Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

manual. Under Elizabeth it was in almost constant use. In 1628, on the murder by Felton of the Duke of Buckingham, it being proposed by Charles I. to put the assassin to the rack, in order that he might discover his accomplices, the judges resisted the proceedings as contrary to the law of England. In various countries of Europe the rack has been much used both by the civil authorities in cases of traitors and conspirators, and by the Inquisition to extort a recantation of heresy. It is no longer in use in any part of the civilized world.

The commune is the unit or lowest division in the administration of France, corresponding in the rural districts to our township, and in towns to a municipality. The rising of the Commune at Paris in 1871, and which should not be confounded with communism, was a revolutionary assertion of the autonomy of Paris, that is, of the right of self-government through its commune or municipality. The theory of the rising was that every commune should have a real autonomy, the central government being merely a federation of communes. The movement was based on discontent at Paris, where the people found themselves in possession of arms after the siege by the Germans. The rising began on the 18th March, 1871, and was only suppressed ten weeks later after long, bloody fighting between the forces of the Commune and a large army of the central government; 6,500 Communists having fallen during 20-30th May, and 38,578 been taking prisoners.

Wat Tyler's insurrection occurred November 5, 1380. A peasant's revolt, immediately due to the imposition of a poll-tax on all persons above fifteen. Almost the whole of the peasantry of the southern and eastern counties of England rose in arms, murdering and plundering, under the leadership of Wat Tyler, said to have been a soldier in the French wars. On June 12, 1381, they gathered on Blackheath. On June 14, Richard II., then a lad of fifteen, met the Essex contingent at Mile End, and, promising the abolition of villenage, induced them to return home. On June 15, he met the Kentish men at Smithfield, and in the parley Wat Tyler was killed by William Walworth, mayor of London, and others. The peasants were about to avenge his death, when Richard, with great presence of mind, rode forward alone, and induced them to follow him to Islington, when, a body of troops coming to the king's aid, and Richard being profuse of promises, they dispersed.

THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION.

ITS CHIEF LEADERS:

Comte de Mirabeau, 1789-1791.

Danton, from the death of Mirabeau to 1793.

Robespierre, from June, 1793, to July 27, 1794.

Next to these three were St. Just, Couthon, Marat, Carrier, Hébert, Santerre, Camille Desmoulins, Roland and his wife, Brissot, Barnave, Seyès, Barras, Tallien, etc.

ITS GREAT DAYS:

1789. June 17. The Tiers Etat constituted itself into the "National Assembly"; June 20, the day of the Jeu de Paume, when the Assembly took an oath not to separate till it had given France a constitution; July 14, Storming of the Bastille: October 5, 6, the King and National Assembly transferred from Versailles to Paris. This closed the ancient régime of the court.

1791. June 20, 21. Flight and capture of the king, queen, and royal family. 1792. June 20, attack on the Tuileries by Santerre; August 10, attack on the Tuileries and downfall of the monarchy; September 2, 3, 4, massacre of the state prisoners. 1793. January 21, Louis XVI guillotined: May 31, commencement of the Reign of Terror; June 2, the Girondists proscribed: October 16, Marie Antoinette guillotined; October 31, the Girondists guillotined.

1794. April 5, downfall of Danton; July 27, downfall of Robespierre.

[blocks in formation]

MONARCHS WHO RETIRED FROM BUSINESS.

The following are the names of European monarchs who have abdicated:

[blocks in formation]

Several were dethroned without even the mocking show of abdication, like Edward II. of England (1327); Henry VI. of England (1471); etc.

FATHERS OF THEIR COUNTRY.

Cicero was called Father of his Country by the Roman senate (B.C. 106-43). Julius Caesar was so called after quelling the insurrection in Spain (B.C. 100-43). Augustus Cæsar was called Pater atque Princeps (B.c. 63, 31-14). Cosmo de Medici (1389-1464). George Washington, defender and paternal counsellor of the American States (1732-1799). Andrea Dorea is so called on the base of his statue in Genoa (1468-1560 Andronicus Palæologus II. assumed the title (1260-1332). See also Chron. iv. 14.

HISTORY IN RHYME.

The following are given as helpful mnemonic verses:

PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.

First stands the lofty Washington,
That noble, great immortal one.
The elder Adams next we see,

And Jefferson comes number three.
The fourth is Madison, you know,
The fifth one on the list, Monroe.
The sixth an Adams comes again,
And Jackson seventh in the train,
Van Buren eighth upon the line,
And Harrison counts number nine.
The tenth is Tyler, in his turn,
And Polk the eleventh as we learn.
The twelfth is Taylor that appears,
The thirteenth Fillmore fills his years.
Then Pierce comes fourteenth into view,
Buchanan is the fifteenth due.

Now Lincoln comes two terms to fill,
But God o'errules the people's will,
And Johnson fills the appointed time,
Cut short by an assassin's crime.
Next Grant assumes the lofty seat,
The man who never knew defeat.
Two terms to him; then Hayes succeeds,
And quietly the nation leads.

Garfield comes next, the people's choice;
But soon ascends a mourning voice
From every hamlet in the land.

A brutal wretch with murderous hand
Strikes low the country's chosen chief,
And anxious millions, plunged in grief,
Implore in vain Almighty aid,

That death's rude hand might yet be stayed.
Kind Arthur's term was then begun,
Which made the number twenty-one.

