THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME VI SLICE III
Chitral to Cincinnati

Articles in This Slice

CHITRAL, a native state in the North-West Frontier Province of India. The state of Chitral (see also [Hindu Kush]) is somewhat larger than Wales, and supports a population of about 35,000 rough, hardy hillmen. Previous estimates put the number far higher, but as the Mehtar assesses his fighting strength at 8000 only, this number is probably not far wrong. Both the state and its capital are called Chitral, the latter being situated about 47 m. from the main watershed of the range of the Hindu Kush, which divides the waters flowing down to India from those which take their way into the Oxus. Chitral is an important state because of its situation at the extremity of the country over which the government of India exerts its influence, and for some years before 1895 it had been the object of the policy of the government of India to control the external affairs of Chitral in a direction friendly to British interests, to secure an effective guardianship over its northern passes, and to keep watch over what goes on beyond these passes. This policy resulted in a British agency being established at Gilgit (Kashmir territory), with a subordinate agency in Chitral, the latter being usually stationed at Mastuj (65 m. nearer to Gilgit than the Chitral capital), and occasional visits being paid to the capital. Chitral can be reached either by the long circuitous route from Gilgit, involving 200 m. of hill roads and the passage of the Shandur pass (12,250 ft.), or (more directly) from the Peshawar frontier at Malakand by 100 m. of route through the independent territories of Swat and Bajour, involving the passage of the Lowarai (10,450 ft). It is held by a small force as a British outpost.

The district of Chitral is called Kashgar (or Kashkar) by the people of the country; and as it was under Chinese domination in the middle of the 18th century, and was regarded as a Buddhist centre of some importance by the Chinese pilgrims in the early centuries of our era, it is possible that it then existed as an outlying district of the Kashgar province of Chinese Turkestan, where Buddhism once flourished in cities that have been long since buried beneath the sand-waves of the Takla Makan. The aboriginal population of the Chitral valley is probably to be recognized in the people called Kho (speaking a language called Khowar), who form the majority of its inhabitants. Upon the Kho a people called Ronas have been superimposed. The Ronas, who form the chief caste and fighting race of the Chitral districts, originally came from the north, but they have adopted the language and fashions of the conquered Chitrali.

The town of Chitral (pop. in 1901, 8128), is chiefly famous for a siege which it sustained in the spring of 1895. Owing to complications arising from the demarcation of the boundary of Afghanistan which was being carried out at that time, and the ambitious projects of Umra Khan, chief of Jandol, which was a tool in the hands of Sher Afzul, a political refugee from Chitral supported by the amir at Kabul, the mehtar (or ruler) of Chitral was murdered, and a small British and Sikh garrison subsequently besieged in the fort. A large force of Afghan troops was at that time in the Chitral river valley to the south of Chitral, nominally holding the Kafirs in check during the progress of boundary demarcation. It is considered probable that some of them assisted the Chitralis in the siege. The position of the political agent Dr Robertson (afterwards Sir George Robertson) and his military force of 543 men (of whom 137 were non-combatants) was at one time critical. Two forces were organized for the relief. One was under Sir R. Low, with 15,000 men, who advanced by way of the Malakand pass, the Swat river and Dir. The other, which was the first to reach Chitral, was under Colonel Kelly, commanding the 32nd Pioneers, who was placed in command of all the troops in the Gilgit district, numbering about 600 all told, with two guns, and instructed to advance by the Shandur pass and Mastuj. This force encountered great difficulties owing to the deep snow on the pass (12,230 ft. high), but it easily defeated the Chitrali force opposed to it and relieved Chitral on the 20th of April, the siege having begun on the 4th of March. Sher Afzul, who had joined Umra Khan, surrendered, and eventually Chitral was restored to British political control as a dependency of Kashmir. During Lord Curzon’s vice-royalty the British troops were concentrated at the extreme southern end of the Chitral country at Kila Drosh and the force was reduced, while the posts vacated and all outlying posts were handed over to levies raised for the purpose from the Chitralis themselves. The troops in Swat were also concentrated at Chakdara and reduced in strength. The mehtar, Shuja-ul-Mulk, who was installed in September 1895, visited the Delhi durbar in January 1903.

See Sir George Robertson, Chitral (1898).

(T. H. H.*)

CHITTAGONG, a seaport of British India, giving its name to a district and two divisions of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It is situated on the right bank of the Karnaphuli river, about 12 m. from its mouth. It is the terminus of the Assam-Bengal railway. The municipal area covers about 9 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 22,140. The sea-borne exports consist chiefly of jute, other items being tea, raw cotton, rice and hides. There is also a large trade by country boats, bringing chiefly cotton, rice, spices, sugar and tobacco. Since October 1905 Chittagong has become the chief port of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.

The District of Chittagong is situated at the north-east corner of the province, occupying a strip of coast and hills between the sea and the mountains of Burma. Its area is 2492 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 1,353,250, showing an increase of 5% in the decade. A few unimportant ranges rise within the north-eastern portion, the highest hill being the sacred Sitakund, 1155 ft. high. The principal rivers are the Karnaphuli, on which Chittagong town is situated, navigable by sea-going ships as far as Chittagong port, and by large trading boats for a considerable distance higher up, and the Halda and the Sangu, which are also navigable by large boats. The wild animals are tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, leopards and deer. The climate is comparatively cool, owing to the sea breeze which prevails during the day; but for the same reason, the atmosphere is very moist, with heavy dews at night and fogs. Chittagong was ceded to the East India Company by Nawab Mir Kasim in 1760. The northern portion of the district is traversed by the Assam-Bengal railway. Tea cultivation is moderately successful.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts formed an independent district from 1860 to 1891, were then reduced to the status of a sub-division, but were again created a district in 1900. They occupy the ranges between Chittagong proper and the south Lushai hills. The area covers 5138 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 124,762, showing an increase of 16% in the decade. The inhabitants, who are either Arakanese or aboriginal tribes, are almost all Buddhists. The headquarters are at Rangamati, which was wrecked by the cyclone of October 1897.

The Division Of Chittagong lies at the north-east corner of the Bay of Bengal, extending northward along the left bank of the Meghna. It consists of the districts of Chittagong, the Hill Tracts, Noakhali and Tippera. Its area covers 11,773 sq. m.; the population in 1901 was 4,737,731.

CHITTUR, a town of British India, in the North Arcot district of Madras, with a station on the South Indian railway. Pop. (1901) 10,893. Formerly a military cantonment, it is now only the civil headquarters of the district. It has an English church, mission chapel, and Roman Catholic chapel, a high school, and several literary institutes.

CHITTY, SIR JOSEPH WILLIAM (1828-1899), English judge, was born in London. He was the second son of Thomas Chitty (himself son and brother of well-known lawyers), a celebrated special pleader and writer of legal text-books, in whose pupil-room many distinguished lawyers began their legal education. Joseph Chitty was educated at Eton and Balliol, Oxford, gaining a first-class in Literae Humaniores in 1851, and being afterwards elected to a fellowship at Exeter College. His principal distinctions during his school and college career had been earned in athletics, and he came to London as a man who had stroked the Oxford boat and captained the Oxford cricket eleven. He became a member of Lincoln’s Inn in 1851, was called to the bar in 1856, and made a queen’s counsel in 1874, electing to practise as such in the court in which Sir George Jessel, master of the rolls, presided. Chitty was highly successful in his method of dealing with a very masterful if exceedingly able judge, and soon his practice became very large. In 1880 he entered the house of commons as liberal member for Oxford (city). His parliamentary career was short, for in 1881 the Judicature Act required that the master of the rolls should cease to sit regularly as a judge of first instance, and Chitty was selected to fill the vacancy thus created in the chancery division. Sir Joseph Chitty was for sixteen years a popular judge, in the best meaning of the phrase, being noted for his courtesy, geniality, patience and scrupulous fairness, as well as for his legal attainments, and being much respected and liked by those practising before him, in spite of a habit of interrupting counsel, possibly acquired through the example of Sir George Jessel. In 1897, on the retirement of Sir Edward Kay, L.J., he was promoted to the court of appeal. There he more than sustained—in fact, he appreciably increased—his reputation as a lawyer and a judge, proving himself to possess considerable knowledge of the common law as well as of equity. He died in London on the 15th of February 1899. He married in 1858 Clara Jessie, daughter of Chief Baron Pollock, and left children who could thus claim descent from two of the best-known English legal families of the 19th century.

See E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904).

CHIUSI (anc. Clusium), a town of Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Siena, 55 m. S.E. by rail from the town of Siena, and 26 m. N.N.W. of Orvieto. Pop. (1901) 6011. It is situated on a hill 1305 ft. above sea-level, and is surrounded by medieval walls, in which, in places, fragments of the Etruscan wall are incorporated. The cathedral of S. Mustiola is a basilica with a nave and two aisles, with eighteen columns of different kinds of marble, from ancient buildings. It has been restored and decorated with frescoes in modern times. The campanile belongs to the 13th century. The place was devastated by malaria in the middle ages, and did not recover until the Chiana valley was drained in the 18th century. For the catacombs see [Clusium].

CHIVALRY (O. Fr. chevalerie, from Late Lat. caballerius), the knightly class of feudal times, possessing its own code of rules, moral and social (see [Knighthood and Chivalry]). The primary sense in the middle ages is “knights” or “fully armed and mounted fighting men.” Thence the term came to mean that gallantry in battle and high sense of honour in general expected of knights. Thus “to do chivalry” was a medieval phrase for “to act the knight.” Lastly, the word came to be used in its present very general sense of “courtesy.” In English law chivalry meant the tenure of land by knights’ service. It was a service due to the crown, usually forty days’ military attendance annually. The Court of Chivalry was a court instituted by Edward III., of which the lord high constable and earl marshal of England were joint judges. When both sat the court had summary criminal jurisdiction as regards all offences committed by knights, and generally as to military matters. When the earl marshal alone presided, it was a court of honour deciding as to precedence, coats of arms, &c. This court sat for the last time in 1737. The heraldic side of its duties are now vested in the earl marshal as head of the Heralds’ College.

CHIVASSO, a town and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Turin, 18 m. N.E. by rail from the town of Turin, 600 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 4169 (town), 9804 (commune). It is situated on the left bank of the Po, near the influx of the Orco. The cathedral is of the 15th century with a fine façade ornamented with statues in terra-cotta. It was an important fortress in the middle ages, and until 1804, when the French dismantled it. One tower only of the old castle of the marquesses of Monferrato, who possessed the town from 1164 to 1435, remains. Chivasso is on the main line from Turin to Milan, and is the junction of branches for Aosta and Casale Monferrato.

CHIVE (Allium Schoenoprasum), a hardy perennial plant, with small narrow bulbs tufted on short root-stocks and long cylindrical hollow leaves. It is found in the north of England and in Cornwall, and growing in rocky pastures throughout temperate and northern Europe and Asiatic Russia, and also in the mountain districts of southern Europe. It is cultivated for the sake of its leaves, which are used in salads and soups as a substitute for young onions. It will grow in any good soil, and is propagated by dividing the roots into small clumps in spring or autumn; these are planted from 8 to 12 in. apart and soon form large tufts. The leaves should be cut frequently so as to obtain them tender and succulent.

CHLOPICKI, GREGORZ JOZEF (1772-1854), Polish general, was born in March 1772 in Podolia. He was educated at the school of the Basilians at Szarogrod, from which in 1787 he ran away in order to enlist as a volunteer in the Polish army. He was present at all the engagements fought during 1792-1794, especially distinguishing himself at the battle of Raclawice, when he was General Rymkiewicz’s adjutant. On the formation of the Italian legion he joined the second battalion as major, and was publicly complimented by General Oudinot for his extraordinary valour at the storming of Peschiera. He also distinguished himself at the battles of Modena, Busano, Casabianca and Ponto. In 1807 he commanded the first Vistulan regiment, and rendered good service at the battles of Eylau and Friedland. In Spain he obtained the legion of honour and the rank of a French baron for his heroism at the battle of Epila and the storming of Saragossa, and in 1809 was promoted to be general of brigade. In 1812 he accompanied the Grande Armée to Russia, was seriously wounded at Smolensk, and on the reconstruction of the Polish army in 1813 was made a general of division. On his return to Poland in 1814, he entered the Russian army with the rank of a general officer, but a personal insult from the grand duke Constantine resulted in his retiring into private life. He held aloof at first from the Polish national rising of 1830, but at the general request of his countrymen accepted the dictatorship on the 5th of December 1830; on the 23rd of January 1831, however, he resigned in order to fight as a common soldier. At Wavre (Feb. 19) and at Grochow (Feb. 20) he displayed all his old bravery, but was so seriously wounded at the battle of Olszyna that he had to be conveyed to Cracow, near which city he lived in complete retirement till his death in 1854.

See Jozef Maczynski, Life and Death of Joseph Chlopicki (Pol.) (Cracow, 1858); Ignacy Pradzynski, The Four Last Polish Commanders (Pol.) (Posen, 1865).

CHLORAL, or Trichloracetaldehyde, CCl3·CHO, a substance discovered by J. von Liebig in 1832 (Ann., 1832, 1, p. 189) and further studied by J.B.A. Dumas and Staedeler. It is a heavy, oily and colourless liquid, of specific gravity 1.541 at 0° C., and boiling-point 97.7° C. It has a greasy, somewhat bitter taste, and gives off a vapour at ordinary temperature which has a pungent odour and an irritating effect on the eyes. The word chloral is derived from the first syllables of chlorine and alcohol, the names of the substances employed for its preparation. Chloral is soluble in alcohol and ether, in less than its own weight of water, and in four times its weight of chloroform; it absorbs chlorine, and dissolves bromine, iodine, phosphorus and sulphur. Chloral deliquesces in the air, and is converted by water into a hydrate, with evolution of heat; it combines with alcohols and mercaptans. An ammoniacal solution of silver nitrate is reduced by chloral; and nascent hydrogen converts it into aldehyde. By means of phosphorus pentachloride, chlorine can be substituted for the oxygen of chloral, the body CCl3·CCl2H being produced; an analogous compound, CCl3·C(C6H5)2H, is obtained by treating chloral with benzene and sulphuric acid. With an alkali, chloral gives chloroform (q.v.) and a formate; oxidizing agents give trichloracetic acid, CCl3·CO(OH). When kept for some days, as also when placed in contact with sulphuric acid or a very small quantity of water, chloral undergoes spontaneous change into the polymeride metachloral (C2Cl3OH)3, a white porcellaneous body, slowly volatile in the air, and reconverted into chloral without melting at 180° C. Chloral unites directly with hydrocyanic acid to form β-trichloracetonitrile, CCl3·CH(OH)CN, and with hydroxylamine it forms chlorglyoxime, C2H3ClN2O2.

Chloral is prepared by passing dry chlorine into absolute alcohol; the latter must be cooled at first, but towards the end of the operation has to be heated nearly to boiling. The alcohol is converted finally into a syrupy fluid, from which chloral is procured by treatment with sulphuric acid (see P. Fritsch, Ann., 1894, pp. 279, 288). The crude chloral is distilled over lime, and is purified by further treatment with sulphuric acid, and by redistillation. A mixture of starch or sugar with manganese peroxide and hydrochloric acid may be employed instead of alcohol and chlorine for the manufacture of chloral (A. Staedeler, Ann. Ch. Pharm., 1847, 61, p. 101). An isomer of chloral, parachloralide, is made by passing excess of dry chlorine into absolute methyl alcohol.

Chloral hydrate, CCl3·CH(OH)2, forms oblique, often very short, rhombic prisms. The crystals are perfectly transparent, only slightly odorous, free from powder, and dry to the touch, and do not become white by exposure. The melting-point of pure chloral hydrate is 57°, the boiling-point 96-98° C. When heated with sulphuric acid it is converted into anhydrous chloral and chloralide, C6H2Cl6O3. When mixed with water, chloral hydrate causes a considerable degree of cold; and, as with camphor, small fragments of it placed on the surface of water exhibit gyratory movements. Chloral hydrate does not restore the colour to a solution of fuchsine which has been decolorized by sulphurous acid, and so one must assume that the water present is combined in the molecular condition (V. Meyer, Ber., 1880, 13, p. 2343). Chloral may be estimated by distilling the hydrate with milk of lime and measuring the volume of chloroform produced (C.H. Wood, Pharm. Journ., (3) 1, p. 703), or by hydrolysis with a known volume of standard alkali and back titration with standard acid (V. Meyer, Ber., 1873, 6, p. 600). Chloral hydrate has the property of checking the decomposition of a great number of albuminous substances, such as milk and meat; and a mixture of it with glycerin, according to J. Personne, is suitable for the preservation of anatomical preparations. When heated with concentrated glycerin to a temperature of 110° to 230° C, chloral hydrate yields chloroform, CHCl3, and allyl formate, HCO(OC3H5).

Pharmacology and Therapeutics.—The breaking up of chloral hydrate, in the presence of alkalis, with the production of chloroform and formates, led Liebreich to the conjecture that a similar decomposition might be produced in the blood; and hence his introduction of the drug, in 1869, as an anaesthetic and hypnotic. It is now known, however, that the drug circulates in the blood unchanged, and is excreted in the form of urochloralic acid. The dose is from five to twenty grains or somewhat more, and it is often given in the form of the pharmacopoeial Syrupus Chloral, which contains ten grains of chloral hydrate to the fluid drachm. Chloral hydrate must be well diluted when given by the mouth, as otherwise it may cause considerable gastro-intestinal irritation. In large doses chloral hydrate is a depressant to the circulation and the respiration, and also lowers the temperature. In the above doses the drug is a powerful and safe hypnotic, acting directly on the brain, and producing no preliminary stage of excitement. Very soon—perhaps twenty minutes—after taking such a dose, the patient falls into a sleep which lasts several hours, and is not distinguishable from natural sleep. When he wakes, it is without disagreeable after-symptoms, but with a feeling of natural refreshment. The pupils are always contracted under its influence, except in large doses. There is also rapidly induced a depression of the anterior horns of grey matter in the spinal cord, and as the symptoms of strychnine poisoning are due to violent stimulation of these areas, chloral hydrate is a valuable antidote in such cases. It should not be hypodermically injected. Its disadvantages are that it is powerless when there is pain, resembling in this feature nearly all hypnotics except opium (morphine) and hyoscin. Its action on the gastro-intestinal canal and on the respiratory and circulatory systems renders its use inadvisable when disease of these organs is present. Its action on the spinal cord has been employed with success in cases of tetanus, whooping-cough, urinary incontinence, and strychnine poisoning. In the latter case twenty grains in “normal saline” solution may be directly injected into a subcutaneous vein, but not into the subcutaneous tissues.

Toxicology.—In cases of acute poisoning by chloral hydrate, the symptoms may be summarized as those of profound coma. The treatment is to give a stimulant emetic such as mustard; to keep up the temperature by hot bottles, &c.; to prevent or disturb the patient’s morbid sleep by the injection of hot strong coffee into the rectum; and by shouting, flipping with towels, &c.; to use artificial respiration in extreme cases; and to inject strychnine. Strychnine is much less likely, however, to save life after poisoning by chloral hydrate, than chloral hydrate is to save life in poisoning by strychnine.

Chronic poisoning by chloral is a most pernicious drug-habit. The vice is easily and very rapidly acquired. The victim is usually excited and loquacious. He is easily fatigued and suffers from attacks of easily induced syncope. There are signs of gastro-intestinal irritation, and a tendency to cutaneous eruptions of an erythematous type. The patient may succumb to a dose only slightly larger than usual. The treatment is on general principles, there being no specific remedy. The patient must be persuaded to put himself under restraint, and the drug must be stopped at once and entirely.

CHLORATES, the metallic salts of chloric acid; they are all solids, soluble in water, the least soluble being the potassium salt. They may be prepared by dissolving or suspending a metallic oxide or hydroxide in water and saturating the solution with chlorine; by double decomposition; or by neutralizing a solution of chloric acid by a metallic oxide, hydroxide or carbonate. They are all decomposed on heating, with evolution of oxygen; and in contact with concentrated sulphuric acid with liberation of chlorine peroxide. The most important is potassium chlorate, KClO3, which was obtained in 1786 by C.L. Berthollet by the action of chlorine on caustic potash, and this method was at first used for its manufacture. The modern process consists in the electrolysis of a hot solution of potassium chloride, or, preferably, the formation of sodium chlorate by the electrolytic method and its subsequent decomposition by potassium chloride. (See [Alkali Manufacture].) Potassium chlorate crystallizes in large white tablets, of a bright lustre. It melts without decomposition, and begins to give off oxygen at about 370° C. According to F.L. Teed (Proc. Chem. Soc., 1886, p. 141), the decomposition of potassium chlorate by heat is not at all simple, the quantities of chloride and perchlorate produced depending on the temperature. A very gentle heating gives decomposition approximating to the equation of 22KClO3 = 14KClO4 + 8KCl + 5O2, whilst on a more rapid heating the quantities correspond more nearly to 10KClO3 = 6KClO4 + 4KCl + 3O2. The decomposition is rendered more easy and regular by mixing the salt with powdered manganese dioxide. The salt finds application in the preparation of oxygen, in the manufacture of matches, for pyrotechnic purposes, and in medicine. Sodium chlorate, NaClO3, is prepared by the electrolytic process; by passing chlorine into milk of lime and decomposing the calcium chlorate formed by sodium sulphate; or by the action of chlorine on sodium carbonate at low temperature (not above 35° C). It is much more soluble in water than the potassium salt.

Potassium chlorate is very valuable in medicine. Given in large doses it causes rapid and characteristic poisoning, with alterations in the blood and rapid degeneration of nearly all the internal organs; but in small doses—5 to 15 grains—it partly undergoes reduction in the blood and tissues, the chloride being formed and oxygen being supplied to the body-cells in nascent form. Its special uses are in ulceration of the mouth or tongue (ulcerative stomatitis), tonsillitis and pharyngitis. For these conditions it is administered in the form of a lozenge, but may also be swallowed in solution, as it is excreted by the saliva and so reaches the diseased surface. Its remarkable efficacy in healing ulcers of the mouth—for which it is the specific—has been ascribed to a decomposition effected by the carbonic acid which is given off from these ulcers. This releases chloric acid, which, being an extremely powerful antiseptic, kills the bacteria to which the ulcers are due.

CHLORINE (symbol Cl), atomic weight 35.46 (O = 16), a gaseous chemical element of the halogen group, taking its name from the colour, greenish-yellow (Gr. χλωρός). It was discovered in 1774 by Scheele, who called it dephlogisticated muriatic acid; about 1785, C.L. Berthollet, regarding it as being a compound of hydrochloric acid and oxygen, termed it oxygenized muriatic acid. This view was generally held until about 1810-1811, when Sir H. Davy showed definitely that it was an element, and gave it the name which it now bears.

Chlorine is never found in nature in the uncombined condition, but in combination with the alkali metals it occurs widely distributed in the form of rock-salt (sodium chloride); as sylvine and carnallite, at Stassfürt; and to a smaller extent in various other minerals such as matlockite and horn-mercury. In the form of alkaline chlorides it is found in sea-water and various spring waters, and in the tissues of animals and plants; while, as hydrochloric acid it is found in volcanic gases.

The preparation of chlorine, both on the small scale and commercially, depends on the oxidation of hydrochloric acid; the usual oxidizing agent is manganese dioxide, which, when heated with concentrated hydrochloric acid, forms manganese chloride, water and chlorine:—MnO2 + 4HCl = MnCl2 + 2H2O + Cl2. The manganese dioxide may be replaced by various other substances, such as red lead, lead dioxide, potassium bichromate, and potassium permanganate. Instead of heating hydrochloric acid with manganese dioxide, use is frequently made of a mixture of common salt and manganese dioxide, to which concentrated sulphuric acid is added and the mixture is then heated:—MnO2 + 2NaCl + 3H2SO4 = MnSO4 + 2NaHSO4 + 2H2O + Cl2. Chlorine may also be obtained by the action of dilute sulphuric acid on bleaching powder.

Owing to the enormous quantities of chlorine required for various industrial purposes, many processes have been devised, either for the recovery of the manganese from the crude manganese chloride of the chlorine stills, so that it can be again utilized, or for the purpose of preparing chlorine without the necessity of using manganese in any form (see [Alkali Manufacture]).

