary, when it cures the like;
conversely, like by producing like expels its contrary.
Some statements of the law of sympathy suggest that it is absolute in
its application. It is true that the current of magical power is
sometimes held to be transmitted along lines indicated by the law of
sympathy, without the intervention of any volition, human or otherwise;
thus, the crow which carries stray hairs away to weave them into the
structure of its nest is nowhere supposed to be engaged in a magical
process; but it is commonly held that the person whose hair is thus used
will suffer from headache or other maladies; this seems to indicate that
the law of sympathy operates mechanically in certain directions, though
the belief may also be explained as a secondary growth. In general the
operation of these laws is limited in the extreme. For example, the
medieval doctrine known as the Law of Signatures asserted that the
effects of remedies were correlated to their external qualities; bear's
grease is good for baldness, because the bear is a hairy animal. But the
transference was held to terminate with the acquisition by the man of
this single quality; in some magical books powdered mummy is recommended
as a means of prolonging life, but it is simply the age of the remedy
which is to benefit the patient; the magician who removes a patient's
pains or diseases does not transfer them to himself; the child whose
parents eat forbidden foods is held to be affected by their
transgression, while they themselves come off unharmed. The magical
effects are limited by exclusive attention and abstraction; and this is
true not only of the kind of effect produced but also as to the
direction in which it is held to be produced.
_The Magic of Names._--For primitive peoples the name is as much a part
of the person as a limb; consequently the magical use of names is in
some of its aspects assimilable to the processes dependent on the law of
sympathy. In some cases the name must be withheld from any one who is
likely to make a wrong use of it, and in some parts of the world people
have secret names which are never used. Elsewhere the name must not be
told by the bearer of it, but any other person may communicate it
without giving an opening for the magical use of it. Not only human
beings but also spirits can be coerced by the use of their names; hence
the names of the dead are forbidden, lest the mention of them act as an
evocation, unintentional though it be. Even among more advanced nations
it has been the practice to conceal the real name of supreme gods; we
may probably explain this as due to the fear that an enemy might by the
use of them turn the gods away from those to whom they originally
belonged. For the same reason ancient Rome had a secret name.
_Magical Rites._--The magic of names leads us up to the magic of the
spoken word in general. The spell or incantation and the magical act
together make up the rite. (a) The manual acts are very frequently
symbolic or sympathetic in their nature; sometimes they are mere
reversals of a religious rite; such is the marching against the sun
(known as _widdershins_ or _deisul_); sometimes they are purificatory;
and magic has its sacrifices just as much as religion. (b) There are
many types of oral rites; some of the most curious consist in simply
reciting the effect intended to be produced, describing the manual
act, or, especially in Europe, telling a mythical narrative in which
Christ or the apostles figure, and in which they are represented as
producing a similar effect to the one desired; in other cases the
"origin" of the disease or maleficent being is recited. Oral rites,
which are termed spells or incantations, correspond in many cases to
the oral rites of religion; they, like the manual rites, are a
heterogeneous mass and hardly lend themselves to classification. Some
formulae may be termed sympathetic; it suffices to name the result to
be produced in order to produce it; but often an incantation is
employed, not to produce a result directly, but to coerce a god or
other being and compel him to fulfil the magician's will. The language
of the incantations often differs from that of daily life; it may be a
survival of archaic forms or may be a special creation for magical
purposes. In many languages the word used to express the idea of magic
means an act, a deed; and it may be assumed that few if any magical
ceremonies consist of formulae only; on the other hand, it is certain
that no manual act in magic stands absolutely alone without oral rite;
if there is no spoken formula, there is at least an unspoken thought.
It is in many cases difficult to discover the relative proportions and
importance of manual and oral acts. Not only the words but also the
tone are of importance in magic; in fact, the tone may be the more
important. Rhythm and repetition are no less necessary in oral than in
manual acts. (c) As preliminaries, more seldom as necessary sequels to
the central feature of the rite, manual or oral, we usually find a
certain number of accessory observances prescribed, which find their
parallel in the sacrificial ritual. For example, it is laid down at
what time of year, at what period of the month or week, at what hour
of the day a rite must be performed; the waxing or waning of the moon
must be noted; and certain days must be avoided altogether. Similarly,
certain places may be prescribed for the performance of the ritual;
often the altar of the god serves magical purposes also; but elsewhere
it is precisely the impure sites which are devoted to magical
operations--the cemeteries and the cross roads. The instruments of
magic are in like manner often the remains of a sacrifice, or
otherwise consecrated by religion; sometimes, especially when they
belong to the animal or vegetable world, they must be sought at
certain seasons, May Day, St George's Day, Midsummer Day, &c. The
magician and his client must undergo rites of preparation and the exit
may be marked by similar ceremonies.
_Magicians._--Most peoples know the professional worker of magic, or
what is regarded as magic. (a) In most if not all societies magic, or
certain sorts of it, may be performed by any one, so far as we can
see, who has mastered the necessary ritual; in other cases the
magician is a specialist who owes his position to an accident of birth
(seventh son of a seventh son); to simple inheritance (families of
magicians in modern India, rain-makers in New Caledonia); to
revelation from the gods or the spirits of the dead (Malays), showing
itself in the phenomena of possession; or to initiation by other
magicians. (b) From a psychical point of view it may probably be said
that the initiation of a magician corresponds to the "development" of
the modern spiritualistic medium; that is to say, that it resolves
itself into exercises and rites which have for their object the
creation or evolution of a secondary personality. From this point of
view it is important to notice that certain things are forbidden to
magicians under pain of loss of their powers; thus, hot tea is taboo
to the Arunta medicine man; and if this seems unlikely to cause the
secondary personality to disappear, it must be remembered that to the
physiological effects, if any, must be added the effects of
suggestion. Of this duplication of personality various explanations
are given; in Siberia the soul of the _shaman_ is said to wander into
the other world, and this is a widely spread theory; where the
magician is supposed to remain on earth, his soul is again believed to
wander, but there is an alternative explanation which gives him two or
more bodies. Here we reach a point at which the familiar makes its
appearance; this is at times a secondary form of the magician, but
more often is a sort of life index or animal helper (see LYCANTHROPY);
in fact, the magician's power is sometimes held to depend on the
presence--that is, the independence--of his animal auxiliary.
Concurrent with this theory is the view that the magician must first
enter into a trance before the animal makes its appearance, and this
makes it a double of the magician, or, from the psychological point of
view, a phase of secondary personality. (c) In many parts of the world
magical powers are associated with the membership of secret societies,
and elsewhere the magicians form a sort of corporation; in Siberia,
for example, they are held to be united by a certain tie of kinship;
where this is not the case, they are believed, as in Africa at the
present day or in medieval Europe, to hold assemblies, so-called
witches' Sabbaths; in Europe the meetings of heretics seem to be
responsible for the prominence of the idea if not for its origin (see
WITCHCRAFT). The magician is often regarded as possessed (see
POSSESSION) either by an animal or by a human or super-human spirit.
The relations of priest and magician are for various reasons complex;
where the initiation of the magician is regarded as the work of the
gods, the magician is for obvious reasons likely to develop into a
priest, but he may at the same time remain a magician; where a
religion has been superseded, the priests of the old cult are, for
those who supersede them, one and all magicians; in the medieval
church, priests were regarded as especially exposed to the assaults of
demons, and were consequently often charged with working magic. The
great magicians who are gods rather than men--e.g. kings of Fire and
Water in Cambodia--enjoy a reverence and receive a cult which
separates them from the common herd, and assimilates them to priests
rather than to magicians. The function of the so-called magician is
often said to be beneficent; in Africa the witch-doctor's business is
to counteract evil magic; in Australia the magician has to protect his
own tribe against the assaults of hostile magicians of other tribes;
and in Europe "white magic" is the correlative of this beneficent
power; but it may be questioned how far the beneficent virtue is
regarded as magical outside Europe.
_Talismans and Amulets._--Inanimate objects as well as living beings
are credited with stores of magical force; when they are regarded as
bringing good, i.e. are positive in their action, they may be termed
"talismans"; "amulets" are protective or negative in their action, and
their function is to avert evil; a single object may serve both
purposes. Broadly speaking, the fetish, whose "magical" properties are
due to association with a spirit, tends to become a talisman or
amulet. The "medicine" of the Red Indian, originally carried as means
of union between him and his _manito_, is perhaps the prototype of
many European charms. In other cases it is some specific quality of
the object or animal which is desired; the boar's tusk is worn on the
Papuan Gulf as a means of imparting courage to the wearer; the
Lukungen Indians of Vancouver Island rub the ashes of wasps on the
faces of their warriors, in order that they may be pugnacious. Some
Bechuanas wear a ferret as a charm, in the belief that it will make
them difficult to kill, the animal being very tenacious of life. Among
amulets may be mentioned horns and crescents, eyes or their
representations, and grotesque figures, all of which are supposed to
be powerful against the Evil Eye (q.v.). Tylor has shown that the
brass objects so often seen on harness were originally amuletic in
purpose, and can be traced back to Roman times. Some amulets are
supposed to protect from the evil eye simply by attracting the glance
from the wearer to themselves, but, as a rule, magical power is
ascribed to them.
