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a universal federation of freethinkers, the General Council of which, it was resolved, should have its seat in London. An International Congress of Commerce and Industry was opened at Brussels on the 6th of September. The King was present. The purpose of the Congress was explained by M. Dansaert, member of the Chamber and President of the Congress, and by M. Sainctelette, Minister of Public Works.

The Parliamentary session was opened November 9th. The King, in his speech from the throne, thanked the people for the manifestations of loyalty which they had given during the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of the nation; said that the condition of the Treasury had improved; and expressed a hope that the budget of 1880 would show a balance between revenue and expenditure. The rupture of diplomatic relations with the Vatican formed one of the most prominent topics of discussion. M. Frère-Orban, the Premier, in an address which occupied several hours on November 30th and December 1st, said that in his long political career he had always been in favor of the secularization of public education, and against the maintenance of diplomatic relations with the Papal See. He reviewed his negotiations with the Vatican, and contended that the Belgian Cabinet had acted with the greatest straightforwardness, and that the Vatican had been guilty of duplicity unexampled in diplomatic annals. The speech was cheered by the majority, and by the visitors who thronged the Chambers. The debate was continued, and the Premier, speaking during the following week, rebuked the clerical side for having dragged the name of the King into the debate, as if a private correspondence of the King with the Pope, or anybody else, was a matter of common concern. He denied that Leopold I had ever solicited from Pope Gregory XVI a cardinal's hat for the Nuncio Pecci (the present Pope) at Brussels, and stated that documents had been carried off from the archives of the Belgian Foreign Office under former ministries, notably those relating to the missions of the Nuncio Pecci. He also attacked the policy of the Clerical party in opposing amendments to the new Public Education Law, which would have rendered it more acceptable to them. The Liberal party gained one seat in the Senate by the election, in October, of M. de Kerckhove, from Ghent, to fill a seat which was formerly occupied by a member of the Clerical party. An election for one deputy was held in Brussels, November 29th. Five candidates were in the field, all advanced Liberals. Professor Vanderkindere, Rector of the University of Brussels, was chosen. He is an advocate of the movement called "the Flemish movement," the object of which is to secure for the Flemish language in the Flemish provinces equality of consideration with the French language.

Major-General Gratry was appointed Minister of War in November. He was formerly

director of the Engineer Department in the Ministry of War, and had lately been in military command of the province of Brabant.

Twelve persons were condemned, December 6th, to imprisonment for different terms on charges of participation in the traffic in English girls for immoral purposes. Since the case concerned English girls chiefly, the proceedings were watched by an English solicitor on behalf of the British Government.

BENEDICT, ERASTUS CORNELIUS, LL. D., Chancellor of the University of the State of New York, was born at Branford, Connecticut, March 19, 1800. His family removed to New York when he was three years of age. In 1821 he graduated with the highest honors from Williams College, Massachusetts. He taught school in various parts of the State of New York until he was admitted to the New York bar, in 1824. His interest in all that concerned public education remained undiminished through his legal career, although he attained a large practice, and for half a century was considered a leader in admiralty cases. He held no office until 1840, when he was chosen Assistant Alderman for the Fifteenth Ward. In 1850 he became a member of the Board of Education, of which body he remained the President until his resignation in 1863. He systematized the whole educational system of New York, and under his nurturing care the Free Academy developed into the College of the City of New York, of which he may be justly called the founder. He was a member of the Assembly in 1848 and 1864. In 1872 he was sent to the State Senate in the interest of reform. He had been made a member of the Board of Regents of the University of New York State, and, on the death of Chancellor Pruyn, in 1878, he was chosen his successor. He was also a trustee of Williams College, and endowed his alma mater with a fund for "Benedict prizes." An elder in the Dutch Reformed Church, he was widely connected with religious and charitable organizations. He was a manager of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Pocr, and Governor of the New York State Woman's Hospital. He published in 1850 what has become a standard legal authority on "American Admiralty." In 1860 he wrote a slight volume of European travel. He was the author of many lectures delivered before the Geographical and various historical and scientific societies of which he was a member. He made three distinct translations of the "Dies Ira." The first is remarkable as being expressed entirely in words of Gotho-English derivation. The second is very successful from its nearness in words and rhythm to the original. Perhaps the most lasting monument of his elegant and facile pen is the translation of the "Hymn of Hildebert and other Medieval Hymns" (1868). He excelled in metrical translation, and has left many scholarly renderings of French, German, and Latin poems. He received the degree of

