VOLUME V SLICE VIII Chariot to Chatelaine (continued 9)

CHARLESTON, the largest city of South Carolina, U.S.A., the county-seat of Charleston county, a port of entry, and an important South Atlantic seaport, on a narrow peninsula formed by the Cooper river on the E. and the Ashley on the W. and S.W., and within sight of the ocean about 7 m. distant. Pop. (1890) 54,955; (1900) 55,807, of whom 31,522 were of negro descent and 2592 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 58,833. It is served by the Atlantic Coast Line and the Southern railways, the Clyde Steamship Line to New York, Boston and Jacksonville, the Baltimore & Carolina Steamship Co. to Baltimore and Georgetown, and a branch of the North German Lloyd Steamship Co., which brings immigrants from Europe direct to the Southern states; there are freight boat lines to ports in the West Indies, Central America and other foreign countries.

The city extends over 3.76 sq. m. of surface, nowhere rising more than 8 or 10 ft. above the rivers, and has about 9 m. of water front. In the middle of the harbour, on a small island near its entrance, is the famous Fort Sumter; a little to the north-east, on Sullivan’s Island, is the scarcely less historic Fort Moultrie, as well as extensive modern fortifications; on James Island, opposite, is Fort Johnson, now the United States Quarantine Station, and farther up, on the other islands, are Fort Ripley and Castle Pinckney (now the United States buoy station). Viewed from any of these forts, Charleston’s spires and public buildings seem to rise out of the sea. The streets are shaded with the live oak and the linden, and are ornamented with the palmetto; and the quaint specimens of colonial architecture, numerous pillared porticoes, spacious verandas—both upper and lower—and flower gardens made beautiful with magnolias, palmettoes, azaleas, jessamines, camelias and roses, give the city a peculiarly picturesque character.

King Street, running north and south through the middle of the peninsula, and Market Street, crossing it about 1 m. from its lower end, are lined with stores, shops or stalls; on Broad Street are many of the office buildings and banks; the wholesale houses are for the most part on Meeting Street, the first thoroughfare east of King; nearly all of the wharves are on the east side; the finest residences are at the lower end of the peninsula on East Battery and South Battery, on Meeting Street below Broad, on Legare Street, on Broad Street and on Rutledge Avenue to the west of King. At the south-east corner of Broad and Meeting streets is Saint Michael’s (built in 1752-1761), the oldest church edifice in the city, and a fine specimen of colonial ecclesiastical architecture; in its tower is an excellent chime of eight bells. Beneath the vestry room lie the remains of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and in the churchyard are the graves of John Rutledge, James Louis Petigru (1789-1863), and Robert Young Hayne. At the intersection of the same streets are also the massive United States post office building (Italian Renaissance in style), with walls of granite; the county court house, the city hall and Washington Square—in which stand a statue of William Pitt (one arm of which was broken off by a cannon shot during the British bombardment in 1780), and a monument to the memory of Henry Timrod (1829-1867), the poet. At the foot of Broad Street is the Colonial Exchange in which the South Carolina convention organized a new government during the War of Independence; and at the foot of Market Street is the large modern custom house of white marble, built in the Roman-Corinthian style. Saint Philip’s church, with admirable architectural proportions, has a steeple nearly 200 ft. in height, from which a beacon light shines for the guidance of mariners far out at sea. In the west cemetery of this church are the tombs of John C. Calhoun, and of Robert James Turnbull (1775-1833), who was prominent locally as a nullifier and under the name of “Brutus” wrote ably on behalf of nullification, free trade and state’s rights. The French Protestant Church, though small, is an attractive specimen of Gothic architecture; and the Unitarian, which is in the Perpendicular style and is modelled after the chapel of Edward VI. in Westminster, has a beautiful fan-tracery ceiling.

Of the few small city squares, gardens or parks, the White Point Garden at the lower end of the peninsula is most frequented; it is shaded with beautiful live oaks, is adorned with palmettoes and commands a fine view of the harbour. About 1½ m. north of this on Meeting Street is Marion Square, with a tall graceful monument to the memory of John C. Calhoun on the south side, and the South Carolina Military Academy along the north border. The largest park in Charleston is Hampton Park, named in honour of General Wade Hampton. It is situated in the north-west part of the city and is beautifully laid out. The Isle of Palms, to the north of Sullivan’s Island, has a large pavilion and a wide sandy beach with a fine surf for bathing, and is the most popular resort for visitors. The Magnolia Gardens are about 8 m. up the Ashley. Twenty-two miles beyond is the town of Summerville (pop. in 1900, 2420), a health resort in the pine lands, with one of the largest tea farms in the country. Magnolia Cemetery, the principal burial-place, is a short distance north of the city limits; in it are the graves of William Washington (1732-1810) and Hugh Swinton Legaré. Charleston was the home of the Pinckneys, the Rutledges, the Gadsdens, the Laurenses, and, in a later generation, of W.G. Simms. A trace of the early social organization of the brilliant colonial town remains in the St Cecilia Society, first formed in 1737 as an amateur concert society.

Charleston has an excellent system of public schools. Foremost among the educational institutions is the college of Charleston, chartered in 1785 and again in 1791, and opened in 1790; it is supported by the city and by funds of its own, ranks high within the state, and has a large and well-equipped museum of natural history, probably founded as early as 1777 and transferred to the college in 1850. Here, too, are the Medical College of the state of South Carolina, which includes a department of pharmacy; the South Carolina Military Academy (opened in 1843), which is a branch of the University of South Carolina; the Porter Military Academy (Protestant Episcopal), the Confederate home school for young women, the Charleston University School, and the Avery Normal Institute (Congregationalist) for coloured students. In the Charleston library (about 25,000 volumes), founded in 1748, are important collections of rare books and manuscripts; the rooms of the South Carolina Historical Society are in the same building. The Charleston News and Courier, published first as the Courier in 1803 and combined with the Daily News (1865) in 1873, is one of the most influential newspapers in the South. The charitable institutions of the city include the Roper hospital, the Charleston Orphan Asylum (founded in 1792), the William Euston home for the aged, and a home for the widows of Confederate soldiers.

In 1878 the United States government began the construction of jetties to remove the bar at the entrance to Charleston harbour, which was otherwise deep and spacious and well protected, and by means of these jetties the bar has been so far removed as to admit vessels drawing about 30 ft. of water. The result has been not only the promotion of the city’s commerce, but the removal of the United States naval station and navy yard from Port Royal to what was formerly Chicora Park on the left bank of the Cooper river, a short distance above the city limits. The city’s commerce consists largely in the export of cotton,1 rice, fertilizers, fruits, lumber and naval stores; the value of its exports, $10,794,000 in 1897, decreased to $2,196,596 in 1907 ($3,164,089 in 1908), while that of the import trade ($1,255,483 in 1897) increased to $3,840,585 in 1907 ($3,323,844 in 1908). The principal industries are the preparation of fertilizers—largely from the extensive beds of phosphate rock along the banks of the Ashley river and from cotton-seed meal—cotton compressing, rice cleaning, canning oysters, fruits and vegetables, and the manufacture of cotton bagging, of lumber, of cooperage goods, clothing and carriages and wagons. Between 1880 and 1890 the industrial development of the city was very rapid, the manufactures in 1890 showing an increase of 229.6% over those of 1880; the increase between 1890 and 1900 was only 6.2%. In 1900 the total value of the city’s manufactures, 16.3% (in value) of the product of the entire state, was $9,562,387, the value of the fertilizer product alone, much the most important, being $3,697,090.2

History.—The first English settlement in South Carolina, established at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley river in 1670, was named Charles Town in honour of Charles II. The location proving undesirable, a new Charles Town on the site of the present city was begun about 1672, and the seat of government was removed to it in 1680. The name Charles Town became Charlestown about 1719 and Charleston in 1783. Among the early settlers were English Churchmen, New England Congregationalists, Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, Dutch and German Lutherans, Huguenots (especially in 1680-1688) from France and Switzerland, and a few Quakers; later the French element of the population was augmented by settlers from Acadia (1755) and from San Domingo (1793). Although it soon became the largest and the wealthiest settlement south of Philadelphia, Charleston did not receive a charter until 1783, and did not have even a township government. Local ordinances were passed by the provincial legislature and enforced partly by provincial officials and partly by the church wardens. It was, however, the political and social centre of the province, being not only the headquarters of the governor, council and colonial officials, but also the only place at which courts of justice were held until the complaints of the Up Country people led to the establishment of circuit courts in 1772. After the American War of Independence it continued to be the capital of South Carolina until 1790. The charter of 1783, though frequently amended and altered, is still in force. By an act of the state legislature passed in 1837 the terms “mayor” and “alderman” superseded the older terms “intendant” and “wardens.” The city was the heart of the nullification movement of 1832-1833; and in St Andrew’s Hall, in Broad Street, on the 20th of December 1860, a convention called by the state legislature passed an ordinance of secession from the Union.