_Evil Magic._--The object of "black" magic is to inflict injury,
disease, or death on an enemy, and the various methods employed
illustrate the general principles dealt with above and emphasize the
conclusion that magic is not simply a matter of sympathetic rites, but
involves a conception of magical force. (a) It has been mentioned that
contagious magic makes use of portions of a person's body; the
Cherokee magician follows his victim till he spits on the ground;
collecting the spittle mingled with dust on the end of a stick, the
magician puts it into a tube made of a poisonous plant together with
seven earth worms, beaten into a paste, and splinters of a tree
blasted by lightning; the whole is buried with seven yellow stones at
the foot of a tree struck by lightning, and a fire is built over the
spot; the magician fasts till the ceremony is over. Probably the worms
are supposed to feed on the victim's soul, which is said to become
"blue" when the charm works; the yellow stones are the emblem of
trouble, and lightning-struck trees are reputed powerful in magic. If
the charm does not work, the victim survives the critical seven days,
and the magician and his employer are themselves in danger, for a
charm gone wrong returns upon the head of him who sent it forth. (b)
In homoeopathic magic the victim is represented by an image or other
object. In the Malay Peninsula the magician makes an image like a
corpse, a footstep long. "If you want to cause sickness, you pierce
the eye and blindness results; or you pierce the waist and the stomach
gets sick. If you want to cause death, you transfix the head with a
palm twig; then you enshroud the image as you would a corpse and you
pray over it as if you were praying over the dead; then you bury it in
the middle of the path which leads to the place of the person whom you
wish to charm, so that he may step over it." Sometimes the wizard
repeats a form of words signifying that not he but the Archangel
Gabriel is burying the victim; sometimes he exclaims, "It is not wax I
slay but the liver, heart and spleen of So-and-so." Finally, the image
is buried in front of the victim's doors. (c) Very widespread is the
idea that a magician can influence his victim by charming a bone,
stick or other object, and then projecting the magical influence from
it. It is perhaps the commonest form of evil magic in Australia; in
the Arunta tribe a man desirous of using one of these pointing sticks
or bones goes away by himself into the bush, puts the bone on the
ground and crouches over it, muttering a charm: "May your heart be
rent asunder." After a time he brings the irna back to the camp and
hides it; then one evening after dark he takes it and creeps near
enough to see the features of his victim; he stoops down with the
_irna_ in his hand and repeatedly jerks it over his shoulder,
muttering curses all the time. The evil magic, _arungquiltha_, is said
to go straight to the victim, who sickens and dies without apparent
cause, unless some medicine-man can discover what is wrong and save
him by removing the evil magic. The _irna_ is concealed after the
ceremony, for the magician would at once be killed if it were known
that he had used it. (d) Magicians are often said to be able to assume
animal form or to have an animal familiar. They are said to suck the
victim's blood or send a messenger to do so; sometimes they are said
to steal his soul, thus causing sickness and eventually death. These
beliefs bring the magician into close relation with the werwolf (see
LYCANTHROPY).
_Rain-making._--In the lower stages of culture rain-making assumes
rather the appearance of a religious ceremony, and even in higher
stages the magical character is by no means invariably felt. It will,
however, be well to notice some of the methods here. (a) Among the
Dieri of Central Australia the whole tribe takes part in the ceremony;
a hole is dug, and over this a hut is built, large enough for the old
men; the women are called to look at it and then retire some five
hundred yards. Two wizards have their arms bound at the shoulder, the
old men huddle in the hut, and the principal wizard bleeds the two men
selected by cutting them inside the arm below the elbow. The blood is
made to flow on the old men, and the two men throw handfuls of down
into the air. The blood symbolizes the rain; the down is the clouds.
Then two large stones are placed in the middle of the hut; these two
represent gathering clouds. The women are again summoned, and then the
stones are placed high in a tree; other men pound gypsum and throw it
into a water-hole; the ancestral spirits are supposed to see this and
to send rain. Then the hut is knocked down, the men butting at it with
their heads; this symbolizes the breaking of the clouds, and the fall
of the hut is the rain, if no rain comes they say that another tribe
has stopped their power or that the _Mura-mura_ (ancestors) are angry
with them. (b) Rain-making ceremonies are far from uncommon in Europe.
Sometimes water is poured on a stone; a row of stepping-stones runs
into one of the tarns on Snowdon, and it is said that water thrown
upon the last one will cause rain to fall before night. Sometimes the
images of saints are carried to a river or a fountain and ducked or
sprinkled with water in the belief that rain will follow; sometimes
rain is said to ensue when the water of certain springs is troubled;
perhaps the idea is that the rain-god is disturbed in his haunts. But
perhaps the commonest method is to duck or drench a human figure or
puppet, who represents in many instances the vegetation demon. The
gipsies of Transylvania celebrate the festival of "Green George" at
Easter or on St George's Day; a boy dressed up in leaves and blossoms
is the principal figure; he throws grass to the cattle of the tribe,
and after various other ceremonies a pretence is made of throwing him
into the water; but in fact only a puppet is ducked in the stream.
_Negative Magic._--There is also a negative side to magic, which,
together with ritual prohibitions of a religious nature, is often
embraced under the name of taboo (q.v.); this extension of meaning is
not justified, for taboo is only concerned with sacred things, and the
mark of it is that its violation causes the taboo to be transmitted. All
taboos are ritual prohibitions, but all ritual prohibitions are not
taboos; they include also (a) interdictions of which the sanction is the
wrath of a god; these may be termed religious interdictions; (b)
interdictions, the violation of which will automatically cause some
undesired magico-religious effect; to these the term negative magic
should be restricted, and they might conveniently be called "bans"; they
correspond in the main to positive rites and are largely based on the
same principles.
(a) Certain prohibitions, such as those imposed on totem kins, seem to
occupy an intermediate place; they depend on the sanctity of the totem
animal without being taboos in the strict sense; to them no positive
magical rites correspond, for the totemic prohibition is clearly
religious, not magical.
(b) Among cases of negative magic may be mentioned (i.) the couvade,
and prohibitions observed by parents and relatives generally; this is
most common in the case of young children, but a sympathetic relation
is held to exist in other cases also. In Madagascar a son may not eat
fallen bananas, for the result would be to cause the death of his own
father; the sympathy between father and son establishes a sympathy
between the father and objects touched or eaten by the son, and, in
addition, the fall of the bananas is equated with the death of a human
being. Again, the wife of a Malagasy warrior may not be faithless to
him when he is absent; if she is, he will be killed or wounded.
Ownership, too, may create a sympathetic relation of this kind, for it
is believed in parts of Europe that if a man kills a swallow his cows
will give bloody milk. In some cases it is even harder to see how the
sympathetic bond is established; some Indians of Brazil always
hamstring animals before bringing them home, in the belief that by so
doing they make it easier for themselves and their children to run
down their enemies, who are then magically deprived of the use of
their legs. These are all examples of negative magic with regard to
persons, but things may be equally affected; thus in Borneo men who
search for camphor abstain from washing their plates for fear the
camphor, which is found crystallized in the crevices of trees, should
dissolve and disappear. (ii.) Rules which regulate diet exist not only
for the benefit of others but also for that of the eater. Some
animals, such as the hare, are forbidden, just as others, like the
lion, are prescribed; the one produces cowardice, while the other
makes a man's heart bold. (iii.) Words may not be used; Scottish
fishermen will not mention the pig at sea; the real names of certain
animals, like the bear, may not be used; the names of the dead may not
be mentioned; a sacred language must be used, e.g. camphor language in
the Malay peninsula, or only words of good omen (cf. Gr. [Greek:
euphêmeite]); or absolute silence must be preserved. Personal names
are concealed; a man may not mention the names of certain relatives,
&c. There are customs of avoidance not only as to (iv.) the names of
relatives, but as to the persons themselves; the mother-in-law must
avoid the son-in-law, and vice versa; sometimes they may converse at a
distance, or in low tones, sometimes not at all, and sometimes they
may not even meet. (v.) In addition to these few classes selected at
random, we have prohibitions relating to numbers (cf. unlucky
thirteen, which is, however, of recent date), the calendar (Friday as
an unlucky day, May as an unlucky month for marriage), places,
persons, orientation, &c.; but it is impossible to enumerate even the
main classes. The individual origin of such beliefs, which with us
form the superstitions of daily life but in a savage or semi-civilized
community play a large part in regulating conduct, is often shrouded
in darkness; the meaning of the positive rite is easily forgotten; the
negative rite persists, but it is observed merely to avoid some
unknown misfortune. Sometimes we can, however, guess at the meaning of
our civilized notions of ill luck; it is perhaps as a survival of the
savage belief that stepping over a person is injurious to him that
many people regard going under a ladder as unlucky; in the one case
the luck is taken away by the person stepping over, in the other left
behind by the person passing under.