Owing to the reduction in the supply of available hydrochloric acid (on account of the increasing use of the “ammonia-soda” process in place of the “Leblanc” process for the manufacture of soda) Weldon tried to adapt the former to the production of chlorine or hydrochloric acid. His method consisted in using magnesia instead of lime for the recovery of the ammonia (which occurs in the form of ammonium chloride in the ammonia-soda process), and then by evaporating the magnesium chloride solution and heating the residue in steam, to condense the acid vapours and so obtain hydrochloric acid. One day before him E. Solvay had patented the same process, but neither of them was able to make the method a commercial success. However, in conjunction with Pechiney, of Salindres (near Alais, France), the Weldon-Pechiney process was worked out. The residual magnesium chloride of the ammonia-soda process is evaporated until it ceases to give off hydrochloric acid, and is then mixed with more magnesia: the magnesium oxychloride formed is broken into small pieces and heated in a current of air, when it gives up its chlorine, partly in the uncombined condition and partly in the form of hydrochloric acid, and leaves a residue of magnesia, which can again be utilized for the decomposition of more ammonium chloride (W. Weldon, Journ. of Soc. of Chem. Industry, 1884, p. 387). Greater success attended the efforts of Ludwig Mond, of the firm of Brunner, Mond & Co. In this process the ammonium chloride is volatilized in large iron retorts lined with Doulton tiles, and then led into large upright wrought-iron cylinders lined with fire-bricks. These cylinders are filled with pills, made of a mixture of magnesia, potassium chloride and fireclay, the object of the potassium chloride being to prevent any formation of hydrochloric acid, which might occur if the magnesia was not perfectly dry. At 300° C. the ammonium chloride is decomposed by the magnesia, with the formation of magnesium chloride and ammonia. The mixture is now heated to 600° C. in a current of hot dry gas, containing no free oxygen (the gas from the carbonating plant being used), and then a current of air at the same temperature is passed in. Decomposition takes place and the issuing gas contains 18-20% of chlorine. This percentage drops gradually, and when it is reduced to about 3% the temperature of the apparatus is lowered, by the admission of air, to about 350° C., and the air stream containing the small percentage of chlorine is led off to a second cylinder of pills, which have just been treated with ammonium chloride vapour and are ready for the hot air current. With four cylinders the process is continuous (L. Mond, British Assoc. Reports, 1896, p. 734).

More recently, owing to the production of caustic soda by electrolytic methods, much chlorine has consequently been produced in the same manner (see [Alkali Manufacture]).

Chlorine is a gas of a greenish-yellow colour, and possesses a characteristic unpleasant and suffocating smell. It can be liquefied at -34° C. under atmospheric pressure, and at -102° C. it solidifies and crystallizes. Its specific heat at constant pressure is 0.1155, and at constant volume 0.08731 (A. Strecker, Wied. Ann., 1877 [2], 13, p. 20); and its refractive index 1.000772, whilst in the liquid condition the refractive index is 1.367. The density is 2.4885 (air = 1) (Treadwell and Christie, Zeit. anorg. Chem., 1905, 47, p. 446). Its critical temperature is 146° C. Liquid and solid chlorine are both yellow in colour. The gas must be collected either by downward displacement, since it is soluble in water and also attacks mercury; or over a saturated salt solution, in which it is only slightly soluble. At ordinary temperatures it unites directly with many other elements; thus with hydrogen, combination takes place in direct sunlight with explosive violence; arsenic, antimony, thin copper foil and phosphorus take fire in an atmosphere of chlorine, forming the corresponding chlorides. Many compounds containing hydrogen are readily decomposed by the gas; for example, a piece of paper dipped in turpentine inflames in an atmosphere of chlorine, producing hydrochloric acid and a copious deposit of soot; a lighted taper burns in chlorine with a dull smoky flame. The solution of chlorine in water, when freshly prepared, possesses a yellow colour, but on keeping becomes colourless, on account of its decomposition into hydrochloric acid and oxygen. It is on this property that its bleaching and disinfecting power depends (see [Bleaching]). Water saturated with chlorine at 0° C. deposits crystals of a hydrate Cl2·8H2O, which is readily decomposed at a higher temperature into its constituents. Chlorine hydrate has an historical importance, as by sealing it up in a bent tube, and heating the end containing the hydrate, whilst the other limb of the tube was enclosed in a freezing mixture, M. Faraday was first able to obtain liquid chlorine.

Chlorine is used commercially for the extraction of gold (q.v.) and for the manufacture of “bleaching powder” and of chlorates. It also finds an extensive use in organic chemistry as a substituting and oxidizing agent, as well as for the preparation of addition compounds. For purposes of substitution, the free element as a rule only works slowly on saturated compounds, but the reaction may be accelerated by the action of sunlight or on warming, or by using a “carrier.” In these latter cases the reaction may proceed in different directions; thus, with the aromatic hydrocarbons, chlorine in the cold or in the presence of a carrier substitutes in the benzene nucleus, but in the presence of sunlight or on warming, substitution takes place in the side chain. Iodine, antimony trichloride, molybdenum pentachloride, ferric chloride, ferric oxide, antimony, tin, stannic oxide and ferrous sulphate have all been used as chlorine carriers.

The atomic weight of chlorine was determined by J. Berzelius and by F. Penny (Phil, Trans., 1839, 13). J.S. Stas, from the synthesis of silver chloride, obtained the value 35.457 (O = 16), and C. Marignac found the value 34.462. More recent determinations are: H.B. Dixon and E.C. Edgar (Phil. Trans., 1905); T.W. Richards and G. Jones (Abst. J.C.S., 1907); W.A. Noyes and H.C. Weber (ibid., 1908), and Edgar (ibid., 1908).

Hydrochloric Acid.—Chlorine combines with hydrogen to form hydrochloric acid, HCl, the only known compound of these two elements. The acid itself was first obtained by J.R. Glauber in about 1648, but J. Priestley in 1772 was the first to isolate it in the gaseous condition, and Sir H. Davy in 1810 showed that it contained hydrogen and chlorine only, as up to that time it was considered to contain oxygen. It may be prepared by the direct union of its constituents (see Burgess and Chapman, J.C.S., 1906, 89, p. 1399), but on the large scale and also for the preparation of small quantities it is made by the decomposition of salt by means of concentrated sulphuric acid, NaCl + H2SO4 = NaHSO4 + HCl. It is chiefly obtained as a by-product in the manufacture of soda-ash by the Leblanc process (see [Alkali Manufacture]). The commercial acid is usually yellow in colour and contains many impurities, such as traces of arsenic, sulphuric acid, chlorine, ferric chloride and sulphurous acid; but these do not interfere with its application to the preparation of bleaching powder, in which it is chiefly consumed. Without further purification it is also used for “souring” in bleaching, and in tin and lead soldering.

It is a colourless gas, which can be condensed by cold and pressure to a liquid boiling at -83.7° C., and can also be solidified, the solid melting at -112.5° C. (K. Olszewski). Its critical temperature is 52.3° C., and its critical pressure is 86 atmos. The gas fumes strongly in moist air, and it is rapidly dissolved by water, one volume of water at 0° C. absorbing 503 volumes of the gas. The gas does not obey Henry’s law, that is, its solubility in water is not proportional to its pressure. It is one of the “strong” acids, being ionized to the extent of about 91.4% in decinormal solution. The strongest aqueous solution of hydrochloric acid at 15° C. contains 42.9% of the acid, and has a specific gravity of 1.212. Perfectly dry hydrochloric acid gas has no action on metals, but in aqueous solution it dissolves many of them with evolution of hydrogen and formation of chlorides.

The salts of hydrochloric acid, known as chlorides, can, in most cases, be prepared by dissolving either the metal, its hydroxide, oxide, or carbonate in the acid; or by heating the metal in a current of chlorine, or by precipitation. The majority of the metallic chlorides are solids (stannic chloride, titanic chloride and antimony pentachloride are liquids) which readily volatilize on heating. Many are readily soluble in water, the chief exceptions being silver chloride, merçurous chloride, cuprous chloride and palladious chloride which are insoluble in water, and thallous chloride and lead chloride which are only slightly soluble in cold water, but are readily soluble in hot water. Bismuth and antimony chlorides are decomposed by water with production of oxychlorides, whilst titanium tetrachloride yields titanic acid under the same conditions. All the metallic chlorides, with the exception of those of the alkali and alkaline earth metals, are reduced either to the metallic condition or to that of a lower chloride on heating in a current of hydrogen; most are decomposed by concentrated sulphuric acid. They can be distinguished from the corresponding bromides and iodides by the fact that on distillation with a mixture of potassium bichromate and concentrated sulphuric acid they yield chromium oxychloride, whereas bromides and iodides by the same treatment give bromine and iodine respectively. Some metallic chlorides readily form double chlorides, the most important of these double salts being the platinochlorides of the alkali metals. The chlorides of the non-metallic elements are usually volatile fuming liquids of low boiling-point, which can be distilled without decomposition and are decomposed by water. Hydrochloric acid and its metallic salts can be recognized by the formation of insoluble silver chloride, on adding silver nitrate to their nitric acid solution, and also by the formation of chromium oxychloride (see above). Chlorides can be estimated quantitatively by conversion into silver chloride, or if in the form of alkaline chlorides (in the absence of other metals, and of any free acids) by titration with standard silver nitrate solution, using potassium chromate as an indicator.

Chlorine and oxygen do not combine directly, but compounds can be obtained indirectly. Three oxides are known: chlorine monoxide, Cl2O, chlorine peroxide, ClO2, and chlorine heptoxide, Cl2O7.

Chlorine monoxide results on passing chlorine over dry precipitated mercuric oxide. It is a pale yellow gas which can be condensed, on cooling, to a dark-coloured liquid boiling at 5° C. (under a pressure of 737.9 mm.). It is extremely unstable, decomposing with extreme violence on the slightest shock or disturbance, or on exposure to sunlight. It is readily soluble in water, with which it combines to form hypochlorous acid. Sulphur, phosphorus, carbon compounds, and the alkali metals react violently with the gas, taking fire with explosive decomposition. A.J. Balard determined the volume composition of the gas by decomposition over mercury on gentle warming, followed by the absorption of the chlorine produced with potassium hydroxide, and then measured the residual oxygen.

Chlorine peroxide was first obtained by Sir H. Davy in 1815 by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid on potassium chlorate. As this oxide is a dangerous explosive, great care must be taken in its preparation; the chlorate is finely powdered and added in the cold, in small quantities at a time, to the acid contained in a retort. After solution the retort is gently heated by warm water when the gas is liberated:—3KClO3 + 2H2SO4 = KClO4 + 2KHSO4 + H2O + ClO2. A mixture of chlorine peroxide and chlorine is obtained by the action of hydrochloric acid on potassium chlorate, and similarly, on warming a mixture of potassium chlorate and oxalic acid to 70° C. on the water bath, a mixture of chlorine peroxide and carbon dioxide is obtained. Chlorine peroxide must be collected by displacement, as it is soluble in water and readily attacks mercury. It is a heavy gas of a deep yellow colour and possesses an unpleasant smell. It can be liquefied, the liquid boiling at 9.9° C., and on further cooling it solidifies at -79° C. It is very explosive, being resolved into its constituents by influence of light, on warming, or on application of shock. It is a very powerful oxidant; a mixture of potassium chlorate and sugar in about equal proportions spontaneously inflames when touched with a rod moistened with concentrated sulphuric acid, the chlorine peroxide liberated setting fire to the sugar, which goes on burning. Similarly, phosphorus can be burned under water by covering it with a little potassium chlorate and running in a thin stream of concentrated sulphuric acid (see papers by Bray, Zeit. phys. Chem., 1906, et seq.).

Chlorine heptoxide was obtained by A. Michael by slowly adding perchloric acid to phosphoric oxide below -10° C.; the mixture is allowed to stand for a day and then gently warmed, when the oxide distils over as a colourless very volatile oil of boiling-point 82° C. It turns to a greenish-yellow colour in two or three days and gives off a greenish gas; it explodes violently on percussion or in contact with a flame, and is gradually converted into perchloric acid by the action of water. On the addition of iodine to this oxide, chlorine is liberated and a white substance is produced, which decomposes, on heating to 380° C, into iodine and oxygen; bromine is without action (see A. Michael, Amer. Chem. Jour., 1900, vol. 23; 1901, vol. 25).

Several oxy-acids of chlorine are known, namely, hypochlorous acid, HClO, chlorous acid, HClO2 (in the form of its salts), chloric acid, HClO3, and perchloric acid, HClO4. Hypochlorous acid is formed when chlorine monoxide dissolves in water, and can be prepared (in dilute solution) by passing chlorine through water containing precipitated mercuric oxide in suspension. Precipitated calcium carbonate may be used in place of the mercuric oxide, or a hypochlorite may be decomposed by a dilute mineral acid and the resulting solution distilled. For this purpose a filtered solution of bleaching-powder and a very dilute solution of nitric acid may be employed. The acid is only known in aqueous solution, and only dilute solutions can be distilled without decomposition. The solution has a pale yellow colour, and is a strong oxidizing and bleaching agent; it is readily decomposed by hydrochloric acid, with evolution of oxygen. The salts of this acid are known as hypochlorites, and like the acid itself are very unstable, so that it is almost impossible to obtain them pure. A solution of sodium hypochlorite (Eau de Javel), which can be prepared by passing chlorine into a cold aqueous solution of caustic soda, has been extensively used for bleaching purposes. One of the most important derivatives of hypochlorous acid is bleaching powder. Sodium hypochlorite can be prepared by the electrolysis of brine solution in the presence of carbon electrodes, having no diaphragm in the electrolytic cell, and mixing the anode and cathode products by agitating the liquid. The temperature should be kept at about 15° C., and the concentration of the hypochlorite produced must not be allowed to become too great, in order to prevent reduction taking place at the cathode.

Chlorous acid is not known in the pure condition; but its sodium salt is prepared by the action of sodium peroxide on a solution of chlorine peroxide: 2ClO2 + Na2O2 = 2NaClO2 + O2. The silver and lead salts are unstable, being decomposed with explosive violence at 100° C. On adding a caustic alkali solution to one of chlorine peroxide, a mixture of a chlorite and a chlorate is obtained.

Chloric acid was discovered in 1786 by C.L. Berthollet, and is best prepared by decomposing barium chlorate with the calculated amount of dilute sulphuric acid. The aqueous solution can be concentrated in vacuo over sulphuric acid until it contains 40% of chloric acid. Further concentration leads to decomposition, with evolution of oxygen and formation of perchloric acid. The concentrated solution is a powerful oxidizing agent; organic matter being oxidized so rapidly that it frequently inflames. Hydrochloric acid, sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphurous acid are rapidly oxidized by chloric acid. J.S. Stas determined its composition by the analysis of pure silver chlorate. The salts of this acid are known as chlorates (q.v.).

Perchloric acid is best prepared by distilling potassium perchlorate with concentrated sulphuric acid. According to Sir H. Roscoe, pure perchloric acid distils over at first, but if the distillation be continued a white crystalline mass of hydrated perchloric acid, HClO4·H2O, passes over; this is due to the decomposition of some of the acid into water and lower oxides of chlorine, the water produced then combining with the pure acid to produce the hydrated form. This solid, on redistillation, gives the pure acid, which is a liquid boiling at 39° C. (under a pressure of 56 mm.) and of specific gravity 1.764 (22/4)°. The crystalline hydrate melts at 50° C. The pure acid decomposes slowly on standing, but is stable in dilute aqueous solution. It is a very powerful oxidizing agent; wood and paper in contact with the acid inflame with explosive violence. In contact with the skin it produces painful wounds. It may be distinguished from chloric acid by the fact that it does not give chlorine peroxide when treated with concentrated sulphuric acid, and that it is not reduced by sulphurous acid. The salts of the acid are known as the perchlorates, and are all soluble in water; the potassium and rubidium salts, however, are only soluble to a slight extent. Potassium perchlorate, KClO4, can be obtained by carefully heating the chlorate until it first melts and then nearly all solidifies again. The fused mass is then extracted with water to remove potassium chloride, and warmed with hydrochloric acid to remove unaltered chlorate, and finally extracted with water again, when a residue of practically pure perchlorate is obtained. The alkaline perchlorates are isomorphous with the permanganates.

CHLORITE, a group of green micaceous minerals which are hydrous silicates of aluminium, magnesium and ferrous iron. The name was given by A.G. Werner in 1798, from χλωρῖτις, “a green stone.” Several species and many rather ill-defined varieties have been described, but they are difficult to recognize. Like the micas, the chlorites (or “hydromicas”) are monoclinic in crystallization and have a perfect cleavage parallel to the flat face of the scales and plates. The cleavage is, however, not quite so prominent as in the micas, and the cleavage flakes though pliable are not elastic. The chlorites usually occur as salt (H=2-3) scaly aggregates of a dark-green colour. They vary in specific gravity between 2.6 and 3.0, according to the amount of iron present. Well-developed crystals are met with only in the species clinochlore and penninite; those of the former are six-sided plates and are optically biaxial, whilst those of the latter have the form of acute rhombohedra and are usually optically uniaxial. The species prochlorite and corundophilite also occur as more or less distinct six-sided plates. These four better crystallized species are grouped together by G. Tschermak as orthochlorites, the finely scaly and indistinctly fibrous forms being grouped by the same author as leptochlorites.

Chemically, the chlorites are distinguished from the micas by the presence of a considerable amount of water (about 13%) and by not containing alkalis; from the soft, scaly, mineral talc they differ in containing aluminium (about 20%) as an essential constituent. The magnesia (up to 36%) is often in part replaced by ferrous oxide (up to 30%), and the alumina to a lesser extent by ferric oxide; alumina may also be partly replaced by chromic oxide, as in the rose-red varieties kämmererite and kotschubeite. The composition of both clinochlore and penninite is approximately expressed by the formula H8(Mg,Fe)5Al2Si3O18, and the formulae of prochlorite and corundophilite are H40(Mg,Fe)23Al14Si13O90 and H20(Mg,Fe)20Al8Si6O45 respectively. The variation in composition of these orthochlorites is explained by G. Tschermak by assuming them to be isomorphous mixtures of H4Mg3Si2O9 (the serpentine molecule) and H4Mg3Al2SiO9 (which is approximately the composition of the chlorite amesite). The leptochlorites are still more complex, and the intermixture of other fundamental molecules has to be assumed; the species recognized by Dana are daphnite, cronstedtite, thuringite, stilpnomelane, strigovite, diabantite, aphrosiderite, delessite and rumpfite.

The chlorites usually occur as alteration products of other minerals, such as pyroxene, amphibole, biotite, garnet, &c., often occurring as pseudomorphs after these, or as earthy material filling cavities in igneous rocks composed of these minerals. Many altered igneous rocks owe their green colour to the presence of secondary chlorite. Chlorite is also an important constituent of many schistose rocks and phyllites, and of chlorite-schist it is the only essential constituent. Well-crystallized specimens of the species clinochlore are found with crystals of garnet in cavities in chlorite-schist at Achmatovsk near Zlatoust, in the Urals, and at the Ala valley near Turin, Piedmont; also as large plates at West Chester in Pennsylvania and at other American localities. Crystals of penninite are found in serpentine at Zermatt in Switzerland and in the green schists of the Zillerthal in Tirol.

Closely allied to the chlorites is another group of micaceous minerals known as the vermiculites, which have resulted by the alteration of the micas, particularly biotite and phlogopite. The name is from the Latin vermiculor, “to breed worms,” because when heated before the blowpipe these minerals exfoliate into long worm-like threads. They have the same chemical constituents as the chlorites, but the composition is variable and indefinite, varying with that of the original mineral and the extent of its alteration. Several indistinct varieties have been named, the most important of which is jeffersonite.

(L. J. S.)

CHLOROFORM (trichlor-methane), CHCl3, a valuable anaesthetic, a colourless liquid, possessing an agreeable smell and a pleasant taste. It may be prepared by the action of bleaching powder on many carbon compounds, such, for example, as ethyl alcohol and acetone (E. Soubeiran, Ann. chim. phys., 1831 [2], 48, p. 131; J.v. Liebig, Ann., 1832, I, p. 199), by heating chloral with alkalis (Liebig), CCl3CHO + NaHO = CHCl3 + NaHCO2, or by heating trichloracetic acid with ammonia (J. Dumas, Ann., 1839, 32, p. 113). In the preparation of chloroform by the action of bleaching powder on ethyl alcohol it is probable that the alcohol is first oxidized to acetaldehyde, which is subsequently chlorinated and then decomposed. Chloroform solidifies in the cold and then melts at -62° C.; it boils at 61.2° C., and has a specific gravity 1.52637 (0°/4°) (T.E. Thorpe). It is an exceedingly good solvent, especially for fats, alkaloids and iodine. It is not inflammable. The vapour of chloroform when passed through a red-hot tube yields hexachlorbenzene C6Cl6, perchlorethane C2Cl6, and some perchlorethylene C2Cl4 (W. Ramsay and S. Young, Jahresberichte, 1886, p. 628). Chromic acid converts it into phosgene (carbonyl chloride, COCl2). It reacts with sodium ethylate to form ortho-formic ester, CH(OC2H5)3, and when heated with aqueous ammonia for some hours at 200-220° C. gives carbon monoxide and ammonium formate, 2CHCl3 + 7NH3 + 3H2O = NH4·HCO2 + CO + 6NH4Cl (G. André, Jahresb., 1886, p. 627). When digested with phenols and caustic soda it forms oxyaldehydes (K. Reimer, Ber., 1876, 9, p. 423); and when heated with alcoholic potash it is converted into potassium formate, CHCl3 + 4KHO = KHCO2 + 3KCl + 2H2O. It combines with acetoacetic ester to form the aromatic compound meta-oxyuvitic acid, C6H2·CH3·OH·(COOH)2. A hydrate, of composition CHCl3·18H2O, has been described (G. Chancel, Fresenius Zeitschrift f. anal. Chemie, 1886, 25, p. 118); it forms hexagonal crystals which melt at 1.6° C.

Chloroform may be readily detected by the production of an isonitrile when it is heated with alcoholic potash and a primary amine; thus with aniline, phenyl isocyanide (recognized by its nauseating smell) is produced,

CHCl3 + C6H5NH2 + 3KHO = C6H5NC + 3KCl + 3H2O.

For the action and use of chloroform as an anaesthetic, see [Anaesthesia]. Chloroform may be given internally in doses of from one to five drops. The British Pharmacopoeia contains a watery solution—the Aqua Chloroformi—which is useful in disguising the taste of nauseous drugs; a liniment which consists of equal parts of camphor liniment and chloroform, and is a useful counter-irritant; the Spiritus Chloroformi (erroneously known as “chloric ether”), which is a useful anodyne in doses of from five to forty drops; and the Tinctura Chloroformi et Morphinae Composita, which is the equivalent of a proprietary drug called chlorodyne. This tincture contains chloroform, morphine and prussic acid, and must be used with the greatest care.

Externally chloroform is an antiseptic, a local anaesthetic if allowed to evaporate, and a rubefacient, causing the vessels of the skin to dilate, if rubbed in. Its action on the stomach is practically identical with that of alcohol (q.v.), though in very much smaller doses. The uses of chloroform which fall to be mentioned here are:—as a counter-irritant; as a local anaesthetic for toothache due to caries, it being applied on a cotton-wool plug which is inserted into the carious cavity; as an antispasmodic in tetanus and hydrophobia; and as the best and most immediate and effective antidote in cases of strychnine poisoning.

CHLOROPHYLL (from Gr. χλωρός, green, φύλλον, a leaf), the green colouring matter of leaves. It is universally present in growing vegetable cells. The pigment of leaves is a complex mixture of substances; of these one is green, and to this the name, originally given in 1817 by Pelletier and Caventou, is sometimes restricted; xanthophyll (Gr. ξανθός, yellow) is dark brown; carotin is copper-coloured. Chlorophyll is related chemically to the proteids; a decomposition product, phylloporphyrin, being very closely related to haematoporphyrin, which is a decomposition product of haemoglobin, the red colouring matter of the blood. Chlorophyll is neutral in reaction, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol, ether, &c, the solutions exhibiting a green colour and a vivid red fluorescence. Magnesium is a necessary constituent. (See S.B. Schryver, Science Progress, 1909, 3, p. 425.)

CHLOROSIS (Gr. χλωρός, pale green), the botanical term for loss of colour in a plant-organ, a sign of disease; also in medicine, a form of anaemia (see [Blood]: Pathology).