Charleston has several times been attacked by naval forces and has suffered from many storms. Hurricane and epidemic together devastated the town both in 1699 and in 1854; the older and more thickly settled part of the town was burnt in 1740, and a hurricane did great damage in 1752. In 1706, during the War of the Spanish Succession, a combined fleet of Spanish and French under Captain Le Feboure was repulsed by the forces of Governor Nathaniel Johnson (d. 1713) and Colonel William Rhett (1666-1721). During the War of Independence Charleston withstood the attack of Sir Peter Parker and Sir Henry Clinton in 1776, and that of General Augustus Prevost in 1779, but shortly afterwards became the objective of a more formidable attack by Sir Henry Clinton, the commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. In the later years of the contest the British turned their attention to the reduction of the colonies in the south, and the prominent point and best base of operations in that section was the city of Charleston, which was occupied in the latter part of 1779 by an American force under General Benjamin Lincoln. In December of that year Sir Henry Clinton embarked from New York with 8000 British troops and proceeded to invest Charleston by land. He entrenched himself west of the city between the Cooper and Ashley rivers, which bound it north and south, and thus hemmed Lincoln in a cul-de-sac. The latter made the mistake of attempting to defend the city with an inferior force. Delays had occurred in the British operations and Clinton was not prepared to summon the Americans to surrender until the 10th of April 1780. Lincoln refused, and Clinton advanced his trenches to the third parallel, rendering his enemy’s works untenable. On the 12th of May Lincoln capitulated. About 2000 American Continentals were made prisoners, and an equal number of militia and armed citizens. This success was regarded by the British as an offset against the loss of Burgoyne’s army in 1777, and Charleston at once became the base of active operations in the Carolinas, which Clinton left Cornwallis to conduct. Thenceforward Charleston was under military rule until evacuated by the British on the 14th of December 1782.

The bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter (garrisoned by Federal troops) by the South Carolinians, on the 12th and 13th of April 1861, marked the actual beginning of the American Civil War. From 1862 onwards Charleston was more or less under siege by the Federal naval and military forces until 1865. The Confederates repulsed a naval attack made by the Federals under Admiral S.F. Du Pont in April 1863, and a land attack under General Q.A. Gillmore in June of the same year. They were compelled to evacuate the city on the 17th of February 1865, after having burned a considerable amount of cotton and other supplies to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. After the Civil War the wealth and the population steadily increased, in spite of the destruction wrought by the earthquake of 31st August 1886 (see Earthquake). In that catastrophe 27 persons were killed, many more were injured and died subsequently, 90% of the buildings were injured, and property to the value of more than $5,000,000 was destroyed. The South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition, held here from the 1st of December 1901 to the 1st of June 1902, called the attention of investors to the resources of the city and state, but was not successful financially, and Congress appropriated $160,000 to make good the deficit.

Much information concerning Charleston may be obtained in A.S. Salley’s A Guide and Historical Sketch of Charleston (Charleston, 1903), and in Mrs St Julien Ravenel’s Charleston; The Place and the People (New York, 1906). The best history of Charleston is William A. Courtenay’s Charleston, S.C.: The Centennial of Incorporation (Charleston, 1884). There is also a good sketch by Yates Snowden in L.P. Powell’s Historic Towns of the Southern States (New York, 1900). For the earthquake see the account by Carl McKinley in the Charleston Year-Book for 1886. See also South Carolina.

1 At an early date cotton became an important article in Charleston’s commerce; some was shipped so early as 1747. At the outbreak of the Civil War Charleston was one of the three most important cotton-shipping ports in the United States, being exceeded in importance only by New Orleans and New York.

2 The special census of 1905 dealt only with the factory product, that of 1905 ($6,007,094) showing an increase of 5.1% over that of 1900 ($5,713,315). In 1905 the (factory) fertilizer product of Charleston was $1,291,859, which represented more than 35% of the (factory) fertilizer product of the whole state.

CHARLESTON, the capital of West Virginia, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Kanawha county, situated near the centre of the state, on the N. bank of the Kanawha river, at the mouth of the Elk river, about 200 m. E. of Cincinnati, Ohio, and about 130 m. S.W. of Wheeling. Pop. (1890) 6742; (1900) 11,099, of whom 1787 were negroes, and 353 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 22,996. It is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Toledo & Ohio Central, the Coal & Coke, and the Kanawha & West Virginia (39 m. to Blakeley) railways, and by several river transportation lines on the Kanawha river (navigable throughout the year by means of movable locks) connecting with Ohio and Mississippi river ports. The city is attractively built on high level land, above the river; in addition to a fine customs house, court house and high school, it contains the West Virginia state capitol, erected in 1880. The libraries include the state law library, with 14,000 volumes in 1908, and the library of the state Department of Archives and History, with about 11,000 volumes. Charleston is in the midst of a region rich in bituminous coal, the shipment of which by river and rail constitutes one of its principal industries. Oil wells in the vicinity also furnish an important product for export, and there are iron and salt mines near. An ample supply of natural gas is utilized by its manufacturing establishments; and among its manufactures are axes, lumber, foundry and machine shop products, furniture, boilers, woollen goods, glass and chemical fire-engines. The value of the city’s factory products increased from $1,261,815 in 1900 to $2,728,074 in 1905, or 116.2%, a greater rate of increase than that of any other city (with 8000 or more inhabitants) in the state during this period. The first permanent white settlement at Charleston was made soon after the close of the War of Independence; it was one of the places through which the streams of immigrants entered the Ohio Valley, and it became of considerable importance as a centre of transfer and shipment, but it was not until the development of the coal-mining region that it became industrially important. Charleston was incorporated in 1794, and was chartered as a city in 1870. Since the latter year it has been the seat of government of West Virginia, with the exception of the decade 1875-1885, when Wheeling was the capital.

CHARLESTOWN, formerly a separate city of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., but since 1874 a part of the city of Boston, with which it had long before been in many respects practically one. It is situated on a small peninsula on Boston harbour, between the mouths of the Mystic and Charles rivers; the first bridge across the Charles, built in 1786, connected Charlestown and Boston. A United States navy yard (1800), occupying about 87 acres, and the Massachusetts state prison (1805) are here; the old burying-ground contains the grave of John Harvard and that of Thomas Beecher, the first American member of the famous Beecher family; and there is a soldiers’ and sailors’ monument (1872), designed by Martin Milmore. Charlestown was founded in 1628 or 1629, being the oldest part of Boston, and soon rose into importance; it was organized as a township in 1630, and was chartered as a city in 1847. Within its limits was fought, on the 17th of June 1775, the battle of Bunker Hill (q.v.), when Charlestown was almost completely destroyed by the British. The Bunker Hill Monument commemorates the battle; and the navy yard at Moulton’s Point was the landing-place of the attacking British troops. Little was done toward the rebuilding of Charlestown until 1783. The original territory of the township was very large, and from parts of it were formed Woburn (1642), Malden (1649), Stoneham (1725), and Somerville (1842); other parts were annexed to Cambridge, to Medford and to Arlington. S.F.B. Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, was born here; and Charlestown was the birthplace and home of Nathaniel Gorham (1738-1796), a member of the Continental Congress in 1782-1783 and 1785-1787, and its president in 1786; and was the home of Loammi Baldwin (1780-1838), a well-known civil engineer; of Samuel Dexter (1761-1816), an eminent lawyer, secretary of war and for a short time secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of President John Adams; and of Oliver Holden (1765-1831), a composer of hymn-tunes, including “Coronation.”

See R. Frothingham, History of Charlestown (Boston, 1845), covering 1629-1775; J.F. Hunnewell, A Century of Town Life ... 1775-1887 (Boston, 1888); and Timothy T. Sawyer, Old Charlestown (1902).

CHARLET, NICOLAS TOUSSAINT (1792-1845), French designer and painter, more especially of military subjects, was born in Paris on the 20th of December 1792. He was the son of a dragoon in the Republican army, whose death in the ranks left the widow and orphan in very poor circumstances. Madame Charlet, however, a woman of determined spirit and an extreme Napoleonist, managed to give her boy a moderate education at the Lycée Napoléon, and was repaid by his lifelong affection. His first employment was in a Parisian mairie, where he had to register recruits: he served in the National Guard in 1814, fought bravely at the Barrière de Clichy, and, being thus unacceptable to the Bourbon party, was dismissed from the mairie in 1816. He then, having from a very early age had a propensity for drawing, entered the atelier of the distinguished painter Baron Gros, and soon began issuing the first of those lithographed designs which eventually brought him renown. His “Grenadier de Waterloo,” 1817, with the motto “La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas” (a famous phrase frequently attributed to Cambronne, but which he never uttered, and which cannot, perhaps, be traced farther than to this lithograph by Charlet), was particularly popular. It was only towards 1822, however, that he began to be successful in a professional sense. Lithographs (about 2000 altogether), water-colours, sepia-drawings, numerous oil sketches, and a few etchings followed one another rapidly; there were also three exhibited oil pictures, the first of which was especially admired—“Episode in the Campaign of Russia” (1836), the “Passage of the Rhine by Moreau” (1837), “Wounded Soldiers Halting in a Ravine” (1843). Besides the military subjects in which he peculiarly delighted, and which found an energetic response in the popular heart, and kept alive a feeling of regret for the recent past of the French nation and discontent with the present,—a feeling which increased upon the artist himself towards the close of his career,—Charlet designed many subjects of town life and peasant life, the ways of children, &c., with much wit and whim in the descriptive mottoes. One of the most famous sets is the “Vie civile, politique, et militaire du Caporal Valentin,” 50 lithographs, dating from 1838 to 1842. In 1838 his health began to fail owing to an affection of the chest. He died in Paris on the 30th of October 1845. Charlet was an uncommonly tall man, with an expressive face, bantering and good natured; his character corresponded, full of boyish fun and high spirits, with manly independence, and a vein of religious feeling, and he was a hearty favourite among his intimates, one of whom was the painter Géricault. Charlet married in 1824, and two sons survived him.

A life of Charlet was published in 1856 by a military friend, De la Combe.

(W. M. R.)

CHARLEVILLE, a town of north-eastern France, in the department of Ardennes, 151 m. N.E. of Paris on the Eastern railway. Pop. (1906) 19,693. Charleville is situated within a bend of the Meuse on its left bank, opposite Mézières, with which it is united by a suspension bridge. The town was founded in 1606 by Charles III. (Gonzaga), duke of Nevers, afterwards duke of Mantua, and is laid out on a uniform plan. Its central and most interesting portion is the Place Ducale, a large square surrounded by old houses with high-pitched roofs, the porches being arranged so as to form a continuous arcade; in the centre there is a fountain surmounted by a statue of the duke Charles. A handsome church in the Romanesque style and the other public buildings date from the 19th century. An old mill, standing on the bank of the river, dates from the early years of the town’s existence. On the right bank of the Meuse is Mont Olympe, with the ruins of a fortress dismantled under Louis XIV. Charleville, which shares with Mézières the administrative institutions of the department of Ardennes, has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators and lycées and training colleges for both sexes. Its chief industries are metal-founding and the manufacture of nails, anvils, tools and other iron goods, and brush-making; leather-working and sugar-refining, and the making of bricks and clay pipes are also carried on.