_History of Magic._--The subject is too vast and our data are too slight
to make a general sketch of magic possible. Our knowledge of Assyrian
magic, for example, hardly extends beyond the rites of exorcism; the
magic of Africa is most inadequately known, and only in recent years
have we well-analysed repertories of magical rituals from any part of
the world. For certain departments of ancient magic, however, like the
Pythagorean philosophy, there is no lack of illustrative material; it
depended on mystical speculations based on numbers or analogous
principles. The importance of numbers is recognized in the magic of
America and other areas, but the science of the Mediterranean area,
combined with the art of writing, was needed to develop such mystical
ideas to their full extent. Among the neo-Platonists there was a strong
tendency to magical speculation, and they sought to impress into their
service the demons with which they peopled the universe. Alexandria was
the home of many systems of theurgic magic, and gnostic gems afford
evidence of the nature of their symbols. In the middle ages the
respectable branches of magic, such as astrology and alchemy, included
much of the real science of the period; the rise of Christianity
introduced a new element, for the Church regarded all the religions of
the heathen as dealings with demons and therefore magical (see
WITCHCRAFT). In our own day the occult sciences still find devotees
among the educated; certain elements have acquired a new interest, in so
far as they are the subject matter of psychical research (q.v.) and
spiritualism (q.v.). But it is only among what are regarded as the lower
classes, and in England especially the rural population, that belief in
its efficacy still prevails to any large extent.
_Psychology of Magic._--The same causes which operated to produce a
belief in witchcraft (q.v.) aided the creed of magic in general.
Fortuitous coincidences attract attention; the failures are disregarded
or explained away. Probably the magician is never wholly an impostor,
and frequently has a whole-hearted belief in himself; in this connexion
may be noted the fact that juggling tricks have in all ages been passed
off as magical; the name of "conjuring" (q.v.) survives in our own day,
though the conjurer no longer claims that his mysterious results are
produced by demons. It is interesting to note that magical leechcraft
depended for its success on the power of suggestion (q.v.), which is
to-day a recognized element in medicine; perhaps other elements may have
been instrumental in producing a cure, for there are cases on record in
which European patients have been cured by the apparently meaningless
performances of medicine-men, but an adequate study of savage medicine
is still a desideratum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For a general discussion of magic with a list of
selected works see Hubert and Mauss in _Année sociologique_, vii.
1-146; also A. Lehmann, _Aberglaube und Zauberei_; the article
"Religion" in _La Grande encyclopédie_; K. T. Preuss in _Globus_,
vols. 86, 87; Mauss, _L'Origine des pouvoirs magiques_, and Hubert,
_La Réprésentation du temps_ (Reports of École pratique des hautes
études, Paris). For general bibliographies see Hauck,
_Realencyklopädie_, _s.v._ "Magie"; A. C. Haddon, _Magic and
Fetishism_. J. G. T. Graesse's _Bibliotheca magica_ is an exhaustive
list of early works dealing with magic and superstition. For Australia
see Spencer and Gillen's works, and A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes_. For
America see _Reports of Bureau of Ethnology_, vii. xvii. For India see
W. Caland, _Altindisches Zauber-ritual_; and W. Crooke, _Popular
Religion_; also V. Henry, _La Magie_. For the Malays see W. W. Skeat,
_Malay Magic_. For Babylonia and Assyria see L. W. King's works. For
magic in Greece and Rome see Daremberg and Saglio, _s.v._ "Magia,"
"Amuletum," &c. For medieval magic see A. Maury, _La Magie_. For
illustrations of magic see J. G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_; E. S.
Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_; E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_; W. G.
Black, _Folkmedicine_. For negative magic see the works of Frazer and
Skeat cited above; also _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._ xxxvi. 92-103;
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_ (Verhandlungen) (1905), 153-162;
_Bulletin trimestriel de l'académie malgache_, iii. 105-159. See also
bibliography to TABOO and WITCHCRAFT. (N. W. T.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] For what is often called "magic," but is really
trick-performance, see CONJURING.
MAGIC SQUARE, a square divided into equal squares, like a chess-board,
in each of which is placed one of a series of consecutive numbers from 1
up to the square of the number of cells in a side, in such a manner that
the sum of the numbers in each row or column and in each diagonal is
constant.
From a very early period these squares engaged the attention of
mathematicians, especially such as possessed a love of the marvellous,
or sought to win for themselves a superstitious regard. They were then
supposed to possess magical properties, and were worn, as in India at
the present day, engraven in metal or stone, as amulets or talismans.
According to the old astrologers, relations subsisted between these
squares and the planets. In later times such squares ranked only as
mathematical curiosities; till at last their mode of construction was
systematically investigated. The earliest known writer on the subject
was Emanuel Moscopulus, a Greek (4th or 5th century). Bernard Frenicle
de Bessy constructed magic squares such that if one or more of the
encircling bands of numbers be taken away the remaining central squares
are still magical. Subsequently Poignard constructed squares with
numbers in arithmetical progression, having the magical summations. The
later researches of Phillipe de la Hire, recorded in the _Mémoires de
l'Académie Royale_ in 1705, are interesting as giving general methods of
construction. He has there collected the results of the labours of
earlier pioneers; but the subject has now been fully systematized, and
extended to cubes.
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|200|217|232|249| 8| 25| 40| 57| 72| 89|104|121|136|153|168|185|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 58| 39| 26| 7|250|231|218|199|186|167|154|135|122|103| 90| 71|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|198|219|230|251| 6| 27| 38| 59| 70| 91|102|123|134|155|166|187|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 60| 37| 28| 5|252|229|220|197|188|165|156|133|124|101| 92| 69|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|201|216|233|248| 9| 24| 41| 56| 73| 88|105|120|137|152|169|184|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 55| 42| 23| 10|247|234|215|202|183|170|151|138|119|106| 87| 74|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|203|214|235|246| 11| 22| 43| 54| 75| 86|107|118|139|150|171|182|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 53| 44| 21| 12|245|236|213|204|181|172|149|140|117|108| 85| 76|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|205|212|237|244| 13| 20| 45| 52| 77| 84|109 116|141|148|173|180|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 51| 46| 19| 14|243|238|211|206|179|174|147 142|115|110| 83| 78|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|207|210|239|242| 15| 18| 47| 50 79| 82|111 114|143|146|175|178|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 49| 48| 17| 16|241|240|209|208 177|176|145 144|113|112| 81| 80|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|196|221|228|253| 4| 29| 36| 61 68| 93|100 125|132|157|164|189|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 62| 35| 30| 3|254|227|222|195 190|163|158 131|126| 99| 94| 67|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|194|223|226|255| 2|31 | 34| 63 66| 95| 98 127|130|159|162|191|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 64| 33| 32| 1|256|225|224 193|192|161 160|129|128| 97| 96| 65|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
FIG. 1.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Two interesting magical arrangements are said to have been given by
Benjamin Franklin; these have been termed the "magic square of
squares" and the "magic circle of circles." The first (fig. 1) is a
square divided into 256 squares, i.e. 16 squares along a side, in Fig.
2. which are placed the numbers from 1 to 256. The chief properties of
this square are (1) the sum of the 16 numbers in any row or column is
2056; (2) the sum of the 8 numbers in half of any row or column is
1028, i.e. one half of 2056; (3) the sum of the numbers in two
half-diagonals equals 2056; (4) the sum of the four corner numbers of
the great square and the four central numbers equals 1028; (5) the sum
of the numbers in any 16 cells of the large square which themselves
are disposed in a square is 2056. This square has other curious
properties. The "magic circle of circles" (fig. 2) consists of eight
annular rings and a central circle, each ring being divided into eight
cells by radii drawn from the centre; there are therefore 65 cells.