CHLORPICRIN (Nitrochloroform), C·NO2·Cl3, the product of the distillation of many nitro compounds (picric acid, nitromethane, &c.) with bleaching powder; it can also be prepared by the action of concentrated nitric acid on chloral or chloroform. A. W. von Hofmann (Annalen, 1866, 139, p. 111) mixed 10 parts of bleaching powder into a paste with cold water and added a solution (saturated at 30° C.) of 1 part of picric acid. A violent reaction is set up and the chlorpicrin distils over, generally without the necessity for any external heating. It is a colourless liquid of boiling-point 112° C., and of specific gravity 1.692. It is almost insoluble in water, but is readily soluble in alcohol; it has a sharp smell, and its vapour affects the eyes very powerfully. Iron filings and acetic acid reduce it to trimethylamine, whilst alcoholic ammonia converts it into guanidine, HN:C(NH2)2, and sodium ethylate into ortho-carbonic ester, C(OC2H5)4. The corresponding brompicrin is also known.

CHMIELNICKI, BOGDAN (c. 1593-1657), hetman of the Cossacks, son of Michael Chmielnicki, was born at Subatow, near Chigirin in the Ukraine, an estate given to the elder Chmielnicki for his lifelong services to the Polish crown. Bogdan, after learning to read and write, a rare accomplishment in those days, entered the Cossack ranks, was dangerously wounded and taken prisoner in his first battle against the Turks, and found leisure during his two years’ captivity at Constantinople to acquire the rudiments of Turkish and French. On returning to the Ukraine he settled down quietly on his paternal estate, and in all probability history would never have known his name if the intolerable persecution of a neighbouring Polish squire, who stole his hayricks and flogged his infant son to death, had not converted the thrifty and acquisitive Cossack husbandman into one of the most striking and sinister figures of modern times. Failing to get redress nearer home, he determined to seek for justice at Warsaw, whither he had been summoned with other Cossack delegates to assist Wladislaus IV. in his long-projected war against the Turks. The king, perceiving him to be a man of some education and intelligence, appointed him pisarz or secretary of the registered Cossacks, and he subsequently served under Koniecpolski in the Ukraine campaign of 1646. His hopes of distinction were, however, cut short by a decree of the Polish diet, which, in order to vex the king, refused to sanction the continuance of the war. Chmielnicki, now doubly hateful to the Poles as being both a royalist and a Cossack, was again maltreated and chicaned, and only escaped from gaol by bribing his gaolers. Thirsting for vengeance, he fled to the Cossack settlements on the Lower Dnieper and thence sent messages to the khan of the Crimea, urging a simultaneous invasion of Poland by the Tatars and the Cossacks (1647).

On the 11th of April 1648, at an assembly of the Zaporozhians (see [Poland]: History), he openly declared his intention of proceeding against the Poles, and was elected ataman by acclamation. At Zheltnaya Vodui (Yellow Waters) in the Ukraine he annihilated, on the 19th of May, a detached Polish army corps after three days’ desperate fighting, and on the 26th routed the main Polish army under the grand hetman, Stephen Potocki, at Kruta Balka (Hard Plank), near the river Korsun. The immediate consequence of these victories was the outbreak of a “serfs’ fury.” Throughout the Ukraine the Polish gentry were hunted down, flayed and burnt alive, blinded and sawn asunder. Every manor-house was reduced to ashes. Every Uniat and Catholic priest was hung up before his own altar, along with a Jew and a hog. The panic-stricken inhabitants fled to the nearest strongholds, and soon the rebels were swarming all over the palatinates of Volhynia and Podolia. But the ataman was as crafty as he was cruel. Disagreeably awakened to the insecurity of his position by the refusal of the tsar and the sultan to accept him as a vassal, he feigned to resume negotiations with the Poles in order to gain time, dismissed the Polish commissioners in the summer of 1648 with impossible conditions, and on the 23rd of September, after a contest of three days, utterly routed the Polish chivalry, 40,000 strong, at Pildawa, where the Cossacks are said to have reaped an immense booty after the fight was over. All Poland now lay at his feet, and the road to the defenceless capital was open before him; but he wasted the precious months in vain before the fortress of Zamosc, and was then persuaded by the new king of Poland, John Casimir, to consent to a suspension of hostilities. In June 1649, arrayed in cloth-of-gold and mounted on a white charger, Chmielnicki made his triumphal entry into Kiev, where he was hailed as the Maccabaeus of the Orthodox faith, and permitted the committal of unspeakable atrocities on the Jews and Roman Catholics. At the ensuing peace congress at Pereyaslavl he demanded terms so extravagant that the Polish commissioners dared not listen to them. In 1649, therefore, the war was resumed. A bloody battle ensued near Zborow, on the banks of the Strypa, when only the personal valour of the Polish king, the superiority of the Polish artillery, and the defection of Chmielnicki’s allies the Tatars enabled the royal forces to hold their own. Peace was then patched up by the compact of Zborow (August 21, 1649), whereby Chmielnicki was virtually recognized as a semi-independent prince.

For the next eighteen months he was the absolute master of the Ukraine, which he divided into sixteen provinces, made his native place Chigirin the Cossack capital, and entered into direct relations with foreign powers. Poland and Muscovy competed for his alliance, and in his more exalted moods he meditated an Orthodox crusade against the Turk at the head of the northern Slavs. But he was no statesman, and his difficulties proved overwhelming. Instinct told him that his old ally the khan of the Crimea was unreliable, and that the tsar of Muscovy was his natural protector, yet he could not make up his mind to abandon the one or turn to the other. His attempt to carve a principality for his son out of Moldavia, which Poland regarded as her vassal, led to the outbreak in 1651 of a third war between subject and suzerain, which speedily assumed the dignity and the dimensions of a crusade. Chmielnicki was now regarded not merely as a Cossack rebel, but as the arch-enemy of Catholicism in eastern Europe, and the pope granted a plenary absolution to all who took up arms against him. But Bogdan himself was not without ecclesiastical sanction. The archbishop of Corinth girded him with a sword which had lain upon the Holy Sepulchre, and the metropolitan of Kiev absolved him from all his sins, without the usual preliminary of confession, before he rode forth to battle. But fortune, so long his friend, now deserted him, and at Beresteczko (July 1, 1651) the Cossack ataman was defeated for the first time. But even now his power was far from broken. In 1652 he openly interfered in the affairs of Transylvania and Walachia, and assumed the high-sounding title of “guardian of the Ottoman Porte.” In 1653 Poland made a supreme effort, the diet voted 17,000,000 gulden in subsidies, and John Casimir led an army of 60,000 men into the Ukraine and defeated the arch-rebel at Zranta, whereupon Chmielnicki took the oath of allegiance to the tsar (compact of Pereyaslavl, February 19, 1654), and all hope of an independent Cossack state was at an end. He died on the 7th of August 1657. With all his native ability, Chmielnicki was but an eminent savage. He was the creature of every passing mood or whim, incapable of cool and steady judgment or of the slightest self-control—an incalculable weather-cock, blindly obsequious to every blast of passion. He could destroy, but he could not create, and other people benefited by his exploits.

See P. Kulish, On the Defection of Malo-Russia from Poland (Rus.) (Moscow, 1890); S.M. Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.) (Moscow, 1857, &c.), vol. x.; Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs, chaps. 3-4 (London, 1905).

(R. N. B.)

CHOATE, JOSEPH HODGES (1832-  ), American lawyer and diplomat, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 24th of January 1832. He was the son of Dr George Choate, a physician of considerable note, and was a nephew of Rufus Choate. After graduating at Harvard College in 1852 and at the law school of Harvard University in 1854, he was admitted first to the Massachusetts (1855) and then (1856) to the New York bar, and entered the law office of Scudder & Carter in New York City. His success in his profession was immediate, and in 1860 he became junior partner in the firm of Evarts, Southmayd & Choate, the senior partner in which was William M. Evarts. This firm and its successor, that of Evarts, Choate & Beaman, remained for many years among the leading law firms of New York and of the country, the activities of both being national rather than local. During these busy years Mr Choate was associated with many of the most famous litigations in American legal history, including the Tilden, A.T. Stewart, and Stanford will cases, the Kansas prohibition cases, the Chinese exclusion cases, the Maynard election returns case, and the Income Tax Suit. In 1871 he became a member of the “Committee of Seventy” in New York City, which was instrumental in breaking up the “Tweed Ring,” and later assisted in the prosecution of the indicted officials. In the retrial of the General Fitz John Porter case he obtained a reversal of the decision of the original court-martial. His greatest reputation was won perhaps in cross-examination. In politics he allied himself with the Republican party on its organization, being a frequent speaker in presidential campaigns, beginning with that of 1856. He never held political office, although he was a candidate for the Republican senatorial nomination against Senator Thomas C. Platt in 1897. In 1894 he was president of the New York state constitutional convention. He was appointed, by President McKinley, ambassador to Great Britain to succeed John Hay in 1899, and remained in this position until the spring of 1905. In England he won great personal popularity, and accomplished much in fostering the good relations of the two great English-speaking powers. He was one of the representatives of the United States at the second Peace Congress at the Hague in 1907.

Several of his notable public addresses have been published. The Choate Story Book (New York, 1903) contains a few of his addresses and after-dinner speeches, and is prefaced by a brief biographical sketch.

CHOATE, RUFUS (1799-1859), American lawyer and orator, was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts, on the 1st of October 1799, the descendant of a family which settled in Massachusetts in 1667. As a child he was remarkably precocious; at six he is said to have been able to repeat large parts of the Bible and of Pilgrim’s Progress by heart. He graduated as valedictorian of his class at Dartmouth College in 1819, was a tutor there in 1819-1820, spent a year in the law school of Harvard University, and studied for a like period at Washington, in the office of William Wirt, then attorney-general of the United States. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1823 and practised at what was later South Danvers (now Peabody) for five years, during which time he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1825-1826) and in the state senate (1827). In 1828 he removed to Salem, where his successful conduct of several important law-suits brought him prominently into public notice. In 1830 he was elected to Congress as a Whig from the Salem district, defeating the Jacksonian candidate for re-election, B.W. Crowninshield (1772-1851), a former secretary of the navy, and in 1832 he was re-elected. His career in Congress was marked by a notable speech in defence of a protective tariff. In 1834, before the completion of his second term, he resigned and established himself in the practice of law in Boston. Already his fame as a speaker had spread beyond New England, and he was much sought after as an orator for public occasions. For several years he devoted himself unremittingly to his profession, but in 1841 succeeded Daniel Webster in the United States Senate. Shortly afterwards he delivered one of his most eloquent addresses at the memorial services for President Harrison in Faneuil Hall, Boston. In the Senate he made a series of brilliant speeches on the tariff, the Oregon boundary, in favour of the Fiscal Bank Act, and in opposition to the annexation of Texas. On Webster’s re-election to the Senate, Choate resumed (1845) his law practice, which no amount of urging could ever persuade him to abandon for public office, save for a short term as attorney-general of Massachusetts in 1853-1854. In 1853 he was a member of the state constitutional convention. He was a faithful supporter of Webster’s policy as declared in the latter’s famous “Seventh of March Speech” (1850) and laboured to secure for him the presidential nomination at the Whig national convention in 1852. In 1856 he refused to follow most of his former Whig associates into the Republican party and gave his support to James Buchanan, whom he considered the representative of a national instead of a sectional party. In July 1859 failing health led him to seek rest in a trip to Europe, but he died on the 13th of that month at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he had been put ashore when it was seen that he probably could not outlive the voyage across the Atlantic. Choate, besides being one of the ablest of American lawyers, was one of the most scholarly of American public men, and his numerous orations and addresses were remarkable for their pure style, their grace and elegance of form, and their wealth of classical allusion.

His Works (edited, with a memoir, by S.G. Brown) were published in 2 vols. at Boston in 1862. The Memoir was afterwards published separately (Boston, 1870). See also E.G. Parker’s Reminiscences of Rufus Choate (New York, 1860); E.P. Whipple’s Some Recollections of Rufus Choate (New York, 1879); and the Albany Law Review (1877-1878).

CHOBE, a large western affluent of the middle Zambezi (q.v.). The river was discovered by David Livingstone in 1851, and to him was known as the Chobe. It is also called the Linyante and the Kwando, the last name being that commonly used.

CHOCOLATE, a paste of the ground kernels of the cocoa bean, mixed with sugar, vanilla or other flavouring, made into a cake, which is used for the manufacture of various forms of sweetmeat, or in making the beverage, also known as “chocolate,” obtained by dissolving cakes of chocolate in boiling water or milk (see [Cocoa]). The word came into Eng. through the Fr. chocolat or Span. chocolate from the Mex. chocolatl. According to the New English Dictionary (quoting R. Siméon, Dict. de la langue Nahuatl), this was “an article of food made of ... the seeds of cacao and of the tree pochotl (Bombax ceiba),” and was etymologically distinct from the Mexican cacauatl, cacao, or cocoa.

CHOCTAWS, Chahtas, or Chacatos (apparently a corruption of Span. chato, flattened), a tribe of North American Indians of Muskhogean stock. They are now settled in Oklahoma, but when first known to Europeans they occupied the district now forming the southern part of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama. On the settlement of Louisiana they formed an alliance with the French, and assisted them against the Natchez and Chickasaws; but by degrees they entered into friendly relations with the English, and at last, in 1786, recognized the supremacy of the United States by the treaty of Hopewell. Their emigration westward began about 1800, and the last remains of their original territory were ceded in 1830. In their new settlements the Choctaws continued to advance in prosperity till the outbreak of the Civil War, which considerably diminished the population and ruined a large part of their property. They sided with the Confederates, and their territory was occupied by Confederate troops; and accordingly at the close of the war they were regarded as having lost their rights. Part of their land they were forced to surrender to the government; their slaves were emancipated; and provision was claimed for them in the shape of either land or money. Since then they have considerably recovered their position. They long constituted a quasi-independent people under the title of the Choctaw nation, and were governed by a chief and a national council of forty members, according to a written constitution, dating in the main from 1838; they possessed a regular judicial system and employed trial by jury. Tribal government virtually ceased in 1906. The Choctaws number some 18,000. A few groups still linger in Mississippi and Louisiana. The Choctaw language has been reduced to writing, and brought to some degree of literary precision.

See [Indians, North American]; Handbook of American Indians, ed. F.W. Hodge (Washington, 1907).

CHODKIEWICZ, JAN KAROL (1560-1621), Polish general, was the son of Hieronymus Chodkiewicz, castellan of Wilna. After being educated at the Wilna academy he went abroad to learn the science of war, fighting in the Spanish service under Alva, and also under Maurice of Nassau. In 1593 he married the wealthy Sophia Mielecka, by whom he had one son who predeceased him. His first military service at home was against the Cossack rising of Nalewajko as lieutenant to Zolkiewski, and he subsequently assisted Zamoyski in his victorious Moldavian campaign. Honours and dignities were now showered upon him. In 1599 he was appointed starosta of Samogitia, and in 1600 acting commander-in-chief of Lithuania. In the war against Sweden for the possession of Livonia he brilliantly distinguished himself, capturing fortress after fortress and repulsing the duke of Sudermania, afterwards Charles IX, from Riga. In 1604 he captured Dorpat, twice defeated the Swedish generals at Bialy Kamien, and was rewarded with the grand bâton of Lithuania. Criminally neglected by the diet, which from sheer niggardliness turned a deaf ear to all his requests for reinforcements and for supplies and money to pay his soldiers, Chodkiewicz nevertheless more than held his own against the Swedes. His crowning achievement was the great victory of Kirkholm (Aug. 27th, 1605), when with barely 5000 men he annihilated a threefold larger Swedish army; for which feat he received letters of congratulation from the pope, all the Catholic potentates, of Europe, and even from the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Persia. Yet this great victory was absolutely fruitless, owing to the domestic dissensions which prevailed in Poland during the following five years. Chodkiewicz’s own army, unpaid for years, abandoned him at last en masse in order to plunder the estates of their political opponents, leaving the grand hetman to carry on the war as best he could with a handful of mercenaries paid out of the pockets of himself and his friends. Chodkiewicz was one of the few magnates who remained loyal to the king, and after helping to defeat the rebels in Poland a fresh invasion of Livonia by the Swedes recalled him thither, and once more he relieved Riga besides capturing Pernau. Meanwhile the war with Muscovy broke out, and Chodkiewicz was sent against Moscow with an army of 2000 men—though if there had been a spark of true patriotism in Poland he could easily have marshalled 100,000. Moreover, the diet neglected to pay for the maintenance even of this paltry 2000, with the result that they mutinied and compelled their leader to retreat through the heart of Muscovy to Smolensk. Not till the crown prince Wladislaus arrived with tardy reinforcements did the war assume a different character, Chodkiewicz opening a new career of victory by taking the fortress of Drohobu in 1617. The Muscovite war had no sooner been ended by the treaty of Deulina than Chodkiewicz was hastily despatched southwards to defend the southern frontier against the Turks, who after the catastrophe of Cecora (see [Zolkiewski]) had high hopes of conquering Poland altogether. An army of 160,000 Turkish veterans led by Sultan Osman in person advanced from Adrianople towards the Polish frontier, but Chodkiewicz crossed the Dnieper in September 1621 and entrenched himself in the fortress of Khotin right in the path of the Ottoman advance. Here for a whole month the Polish hero held the sultan at bay, till the first fall of autumn snow compelled Osman to withdraw his diminished forces. But the victory was dearly purchased by Poland. A few days before the siege was raised the aged grand hetman died of exhaustion in the fortress (Sept. 24th, 1621).

See Adam Stanislaw Naruszewicz, Life of J.K. Chodkiewicz (Pol.; 4th ed., Cracow, 1857-1858); Lukasz Golebiowski, The Moral Side of J.K. Chodkiewicz as indicated by his Letters (Pol.; Warsaw, 1854).

(R. N. B.)

CHODOWIECKI, DANIEL NICOLAS (1726-1801), German painter and engraver of Polish descent, was born at Danzig. Left an orphan at an early age, he devoted himself to the practice of miniature painting, the elements of which his father had taught him, as a means of support for himself and his mother. In 1743 he went to Berlin, where for some time he worked as clerk in an uncle’s office, practising art, however, in his leisure moments, and gaining a sort of reputation as a painter of miniatures for snuff-boxes. The Berlin Academy, attracted by a small engraving of his, entrusted to him the illustration of its yearly almanac. After designing and engraving several subjects from the story of the Seven Years’ War, Chodowiecki produced the famous “History of the Life of Jesus Christ,” a set of admirably painted miniatures, which made him at once so popular that he laid aside all occupations save those of painting and engraving. Few books were published in Prussia for some years without plate or vignette by Chodowiecki. It is not surprising, therefore, that the catalogue of his works (Berlin, 1814) should include over 3000 items, of which, however, the picture of “Jean Calas and his Family” is the only one of any reputation. He became director of the Berlin Academy in 1797. The title of the German Hogarth, which he sometimes obtained, was the effect of an admiration rather imaginative than critical, and was disclaimed by Chodowiecki himself. The illustrator of Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy, the painter of the “Hunt the Slipper” in the Berlin museum, had indeed but one point in common with the great Englishman—the practice of representing actual life and manners. In this he showed skilful drawing and grouping, and considerable expressional power, but no tendency whatever to the use of the grotesque.

His brother Gottfried (1728-1781) and son Wilhelm (1765-1803) painted and engraved after the style of Daniel, and sometimes co-operated with him.

CHOERILUS. (1) An Athenian tragic poet, who exhibited plays as early as 524 B.C. He was said to have competed with Aeschylus, Pratinas and even Sophocles. According to F.G. Welcker, however, the rival of Sophocles was a son of Choerilus, who bore the same name. Suidas states that Choerilus wrote 150 tragedies and gained the prize 13 times. His works are all lost; only Pausanias (i. 14) mentions a play by him entitled Alope (a mythological personage who was the subject of dramas by Euripides and Carcinus). His reputation as a writer of satyric dramas is attested in the well-known line

ἡνίκα μἑν βασιλεὑς ἡν Χοιρίλος ἐν Σατύοις.

The Choerilean metre, mentioned by the Latin grammarians, is probably so called because the above line is the oldest extant specimen. Choerilus was also said to have introduced considerable improvements in theatrical masks and costumes.

See A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (1889); F.G. Welcker, Die griechischen Tragödien, pp. 18, 892.

(2) An epic poet of Samos, who flourished at the end of the 5th century B.C. After the fall of Athens he settled at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, where he was the associate of Agathon, Melanippides, and Plato the comic poet. The only work that can with certainty be attributed to him is the Περσηίς or Περσικά, a history of the struggle of the Greeks against Persia, the central point of which was the battle of Salamis. His importance consists in his having taken for his theme national and contemporary events in place of the deeds of old-time heroes. For this new departure he apologizes in the introductory verses (preserved in the scholiast on Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii. 14), where he says that, the subjects of epic poetry being all exhausted, it was necessary to strike out a new path. The story of his intimacy with Herodotus is probably due to the fact that he imitated him and had recourse to his history for the incidents of his poem. The Perseis was at first highly successful and was said to have been read, together with the Homeric poems, at the Panathenaea, but later critics reversed this favourable judgment. Aristotle (Topica, viii. 1) calls Choerilus’s comparisons far-fetched and obscure, and the Alexandrians displaced him by Antimachus in the canon of epic poets. The fragments are artificial in tone.

G. Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Frag. i. (1877); for another view of his relations with Herodotus see Müder in Klio (1907), 29-44.

(3) An epic poet of Iasus in Caria, who lived in the 4th century B.C. He accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns as court-poet. He is well known from the passages in Horace (Epistles, ii. 1, 232; Ars Poëtica, 357), according to which he received a piece of gold for every good verse he wrote in celebration of the glorious deeds of his master. The quality of his verses may be estimated from the remark attributed to Alexander, that he would rather be the Thersites of Homer than the Achilles of Choerilus. The epitaph on Sardanapalus, said to have been translated from the Chaldean (quoted in Athenaeus, viii. p. 336), is generally supposed to be by Choerilus.

See G. Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, i. (1877); A.F. Näke, De Choerili Samii Aetate Vita et Poësi aliisque Choerilis (1817), where the above poets are carefully distinguished; and the articles in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencydopädie, iii. 2 (1899).

CHOEROBOSCUS, GEORGIUS (c. A.D. 600), deacon and professor at the oecumenical school at Constantinople. He is also called chartophylax either as the holder of some ecclesiastical office or as superintendent of the university library. It is not known whether “Choeroboscus” (Gr. for “swineherd”) is an allusion to his earlier occupation or an inherited family name. During his tenure of office he delivered a course of lectures on grammar, which has come down to us in the shape of notes taken by his pupils. He drew from the best authorities—Apollonius Dyscolus, Herodian, Orion, Theodosius of Alexandria. The lectures are written in simple style, but suffer from diffuseness. They were much used by Constantine Lascaris in his Greek grammar and by Urban of Belluno (end of 15th cent.). The chief work of Choeroboscus, which we have in its complete form, is the commentary on the canons of Theodosius on Declension and Conjugation. Mention may also be made of a treatise on orthography, of which a fragment (on Quantity) has been preserved; a tract on prosody; commentaries on Hephaestion and Dionysius Thrax; and grammatical notes on the Psalms.

See C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897); A. Hilgard, Grammatici Graeci, iv. (1889-1894), containing the text of the commentary on Theodosius, and a full account of the life and writings of Choeroboscus; L. Kohn in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencydopädie, iii. 2 (1889); Reitzenstein, Etymologika, 190, n. 4.

CHOIR (O. Fr. cuer from Lat. chorus; pronounced quire, and until the end of the 17th century so spelt, the spelling being altered to agree with the Fr. chœur), the body of singers who perform the musical portion of the service in a church, or the place set apart for them. Any organized body of singers performing full part choral works or oratorios is also called a choir.