LL. D. from Rutgers College in 1865. In his legislative career he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Literature. He induced the passage of an act for the revision and consolidation of the acts relating to public instruction. In 1872 and '73, while in the Senate, he was appointed a member of the Court of Impeachment, in which the corrupt judges were tried. After a long life of eminent services as lawyer, legislator, and instructor, he lied suddeuly, in New York City, on the 22d of October. BERNHARDT, SARAH, a French actress, was born in Amsterdam, about 1847. Her father was a Frenchman, and her mother was Dutch, both parents belonging to the Hebrew race. While a young girl her father placed her in the convent-school at Grand Champ, near Versailles. When she had completed the course of studies taught in the seminary, on expressing a choice for the dramatic profession, she underwent a brief preparation for the entrance examination of the Conservatoire. She owed her acceptance as a pupil of the Conservatoire, it is said, to the expressive and attractive manner in which she recited the tale of "Les deux Pigeons," by La Fontaine, not being provided with a tirade from the dramatists such as it is usual for the candidates to declaim, drawing upon herself the attention of Auber, who was one of the examiners, by her graceful rendering of that simple poem. She entered the Conservatoire in 1861, becoming the pupil of Beauvallet, the famous actor. She was so successful in her studies that she gained a prize for tragedy, winning the right to a début at the Théâtre Français. Her appearance in "Iphigénie" with the company of the Comédie Française was praised by some critics and considered full of artistic promise, but was not a professional success. She also played in Scribe's 66 Valérie," " but did no better. Bernhardt next essayed less ambitious rôles upon humbler stages, serving the dramatic apprenticeship which the most gifted actor seldom escapes, and acquiring theatrical experience and routine by performing comedy and burlesque parts in the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, after undertaking and then breaking off an engagement at the Gymnase; and afterward at the Odéon, where she advanced into the front rank of dramatic artists. Her engagement at the Gymnase was to perform in one of Labiche's comedies. She disappeared after the second night's representation, writing a characteristic note to the author, the import of which was that the part assigned her was not satisfactory. At the Porte St. Martin she appeared in a fairy piece under an assumed name. "I have been turned away everywhere; but try me, for I assure you there is something there," is said to have been the phrase which she used in applying to M. Duquesnel, who was associated with M. Chilly in the management of the Odéon; pointing, as she said it, to her heart instead of to her head. Chilly declared that she was only fit for tragedy; but Duquesnel engaged her in opposition

to his partner's judgment. At first she made no distinct impression; but when given the leading part in Alexandre Dumas's "Kean," though the play was coldly received, she herself was enthusiastically applauded.

During the siege of Paris Mlle. Bernhardt left the mimic stage to take a leading part in the patriotic work of nursing the sick and the wounded, tending the ambulances until the end of the war laboriously and devotedly. On the 2d of February, 1872, she reappeared on the boards as Marie de Neuborg in "Ruy Blas," achieving a complete artistic triumph, and gratifying the author not less than the public. This success induced the Comédie Française to not merely receive Bernhardt as an associate, but to press her to become a member of that famous and unique society of dramatic_artists by whom the rich traditions of the French stage are sacredly conserved, and invigorated by the constant assimilation of the genuine artistic developments of the modern French theatre. In the Comédie Française Bernhardt could not take the preeminent position which an artist of her powers usually assumes in ordinary companies. Associated with a group of players, all of them of the highest rank, she did not obtain an opportunity to display her talents at first, being unfortunate in the rôles assigned to her. She earliest showed her higher powers in the characters of Andromaque and Junie; but it was not until March, 1874, when the "Sphinx," was brought out, with Bernhardt as Berthe de Savigny, that she became the great favorite of Paris audiences, and began to be spoken of as the foremost tragedienne of the age, and the successor to the laurels of Adrienne Lecouvreur, Dumesnil, Clairon, and Rachel Félix. Bernhardt has had few opportunities to create new characters. Other parts in which she is most admired are Phèdre and Zaïre of the classic French drama, and Adrienne Lecouvreur and Marguérite Gautier, the heroine of the younger Dumas's "La Dame aux Camélias," of the modern realistic drama.

Bernhardt, though of feeble frame and far from physically vigorous, possesses a fund of nervous energy which she is able to call forth in the passionate moments of a play with thrilling effect. She is an assiduous and tireless student in her profession, searching types and suggestions often in the scenes of real life. She shows a wonderful power of dramatic impersonation and imagination in the lifelike manner in which she projects herself into the character assumed in each play. The remarkable delicacy of her perception of character is the result of indefatigable studies. At the production of " Hernani," in 1870, Bernhardt took the part of Donna Sol, a character which had been identified with Mlle. Mars, who made it famous. The novel and sympathetic reading of Bernhardt was declared by Victor Hugo to correspond completely to his poetic ideal. Her praise in this role was repeated by the critic Sarcey and echoed by all Paris.