The number 12 is placed in the centre, and the consecutive numbers 13
to 75 are placed in the other cells. The properties of this figure
include the following: (1) the sum of the eight numbers in any ring
together with the central number 12 is 360, the number of degrees in a
circle; (2) the sum of the eight numbers in any set of radial cells
together with the central number is 360; (3) the sum of the numbers in
any four adjoining cells, either annular, radial, or both radial and
two annular, together with half the central number, is 180.
+---+---+---+---+---+-+---+---+---+---+---+
| | a |[e]| 5 | | | | |[e]| | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| | 4 | b | |[d]| | | 4 | | |[d]|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| |[g]| | c | 3 | | |[g]| | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| | | 2 |[b]| d | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
|1 e| | | | | | e | | | | |
|[a]| | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+-+---+---+---+---+---+
FIG. 3.
_Construction of Magic Squares._--A square of 5 (fig. 3) has adjoining
it one of the eight equal squares by which any square may be conceived
to be surrounded, each of which has two sides resting on adjoining
squares, while four have sides resting on the surrounded square, and
four meet it only at its four angles. 1, 2, 3 are placed along the path
of a knight in chess; 4, along the same path, would fall in a cell of
the outer square, and is placed instead in the corresponding cell of the
original square; 5 then falls within the square. a, b, c, d are placed
diagonally in the square; but e enters the outer square, and is removed
thence to the same cell of the square it had left. [alpha], [beta],
[gamma], [delta], [epsilon] pursue another regular course; and the
diagram shows how that course is recorded in the square they have twice
left. Whichever of the eight surrounding squares may be entered, the
corresponding cell of the central square is taken instead. The 1, 2, 3,
..., a, b, c, ..., [alpha], [beta], [gamma], ... are said to lie in
"paths."
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 1 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 | | 2 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | |11 |24 | 2 |20 | 8 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 3 | | 9 |12 |25 | 3 |16 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | |17 |10 |13 |21 | 4 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | | 5 |18 | 6 |14 |22 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 5 | | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | |23 | 1 |19 | 7 |15 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
FIG. 4. FIG. 5. FIG. 6.
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 4 | |15 | 5 | 0 |20 |10 | |17 | 6 | 5 |23 |14 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 5 | | 0 |20 |10 |15 | 5 | | 3 |24 |12 |16 |10 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 1 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | |10 |15 | 5 | 0 |20 | |11 |20 | 8 | 4 |22 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 4 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 | | 5 | 0 |20 |10 |15 | | 9 | 2 |21 |15 |18 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |20 |10 |15 | 5 | 0 | |25 |13 |19 | 7 | 1 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
FIG. 7. FIG. 8. FIG. 9.
_Squares whose Roots are Odd._--Figs 4, 5, and 6 exhibit one of the
earliest methods of constructing magic squares. Here the 3's in fig. 4
and 2's in fig. 5 are placed in opposite diagonals to secure the two
diagonal summations; then each number in fig. 5 is multiplied by 5 and
added to that in the corresponding square in fig. 4, which gives the
square of fig. 6. Figs. 7, 8 and 9 give De la Hire's method; the squares
of figs. 7 and 8, being combined, give the magic square of fig. 9. C. G.
Bachet arranged the numbers as in fig. 10, where there are three numbers
in each of four surrounding squares; these being placed in the
corresponding cells of the central square, the square of fig. 11 is
formed. He also constructed squares such that if one or more outer bands
of numbers are removed the remaining central squares are magical. His
method of forming them may be understood from a square of 5. Here each
summation is 5 × 13; if therefore 13 is subtracted from each number, the
summations will be zero, and the twenty-five cells will contain the
series ± i, ± 2, ± 3, ... ± 12, the odd cell having 0. The central
square of 3 is formed with four of the twelve numbers with + and - signs
and zero in the middle; the band is filled up with the rest, as in fig.
12; then, 13 being added in each cell, the magic square of fig. 13 is
obtained.
_Squares whose Roots are Even._--These were constructed in various ways,
similar to that of 4 in figs. 14, 15 and 16. The numbers in fig. 15
being multiplied by 4, and the squares of figs. 14 and 15 being
superimposed, give fig. 16. The application of this method to squares
the half of whose roots are odd requires a complicated adjustment.
Squares whose half root is a multiple of 4, and in which there are
summations along all the diagonal paths, may be formed, by observing, as
when the root is 4, that the series 1 to 16 may be changed into the
series 15, 13, ... 3, 1, -1, -3, ... -13, -15, by multiplying each
number by 2 and subtracting 17; and, vice versa, by adding 17 to each of
the latter, and dividing by 2. The diagonal summations of a square,
filled as in fig. 17, make zero; and, to obtain the same in the rows and
columns, we must assign such values to the p's and q's as satisfy the
equations p1 + p2 + a1 + a2 = 0, p3 + p4 + a3 + a4 = 0, p1 + p3 - a1 -
a3 = 0, and p2 + p4 - a2 - a4 = 0,--a solution of which is readily
obtained by inspection, as in fig. 18; this leads to the square, fig.
19. When the root is 8, the upper four subsidiary rows may at once be
written, as in fig. 20; then, if 65 be added to each, and the sums
halved, the square is completed. In such squares as these, the two
opposite squares about the same diagonal (except that of 4) may be
turned through any number of right angles, in the same direction,
without altering the summations.
1
6 2
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+
|11| | 7| | 3| |11|24| 7|20| 3|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+
16 | |12| | 8| | 4 | 4|12|25| 8|16|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+
21 |17| |13| | 9| 5 |17| 5|13|21| 9|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+
22 | |18| |14| |10 |10|18| 1|14|22|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+
|23| |19| |15| |23| 6|19| 2|15|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+
24 20
25
FIG. 10. FIG. 11.
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| -9| 12| 5| -3| -6| | 4| 25| 18| 11| 7 |
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 1| 7|-11| 4| -1| | 14| 20| 2| 17| 13|
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| -8| -3| 0| 3| 8| | 5| 10| 13| 16| 21|
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 10| -4| 11| -7|-10| | 23| 9| 24| 6| 3|
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
| 6|-12| -5| 2| 9| | 19| 1| 8| 15| 22|
+---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+
FIG. 12. FIG. 13.
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
| 1| 3| 2| 4| | 0| 3| 3| 0| | 1|15|14| 4|
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
| 4| 2| 3| 1| | 2| 1| 1| 2| |12| 6| 7| 9|
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
| 4| 2| 3| 1| | 1| 2| 2| 1| | 8|10|11| 5|
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
| 1| 3| 2| 4| | 3| 0| 0| 3| |13| 3| 2|16|
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
FIG. 14. FIG. 15. FIG. 16.
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
| p1| p2| a1| a2| | 1| -3| 11| -9| | 9| 7| 14| 4|
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
| p3| p4| a3| a4| | -5| 7|-15| 13| | 6| 12| 1| 15|
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
|-a1|-a2|-p1|-p2| |-11| 9| -1| 3| | 3| 13| 8| 10|
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
|-a3|-a4|-p3|-p4| | 15|-13| 5| -7| | 16| 2| 11| 5|
+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+
FIG. 17. FIG. 18. FIG. 19.
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| -1| 3| 5| -7|-33| 35| 37|-39|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 9|-11|-13| 15| 41|-43|-45| 47|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| 17|-19|-21| 23| 49|-51|-53| 55|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|-25| 27| 29|-31|-57| 59| 61|-63|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
FIG. 20.