In English cathedrals the choir is composed of men (vicars-choral or lay clerks) and boys (choristers). They are divided into two sets, sitting on the north and south sides of the chancel respectively, called cantoris and decani, from being on the same side as the cantor (precentor) or the decanus (dean). This arrangement, together with the custom of vesting choirmen and choristers in surplices (traditional only in cathedrals and collegiate churches), has, since the middle of the 19th century, been adopted in a large number of parish and other churches. Surpliced choirs of women have occasionally been introduced, notably in America and the British colonies, but the practice has no warrant of traditional usage. In the Roman Catholic Church the choir plays a less conspicuous rôle than in the Church of England, its members not being regarded as ministers of the church, and non-Catholics are allowed to sing in it. The singers at Mass or other solemn services are usually placed in a gallery or some other inconspicuous place. The word “choir,” indeed, formerly applied to all the clergy taking part in services of the church, and the restriction of the term to the singing men and boys, who were in their origin no more than the representatives (vicars) of the clergy, is a comparatively late development. The distinction between “choir services” (Mattins, Vespers, Compline, &c.)—consisting of prayers, lections, the singing of the psalms, &c.—and the service of the altar was sharply drawn in the middle ages, as in the modern Roman Church. “Choir vestments” (surplice, &c.) are those worn by the clergy at the former, as distinguished from those used at the Mass (see [Vestments]). In England at the Reformation the choir services (Mattins, Evensong) replaced the Mass as the principal popular services, and, in general, only the choir vestments were retained in use. In the English cathedrals the members of the choir often retain privileges reminiscent of an earlier definite ecclesiastical status. At Wells, for instance, the vicars-choral form a corporation practically independent of the dean and chapter; they have their own lodgings inside the cathedral precincts (Vicars’ Close) and they can only be dismissed by a vote of their own body.

(W. A. P.)

In an architectural sense a “choir” is strictly that part of a church which is fitted up for the choir services, and is thus limited to the space between the choir screen and the presbytery. Some confusion has arisen owing to the term being employed by medieval writers to express the entire space enclosed for the performance of the principal services of the church, and therefore to include not only the choir proper, but the presbytery. In the case of a cruciform church the choir is sometimes situated under the central tower, or in the nave, and this is the case in Westminster Abbey, where it occupies four bays to the west of the transept. The choir is usually raised one step above the nave, and its sides are fitted up with seats or stalls, of which in large buildings there are usually two or three rows rising one behind the other.

In Romanesque churches there are eastern and western choirs, and in former times the term was given to chantries and subsidiary chapels, which were also called chancels. In the early Christian church the ambones where the gospels and epistles were read were placed one on either side of the choir and formed part of its enclosure, and this is the case in S. Clemente, S. Lorenzo and S. Maria in Cosmedin in Rome. In England the choir seems almost universally to have assembled at the eastern part of the church to recite the breviary services, whereas on the continent it was moved from one place to another according to convenience. In Spanish churches it occupies the nave of the church, and in the church of the Escorial in Spain was at the west end above the entrance vestibule.

(R. P. S.)

CHOISEUL, CÉSAR, Duc de (1602-1675), French marshal and diplomatist, generally known for the best part of his life as the marshal du Plessis-Praslin, came of the old French family of Choiseul, which arose in the valley of the Upper Marne in the 10th century and divided into many branches, three of the names of which, Hostel, Praslin and du Plessis, were borne, at one time or another, by the subject of this article. Entering the army at the age of fourteen as proprietary colonel of an infantry regiment, he shared in almost all the exploits of the French arms during the reign of Louis XIII. He took part in the siege of La Rochelle, assisted to defend the island of Ré against the attacks of the English under the duke of Buckingham, and accompanied the French forces to Italy in 1629. In 1630 he was appointed ambassador at the court of the duke of Savoy, and was engaged in diplomatic and administrative work in Italy until 1635, when war was declared between France and Spain. In the war that followed Plessis-Praslin distinguished himself in various battles and sieges in Italy, including the action called the “Route de Quiers” and the celebrated four-cornered operations round Turin. In 1640 he was made governor of Turin, and in 1642 lieutenant-general, and after further service in Italy he was made a marshal of France (1645) and appointed second in command in Catalonia. During the first War of the Fronde, which broke out in 1649, he assisted Condé in the brief siege of Paris; and in the second war, remaining loyal to the queen regent and the court party, he won his greatest triumph in defeating Turenne and the allied Spaniards and rebels at Rethel (or Blanc-Champ) in 1650. He then held high office at the court of Louis XIV., became minister of state in 1652, and in November 1665 was created duc de Choiseul. He was concerned in some of the negotiations between Louis and Charles II. of England which led to the treaty of Dover, and died in Paris on the 23rd of December 1675.

CHOISEUL, ÉTIENNE FRANÇOIS, Duc de (1719-1785), French statesman, was the eldest son of François Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville (1700-1770), and bore in early life the title of comte de Stainville. Born on the 28th of June 1719, he entered the army, and during the War of the Austrian Succession served in Bohemia in 1741 and in Italy, where he distinguished himself at the battle of Coni, in 1744. From 1745 until 1748 he was with the army in the Low Countries, being present at the sieges of Mons, Charleroi and Maestricht. He attained the rank of lieutenant-general, and in 1750 married Louise Honorine, daughter of Louis François Crozat, marquis du Châtel (d. 1750), who brought her husband a large fortune and proved a most devoted wife.

Choiseul gained the favour of Madame de Pompadour by procuring for her some letters which Louis XV. had written to his cousin Madame de Choiseul, with whom the king had formerly had an intrigue; and after a short time as bailli of the Vosges he was given the appointment of ambassador to Rome in 1753, where he was entrusted with the negotiations concerning the disturbances called forth by the bull Unigenitus. He acquitted himself skilfully in this task, and in 1757 his patroness obtained his transfer to Vienna, where he was instructed to cement the new alliance between France and Austria. His success at Vienna opened the way to a larger career, when in 1758 he supplanted Antoine Louis Rouillé (1689-1761) as minister for foreign affairs and so had the direction of French foreign policy during the Seven Years’ War. At this time he was made a peer of France and created duc de Choiseul. Although from 1761 until 1766 his cousin César, duc de Choiseul-Praslin (1712-1785), was minister for foreign affairs, yet Choiseul continued to control the policy of France until 1770, and during this period held most of the other important offices of state. As the author of the “Family Compact” he sought to retrieve by an alliance with the Bourbon house of Spain the disastrous results of the alliance with Austria; but his action came too late. His vigorous policy in other departments of state was not, however, fruitless. Coming to power in the midst of the demoralization consequent upon the defeats of Rossbach and Crefeld, by boldness and energy he reformed and strengthened both army and navy, and although too late to prevent the loss of Canada and India, he developed French colonies in the Antilles and San Domingo, and added Corsica and Lorraine to the crown of France. His management of home affairs in general satisfied the philosophes. He allowed the Encyclopédie to be published, and brought about the banishment of the Jesuits and the temporary abolition of the order by Pope Clement IV.

Choiseul’s fall was caused by his action towards the Jesuits, and by his support of their opponent La Chalotais, and of the provincial parlements. After the death of Madame de Pompadour in 1764, his enemies, led by Madame Du Barry and the chancellor Maupeou, were too strong for him, and in 1770 he was ordered to retire to his estate at Chanteloupe. The intrigues against him had, however, increased his popularity, which was already great, and during his retirement, which lasted until 1774, he lived in the greatest affluence and was visited by many eminent personages. Greatly to his disappointment Louis XVI. did not restore him to his former position, although the king recalled him to Paris in 1774, when he died on the 8th of May 1785, leaving behind him a huge accumulation of debt which was scrupulously discharged by his widow.

Choiseul possessed both ability and diligence, and though lacking in tenacity he showed foresight and liberality in his direction of affairs. In appearance he was a short, ill-featured man, with a ruddy countenance and a sturdy frame. His Mémoires were written during his exile from Paris, and are merely detached notes upon different questions. Horace Walpole, in his Memoirs, gives a very vivid description of the duke’s character, accuses him of exciting the war between Russia and Turkey in 1768 in order to be revenged upon the tsarina Catherine II., and says of his foreign policy, “he would project and determine the ruin of a country, but could not meditate a little mischief or a narrow benefit.” “He dissipated the nation’s wealth and his own; but did not repair the latter by plunder of the former,” says the same writer, who in reference to Choiseul’s private life asserts that “gallantry without delicacy was his constant pursuit.” Choiseul’s widow, a woman “in whom industrious malice could not find an imperfection,” lived in retirement until her death on the 3rd of December 1808.

See Mémoires du duc de Choiseul, edited by F. Calmettes (Paris, 1904); P. Boutaric, L’Ambassade de Choiseul à Vienne en 1757-1758 (Paris, 1872); Duc de Cars, Mémoires (Paris, 1890); F.J. de P., Cardinal de Bernis, Mémoires et lettres (Paris, 1878); Madame de Pompadour, Correspondance (Paris, 1878); Revue historique, tomes 82 and 87 (Paris, 1903-1905); Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., edited by G.F.R. Barker (London, 1894); G. Mangros, Le duc et la duchesse de Choiseul (Paris, 1903); and La Disgrace du duc et de la duchesse de Choiseul (Paris, 1903); E. Calmettes, Choiseul et Voltaire (Paris, 1902); A. Bourguet, Études sur la politique étrangère du duc de Choiseul (Paris, 1907); and Le Duc de Choiseul et l’alliance espagnole (Paris, 1906). See also the Edinburgh Review for July 1908.

CHOISEUL-STAINVILLE, CLAUDE ANTOINE GABRIEL, Duc de (1760-1838), French soldier, was brought up at Chanteloup, under the care of his relative, Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, who was childless. The outbreak of the Revolution found him a colonel of dragoons, and throughout those troublous times he was distinguished for his devotion to the royal house. He took part in the attempt of Louis XVI. to escape from Paris on the 20th of June 1791; was arrested with the king, and imprisoned. Liberated in May 1792, he emigrated in October, and fought in the “army of Condé” against the republic. Captured in 1795, he was confined at Dunkirk; escaped, set sail for India, was wrecked on the French coast, and condemned to death by the decree of the Directory. Nevertheless, he was fortunate enough to escape once more. Napoleon allowed him to return to France in 1801, but he remained in private life until the fall of the Empire. At the Restoration he was called to the House of Peers by Louis XVIII. At the revolution of 1830 he was nominated a member of the provisional government; and he afterwards received from Louis Philippe the post of aide-de-camp to the king and governor of the Louvre. He died in Paris on the 1st of December 1838.

CHOISY, FRANÇOIS TIMOLÉON, Abbé de (1644-1724), French author, was born in Paris on the 16th of August 1644, and died in Paris on the 2nd of October 1724. His father was attached to the household of the duke of Orleans, and his mother, who was on intimate terms with Anne of Austria, was regularly called upon to amuse Louis XIV. By a whim of his mother, the boy was dressed like a girl until he was eighteen, and, after appearing for a short time in man’s costume, he resumed woman’s dress on the advice—doubtless satirical—of Madame de La Fayette. He delighted in the most extravagant toilettes until he was publicly rebuked by the duc de Montausier, when he retired for some time to the provinces, using his disguise to assist his numerous intrigues. He had been made an abbé in his childhood, and poverty, induced by his extravagance, drove him to live on his benefice at Sainte-Seine in Burgundy, where he found among his neighbours a kindred spirit in Bussy-Rabutin. He visited Rome in the suite of the cardinal de Bouillon in 1676, and shortly afterwards a serious illness brought about a sudden and rather frivolous conversion to religion. In 1685 he accompanied the chevalier de Chaumont on a mission to Siam. He was ordained priest, and received various ecclesiastical preferments. He was admitted to the Academy in 1687, and wrote a number of historical and religious works, of which the most notable are the following:—Quatre dialogues sur l’immortalitè de l’âme ... (1684), written with the Abbé Dangeau and explaining his conversion; Traduction de l’Imitation de Jésus-Christ (1692); Histoire de France sous les règnes de Saint Louis ... de Charles V et Charles VI (5 vols., 1688-1695); and Histoire de l’Église (11 vols., 1703-1723) He is remembered, however, by his gossiping Mémoires (1737), which contain striking and accurate pictures of his time and remarkably exact portraits of his contemporaries, although he has otherwise small pretensions to historical accuracy.

The Mémoires passed through many editions, and were edited in 1888 by M. de Lescure. Some admirable letters of Choisy are included in the correspondence of Bussy-Rabutin. Choisy is said to have burnt some of his indiscreet revelations, but left a considerable quantity of unpublished MS. Part of this material, giving an account of his adventures as a woman, was surreptitiously used in an anonymous Histoire de madame la comtesse de Barres (Antwerp, 1735), and again with much editing in the Vie de M. l’abbé de Choisy (Lausanne and Geneva, 1742), ascribed by Paul Lacroix to Lenglet Dufresnoy; the text was finally edited (1870) by Lacroix as Aventures de l’abbé de Choisy. See also Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. iii.

CHOLERA (from the Gr. χολή, bile, and ῥέειν, to flow), the name given to two distinct forms of disease, simple cholera and malignant cholera. Although essentially different both as to their causation and their pathological relationships, these two diseases may in individual cases present many symptoms of mutual resemblance.

Simple Cholera (synonyms, Cholera Europaea, British Cholera, Summer or Autumnal Cholera) is the cholera of ancient medical writers, as is apparent from the accurate description of the disease given by Hippocrates, Celsus and Aretaeus. Its occurrence in an epidemic form was noticed by various physicians in the 16th century, and an admirable account of the disease was subsequently given by Thomas Sydenham in 1669-1672. This disease is sometimes called Cholera Nostras, the word nostras, which is good Latin and used by Cicero, meaning “belonging to our country.” The relations between it and Asiatic cholera (see below) are obscure. Clinically they may exactly resemble each other, and bacteriology has not been able to draw an absolute line between them. The real difference is epidemiological, cholera nostras having no epidemic significance.

The chief symptoms in well-marked cases are vomiting and purging occurring either together or alternately. The seizure is usually sudden and violent. The contents of the stomach are first ejected, and this is followed by severe retching and vomiting of thin fluid of bilious appearance and bitter taste. The diarrhoea which accompanies or succeeds the vomiting, and is likewise of bilious character, is attended with severe griping abdominal pain, while cramps affecting the legs or arms greatly intensify the suffering. The effect upon the system is rapid and alarming, a few hours of such an attack sufficing to reduce the strongest person to a state of extreme prostration. The surface of the body becomes cold, the pulse weak, the voice husky, and the whole symptoms may resemble in a striking manner those of malignant cholera, to be subsequently described. In unfavourable cases, particularly where the disorder is epidemic, death may result within forty-eight hours. Generally, however, the attack is arrested and recovery soon follows, although there may remain for a considerable time a degree of irritability of the alimentary canal, rendering necessary the utmost care in regard to diet.

Attacks of this kind are of frequent occurrence in summer and autumn in almost all countries. They appear specially liable to occur when cold and damp alternate with heat. Occasionally the disorder prevails so extensively as to constitute an epidemic. The exciting causes of an attack are in many cases errors in diet, particularly the use of unripe fruit and new vegetables, and the excessive drinking of cold liquids during perspiration. Outbreaks of this disorder in a household or community can sometimes be traced to the use of impure water, or to noxious emanations from the sewers.

In the treatment, vomiting should be encouraged so long as it shows the presence of undigested food, after which opiates ought to be administered. Small opium pills, or Dover’s powder, or the aromatic powder of chalk with opium, are likely to be retained in the stomach, and will generally succeed in allaying the pain and diarrhoea, while ice and effervescing drinks serve to quench the thirst and subdue the sickness. In aggravated cases where medicines are rejected, enemata of starch and laudanum, or the hypodermic injection of morphia, ought to be resorted to. Counter-irritation by mustard or turpentine over the abdomen is always of use, as is also friction with the hands where cramps are present. When sinking threatens, brandy and ammonia will be called for. During convalescence the food should be in the form of milk and farinaceous diet, or light soups, and all indigestible articles must be carefully avoided.

In the treatment of this disease as it affects young children (Cholera Infantum), most reliance is to be placed on the administration of chalk and the use of starch enemata. In their case opium in any form cannot be safely employed.

Malignant Cholera (synonyms, Asiatic Cholera, Indian Cholera, Epidemic Cholera, Algide Cholera) is one of the most severe and fatal diseases. In describing the symptoms it is customary to divide them into three stages, but it must be noted that these do not always present themselves in so distinct a form as to be capable of separate recognition. The first or premonitory stage consists in the occurrence of diarrhoea. Frequently of mild and painless character, and coming on after some error in diet, this symptom is apt to be disregarded. The discharges from the bowels are similar to those of ordinary summer cholera, which the attack closely resembles. There is, however, at first the absence of vomiting. This diarrhoea generally lasts for two or three days, and then if it does not gradually subside either may pass into the more severe phenomena characteristic of the second stage of cholera, or on the other hand may itself prove fatal.

The second stage is termed the stage of collapse or the algide or asphyxial stage. As above mentioned, this is often preceded by the premonitory diarrhoea, but not infrequently the phenomena attendant upon this stage are the first to manifest themselves. They come on often suddenly in the night with diarrhoea of the most violent character, the matters discharged being of whey-like appearance, and commonly termed the “rice-water” evacuations. They contain large quantities of disintegrated epithelium from the mucous membrane of the intestines. The discharge, which is at first unattended with pain, is soon succeeded by copious vomiting of matters similar to those passed from the bowels, accompanied with severe pain at the pit of the stomach, and with intense thirst. The symptoms now advance with rapidity. Cramps of the legs, feet, and muscles of the abdomen come on and occasion great agony, while the signs of collapse make their appearance. The surface of the body becomes cold and assumes a blue or purple hue, the skin is dry, sodden and wrinkled, indicating the intense draining away of the fluids of the body, the features are pinched and the eyes deeply sunken, the pulse at the wrist is imperceptible, and the voice is reduced to a hoarse whisper (the vox cholerica). There is complete suppression of the urine.

In this condition death often takes place in less than one day, but in epidemics cases are frequently observed where the collapse is so sudden and complete as to prove fatal in one or two hours even without any great amount of previous purging or vomiting. In most instances the mental faculties are comparatively unaffected, although in the later stages there is in general more or less apathy.

Reaction, however, may take place, and this constitutes the third stage. It consists in the arrest of the alarming symptoms characterizing the second stage, and the gradual but evident improvement in the patient’s condition. The pulse returns, the surface assumes a natural hue, and the bodily heat is restored. Before long the vomiting ceases, and although diarrhoea may continue for a time, it is not of a very severe character and soon subsides, as do also the cramps. The urine may remain suppressed for some time, and on returning is often found to be albuminous. Even in this stage, however, the danger is not past, for relapses sometimes occur which speedily prove fatal, while again the reaction may be of imperfect character, and there may succeed an exhausting fever (the so-called typhoid stage of cholera) which may greatly retard recovery, and under which the patient may sink at a period even as late as two or three weeks from the commencement of the illness.

Many other complications are apt to arise during the progress of convalescence from cholera, such as diphtheritic and local inflammatory affections, all of which are attended with grave danger.

When the attack of cholera is of milder character in all its stages than that above described, it has been named Cholerine, but the term is an arbitrary one and the disease is essentially cholera.

The bodies of persons dying of cholera are found to remain long warm, and the temperature may even rise after death. Peculiar muscular contractions have been observed to take place after death, so that the position of the limbs may become altered. The soft textures of the body are found to be dry and hard, and the muscles of a dark brown appearance. The blood is of dark colour and tarry consistence. The upper portion of the small intestines is generally found distended with the rice-water discharges, the mucous membrane is swollen, and there is a remarkable loss of its natural epithelium. The kidneys are usually in a state of acute congestion. This form of cholera belongs originally to Asia, more particularly to India, where, as well as in the Indian archipelago, epidemics are known to have occurred at various times for several centuries.

Much light has been thrown upon Asiatic cholera by Western experience; and the study of the disease by modern methods has resulted in important additions to our previous knowledge of its nature, causation, mode of dissemination and prevention.

The cause is a micro-organism identified by Koch in 1883 (see [Parasitic Diseases]). For some years it was called the “comma bacillus,” from its supposed resemblance in shape to a comma, but it was subsequently found Causation. to be a vibrio or spirillum, not a bacillus. The discovery was received with much scepticism in some quarters, and the claim of Koch’s vibrio to be the true cause of cholera was long disputed, but is now universally acknowledged. Few micro-organisms have been more elaborately investigated, but very little is known of its natural history, and its epidemiological behaviour is still surrounded by obscurity. At an important discussion on the subject, held at the International Hygienic Congress in 1894, Professor Gruber of Vienna declared that the deeper investigators went the more difficult the problem became, while M. Elie Metschnikoff of the Pasteur Institute made a similar admission. The difficulty lies chiefly in the variable characters assumed by the organism and the variable effects produced by it. The type reached by cultivation through a few generations may differ so widely from the original in appearance and behaviour as to be hardly recognizable, while, on the other hand, of two organisms apparently indistinguishable one may be innocuous and the other give rise to the most violent cholera. This variability offers a possible explanation of the frequent failure to trace the origin of epidemic outbreaks in isolated places. It is commonly assumed that the micro-organism is of a specific character, and always introduced from without, when cholera appears in countries or places where it is not endemic. In some cases such introduction can be proved, and in others it can be inferred with a high degree of probability, but sometimes it is impossible to trace the origin to any possible channel of communication. A remarkable case of this kind occurred at the Nietleben lunatic asylum near Halle, in 1893, in the shape of a sudden, explosive and isolated outbreak of true Asiatic cholera. It was entirely confined to the institution, and the peculiar circumstances enabled a very exact investigation to be made. The facts led Professor Arndt, of Greifswald, to propound a novel and interesting theory. No cholera existed in the surrounding district and no introduction could be traced, but for several months in the previous autumn diarrhoea had prevailed in the asylum. The sewage from the establishment was disposed of on a farm, and the effluent passed into the river Saale above the intake of the water-supply for the asylum. Thus a circulation of morbid material through the persons of the inmates was established. Dr Arndt’s theory was that by virtue of this circulation cholera was gradually developed from previously existing intestinal disease of an allied but milder type. The outbreak occurred in winter, and coincided with the freezing of the filter-beds at the waterworks. The theory is worth notice, because a similar relation between the drainage and the water-supply frequently exists in places severely attacked by cholera, and it has repeatedly been observed that the latter is preceded by the prevalence of a milder form of intestinal disease. The inference is not that cholera can be developed de novo, but that the type is unstable, and that a virulent form may be evolved under favourable conditions from another so mild as to be unrecognized, and consequently undetected in its origin or introduction. This is quite in keeping with the observed variability of the micro-organism, and with the trend of modern research with regard to the relations between other pathogenic germs and the multifarious gradations of type assumed by other zymotic diseases. The same thing has been suggested of diphtheria.

Cholera is endemic in the East over a wide area, ranging from Bombay to southern China, but its chief home is British India. It principally affects the alluvial soil near the mouths of the great rivers, and more particularly the delta Epidemicity. of the Ganges. Lower Bengal is pre-eminently the standing focus and centre of diffusion. In some years it is quiescent, though never absent; in others it becomes diffused, for reasons of which nothing is known, and its diffusive activity varies greatly from equally inscrutable causes. At irregular intervals this property becomes so heightened that the disease passes its natural boundaries and is carried east, north and west, it may be to Europe or beyond to the American continent. We must assume that the micro-organism, like those of other epidemic diseases, acquires greater vitality and toxic energy, or greater power of reproduction at some times than at others, but the conditions that govern this behaviour are quite unknown, though no problem has a more important bearing on public health. Bacteriology, as already intimated, has thrown no light upon it, nor has meteorology. Some results of modern research, indeed, tend to assign increasing importance to the relations between surface soil and certain micro-organisms, and suggest that changes in the level of the subsoil water, to which Professor Max von Pettenkoffer long ago drew attention, may be a dominant factor in determining the latency or activity of pathogenic germs. But this is largely a matter of conjecture, and, so far as cholera is concerned, the conditions which turn an endemic into an epidemic disease must be admitted to be still unknown.

On the other hand, the mode of dissemination is now well understood. Diffusion takes place along the lines of human intercourse. The poison is carried chiefly by infected persons moving from place to place; but soiled clothes, rags and other articles that have come into contact with persons suffering from the disease may be the means of conveyance to a distance. There is no reason to suppose that it is air-borne, or that atmospheric influences have anything to do with its spread, except in so far as meteorological conditions may be favourable to the growth and activity of the micro-organisms. Beyond all doubt, the great manufactory of the poison is the human body, and the discharges from it are the great source of contagion. They may infect the ground, the water, or the immediate surroundings of the patient, and so pass from hand to hand, the poison finding entrance into the bodies of the healthy by means of food and drink which have become contaminated in various ways. Flies which feed upon excreta and other foul matters may be carriers of contagion. Of all the means of local dissemination, contaminated water is by far the most important, because it affects the greatest number of people, and this is particularly the case in places which have a public water-supply. A single contaminated source may expose the entire population to danger. All severe outbreaks of an explosive character are due to this cause. It is also possible that the cholera poison multiplies rapidly in water under favourable conditions, and that a reservoir, for instance, may form a sort of forcing-bed. But it would be a mistake to regard cholera as purely a water-borne disease, even locally. It may infect the soil in localities which have a perfectly pure water-supply, but have defective drainage or no drainage at all, and then it will be found more difficult to get rid of, though less formidable in its effects, than when the water alone is the source of mischief. In all these respects it has a great affinity to enteric fever. With regard to locality, no situation can be said to be free from attack if the disease is introduced and the sanitary conditions are bad; but, speaking generally, low-lying places on alluvial soil near rivers are more liable than those standing high or on a rocky foundation. Of meteorological conditions it can only be said with certainty that a high temperature favours the development of cholera, though a low one does not prevent it. In temperate climates the summer months, and particularly August and September, are the season of its greatest activity.

