CHANUTE, a city of Neosho county, Kansas, U.S.A., 1 m. from the Neosho river, and about 120 m. S.S.W. of Kansas city. Pop. (1890) 2826; (1900) 4208, of whom 210 were foreign-born and 171 were negroes; (1910 census) 9272. Chanute is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways, the former having large repair shops. The city is in the Kansas-Oklahoma oil and gas field, and is surrounded by a fine farming and dairying region, in which special attention is given to the raising of small fruit; oil, gas, cement rock and brick shale are found in the vicinity. Among the city’s manufactures are refined oil, Portland cement, vitrified brick and tile, glass, asphalt, ice, cigars, drilling machinery, and flour. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks, a natural gas plant, and an electric lighting plant. Four towns— New Chicago, Tioga, Chicago Junction and Alliance—were started here about the same time (1870). In 1872 they were consolidated, and the present name was adopted in honour of Octave Chanute (b. 1832), the civil engineer and aeronautist (see [Flight and Flying]), then the engineer of the Lawrence, Leavenworth & Galveston railway (now part of the Atchison system). Chanute was incorporated as a city of the third class in 1873, and its charter was revised in 1888. Natural gas and oil were found here in 1899, and Chanute became one of the leaders of the Kansas independent refineries in their contest with the Standard Oil Company.
CHANZY, ANTOINE EUGÈNE ALFRED (1823-1883), French general, was born at Nouart (Ardennes) on the 18th of March 1823. The son of a cavalry officer, he was educated at the naval school at Brest, but enlisted in the artillery, and, subsequently passing through St Cyr, was commissioned in the Zouaves in 1843. He saw a good deal of fighting in Algeria, and was promoted lieutenant in 1848, and captain in 1851. He became chef de bataillon in 1856, and served in the Lombardy campaign of 1859, being present at Magenta and Solferino. He took part in the Syrian campaign of 1860-61 as a lieutenant-colonel; and as colonel commanded the 48th regiment at Rome in 1864. He returned to Algeria as general of brigade, assisted to quell the Arab insurrection, and commanded the subdivisions of Bel Abbes and Tlemçen in 1868. Although he had acquired a good professional reputation, he was in bad odour at the war office on account of suspected contributions to the press, and at the outbreak of the Franco-German War he was curtly refused a brigade command. After the revolution, however, the government of national defence called him from Algeria, made him a general of division, and gave him command of the XVI. corps of the army of the Loire. (For the operations of the Orleans campaign which followed, see [Franco-German War].) The Loire army won the greatest success of the French during the whole war at Coulmiers, and followed this up with another victorious action at Patay; in both engagements General Chanzy’s corps took the most brilliant part. After the second battle of Orleans and the separation of the two wings of the French army, Chanzy was appointed to command that in the west, designated the second army of the Loire. His enemies, the grand duke of Mecklenburg, Prince Frederick Charles, and General von der Tann, all regarded Chanzy as their most formidable opponent. He displayed conspicuous moral courage and constancy, not less than technical skill, in the fighting from Beaugency to the Loire, in his retreat to Le Mans, and in retiring to Laval behind the Mayenne. As Gambetta was the soul, Chanzy was the strong right arm of French resistance to the invader. He was made a grand officer of the Legion of Honour, and was elected to the National Assembly. At the outbreak of the Commune, Chanzy, then at Paris, fell into the hands of the insurgents, by whom he was forced to give his parole not to serve against them. It was said that he would otherwise have been appointed instead of MacMahon to command the army of Versailles. A ransom of £40,000 was also paid by the government for him. In 1872 he became a member of the committee of defence and commander of the VII. army corps, and in 1873 was appointed governor of Algeria, where he remained for six years. In 1875 he was elected a life senator, in 1878 received the grand cross of the Legion of Honour, and in 1879, without his consent, was nominated for the presidency of the republic, receiving a third of the total votes. For two years he was ambassador at St Petersburg, during which time he received many tokens of respect, not only from the Russians, but also from the German emperor, William I., and Prince Bismarck. He died suddenly, while commanding the VI. army corps (stationed nearest to the German frontier), at Châlons-sur-Marne, on the 4th of January 1883, only a few days after Gambetta, and his remains received a state funeral. He was the author of La Deuxième Armée de la Loire (1872). Statues of General Chanzy have been erected at Nouart and Le Mans.
CHAOS, in the Hesiodic theogony, the infinite empty space, which existed before all things (Theog. 116, 123). It is not, however, a mere abstraction, being filled with clouds and darkness; from it proceed Erebus and Nyx (Night), whose children are Aether (upper air) and Hemera (Day). In the Orphic cosmogony the origin of all goes back to Chronos, the personification of time, who produces Aether and Chaos. In the Aristophanic parody (Birds, 691) the winged Eros in conjunction with gloomy Chaos brings forth the race of birds. The later Roman conception (Ovid, Metam. i. 7) makes Chaos the original undigested, amorphous mass, into which the architect of the world introduces order and harmony, and from which individual forms are created. In the created world (cosmos, order of the universe) the word has various meanings:—the universe; the space between heaven and earth; the under-world and its ruler. Metaphorically it is used for the immeasurable darkness, eternity, and the infinite generally. In modern usage “chaos” denotes a state of disorder and confusion.
CHAPBOOK (from the O. Eng. chap, to buy and sell), the comparatively modern name applied by booksellers and bibliophiles to the little stitched tracts written for the common people and formerly circulated in England, Scotland and the American colonies by itinerant dealers or chapmen, consisting chiefly of vulgarized versions of popular stories, such as Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, Mother Shipton, and Reynard the Fox—travels, biographies and religious treatises. Few of the older chapbooks exist. Samuel Pepys collected some of the best and had them bound into small quarto volumes, which he called Vulgaria; also four volumes of a smaller size, which he lettered Penny Witticisms, Penny Merriments, Penny Compliments and Penny Godlinesses. The early chapbooks were the direct descendants of the black-letter tracts of Wynkyn de Worde. It was in France that the printing-press first began to supply reading for the common people. At the end of the 15th century there was a large popular literature of farces, tales in verse and prose, satires, almanacs, &c., stitched together so as to contain a few leaves, and circulated by itinerant booksellers, known as colporteurs. Most early English chapbooks are adaptations or translations of these French originals, and were introduced into England early in the 16th century. The chapbooks of the 17th century present us with valuable illustrations of the manners of the time; one of the best known is that containing the story of Dick Whittington. Others which had a great vogue are Jack the Giant Killer, Little Red Riding Hood, and Mother Shipton. Those of the 18th century are far inferior in every way, both as regards the literature and the printing; and unfortunately it is these which form the bulk of what is now known to us in collections as chapbooks. They have never exercised any great influence in England nor received much attention, owing no doubt to their poor literary character. In France, on the other hand, their French equivalents have been the object of close and systematic study, and L’Histoire des livres populaires ou de la littérature du colportage by Charles Nisard (1854) goes deeply into the subject. Amongst English books may be mentioned Notices of Fugitive Tracts and Chapbooks, by J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps (1849); Chapbooks of the 18th Century, by John Ashton (1882), and some reprints by the Villon Society in 1885. The word “chapbook” has not been noticed earlier than 1824, when Dibdin, the celebrated bibliographer, described a work as being “a chapbook, printed in rather a neat black-letter.”
CHAPE (from the Fr. chape, a hood, cope or sheath), a cover or metal plate, such as the cap upon the needle in the compass, also the transverse guard of a sword which protects the hand. From the original meaning comes the use of the word as a support or catch to attach one thing to another, as the hook on a belt to which the sword is fastened. The word is also used for the tip of a fox’s brush.