_Nasik Squares._--Squares that have many more summations than in rows,
columns and diagonals were investigated by A. H. Frost (_Cambridge
Math. Jour._, 1857), and called Nasik squares, from the town in India
where he resided; and he extended the method to cubes, various
sections of which have the same singular properties. In order to
understand their construction it will be necessary to consider
carefully fig. 21, which shows that, when the root is a prime, and not
composite, number, as 7, eight letters a, b, ... h may proceed from
any, the same, cell, suppose that marked 0, each letter being repeated
in the cells along different paths. These eight paths are called
"normal paths," their number being one more than the root. Observe
here that, excepting the cells from which any two letters start, they
do not occupy again the same cell, and that two letters, starting from
any two different cells along different paths, will appear together in
one and only one cell. Hence, if p1 be placed in the cells of one of
the n + 1 normal paths, each of the remaining n normal paths will
contain one, and only one, of these p1's. If now we fill each row with
p2, p3, ... p_n in the same order, commencing from the p1 in that row,
the p2's, p3's and p_n's will lie each in a path similar to that of
p1, and each of the n normal paths will contain one, and only one, of
the letters p1, p2,... p_n, whose sum will be [Sigma]p. Similarly, if
q1 be placed along any of the normal paths, different from that of the
p's, and each row filled as above with the letters q2, q3, ... q_n,
the sum of the q's along any normal path different from that of the q1
will be [Sigma]q. The n² cells of the square will now be found to
contain all the combinations of the p's and q's; and if the q's be
multiplied by n, the p's made equal to 1, 2, ... n, and the q's to 0,
1, 2, ... (n - 1) in any order, the Nasik square of n will be
obtained, and the summations along all the normal paths, except those
traversed by the p's and q's, will be the constant [Sigma]nq +
[Sigma]p. When the root is an odd composite number, as 9, 15, &c., it
will be found that in some paths, different from the two along which
the p1 and q1 were placed, instead of having each of the p's and q's,
some will be wanting, while some are repeated. Thus, in the case of 9,
the triplets, p1p4p7, p2p5p8, p3p6p9, and q1q4q7, q2q5q8, q3q6q9
occur, each triplet thrice, along paths whose summation should
be--[Sigma]p 45 and [Sigma]r 36. But if we make p1, p2, ... p9, = 1,
3, 6, 5, 4, 7, 9, 8, 2, and the r1, r2, ... r9 = 0, 2, 5, 4, 3, 6, 8,
7, 1, thrice each of the above sets of triplets will equal [Sigma]p
and [Sigma]q respectively. If now the q's are multiplied by 9, and
added to the p's in their several cells, we shall have a Nasik square,
with a constant summation along eight of its ten normal paths. In fig.
22 the numbers are in the nonary scale; that in the centre is the
middle one of 1 to 9², and the sum of pair of numbers equidistant from
and opposite to the central 45 is twice 45; and the sum of any number
and the 8 numbers 3 from it, diagonally, and in its row and column, is
the constant Nasical summation, e.g. 72 and 32, 22, 76, 77, 26, 37,
36, 27. The numbers in fig. 22 being kept in the nonary scale, it is
not necessary to add any nine of them together in order to test the
Nasical summation; for, taking the first column, the figures in the
place of units are seen at once to form the series, 1, 2, 3, ... 9,
and those in the other place three triplets of 6, 1, 5. For the
squares of 15 the p's and q's may be respectively 1, 2, 10, 8, 6, 14,
15, 11, 4, 13, 9, 7, 3, 12, 5, and 0, 1, 9, 7, 5, 13, 14, 10, 3, 12,
8, 6, 2, 11, 4, where five times the sum of every third number and
three times the sum of every fifth number makes [Sigma]p and [Sigma]q;
then, if the q's are multiplied by 15, and added to the p's, the Nasik
square of 15 is obtained. When the root is the multiple of 4, the same
process gives us, for the square of 4, fig. 23. Here the columns give
[Sigma]p, but alternately 2q1, 2q3, and 2q2, 2q4; and the rows give
[Sigma]q, but alternately 2p1, 2p3, and 2p2, 2p4; the diagonals giving
[Sigma]p and [Sigma]q. If p1, p2, p3, p4 and q1, q2, q3, q4 be 1, 2,
4, 3, and 0, 1, 3, 2, we have the Nasik square of fig. 24. A square
like this is engraved in the Sanskrit character on the gate of the
fort of Gwalior, in India. The squares of higher multiples of 4 are
readily obtained by a similar adjustment.
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| a | g | f | e | d | c | b | |63|88|74|13| 8|24|53|48|34|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| a | d | g | c | f | b | e | |11| 9|25|51|49|35|61|89|75|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| a | c | e | g | b | d | f | |52|47|36|62|87|76|12| 7|26|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| a | f | d | b | g | e | c | |68|84|73|18| 4|23|58|44|33|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| a | e | b | f | c | g | d | |19| 5|21|59|45|31|69|85|71|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | |57|46|32|67|86|72|17| 6|22|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
| 0 | h | h | h | h | h | h | |64|83|78|14| 3|28|54|43|38|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
FIG. 21. |15| 1|29|55|41|39|65|81|79|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
|56|42|37|66|82|77|16| 2|27|
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
FIG. 22.
+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +--+--+--+--+
| | | | | |15|10| 3| 6|
|p4q3 |p2q4 |p4q1 |p2q2 | +--+--+--+--+
| | | | | | 4| 5|16| 9|
+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +--+--+--+--+
| | | | | |14|11| 2| 7|
|p3q1 |p1q2 |p3q3 |p1q4 | +--+--+--+--+
| | | | | | 1| 8|13|12|
+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +--+--+--+--+
| | | | | FIG. 24.
|p2q3 |p4q4 |p2q1 |p4q2 |
| | | | |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| | | | |
|p1q1 |p3q2 |p1q3 |p3q4 |
| | | | |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+
FIG. 23.
.
/ \
. .
/ \ / \
. . .
/ \ / \ / \
. . . * .
/ \ / \ / \ / \
. . * . . .
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \
. * . . . . .
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
. . . . . . .
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
C . . . . . . * . . A
|\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /|
. . . . . * . . . .
|\|\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ /|/|
. . . . * . . . . . .
|\|\|\ / \ / \ / \ / \ /|/|/|
. . . . . . . . . . .
|\|\|\|\ / \ / \ / \ /|/|/|/|
.*. . . . . . . .*. . .
|\|\|\|\|\ / \ / \ /|/|/|/|/|
. . .*. . . . . . . .*. .
|\|\|\|\|\|\ / \ /|/|/|/|/|/|
. . . . .*. . * . . . . . .*.
|\|\|\|\|\|\|\ /|/|/|/|/|/|/|
. . . . . . .*O*. . . . . . .
\|\|\|\|\|\|\|/|/|/|/|/|/|/
.*. . . . . . .*. . . . .
\|\|\|\|\|\|/|/|/|/|/|/
. .*. . . . . .*. . .
\|\|\|\|\|/|/|/|/|/
. . .*. . . . .*.
\|\|\|\|/|/|/|/
. . . . . . .
\|\|\|/|/|/
. . . . .
\|\|/|/
. . .
\|/
.
B
FIG. 25--Nasik Cube.
+--+--+--+--+------------+--+--+--+--+
| 1| 8|29|28| |11|14|23|18|
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
|30|27| 2| 7| |21|20| 9|16|
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
| 4| 5|32|25| |10|15|22|19|
+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+
|31|26| 3| 6| |24|17|12|13|
+--+--+--+--+------------+--+--+--+--+
FIG. 26.
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+
|23|18|11| 6|25| |30|21| 6|15|28|19|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+
|10| 5|24|17|12| | 7|16|29|20| 5|14|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+
|19|22|13| 4| 7| |22|31| 8|35|18|27|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+
|14| 9| 2|21|16| | 9|26|17|26|13| 4|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+
| 1|20|15| 8| 3| |32|23| 2|11|34|25|
+--+--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+--+--+
| 1|10|33|24| 3|12|
FIG. 27. +--+--+--+--+--+--+
FIG. 28.
_Nasik Cubes._--A Nasik cube is composed of n³ small equal cubes, here
called cubelets, in the centres of which the natural numbers from 1 to
n³ are so placed that every section of the cube by planes
perpendicular to an edge has the properties of a Nasik square; also
sections by planes perpendicular to a face, and passing through the
cubelet centres of any path of Nasical summation in that face. Fig. 25
shows by dots the way in which these cubes are constructed. A dot is
here placed on three faces of a cubelet at the corner, showing that
this cubelet belongs to each of the faces AOB, BOC, COA, of the cube.
Dots are placed on the cubelets of some path of AOB (here the knight's
path), beginning from O, also on the cubelets of a knight's path in
BOC. Dots are now placed in the cubelets of similar paths to that on
BOC in the other six sections parallel to BOC, starting from their
dots in AOB. Forty-nine of the three hundred and forty-three cubelets
will now contain a dot; and it will be observed that the dots in
sections perpendicular to BO have arranged themselves in similar
paths. In this manner, p1, q1, r1 being placed in the corner cubelet
O, these letters are severally placed in the cubelets of three
different paths of AOB, and again along any similar paths in the seven
sections perpendicular to AO, starting from the letters' position in
AOB. Next, p2q2r2, p3q3r3, ... p7q7r7 are placed in the other cubelets
of the edge AO, and dispersed in the same manner as p1q1r1. Every
cubelet will then be found to contain a different combination of the
p's, q's and r's. If therefore the p's are made equal to 1, 2, ... 7,
and the q's and r's to 0, 1, 2, ... 6, in any order, and the q's
multiplied by 7, and the r's by 7², then, as in the case of the
squares, the 7³ cubelets will contain the numbers from 1 to 7³, and
the Nasical summations will be [Sigma]7²r + [Sigma]7q + p. If 2, 4, 5
be values of r, p, q, the number for that cubelet is written 245 in
the septenary scale, and if all the cubelet numbers are kept thus, the
paths along which summations are found can be seen without adding, as
the seven numbers would contain 1, 2, 3, ... 7 in the unit place, and
0, 1, 2, ... 6 in each of the other places. In all Nasik cubes, if
such values are given to the letters on the central cubelet that the
number is the middle one of the series 1 to n³, the sum of all the
pairs of numbers opposite to and equidistant from the middle number is
the double of it. Also, if around a Nasik cube the twenty-six
surrounding equal cubes be placed with their cells filled with the
same numbers, and their corresponding faces looking the same way,--and
if the surrounding space be conceived thus filled with similar cubes,
and a straight line of unlimited length be drawn through any two
cubelet centres, one in each of any two cubes,--the numbers along that
line will be found to recur in groups of seven, which (except in the
three cases where the same p, q or r recur in the group) together make
the Nasical summation of the cube. Further, if we take n similarly
filled Nasik cubes of n, n new letters, s1, s2, ... s_n, can be so
placed, one in each of the n^4 cubelets of this group of n cubes, that
each shall contain a different combination of the p's, q's, r's and
s's. This is done by placing s1 on each of the n² cubelets of the
first cube that contain p1, and on the n² cubelets of the 2d, 3d, ...
and nth cube that contain p2, p3, ... p_n respectively. This process
is repeated with s2, beginning with the cube at which we ended, and so
on with the other s's; the n^4 cubelets, after multiplying the q's,
r's, and s's by n, n², and n³ respectively, will now be filled with
the numbers from 1 to n^4, and the constant summation will be
[Sigma]n³s + [Sigma]n²r + [Sigma]nq + [Sigma]p. This process may be
carried on without limit; for, if the n cubes are placed in a row with
their faces resting on each other, and the corresponding faces looking
the same way, n such parallelepipeds might be put side by side, and
the n^5 cubelets of this solid square be Nasically filled by the
introduction of a new letter t; while, by introducing another letter,
the n^6 cubelets of the compound cube of n³ Nasik cubes might be
filled by the numbers from 1 to n^6, and so _ad infinitum_. When the
root is an odd composite number the values of the three groups of
letters have to be adjusted as in squares, also in cubes of an even
root. A similar process enables us to place successive numbers in the
cells of several equal squares in which the Nasical summations are the
same in each, as in fig. 26.
Among the many ingenious squares given by various writers, this
article may justly close with two by L. Euler, in the _Histoire de
l'académie royale des sciences_ (Berlin, 1759). In fig. 27 the natural
numbers show the path of a knight that moves within an odd square in
such a manner that the sum of pairs of numbers opposite to and
equidistant from the middle figure is its double. In fig. 28 the
knight returns to its starting cell in a square of 6, and the
difference between the pairs of numbers opposite to and equidistant
from the middle point is 18.
A model consisting of seven Nasik cubes, constructed by A. H. Frost,
is in the South Kensington Museum. The centres of the cubes are placed
at equal distances in a straight line, the similar faces looking the
same way in a plane parallel to that line. Each of the cubes has seven
parallel glass plates, to which, on one side, the seven numbers in the
septenary scale are fixed, and behind each, on the other side, its
value in the common scale. 1201, the middle number from 1 to 7^4
occupies the central cubelet of the middle cube. Besides each cube
having separately the same Nasical summation, this is also obtained by
adding the numbers in any seven similarly situated cubelets, one in
each cube. Also, the sum of all pairs of numbers, in a straight line,
through the central cube of the system, equidistant from it, in
whatever cubes they are, is twice 1201. (A. H. F.)
_Fennell's Magic Ring._--It has been noticed that the numbers of magic
squares, of which the extension by repeating the rows and columns of n
numbers so as to form a square of 2n - 1 sides yields n² magic squares
of n sides, are arranged as if they were all inscribed round a cylinder
and also all inscribed on another cylinder at right angles to the first.
C. A. M. Fennell explains this apparent anomaly by describing such magic
squares as Mercator's projections, so to say, of "magic rings."
The surface of these magic rings is symmetrically divided into n²
quadrangular compartments or cells by n equidistant zonal circles
parallel to the circular axis of the ring and by n transverse circles
which divide each of the n zones between any two neighbouring zonal
circles into n equal quadrangular cells, while the zonal circles
divide the sections between two neighbouring transverse circles into n
unequal quadrangular cells. The diagonals of cells which follow each
other passing once only through each zone and section, form similar
and equal closed curves passing once quite round the circular axis of
the ring and once quite round the centre of the ring. The position of
each number is regarded as the intersection of two diagonals of its
cell. The numbers are most easily seen if the smallest circle on the
surface of the ring, which circle is concentric with the axis, be one
of the zonal circles. In a perfect magic ring the sum of the numbers
of the cells whose diagonals form any one of the 2n diagonal curves
aforesaid is ½n(n² + 1) with or without increment, i.e. is the same
sum as that of the numbers in each zone and each transverse section.
But if n be 3 or a multiple of 3, only from 2 to n of the diagonal
curves carry the sum in question, so that the magic rings are
imperfect; and any set of numbers which can be arranged to make a
perfect magic ring or magic square can also make an imperfect magic
ring, e.g. the set 1 to 16 if the numbers 1, 6, 11, 16 lie thus on a
diagonal curve instead of in the order 1, 6, 16, 11. From a perfect
magic ring of n² cells containing one number each, n² distinct magic
squares can be read off; as the four numbers round each intersection
of a zonal circle and a transverse circle constitute corner numbers of
a magic square. The shape of a magic ring gives it the function of an
indefinite extension in all directions of each of the aforesaid n²
magic squares. (C. A. M. F.)
See F. E. A. Lucas, _Récréations mathématiques_ (1891-1894); W. W. R.
Ball, _Mathematical Recreations_ (1892); W. E. M. G. Ahrens,
_Mathematische Unterhaltungen und Spiele_ (1901); H. C. H. Schubert,
_Mathematische Mussestunden_ (1900). A very detailed work is B.
Violle, _Traité complet des carrés magiques_ (3 vols., 1837-1838). The
theory of "path nasiks" is dealt with in a pamphlet by C. Planck
(1906).
MAGINN, WILLIAM (1793-1842), Irish poet and journalist, was born at Cork
on the 10th of July 1793. The son of a schoolmaster, he graduated at
Trinity College, Dublin, in 1811, and after his father's death in 1813
succeeded him in the school. In 1819 he began to contribute to the
_Literary Gazette_ and to _Blackwood's Magazine_, writing as "R. T.
Scott" and "Morgan O'Doherty." He first made his mark as a parodist and
a writer of humorous Latin verse. In 1821 he visited Edinburgh, where he
made acquaintance with the Blackwood circle. He is credited with having
originated the idea of the _Noctes ambrosianae_, of which some of the
most brilliant chapters were his. His connexion with Blackwood lasted,
with a short interval, almost to the end of his life. His best story was
"Bob Burke's Duel with Ensign Brady." In 1823 he removed to London. He
was employed by John Murray on the short-lived _Representative_, and was
for a short time joint-editor of the _Standard_. But his intemperate
habits and his imperfect journalistic morality prevented any permanent
success. In connexion with Hugh Fraser he established _Fraser's
Magazine_ (1830), in which appeared his "Homeric Ballads." Maginn was
the original of Captain Shandon in _Pendennis_. In spite of his
inexhaustible wit and brilliant scholarship, most of his friends were
eventually alienated by his obvious failings, and his persistent
insolvency. He died at Walton-on-Thames on the 21st of August 1842.
His _Miscellanies_ were edited (5 vols., New York, 1855-1857) by R.
Shelton Mackenzie and (2 vols., London, 1885) by R. W. Montagu
[Johnson].
MAGISTRATE (Lat. _magistratus_, from _magister_, master, properly a
public office, hence the person holding such an office), in general, one
vested with authority to administer the law or one possessing large
judicial or executive authority. In this broad sense the word is used in
such phrases as "the first magistrate" of a king in a monarchy or "the
chief magistrate" of the president of the United States. But it is more
generally applied to minor or subordinate judicial officers, whether
unpaid, as justices of the peace, or paid, as stipendiary magistrates. A
stipendiary magistrate is appointed in London under the Metropolitan
Police Courts Act 1839, in municipal boroughs under the Municipal
Corporations Act 1882, and in particular districts under the Stipendiary
Magistrates Act 1863 and special acts. In London and municipal boroughs
a stipendiary magistrate must be a barrister of at least seven years'
standing, while under the Stipendiary Magistrates Act 1863 he may be of
five years' standing. A stipendiary magistrate may do alone all acts
authorized to be done by two justices of the peace.
The term _magistratus_ in ancient Rome originally implied the office of
_magister_ (master) of the Roman people, but was subsequently applied
also to the holder of the office, thus becoming identical in sense with
_magister_, and supplanting it in reference to any kind of public
office. The fundamental conception of Roman magistracy is tenure of the
_imperium_, the sovereignty which resides with the Roman people, but is
by it conferred either upon a single ruler for life, as in the later
monarchy, or upon a college of magistrates for a fixed term, as in the
Republican period. The Roman theory of magistracy underwent little
change when two consuls were substituted for the king; but the
subdivision of magisterial powers which characterized the first
centuries of the Republic, and resulted in the establishment of twenty
annually elected magistrates of the people, implied some modification of
this principle of the investiture of magistrates with supreme authority.
For when the magistracies were multiplied a distinction was drawn
between magistrates with _imperium_, namely consuls, praetors and
occasionally dictators, and the remaining magistrates, who, although
exercising independent magisterial authority and in no sense agents of
the higher magistrates, were invested merely with an authority
(_potestas_) to assist in the administration of the state. At the same
time the actual authority of every magistrate was weakened not only by
his colleagues' power of veto, but by the power possessed by any
magistrate of quashing the act of an inferior, and by the tribune's
right of putting his veto on the act of any magistrate except a
dictator; and the subdivision of authority, which placed a great deal of
business in the hands of young and inexperienced magistrates, further
tended to increase the actual power as well as the influence of the
senate at the expense of the magistracy.
In the developed Republic magistracies were divided into two classes:
(a) magistrates of the whole people (_populi Romani_) and (b)
magistrates of the _plebs_. The former class is again divided into two
sections: ([alpha]) curule and ([beta]) non-curule, a distinction which
rests mainly on dignity rather than on actual power, for it cuts across
the division of magistrates according to their tenure or non-tenure of
_imperium_.
a. The magistrates of the people--also known as patrician magistrates,
probably because the older and more important of these magistracies
could originally be held only by patricians (q.v.)--were: ([alpha])
Dictator, master of the horse (see DICTATOR), consuls, praetors,
curule, aediles and censors (curule); and ([beta]) Quaestors, and the
body of minor magistrates known as _xxvi. viri_ (non-curule). The
dictatorship and consulship were as old as the Republic. The first
praetor was appointed in 366 B.C., a second was added in 242 B.C., and
the number was gradually increased for provincial government until
Sulla brought it up to eight, and under the early principate it grew
to eighteen. Censors were first instituted in 443 B.C., and the office
continued unchanged until its abolition by Sulla, after which, though
restored, it rapidly fell into abeyance. Curule aediles were
instituted at the same time as the praetorship, and continued
throughout the Republic. The quaestorship was at least as old as the
Republic, but the number rose during the Republic from two to twenty.
All these offices except the censorship continued for administrative
purposes during the principate, though shorn of all important powers.
b. The plebeian magistrates had their origin in the secession of the
_plebs_ to Mons Sacer in 494 B.C. (see ROME: _History_). In that year
tribunes of the _plebs_ were instituted, and two aediles were given
them as subordinate officials, who were afterwards known as plebeian
aediles, to distinguish them from the curule magistrates of the same
name. Both these offices were abolished during the decemvirate, but
were restored in 449 B.C., and survived into the principate.
The powers possessed by all magistrates alike were two:--that of
enforcing their enactments (_coercitio_) by the exercise of any
punishment short of capital, and that of veto (_intercessio_) of any act
of a colleague or minor magistrate. The right of summoning and presiding
over an assembly of that body of citizens with whose powers the
magistrate was invested lay with the higher magistrates only in each
class, with the consuls and praetors, and with the tribunes of the
_plebs_. Civil jurisdiction was always a magisterial prerogative at
Rome, and criminal jurisdiction also, except in capital cases, the
decision of which was vested in the people at least as early as the
first year of the Republic, was wielded by magistrates until the
establishment of the various _quaestiones perpetuae_ during the last
century of the Republic. But in civil cases the magistrate, though
controlling the trial and deciding matters of law, was quite distinct
from the judge or body of judges who decided the question of fact; and
the _quaestiones perpetuae_, which reduced the magistrate in criminal
cases to a mere president of the court, gave him a position inferior to
that of the praetor, who tried civil cases, only in so far as the
praetor controlled the trial in some degree by his _formula_, under
which the judges decided the question of fact.
Tenure of magistracy was always held to depend upon election by the body
whose powers the magistrate wielded. Thus the magistrates of the _plebs_
were elected by the plebeian council, those of the people in the Comitia
(q.v.). In every case the outgoing magistrate, as presiding officer of
the elective assembly, exercised the important right of nominating his
successor for election.
See A. H. J. Greenidge, _Roman Public Life_, 152 seq., 363 seq.
(London, 1901); T. Mommsen, _Römisches Staatsrecht_, I. 11. i. (1887).
(A. M. Cl.)
MAGLIABECHI, ANTONIO DA MARCO (1633-1714), Italian bibliophile, was born
at Florence on the 28th of October 1633. He followed the trade of a
goldsmith until 1673, when he received the appointment of librarian to
the grand-duke of Tuscany, a post for which he had qualified himself by
his vast stores of self-acquired learning. He died on the 4th of July
1714, bequeathing his large private library to the grand-duke, who in
turn handed it over to the city.
MAGLIANI, AGOSTINO (1824-1891), Italian financier, was a native of
Lanzino, near Salerno. He studied at Naples, and a book on the
philosophy of law based on Liberal principles won for him a post in the
Neapolitan treasury. He entered the Italian Senate in 1871, and had
already secured a reputation as a financial expert before his _Questione
monetaria_ appeared in 1874. In December 1877 he became minister of
finance in the reconstructed Depretis ministry, and he subsequently held
the same office in three other Liberal cabinets. In his second tenure he
carried through (1880) the abolition of the grist tax, to take effect in
1884. Having to face an increased expenditure without offending the
Radical electorate by unpopular taxes, he had recourse to unsound
methods of finance, which seriously embarrassed Italian credit for some
years after he finally laid down office in 1888. He died in Rome on the
22nd of February 1891. He was one of the founders of the
anti-socialistic "Adam Smith Society" at Florence.
MAGNA CARTA, or the Great Charter, the name of the famous charter of
liberties granted at Runnimede in June 1215 by King John to the English
people. Although in later ages its importance was enormously magnified,
it differs only in degree, not in kind, from other charters granted by
the Norman and early Plantagenet kings. Its greater length, however,
still more the exceptional circumstances attending its birth, gave to it
a position absolutely unique in the minds of later generations of
Englishmen. This feeling was fostered by its many confirmations, and in
subsequent ages, especially during the time of the struggle between the
Stuart kings and the parliament, it was regarded as something
sacrosanct, embodying the very ideal of English liberties, which to some
extent had been lost, but which must be regained. Its provisions, real
and imaginary, formed the standard towards which Englishmen must strive.
The causes which led to the grant of Magna Carta are described in the
article on _English History_. Briefly, they are to be found in the
conditions of the time; the increasing insularity of the English barons,
now no longer the holders of estates in Normandy; the substitution of an
unpopular for a popular king, an active spur to the rising forces of
discontent; and the unprecedented demands for money--demands followed,
not by honour, but by dishonour, to the arms of England abroad. So much
for the general causes. The actual crisis may be said to begin with the
quarrel between John and Pope Innocent III. regarding the appointment of
a new archbishop to the see of Canterbury. This was settled in May 1213,
and in the new prelate, the papal nominee, Stephen Langton, who landed
in England and absolved the king in the following July, the baronial
party found an able and powerful ally. But before this event John had
instituted a great inquiry, the inquest of service of June 1212, for the
purpose of finding out how much he could exact from each of his vassals,
a measure which naturally excited some alarm; and then, fearing a
baronial rising, he had abandoned his proposed expedition into Wales,
had taken hostages from the most prominent of his foes, and had sought
safety in London.