Cholera spreads westwards from India by two routes—(1) by sea to the shores of the Red Sea, Egypt and the Mediterranean; and (2) by land to northern India and Afghanistan, thence to Persia and central Asia, and so to Russia. In Western diffusion. the great invasions of Europe during the 19th century it sometimes followed one route and sometimes the other. It was not till 1817 that the attention of European physicians was specially directed to the disease by the outbreak of a violent epidemic of cholera at Jessore in Bengal. This was followed by its rapid spread over a large portion of British India, where it caused immense destruction of life both among natives and Europeans. During the next three years cholera continued to rage all over India, as well as in Ceylon and others of the Indian islands. The disease now began to spread over a wider extent than hitherto, invading China on the east and Persia on the west. In 1823 it had extended into Asia Minor and Russia in Asia, and it continued to advance steadily though slowly westwards, while at the same time fresh epidemics were appearing at intervals in India. From this period up till 1830 no great extension of cholera took place, but in the latter year it reappeared in Persia and along the shores of the Caspian Sea, and thence entered Russia in Europe. Despite the strictest sanitary precautions, the disease spread rapidly through that whole empire, causing great mortality and exciting consternation everywhere. It ravaged the northern and central parts of Europe, and spread onwards to England, appearing in Sunderland in October 1831, and in London in January 1832, during which year it continued to prevail in most cf the cities and large towns of Great Britain and Ireland. The disease subsequently extended into France, Spain and Italy, and crossing the Atlantic spread through North and Central America. It had previously prevailed in Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and the Nile district, and in 1835 it was general throughout North Africa. Up till 1837 cholera continued to break out in various parts of the continent of Europe, after which this epidemic disappeared, having thus within twenty years visited a large portion of the world.

About the year 1841 another great epidemic of cholera appeared in India and China, and soon began to extend in the direction traversed by the former, but involving a still wider area. It entered Europe again in 1847, and spread through Russia and Germany on to England, and thence to France, whence it passed to America, and subsequently appeared in the West Indies. This epidemic appears to have been even more deadly than the former, especially as regards Great Britain and France. A third great outbreak of cholera took place in the East in 1850, entering Europe in 1853. During the two succeeding years it prevailed extensively throughout the continent, and fell with severity on the armies engaged in the Crimean War. Although widely prevalent in Great Britain and Ireland it was less destructive than former epidemics. It was specially severe throughout both North and South America. A fourth epidemic visited Europe again in 1865-1866, but was on the whole less extensive and destructive than its predecessors.

By some writers the epidemic of 1853 is regarded as a recrudescence of that of 1847. The earlier ones followed the land route by way of Afghanistan and Persia, and took several years to reach Europe. That of 1865 travelled more rapidly, being carried from Bombay by sea to Mecca, from there to Suez and Alexandria, and then on to various Mediterranean ports. Within the year it had not only spread extensively in Europe, but had reached the West Indies. In 1866 it invaded England and the United States, but during the following year it died down in the West. The subsequent history of cholera in Europe may be stated chronologically.

1860-1874.—This invasion was traced to the great gathering of pilgrims at Hardwar on the Upper Ganges in the month of April 1867. From there the returning pilgrims carried it to the Punjab, Kashmir and Afghanistan, whence it spread to Persia and the Caspian, but it did not reach Russia until 1869. During the next four years a number of outbreaks occurred in central Europe, and notably one at Munich in the winter of 1873. The irregular character of these epidemics suggests that they were rather survivals from the pandemic wave of 1867 than fresh importations, but there is no doubt that cholera was carried overland into Russia in the manner described.

1883-1887.—This visitation, again, came by the Mediterranean. In 1883 a severe outbreak occurred in Egypt, causing a mortality of above 25,000. Its origin remained unknown. During this epidemic Koch discovered the comma bacillus. The following year cholera appeared at Toulon. It was said to have been brought in a troopship from Saigon in Cochin-China, but it may have been connected with the Egyptian epidemic. A severe outbreak followed and reached Italy, nearly 8000 persons dying in Naples alone. In 1885 the south of France, Italy, Sicily and Spain all suffered, especially the last, where nearly 120,000 deaths occurred. Portugal escaped, and the authorities there attributed their good fortune to the institution of a military cordon, in which they have had implicit confidence ever since. In 1886 the same countries suffered again, and also Austria-Hungary. From Italy the disease was carried to South America, and even travelled as far as Chile, where it had previously been unknown. In 1887 it still lingered in the Mediterranean, causing great mortality in Messina especially. According to Dr A.J. Wall, this epidemic cost 250,000 lives in Europe and at least 50,000 in America. A particular interest attaches to it in the fact that a localized revival of the disease was caused in Spain in 1890 by the disturbance of the graves of some of the victims who had died of cholera four years previously.

1892-1895.—This great invasion reverted again to the old overland route, but the march of the disease was of unprecedented rapidity. Within less than five months it travelled from the North-West Provinces of India to St Petersburg, and probably to Hamburg, and thence in a few days to England and the United States. This speed, in such striking contrast to the slow advance of former occasions, was attributed, and no doubt rightly, to improved steam transit, and particularly the Transcaspian railway. The progress of the disease was traced from place to place, and almost from day to day, with great precision, showing how it moves along the chief highways and is obviously carried by man. The main facts are as follows:—Cholera was extensively and severely prevalent in India in 1891, causing 601,603 deaths, the highest mortality since 1877. In March 1892 it broke out at the Hardwar fair, a day or two before the pilgrims dispersed; on the 19th of April it was at Kabul, on the 1st of May at Herat, and on the 26th of May at Meshed. From Meshed it moved in three directions—due west to Teheran in Persia, north-east by the Transcaspian railway to Samarkand in Central Asia, and north-west by the same line in the opposite direction to Uzun-ada on the Caspian Sea. It reached Uzun-ada on the 6th of June; crossed to Baku, June 18th; Astrakhan, June 24th; then up the Volga to Nizhniy-Novgorod, arriving at Moscow and St Petersburg early in August. The part played by steam transit is clear from the fact that the disease took no longer to travel all the way from Meshed to St Petersburg by rail and steamboat than to traverse the short distance from Meshed to Teheran by road. On the 16th of August cases began to occur in Hamburg; on the 19th of August a fireman was taken ill at Grangemouth in Scotland, where he had arrived the day before from Hamburg; and on the 31st of August a vessel reached New York from the same port with cholera on board. On the 8th of September the disease appeared in Galicia, having moved somewhat slowly westwards across Russia into Poland, and on the 26th of September it was in Budapest. Holland and Servia were also attacked, while isolated cases were carried to Norway, Denmark and Italy. Meanwhile two entirely separate epidemics were in progress elsewhere. The first was confined to Arabia and the Somali coast of Africa, and was connected with the remains of an outbreak in Syria and Arabia in 1890-1891. The second arose mysteriously in France about the time when the overland invasion started from India. The first known case occurred in the prison at Nanterre, near Paris, on the 31st of March. Paris was affected in April, and Havre in July. The origin of this outbreak, which was of a much less violent character than that which came simultaneously by way of Russia, was never ascertained. Its activity was confined to France, particularly in the neighbourhood of Paris, together with Belgium and Holland, which was placed between two fires, but escaped with but little mortality. The number of persons killed by cholera in 1892, outside of India, was reckoned at 378,449, and the vast majority of those died within six months. The countries which suffered most severely were as follows:—European Russia, 151,626; Caucasus, 69,423; Central Asian Russia, 31,804; Siberia, 15,037—total for Russian empire, 267,890; Persia, 63,982; Somaliland, 10,000; Afghanistan, 7,000; Germany, 9563; France, 4550; Hungary, 1255; Belgium, 961. Curiously enough, the south of Europe, which had been the scene of the previous epidemic visitation, escaped. The disease was of the most virulent character. In European Russia the mortality was 45.8% of the cases, the highest rate ever known in that country; in Germany it was 51.3%; and in Austria-Hungary, 57.5%. Of all the localities attacked, the case of Hamburg was the most remarkable. The presence of cholera was first suspected on the 16th of August, when two cases occurred, but it was not officially declared until the 23rd of August. By that time the daily number of victims had already risen to some hundreds, while the experts and authorities were making up their minds whether they had cholera to deal with or not. Their decision eventually came too late and was superfluous, for by the 27th of August the people were being stricken down at the rate of 1000 a day. This rate was maintained for four days, after which the vehemence of the pestilence began to abate. It gradually declined, and ceased on the 14th of November. During those three months 16,956 persons were attacked and 8605 died, the majority within the space of a few weeks. The town, ordinarily one of the gayest places of business and pleasure on the continent, became a city of the dead. Thousands of persons fled, carrying the disease into all parts of Germany; the rest shut themselves indoors; the shops were closed, the trams ceased to run, the hotels and restaurants were deserted, and few vehicles or pedestrians were seen in the streets. At the cemetery, which lies about 10 m. from the town, some hundreds of men were engaged day and night digging long trenches to hold double rows of coffins, while the funerals formed an almost continuous procession along the roads; even so the victims could not be buried fast enough, and their bodies lay for days in sheds hastily run up as mortuaries. Hamburg had been attacked by cholera on fourteen previous occasions, beginning with 1831, but the mortality had never approached that of 1892; in the worst year, which was 1832, there were only 3687 cases and 1765 deaths. The disease was believed to have been introduced by Jewish emigrants passing through on their way from Russia, but the importation could not be traced. The Jews were segregated and kept under careful supervision from the middle of July onwards, and no recognized case occurred among them. The total number of places in Germany in which cholera appeared in 1892 was 269, but it took no serious hold anywhere save in Hamburg. The distribution was chiefly by the waterways, which seem to affect a larger number of places than the railways as carriers of cholera. In Paris 907 persons died, and in Havre 498. Between the 18th of August and the 21st of October 38 cases were imported into England and Scotland through eleven different ports, but the disease nowhere obtained a footing. Seven vessels brought 72 cases to the United States, and 16 others occurred on shore, but there was no further dissemination.

During the winter of 1892-1893 cholera died down, but never wholly ceased in Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary and France. With the return of warm weather it showed renewed activity, and prevailed extensively throughout Europe. The recorded mortality for the principal countries was as follows:—Russia (chiefly western provinces), 41,047; Austria-Hungary, 4669; France, 4000; Italy, 3036; Turkey, 1500; Germany, 298; Holland, 376; Belgium, 372; England, 139. Hardly any country escaped altogether; but Europe suffered less than Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia. Cholera broke out at Mecca in June, and owing to the presence of an exceptionally large number of pilgrims caused an appalling mortality. The chief shereef estimated the mortality at 50,000. The pilgrims carried the disease to Asia Minor and Constantinople. In Persia also a recrudescence took place and proved enormously destructive. Dr. Barry estimated the mortality at 70,000. At Hamburg, where new waterworks had been installed with sand filtration, only a few sporadic cases occurred until the autumn, when a sudden but limited rush took place, which was traced to a defect in the masonry permitting unfiltered Elbe water to pass into the mains. In England cholera obtained a footing on the Humber at Grimsby, and to a lesser extent at Hull, and isolated attacks occurred in some 50 different localities. Excluding a few ship-borne cases the registered number of attacks was 287, with 135 deaths, of which 9 took place in London. It is interesting to compare the mortality from cholera in England and Wales, and in London, for each year in which it has prevailed since registration began:—

In 1894 no deaths from cholera were recorded in England, but on the continent it still prevailed over a wide area. In Russia over 30,000 persons died of it, in Germany about 500, but the most violent outbreak was in Galicia, where upwards of 8000 deaths were registered. In 1895 it still lingered, chiefly in Russia and Galicia, but with greatly diminished activity. In that year Egypt, Morocco and Japan were attacked, the last severely. The disease then remained in abeyance until the severe epidemic in India in 1900.

The great invasion just described was fruitful in lessons for the prevention of cholera. It proved that the one real and sufficient protection lies in a standing condition of good sanitation backed by an efficient and vigilant Prevention sanitary administration. The experience of Great Britain was a remarkable piece of evidence, but that of Berlin was perhaps even more striking, for Berlin lay in the centre of four fires, in direct and frequent communication with Hamburg, Russia, France and Austria, and without the advantage of a sea frontier. Cholera was repeatedly brought into Berlin, but never obtained a footing, and its successful repression was accomplished without any irksome interference with traffic or the ordinary business of life. The general success of Great Britain and Germany in keeping cholera in check by ordinary sanitary means completed the conversion of all enlightened nations to the policy laid down so far back as 1865 by Sir John Simon, and advocated by Great Britain at a series of international congresses—the policy of abandoning quarantine, which Great Britain did in 1873, and trusting to sanitary measures with medical inspection of persons arriving from infected places. This principle was formally adopted at the international conference ference held at Dresden in 1893, at which a convention was signed by the delegates of Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Montenegro and the Netherlands. Under this instrument the practice is broadly as follows, though the procedure varies a good deal in different countries:—Ships arriving from infected ports are inspected, and if healthy are not detained, but bilge-water and drinking-water are evacuated, and persons landing may be placed under medical supervision without detention; infected ships are detained only for purposes of disinfection; persons suffering from cholera are removed to hospital; other persons landing from an infected ship are placed under medical observation, which may mean detention for five days from the last case, or, as in Great Britain, supervision in their own homes, for which purpose they give their names and places of destination before landing. All goods are freed from restrictions, except rags and articles believed to be contaminated by cholera matters. By land, passengers from infected places are similarly inspected at the frontiers and their luggage “disinfected”—in all cases a pious ceremony of no practical value, involving a short but often a vexatious delay; only those found suffering from cholera can be detained. Each nation is pledged to notify the others of the existence within its own borders of a “foyer” of cholera, by which is meant a focus or centre of infection. The precise interpretation of the term is left to each government, and is treated in a rather elastic fashion by some, but it is generally understood to imply the occurrence of non-imported cases in such a manner as to point to the local presence of infection. The question of guarding Europe generally from the danger of diffusion by pilgrims through the Red Sea was settled at another conference held in Paris in 1894. The provisions agreed on included the inspection of pilgrims at ports of departure, detention of infected or suspected persons, and supervision of pilgrim ships and of pilgrims proceeding overland to Mecca.

The substitution of the procedure above described for the old measures of quarantine and other still more drastic interferences with traffic presupposes the existence of a sanitary service and fairly good sanitary conditions if cholera is to be effectually prevented. No doubt if sanitation were perfect in any place or country, cholera, along with many other diseases, might there be ignored, but sanitation is not perfect anywhere, and therefore it requires to be supplemented by a system of notification with prompt segregation of the sick and destruction of infective material. These things imply a regular organization, and it is to the public health service of Great Britain that the complete mastery of cholera has mainly been due in recent years, and particularly in 1893. Of sanitary conditions the most important is unquestionably the water-supply. So many irrefragable proofs of this fact were given during 1892-1893 that it is no longer necessary to refer to the time-honoured case of the Broad Street pump. At Samarkand three regiments were encamped side by side on a level plain close to a stream of water. The colonel of one regiment took extraordinary precautions, placing a guard over the river, and compelling his men to use boiled water even for washing. Not a single case of cholera occurred in that regiment, while the others, in which only ordinary precautions were taken, lost over 100 men. At Askabad the cholera had almost disappeared, when a banquet was given by the governor in honour of the tsar’s name-day. Of the guests one-half died within twenty-four hours; a military band, which was present, lost 40 men out of 50; and one regiment lost half its men and 9 officers. Within forty-eight hours 1300 persons died out of a total population of about 13,000. The water supply came from a small stream, and just before the banquet a heavy rain-storm had occurred, which swept into the stream all surface refuse from an infected village higher up and some distance from the banks. But the classical example was Hamburg. The water-supply is obtained from the Elbe, which became infected by some means not ascertained. The drainage from the town also runs into the river, and the movement of the tide was sufficient to carry the sewage matter up above the water-intake. The water itself, which is no cleaner than that of the Thames at London Bridge, underwent no purification whatever before distribution. It passed through a couple of ponds, supposed to act as settling tanks, but owing to the growth of the town and increased demand for water it was pumped through too rapidly to permit of any subsidence. Eels and other fish constantly found their way into the houses, while the mains were lined with vegetation and crustacea. The water-pipes of Hamburg had a peculiar and abundant fauna and flora of their own, and the water they delivered was commonly called Fleischbrühe, from its resemblance to thick soup. On the other hand, at Altona, which is continuous with Hamburg, the water was filtered through sand. In all other respects the conditions were identical, yet in Altona only 328 persons died, against 8605 in Hamburg. In some streets one side lies in Hamburg, the other in Altona, and cholera stopped at the dividing line, the Hamburg side being full of cases and the Altona side untouched. In the following year, when Hamburg had the new filtered supply, it enjoyed equal immunity, save for a short period when, as we have said, raw Elbe water accidentally entered the mains.

But water, though the most important condition, is not the only one affecting the incidence of cholera. The case of Grimsby furnished a striking lesson to the contrary. Here the disease obtained a decided hold, in spite of a pure water-supply, through the fouling of the soil by cesspits and defective drainage. At Havre also its prevalence was due to a similar cause. Further, it was conclusively proved at Grimsby that cholera can be spread by sewage-fed shell-fish. Several of the local outbreaks in England were traced to the ingestion of oysters obtained from the Grimsby beds. In short, it may be said that all insanitary conditions favour the prevalence of cholera in some degree. Preventive inoculation with an attenuated virus was introduced by W.M.W. Haffkine, and has been extensively used in India, with considerable appearance of success so far as the statistical evidence goes.

As already remarked, the latest manifestations of cholera show that it has lost none of its former virulence and fatality. The symptoms are now regarded as the effects of the toxic action of the poison formed by the micro-organisms Treatment. upon the tissues and especially upon the nervous system. But this theory has not led to any effective treatment. Drugs in great variety were tried in the continental hospitals in 1892, but without any distinct success. The old controversy between the aperient and the astringent treatment reappeared. In Russia the former, which aims at evacuating the poison, was more generally adopted; in Germany the latter, which tries to conserve strength by stopping the flux, found more favour. Two methods of treatment were invariably found to give great relief, if not to prolong life and promote recovery—the hot bath and the injection of normal saline solution into the veins or the subcutaneous tissue. These two should always be tried in the cold and collapsed stages of cholera.

See Local Government Board Reports, 1892-93-94-95; Clemow, The Cholera Epidemic of 1892 in the Russian Empire; Wall, Asiatic Cholera; Notter, Epidemiological Society’s Transactions, vol. xvii.; Emmerich and Gemünd,München. med. Wochenschr. (1904), pp. 1086-1157; Wherry, Department of the Interior Bureau of Government Laboratories, No. 19 (October 1904, Manila); Wherry and M’Dill, Ibid. No. 31 (May 1905, Manila).

CHOLET, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Maine-et-Loire, 41 m. S.E. of Nantes on the Ouest-État railway between that town and Poitiers. Pop. (1906) 16,554. Cholet stands on an eminence on the right bank of the Moine, which is crossed by a bridge of the 15th century. A public garden occupies the site of the old castle; the public buildings and churches, the finest of which is Notre-Dame, are modern. The public institutions include the sub-prefecture, a tribunal of first instance, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, and a communal college. There are granite quarries in the vicinity of the town. The chief industry is the manufacture of linen and linen handkerchiefs, which is also carried on in the neighbouring communes on a large scale. Woollen and cotton fabrics are also produced, and bleaching and the manufacture of preserved foods are carried on. Cholet is the most important centre in France for the sale of fat cattle, sheep and pigs, for which Paris is the chief market. Megalithic monuments are numerous in the neighbourhood. The town owes the rise of its prosperity to the settlement of weavers there by Edouard Colbert, count of Maulévrier, a brother of the great Colbert. It suffered severely in the War of La Vendée of 1793, insomuch that for years afterwards it was almost without inhabitants.

CHOLON (“great market”), a town of French Indo-China, the largest commercial centre of Cochin China, 3½ m. S.W. of Saigon, with which it is united by railway, steam-tramway and canal. Cholon was founded by Chinese immigrants about 1780, and is situated on the Chinese arroyo at the junction of the Lo-Gom and a canal. Its waterways are frequented by innumerable boats and lined in some places with native dwellings built on piles, in others by quays and houses of French construction. Its population is almost entirely Asiatic, and has more than trebled since 1880. In that year it had only 45,000 inhabitants; in 1907 it numbered about 138,000. Of these, 42,000 were Chinese, 73,000 Annamese, and 155 French (exclusive of a garrison of 92); the remainder consisted of Cambodians and Asiatic foreigners. During the rice season the town is visited by a floating population of 21,000 persons. The Chinese are divided into congregations according to their place of origin. Cholon is administered by a municipal council, composed of French, Annamese and Chinese traders. An administrator of native affairs, nominated by the governor, fills the office of mayor. There are a fine municipal hospital and municipal schools for boys and girls. The principal thoroughfares are lighted by electric light. The rice trade, almost monopolized by the Chinese, is the leading industry, the rice being treated in large steam mills. Tanning, dyeing, copper-founding, glass, brick and pottery manufacture, stone working, timber-sawing and junk building are also included among the industries.

CHOLONES, a tribe of South American Indians living on the left bank of the Huallaga river in the Amazon valley. The name is that given them by the Spanish. They were first met by the Franciscans, who established mission villages among them in 1676. They are a wild race but mild-mannered, very superstitious, and pride themselves on their skill as doctors. Their chief weapon is the blow-pipe, in the use of which they are adepts.

CHOLULA, an ancient town of Mexico, in the state and on the plateau of Puebla, 8 m. by rail W. by N. of the city of that name, and 6912 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1900, estimate) 9000. The Interoceanic railway passes through Cholula, but the city’s commercial and industrial standing is overshadowed by that of its larger and more modern neighbour. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, Cholula—then known as Chololan—was a large and important town, consecrated to the worship of the god Quetzalcoatl, who had here one of the most imposing temples in Anahuac, built on the summit of a truncated pyramid, the largest of its kind in the world. This pyramid, constructed of sun-dried bricks and earth, 177 ft. high, and covering an area of nearly 45 acres, is the most conspicuous object in the town and is surmounted by a chapel dedicated to Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. A corner of the lower terrace of this great pyramid was cut through in the construction of the Puebla road, but nothing was discovered to explain its purpose, which was probably that of furnishing an imposing site for a temple. Nothing definite is known of its age and history, as the fanatical zeal of Cortez and his companions destroyed whatever historical data the temple may have contained. Cholula was visited by Cortez in 1519 during his eventful march inland to Montezuma’s capital, Tenochtitlan, when he treacherously massacred its inhabitants and pillaged the city, pretending to distrust the hospitable inhabitants. Cortez estimated that the town then had 20,000 habitations, and its suburbs as many more, but this was undoubtedly a deliberate exaggeration. The Cholulans were of Nahuatl origin and were semi-independent, yielding only a nominal allegiance to Montezuma. They were a trading people, holding fairs, and exchanging their manufactures of textiles and pottery for other produce. The pyramid is believed to have been built by a people occupying this region before the Cholulans.