CHARLEVOIX, PIERRE FRANÇOIS XAVIER DE (1682-1761), French Jesuit traveller and historian, was born at St Quentin on the 29th of October 1682. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus; and at the age of twenty-three was sent to Canada, where he remained for four years as professor at Quebec. He then returned and became professor of belles lettres at home, and travelled on the errands of his society in various countries. In 1720-1722, under orders from the regent, he visited America for the second time, and went along the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi. In later years (1733-1755) he was one of the directors of the Journal de Trévoux. He died at La Flèche on the 1st of February 1761. His works, enumerated in the Bibliographie des Prèrs de la Compagnie de Jesus (by Carlos Sommervogel), fall into two groups. The first contains his Histoire de l’établissement, du progrès et de la décadence du Christianisme dans l’empire du Japon (Rouen, 1715; English trans. History of the Church of Japan, 1715), and his Histoire et description générale du Japon (1736), a compilation chiefly from Kämpfer. The second group includes his historical work on America: Histoire de l’Isle Espagnole ou de Saint Domingue (1730), based on manuscript memoirs of P. Jean-Baptiste Le Pers and original sources; Histoire de Paraguay (1756); Vie de la Mère Marie de l’Incarnation, institutrice et première supérieure des Urselines de la Nouvelle-France (1724); Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France (1744; in English 1769; tr. J.G. Shea, 1866-1872), a work of capital importance for Canadian history.

CHARLEVOIX, a village and the county-seat of Charlevoix county, Michigan, U.S.A., 16 m. E.S.E. of Petoskey, on Lake Michigan and Pine Lake, which are connected by Pine river and Round Lake. Pop. (1890) 1496; (1900) 2079; (1904) 2395; (1910) 2420. It is on the main line of the Père Marquette railway, and during the summer season is served by lake steamers. The village is best known as a summer resort; it is built on bluffs and on a series of terraces rising from Round and Pine lakes and affording extensive views; and there are a number of attractive summer residences. Charlevoix is an important hardwood lumber port, and the principal industries are the manufacture of lumber and of cement; fishing (especially for lake trout and white fish); the raising of sugar beets; and the manufacture of rustic and fancy wood-work. Charlevoix was settled about 1866, and was incorporated as a village in 1879.

CHARLOTTE, a city and the county-seat of Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, U.S.A., situated on Sugar Creek, in the south-west part of the state, about 175 m. south-west of Raleigh. Pop. (1890) 11,557; (1900) 18,091, of whom 7151 were negroes; (1910 census) 34,014. It is served by the Seaboard Air Line and the Southern railways. Among the public buildings are a fine city hall, court-house, Federal and Young Men’s Christian Association buildings, and a Carnegie library; several hospitals: St Peter’s (Episcopal) for whites, Good Samaritan (Episcopal) for negroes, Mercy General (Roman Catholic) and a Presbyterian. The city is the seat of Elizabeth College and Conservatory of Music (1897), a non-sectarian institution for women, of the Presbyterian College for women, and of Biddle University (Presbyterian) for negroes, established in 1867. There is a United States assay office, established as a branch mint in 1837, during the days of North Carolina’s great importance as a gold producing state, and closed from 1861 to 1869. The city has large cotton, clothing, and knitting mills, and manufactories of cotton-seed oil, tools, machinery, fertilizers and furniture. The total value of its factory products was $4,849,630 in 1905. There are large electric power plants in and near the city. Printing and publishing are of some importance: Charlotte is the publication headquarters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; and several textile trade journals and two medical periodicals are published here. The water-works are owned by the municipality. Charlotte was settled about 1750 and was incorporated in 1768. Here in May 1775 was adopted the “Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence” (see North Carolina), and in honour of its signers there is a monument in front of the court-house. Charlotte was occupied in September 1780 by Cornwallis, who left it after learning of the battle of King’s Mountain, and subsequently it became the principal base and rendezvous of General Greene.

CHARLOTTENBURG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Spree, lying immediately west of Berlin, of which it forms practically the entire western suburb. The earlier name of the town was Lietzenburg. Pop. (1890) 76,859; (1900) 189,290; (1905) 237,231. It is governed by a council of 94 members. The central part of the town is connected with Berlin by a magnificent avenue, the Charlottenburger Chaussee, which runs from the Brandenburger Tor through the whole length of the Tiergarten. Although retaining its own municipal government, Charlottenburg, together with the adjacent suburban towns of Schoneberg and Rixdorf, was included in 1900 in the police district of the capital. The Schloss, built in 1696 for the electress Sophie Charlotte, queen of the elector Frederick, afterwards King Frederick I., after whom the town was named, contains a collection of antiquities and paintings. In the grounds stands a granite mausoleum, the work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, with beautiful white marble recumbent statues of Frederick William III. and his queen Louise by Christian Daniel Rauch, and also those of the emperor William I. and the empress Augusta by Erdmann Encke. It was in the Schloss that the emperor Frederick III. took over the reins of government in 1888, and here he resided for nearly the whole of his three months’ reign. The town contains an equestrian statue of Frederick. Of public buildings, the famous technical academy and the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church are referred to in the article Berlin. In Charlottenburg is the Physikalisch-technische Reichsanstalt, a state institution for the carrying out of scientific experiments and measurements, and for testing instruments of precision, materials, &c. It was established in 1886 with money provided by Ernst Werner Siemens. In addition to the famous royal porcelain manufactory, Charlottenburg has many flourishing industries, notably iron-works grouped along the banks of the Spree. Its main thoroughfares are laid out on a spacious plan, while there are many quiet streets containing pretty villas. See F. Schultz, Chronik von Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg, 1888).

CHARLOTTESVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Albemarle county, Virginia, U.S.A., picturesquely situated on the Rivanna river, 96 m. (by rail) N.W. of Richmond in the beautiful Piedmont region. Pop. (1890) 5591; (1900) 6449 (2613 being negroes); (1910) 6765. The city is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Southern railways, and is best known as the seat of the University of Virginia (q.v.), which was founded by Thomas Jefferson. Here are also the Rawlings Institute for girls, founded as the Albemarle Female Institute in 1857, and a University school. Monticello, Jefferson’s home, is still standing about 2 m. south-east of the city on a fine hill, called Little Mountain until Jefferson Italianised the name. The south pavilion of the present house is the original brick building, one and a half storeys high, first occupied by Jefferson in 1770. He was buried near the house, which was sold by his daughter some years after his death. George Rogers Clark was born near Monticello. Charlottesville is a trade centre for the surrounding country; among its manufactures are woollen goods, overalls, agricultural implements and cigars and tobacco. The city owns its water-supply system and owns and operates its gas plant; an electric plant, privately owned, lights the streets and many houses. The site of the city was a part of the Castle Hill estate of Thomas Walker (1715-1794), an intimate friend of George Washington. The act establishing the town of Charlottesville was passed by the Assembly of Virginia in November 1762, when the name Charlottesville (in honour of Queen Charlotte, wife of George III.) first appeared. In 1779-1780 about 4000 of Burgoyne’s troops, surrendered under the “Convention” of Saratoga, were quartered here; in October 1780 part of them were sent to Lancaster, Pa., and later the rest were sent north. In June 1781 Tarleton raided Charlottesville and the vicinity, nearly captured Thomas Jefferson, and destroyed the public records and some arms and ammunition. In 1888 Charlottesville was chartered as a city administratively independent of the county.

CHARLOTTETOWN, a city of Canada, the capital of Prince Edward Island, situated in Queen’s county, on Hillsborough river. Pop. (1901) 12,080. It has a good harbour, and the river is navigable by large vessels for several miles. The export trade of the island centres here, and the city has regular communication by steamer with the chief American and Canadian ports. Besides the government buildings and the court-house, it contains numerous churches, the Prince of Wales College, supported by the province, the Roman Catholic college of St Dunstan’s and a normal school; among its manufactures are woollen goods, lumber, canned goods, and foundry products. The head office and workshops of the Prince Edward Island railway are situated here. The town was founded in 1750 by the French under the name of Port la Joie, but under British rule changed its name in honour of the queen of George III.

CHARM (through the Fr. from the Lat. carmen, a song), an incantation, verses sung with supposed magical results, hence anything possessing powers of bringing good luck or averting evil, particularly articles worn with that purpose, such as an amulet. It is thus used of small trinkets attached to bracelets or chains. The word is also used, figuratively, of fascinating qualities of feature, voice or character.

CHARNAY, (CLAUDE JOSEPH) DÉSIRÉ (1828- ), French traveller and archaeologist, was born in Fleurie (Rhône), on the 2nd of May 1828. He studied at the Lycée Charlemagne, in 1850 became a teacher in New Orleans, Louisiana, and there became acquainted with John Lloyd Stephens’s books of travel in Yucatan. He travelled in Mexico, under a commission from the French ministry of education, in 1857-1861; in Madagascar in 1863; in South America, particularly Chile and Argentina, in 1875; and in Java and Australia in 1878. In 1880-1883 he again visited the ruined cities of Mexico. Pierre Lorillard of New York contributed to defray the expense of this expedition, and Charnay named a great ruined city near the Guatemalan boundary line Ville Lorillard in his honour. Charnay went to Yucatan in 1886. The more important of his publications are Le Mexique, souvenirs et impressions de voyage (1863), being his personal report on the expedition of 1857-61, of which the official report is to be found in Viollet-le-Duc’s Cités et ruines americaines: Mitla, Palenqué, Izamal, Chichen-Itza, Uxmal (1863), vol. 19 of Recueil des voyages et des documents; Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde (1885; English translation, The Ancient Cities of the New World, 1887, by Mmes. Gonino and Conant); a romance, Une Princesse indienne avant la conquête (1888); À travers les forêts vierges (1890); and Manuscrit Ramirez: Histoire de I’origine des Indiens qui habitent la Nouvelle Espagne selon leurs traditions (1903). He translated Cortez’s letters into French, under the title Lettres de Fernand Cortes à Charles-quint sur la découverte et la conquête du Mexique (1896). He elaborated a theory of Toltec migrations and considered the prehistoric Mexican to be of Asiatic origin, because of observed similarities to Japanese architecture, Chinese decoration, Malaysian language and Cambodian dress, &c.

CHARNEL HOUSE (Med. Lat. carnarium), a place for depositing the bones which might be thrown up in digging graves. Sometimes, as at Gloucester, Hythe and Ripon, it was a portion of the crypt; sometimes, as at Old St Paul’s and Worcester (both now destroyed), it was a separate building in the churchyard; sometimes chantry chapels were attached to these buildings. Viollet-le-Duc has given two very curious examples of such ossuaires (as the French call them)—one from Fleurance (Gers), the other from Faouët (Finistère).

CHARNOCK, JOB (d. 1693), English founder of Calcutta, went out to India in 1655 or 1656, apparently not in the East India Company’s service, but soon joined it. He was stationed at Cossimbazar, and subsequently at Patna. In 1685 he became chief agent at Hugli. Being besieged there by the Mogul viceroy of Bengal, he put the company’s goods and servants on board his light vessels and dropped down the river 27 m. to the village of Sutanati, a place well chosen for the purpose of defence, which occupied the site of what is now Calcutta. It was only, however, at the third attempt that Charnock finally settled down at this spot, and the selection of the future capital of India was entirely due to his stubborn resolution. He was a silent morose man, not popular among his contemporaries, but “always a faithfull Man to the Company.” He is said to have married a Hindu widow.

CHARNOCK (or Chernock), ROBERT (c.1663-1696), English conspirator, belonged to a Warwickshire family, and was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, becoming a fellow of his college and a Roman Catholic priest. When in 1687 the dispute arose between James II. and the fellows of Magdalen over the election of a president Charnock favoured the first royal nominee, Anthony Farmer, and also the succeeding one, Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford. Almost alone among the fellows he was not driven out in November 1687, and he became dean and then vice-president of the college under the new regime, but was expelled in October 1688. Residing at the court of the Stuarts in France, or conspiring in England, Charnock and Sir George Barclay appear to have arranged the details of the unsuccessful attempt to kill William III. near Turnham Green in February 1696, Barclay escaped, but Charnock was arrested, was tried and found guilty, and was hanged on the 18th of March 1696.

CHARNOCKITE, a series of foliated igneous rocks of wide distribution and great importance in India, Ceylon, Madagascar and Africa. The name was given by Dr T.H. Holland from the fact that the tombstone of Job Charnock, the founder of Calcutta, is made of a block of this rock. The charnockite series includes rocks of many different types, some being acid and rich in quartz and microcline, others basic and full of pyroxene and olivine, while there are also intermediate varieties corresponding mineralogically to norites, quartz-norites and diorites. A special feature, recurring in many members of the group, is the presence of strongly pleochroic, reddish or green hypersthene. Many of the minerals of these rocks are “schillerized,” as they contain minute platy or rod-shaped enclosures, disposed parallel to certain crystallographic planes or axes. The reflection of light from the surfaces of these enclosures gives the minerals often a peculiar appearance, e.g. the quartz is blue and opalescent, the felspar has a milky shimmer like moonshine, the hypersthene has a bronzy metalloidal gleam. Very often the different rock types occur in close association as one set forms bands alternating with another set, or veins traversing it, and where one facies appears the others also usually are found. The term charnockite consequently is not the name of a rock, but of an assemblage of rock types, connected in their origin because arising by differentiation of the same parent magma. The banded structure which these rocks commonly present in the field is only in a small measure due to crushing, but is to a large extent original, and has been produced by fluxion in a viscous crystallizing intrusive magma, together with differentiation or segregation of the mass into bands of different chemical and mineralogical composition. There have also been, of course, earth movements acting on the solid rock at a later time and injection of dikes both parallel to and across the primary foliation. In fact, the history of the structures of the charnockite series is the history of the most primitive gneisses in all parts of the world, for which we cannot pretend to have as yet any thoroughly satisfactory explanations to offer. A striking fact is the very wide distribution of rocks of this group in the southern hemisphere; but they also, or rocks very similar to them, occur in Norway, France, Germany, Scotland and North America, though in these countries they have been mostly described as pyroxene granulites, pyroxene gneisses, anorthosites, &c. They are usually regarded as being of Archean age (pre-Cambrian), and in most cases this can be definitely proved, though not in all. It is astonishing to find that in spite of their great age their minerals are often in excellent preservation. In India they form the Nilgiri Hills, the Shevaroys and part of the Western Ghats, extending southward to Cape Comorin and reappearing in Ceylon. Although they are certainly for the most part igneous gneisses (or orthogneisses), rocks occur along with them, such as marbles, scapolite limestones, and corundum rocks, which were probably of sedimentary origin.

(J. S. F.)

CHARNWOOD FOREST, an upland tract in the N.-W. of Leicestershire, England. It is undulating, rocky, picturesque, and in great part barren, though there are some extensive tracts of woodland; its elevation is generally 600 ft. and upwards, the area exceeding this height being about 6100 acres. The loftiest point, Bardon Hill, is 912 ft. On its western flank lies a coalfield, with Coalville and other mining towns, and granite and hone-stones are worked.

CHAROLLES, a town of east-central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Saône-et-Loire, situated at the confluence of the Semence and the Arconce, 39 m. W.N.W. of Mâcon on the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) 3228. It has a sub-prefecture, tribunals of primary instance and commerce, and a communal college. There are stone quarries in the vicinity; the town manufactures pottery, and is the centre for trade in the famous breed of Charolais cattle and in agricultural products. The ruins of the castle of the counts of Charolais occupy the summit of a hill in the immediate vicinity of the town. Charolles was the capital of Charolais, an old division of France, which from the early 14th century gave the title of count to its possessors. In 1327 the countship passed by marriage to the house of Armagnac, and in 1390 it was sold to Philip of Burgundy. After the death of Charles the Bold, who in his youth had borne the title of count of Charolais, it was seized by Louis XI. of France, but in 1493 it was ceded by Charles VIII. to Maximilian of Austria, the representative of the Burgundian family. Ultimately passing to the Spanish kings, it became for a considerable period an object of dispute between France and Spain, until at length in 1684 it was assigned to the great Condé, a creditor of the king of Spain. It was united to the French crown in 1771.

CHARON, in Greek mythology, the son of Erebus and Nyx (Night). It was his duty to ferry over the Styx (or Acheron) those souls of the deceased who had duly received the rites of burial, in payment for which service he received an obol, which was placed in the mouth of the corpse. It was only exceptionally that he carried living passengers (Aeneid, vi. 295 ff). As ferryman of the dead he is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod, and in this character is probably of Egyptian origin. He is represented as a morose and grisly old man in a black sailor’s cape. By the Etruscans he was also supposed to be a kind of executioner of the powers of the nether world, who, armed with an enormous hammer, was associated with Mars in the slaughter of battle. Finally he came to be regarded as the image of death and the world below. As such he survives in the Charos or Charontas of the modern Greeks—a black bird which darts down upon its prey, or a winged horseman who fastens his victims to the saddle and bears them away to the realms of the dead.

See J.A. Ambrosch, De Charonte Etrusco (1837), a learned and exhaustive monograph; B. Schmidt, Volksleben der Neugriechen (1871), i. 222-251; O. Waser, Charon, Charun, Charos, mythologisch-archaologische Monographie (1898); S. Rocco, “Sull’ origine del Mito di Caronte,” in Rivista di storia antica, ii. (1897), who considers Charon to be an old name for the sun-god Helios embarking during the night for the East.

CHARONDAS, a celebrated lawgiver of Catina in Sicily. His date is uncertain. Some make him a pupil of Pythagoras (c. 580-504 B.C.); but all that can be said is that he was earlier than Anaxilaus of Rhegium (494-476), since his laws were in use amongst the Rhegians until they were abolished by that tyrant. His laws, originally written in verse, were adopted by the other Chalcidic colonies in Sicily and Italy. According to Aristotle there was nothing special about these laws, except that Charondas introduced actions for perjury; but he speaks highly of the precision with which they were drawn up (Politics, ii. 12). The story that Charondas killed himself because he entered the public assembly wearing a sword, which was a violation of his own law, is also told of Diocles and Zaleucus (Diod. Sic. xii. 11-19). The fragments of laws attributed to him by Stobaeus and Diodorus are of late (neo-Pythagorean) origin.

See Bentley, On Phalaris, which (according to B. Niese s.v. in Pauly, Realencyclopadie) contains what is even now the best account of Charondas; A. Holm, Geschichte Siciliens, i.; F.D. Gerlach, Zaleukos, Charondas, und Pythagoras (1858); also art. Greek Law.

CHARPENTIER, FRANÇOIS (1620-1702), French archaeologist and man of letters, was born in Paris on the 15th of February 1620. He was intended for the bar, but was employed by Colbert, who had determined on the foundation of a French East India Company, to draw up an explanatory account of the project for Louis XIV. Charpentier regarded as absurd the use of Latin in monumental inscriptions, and to him was entrusted the task of supplying the paintings of Lebrun in the Versailles Gallery with appropriate legends. His verses were so indifferent that they had to be replaced by others, the work of Racine and Boileau, both enemies of his. Charpentier in his Excellence de la langue française (1683) had anticipated Perrault in the famous academical dispute concerning the relative merit of the ancients and moderns. He is credited with a share in the production of the magnificent series of medals that commemorate the principal events of the age of Louis XIV. Charpentier, who was long in receipt of a pension of 1200 livres from Colbert, was erudite and ingenious, but he was always heavy and commonplace. His other works include a Vie de Socrate (1650), a translation of the Cyropaedia of Xenophon (1658), and the Traité de la peinture parlante (1684).

CHARRIÈRE, AGNÈS ISABELLE ÉMILIE DE (1740-1805), Swiss author, was Dutch by birth, her maiden name being van Tuyll van Seeroskerken van Zuylen. She married in 1771 her brother’s tutor, M. de Charrière, and settled with him at Colombier, near Lausanne. She made her name by the publication of her Lettres neuchâteloises (Amsterdam, 1784), offering a simple and attractive picture of French manners. This, with Caliste, ou lettres écrites de Lausanne (2 vols. Geneva, 1785-1788), was analysed and highly praised by Sainte-Beuve in his Portraits de femmes and in vol. in of his Portraits littéraires. She wrote a number of other novels, and some political tracts; but is perhaps best remembered by her liaison with Benjamin Constant between 1787 and 1796.

Her letters to Constant were printed in the Revue suisse (April 1844), her Lettres-Mémoires by E.H. Gaullieur in the same review in 1857, and all the available material is utilized in a monograph on her and her work by P. Godet, Madame de Charrière et ses amis (2 vols., Geneva, 1906).

CHARRON, PIERRE (1541-1603), French philosopher, born in Paris, was one of the twenty-five children of a bookseller. After studying law he practised at Paris as an advocate, but, having met with no great success, entered the church, and soon gained the highest popularity as a preacher, rising to the dignity of canon, and being appointed preacher in ordinary to Marguerite, wife of Henry IV. of Navarre. About 1588, he determined to fulfil a vow which he had once made to enter a cloister; but being rejected by the Carthusians and the Celestines, he held himself absolved, and continued to follow his old profession. He delivered a course of sermons at Angers, and in the next year passed to Bordeaux, where he formed a famous friendship with Montaigne. At the death of Montaigne, in 1592, Charron was requested in his will to bear the Montaigne arms.

In 1594 Charron published (at first anonymously, afterwards under the name of “Benoit Vaillant, Advocate of the Holy Faith,” and also, in 1594, in his own name) Les Trois Verités, in which by methodical and orthodox arguments, he seeks to prove that there is a God and a true religion, that the true religion is the Christian, and that the true church is the Roman Catholic. The last book (which is three-fourths of the whole work) is chiefly an answer to the famous Protestant work entitled Le Traité de l’Église by Du Plessis Mornay; and in the second edition (1595) there is an elaborate reply to an attack made on the third Vérité by a Protestant writer. Les Trois Vérités ran through several editions, and obtained for its author the favour of the bishop of Cahors, who appointed him grand vicar and theological canon. It also led to his being chosen deputy to the general assembly of the clergy, of which body he became chief secretary. It was followed in 1600 by Discours chrestiens, a book of sermons, similar in tone, half of which treat of the Eucharist. In 1601 Charron published at Bordeaux his third and most remarkable work—the famous De la sagesse, a complete popular system of moral philosophy. Usually, and so far correctly, it is coupled with the Essays of Montaigne, to which the author is under very extensive obligations. There is, however, distinct individuality in the book. It is specially interesting from the time when it appeared, and the man by whom it was written. Conspicuous as a champion of orthodoxy against atheists, Jews and Protestants—without resigning this position, and still upholding practical orthodoxy—Charron suddenly stood forth as the representative of the most complete intellectual scepticism. The De la sagesse, which represented a considerable advance on the standpoint of the Trois Vérités, brought upon its author the most violent attacks, the chief being by the Jesuit François Garasse (1585-1631), who described him as a “brutal atheist.” It received, however, the warm support of Henry IV. and of the president Pierre Jeannin (1540-1622). A second edition was soon called for. In 1603, notwithstanding much opposition, it began to appear; but only a few pages had been printed when Charron died suddenly in the street of apoplexy. His death was regarded as a judgment for his impiety.

Charron’s psychology is sensationalist. With sense all our knowledge commences, and into sense all may be resolved. The soul, located in the ventricles of the brain, is affected by the temperament of the individual; the dry temperament produces acute intelligence; the moist, memory; the hot, imagination. Dividing the intelligent soul into these three faculties, he shows—after the manner which Francis Bacon subsequently adopted—what branches of science correspond with each. With regard to the nature of the soul he merely quotes opinions. The belief in its immortality, he says, is the most universal of beliefs, but the most feebly supported by reason. As to man’s power of attaining truth his scepticism is decided; and he plainly declares that none of our faculties enable us to distinguish truth from error. In comparing man with the lower animals, Charron insists that there are no breaks in nature. The latter have reason; nay, they have virtue; and, though inferior in some respects, in others they are superior. The estimate formed of man is not, indeed, flattering. His most essential qualities are vanity, weakness, inconstancy, presumption. Upon this view of human nature and the human lot Charron founds his moral system. Equally sceptical with Montaigne, and decidedly more cynical, he is distinguished by a deeper and sterner tone. Man comes into the world to endure; let him endure then, and that in silence. Our compassion should be like that of God, who succours the suffering without sharing in their pain. Avoid vulgar errors; cherish universal sympathy. Let no passion or attachment become too powerful for restraint. Follow the customs and laws which surround you. Morality has no connexion with religion. Reason is the ultimate criterion.

Special interest attaches to Charron’s treatment of religion. He insists on the diversities in religions; he dwells also on what would indicate a common origin. All grow from small beginnings and increase by a sort of popular contagion; all teach that God is to be appeased by prayers, presents, vows, but especially, and most irrationally, by human suffering. Each is said by its devotees to have been given by inspiration. In fact, however, a man is a Christian, Jew, or Mahommedan, before he knows he is a man. One religion is built upon another. But while he openly declares religion to be “strange to common sense,” the practical result at which Charron arrives is that one is not to sit in judgment on his faith, but to be “simple and obedient,” and to allow himself to be led by public authority. This is one rule of wisdom with regard to religion; and another equally important is to avoid superstition, which he boldly defines as the belief that God is like a hard judge who, eager to find fault, narrowly examines our slightest act, that He is revengeful and hard to appease, and that therefore He must be flattered and importuned, and won over by pain and sacrifice. True piety, which is the first of duties, is, on the other hand, the knowledge of God and of one’s self, the latter knowledge being necessary to the former. It is the abasing of man, the exalting of God,—the belief that what He sends is all good, and that all the bad is from ourselves. It leads to spiritual worship; for external ceremony is merely for our advantage, not for His glory. Charron is thus the founder of modern secularism. His political views are neither original nor independent. He pours much hackneyed scorn on the common herd, declares the sovereign to be the source of law, and asserts that popular freedom is dangerous.

A summary and defence of the Sagesse, written shortly before his death, appeared in 1606. In 1604 his friend Michel de la Rochemaillet prefixed to an edition of the Sagesse a Life, which depicts Charron as a most amiable man of purest character. His complete works, with this Life, were published in 1635. An excellent abridgment of the Sagesse is given in Tennemann’s Philosophie, vol. ix.; an edition with notes by A. Duval appeared in 1820.

See Liebscher, Charron u. sein Werk, De la sagesse (Leipzig, 1890); H.T. Buckle, Introd. to History of Civilization in England, vol. ii. 19; Abbé Lezat, De la prédication sous Henri IV. c. vi.; J.M. Robertson, Short History of Free Thought (London, 1906), vol. ii. p. 19; J. Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance (1893); Lecky, Rationalism in Europe (1865).

CHARRUA, a tribe of South American Indians, wild and warlike, formerly ranging over Uruguay and part of S. Brazil. They were dark and heavily built, fought on horses and used the bolas or weighted lasso. They were always at war with the Spaniards, and Juan Diaz de Solis was killed by them in 1516. As a tribe they are now almost extinct, but the modern Gauchos of Uruguay have much Charrua blood in them.

CHART (from Lat. carta, charta, a map). A chart is a marine map intended specially for the use of seamen (for history, see Map), though the word is also used loosely for other varieties of graphical representation. The marine or nautical chart is constructed for the purpose of ascertaining the position of a ship with reference to the land, of finding the direction in which she has to steer, the distance to sail or steam, and the hidden dangers to avoid. The surface of the sea on charts is studded with numerous small figures. These are known as the soundings, indicating in fathoms or in feet (as shown upon the title of the chart), at low water of ordinary spring tides, the least depth of water through which the ship may be sailing. Charts show the nature of the unseen bottom of the sea—with the irregularities in its character in the shape of hidden rocks or sand-banks, and give information of the greatest importance to the mariner. No matter how well the land maybe surveyed or finely delineated, unless the soundings are shown a chart is of little use.

The British admiralty charts are compiled, drawn and issued by the hydrographic office. This department of the admiralty was established under Earl Spencer by an order in council in 1795, consisting of the hydrographer, one assistant and a draughtsman. The first hydrographer was Alexander Dalrymple, a gentleman in the East India Company’s civil service. From this small beginning arose the important department which is now the main source of the supply of hydrographical information to the whole of the maritime world. The charts prepared by the officers and draughtsmen of the hydrographic office, and published by order of the lords commissioners of the admiralty, are compiled chiefly from the labours of British naval officers employed in the surveying service; and also from valuable contributions received from time to time from officers of the royal navy and mercantile marine. In addition to the work of British sailors, the labours of other nations have been collected and utilized. Charts of the coasts of Europe have naturally been taken from the surveys made by the various nations, and in charts of other quarters of the world considerable assistance has been received from the labours of French, Spanish, Dutch and American surveyors. Important work is done by the Hydrographic Office of the American navy, and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The admiralty charts are published with the view of meeting the wants of the sailor in all parts of the world. They may be classed under five heads, viz. ocean, general, and coast charts, harbour plans and physical charts; for instance, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, approaches to Plymouth, Plymouth Sound and wind and current charts. The harbour plans and coast sheets are constructed on the simple principles of plane trigonometry by the surveying officers. (See Surveying: Nautical.) That important feature, the depth of the sea, is obtained by the ordinary sounding line or wire; all soundings are reduced to low water of ordinary spring tides. The times and heights of the tides, with the direction and velocity of the tidal streams, are also ascertained. These MS. charts are forwarded to the admiralty, and form the foundation of the hydrography of the world. The ocean and general charts are compiled and drawn at the hydrographic office, and as originals, existing charts, latest surveys and maps, have to be consulted, their compilation requires considerable experience and is a painstaking work, for the compiler has to decide what to omit, what to insert, and to arrange the necessary names in such a manner that while full information is given, the features of the coast are not interfered with. As a very slight error in the position of a light or buoy, dot, cross or figure, might lead to grave disaster, every symbol on the admiralty chart has been delineated with great care and consideration, and no pains are spared in the effort to lay before the public the labours of the nautical surveyors and explorers not only of England, but of the maritime world; reducing their various styles into a comprehensive system furnishing the intelligent seaman with an intelligible guide, which common industry will soon enable him to appreciate and take full advantage of.

As certain abbreviations are used in the charts, attention is called to the “signs and abbreviations adopted in the charts published by the admiralty.” Certain parts of the world are still unsurveyed, or not surveyed in sufficient detail for the requirements that steamships now demand. Charts of these localities are therefore drawn in a light hair-line and unfinished manner, so that the experienced seaman sees at a glance that less trust is to be reposed upon charts drawn in this manner. The charts given to the public are only correct up to the time of their actual publication. They have to be kept up to date. Recent publications by foreign governments, newly reported dangers, changes in character or position of lights and buoys, are as soon as practicable inserted on the charts and due notice given of such insertions in the admiralty “Notices to Mariners.”

The charts are supplemented by the Admiralty Pilots, or books of sailing directions, with tide tables, and lists of lighthouses, light vessels, &c., for the coasts to which a ship may be bound. The physical charts are the continuation of the work so ably begun by Maury of the United States and FitzRoy of the British navy, and give the sailor a good general idea of the world’s ocean winds and currents at the different periods of the year; the probable tracks and seasons of the tropical revolving or cyclonic storms; the coastal winds; the extent or months of the rainy seasons; localities and times where ice may be fallen in with; and, lastly, the direction and force of the stream and drift currents of the oceans.

(T. A. H.)

CHARTER (Lat. charta, carta, from Gr. χάρτης, originally for papyrus, material for writing, thence transferred to paper and from this material to the document, in O. Eng. boc, book), a written instrument, contract or convention by which cessions of sales of property or of rights and privileges are confirmed and held, and which may be produced by the grantees in proof of lawful possession. The use of the word for any written document is obsolete in England, but is preserved in France, e.g. the École des Chartes at Paris. In feudal times charters of privileges were granted, not only by the crown, but by mesne lords both lay and ecclesiastical, as well to communities, such as boroughs, gilds and religious foundations, as to individuals. In modern usage grants by charter have become all but obsolete, though in England this form is still used in the incorporation by the crown of such societies as the British Academy.

The grant of the Great Charter by King John in 1215 (see Magna Carta), which guaranteed the preservation of English liberties, led to a special association of the word with constitutional privileges, and so in modern times it has been applied to constitutions granted by sovereigns to their subjects, in contradistinction to those based on “the will of the people.” Such was the Charter (Charte) granted by Louis XVIII. to France in 1814. In Portugal the constitution granted by Dom Pedro in 1826 was called by the French party the “Charter,” while that devised by the Cortes in 1821 was known as the “Constitution.” Magna Carta also suggested to the English radicals in 1838 the name “People’s Charter,” which they gave to their published programme of reforms (see Chartism). This association of the idea of liberty with the word charter led to its figurative use in the sense of freedom or licence. This is, however, rare; the most common use being in the phrase “chartered libertine” (Shakespeare, Henry V. Act i. Sc. 1) from the derivative verb “to charter,” e.g. to grant a charter. The common colloquialism “to charter,” in the sense of to take, or hire, is derived from the special use of “to charter” as to hire (a ship) by charter-party.

CHARTERED COMPANIES. A chartered company is a trading corporation enjoying certain rights and privileges, and bound by certain obligations under a special charter granted to it by the sovereign authority of the state, such charter defining and limiting those rights, privileges and obligations, and the localities in which they are to be exercised. Such companies existed in early times, but have undergone changes and modifications in accordance with the developments which have taken place in the economic history of the states where they have existed. In Great Britain the first trading charters were granted, not to English companies, which were then non-existent, but to branches of the Hanseatic League (q.v.), and it was not till 1597 that England was finally relieved from the presence of a foreign chartered company. In that year Queen Elizabeth closed the steel-yard where Teutons had been established for 700 years.

The origin of all English trading companies is to be sought in the Merchants of the Staple. They lingered on into the 18th century, but only as a name, for their business was solely to export English products which, as English manufactures grew, were wanted at home. Of all early English chartered companies, the “Merchant Adventurers” conducted its operations the most widely. Itself a development of very early trading gilds, at the height of its prosperity it employed as many as 50,000 persons in the Netherlands, and the enormous influence it was able to exercise undoubtedly saved Antwerp from the institution of the Inquisition within its walls in the time of Charles V. In the reign of Elizabeth British trade with the Netherlands reached in one year 12,000,000 ducats, and in that of James I. the company’s yearly commerce with Germany and the Netherlands was as much as £1,000,000. Hamburg afterwards was its principal depot, and it became known as the “Hamburg Company.” In the “Merchant Adventurers’” enterprises is to be seen the germ of the trading companies which had so remarkable a development in the 16th and 17th centuries. These old regulated trade gilds passed gradually into joint-stock associations, which were capable of far greater extension, both as to the number of members and amount of stock, each member being only accountable for the amount of his own stock, and being able to transfer it at will to any other person.

It was in the age of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts that the chartered company, in the modern sense of the term, had its rise. The discovery of the New World, and the opening out of fresh trading routes to the Indies, gave an extraordinary impulse to shipping, commerce and industrial enterprise throughout western Europe. The English, French and Dutch governments were ready to assist trade by the granting of charters to trading associations. It is to the “Russia Company,” which received its first charter in 1554, that Great Britain owed its first intercourse with an empire then almost unknown. The first recorded instance of a purely chartered company annexing territory is to be found in the action of this company in setting up a cross at Spitzbergen in 1613 with King James’s arms upon it. Among other associations trading to the continent of Europe, receiving charters at this time, were the Turkey Company (Levant Co.) and the Eastland Company. Both the Russia and Turkey Companies had an important effect upon British relations with those empires. They maintained British influence in those countries, and even paid the expenses of the embassies which were sent out by the English government to their courts. The Russia Company carried on a large trade with Persia through Russian territory; but from various causes their business gradually declined, though the Turkey Company existed in name until 1825.

The chartered companies which were formed during this period for trade with the Indies and the New World have had a more wide-reaching influence in history. The extraordinary career of the East India Company (q.v.) is dealt with elsewhere.

Charters were given to companies trading to Guinea, Morocco, Guiana and the Canaries, but none of these enjoyed a very long or prosperous existence, principally owing to the difficulties caused by foreign competition. It is when we turn to North America that the importance of the chartered company, as a colonizing rather than a trading agency, is seen in its full development. The “Hudson’s Bay Company,” which still exists as a commercial concern, is dealt with under its own heading, but most of the thirteen British North American colonies were in their inception chartered companies very much in the modern acceptation of the term. The history of these companies will be found under the heading of the different colonies of which they were the origin. It is necessary, however, to bear in mind that two classes of charters are to be found in force among the early American colonies: (1) Those granted to trading associations, which were often useful when the colony was first founded, but which formed a serious obstacle to its progress when the country had become settled and was looking forward to commercial expansion; the existence of these charters then often led to serious conflicts between the grantees of the charter and the colonies; ultimately elective assemblies everywhere superseded control of trading companies. (2) The second class of charters were those granted to the settlers themselves, to protect them against the oppressions of the crown and the provincial governors. These were highly prized by the colonists.

In France and Holland, no less than in England, the institution of chartered companies became a settled principle of the governments of those countries during the whole of the period in question. In France from 1599 to 1789, more than 70 of such companies came into existence, but after 1770, when the great Compagnie des Indes orientales went into liquidation, they were almost abandoned, and finally perished in the general sweeping away of privileges which followed on the outbreak of the Revolution.

If we inquire into the economic ideas which induced the granting of charters to these earlier companies and animated their promoters, we shall find that they were entirely consistent with the general principles of government at the time and what were then held to be sound commercial views. Under the old régime everything was a matter of monopoly and privilege, and to this state of things the constitution of the old companies corresponded, the sovereign rights accorded to them being also quite in accordance with the views of the time. It would have been thought impossible then that private individuals could have found the funds or maintained the magnitude of such enterprises. It was only this necessity which induced statesmen like Colbert to countenance them, and Montesquieu took the same view (Esprit des lois, t. xx. c. 10). John de Witt’s view was that such companies were not useful for colonization properly so called, because they want quick returns to pay their dividends. So, even in France and Holland, opinion was by no means settled as to their utility. In England historic protests were made against such monopolies, but the chartered companies were less exclusive in England than in either France or Holland, the governors of provinces almost always allowing strangers to trade on receiving some pecuniary inducement. French commercial companies were more privileged, exclusive and artificial than those in Holland and England. Those of Holland may be said to have been national enterprises. French companies rested more than did their rivals on false principles; they were more fettered by the royal power, and had less initiative of their own, and therefore had less chance of surviving. As an example of the kind of rules which prevented the growth of the French companies, it may be pointed out that no Protestants were allowed to take part in them. State subventions, rather than commerce or colonization, were often their object; but that has been a characteristic of French colonial enterprise at all times.

Such companies, however, under the old commercial system could hardly have come into existence without exclusive privileges. Their existence might have been prolonged had the whole people in time been allowed the chance of participating in them.

To sum up the causes of failure of the old chartered companies, they are to be attributed to (1) bad administration; (2) want of capital and credit; (3) bad economic organization; (4) distribution of dividends made prematurely or fictitiously. But those survived the longest which extended the most widely their privileges to outsiders. According to contemporary protests, they had a most injurious effect on the commerce of the countries where they had their rise. They were monopolies, and therefore, of course, obnoxious; and it is undoubted that the colonies they founded only became prosperous when they had escaped from their yoke.

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that they contributed in no small degree to the commercial progress of their own states. They gave colonies to the mother country, and an impulse to the development of its fleet. In the case of England and Holland, the enterprise of the companies saved them from suffering from the monopolies of Spain and Portugal, and the wars of the English, and those of the Dutch in the Indies with Spain and Portugal, were paid for by the companies. They furnished the mother country with luxuries which, by the 18th century, had become necessaries. They offered a career for the younger sons of good families, and sometimes greatly assisted large and useful enterprises.

During the last twenty years of the 19th century there was a great revival of the system of chartered companies in Great Britain. It is a feature of the general growth of interest in colonial expansion and commercial development which has made itself felt almost universally among European nations. Great Britain, however, alone has succeeded in establishing such companies as have materially contributed to the growth of her empire. These companies succeed or fail for reasons different from those which affected the chartered companies of former days, though there are points in common. Apart from causes inherent in the particular case of each company, which necessitates their being examined separately, recent experience leads us to lay down certain general principles regarding them. The modern companies are not like those of the 16th and 17th centuries. They are not privileged in the sense that those companies were. They are not monopolists; they have only a limited sovereignty, always being subject to the control of the home government. It is true that they have certain advantages given them, for without these advantages no capital would risk itself in the lands where they carry on their operations. They often have very heavy corresponding obligations, as will be seen in the case of one (the East Africa) where the obligations were too onerous for the company to discharge, though they were inseparable from its position. The charters of modern companies differ in two points strongly from those of the old: they contain clauses prohibiting any monopoly of trade, and they generally confer some special political rights directly under the control of the secretary of state. The political freedom of the old companies was much greater. In these charters state control has been made a distinguishing feature. It is to be exercised in almost all directions in which the companies may come into contact with matters political. Of course, it is inevitable in all disputes of the companies with foreign powers, and is extended over all decrees of the company regarding the administration of its territories, the taxation of natives, and mining regulations. In all cases of dispute between the companies and the natives the secretary of state is ex officio the judge, and to the secretary of state (in the case of the South Africa Company) the accounts of administration have to be submitted for his approbation. It is deserving of notice that the British character of the company is insisted upon in each case in the charter which calls it into life. The crown always retains complete control over the company by reserving to itself the power of revoking the charter in case of the neglect of its stipulations. Special clauses were inserted in the charters of the British East Africa and South Africa Companies enabling the government to forfeit their charters if they did not promote the objects alleged as reasons for demanding a charter. This bound them still more strongly; and in the case of the South Africa Company the duration of the charter was fixed at twenty-five years.

The chartered company of these days is therefore very strongly fixed within limits imposed by law on its political action. As a whole, however, very remarkable results have been achieved. This may be attributed in no small degree to the personality of the men who have had the supreme direction at home and abroad, and who have, by their social position and personal qualities, acquired the confidence of the public. With the exception of the Royal Niger Company, it would be incorrect to say that they have been financially successful, but in the domain of government generally it may be said that they have added vast territories to the British empire (in Africa about 1,700,000 sq. m.), and in these territories they have acted as a civilizing force. They have made roads, opened facilities for trade, enforced peace, and laid at all events the foundation of settled administration. It is not too much to say that they have often acted unselfishly for the benefit of the mother country and even humanity. We may instance the anti-slavery and anti-alcohol campaigns which have been carried on, the latter certainly being against the immediate pecuniary interests of the companies themselves. It must, of course, be recognized that to a certain extent this has been done under the influence of the home government. The occupation of Uganda certainly, and of the Nigerian territory and Rhodesia probably, will prove to have been rather for the benefit of posterity than of the companies which effected it. In the two cases where the companies have been bought out by the state, they have had no compensation for much that they have expended. In fact, it would have been impossible to take into account actual expenditure day by day, and the cost of wars. To use the expression of Sir William Mackinnon, the shareholders have been compelled in some cases to “take out their dividends in philanthropy.”

The existence of such companies to-day is justified in certain political and economic conditions only. It may be highly desirable for the government to occupy certain territories, but political exigencies at home will not permit it to incur the expenditure, or international relations may make such an undertaking inexpedient at the time. In such a case the formation of a chartered company may be the best way out of the difficulty. But it has been demonstrated again and again that, directly, the company’s interests begin to clash with those of foreign powers, the home government must assume a protectorate over its territories in order to simplify the situation and save perhaps disastrous collisions. So long as the political relations of such a company are with savages or semi-savages, it may be left free to act, but directly it becomes involved with a civilized power the state has (if it wishes to retain the territory) to acquire by purchase the political rights of the company, and it is obviously much easier to induce a popular assembly to grant money for the purpose of maintaining rights already existing than to acquire new ones. With the strict system of government supervision enforced by modern charters it is not easy for the state to be involved against its will in foreign complications. Economically such companies are also justifiable up to a certain point. When there is no other means of entering into commercial relations with remote and savage races save by enterprise of such magnitude that private individuals could not incur the risk involved, then a company may be well entrusted with special privileges for the purpose, as an inventor is accorded a certain protection by law by means of a patent which enables him to bring out his invention at a profit if there is anything in it. But such privileges should not be continued longer than is necessary for the purpose of reasonably recompensing the adventurers. A successful company, even when it has lost monopoly or privileges, has, by its command of capital and general resources, established so strong a position that private individuals or new companies can rarely compete with it successfully. That this is so is clearly shown in the case of the Hudson’s Bay Company as at present constituted. In colonizing new lands these companies often act successfully. They have proved more potent than the direct action of governments. This may be seen in Africa, where France and England have of late acquired vast areas, but have developed them with very different results, acting from the opposite principles of private and state promotion of colonization. Apart from national characteristics, the individual has far more to gain under the British system of private enterprise. A strong point in favour of some of the British companies has been that their undertakings have been practically extensions of existing British colonies rather than entirely isolated ventures. But a chartered company can never be anything but a transition stage of colonization; sooner or later the state must take the lead. A company may act beneficially so long as a country is undeveloped, but as soon as it becomes even semi-civilized its conflicts with private interests become so frequent and serious that its authority has to make way for that of the central government.

The companies which have been formed in France during recent years do not yet afford material for profitable study, for they have been subject to so much vexatious interference from home owing to lack of a fixed system of control sanctioned by government, that they have not been able, like the British, to develop along their own lines.

See also Borneo; Nigeria; Brit. East Africa; Rhodesia; &c. The following works deal with the subject of chartered companies generally: Bonnassieux, Les Grandes Compagnies de commerce (Paris, 1892); Chailly-Bert, Les Compagnies de colonisation sous l’ancien régime (Paris, 1898); Cawston and Keane, The Early Chartered Companies (London, 1896); W. Cunningham, A History of British Industry and Commerce (Cambridge, 1890, 1892); Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy (London, 1897); J. Scott Keltie, The Partition of Africa (London, 1895); Leroy-Beaulieu, De la colonisation chez les peuples modernes (Paris, 1898); Les Nouvelles Sociétés anglo-saxonnes (Paris, 1897); MacDonald, Select Charters illustrative of American History, 1606-1775 (New York, 1899); B.P. Poore, Federal and State Constitutions, &c (Washington, 1877; a more complete collection of American colonial charters); H.L. Osgood, American Colonies in the 17th Cent. (1904-7); Carton de Wiart, Les Grandes Compagnies coloniales anglaises au 19me siècle (Paris, 1899). Also see articles “Compagnies de Charte,” “Colonies,” “Privilege,” in Nouveau Dictionnaire d’économie politique (Paris, 1892); and article “Companies, Chartered,” in Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England, edited by A. Wood Renton (London, 1907-1909).

(W. B. Du.)

CHARTERHOUSE. This name is an English corruption of the French maison chartreuse, a religious house of the Carthusian order. As such it occurs not uncommonly in England, in various places (e.g. Charterhouse-on-Mendip, Charterhouse Hinton) where the Carthusians were established. It is most familiar, however, in its application to the Charterhouse, London. On a site near the old city wall, west of the modern thoroughfare of Aldersgate, a Carthusian monastery was founded in 1371 by Sir Walter de Manny, a knight of French birth. After its dissolution in 1535 the property passed through various hands. In 1558, while in the possession of Lord North, it was occupied by Queen Elizabeth during the preparations for her coronation, and James I. held court here on his first entrance into London. The Charterhouse was then in the hands of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, but in May 1611 it came into those of Thomas Sutton (1532-1611) of Snaith, Lincolnshire. He acquired a fortune by the discovery of coal on two estates which he had leased near Newcastle-on-Tyne, and afterwards, removing to London, he carried on a commercial career. In the year of his death, which took place on the 12th of December 1611, he endowed a hospital on the site of the Charterhouse, calling it the hospital of King James; and in his will he bequeathed moneys to maintain a chapel, hospital (almshouse) and school. The will was hotly contested but upheld in court, and the foundation was finally constituted to afford a home for eighty male pensioners (“gentlemen by descent and in poverty, soldiers that have borne arms by sea or land, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, or servants in household to the King or Queen’s Majesty”), and to educate forty boys. The school developed beyond the original intentions of its founder, and now ranks among the most eminent public schools in England. In 1872 it was removed, during the headmastership (1863-1897) of the Rev. William Haig-Brown (d. 1907), to new buildings near Godalming in Surrey, which were opened on the 18th of June in that year. The number of foundation scholarships is increased to sixty. The scholars are not now distinguished by wearing a special dress or by forming a separate house, though one house is known as Gownboys, preserving the former title of the scholars. The land on which the old school buildings stood in London was sold for new buildings to accommodate the Merchant Taylors’ school, but the pensioners still occupy their picturesque home, themselves picturesque figures in the black gowns designed for them under the foundation. The buildings, of mellowed red brick, include a panelled chapel, in which is the founder’s tomb, a fine dining-hall, governors’ room with ornate ceiling and tapestried walls, the old library, and the beautiful great staircase.

CHARTER-PARTY (Lat. charta partita, a legal paper or instrument, “divided,” i.e. written in duplicate so that each party retains half), a written, or partly written and partly printed, contract between merchant and shipowner, by which a ship is let or hired for the conveyance of goods on a specified voyage, or for a definite period. (See Affreightment.)

CHARTERS TOWERS, a mining town of Devonport county, Queensland, Australia, 82 m. by rail S.W. of Townsville and 820 m. direct N.N.W. of Brisbane. It is the centre of an important gold-field, the reefs of which improve at the lower depths, the deepest shaft on the field being 2558 ft. below the surface-level. The gold is of a very fine quality. An abundant water-supply is obtained from the Burdekin river, some 8 m. distant. The population of the town in 1901 was 5523; but within a 5 m. radius it was 20,976. Charters Towers became a municipality in 1877.

CHARTIER, ALAIN (c. 1392-c. 1430), French poet and political writer, was born at Bayeux about 1392. Chartier belonged to a family marked by considerable ability. His eldest brother Guillaume became bishop of Paris; and Thomas became notary to the king. Jean Chartier, a monk of St Denis, whose history of Charles VII. is printed in vol. iii. of Les Grands Chroniques de Saint-Denis (1477), was not, as is sometimes stated, also a brother of the poet Alain studied, as his elder brother had done, at the university of Paris. His earliest poem is the Livre des quatre dames, written after the battle of Agincourt. This was followed by the Débat du réveille-matin, La Belle Dame sans merci, and others. None of these poems show any very patriotic feeling, though Chartier’s prose is evidence that he was not indifferent to the misfortunes of his country. He followed the fortunes of the dauphin, afterwards Charles VII., acting in the triple capacity of clerk, notary and financial secretary. In 1422 he wrote the famous Quadrilogue-invectif. The interlocutors in this dialogue are France herself and the three orders of the state. Chartier lays bare the abuses of the feudal army and the sufferings of the peasants. He rendered an immense service to his country by maintaining that the cause of France, though desperate to all appearance, was not yet lost if the contending factions could lay aside their differences in the face of the common enemy. In 1424 Chartier was sent on an embassy to Germany, and three years later he accompanied to Scotland the mission sent to negotiate the marriage of Margaret of Scotland, then not four years old, with the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. In 1429 he wrote the Livre d’espérance, which contains a fierce attack on the nobility and clergy. He was the author of a diatribe on the courtiers of Charles VII. entitled Le Curial, translated into English (Here foloweth the copy of a lettre whyche maistre A. Charetier wrote to his brother) by Caxton about 1484. The date of his death is to be placed about 1430. A Latin epitaph, discovered in the 18th century, says, however, that he was archdeacon of Paris, and declares that he died in the city of Avignon in 1449. This is obviously not authentic, for Alain described himself as a simple clerc and certainly died long before 1449. The story of the famous kiss bestowed by Margaret of Scotland on la précieuse bouche de laquelle sont issus et sortis tant de bons mots et vertueuses paroles is mythical, for Margaret did not come to France till 1436, after the poet’s death; but the story, first told by Guillaume Bouchet in his Annales d’Aquitaine (1524), is interesting, if only as a proof of the high degree of estimation in which the ugliest man of his day was held. Jean de Masles, who annotated a portion of his verse, has recorded how the pages and young gentlemen of that epoch were required daily to learn by heart passages of his Bréviaire des nobles. John Lydgate studied him affectionately. His Belle Dame sans merci was translated into English by Sir Richard Ros about 1640, with an introduction of his own; and Clément Marot and Octavien de Saint-Gelais, writing fifty years after his death, find many fair words for the old poet, their master and predecessor.

See Mancel, Alain Chartier, étude bibliographique et littéraire, 8vo (Paris, 1849); D. Delaunay’s Étude sur Alain Chartier (1876), with considerable extracts from his writings. His works were edited by A. Duchesne (Paris, 1617). On Jean Chartier see Vallet de Viriville, “Essais critiques sur les historiens originaux du règne de Charles VIII,” in the Bibl. de l’École des Chartes (July-August 1857).

CHARTISM, the name given to a movement for political reform in England, from the so-called “People’s Charter” or “National Charter,” the document in which in 1838 the scheme of reforms was embodied. The movement itself may be traced to the latter years of the 18th century. Checked for a while by the reaction due to the excesses of the French Revolution, it received a fresh impetus from the awful misery that followed the Napoleonic wars and the economic changes due to the introduction of machinery. The Six Acts of 1819 were directed, not only against agrarian and industrial rioting, but against the political movement of which Sir Francis Burdett was the spokesman in the House of Commons, which demanded manhood suffrage, the ballot, annual parliaments, the abolition of the property qualification for members of parliament and their payment. The movement was checked for a while by the Reform Bill of 1832; but it was soon discovered that, though the middle classes had been enfranchised, the economic and political grievances of the labouring population remained unredressed. Two separate movements now developed: one socialistic, associated with the name of Robert Owen; the other radical, aiming at the enfranchisement of the “masses” as the first step to the amelioration of their condition. The latter was represented in the Working Men’s Association, by which in 1838 the “People’s Charter” was drawn up. It embodied exactly the same programme as that of the radical reformers mentioned above, with the addition of a demand for equal electoral districts.

In support of this programme a vigorous agitation began, the principal leader of which was Feargus O’Connor, whose irresponsible and erratic oratory produced a vast effect. Monster meetings were held, at which seditious language was occasionally used, and slight collisions with the military took place. Petitions of enormous size, signed in great part with fictitious names, were presented to parliament; and a great many newspapers were started, of which the Northern Star, conducted by Feargus O’Connor, had a circulation of 50,000. In November 1839 a Chartist mob consisting of miners and others made an attack on Newport, Mon. The rising was a total failure; the leaders, John Frost and two others, were seized, were found guilty of high treason, and were condemned to death. The sentence, however, was changed to one of transportation, and Frost spent over fourteen years in Van Diemen’s Land. In 1854 he was pardoned, and from 1856 until his death on the 29th of July 1877 he lived in England. In 1840 the Chartist movement was still further organized by the inauguration at Manchester of the National Charter Association, which rapidly became powerful, being the head of about 400 sister societies, which are said to have numbered 40,000 members. Some time after, efforts were made towards a coalition with the more moderate radicals, but these failed; and a land scheme was started by O’Connor, which prospered for a few years. In 1844 the uncompromising spirit of some of the leaders was well illustrated by their hostile attitude towards the Anti-Corn-Law League. O’Connor, especially, entered into a public controversy with Cobden and Bright, in which he was worsted. But it was not till 1848, during a season of great suffering among the working classes, and under the influence of the revolution at Paris, that the real strength of the Chartist movement was discovered and the prevalent discontent became known. Early in March disturbances occurred in Glasgow which required the intervention of the military, while in the manufacturing districts all over the west of Scotland the operatives were ready to rise in the event of the main movement succeeding. Some agitation, too, took place in Edinburgh and in Manchester, but of a milder nature; in fact, while there was a real and widespread discontent, men were indisposed to resort to decided measures.

The principal scene of intended Chartist demonstration was London. An enormous gathering of half a million was announced for the 10th of April on Kennington Common, from which they were to march to the Houses of Parliament to present a petition signed by nearly six million names, in order by this imposing display of numbers to secure the enactment of the six points. Probably some of the more violent members of the party thought to imitate the Parisian mob by taking power entirely into their own hands. The announcement of the procession excited great alarm, and the most decided measures were taken by the authorities to prevent a rising. The procession was forbidden. The military were called out under the command of the duke of Wellington, and by him concealed near the bridges and other points where the procession might attempt to force its way. Even the Bank of England and other public buildings were put in a state of defence, and special constables, to the number, it is said, of 170,000, were enrolled, one of whom was destined shortly after to be the emperor of the French. After all these gigantic preparations on both sides the Chartist demonstration proved to be a very insignificant affair. Instead of half a million, only about 50,000 assembled on Kennington Common, and their leaders, Feargus O’Connor and Ernest Charles Jones, shrank from the responsibility of braving the authorities by conducting the procession to the Houses of Parliament. The monster petition was duly presented, and scrutinized, with the result that the number of signatures was found to have been grossly exaggerated, and that the most unheard-of falsification of names had been resorted to. Thereafter the movement specially called Chartism soon died out. It became merged, so far as its political programme is concerned, with the advancing radicalism of the general democratic movement.