His absolution followed, and then he took courage. Turning once more his
attention to the recovery of Normandy, he asked the barons for
assistance for this undertaking; in reply they, or a section of them,
refused, and instead of crossing the seas the king marched northwards
with the intention of taking vengeance on his disobedient vassals, who
were chiefly barons of the north of England. Langton followed his
sovereign to Northampton and persuaded him, at least for the present, to
refrain from any serious measures of revenge. Before this interview a
national council had met at St Albans at the beginning of August 1213,
and this was followed by another council, held in St Paul's church,
London, later in the same month; it was doubtless summoned by the
archbishop, and was attended by many of the higher clergy and a certain
number of the barons. Addressing the gathering, Langton referred to the
laws of Edward the Confessor as "good laws," which the king ought to
observe, and then mentioned the charter granted by Henry I. on his
accession as a standard of good government. This event has such an
important bearing on the issue of Magna Carta that it is not
inappropriate to quote the actual words used by Matthew Paris in
describing the incident. The chronicler represents the archbishop as
saying "Inventa est quoque nunc carta quaedam Henrici primi regis
Angliae per quam, si volueritis, libertates diu amissas poteritis ad
statum pristinum revocare." Those present decided to contend to the
death for their "long-lost liberties," and with this the meeting came to
an end. Nothing, however, was done during the remainder of the year, and
John, feeling his position had grown stronger, went abroad early in
1214, and remained for some months in France. With his mercenaries
behind him he met with some small successes in his fight for Normandy,
but on the 27th of July he and his ally, the emperor Otto IV., met with
a crushing defeat at Bouvines at the hands of Philip Augustus, and even
the king himself was compelled to recognise that his hopes of recovering
Normandy were at an end.
Meanwhile in England, which was ruled by Peter des Roches as justiciar,
the discontent had been increasing rather than diminishing, and its
volume became much larger owing to an event of May 1214. Greatly needing
money for his campaign, John ordered another scutage to be taken from
his tenants; this, moreover, was to be at the unprecedented rate of
three marks on the knight's fee, not as on previous occasions of two
marks, although this latter sum had hitherto been regarded as a very
high rate. The northern barons refused to pay, and the gathering forces
of resistance received a powerful stimulus when a little later came the
news of the king's humiliation at Bouvines. Then in October the beaten
monarch returned to England, no course open to him but to bow before the
storm. In November he met some of his nobles at Bury St Edmunds, but as
they still refused to pay the scutage no agreement was reached. At once
they took another step towards the goal. With due solemnity (_super
majus altare_) they swore to withdraw their allegiance from the king and
to make war upon him, unless within a stated time he restored to them
their rightful laws and liberties. While they were collecting troops in
order to enforce their threats, John on his part tried to divide his
enemies by a concession to the clerical section. By a charter, dated the
21st of November 1214, he granted freedom of election to the church.
However, this did not prevent the prelates from continuing to act to
some extent with the barons, and early in January 1215 the malcontents
asked the king to confirm the laws of Edward the Confessor and the other
liberties of the kingdom. He evaded the request and secured a truce
until Easter was passed. Energetically making use of this period of
respite, he again issued the charter to the church, ordered his subjects
to take a fresh oath of allegiance to him, and sent to the pope for aid;
but neither these precautions, nor his expedient of taking the cross,
deterred the barons from returning to the attack. In April they met in
arms at Stamford, and as soon as the truce had expired they marched to
Brackley, where they met the royal ministers and again presented their
demands. These were carried to the king at Oxford, but angrily he
refused to consider them. Then the storm burst. On the 5th of May the
barons formally renounced their allegiance to John, and appointed Robert
Fitzwalter as their leader. They marched towards London, while John made
another attempt to delay the crisis, or to divide his foes, by granting
a charter to the citizens of London (May 9, 1215), and then by offering
to submit the quarrel to a court of arbitrators under the presidency of
the pope. But neither the one nor the other expedient availed him.
Arbitration under such conditions was contemptuously rejected, and after
the king had ordered the sheriffs to seize the lands and goods of the
revolting nobles, London opened its gates and peacefully welcomed the
baronial army. Other towns showed also that their sympathies were with
the insurgents, and John was forced to his knees. Promising to assent to
their demands, he agreed to meet the barons, and the gathering was fixed
for the 15th of June, and was to take place in a meadow between Staines
and Windsor, called Runnimede.
At the famous conference, which lasted from Monday the 15th to Tuesday
the 23rd of June, the hostile barons were present in large numbers; on
the other hand John, who rode over each day from Windsor, was only
attended by a few followers. At once the malcontents presented their
demands in a document known popularly as the _Articles of the Barons_,
more strictly as _Capitula quae barones petunt et dominus rex concedit_.
Doubtless this had been drawn up beforehand, and was brought by the
baronial leaders to Runnimede; possibly it was identical with the
document presented to the royal ministers at Brackley a few weeks
before. John accepted the Articles on the same day and at once the great
seal was affixed to them. They are forty-eight in number, and on them
Magna Carta was based, the work of converting them into a charter, which
was regarded as a much more binding form of engagement, being taken in
hand immediately. This duty occupied three days, negotiations between
the two parties taking place over several disputed points, and it was
completed by Friday the 19th, when several copies of the charter were
sealed. All then took an oath to keep its terms, and orders were sent to
the sheriffs to publish it, and to see that its provisions were
observed, two or three days being taken up with making and sending out
copies for this purpose. It should be mentioned that, although the
charter was evidently not sealed until the 19th, the four existing
copies of it are dated the 15th, the day on which John accepted the
articles.
The days between Friday the 19th and the following Tuesday, when the
conference came to an end, were occupied in providing, as far as
possible, for the due execution of the reforms promised by the king in
Magna Carta. The document itself provided for an elected committee of
twenty-five barons, whose duty was to compel John, by force if
necessary, to keep his promises; but this was evidently regarded as
insufficient, and the matter was dealt with in a supplementary treaty
(_Conventio facta inter regem Angliae et barones ejusdum regni_). As a
guarantee of his good faith the king surrendered the city of London to
his foes, while the Tower was entrusted to the neutral keeping of the
archbishop of Canterbury. John then asked the barons for a charter that
they on their part would keep the peace. This was refused, and although
some of the bishops entered a mild protest, the question was allowed to
drop. Regarding another matter also, the extent of the royal forests,
the prelates made a protest. John and his friends feared lest the
inquiry promised into the extent of the hated forest areas would be
carried out too rigorously, and that these would be seriously curtailed,
if not abolished altogether. Consequently, the two archbishops and their
colleagues declared that the articles in the charter which provided for
this inquiry, and for a remedy against abuses of the forest laws by the
king, must not be interpreted in too harsh a spirit. The customs
necessary for the preservation of the forests must remain in force.
No securities, however, could bind John. Even before Magna Carta was
signed he had set to work to destroy it, and he now turned to this task
with renewed vigour. He appealed to the pope, and hoped to crush his
enemies by the aid of foreign troops, while the barons prepared for war,
and the prelates strove to keep the peace. Help came first from the
spiritual arm. On the 24th of August 1215 Innocent III. published a bull
which declared Magna Carta null and void. It had been extorted from the
king by force (_per vim et metum_), and in the words of the bull the
pope said "compositionem hujusmodi reprobamus penitus et damnamus." He
followed this up by excommunicating the barons who had obtained it, and
in the autumn of 1215 the inevitable war began. Capturing Rochester
castle, John met with some other successes, and the disheartened barons
invited Louis, son of Philip Augustus of France and afterwards king as
Louis VIII., to take the English crown. In spite of the veto of the pope
Louis accepted the invitation, landed in England in May 1216, and
occupied London and Winchester, the fortune of war having in the
meantime turned against John. The "ablest and most ruthless of the
Angevins," as J. R. Green calls this king, had not, however, given up
the struggle, and he was still in the field when he was taken ill, dying
in Newark castle on the 19th of October 1216.
In its original form the text of Magna Carta was not divided into
chapters, but in later times a division of this kind was adopted. This
has since been retained by all commentators, the number of chapters
being 63.
The preamble states that the king has granted the charter on the advice
of various prelates and barons, some of whom, including the archbishop
of Canterbury, the papal legate Pandulf, and William Marshal, earl of
Pembroke, are mentioned by name.
Chapter I. declares that the English church shall be free and shall
enjoy freedom of election. This follows the precedent set in the
accession charter of Henry I. and in other early charters, although it
had no place in the Articles of the Barons. On the present occasion it
was evidently regarded as quite a formal and introductory matter, and
the same remark applies to the general grant of liberties to all
freemen and their heirs, with which the chapter concludes.
Then follows a series of chapters intended to restrain the king from
raising money by the harsh and arbitrary methods adopted in the past.
These chapters, however, only afforded protection to the
tenants-in-chief of the crown, and it is clear from their prominent
position that the framers of the charter regarded them as of paramount
importance.