CHOPIN, FREDERIC FRANÇOIS (1810-1849), Polish musical composer and pianist, was born at Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw, on the 22nd of February 1810 (not the 1st of March 1809). His father, of French origin, born at Nancy in 1770, had married a Polish lady, Justine Krzyzanowska. Frederic was their third child. His first musical education he received from Adalbert Ziwny, a Czech musician, who is said to have been a passionate admirer of J.S. Bach. He also received a good general education at one of the first colleges of Warsaw, where he was supported by Prince Antoine Radziwill, a generous protector of artistic talent and himself well known as the composer of music to Goethe’s Faust and other works. His musical genius opened to Chopin the best circles of Polish society, at that time unrivalled in Europe for its ease of intercourse, the beauty and grace of its women, and its liberal appreciation of artistic gifts. These early impressions were of lasting influence on Chopin’s development. While at college he received thorough instruction in the theory of his art from Joseph Elsner, a learned musician and director of the conservatoire at Warsaw. When in 1829 he left his native town for Vienna, where his début as a pianist took place, he was in all respects a perfectly formed and developed artist. There is in his compositions little of that gradual progress which, for instance, in Beethoven necessitates a classification of his works according to different periods. Chopin’s individuality and his style were distinctly pronounced in that set of variations on “La ci darem” which excited the wondering enthusiasm of Robert Schumann. In 1831 he left Vienna with the intention of visiting London; but on his way to England he reached Paris and settled there for the rest of his life. Here again he soon became the favourite and musical hero of society. His connexion with Madame Dudevant, better known by her literary pseudonym of George Sand (q.v.), is an important feature of Chopin’s life. When in 1839 his health began to fail, George Sand went with him to Majorca, and it was mainly owing to her tender care that the composer recovered his health for a time. Chopin declared that the destruction of his relations with Madame Dudevant in 1847 broke up his life. The association of these two artists has provoked a whole literature on the nature of their relations, of which the novelist’s Un Hiver à Majorque was the beginning. The last ten years of Chopin’s life were a continual struggle with the pulmonary disease to which he succumbed in Paris on the 17th of October 1849. The year before his death he visited England, where he was received with enthusiasm by his numerous admirers. Chopin died in the arms of his sister, who hastened from Poland to his death-bed. He was buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise. A small monument was erected to the memory of the composer at Wasswan in 1880. Portraits and medallions of Chopin were executed by Ary Scheffer and Eugène Delacroix, and by the sculptors Bary and Clésinger.

A distinguished English amateur thus records his impressions of Chopin’s style of pianoforte-playing compared with those of other masters. “His technical characteristics may be broadly indicated as negation of bravura, absolute perfection of finger-play, and of the legatissimo touch, on which no other pianist has ever so entirely leant, to the exclusion of that high relief and point which the modern German school, after the examples of Liszt and Thalberg, has so effectively developed. It is in these feature that we must recognize that Grundverschiedenheit (fundamental difference) which according to Mendelssohn distinguished Chopin’s playing from that of these masters, and in no less degree from the example and teaching of Moscheles.... Imagine a delicate man of extreme refinement of mien and manner, sitting at the piano and playing with no sway of the body and scarcely any movement of the arms, depending entirely upon his narrow feminine hands and slender fingers. The wide arpeggios in the left hand, maintained in a continuous stream of tone by the strict legato and fine and constant use of the damper-pedal, formed an harmonious substructure for a wonderfully poetic cantabile. His delicate pianissimo, the ever-changing modifications of tone and time (tempo rubato) were of indescribable effect. Even in energetic passages he scarcely ever exceeded an ordinary mezzoforte. His playing as a whole was unique in its kind, and no traditions of it can remain, for there is no school of Chopin the pianist, for the obvious reason that he could never be regarded as a public player, and his best pupils were nearly all amateurs.”

In looking through the list of his compositions, teeming with mazurkas, valses, polonaises, and other forms of national dance music, one could hardly suppose that here one of the most melancholy natures has revealed itself. This seeming paradox is solved by the type of Chopin’s nationality, of which it has justly been said that its very dances are sadness intensified. But notwithstanding this strongly pronounced national type of his compositions, his music is always expressive of his individual feelings and sufferings to a degree rarely met with in the annals of the art. He is indeed the lyrical composer par excellence of the modern school, and the intensity of his expression finds its equal in literature only in the songs of Heinrich Heine, to whom Chopin has been justly compared. A sensation of such high-strung passion cannot be prolonged. Hence we see that the shorter forms of music, the étude, the nocturne, besides the national dances already alluded to, are chosen by Chopin in preference. Even when he treats the larger forms of the concerto or the sonata this concentrated, not to say pointed, character of Chopin’s style becomes obvious. The more extended dimensions seem to encumber the freedom of his movements. The concerto for pianoforte with accompaniment of the orchestra in E may be instanced. Here the adagio takes the form of a romance, and in the final rondo the rhythm of a Polish dance becomes recognizable while the instrumentation throughout is meagre and wanting in colour. Chopin is out of his element, and even the beauty of his melodies and harmonies cannot wholly banish the impression of incongruity. Fortunately he himself knew the limits of his power, and with very few exceptions his works belong to that class of minor compositions of which he was an unrivalled master. Barring a collection of Polish songs, two concertos, and a very small number of concerted pieces of chamber music, almost all his works are written for the pianoforte solo; the symphony, the oratorio, the opera, he never attempted.

Chopin’s works group themselves firstly into the period from Op. 1 to 22, which includes nearly all his attempts at large or classical forms, e.g. the works with orchestra, Op. 2 (variations on La ci darem), Opp. 11 and 14 (concertos), Op. 13 (Polish fantasia), Op. 14 (Krakowiak, a concerto-rondo in mazurka-rhythm), and Op. 22 (Andante spianato and Polonaise), besides the solo rondos Opp. 1, 5, 16, and the variations Op. 12 and the essays in chamber music Opp. 3, 8, 65. Meanwhile, however, the mature lyric style of his second period already began with Op. 6 (4 mazurkas), and though it is not confined to small forms, the larger mature works (beginning with the ballade Op. 23 and excepting only the sonata Op. 58 and the Allegro de Concert Op. 46) are as independent of tradition as the smallest. It is well to sift the posthumous works from those published under Chopin’s direction, for the last three mazurkas are the only things he did not keep back as misrepresenting him. On these principles his mature works are summed up in the 42 mazurkas (Opp. 6, 7, 17, 24, 30, 33, 41, 50, 56, 59, 63, and the beautiful contribution to the collection Notre temps); 7 polonaises (Opp. 26, 40, 53, 61); 24 preludes (in all the major and minor keys) Op. 28, and the single larger prelude Op. 45; 27 études (12 in Op. 10, 12 in Op. 25, and 3 written for the Méthode des méthodes); 18 nocturnes (Opp. 9, 15, 27, 32, 37, 48, 55, 62); 4 ballades, in forms of Chopin’s own invention (Opp. 23, 38, 47, 52); 4 scherzos (Opp. 20, 31, 39, 54); 8 waltzes (Opp. 18, 34, 42, 64); and several pieces of various description, notably the great fantasia Op. 49 and the impromptus Opp. 29, 36, 51.

The posthumous works number 35 pieces, besides a small volume of songs a few of which are of great interest.

Franz Liszt wrote a charming sketch of Chopin’s life and art (F. Chopin, par F. Liszt, Paris, 1851), and a very appreciative though somewhat eccentric analysis of his work appeared anonymously in 1842 (An Essay on the Works of Frédéric Chopin, London). The standard biography is the English work of Professor F. Niecks (Novello, 1888). See also W.H. Hadow, Studies in Modern Music, second series (1908). The editions of Chopin’s works by his pupil Mikuli and by Klindworth are full of valuable elucidation as to methods of performance, but unfortunately they do not distinguish the commentary from the text. The critical edition published by Breitkopf and Härtel, with all its mistakes, is absolutely necessary for students who wish to know what Chopin wished to put into the hands of players of independent judgment.

CHOPSTICKS, the “pidgin-English” name for the pair of small tapering sticks used by the Chinese and Japanese in eating. “Chop” is pidgin-English for “quick,” the Chinese word for the articles being kwai-tsze, meaning “the quick ones.” “Chopsticks” are commonly made of wood, bone or ivory, somewhat longer and slightly thinner than a lead-pencil. Held between the thumb and fingers of the right hand, they are used as tongs to take up portions of the food, which is brought to table cut up into small and convenient pieces, or as means for sweeping the rice and small particles of food into the mouth from the bowl. Many rules of etiquette govern the proper conduct of the chopsticks; laying them across the bowl is a sign that the guest wishes to leave the table; they are not used during a time of mourning, when food is eaten with the fingers; and various methods of handling them form a secret code of signalling.

CHORAGUS (the Lat. form of Gr. χοραγός or χορηγός, leader of the chorus), the citizen chosen to undertake the expense of furnishing and instructing the chorus at the Dionysiac festivals at Athens (see [Liturgy] and [Finance]). The name is given to an assistant to the professor of music at the university of Oxford, whose office was founded, with that of the professor, in 1626 by Dr William Heather.

CHORALE (from the Lat. choralis, sc. cantus; the final e is added to show the Ger. pronunciation chorāl), a term in music used by English writers to indicate the hymn-tunes composed or adopted for use in church by the German reformers. German writers, however, apply the terms “Choral” and “Chorale-gesang,” as Luther himself would apply them, to any solemn melody used in the church. It is thus the equivalent of canto fermo; and the German rhymed versions of the biblical and other ancient canticles, such as the Magnificat and the Te Deum, are set to curious corruptions of the corresponding Gregorian tunes, which adaptations the composers of classical German music called chorales with no more scruple than they applied the name to tunes of secular origin, German or foreign. The peculiarity of German chorale-music, however, is that its use, and consequently much of its invention, not only arose in connexion with the Reformation, by which the liturgy of the church became “understanded of the people,” but also that it belongs to a musical epoch in which symmetry of melody and rhythm was beginning to assume artistic importance. The growing sense of form shown by some of Luther’s own tunes (e.g. Vom Himmel hoch, da komm’ ich her) soon advanced, especially in the tunes of Crüger, beyond any that was shown by folk-music; and it provided an invaluable bulwark against the chaos that was threatening to swamp music on all sides at the beginning of the 17th century. By Bach’s time all the polyphonic instrumental and vocal art-forms of the 18th century were mature; and though he loved to derive the design as well as the details of a large movement from the shape of the chorale tune on which it was based, he became quite independent of any aid from symmetry in the tune as raw material. The chorus of his cantata Jesus nun sei gepreiset is one of the most perfectly designed and quite the longest of movements ever based upon a chorale-tune treated phrase by phrase. Yet the tune is one of the most intractable in the world, though its most unpromising portion is the basis of the most impressive feature in Bach’s design (the slow middle section in triple time).

The national character of the German chorale, and the recent great development of interest in folk-music, together with the unique importance of Bach’s work, have combined to tempt writers on music to over-estimate the distinctness of the art-forms based upon the German chorale. There is really nothing in these art-forms which is not continuous with the universal practice of writing counterpoint on a canto fermo. And it should never be forgotten that, however fascinating may be the study of the relation between artistic forms and the spirit of the age, no art can successfully express more of the spirit of the age than its own technical resources will admit. Choral music in all ages has tended to consist largely of counterpoint on a canto fermo (see [Contrapuntal Forms]). Where there are not many canto fermos in constant use in the church, composers will be driven to use them rather unsystematically as special effects, and to rely for the most part on other artistic devices, though any use of melodies in long notes against quicker counterpoint will be aesthetically indistinguishable from counterpoint on a canto fermo. Thus Handel in his Italian and English works wrote no entire chorale movements, yet what is the passage in the “Hallelujah” chorus from “the kingdom of this world” to the end but a treatment of the second part of the chorale Wachet auf? How shall we describe the treatment of the words “And their cry came up unto the Lord” in the first chorus of Israel in Egypt, except as the treatment of a phrase of chorale or canto fermo? Again, to return to the 16th century, what are the hymns of Palestrina but figured chorales? In what way, except in the lack of symmetry in the Gregorian phrasing, do they differ from the contemporary setting by Orlando di Lasso, also a Roman Catholic, of the German chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich? In modern times the use of German chorales, as in Mendelssohn’s oratorios and organ-sonatas, has had rather the aspect of a revival than of a development; though the technique and spirit of Brahms’s posthumous organ chorale-preludes is thoroughly modern and vital.

One of the most important, and practically the earliest collection of “Chorales” is that made by Luther and Johann Walther (1496-1570), the Enchiridion, published in 1524. Next in importance we may place the Genevan Psalter (1st ed., Strassburg, 1542, final edition 1562), which is now conclusively proved to be the work of Bourgeois. From this Sternhold and Hopkins borrowed extensively (1562). The psalter of C. Goudimel (Paris, 1565) is another among many prominent collections showing the steps towards congregational singing, i.e. the restriction to “note-against-note” counterpoint (sc. plain harmony), and, in twelve cases, the assigning of the melody to the treble instead of to the tenor. The first hymn-book in which this latter step was acted on throughout is Osiander’s Geistliche Lieder ... also gesetzt, dass ein christliche Gemein durchaus mitsingen kann (1586). But many of the finest and most famous tunes are of much later origin than any such collections. Several (e.g. Ich freue mich in dir) cannot be traced before Bach, and were very probably composed by him.

(D. F. T.)

CHORIAMBIC VERSE, or Choriambics, the name given to Greek or Latin lyrical poetry in which the sound of the choriambus predominates. The choriambus is a verse-foot consisting of a trochee united with and preceding an iambus, -∪∪-. The choriambi are never used alone, but are usually preceded by a spondee and followed by an iambus. The line so formed is called an asclepiad, traditionally because it was invented by the Aeolian poet Asclepiades of Samos. Choriambic verse was first used by the poets of the Greek islands, and Sappho, in particular, produced magnificent effects with it. The measure, as used by the early Greeks, is essentially lyrical and impassioned. Mingled with other metres, it was constantly serviceable in choral writing, to which it was believed to give a stormy and mysterious character. The Greater Asclepiad was a term used for a line in which the wild music was prolonged by the introduction of a supplementary choriambus. This was much employed by Sappho and by Alcaeus, as well as in Alexandrian times by Callimachus and Theocritus. Among the Latins, Horace, in imitation of Alcaeus, made constant use of choriambic verse. Metrical experts distinguish six varieties of it in his Odes. This is an example of his greater asclepiad (Od. i. 11):—

In later times of Rome, both Seneca and Prudentius wrote choriambic verse with a fair amount of success. Swinburne even introduced it into English poetry:—

Such lines as these make a brave attempt to resuscitate the measured sound of the greater asclepiad.

(E. G.)

CHORICIUS, of Gaza, Greek sophist and rhetorician, flourished in the time of Anastasius I. (A.D. 491-518). He was the pupil of Procopius of Gaza, who must be distinguished from Procopius of Caesarea, the historian. A number of his declamations and descriptive treatises have been preserved. The declamations, which are in many cases accompanied by explanatory commentaries, chiefly consist of panegyrics, funeral orations and the stock themes of the rhetorical schools. The ΄Επιθαλάμιοι or wedding speeches, wishing prosperity to the bride and bridegroom, strike out a new line. Choricius was also the author of so-called ΄Εκφράσεις, descriptions of works of art after the manner of Philostratus. The moral maxims, which were a constant feature of his writings, were largely drawn upon by Macarius Chrysocephalas, metropolitan of Philadelphia (middle of the 14th century), in his Rodonia (rose-garden), a voluminous collection of ethical sayings. The style of Choricius is praised by Photius as pure and elegant, but he is censured for lack of naturalness. A special feature of his style is the persistent avoidance of hiatus, peculiar to what is called the school of Gaza.

Editions by J.F. Boissonade (1846, supplemented by C. Graux in Revue de philologie, 1877) and R. Förster (1882-1894); see also C. Kirsten, “Quaestiones Choricianae” in Breslauer philologische Abhandlungen, vii. (1894), and article by W. Schmid in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iii. 2 (1899). On the Gaza school see K. Seitz, Die Schule von Gaza (Heidelberg, 1892).

CHORIN, AARON (1766-1844), Hungarian rabbi and pioneer of religious reform. He favoured the use of the organ and of prayers in the vernacular, and was instrumental in founding schools on modern lines. Chorin was thus regarded as a leader of the newer Judaism. He also interested himself in public affairs; and his son Francis was a Hungarian deputy.

See L. Löw, Gesammelte Schriften, ii. 251.

CHORIZONTES (“separators”), the name given to the Alexandrian critics who denied the single authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and held that the latter poem was the work of a later poet. The most important of them were the grammarians Xeno and Hellanicus; Aristarchus was their chief opponent (see [Homer]).

CHORLEY, HENRY FOTHERGILL (1808-1872), English musical critic, one of an old Lancashire family, began in a merchant’s office, but soon took to musical journalism. He began to write for the Athenaeum in 1830, and remained its musical critic for more than a generation; and he also became musical critic for The Times. In these positions he had much influence; he had strong views, and was a persistent opponent of innovation. In addition to musical criticism, he wrote voluminously on literature and art, besides novels, dramas and verse, and various librettos; and he published several books, including Modern German Music (1854), Handel Studies (1859), and Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (1862). He died in London on the 16th of February 1872.

See his Autobiography, Memoir and Letters, edited by H.G. Hewlett (1873).

CHORLEY, a market town and municipal borough in the Chorley parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, on the river Yarrow, 202 m. N.W. by W. from London and 22 m. N.W. from Manchester, on the Lancashire & Yorkshire and London & North-Western railways and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Pop. (1891) 23,087; (1901) 26,852. The church of St Lawrence is of Perpendicular and earlier date, largely restored; it contains fine woodwork and some interesting monuments. Cotton spinning and the manufacture of cotton and muslin are extensively carried on, and there are also iron and brass foundries and boiler factories. Railway-wagon building is an important industry. The district contains a number of coal-mines and stone-quarries. Close to the town is the beautiful Elizabethan mansion of Astley Hall, which is said to have sheltered Oliver Cromwell after the battle of Preston (1648). The corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area, 3614 acres.

CHORLU, Tchorlau or Schorlau, a town of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Adrianople; on the left bank of the Chorlu, a small left-hand tributary of the Ergene, 20 m. N.E. of Rodosto. Pop. (1905) about 12,000, of whom one-half are Greeks, one-third Turks, and the remainder Armenians and Jews. Chorlu has a station on the Constantinople-Adrianople branch of the Oriental railways. It manufactures woollen cloth (shayak) and native carpets, and exports cereals, oil-cloth, carpets, cattle, poultry, fresh meat, game, fruits, wine, alcohol, hides and bones.

CHOROGRAPHY. (1) (From the Gr. χώρα, a tract of country, and γράφειν, to write), a description or delineation on a map of a district or tract of country; it is to be distinguished from “geography” and “topography,” which treat of the earth as a whole and of particular places respectively. The word is common in old geographical treatises, but is now superseded by the wider use of “topography.” (2) (From the Gr. χορος, dance), the art of dancing, or a system of notation to indicate the steps and movements in dancing.

CHÓRUM, the chief town of a sanjak of the Angora vilayet in Asia Minor, altitude 2300 ft., situated on the edge of a wide plain, almost equidistant from Amasia and Yuzgat. Pop. about 12,500, including a few Christians. Its importance is largely due to its situation on the great trade-route from Kaisaríeh (Caesarea) by Yuzgat and Marzivan to Samsun on the Black Sea. It corresponds to the ancient Euchaïta, which lay 15 m. E. Euchaïti was attacked by the Huns A.D. 508, and became a bishopric at an early period and a centre of religious enthusiasm, as containing the tomb of the revered St Theodore, who slew a dragon in the vicinity and became one of the great warrior saints of the Greek Church. Something of the old enthusiasm seems to have passed to the inhabitants of Chórum, whom most travellers have found bigoted and fanatical Mahommedans (see J.G.C. Anderson, Studia Pontica, pp. 6 ff.).

CHORUS (Gr. χορός) properly a dance, and especially the sacred dance, accompanied by song, of ancient Greece at the festivals of the gods. The word χορός seems originally to have referred to a dance in an enclosure, and is therefore usually connected with the root appearing in Gr. χόρτος, hedge, enclosure, Lat. hortus, garden, and in the Eng. “yard,” “garden” and “garth.” Of choral dances in ancient Greece other than those in honour of Dionysus we know of the Dance of the Crane at Delos, celebrating the escape of Theseus from the labyrinth, one telling of the struggle of Apollo and the Python at Delphi, and one in Crete recounting the saving of the new-born Zeus by the Curetes. In the chorus sung in honour of Dionysus the ancient Greek drama had its birth. From that of the winter festival, consisting of the κῶμος or band of revellers, chanting the “phallic songs,” with ribald dialogue between the leader and his band, sprang “comedy,” while from the dithyrambic chorus of the spring festival came “tragedy.” For the history of the chorus in Greek drama, with the gradual subordination of the lyrical to the dramatic side in tragedy and its total disappearance in the middle and new comedy, see [Drama]: Greek Drama.

The chorus as a factor in drama survived only in the various imitations or revivals of the ancient Greek theatre in other languages. A chorus is found in Milton’s Samson Agonistes. The Elizabethan dramatists applied the name to a single character employed for the recitation of prologues or epilogues. Apart from the uses of the term in drama, the word “chorus” has been employed chiefly in music. It is used of any organized body of singers, in opera, oratorio, cantata, &c., and, in the form “choir,” of the trained body of singers of the musical portions of a religious service in a cathedral or church. As applied to musical compositions, a “chorus” is a composition written in parts, each to be sung by groups of voices in a large body of singers, and differs from “glee” (q.v.), where each part is for a single voice. The word is also used of that part of a song repeated at the close of each verse, in which the audience or a body of singers may join with the soloist.

In the early middle ages the name chorus was given to a primitive bagpipe without a drone. The instrument is best known by the Latin description contained in the apocryphal letter of St Jerome, ad Dardanum: “Chorus quoque simplex, pellis cum duabus cicutis aereis, et per primam inspiratur per secundam vocem emittit.” Several illuminated MSS.[1] from the 9th to the 11th century give fanciful drawings, accompanied by descriptions in barbarous Latin, evidently meant to illustrate those described in the letter to Dardanus. The original MS., probably an illustrated transcript of this letter, which served as a copy for the others, was apparently produced at a time when the Roman bagpipe (tibia utricularia) had fallen into disuse in common with other musical instruments, and was unknown except to the few. The Latin description given above is correct and quite unmistakable to any one who knows the primitive form of bagpipe; the illustrations must therefore represent the effort of an artist to depict an unknown instrument from a description. Virdung, Luscinius and Praetorius seem to have had access to a MS. of the Dardanus letter now lost, and to have reproduced the drawings without understanding them. In a MS. of the 14th century at the British Museum,[2] containing a chronicle of the world’s history to the death of King Edward I., the chorus is mentioned and described in similar words to those quoted above; in the margin is an elementary sketch of a primitive bagpipe with blowpipe and chaunter with three holes, but no drone. Bagpipes with drones abound on sculptured monuments and in miniatures of that century. Gerbert gives illustrations of the fanciful chorus from the Dardanus letter and of two other instruments of later date; one of these represents a musician playing the Platerspiel, the other the bagpipe known as chevrette, in which the whole skin of the animal (a kid or pig), with head and feet, has been used for the bag. Edward Buhle,[3] in his admirable work on the musical instruments in the illuminated MSS. of the middle ages, points out that Gerbert,[4] who gives the dates of his two MSS. as “6th and 9th centuries,” has a singular method of reckoning the date of a MS.; he refers to the age of a MS. at the time of writing (18th century), not to the date at which it was produced. The MS. containing the two figures of musicians mentioned above, instead of being ascribed to the 6th century, was six centuries old when Gerbert wrote in 1774, and dates therefore from the 12th century. It is interesting to note that Giraldus Cambrensis[5] mentions the chorus as one of the three instruments of Wales and Scotland, ascribing superior musical skill to the latter. Historians record that King James I. of Scotland was renowned for his skill as a performer on various musical instruments, one of which was the chorus.[6] This bears out the traditional belief that the bagpipe had been a Scottish attribute from the earliest times. The word “chorus” occurs once or twice in French medieval poems with other instruments, but without indication as to the kind of instrument thus designated. The word was probably the French equivalent for the Platerspiel.

See also G. Kastner, Danses des morts (pp. 200 to 202, pl. xv., No. 103); and Dom Pedro Cerone, El Melopeo y maestro (Naples, 1613), p. 248.

(K. S.)

[1] The MSS. are a psalterium, 9th century, Bibl. publique, Angers, fol. 13a; Boulogne Psalterium glossatum c. A.D. 1000, MS. No. 20, Bibl. publique. For reproduction of musical instruments see Annales archéologiques, tome iv. (1846), p. 38; Cotton MS., Tiberius C. vi., 10th to 11th century, fol. 16b, British Museum, illustrated in Strutt’s Horda Angel-cynnan, vol. ii. pls. xx. and xxi.; MS. psalter of St Emmeran, now in Munich Staatsbibliothek, clm. 14523, fol. 51b, 10th century, illustrated by Gerbert, De Cantu et Mus. Sacra, tome ii. pi. xxiii.; Paris, Bibl. Nat. Fonds Latin, 7211, 1Oth century, fol. 150 and 151a.

[2] Cotton MS., Nero D. ii. f. 15a, Chronicon ab orbe condito ad obitum Regis Edwardi I., 1307.

[3] Die musikalischen Instrumente in den Miniaturen des frühen Mittelalters, part i. “Die Blasinstrumente” (Leipzig, 1903), p. 7, note 1.

[4] Op. cit. (1774), tome ii. pl. xxv. No. 13, pp. 130, 151, 152, and pl. xxxi. No. 12.

[5] Topographia Hiberniae, cap. xi.

[6] Scotichronicon (Fordun and Bower), xvi. 28; and Dalyell, Musical Memoirs of Scotland, p. 47, pls. x. and xi.

CHOSE (Fr. for “thing”), a term used in English law in different senses. Chose local is a thing annexed to a place, as a mill. A chose transitory is that which is movable, and can be carried from place to place. But the use of the word “chose” in these senses is practically obsolete, and it is now used only in the phrases chose in action and chose in possession. A “chose in action,” sometimes called a chose in suspense, in its more limited meaning, denotes the right of enforcing by legal proceedings the payment of a debt, or the obtaining money by way of damages for breach of contract, or as a recompense for a wrong. Less accurately, the money itself which could be recovered is frequently termed a chose in action, as is also sometimes the document evidencing a title to a chose in action, such as a bond or a policy of insurance, though strictly it is only the right to recover the money which can be so termed. Choses in action were, before the Judicature Acts, either legal or equitable. Where the chose could be recovered only by an action at law, as a debt (whether arising from contract or tort), it was termed a legal chose in action; where the chose was recoverable only by a suit in equity, as a legacy or money held upon a trust, it was termed an equitable chose in action. Before the Judicature Act, a legal chose in action was not assignable, i.e. the assignee could not sue at law in his own name. To this rule there were two exceptions:—(1) the crown has always been able to assign choses in action that are certain, such as an ascertained debt, but not those that are uncertain; (2) assignments valid by operation of law, e.g. on marriage, death or bankruptcy. On the other hand, however, by the law merchant, which is part of the law of England, and which disregards the rules of common law, bills of exchange were freely assignable. The consequence was that, with these and certain statutory exceptions (e.g. actions on policies of insurance), an action on an assigned chose in action must have been brought at law in the name of the assignor, though the sum recovered belonged in equity to the assignee. All choses in action being in equity assignable, except those which are altogether incapable of being assigned, in equity the assignee might have sued in his own name, making the assignor a party as co-plaintiff or as defendant. The Judicature Acts made the distinction between legal and equitable choses in action of no importance. The Judicature Act of 1873, s. 25 (6), enacted that the legal right to a debt or other legal chose in action could be passed by absolute assignment in writing under the hand of the assignor.

“Chose in possession” is opposed to chose in action, and denotes not only the right to enjoy or possess a thing, but also the actual or constructive enjoyment of it. The possession may be absolute or qualified. It is absolute when the person is fully and completely the proprietor or owner of the thing; it is qualified when he “has not an exclusive right, or not a permanent right, but a right which may sometimes subsist and at other times not subsist,” as in the case of animals ferae naturae. A chose in possession is freely transferable by delivery. Previously to the Married Women’s Property Act 1882, a wife’s choses in possession vested in her husband immediately on her marriage, while her choses in action did not belong to the husband until he had reduced them into possession, but this difference is now practically obsolete.

CHOSROES, in Middle and Modern Persian Khosrau (“with a good name”), a very common Persian name, borne by a famous king of the Iranian legend (Kai Khosrau); by a Parthian king, commonly called by the Greeks Osroes (q.v.); and by the following two Sassanid kings.

1. Chosroes I., “the Blessed” (Anushirvan), 531-579, the favourite son and successor of Kavadh I., and the most famous of the Sassanid kings. At the beginning of his reign he concluded an “eternal” peace with the emperor Justinian, who wanted to have his hands free for the conquest of Africa and Sicily. But his successes against the Vandals and Goths caused Chosroes to begin the war again in 540. He invaded Syria and carried the inhabitants of Antioch to his residence, where he built for them a new city near Ctesiphon under the name of Khosrau-Antioch or Chosro-Antioch. During the next years he fought successfully in Lazica or Lazistan (the ancient Colchis, q.v.), on the Black Sea, and in Mesopotamia. The Romans, though led by Belisarius, could do little against him. In 545 an armistice was concluded, but in Lazica the war went on till 556. At last, in 562, a peace was concluded for 50 years, in which the Persians left Lazistan to the Romans, and promised not to persecute the Christians, if they did not attempt to make proselytes among the Zarathustrians; on the other hand, the Romans had again to pay subsidies to Persia. Meanwhile in the east the Hephthalites had been attacked by the Turks, who now appear for the first time in history. Chosroes united with them and conquered Bactria, while he left the country north of the Oxus to the Turks. Many other rebellious tribes were subjected. About 570 the dynasts of Yemen, who had been subdued by the Ethiopians of Axum, applied to Chosroes for help. He sent a fleet with a small army under Vahriz, who expelled the Ethiopians. From that time till the conquests of Mahomet, Yemen was dependent on Persia, and a Persian governor resided here. In 571 a new war with Rome broke out about Armenia, in which Chosroes conquered the fortress Dara on the Euphrates, invaded Syria and Cappadocia, and returned with large booty. During the negotiations with the emperor Tiberius Chosroes died in 579, and was succeeded by his son Hormizd IV.

Although Chosroes had in the last years of his father extirpated the heretical and communistic Persian sect of the Mazdakites (see [Kavadh]) and was a sincere adherent of Zoroastrian orthodoxy, he was not fanatical or prone to persecution. He tolerated every Christian confession. When one of his sons had rebelled about 550 and was taken prisoner, he did not execute him; nor did he punish the Christians who had supported him. He introduced a rational system of taxation, based upon a survey of landed possessions, which his father had begun, and tried in every way to increase the welfare and the revenues of his empire. In Babylonia he built or restored the canals. His army was in discipline decidedly superior to the Romans, and apparently was well paid. He was also interested in literature and philosophical discussions. Under his reign chess was introduced from India, and the famous book of Kalilah and Dimnah was translated. He thus became renowned as a wise prince. When Justinian in 529 closed the university of Athens, the last seat of paganism in the Roman empire, the last seven teachers of Neoplatonism emigrated to Persia. But they soon found out that neither Chosroes nor his state corresponded to the Platonic ideal, and Chosroes, in his treaty with Justinian, stipulated that they should return unmolested.

2. Chosroes II., “the Victorious” (Parvez), son of Hormizd IV., grandson of Chosroes I., 590-628. He was raised to the throne by the magnates who had rebelled against Hormizd IV. in 590, and soon after his father was blinded and killed. But at the same time the general Bahram Chobin had proclaimed himself king, and Chosroes II. was not able to maintain himself. The war with the Romans, which had begun in 571, had not yet come to an end. Chosroes fled to Syria, and persuaded the emperor Maurice (q.v.) to send help. Many leading men and part of the troops acknowledged Chosroes, and in 591 he was brought back to Ctesiphon. Bahram Chobin was beaten and fled to the Turks, among whom he was murdered. Peace with Rome was then concluded. Maurice made no use of his advantage; he merely restored the former frontier and abolished the subsidies which had formerly been paid to the Persians. Chosroes II. was much inferior to his grandfather. He was haughty and cruel, rapacious and given to luxury; he was neither a general nor an administrator. At the beginning of his reign he favoured the Christians; but when in 602 Maurice had been murdered by Phocas, he began war with Rome to avenge his death. His armies plundered Syria and Asia Minor, and in 608 advanced to Chalcedon. In 613 and 614 Damascus and Jerusalem were taken by the general Shahrbaraz, and the Holy Cross was carried away in triumph. Soon after, even Egypt was conquered. The Romans could offer but little resistance, as they were torn by internal dissensions, and pressed by the Avars and Slavs. At last, in 622, the emperor Heraclius (who had succeeded Phocas in 610) was able to take the field. In 624 he advanced into northern Media, where he destroyed the great fire-temple of Gandzak (Gazaca); in 626 he fought in Lazistan (Colchis), while Shahrbaraz advanced to Chalcedon, and tried in vain, united with the Avars, to conquer Constantinople. In 627 Heraclius defeated the Persian army at Nineveh and advanced towards Ctesiphon. Chosroes fled from his favourite residence, Dastagerd (near Bagdad), without offering resistance, and as his despotism and indolence had roused opposition everywhere, his eldest son, Kavadh II., whom he had imprisoned, was set free by some of the leading men and proclaimed king. Four days afterwards, Chosroes was murdered in his palace (February 628). Meanwhile, Heraclius returned in triumph to Constantinople, in 629 the Cross was given back to him and Egypt evacuated, while the Persian empire, from the apparent greatness which it had reached ten years ago, sank into hopeless anarchy.

See [Persia]: Ancient History. For the Roman wars see authorities quoted under [Maurice] and [Heraclius]. (ED.M.)

CHOTA (or Chutia) NAGPUR, a division of British India in Bengal, consisting of five British districts and two feudatory states. It is a hilly, forest-clad plateau, inhabited mostly by aboriginal races, between the basins of the Sone, the Ganges and the Mahanadi. The five British districts are Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Palamau, Manbhum and Singhbhum. The total area of the British districts is 27,101 sq. m. The population in 1901 was 4,900,429. The tributary states are noticed separately below. The Chota Nagpur plateau is an offshoot of the great Vindhyan range, and its mean elevation is upwards of 2000 ft. above the sea-level. In the W. it rises to 3600 ft., and to the E. and S. its lower steppe, from 800 to 1000 ft. in elevation, comprises a great portion of the Manbhum and Singhbhum districts. The whole is about 14,000 sq. m. in extent, and forms the source of the Barakhar, Damodar, Kasai, Subanrekha, Baitarani, Brahmani, Ib and other rivers. Sal forests abound. The principal jungle products are timber, various kinds of medicinal fruits and herbs, lac, tussur silk and mahuá flowers, which are used as food by the wild tribes and also distilled into a strong country liquor. Coal exists in large quantities, and is worked in the Jherria, Hazaribagh, Giridih and Gobindpur districts. The chief workings are at Jherria, which were started in 1893, and have developed into one of the largest coal-fields in India. Formerly gold was washed from the sands in the bed of the Subanrekha river, but the operations are now almost wholly abandoned. Iron-ores abound, together with good building stone. The indigenous inhabitants consist of non-Aryan tribes who were driven from the plains by the Hindus and took refuge in the mountain fastnesses of the Chota Nagpur plateau. The principal of them are Kols, Santals, Oraons, Dhangars, Mundas and Bhumij. These tribes were formerly turbulent, and a source of trouble to the Mahommedan governors of Bengal and Behar; but the introduction of British rule has secured peace and security, and the aboriginal races of Chota Nagpur are now peaceful and orderly subjects. The principal agricultural products are rice, Indian corn, pulses, oil-seeds and potatoes. A small quantity of tea is grown in Hazaribagh and Ranchi districts. Lac and tussur silk-cloth are largely manufactured. The climate of Chota Nagpur is dry and healthy. The Jherria extension branch of the East India railway runs to Katrasgarh, while the Bengal-Nagpur railway also serves the division.

The Chota Nagpur States were formerly nine in number. But the five states of Chang Bhakar, Korca, Sirguja, Udaipur and Jashpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces in October 1905, and the two Uriya-speaking states of Gangpur and Bonai were attached to the Orissa Tributary States. There now remain, therefore, only the two states of Kharsawan and Saraikela. At the decline of the Mahratta power in the early part of the 19th century, the Chota Nagpur states came under British protection. Before the rise of the British power in India their chiefs exercised almost absolute sovereignty in their respective territories.

See F.B. Bradley-Birt, Chota Nagpore (1903).

CHOUANS (a Bas-Breton word signifying screech-owls), the name applied to smugglers and dealers in contraband salt, who rose in insurrection in the west of France at the time of the Revolution and joined the royalists of La Vendée. It has been suggested that the name arose from the cry they used when approaching their nocturnal rendezvous; but it is more probable that it was derived from a nickname applied to their leader Jean Cottereau (1767-1794). Originally a contraband manufacturer of salt, Cottereau along with his brothers had several times been condemned and served sentence; but the Revolution, by destroying the inland customs, ruined his trade. On the 15th of August 1792, he led a band of peasants to prevent the departure of the volunteers of St Ouen, near Laval, and retired to the wood of Misdon, where they lived in huts and subterranean chambers. The Chouans then waged a guerrilla warfare against the republicans and, sustained by the royalists and from abroad, carried on their assassinations and brigandage with success. From Lower Maine the insurrection soon spread to Brittany, and throughout the west of France. In 1793 Cottereau came to Laval with some 500 men; the band grew rapidly and swelled into a considerable army, which assumed the name of La Petite Vendee. But after the decisive defeats at Le Mans and Savenay, Cottereau retired again to his old haunts in the wood of Misdon, and resumed his old course of guerrilla warfare. Misfortunes here increased upon him, until he fell into an ambuscade and was mortally wounded. He died among his followers in February 1794. Cottereau’s brothers also perished in the war, with the exception of Rene, who lived until 1846. Royalist authors have made of Cottereau a hero and martyr, titles to which his claim is not established. After the death of Cottereau, the chief leaders of the Chouans were Georges Cadoudal (q.v.) and a man who went by the name of Jambe d’Argent. For several months the Chouans continued their petty warfare, which was disgraced by many acts of ferocity and rapine; in August 1795 they dispersed; but they were guilty of several conspiracies up to 1815. (See also [Vendée].)

See the articles in La Révolution française, vol. 29, La Chouannerie dans la Manche; vol. 32, La Chouannerie dans l’Eure; vol. 40, La Chouannerie dans le Morbihan (1793-1794); Sarot, Les Tribunaux répressifs ordinaires de la Manche en matière politique pendant la première Révolution (Paris, 1881), 4 vols.; Th. de Closmadeux, Quiberon (1795), Émigrés et Chouans, commissions militaires, interrogations et jugements (Paris, 1898), the only authority on the celebrated affair of Quiberon; E. Daudet, La Police et les Chouans dans le Consulat et I’Empire, 1800-1815 (Paris, 1895). Also the works of Ch. L. Chessin mentioned under [Vendée].

CHRESMOGRAPHION (from Gr. χρησμός, oracle, and γράφειν, to write), an architectural term sometimes given to the chamber between the pronaes and the cella in Greek temples where oracles were delivered.

CHRESTIEN, FLORENT (1541-1596), French satirist and Latin poet, the son of Guillaume Chrestien, an eminent French physician and writer on physiology, was born at Orleans on the 26th of January 1541. A pupil of Henri Estienne, the Hellenist, at an early age he was appointed tutor to Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., who made him his librarian. Brought up as a Calvinist, he became a convert to Catholicism. He was the author of many good translations from the Greek into Latin verse,—amongst others, of versions of the Hero and Leander attributed to Musaeus, and of many epigrams from the Anthology. In his translations into French, among which are remarked those of Buchanan’s Jephthé (1567), and of Oppian De Venatione (1575)> he is not so happy, being rather to be praised for fidelity to his original than for excellence of style. His principal claim to a place among memorable satirists is as one of the authors of the Satyre Ménippée, the famous pasquinade in the interest of his old pupil, Henry IV., in which the harangue put into the mouth of cardinal de Pelvé is usually attributed to him. He died on the 3rd of October 1596 at Vendôme.

CHRÉTIEN, or Crestien, DE TROYES, a native of Champagne, and the most famous of French medieval poets. Unfortunately we have few exact details as to his life, and opinion differs as to the precise dates to be assigned to his poems. We know that he wrote the Chevalier de la Charrette at the command of Marie, countess of Champagne (the daughter of Louis VII. and Eleanor, who married the count of Champagne in 1164), and Le Conte del Graal or Perceval for Philip, count of Flanders, who died of the plague before Acre in 1191. This prince was guardian to the young king, Philip Augustus, and held the regency from 1180 to 1182. As Chrétien refers to the story of the Grail as the best tale told au cort roial, it seems very probable that it was composed during the period of the count’s regency. It was left unfinished, and added to at divers times by at least three writers, Wauchier de Denain, Gerbert de Montreuil and Manessier. The second of these states definitely that Chrétien died before he could finish his poem. Probably the period of his literary activity lies between the dates 1150 and 1182, when his patron, Count Philip, fell into disgrace at court. The extant poems of Chrtien de Troyes, in their chronological order are, Érec et Énide, Cligés, Le Chevalier de la Charrette (or Lancelot), Le Chevalier au Lion (or Yvain), and Le Conte del Graal (Perceval), all dealing with Arthurian legend. Besides these he states in the opening lines of Cligés that he had composed a Tristan (of which so far no trace has been found), and had made certain translations from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Metamorphoses. A portion of the last has been found by Gaston Paris included in the translation of Ovid made by Chrétien Legouais. There exists also a poem, Guillaume d’ Angleterre, purporting to be by Chrétien, but the authorship is a matter of debate. Professor Foerster claims it as genuine, and includes it in his edition of the poems, but Gaston Paris never accepted it.

Chrétien’s poems enjoyed widespread favour, and of the three most popular (Érec, Yvain and Perceval) there exist old Norse translations, while the two first were admirably rendered into German by Hartmann von Aue. There is an English translation of the Yvain, Ywain and Gawain, and there are Welsh versions of all three stories, though their exact relation to the French has not been determined. Chrétien’s style is easy and graceful, such as might be expected from a court poet; he is analytical, but not dramatic; in depth of thought and power of characterization he is decidedly inferior to Wolfram von Eschenbach, and as a poet he is probably to be ranked below Thomas, the author of the Tristan, and the translator of Thomas, Gottfried von Strassburg. Much that has been claimed as characteristic of his work has been shown by M. Willmotte to be merely reproductions of literary conceits employed by his predecessors; in the words of a recent writer, M. Bédier, “Chrétien semble moins avoir été un créateur épique qu’un habile arrangeur.” The special interest of his pcems lies in the problems surrounding their origin. So far as the MSS. are concerned they are the earliest Arthurian romances we possess. Did Chrétien invent the genre, or did he simply turn to account the work of earlier, and less favoured, poets? Round this point the battle still rages hotly, and though the extensive claims made by the enthusiastic editor of his works are gradually yielding to the force of critical investigation, it cannot be said that the question is in any way settled (see [Arthurian Legend]).

Chrétien’s poems, except the Perceval, have been critically edited by Professor Foerster (4 vols.). There is no easily available edition of the Perceval, which was printed from the Mons MS. by M. Potvin (6 vols., 1866-1871), but is difficult to procure. For Ywain and Gawain see the edition by Schleich (1887). The German versions are in Deutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, 1888 (Iwein), 1893 (Erec); the Welsh, in Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of the Mabinogion (Nutt, 1902); Scandinavian translations, ed. E. Kölbing (1872). For general criticism see Willmotte, L’Évolution du roman français aux environs de 1150 (1903); also Legend of Sir Lancelot and Legend of Sir Percival (Grimm Library); and M. Borodine, La Femme et l’amour au XIIe siècle, d’après les poèmes de Chrétien de Troyes (1909).

CHRISM (through Lat. chrisma, from Gr. χρῖσμα, an anointing substance, χρίειν, to anoint; through a Romanic form cresma comes the Fr. crême, and Eng. “cream”), a mixture of olive oil and balm, used for anointing in the Roman Catholic church in baptism, confirmation and ordination, and in the consecrating and blessing of altars, chalices, baptismal water, &c. The consecration of the “chrism” is performed by a bishop, and since the 5th century has taken place on Maundy Thursday. In the Orthodox Church the chrism contains, besides olive oil, many precious spices and perfumes, and is known as “muron” or “myron.” The word is sometimes used loosely for the unmixed olive oil used in the sacrament of extreme unction. The “Chrisom” or “chrysom,” a variant of “chrism,” lengthened through pronunciation, is a white cloth with which the head of a newly baptized child was covered to prevent the holy oil from being rubbed off. If the baby died within a month of its baptism, it was shrouded in its chrisom; otherwise the cloth or its value was given to the church as an offering by the mother at her churching. Children dying within the month were called “chrisom-children” or “chrisoms,” and up to 1726 such entries occur in bills of mortality. The word was also used generally for a very young and innocent child, thus Shakespeare, Henry V., ii. 3, says of Falstaff: “A’ made a finer end and went away an it had been any Chrisom Child.”

CHRIST (Gr. Χριστὁς, Anointed), the official title given in the New Testament to Jesus of Nazareth, equivalent to the Hebrew Messiah. See [Jesus Christ]; [Messiah]; [Christianity].

CHRIST, WILHELM VON (1831-1906), German classical scholar, was born in Geisenheim in Hesse-Nassau on the 2nd of August 1831. From 1854 till 1860 he taught in the Maximiliansgymnasium at Munich, and in 1861 was appointed professor of classical philology in the university. His most important works are his Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (5th ed., 1908 f.), a history of Greek literature down to the time of Justinian, one of the best works on the subject; Metrik der Griechen und Römer (1879); editions of Pindar (1887); of the Poëtica (1878) and Metaphysica (1895) of Aristotle; Iliad (1884). His contributions to the Sitzungsberichte and Abhandlungen of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences are particularly valuable.

See O. Crusius, Gedächtnisrede (Munich, 1907).

CHRISTADELPHIANS (Χριστοῦ ἂδελφοι, “brothers of Christ”), sometimes also called Thomasites, a community founded in 1848 by John Thomas (1805-1871), who, after studying medicine in London, migrated to Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.A. There he at first joined the “Campbellites,” but afterwards struck out independently, preaching largely upon the application of Hebrew prophecy and of the Book of Revelation to current and future events. Both in America and in Great Britain he gathered a number of adherents, and formed a community which has extended to several English-speaking countries. It consists of exclusive “ecclesias,” with neither ministry nor organization. The members meet on Sundays to “break bread” and discuss the Bible. Their theology is strongly millenarian, centering in the hope of a world-wide theocracy with its seat at Jerusalem. Holding a doctrine of “conditional immortality,” they believe that they alone have the true exegesis of Scripture, and that the “faith of Christendom” is “compounded of the fables predicted by Paul.” No statistics of the community are published. It probably numbers from two to three thousand members. A monthly magazine, The Christadelphian, is published in Birmingham.

See R. Roberts, Dr Thomas, his Life and Work (1884).

CHRISTCHURCH, a municipal and parliamentary borough of Hampshire, England, at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Stour, 1½ m. from the sea, and 104 m. S.W. by W. from London by the London & South Western railway. Pop. (1901) 4204. It is famous for its magnificent priory church of the Holy Trinity. The church is cruciform, lacking a central tower, but having a Perpendicular tower at the west end. The nave and transepts are principally Norman, and very fine; the choir is Perpendicular. Early English additions appear in the nave, clerestory and elsewhere, and the rood-screen is of ornate Decorated workmanship. Other noteworthy features are the Norman turret at the north-east angle of the north transept, covered with arcading and other ornament, the beautiful reredos, similar to that in Winchester cathedral, and several interesting monuments, among which is one to the poet Shelley. Only fragments remain of the old castle, but an interesting ruin adjoins it known as the Norman House, apparently dating from the later part of the 12th century. Hosiery, and chains for clocks and watches are manufactured, and the salmon fishery is valuable. There is a small harbour, but it is dry at low water. The parliamentary borough, returning one member, includes the town of Bournemouth. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 832 acres.

Christchurch is mentioned in Saxon documents under the name of Tweotneam or Tweonaeteam, which long survived in the form Christchurch Twineham. In 901 it was seized by Aethelwald, but was recaptured by Edward the Elder. In the Domesday Survey, under the name of Thuinam, it appears as a royal manor, comprising a mill and part of the king’s forest; its value since the time of Edward the Confessor had decreased by almost one-half. Henry I. granted Christchurch to Richard de Redvers, who erected the castle. The first charter was granted by Baldwin earl of Exeter in the 12th century; it exempted the burgesses from certain tolls and customs, including the tolls on salt within the borough, and the custody of thieves. The 2nd Earl Baldwin granted to the burgesses the tolls of the fair at St Faith and common of pasture in certain meads. The above charters were confirmed by Edward II., Henry VII. and Elizabeth. The Holy Trinity fair is mentioned in 1226. Christchurch was governed by a bailiff in the 13th century, and was not incorporated till 1670, when the government was vested in a mayor and 24 capital burgesses, but this charter was shortly abandoned. The borough was summoned to send representatives to parliament in 1307 and 1308, but no returns are registered until 1572, from which date it was represented by two members until the Reform Act of 1832 reduced the number to one. The secular canons of the church of Holy Trinity held valuable possessions in Hampshire at the time of Edward the Confessor, including a portion of Christchurch, and in 1150 the establishment was constituted a priory of regular canons of St Augustine. Baldwin de Redvers confirmed the canons in their right to the first salmon caught every year and the tolls of Trinity fair. The priory, which attained to such fame that its name of Christchurch finally replaced the older name of Twineham, was dissolved in 1539.

See Victoria County History—Hampshire; Benjamin Ferrey, Antiquities of the Priory of Christchurch, 2nd edition, revised by J. Britton (London, 1841).

CHRISTCHURCH, a city near the east coast of South Island, New Zealand, to the north of Banks Peninsula, in Selwyn county, the capital of the provincial district of Canterbury and the seat of a bishop. Pop. (1906) 49,928; including suburbs, 67,878. It stands upon the great Canterbury plain, which here is a dead level, though the monotony of the site has been much relieved by extensive plantations of English and Australian trees. A background is supplied by the distant mountains to the west, and by the nearer hills to the south. The small river Avon winds through the city, pleasantly bordered by terraces and gardens. The wide streets cross one another for the most part at right angles. The predominance of stone and brick as building materials, the dominating cathedral spire, and the well-planted parks, avenues and private gardens, recall the aspect of an English residential town. Christchurch is mainly dependent on the rich agricultural district which surrounds it, the plain being mainly devoted to cereals and grazing. Wool is extensively worked, and meat is frozen for export. Railways connect with Culverden to the north and with Dunedin and the south coast, with many branches through the agricultural districts; also with Lyttelton, the port of Christchurch, 8 m. S.E. There are tramways in the city, and to New Brighton, a seaside suburb, and other residential quarters. The principal public buildings are the government buildings and the museum, with its fine collection of remains of the extinct bird, moa. The cathedral is the best in New Zealand, built from designs of Sir G. Gilbert Scott in Early English style, with a tower and spire 240 ft. high. Among educational foundations are Canterbury College (for classics, science, engineering, &c), Christ’s College (mainly theological) and grammar school, and a school of art. There is a Roman Catholic pro-cathedral attached to a convent of the Sacred Heart. A large extent of open ground, to the west of the town, finely planted, and traversed by the river, comprises Hagley Park, recreation grounds, the Government Domain and the grounds of the Acclimatization Society, with fish-ponds and a small zoological garden. The foundation of Christchurch is connected with the so-called “Canterbury Pilgrims,” who settled in this district in 1850. Lyttelton was the original settlement, but Christchurch came into existence in 1851, and is thus the latest of the settlements of the colony. It became a municipality in 1862. In 1903 several populous suburban boroughs were amalgamated with the city.

CHRISTIAN II. (1481-1559), king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, son of John (Hans) and Christina of Saxony, was born at Nyborg castle in 1481, and succeeded his father as king of Denmark and Norway in 1513. As viceroy of Norway (1506-1512) he had already displayed a singular capacity for ruling under exceptionally difficult circumstances. Patriotism, insight, courage, statesmanship, energy,—these great qualities were indisputably his; but unfortunately they were vitiated by obstinacy, suspicion and a sulky craftiness, beneath which simmered a very volcano of revengeful cruelty. Another peculiarity, more fatal to him in that aristocratic age than any other, was his fondness for the common people, which was increased by his passion for a pretty Dutch girl, named Dyveke, who became his mistress in 1507 or 1509.

Christian’s succession to the throne was confirmed at the Herredag, or assembly of notables from the three northern kingdoms, which met at Copenhagen in 1513. The nobles and clergy of all three kingdoms regarded with grave misgivings a ruler who had already shown in Norway that he was not afraid of enforcing his authority to the uttermost. The Rigsraads of Denmark and Norway insisted, in the haandfaestning or charter extorted from the king, that the crowns of both kingdoms were elective and not hereditary, providing explicitly against any transgression of the charter by the king, and expressly reserving to themselves a free choice of Christian’s successor after his death. But the Swedish delegates could not be prevailed upon to accept Christian as king at all. “We have,” they said, “the choice between peace at home and strife here, or peace here and civil war at home, and we prefer the former.” A decision as to the Swedish succession was therefore postponed. On the 12th of August 1515 Christian married Isabella of Burgundy, the grand-daughter of the emperor Maximilian. But he would not give up his liaison with Dyveke, and it was only the death of the unfortunate girl in 1517, under suspicious circumstances, that prevented serious complications with the emperor Charles V. Christian revenged himself by executing the magnate Torben Oxe, who, on very creditable evidence, was supposed to have been Dyveke’s murderer, despite the strenuous opposition of Oxe’s fellow-peers; and henceforth the king lost no opportunity of depressing the nobility and raising plebeians to power. His chief counsellor was Dyveke’s mother Sigbrit, a born administrator and a commercial genius of the first order. Christian first appointed her controller of the Sound tolls, and ultimately committed to her the whole charge of the finances. A bourgeoise herself, it was Sigbrit’s constant policy to elevate and extend the influence of the middle classes. She soon became the soul of a middle-class inner council, which competed with Rigsraad itself. The patricians naturally resented their supersession and nearly every unpopular measure was attributed to the influence of “the foul-mouthed Dutch sorceress who hath bewitched the king.”

Meanwhile Christian was preparing for the inevitable war with Sweden, where the patriotic party, headed by the freely elected governor Sten Sture the younger, stood face to face with the philo-Danish party under Archbishop Gustavus Trolle. Christian, who had already taken measures to isolate Sweden politically, hastened to the relief of the archbishop, who was beleagured in his fortress of Stäke, but was defeated by Sture and his peasant levies at Vedla and forced to return to Denmark. A second attempt to subdue Sweden in 1518 was also frustrated by Sture’s victory at Bränkyrka. A third attempt made in 1520 with a large army of French, German and Scottish mercenaries proved successful. Sture was mortally wounded at the battle of Börgerund, on the 19th of January, and the Danish army, unopposed, was approaching Upsala, where the members of the Swedish Riksråd had already assembled. The senators consented to render homage to Christian on condition that he gave a full indemnity for the past and a guarantee that Sweden should be ruled according to Swedish laws and custom; and a convention to this effect was confirmed by the king and the Danish Rigsraad on the 31st of March. But Sture’s widow, Dame Christina Gyllenstjerna, still held out stoutly at Stockholm, and the peasantry of central Sweden, stimulated by her patriotism, flew to arms, defeated the Danish invaders at Balundsäs (March 19th), and were only with the utmost difficulty finally defeated at the bloody battle of Upsala (Good Friday, April 6th). In May the Danish fleet arrived, and Stockholm was invested by land and sea; but Dame Christina resisted valiantly for four months longer, and took care, when she surrendered on the 7th of September, to exact beforehand an amnesty of the most explicit and absolute character. On the 1st of November the representatives of the nation swore fealty to Christian as hereditary king of Sweden, though the law of the land distinctly provided that the Swedish crown should be elective. On the 4th of November he was anointed by Gustavus Trolle in Stockholm cathedral, and took the usual oath to rule the realm through native-born Swedes alone, according to prescription. The next three days were given up to banqueting, but on the 7th of November “an entertainment of another sort began.” On the evening of that day Christian summoned his captains to a private conference at the palace, the result of which was quickly apparent, for at dusk a band of Danish soldiers, with lanterns and torches, broke into the great hall and carried off several carefully selected persons. By 10 o’clock the same evening the remainder of the king’s guests were safely under lock and key. All these persons had previously been marked down on Archbishop Trolle’s proscription list. On the following day a council, presided over by Trolle, solemnly pronounced judgment of death on the proscribed, as manifest heretics. At 12 o’clock that night the patriotic bishops of Skara and Strängnäs were led out into the great square and beheaded. Fourteen noblemen, three burgomasters, fourteen town-councillors and about twenty common citizens of Stockholm were then drowned or decapitated. The executions continued throughout the following day; in all, about eighty-two people are said to have been thus murdered. Moreover, Christian revenged himself upon the dead as well as upon the living, for Sten Sture’s body was dug up and burnt, as well as the body of his little child. Dame Christina and many other noble Swedish ladies were sent prisoners to Denmark. It has well been said that the manner of this atrocious deed (the “Stockholm Massacre” as it is generally called) was even more detestable than the deed itself. Christian suppressed his political opponents under the pretence of defending an ecclesiastical system which in his heart he despised. Even when it became necessary to make excuses for his crime, we see the same double-mindedness. Thus, while in a proclamation to the Swedish people he represented the massacre as a measure necessary to avoid a papal interdict, in his apology to the pope for the decapitation of the innocent bishops he described it as an unauthorized act of vengeance on the part of his own people.

It was with his brain teeming with great designs that Christian II. returned to his native kingdom. That the welfare of his dominions was dear to him there can be no doubt. Inhuman as he could be in his wrath, in principle he was as much a humanist as any of his most enlightened contemporaries. But he would do things his own way; and deeply distrusting the Danish nobles with whom he shared his powers, he sought helpers from among the wealthy and practical middle classes of Flanders. In June 1521 he paid a sudden visit to the Low Countries, and remained there for some months. He visited most of the large cities, took into his service many Flemish artisans, and made the personal acquaintance of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht Dürer, the latter of whom painted his portrait. Christian also entertained Erasmus, with whom he discussed the Reformation, and let fall the characteristic expression: “Mild measures are of no use; the remedies that give the whole body a good shaking are the best and surest.”

Never had King Christian seemed so powerful as on his return to Denmark on the 5th of September 1521, and with the confidence of strength he at once proceeded recklessly to inaugurate the most sweeping reforms. Soon after his return he issued his great Landelove, or Code of Laws. For the most part this is founded on Dutch models, and testifies in a high degree to the king’s progressive aims. Provision was made for the better education of the lower, and the restriction of the political influence of the higher clergy; there were stern prohibitions against wreckers and “the evil and unchristian practice of selling peasants as if they were brute beasts”; the old trade gilds were retained, but the rules of admittance thereto made easier, and trade combinations of the richer burghers, to the detriment of the smaller tradesmen, were sternly forbidden. Unfortunately these reforms, excellent in themselves, suggested the standpoint not of an elected ruler, but of a monarch by right divine. Some of them were even in direct contravention of the charter; and the old Scandinavian spirit of independence was deeply wounded by the preference given to the Dutch. Sweden too was now in open revolt; and both Norway and Denmark were taxed to the uttermost to raise an army for the subjection of the sister kingdom. Foreign complications were now superadded to these domestic troubles. With the laudable object of releasing Danish trade from the grinding yoke of the Hansa, and making Copenhagen the great emporium of the north, Christian had arbitrarily raised the Sound tolls and seized a number of Dutch ships which presumed to evade the tax. Thus his relations with the Netherlands were strained, while with Lübeck and her allies he was openly at war. Finally Jutland rose against him, renounced its allegiance and offered the Danish crown to Duke Frederick of Holstein (January 20th, 1523). So overwhelming did Christian’s difficulties appear that he took ship to seek help abroad, and on May 1st landed at Veere in Zealand. Eight years later (October 24th, 1531) he attempted to recover his kingdoms, but a tempest scattered his fleet off the Norwegian coast, and on the 1st of July 1532, by the convention of Oslo, he surrendered to his rival, King Frederick, and for the next 27 years was kept in solitary confinement, first in the Blue Tower at Copenhagen and afterwards at the castle of Kabendborg. He died in January 1559.

See K.P. Arnoldson, Nordens enhet och Kristian II. (Stockholm, 1899); Paul Frederik Barfod, Danmarks Historie fra 1319 til 1536 (Copenhagen, 1885); Danmarks Riges Historie, vol. 3 (Copenhagen, 1897-1905); Robert Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia, chap 2 (Cambridge, 1905).

(R. N. B.)

CHRISTIAN III. (1503-1559), king of Denmark and Norway, was the son of Frederick I. of Denmark and his first consort, Anne of Brandenburg. His earliest teacher, Wolfgang von Utenhof, who came straight from Wittenberg, and the Lutheran Holsteiner Johann Rantzau, who became his tutor, were both able and zealous reformers. In 1521 Christian travelled in Germany, and was present at the diet of Worms, where Luther’s behaviour profoundly impressed him. On his return he found that his father had been elected king of Denmark in the place of Christian II., and the young prince’s first public service was the reduction of Copenhagen, which stood firm for the fugitive Christian II. He made no secret of his Lutheran views, and his outspokenness brought him into collision, not only with the Catholic Rigsraad, but also with his cautious and temporizing father. At his own court at Schleswig he did his best to introduce the Reformation, despite the opposition of the bishops. Both as stadtholder of the Duchies in 1526, and as viceroy of Norway in 1529, he displayed considerable administrative ability, though here too his religious intolerance greatly provoked the Catholic party. There was even some talk of passing him over in the succession to the throne, in favour of his half-brother Hans, who had been brought up in the old religion. On his father’s death Christian was proclaimed king at the local diet of Viborg, and took an active part in the “Grevens Fejde” or “Count’s War.”

The triumph of so fanatical a reformer as Christian brought about the fall of Catholicism, but the Catholics were still so strong in the council of state that Christian was forced to have recourse to a coup d’état, which he successfully accomplished by means of his German mercenaries (12th of August 1536), an absolutely inexcusable act of violence loudly blamed by Luther himself, and accompanied by the wholesale spoliation of the church. Christian’s finances were certainly readjusted thereby, but the ultimate gainers by the confiscation were the nobles, and both education and morality suffered grievously in consequence. The circumstances under which Christian III. ascended the throne naturally exposed Denmark to the danger of foreign domination. It was with the help of the gentry of the duchies that Christian had conquered Denmark. German and Holstein noblemen had led his armies and directed his diplomacy. Naturally, a mutual confidence between a king who had conquered his kingdom and a people who had stood in arms against him was not attainable immediately, and the first six years of Christian III.’s reign were marked by a contest between the Danish Rigsraad and the German counsellors, both of whom sought to rule “the pious king” exclusively. Though the Danish party won a signal victory at the outset, by obtaining the insertion in the charter of provisions stipulating that only native-born Danes should fill the highest dignities of the state, the king’s German counsellors continued paramount during the earlier years of his reign. The ultimate triumph of the Danish party dates from 1539, the dangers threatening Christian III. from the emperor Charles V. and other kinsmen of the imprisoned Christian II. convincing him of the absolute necessity of removing the last trace of discontent in the land by leaning exclusively on Danish magnates and soldiers. The complete identification of the Danish king with the Danish people was accomplished at the Herredag of Copenhagen, 1542, when the nobility of Denmark voted Christian a twentieth part of all their property to pay off his heavy debt to the Holsteiners and Germans.

The pivot of the foreign policy of Christian III. was his alliance with the German Evangelical princes, as a counterpoise to the persistent hostility of Charles V., who was determined to support the hereditary claims of his nieces, the daughters of Christian II., to the Scandinavian kingdoms. War was actually declared against Charles V. in 1542, and, though the German Protestant princes proved faithless allies, the closing of the Sound against Dutch shipping proved such an effective weapon in King Christian’s hand that the Netherlands compelled Charles V. to make peace with Denmark at the diet of Spires, the 23rd of May 1544. The foreign policy of Christian’s later days was regulated by the peace of Spires. He carefully avoided all foreign complications; refused to participate in the Schmalkaldic war of 1546; mediated between the emperor and Saxony after the fall of Maurice of Saxony at the battle of Sievershausen in 1553, and contributed essentially to the conclusion of peace. King Christian III. died on New Year’s Day 1559. Though not perhaps a great, he was, in the fullest sense of the word, a good ruler. A strong sense of duty, genuine piety, and a cautious but by no means pusillanimous common-sense coloured every action of his patient, laborious and eventful life. But the work he left behind him is the best proof of his statesmanship. He found Denmark in ruins; he left her stronger and wealthier than she had ever been before.

See Danmarks Riges Historie, vol. 3 (Copenhagen, 1897-1901); Huitfeld, King Christian III.’s Historie (Copenhagen, 1595); Bain, Scandinavia, cap. iv. v. (Cambridge, 1905).

(R. N. B.)

CHRISTIAN IV. (1577-1648), king of Denmark and Norway, the son of Frederick II., king of Denmark, and Sophia of Mecklenburg, was born at Fredriksborg castle in 1577, and succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (4th of April 1588), attaining his majority on the 17th of August 1596. On the 27th of November 1597 he married Anne Catherine, a daughter of Joachim Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg. The queen died fourteen years later, after bearing Christian six children. Four years after her death the king privately wedded a handsome young gentlewoman, Christina Munk, by whom he had twelve children,—a connexion which was to be disastrous to Denmark.

The young king’s court was one of the most joyous and magnificent in Europe; yet he found time for work of the most various description, including a series of domestic reforms (see [Denmark]: History). He also did very much for the national armaments. New fortresses were constructed under the direction of Dutch engineers. The Danish navy, which in 1596 consisted of but twenty-two vessels, in 1610 rose to sixty, some of them being built after Christian’s own designs. The formation of a national army was more difficult. Christian had to depend mainly upon hired troops, supported by native levies recruited for the most part from the peasantry on the crown domains. His first experiment with his newly organized army was successful. In the war with Sweden, generally known as the “Kalmar War,” because its chief operation was the capture by the Danes of Kalmar, the eastern fortress of Sweden, Christian compelled Gustavus Adolphus to give way on all essential points (treaty of Knäred, 20th of January 1613). He now turned his attention to Germany. His object was twofold: first, to obtain the control of the great German rivers the Elbe and the Weser, as a means of securing his dominion of the northern seas; and secondly, to acquire the secularized German bishoprics of Bremen and Werden as appanages for his younger sons. He skilfully took advantage of the alarm of the German Protestants after the battle of White Hill in 1620, to secure the coadjutorship to the see of Bremen for his son Frederick (September 1621), a step followed in November by a similar arrangement as to Werden; while Hamburg by the compact of Steinburg (July 1621) was induced to acknowledge the Danish overlordship of Holstein. The growing ascendancy of the Catholics in North Germany in and after 1623 almost induced Christian, for purely political reasons, to intervene directly in the Thirty Years’ War. For a time, however, he stayed his hand, but the urgent solicitations of the western powers, and, above all, his fear lest Gustavus Adolphus should supplant him as the champion of the Protestant cause, finally led him to plunge into war against the combined forces of the emperor and the League, without any adequate guarantees of co-operation from abroad. On the 9th of May 1625 Christian quitted Denmark for the front. He had at his disposal from 19,000 to 25,000 men, and at first gained some successes; but on the 27th of August 1626 he was utterly routed by Tilly at Lutter-am-Barenberge, and in the summer of 1627 both Tilly and Wallenstein, ravaging and burning, occupied the duchies and the whole peninsula of Jutland. In his extremity Christian now formed an alliance with Sweden (1st of January 1628), whereby Gustavus Adolphus pledged himself to assist Denmark with a fleet in case of need, and shortly afterwards a Swedo-Danish army and fleet compelled Wallenstein to raise the siege of Stralsund. Thus the possession of a superior sea-power enabled Denmark to tide over her worst difficulties, and in May 1629 Christian was able to conclude peace with the emperor at Lübeck, without any diminution of territory.

Christian IV. was now a broken man. His energy was temporarily paralysed by accumulated misfortunes. Not only his political hopes, but his domestic happiness had suffered shipwreck. In the course of 1628 he discovered a scandalous intrigue of his wife, Christina Munk, with one of his German officers; and when he put her away she endeavoured to cover up her own disgrace by conniving at an intrigue between Vibeke Kruse, one of her discharged maids, and the king. In January 1630 the rupture became final, and Christina retired to her estates in Jutland. Meanwhile Christian openly acknowledged Vibeke as his mistress, and she bore him a numerous family. Vibeke’s children were of course the natural enemies of the children of Christina Munk, and the hatred of the two families was not without influence on the future history of Denmark. Between 1629 and 1643, however, Christian gained both in popularity and influence. During that period he obtained once more the control of the foreign policy of Denmark as well as of the Sound tolls, and towards the end of it he hoped to increase his power still further with the assistance of his sons-in-law, Korfits Ulfeld and Hannibal Sehested, who now came prominently forward.

Even at the lowest ebb of his fortunes Christian had never lost hope of retrieving them, and between 1629 and 1643 the European situation presented infinite possibilities to politicians with a taste for adventure. Unfortunately, with all his gifts, Christian was no statesman, and was incapable of a consistent policy. He would neither conciliate Sweden, henceforth his most dangerous enemy, nor guard himself against her by a definite system of counter-alliances. By mediating in favour of the emperor, after the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632, he tried to minimize the influence of Sweden in Germany, and did glean some minor advantages. But his whole Scandinavian policy was so irritating and vexatious that Swedish statesmen made up their minds that a war with Denmark was only a question of time; and in the spring of 1643 it seemed to them that the time had come. They were now able, thanks to their conquests in the Thirty Years’ War, to attack Denmark from the south as well as the east; the Dutch alliance promised to secure them at sea, and an attack upon Denmark would prevent her from utilizing the impending peace negotiations to the prejudice of Sweden. In May the Swedish Riksråd decided upon war; on the 12th of December the Swedish marshal Lennart Torstensson, advancing from Bohemia, crossed the northern frontier of Denmark; by the end of January 1644 the whole peninsula of Jutland was in his possession. This totally unexpected attack, conducted from first to last with consummate ability and lightning-like rapidity, had a paralysing effect upon Denmark. Fortunately, in the midst of almost universal helplessness and confusion, Christian IV. knew his duty and had the courage to do it. In his sixty-sixth year he once more displayed something of the magnificent energy of his triumphant youth. Night and day he laboured to levy armies and equip fleets. Fortunately too for him, the Swedish government delayed hostilities in Scania till February 1644, so that the Danes were able to make adequate defensive preparations and save the important fortress of Malmö. Torstensson, too, was unable to cross from Jutland to Fünen for want of a fleet, and the Dutch auxiliary fleet which came to his assistance was defeated between the islands of Sylt and Rönnö on the west coast of Schleswig by the Danish admirals. Another attempt to transport Torstensson and his army to the Danish islands by a large Swedish fleet was frustrated by Christian IV. in person on the 1st of July 1644. On that day the two fleets encountered off Kolberge Heath, S.E. of Kiel Bay, and Christian displayed a heroism which endeared him ever after to the Danish nation and made his name famous in song and story. As he stood on the quarter-deck of the “Trinity” a cannon close by was exploded by a Swedish bullet, and splinters of wood and metal wounded the king in thirteen places, blinding one eye and flinging him to the deck. But he was instantly on his feet again, cried with a loud voice that it was well with him, and set every one an example of duty by remaining on deck till the fight was over. Darkness at last separated the contending fleets; and though the battle was a drawn one, the Danish fleet showed its superiority by blockading the Swedish ships in Kiel Bay. But the Swedish fleet escaped, and the annihilation of the Danish fleet by the combined navies of Sweden and Holland, after an obstinate fight between Fehmarn and Laaland at the end of September, exhausted the military resources of Denmark and compelled Christian to accept the mediation of France and the United Provinces; and peace was finally signed at Brömsebro on the 8th of February 1645.

The last years of the king were still further embittered by sordid differences with his sons-in-law, especially with the most ambitious of them, Korfits Ulfeld. On the 21st of February 1648, at his earnest request, he was carried in a litter from Fredriksborg to his beloved Copenhagen, where he died a week later. Christian IV. was a good linguist, speaking, besides his native tongue, German, Latin, French and Italian. Naturally cheerful and hospitable, he delighted in lively society; but he was also passionate, irritable and sensual. He had courage, a vivid sense of duty, an indefatigable love of work, and all the inquisitive zeal and inventive energy of a born reformer. Yet, though of the stuff of which great princes are made, he never attained to greatness. His own pleasure, whether it took the form of love or ambition, was always his first consideration. In the heyday of his youth his high spirits and passion for adventure enabled him to surmount every obstacle with élan. But in the decline of life he reaped the bitter fruits of his lack of self-control, and sank into the grave a weary and broken-hearted old man.