CHALKING THE DOOR, a Scottish custom of landlord and tenant law. In former days the law was that “a burgh officer, in presence of witnesses, chalks the most patent door forty days before Whit Sunday, having made out an execution of ‘chalking,’ in which his name must be inserted, and which must be subscribed by himself and two witnesses.” This ceremony now proceeds simply on the verbal order of the proprietor. The execution of chalking is a warrant under which decree of removal will be pronounced by the burgh court, in virtue of which the tenant may be ejected on the expiration of a charge of six days.
CHALLAMEL, JEAN BAPTISTE MARIUS AUGUSTIN (1818-1894), French historian, was born in Paris on the 18th of March 1818. His writings consist chiefly of popular works, which enjoyed great success. The value of some of his books is enhanced by numerous illustrations, e.g. Histoire-museé de la Révolution française, which appeared in 50 numbers in 1841-1842 (3rd ed., in 72 numbers, 1857-1858); Histoire de la mode en France; la toilette des femmes depuis l’époque gallo-romaine jusqu’à nos jours (1874, with 12 plates; new ed., 1880, with 21 coloured plates). His Mémoires du peuple française (1865-1873) and La France et les Français a travers les siécles (1882) at least have the merit of being among the first books written on the social history of France. In this sense Challamel was a pioneer, of no great originality, it is true, but at any rate of fairly wide information. He died on the 20th of October 1894.
CHALLEMEL-LACOUR, PAUL AMAND (1827-1896), French statesman, was born at Avranches on the 19th of May 1827. After passing through the École Normale Supérieure he became professor of philosophy successively at Pau and at Limoges. The coup d’état of 1851 caused his expulsion from France for his republican opinions. He travelled on the continent, and in 1856 settled down as professor of French literature at the Polytechnic of Zürich. The amnesty of 1859 enabled him to return to France, but a projected course of lectures on history and art was immediately suppressed. He now supported himself by his pen, and became a regular contributor to the reviews. On the fall of the Second Empire in September 1870 the government of national defence appointed him prefect of the department of the Rhone, in which capacity he had to suppress the Communist rising at Lyons. Resigning his post on the 5th of February 1871, he was in January 1872 elected to the National Assembly, and in 1876 to the Senate. He sat at first on the Extreme Left; but his philosophic and critical temperament was not in harmony with the recklessness of French radicalism, and his attitude towards political questions underwent a steady modification, till the close of his life saw him the foremost representative of moderate republicanism. During Gambetta’s lifetime, however, Challemel-Lacour was one of his warmest supporters, and he was for a time editor of Gambetta’s organ, the République française. In 1879 he was appointed French ambassador at Bern, and in 1880 was transferred to London; but he lacked the suppleness and command of temper necessary to a successful diplomatist. He resigned in 1882, and in February 1883 became minister of foreign affairs in the Jules Ferry cabinet, but retired in November of the same year. In 1890 he was elected vice-president of the Senate, and in 1893 succeeded Jules Ferry as its president. His influence over that body was largely due to his clear and reasoned eloquence, which placed him at the head of contemporary French orators. In 1893 he also became a member of the French Academy. He distinguished himself by the vigour with which he upheld the Senate against the encroachments of the chamber, but in 1895 failing health forced him to resign, and he died in Paris on the 26th of October 1896. He published a translation of A. Heinrich Ritter’s Geschichte der Philosophie (1861); La Philosophie individualiste: étude sur Guillaume de Humboldt (1864); and an edition of the works of Madame d’Épinay (1869).
In 1897 appeared Joseph Reinach’s edition of the Œuvres oratoires de Challemel-Lacour.
CHALLENGE (O. Fr. chalonge, calenge, &c., from Lat. calumnia, originally meaning trickery, from calvi, to deceive, hence a false accusation, a “calumny”), originally a charge against a person or a claim to anything, a defiance. The term is now particularly used of an invitation to a trial of skill in any contest, or to a trial by combat as a vindication of personal honour (see [Duel]), and, in law, of the objection to the members of a jury allowed in a civil action or in a criminal trial (see [Jury]).
“CHALLENGER” EXPEDITION. The scientific results of several short expeditions between 1860 and 1870 encouraged the council of the Royal Society to approach the British government, on the suggestion of Sir George Richards, hydrographer to the admiralty, with a view to commissioning a vessel for a prolonged cruise for oceanic exploration. The government detailed H.M.S. “Challenger,” a wooden corvette of 2306 tons, for the purpose. Captain (afterwards Sir) George Nares was placed in command, with a naval crew; and a scientific staff was selected by the society with Professor (afterwards Sir) C. Wyville Thomson as director. The staff included Mr (afterwards Sir) John Murray and Mr H.N. Moseley, biologists; Dr von Willemoes-Suhm, Commander Tizard, and Mr J.Y. Buchanan, chemist and geologist. A complete scheme of instructions was drawn up by the society. The “Challenger” sailed from Portsmouth in December 1872. For nearly a year the work of the expedition lay in the Atlantic, which was crossed several times. Teneriffe, the Bermudas, the Azores, Madeira, the Cape Verd Islands, Bahia and Tristan da Cunha were successively visited, and in October 1873 the ship reached Cape Town. Steering then south-east and east she visited the various islands between 45° and 50° S., and reached Kerguelen Island in January 1874. She next proceeded southward about the meridian of 80° E. She was the first steamship to cross the Antarctic circle, but the attainment of a high southerly latitude was not an object of the voyage, and early in March the ship left the south polar regions and made for Melbourne. Extensive researches were now made in the Pacific. The route led by New Zealand, the Fiji Islands, Torres Strait, the Banda Sea, and the China Sea to Hong Kong. The western Pacific was then explored northward to Yokohama, after which the “Challenger” struck across the ocean by Honolulu and Tahiti to Valparaiso. She then coasted southward, penetrated the Straits of Magellan, touched at Montevideo, recrossed the Atlantic by Ascension and the Azores, and reached Sheerness in May 1876. This voyage is without parallel in the history of scientific research. The ”Challenger” Report was issued in fifty volumes (London, 1880-1895), mainly under the direction of Sir John Murray, who succeeded Wyville Thomson in this work in 1882. Specialists in every branch of science assisted in its production. The zoological collections alone formed the basis for the majority of the volumes; the deep-sea soundings and samples of the deposits, the chemical analysis of water samples, the meteorological, water-temperature, magnetic, geological, and botanical observations were fully worked out, and a summary of the scientific results, narrative of the cruise and indices were also provided.