Stout Cleveland next the honors won

And then the second Harrison,

Until the nation's voice again

Called Cleveland as its man of men;
The twenty-fourth in order he-
All champions brave of Liberty.

Sovereigns of England since the Norman conquest:

Two Williams, Henry, Stephen, Henry, Dick,

John, Hal, three Neds, Richard and three Hals quick,
Two Edwards, Richard, two Harrys and a Ned,

Mary, Bess, James and Charles who lost his head,

Charles, James, Will, Ann, four Georges and a Bill,
And Queen Victoria who is reigning still.

THE CHAMP DE MARS.

The Champ de Mars, or "Field of March," was a grand general assembly of Frank warriors, held from time to time in Gaul from the fifth century till the time of Charles le Chauve (877), when all trace of them disappears. The objects of these conventions were twofold: (1) that of military reviews, in which the freemen came to pay homage to their chief and bring their annual gifts; and (2) consultative deliberations upon what expeditions should be made, what should be done for the defence of the nation and what laws should be passed for the better government of the state. From 755 these assemblies were held in May. Napoleon I. announced a gathering to be held in the great plain, called the Champ de . Mars of Paris, on May 26; but it was not held till June 1, 1815. The object was to proclaim L'Acte additionel aux constitutions de l'Empire.

ORIGIN OF SOME 'ISMS.

SOCIALISM was primarily a system for the regulation of labor by co-operation without competition. Louis Blanc was the father of the system, and his "Organisation du Travail" was published in 1840. In this book he denounces the plan of "individualism," and advocates "solidarity," in which each workman is to be paid according to his need a bachelor two francs a day, a married man two and one-half and a man with a family three francs. In 1848 national workshops were tried in Paris on the Louis Blanc principle. Government was the employer of labor, and private enterprise was abolished as far as possible. It was soon found that the national workshops were overcrowded, work was ill-done, idle hands multiplied, and profitless work had to be invented to keep the men out of mischief. Some 1,500 tailors were set to work in the Hôtel Clichy at two francs a day, but the scheme was a total failure.

[ocr errors]

Plato's "Republic" is an ideal communism. Minos and Lycurgus were communists. The early Christians had "all things in common,' but the notion of government being the sole employer of labor, and paying each, not according to the work done, but according to individual necessity, was left to the device of Louis Blanc.

Bellamy's novel entitled "Looking Backward" is based somewhat on the same idea.

COMMUNISM is a scheme for associating men and women together without recourse to the laws of social and political economy usually resorted to. The representatives of communism are Robert Owen, St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon and Enfantin.

(1) Owen published his scheme in 1813, and tried it in 1825 at Orbiston, in Lanarkshire. This scheme failed, and in 1843 he opened his "Harmony Hall" in Hampshire, but this also was a failure.

(2) St. Simon established a corporate society at Menilmontant, but Louis Philippe charged it with immorality and irreligion. The leaders were imprisoned and the commune dissolved.

(3) Fourier established his "phalanstery” at Rambouillet, but it proved a total failure.

(4) Proudhon is noted for his axiom, "La propriété, c'est le vol," 1848, and for his Banque du Peuple, 1849, which had for its object the suppression of capital. It was closed by authority, and Proudhon fled to Geneva.

(5) Enfantin, a partisan of St. Simon, advocated the abolition of marriage ties, and was prosecuted on the grounds of public decency.

FOURIERISM was the social system devised by Charles Fourier. He would divide men into groups of 400 families, and these groups into series, and these series into phalanxes. A single group he would place under one immense roof, and there should be supplied every appliance of industry and art. No army would be required, no wars could ever break out, as all the world would be one great family.

SIMONIANISM was the school of the Industrialists, founded in 1825 by St. Simon for the amelioration of the working classes, perverted after his death into a communistic society, advocating the aristocracy of toil, the perfect equality of man, community of property and the abolition of inheritance and marriage. Abolished by law in 1833.

MYSTIC LETTERS AND NUMBERS.

Figures mystical and awful

Songs of war and songs of hunting,
Songs of medicine and of magic,
All were written in these figures,
For each figure had its meaning,
Each its separate song recorded.
-LONGFELLOW.

SUNDRY ODD PICKINGS.

Noah had three sons.

Job had three friends.

Lightning is three-forked.

The "Glorious Fourth" means July 4, 1776.
Hesiod said the half is more than the whole.

Jonah remained for three days in the whale's belly.
The Prince of Wales' crest consists of three feathers.
There were three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Barbarossa changes position in his sleep every seven years.
Charlemagne starts in his chair from sleep every seven years.
Olaf Redbeard, of Sweden, uncloses his eyes every seven years.
Three companions of Daniel were thrown into the fiery furnace.
Five is conspicuous in man—five fingers, five senses, five members.
Ogier the Dane stamps his iron mace on the floor every seven years.
The Five Kings of France was a term applied to the Directorate,
1795.

The "City of Forty Times Forty Churches" is a name bestowed on Moscow.

Seven becomes sacred as it is composed of two good numbers, three and four.

In France, Belgium, Holland and Italy the national standards have three colors.

[ocr errors]

The melancholy Jacques' disquisition on the seven ages of man is well known.

[ocr errors]

The twenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of Ezra contains all the letters of the alphabet except “j," which originally was the consonantal form of "i."

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »