BUSCH, WILHELM (1832-1908), German caricaturist, was born at Wiedensahl in Hanover. After studying at the academies of Düsseldorf, Antwerp and Munich, he joined in 1859 the staff of Fliegende Blätter, the leading German comic paper, and was, together with Oberländer, the founder of modern German caricature. His humorous drawings and caricatures are remarkable for the extreme simplicity and expressiveness of his pen-and-ink line, which record with a few rapid scrawls the most complicated contortions of the body and the most transitory movement. His humorous illustrated poems, such as Max und Moritz, Der heilige Antonius von Padua, Die Fromme Helene, Hans Huckebein and Die Erlebnisse Knopps des Junggesellen, play, in the German nursery, the same part that Edward Lear's nonsense verses do in England. The types created by him have become household words in his country. He invented the series of comic sketches illustrating a story in scenes without words, which have inspired Caran d'Ache and other leading caricaturists.
BÜSCHING, ANTON FRIEDRICH (1724-1793), German theologian and geographer, was born at Stadthagen in Schaumburg-Lippe, on the 27th of September 1724. In 1748 he was appointed tutor in the family of the count de Lynars, who was then going as ambassador to St Petersburg. On this journey he resolved to devote his life to the improvement of geographical science. Leaving the count's family, he went to reside at Copenhagen, and devoted himself entirely to this new pursuit. In 1752 he published his Description of the Counties of Schleswig and Holstein. In 1754 he removed to Göttingen, where in 1757 he was appointed professor of philosophy; but in 1761 he accepted an invitation to the German congregation at St Petersburg. There he organized a school which, under him, soon became one of the most flourishing in the north of Europe, but a disagreement with Marshal Münich led him, in spite of the empress's offers of high advancement, to return to central Europe in 1765. He first went to live at Altona; but next year he was called to superintend the famous "Greyfriars Gymnasium" (Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster), which had been formed at Berlin by Frederick the Great. He died of dropsy on the 28th of May 1793, having by writing and example given a new impulse to education throughout Prussia. While at Göttingen he married the poetess, Christiana Dilthey.
Büsching's works (on geography, history, education and religion) amount to more than a hundred. The first class comprehends those upon which his fame chiefly rests; for although he did not possess the genius of D'Anville, he may be regarded as the creator of modern Statistical Geography. His magnum opus is the Erdebeschreibung, in seven parts, of which the first four, comprehending Europe, were published in 1754-1761, and have been translated into several languages (e.g. into English with a preface by Murdoch, in six volumes, London, 1762). In 1768 the fifth part was published, being the first volume upon Asia, containing Asiatic Turkey and Arabia. It displays an immense extent of research, and is generally considered as his
masterpiece. Büsching was also the editor of a valuable collection entitled Magazin für d. neue Historie und Geographie (23 vols. 4to, 1767-1793); also of Wochentl. Nachrichten von neuen Landkarten (Berlin, 1773-1787). His works on education enjoyed great repute. In biography he wrote a number of articles for the above-mentioned Magazin, and a valuable collection of Beiträge zur Lebensgeschichte merkwürdiger Personen (6 vols., 1783-1789), including an elaborate life of Frederick the Great.
BUSENBAUM (or Busembaum), HERMANN (1600-1668), Jesuit theologian, was born at Nottelen in Westphalia. He attained fame as a master of casuistry, and out of his lectures to students at Cologne grew his celebrated book Medulla theologiae moralis, facili ac perspicua methodo resolvens casus conscientiae (1645). The manual obtained a wide popularity and passed through over two hundred editions before 1776. Pierre Lacroix added considerably to its bulk, and editions in two folio volumes appeared in both Germany (1710-1714) and France (1729). In these sections on murder and especially on regicide were much amplified, and in connexion with Damien's attempt on the life of Louis XV. the book was severely handled by the parlement of Paris. At Toulouse in 1757, though the offending sections were repudiated by the heads of the Jesuit colleges, the Medulla was publicly burned, and the episode undoubtedly led the way to the duc de Choiseul's attack on the society. Busenbaum also wrote a book on the ascetic life, Lilium inter spinas. He became rector of the Jesuit college at Hildesheim and then at Münster, where he died on the 31st of January 1668, being at the time father-confessor to Bishop Bernard of Galen.
BUSH. (1) (A word common to many European languages, meaning "a wood", cf. the Ger. Busch, Fr. bois, Ital. bosco and the med. Lat. boscus), a shrub or group of shrubs, especially of those plants whose branches grow low and thick. Collectively "the bush" is used in British colonies, particularly in Australasia and South Africa, for the tract of country covered with brushwood not yet cleared for cultivation. From the custom of hanging a bush as a sign outside a tavern comes the proverb "Good wine needs no bush." (2) (From a Teutonic word meaning "a box", cf. the Ger. Rad-büchse, a wheel box, and the termination of "blunderbuss" and "arquebus"; the derivation from the Fr. bouche, a mouth, is not correct), a lining frequently inserted in the bearings of machinery. When a shaft and the bearing in which it rotates are made of the same metal, the two surfaces are in certain cases apt to "seize" and abrade each other. To prevent this, bushes of some dissimilar metal are employed; thus a shaft of mild steel or wrought iron may be made to run in hard cast steel, cast iron, bronze or Babbitt metal. The last, having a low melting point, may be cast about the shaft for which it is to form a bearing.
BUSHBUCK (Boschbok,) the South African name of a medium-sized red antelope (q.v.), marked with white lines and spots, belonging to a local race of a widely spread species, Tragelaphus scriptus. The males alone have rather small, spirally twisted horns. There are several allied species, sometimes known as harnessed antelopes, which are of a larger size. Some of these such as the situtunga (T. spekei) have the hoofs elongated for walking on swampy ground, and hence have been separated as Limnotragus.
BUSHEL (from the O. Fr. boissiel, cf. med. L. bustellus, busellus, a little box), a dry measure of capacity, containing 8 gallons or 4 pecks. It has been in use for measuring corn, potatoes, &c., from a very early date; the value varying locally and with the article measured. The "imperial bushel", legally established in Great Britain in 1826, contains 2218.192 cub.in., or 80 lb of distilled water, determined at 62° F., with the barometer at 30 in. Previously, the standard bushel used was known as the "Winchester bushel", so named from the standard being kept in the town hall at Winchester; it contained 2150.42 cub. in. This standard is the basis of the bushel used in the United States and Canada; but other "bushels" for use in connexion with certain commodities have been legalized in different states.
BUSHIDO (Japanese for "military-knight-ways"), the unwritten code of laws governing the lives of the nobles of Japan, equivalent to the European chivalry. Its maxims have been orally handed down, together with a vast accumulation of traditional etiquette, the result of centuries of feudalism. Its inception is associated with the uprise of feudal institutions under Yoritomo, the first of the Shoguns, late in the 12th century, but bushido in an undeveloped form existed before then. The samurai or nobles of Japan entertained the highest respect for truth. "A bushi has no second word" was one of their mottoes. And their sense of honour was so high as to dictate suicide where it was offended.