Sarah Bernhardt has cultivated other arts besides the one in which she has won celebrity. After posing for a bust, in 1869, it occurred to her to try her hand at modeling; and since then she has produced several pieces of sculpture which have been praised for their merit. She has also painted in oils with more than an amateur's skill. The subjects which she chooses for her sculptures and paintings are oftenest of a somber and funereal character. She is an accomplished performer upon the harp and the piano. She is known as a graceful and spirited writer for the press, and was at one time art critic of the Globe" newspaper. She has made several ascensions in balloons, and written descriptions of her aeronautic experiences. A picturesque and elegant villa on the Parc Monceau was built for her after her own plans and drawings.

In the summer of 1879 Mlle. Bernhardt played in a series of French dramas presented by the company of the Comédie Française in London, where she was singled out from the company for popular favor and praise in a still more decided way than in Paris. She exhibited her plastic and pictorial creations while there, and gave rehearsals in the houses of the leaders of fashionable English society, requiring to be paid at the rate of a hundred guineas for each performance. The following year Bernhardt returned to London; but she was not this time supported, as she had been the season before, by the strength of the famous company of which she was a member. At this time a difficulty occurred between Mlle. Bernhardt and Emile Augier, the director of the Comédie Française, in consequence of which she resigned her position and severed her connection with the company. She was afterward sued for breach of contract, and ordered by the civil tribunal to pay one hundred thousand francs damages to the company. The cause of the rupture with the Comédie Française was her want of success in the play of "L'Aventurière," she attributing her failure to the want of time for proper preparation and an insufficient number of rehearsals.

A contract was signed by Sarah Bernhardt with Henry Abbey, of Booth's Theatre, in New York, on June 9, 1880, by which Mlle. Bernhardt engaged to make the tour of the principal cities of the United States, the manager agreeing to pay her one thousand dollars for each performance, with a share also of the profits.

Mlle. Bernhardt arrived in New York toward the end of October, 1880, and in the second week of November commenced her engagement in Booth's Theatre, playing through the series of her most famous rôles. After concluding there, she gave them next in Boston, and then in Philadelphia, playing to very large houses in each city, and winning admiration and applause from the public, and obtain ing the highly appreciative, though sometimes qualified and measured, praise of the dramatic critics.

BOLIVIA (REPÚBLICA DE BOLIVIA). For area, territorial division, population, etc., reference may be made to the "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1872 and 1878, and, for a retrospective view of Bolivian statistics and Bolivia's relations with the neighboring states, see our volume for 1879.

The President of the Republic is General Narciso Campero (June, 1880); the first VicePresident is Dr. A. Arce; and the second VicePresident, Señor Belisario Salinas. In December, 1880, the Cabinet was composed of but two Ministers: Señor J. M. Calvo, Minister of Justice, Public Worship, and Public Instruction, and acting Minister of the Interior, and of Foreign Relations; and Señor Belisario Salinas, Minister of War and acting Minister of Finance.

The regulation strength of the army in time of peace is 3,000, as follows: 8 generals, 1,012 subaltern officers, and 2,000 men, maintained, it would appear, at an annual expenditure of $2,000,000, or about two thirds of the entire revenue. As stated in our article for 1879, the force was raised to 20,000 men accustomed to fighting and the use of arms, after the commencement of the war with Chili. In October, 1880, however, the Bolivian army had, by Chilian reports, been reduced to two battalions.

Information concerning the Bolivian revenue has always been difficult to procure from official sources, and can now be obtained only through indirect channels. The figures of the following table, said to emanate from ex-Minister Don Julio Mendez, give no signs of decreased yield in the usual sources of income, and refer to the period between the declaration of war and December 31, 1879-that is to say, about ten months:

Second half-year, Indian tax..
Tithes, first fruits, etc. (paid almost exclusively
by the Indians).
Coca contribution.

Bullion from the interior.

Negotiation with Banco Nacional", Forced loan (collected)..

Joco nitrate-works (saved).. Southern custom-houses..

Total....

$691,248 70

252,016 00

250,000 00

880,000 00

600,000 00

500,000 00

50,000 00

60,000.00

$2,788,264 70

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contracted in England in 1872* for the purpose of constructing a railway. The railway for which it was incurred has not yet been built. The works, commenced in 1872 under British auspices, suffered "unanticipated detentions" until 1877, when they were resumed under American contractors, Messrs. P. and T. Collins, of Philadelphia, several chancery suits having intervened in the course of the five years' interval. The firm just mentioned deposited, states Colonel George Earl Church,* £40,000 as a caution-fund for compliance with their contract to complete the road from end to end. They sent several large ocean-steamers directly from Philadelphia to the northern terminus of the road at San Antonio on the river Madeira, where there are now (April, 1880) about fifty miles of railway material and contractors' plant. In a short time they had a thousand men at work, and a locomotive running over the first and worst five miles of the road. They cleared fifteen miles of forest, cut large quantities of sleepers, employed four large corps of engineers actively in the field, and thoroughly demonstrated the perfect practicability of the work. As this was thus again being vigorously pushed forward, the bondholders filed a new bill in chancery, March 2, 1878, alleging the revocation of the Bolivian concession and the impracticability of the railway. The trustees were again prevented from applying the trust fund. As in the previous suit, the plaintiffs resorted to every imaginable device to delay the trial. It finally took place before Mr. Justice Fry, April, 1879, who, after hearing their witnesses, dismissed the bill, with costs. Their own engineers gave evidence proving the perfect practicability of the road. The bondholders appealed from the decision. The appeal was heard by the Lords Justices in May, 1879. These held that, owing to the lapse of time, the seven years during which the plaintiffs, the bondholders, had succeeded in preventing the construction of the railway, the burden of proof of its practicability rested upon the defendants, the Navigation and Railway Companies. These gave ample engineering evidence, by their engineers, as to the physical feasibility of the road and its ease of construction. The Court of Appeal gave judgment in May, 1879, to the effect that, "no doubt the scheme was a great one, and one which, if there had been funds and other means for carrying it into effect, would probably produce the revenue which would afford a security for the bondholders"; and then decided that "the railway was impracticable in a business sense," ordering the trust fund, £850,000, to be distributed, pro rata, among the bondholders, and the Bolivian bonds to be surrendered and deposited in the Bank of England,

See Annual Cyclopædia" for 1879, p. 81.

+ The instigator of the enterprise, and to whom, as the result of a treaty between Brazil and Bolivia, both countries made concessions, having for their object the opening of a commercial outlet for Bolivian products to the Atlantic through the Amazon River, and its great tributary the Madeira.

and declaring, moreover, that "the loss of the £850,000 makes the scheme impracticable." The defendant companies appealed to the House of Lords, and the Lords, while eulogizing the magnitude of the enterprise, and lauding the good faith of Colonel Church and its other promoters, confirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal. Bolivia is thus placed in a unique position, continues Colonel Church. Her own bondholders submit her to a relentless litigation of six years, preventing the opening of the commercial route for which they subscribed the loan. Even pending litigation, up to 1875, she paid interest on the loan, and now she finds herself without the money, without the railway, without her bonds, and, by judgment of the Court of Appeal, confirmed by the House of Lords, is told, practically, that an unauthorized act of her diplomatic agent * is more powerful than her Congressional decrees. The following extract from a letter to the London "Times," by its Philadelphia correspondent, in May, 1880, shows how the interests of the American contractors have been affected by the foregoing decision:

The House of Lords, in affirming the decision of the Court of Appeal in reference to the Bolivian loan, deprived the American contractors for the Madeira and Mamoré Railway of Bolivia and Brazil of any chance of getting payment for work already done and materials furnished. These contractors, Messrs. P. and T. Collins, of Philadelphia, and their creditors, have presented a petition for relief to Congress. They request the passage of a resolution by Congress, asking the President to bring the matter alleged in their petition to the attention of her Majesty's Government, and also instructing the Secretary of the Treasury to give public notice that the United States bonds now in the Bank of England, being the trust fund for the construction of the Madeira and Mamoré Railway, will not be tioners to the fund are respected. They also ask for paid by the United States until the rights of the petisuch other relief as may be due to them by reason of the fact that, as American citizens, their rights and property ernment of Bolivia, in attempting to withdraw the conare being jeopardized by the hostile action of the Govcession and grant of money, upon the faith of which the contractors agreed to build the railway, and have already expended their money. This petition was presented in the Senate by Senator Bayard, and in the House by Speaker Randall. The contractors and their the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, which is maincreditors have expended nearly $1,000,000 on the work, ly owned in England, having furnished large quantities of materials, and being a principal creditor. The numbers of the $3,727,900 United States bonds in the be furnished to the Secretary of the Treasury. The trust are in the possession of the contractors, and will petitions have been referred to appropriate committees by Congress, but their contemplated action has not yet transpired.

As observed in our volume for 1879, no reliable returns of Bolivia's exports and imports have ever been published by any of the Government departments; hence the impossibility of the foreign trade of the republic. The subof all but conjecture as to the aggregate value

*The Bolivian Minister, who, in June, 1876, addressed a letter to Colonel Church, assuming to declare the concessions of the navigation company to be null and of no value. No evidence appears to have since been produced of his authority for the act.

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Copper, nitre, and guano were the commodities chiefly shipped to Great Britain, whence the articles imported are for the most part cotton, linen, and woolen manufactures and machinery. Bolivia being cut off from direct communication with the Pacific seaboard since the commencement of the war with Chili, her foreign trade must of necessity be very limited at present. Nor will any one be surprised to learn that imports are subject to a very high rate of duty, particularly on some articles from the United States. For example, 100 lbs. of soap, costing in New York $4.57, pay an import duty equal to $2.75 United States money; a gallon of kerosene with the tin containing it, which costs in New York thirteen cents pays a duty equal to nine and a quarter cents of the same money; and, besides these enormous duties, Bolivia permits Peru to charge five per cent. additional for transit across her territory, from the port of Arica. Nevertheless, the prod

ucts of Bolivia are admitted into the United States free of duty of any kind. "We can not understand," writes a merchant established in La Paz, "why the United States Government maintains at great expense a Minister in this republic who does nothing to forward the interests of American manufacturers in this matter. Nothing could be more simple than to induce Bolivia to enter into a reasonable commercial treaty on a reciprocal basis."

Nothing could well be more deplorable, in a political point of view, than the picture presented by Bolivia in the course of the past year. Immediately after the reverses of the allied Peruvian and Bolivian arms, which precipitated exPresident Prado's determination to seek safety in flight, General Daza abandoned his post of Chief Magistrate of Bolivia, and fled to escape being assassinated. In Bolivia all is bitterness, writes a journalist from Valparaiso, in February, 1880; everybody wants to be President, and we can not say who is governing; Minister Jofré is in Oruro; General Campero has accepted the Presidency provisionally; Camacho is in command of the Bolivian army stationed at Tacna; and, lastly, Daza has withdrawn to the interior, with the evident intention of provoking a reaction in his favor. General Campero was duly invested with the power in constitutional form in June, and lost no time in appointing a Cabinet, and taking such steps as he deemed most urgent for the continued maintenance of troops at the seat of war. Early in September, the Bolivian Con

gress issued a decree for a forced loan from all the departments of the republic to the amount of $500,000, with interest at ten per cent., the bonds to be received in payment of taxes. The Congress further authorized the Government to make new emissions, if necessary, and determine the guarantees for their payment. By another decree of the Congress, $200,000 in small money, of from one to ten cents, was to be coined in nickel, copper, or other metal.

Yet governmental energy, zealously seconded by individual patriotism, for the enthusiasm for the war had not diminished in Bolivia, was insufficient to grapple successfully with the everincreasing difficulties of the situation. The National Convention, already called into existence, lent efficient aid to the Executive in devising and carrying out plans for the creation of resources with which to continue the struggle without truce and regardless of sacritices. The following decree, issued on February 21st, will serve to illustrate the spirit and determination of that body:

ARTICLE I. The National Convention of Bolivia has ordered the sale by public auction of the property of all the convents and monasteries of the republic, except the eighth part, which is destined for the support of the religious communities.

ART. II. The sale is also ordered of the treasures of the churches, including the ornaments of the images, the sacred vessels being alone excepted.

ART. III. The product of the sale shall be applied chase of ships, the levying of troops, etc. to defraying the expenses of the war, such as the pur

ART. IV. Priests who in the pulpit or in any other place, and laymen who in the press or in public meeting, oppose the execution of this law, either pacifically or by promoting public disturbances, shall be tried as traitors to the country.

"In

Prior to the date of this decree, the forced loan, already alluded to as forming part of the national revenue for 1879, had been ordered and collected to the amount of $500,000; and other measures of like character were resorted to later. Still, the Bolivian army was but an insignificant factor at the seat of war; indeed, at the end of June, telegrams (from Santiago, the capital of Chili) announced that it was completely disbanded, the men receiving neither pay nor food, and selling their arms and accoutrements to obtain temporary relief. the four corners of the republic," exclaims a leading journal of La Paz, in July, "dismay and dejection seem to threaten the destruction of our nationality, and, in the midst of the awful confusion, what means of salvation remains to us? Shall we yield to the conqueror? No, a thousand times no! However great our effeminacy be, or however deep the grief brought upon us by the disasters of San Francisco and of the Alianza, it is our duty to look up to Heaven for that strength which the earth denies us, and set about the grand work of defending our country. Savages in their miserable condition do not bow under defeat, but perseveringly defend their huts and their families, and are we to triumph by tears and cowardly inaction? Do we not blush at the thought of our

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