صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

(15th March 1870), to the effect that corruption, treating and the voter has received a ballot-paper. The voter folds up the intimidation by priests and landlords took place to a large extent paper so as to conceal his mark, but to show the stamp to the at both parliamentary and municipal elections in England officer, and deposits it in the box, which is locked and sealed, and Ireland; and that the ballot, if adopted, would probably and so constructed that papers cannot be withdrawn without not only promote tranquillity at elections, but protect voters unlocking it. Papers inadvertently spoiled by the voters may from undue influence, and introduce greater freedom and purity be exchanged, the officer preserving separately the spoiled in voting, provided secrecy was made inviolable except in cases papers. If a voter is incapacitated from blindness, or other where a voter was found guilty of bribery, or where an invalid physical cause, or makes before the officer a declaration of vote had been given.

inability to read, or when the poll is on a Saturday declares Meanwhile in Australia the ballot had been introduced by the himself a Jew, the officer causes the paper to be marked as the Constitution Act of South Australia (1856), and in other colonies voter directs, and keeps a record of the transaction. A voter who at the same date. In South Australia (Electoral Act of 1858) claims to vote after another has voted in respect of the same the returning-officer put his initials on the voting-card, which the qualification, obtains a (green) paper which is not placed in the voter was directed, under pain of nullity, to fold so that the officer box, but preserved apart as a "tendered " paper. He must, might not see the vote which was indicated by a cross. In however, declare his identity and that he has not already voted. Victoria, under the Electoral Act of 1865, the officer added to his The presiding-officer at the close of the poll has to account to initials a number corresponding to the voter's number on the the returning officer for the papers entrusted to him, the number register. In Tasmania the chief peculiarity was that (as in South being made up by-(1) papers in the box, (2) spoiled papers, (3) Australia) the card was not put directly by the voter into the box, unused papers and (4) tendered papers. During the voting (for but handed to the officer, who put it there(this being thought a which schoolrooms and other public rooms are available, and for security against double-voting or voting with a non-official card, which a separate compartment must be provided for every 150 and also against the voter carrying away his card). In 1869, at electors entitled to vote at a station) agents of candidates are Manchester and Stafford in England, test-ballots were taken on allowed to be present in the polling-station, but they, as well as the Australian system as practised in Victoria--the voting-card the officials, are sworn to secrecy as regards who have voted, and containing the names of all the candidates, printed in different for whom; and they are prohibited from interfering with the colours (for the benefit of illiterate voters), and the voter being voter, inducing him to show his vote, or attempting to ascertain directed to score out the names of those he did not support, and the number on the back of the paper. These agents are also then to place the card (covered by an official envelope) in the box. present with the returning

officer when he counts the papers and It was found at Manchester that the voting was considerably the votes, rejecting those papers-(1) which want the official more rapid, and therefore less expensive, than under the old mark on the back; (2) on which votes are given for more candisystem; that only 80 cards out of 11,475 were rejected as dates than the voter is entitled to vote for; (3) on which anyinformal; and that, the representatives of candidates being thing except the number on the back is marked or written by present to check false statements of identity, and the public which the voter can be identified; (4) which are unmarked, or outside being debarred from receiving information what voters so marked that it is uncertain for whom the vote is given. The had voted, the ballot rather decreased the risk of personation.counted and rejected papers, and also the “tendered " papers, At Manchester the cards were not numbered consecutively, as counterfoils and marked register (which have not been opened), in Victoria, so that (assuming the officials to be free from corrup-are, in parliamentary elections, transmitted by the returning tion) no scrutiny could have detected by whom particular votes officer to the clerk of the crown in chancery in England, or the were given. At Stafford the returning officer stamped each card sheriff-clerk in Scotland, who destroys them at the end of one before giving it to the voter, the die of the stamp having been year, unless otherwise directed by an order of the House of finished only on the morning of the election. By this means the Commons, or of some court having jurisdiction in election possibility was excluded of what was known as “the Tasmanian petitions. Such petitions either simply dispute the accuracy Dolge," by which a corrupt voter gave to the returning-officer, of the return on the ground of miscounting, or wrongous rejection or placed in the box, a blank non-official ticket, and carried out or wrongous admission of papers, in which case the court examines from the booth his official card, which a corrupt agent then the counted and rejected papers; or make allegations of cormarked for his candidate, and gave so-marked to corrupt voter ruption, &c. on which it may be necessary to refer to the marked No. 2 (before he entered the booth) on condition that he also counterfoils and ascertain how bribed voters have voted. Since would bring out his official card, and so on ad libitum; the agent the elections of 1874 much discontent has been expressed, thus obtaining a security for his bribe, unless the corrupt voter because judges have rejected papers with trifling (perhaps chose to disfranchise himself by making further marks on the accidental) marks other than the X upon them, and because card. At the close of 1870 the ballot was employed in the election elections have been lost through the failure of the officer to of members for the London School Board under the Education stamp the papers. For this purpose the use has been suggested Act of that year.

of a perforating instead of an embossing stamp, while a darkIn 1872 W. E. Forster's Ballot Act introduced the ballot in all grourid paper with white voting-spaces would make misplaced parliamentary and municipal elections, except parliamentary votes impossible. clections for universities; and the code of procedure prescribed The BallotAct introduced several new offences such as forging of by the act was adopted by the Scottish Education Board in Papers or fraudulently defacing or destroying a paper or the official the first School Board election (1873) under the Education mark; supplying a paper without due authority; fraudulently (Scotland) Act 1872. The Ballot Act not only abolished public putting into the box a non-official paper; fraudulently taking nominations of candidates, but dealt with the offence of persona- a paper out of the station without due authority; destroying, tion and the expenses of elections.

taking, opening or otherwise interfering with a box or packet As practised in the United Kingdom, a white paper is used on of papers then in use for election purposes. These offences and which the names of the candidates are printed in alphabetical attempts to commit them are punishable in the case of officers order, the voter filling up with a X the blank on the right-hand and clerks with imprisonment for two years, with or without opposite the name he votes for. The paper, before being given hard labour. In other cases the term of imprisonment is six out, is marked by the presiding-officer on both sides with an months. official stamp, which is kept secret, and cannot be used for a The ballot was long criticized as leading to universal hypocrisy second election within seven years. The paper is marked on the and deception; and Sydney Smith spoke of voters, in dominos, back with the same number as the counterfoil of the paper which going to the poll in sedan-chairs with closely-drawn curtains." remains with the officer. This counterfoil is also marked with The observed effect of a secret ballot has been, however, gradually the voter's number on the register, so that the vote may be to exterminate undue influence. The alarm of "the confessional” identified on a scrutiny; and a mark on the register shows that seems to be unfounded, as a Catholic penitent is not bound to

confess his vote, and if he did so, it would be a crime in the confessor to divulge it. Continental Europe.-The ballot is largely employed in European countries. In France, where from 1840 to 1845 the ballot, or scrutin, had been used for deliberative voting in the chamber of deputies, its use in elections to the Corps Législatif was carefully regulated at the beginning of the Second Empire by the Organic Decree of the 2nd of February 1852. Under this law the voting was superintended by a bureau consisting of the deputy returning-officer (called president of the section), four unpaid assessors selected from the constituency and a secretary. Each voter presents a polling-card, with his designation, date of birth and signature (to secure identity), which he had previously got at the Mairie. This the president mutilates, and the vote is then recorded by a "bulletin," which is not official, but is generally printed with a candidate's name, and given to the Voter by an agent outside, the only conditions being that the bulletin shall be "sur papier blanc, sans signes extérieurs, et préparé en dehors de l'assemblée." The total number of votes given (there being only one member in each electoral district) is checked by reference to “la feuille d'appel et inscription des votants," the law still supposing that each voter is publicly called on to vote. If the voter, when challenged, cannot sign his polling-card, he may call a witness to sign for him. The following classes of bulletins are rejected:-" illisibles, blancs, ne contenant pas une désignation suffisante; sur lesquels les votants se sont fait connaitre; contenant le nom d'une personne n'ayant pas prêté le serment prescrit" (i.e. of a person not nominated). Only the votes pronounced bad by the bureau in presence of representative scrutineers are preserved, in case these should be called for during the "Session pour vérification des pouvoirs." Practically the French ballot did not afford secrecy, for you might observe what bulletin the voter took from the agent, and follow him up the queue into the polling-place; but the determined voter might conceal his vote even from the undue influence of government by scratching out the printed matter and writing his vote. This was always a good vote and scrutiny of good votes was impossible. The ballot is still used in the elections to the National Assembly, but in the Assembly itself only in special cases, as e.g. in the election of a " rapporteur." Under the law of 10th August 1871 the conseils généraux (departmental councils) are elected by ballot.

In Piedmont the ballot formed part of the free constitutional government introduced by Charles Albert in March 1848; it was extended to Italy in 1861. Voting for the Italian chamber of deputies takes place under the law of 20th November 1859, and in public halls (not booths), to which admission is gained by showing a certificate of inscription, issued by the mayor to each qualified voter. A stamped blue official paper, with a memorandum of the law printed on the back (bolletino spiegato), is then issued to the elector; on this he writes the name of a candidate (there being equal electoral colleges) or, in certain exceptional cases, gets a confidential friend to do so, and hands the paper folded-up to the president of the bureau, who puts it in the box (urna), and who afterwards presides at the public "squittinio dei suffragi." Greece is the only European country in which the ball-ballot is used. The voting takes place in the churches, each candidate has a box on which his name is inscribed, one half (white) being also marked "yes," the other half (black) "no." The voter, his citizenship or right to vote in the eparchy being verified, receives one ball or leaden bullet for each candidate from a wooden bowl, which a clerk carries from box to box. The voter stretches his arm down a funnel, and drops the ball into the "yes" or "no" division. The vote is secret, but there is apparently no check on "yes" votes being given for all the candidates, and the ball or bullet is imitable.

The earlier history of the ballot in Hungary is remarkable. Before 1848 secret voting was unknown there. The electoral law of that year left the regulation of parliamentary elections to the county and town councils, very few of which adopted the ballot. The mode of voting was perhaps the most primitive on record. Each candidate had a large box with his name

On

superscribed and painted in a distinguishing colour. entering the room alone the voter received a rod from 4 to 6 fcel in length (to prevent concealment of non-official rods on the voter's person), which he placed in the box through a slit in the lid. By the electoral law of 1874 the ballot in parliamentary elections in Hungary was abolished, but was made obligatory in the elections of town and county councils, the voting being for several persons at once.

In Prussia, Stein, by his Städteordnung, or municipal corporation act of 1808, introduced the ballot in the election of the municipal assembly (Stadtverordnetenversammlung). Under the German constitution of 1867, and the new constitution of the 1st of January 1871, the elections of the Reichstag were to be conducted by universal suffrage under the ballot in conformity with the electoral law of the 31st of May 1869.

America.-At the first elections in America voting was viva voce; but several of the colonies early provided for the use of written or printed ballots. By 1775 ballots were used in the New England states, in Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina and South Carolina; they were introduced in New Jersey in 1776, and in New York in 1778, so that, at the time the constitution of the United States was adopted, viva voce voting prevailed at public elections only in Maryland, Virginia and Georgia. Of the new states which later entered the Union, only Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas did not have a ballot system when they became states. During the first half of the 19th century, Maryland, Georgia, Arkansas (1846) and Illinois (1848) adopted the ballot. In Missouri ballot-voting was introduced to some localities in 1845, but not until 1863 was it generally adopted in that state. Virginia did not provide for voting by ballot until 1869, and in Kentucky viva voce voting continued until 1819, but while the use of ballots was thus required in voting, and most of the states had laws prescribing the form of ballots and providing for the count of the vote, there was no provision making it the duty of any one to print and distribute the ballots at the polling-places on election day. In the primitive town meetings ballots had been written by the voters, or, if printed, were furnished by the candidates. With the development of elections, the task of preparing and distributing ballots fell to political committees for the various parties. The ballottickets were thus prepared for party-lists of candidates, and it was not easy for any one to vote a mixed ticket, while, as the voter received the ballot within a few feet of the polls, secrecy was almost impossible, and intimidation and bribery became both easy and frequent.

Soon after the adoption of the Australian ballot in Great Britain, it was introduced in Canada, but no serious agitation was begun for a similar system in the United States until 1885. In 1887 bills for the Australian ballot were actively urged in the legislatures of New York and Michigan, although neither became law. A Wisconsin law of that year, regulating elections in cities of over 50,000 population, incorporated some features of the Australian system, but the first complete law was enacted by Massachusetts in 1888. This Massachusetts statute provided for the printing and distribution of ballots by the state to contain the names of all candidates arranged alphabetically for each office, the electors to vote by marking the name of each candidate for whom they wished to vote. At the presidential election of 1888 it was freely alleged that large sums of money had been raised on an unprecedented scale for the purchase of votes, and this situation created a feeling of deep alarm which gave a powerful impetus to the movement for ballot reform. In 1889 new ballot laws were enacted in nine states: two states bordering on Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island; four states in the middle-west, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota; two southern states, Tennessee and Missouri; and Montana, in the far west. The Connecticut law, however, marked but little improvement over former conditions, since it provided only for official envelopes in which the unofficial party ballots should be voted. The Indiana law provided for a single or "blanket" ballot, but with the names of candidates arranged in party-groups, and a method of voting for all of the candidates in a party-group by a single

the second, he showed himself the principal American expositor of Universalism. His great contribution to his Church was the body of denominational literature he left. From the theology of John Murray, who like Ballou has been called "the father of American Universalism," he differed in that he divested Universalism of every trace of Calvinism and opposed legalism and trinitarian views.

mark. Michigan and Missouri also adopted the party-group system. The other states followed the Massachusetts law providing for a blanket ballot with the candidates arranged by offices. The new ballot system had its first practical demonstration at the Massachusetts election of 1889, and its success led to its rapid adoption in many other states. In 1890 ballot laws were passed in seven states: Vermont, Mississippi, Wyoming and Washington provided for the Massachusetts plan, although Vermont afterwards adopted the system of party-groups, which Maryland used from the first. The New York and New Jersey laws of 1890, however, only provided for official ballots for each party, and allowed ballots obtained outside of the polling-booths to be used. In 1891 seventeen additional states and two territories adopted the Australian ballot system. All of these provided for a blanket ballot; but while the Massachusetts arrange-1853); and in 1853 was elected first president of Tufts College at ment was adopted in Arkansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North and South Dakota, Kentucky, Texas and Oregon, the system of party groups was followed in Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. California had the Massachusetts arrangement of names, but added on the ballot a list of party names, by marking one of which a voter would cast his vote for all of the candidates of that party. Pennsylvania placed all the candidates not in a party-group in alphabetical order.

Iowa adopted the Australian ballot system in 1892; Alabama and Kansas in 1893; Virginia in 1894; Florida in 1895; and Louisiana and Utah in 1896. In 1895, too, New York adopted the blanket ballot in place of separate party ballots, but arranged the names of candidates in party columns. The only state to abandon the blanket ballot after once adopting it was Missouri which in 1897 returned to the system of separate ballots, with no provision for booths where the ballot might be marked in secret. (See the article," Present Status of the Ballot Laws," by Arthur Ludington, in Amer. Pol. Science Rev. for May 1909.) Owing to the large number of officials chosen at one time in American elections, the form and appearance of the ballot used is very different from that in Great Britain. At the quadrennial presidential election in New York state, for example, the officers to be voted for by each elector are thirty-six presidential electors, one congressman, state-governor, lieutenant-governor and five other state officers, a member for each house of the state legislature, several judges, a sheriff, county-clerk and other county officers. The column with the list of the candidates of each party for all of these offices is 2 to 3 ft. in length; and as there are often eight to ten party-tickets in the field, the ballot-paper is usually from 18 to 20 in. in width. Each voter receives one of these "blanket" ballots on entering the polling-place, and retires to a booth to mark either a party column or the individual candidates in different columns for whom he wishes to vote. Where, as in Massachusetts, the names of candidates are arranged by offices instead of in party-lists, every voter must mark the name of each individual candidate for whom he wishes to vote. Connecticut, New Jersey, Missouri, North and South Carolina, Georgia and New Mexico use the system of separate party ballots. (See also VOTING, VOTING MACHINES, ELECTION, REPRESENTATION.)

BALLOU, HOSEA (1771-1852), American Universalist clergyman, was born in Richmond, New Hampshire, on the 30th of April 1771. He was a son of Maturin Ballou, a Baptist minister, was self-educated, early devoted himself to the ministry, became a convert to Universalism in 1789, and in 1794 became a pastor of a congregation at Dana, Massachusetts. He preached at Barnard, Vermont, and the surrounding towns in 1801-1807; at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1807-1815; at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1815-1817; and as pastor of the Second Universalist Church in Boston from December 1817 until his death there on the 7th of June 1852. He founded and edited The Universalist Magazine (1819; later called The Trumpet) and The Universalist Expositor (1831; later The Universalist Quarterly Review); wrote about 10,000 sermons, many hymns, essays and polemic theological works; and is best known for Notes on the Parables (1804), A Treatise on Atonement (1805) and Examination of the Doctrine of a Future Retribution (1834); in these, especially

Consult the biography by Thomas Whittemore (4 vols., Boston, 1854-1855) and that by Oscar F. Safford (Boston, 1889); and J. C. Adams, Hosea Ballou and the Gospel Renaissance (Boston, 1904). His grand-nephew, HOSEA BALLOU (1796-1861), born in Halifax, Vermont, on the 18th of October 1796, preached to Universalists in Stafford, Connecticut (1815-1821); and in Massachusetts, in Roxbury (1821-1838) and in Medford (1838Medford, serving in that office until shortly before his death, which took place at Somerville, Massachusetts, on the 27th of May 1861. He was the first (1847) to urge the necessity of a Universalist denominational college, and this did much towards the establishment of Tufts. He was associated with the elder Hosea Ballou in editing The Universalist Quarterly Review; edited an edition of Sismondi's History of the Crusades (1833); and wrote the Ancient History of Universalism, down to A.b. 553 (1829; 2nd ed., 1842).

MATURIN MURRAY BALLOU (1820-1895), son of the first Hosea, was a pioneer in American illustrated journalism, edited Gleason's Pictorial and Ballou's Monthly and many collections of quotations, and in 1872 became editor-in-chief of the Boston Daily Globe, of which he was one of the founders. He wrote a life of his father (1860), and a History of Cuba (1854).

BALLSTON SPA, a village and the county-seat of Saratoga county, New York, U.S.A., about 7 m. S. of Saratoga Springs. Pop. (1890) 3527; (1900) 3923; (1910 U. S. Census) 4138. It is served by the Delaware & Hudson railway, and is con nected with Saratoga Springs, Albany, and Schenectady by electric lines. There are several manufacturing establishments, among which are one of the largest manufactories of paper-bags in the United States and a large tannery. It is, however, as a popular summer resort that Ballston Spa is best known. Many fine chalybeate and other springs rising through solid rock from a depth of about 650 ft. furnish a highly effervescent water of considerable medicinal and commercial value. The village has the Ballston Spa public library, the Saratoga county law library and the Saratoga county court house. Ballston Spa, which was named in honour of the Rev. Eliphalet Ball, an early settler, was settled about 1787 by the grandfather of Stephen A. Douglas, and was incorporated in 1855.

See E. F. Prose, Centennial Hist. of Ballston Spa, 1908. BALLYCASTLE, a seaport and watering-place on the north coast of Co. Antrim, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, situated on a bay of the same name opposite Rathlin Island. Pop. (1901) 1481. It is connected with the Northern Counties (Midland) railway at Ballymoney by the Ballycastle light railway. The town consists of two divisions, about a quarter of a mile apart and connected by a fine avenue. Towards the close of the 18th century Mr Hugh Boyd, obtaining the estate, devoted himself to the extension and improvement of the town, establishing manufactures, endowing charities and building churches; and succeeded in producing a temporary vitality. Upwards of £150,000, including a large government grant, is said to have been expended upon the pier and harbour; but the violence of the sea overthrew the one and the other became filled with sand. To the east of the town are the remains of Bonamargy Abbey, the burial-place of many of the MacDonnell family. The Carey brook, by the side of which the abbey stands, was formerly called the Margy, and on its waters according to tradition dwelt the four children of Lir, changed to swans by their step-mother until St Columba released them from enchantment. (See P. W. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances.) With this well-known romance is connected the wide-spread belief in Ireland of ill-fortune following the killing of a swan. Coal-seams, formerly extensively worked, and from an unknown

period of antiquity, appear in the cliffs towards Fair Head, and | industrial and agricultural enterprise. In 1865 he was one of the fisheries are important. The coast-scenery and the view from the hill of Knocklayd are notable.

BALLYMENA, a town of Co. Antrim, Ireland, in the mid parliamentary division, on the Braid, an affluent of the Maine, 2 m. above their junction. Pop. of urban district (1901) 10,886. It is 33 m. N.N.W. of Belfast on the Northern Counties (Midland) railway. Branch lines run to Larne and to Parkmore on the east coast. The town owes its prosperity chiefly to its linen trade, introduced in 1733, which gives employment to the greater part of the inhabitants. Brown linen is a specialty. Iron ore is raised in the neighbourhood. Antiquities in the neighbourhood are few and the present buildings of Ballymena Castle and Galgorm Castle are modern. Gracchill, however, a Moravian settlement, was founded in 1746.

BALLYMONEY, a market town of Co. Antrim, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, 53 m. N.N.W. from Belfast by the Northern Counties (Midland) railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2952. The Ballycastle railway joins the main line here. The trade of the town is prosperous, brewing, distilling and tanning being carried on, besides the linen manufacture common to the whole county. Soap, candles and tobacco are also manufactured, and the town is a centre for local agricultural trade. Near the neighbouring village of Dervock (4) m. N.) is a cottage shown by an înscription to have been the home of the ancestors of William McKinley, president of the United States. BALLYMOTE, a market town of Co. Sligo, Ireland, in the south parliamentary division, 14 m. S. of Sligo by the Midland Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 997. It is a centre for some agricultural trade and has carriage-building works. There are remains of a strong castle, built by the powerful earl of Ulster, Richard de Burgh, in 1300, and the scene of hostilities in 1641 and 1652. Ruins are also seen of a Franciscan foundation attributed to the 13th century; it was a celebrated seat of learning and an extant memorial of the work of its monks is the Book of Ballymole (c. 1391) in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy, a miscellaneous collection in prose and verse of historical, genealogical and romantic writings. There are also, near the town, ruins of a house of the Knights of St John (1303). BALLYSHANNON, a seaport and market-town of Co. Donegal, Ireland, in the south parliamentary division, at the mouth of the Erne; on the Bundoran branch of the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1901) 2359. The river is here crossed by a bridge of twelve arches, which connects the town with the suburb of The Port. Below the bridge the river forms a beautiful cascade, 150 yds. wide, with a fall at low water of 16 ft. Here is the salmon leap, where the fish are trapped in large numbers, but also assisted to mount the fall by salmon-ladders. The fisheries are of great value, and there is an export trade to England in salmon, which are despatched in ice. The harbour is a small exposed creek of Donegal Bay, and is only accessible to small vessels owing to a bar. Previous to the Union Ballyshannon returned two members to the Irish parliament and it was incorporated by James I. There are slight remains of a castle of the O'Donnells, carls of Tyrconnell, where the English, on attempting to besiege it, were defeated and lost heavily in their retreat across the river, in 1597. There are numerous raths or encampments in the vicinity and other remains. Coolmore, 3 m. N.W., is a bathing-resort.

BALM, a fragrant herb, Melissa officinalis, of the Deadnettle order (Labiatae) with opposite, ovate, crenulated leaves, which are wrinkled above, and small white or rose-spotted flowers. It is a native of central and southern Europe; it is often grown in gardens and has become naturalized in the south of England and grows apparently wild as a garden escape in North America. The name is from the Greek uiora, the plant being visited by bees, Bastard Balm is an allied plant, Melittis Melissophyllum, a southern European species, found in the south and south-west of England.

BALMACEDA, JOSÉ MANUEL (1838-1891), president of the republic of Chile, was born in Santiago in 1838. His parents were wealthy, and in his early days he was chiefly concerned in

the representatives of the Chilean government at the general South American congress at Lima, and after his return obtained great distinction as an orator in the national assembly. After discharging some diplomatic missions abroad, he became successively minister of foreign affairs and of the interior under the presidency of Señor Santa Maria, and in the latter capacity carried compulsory civil marriage and several other laws highly obnoxious to the clergy. In 1886 he was elected president, but, in spite of his great capacity, his imperious temper little fitted him for the post. He was soon irreconcilably at variance with the majority of the national representatives, and on the 1st of January 1891 he sought to terminate an intolerable situation by refusing to convoke the assembly and ordering the continued collection of the taxes on his own authority. This led to the Chilean Civil War of 1891, which ended in the overthrow of Balmaceda, who committed suicide on the 18th of September, the anniversary of his elevation to the presidency.

BALMAIN, a town of Cumberland county, N.S.W., Australia, on the western shore of Darling Harbour, Port Jackson, 2 m. by water from Sydney and suburban to it. Pop. (1901) 30,881. It is the home of great numbers of the working classes of Sydney and some of the largest factories and most important docks are situated here. Saw-mills, iron foundries, chemicals, glass and soap works, shipbuilding yards and a cocoanut-oil factory in connexion with the soap-manufacture at Port Sunlight, England, are among the chief industrial establishments. Balmain became a municipality in 1860.

BALMERINO, JAMES ELPHINSTONE, 1st BARON (c. 15531612), Scottish politician, was the third son of Robert, 3rd Lord Elphinstone (d. 1602). Rising to power under James VI. he became a judge and a royal secretary; he accompanied the king. to London in 1603 and was made Lord Balmerino, or Balmerinoch, in 1604. In 1605 he became president of the court of session, but his ardour for the Roman Catholic religion brought about his overthrow. In 1599 on the king's behalf, but without the king's knowledge, he had sent a letter to Clement VIII. in which he addressed the pope in very cordial terms. A copy of this letter having been seen by Elizabeth, the English queen asked James for an explanation, whereupon both the king and the secretary declared it was a forgery. There the matter rested until 1608, when the existence of the letter was again referred to during some controversy between James and Cardinal Bellarmine.. Interrogated afresh Balmerino admitted that he had written the compromising letter, that he had surreptitiously obtained the king's signature, and that afterwards he had added the full titles of the pope. In March 1600 he was tried, attainted and sentenced to death, but after a brief imprisonment he was released and he died at Balmerino in July 1612.

Balmerino's elder son JOHN (d. 1649) was permitted to take his father's title in 1613. In 1634 he was imprisoned for his opposition to Charles I. in Scotland, and by a bare majority of the jury he was found guilty of "leasing-making" and was. sentenced to death. But popular sympathy was strongly in his favour; the poet Drummond of Hawthornden and others interceded for him, and after much hesitation Charles pardoned him. Balmerino, however, did not desist from his opposition to the king. A chief among the Covenanters and a trusted counsellor of the marquess of Argyll, he presided over the celebrated parliament which met in Edinburgh in August 1641, and was one of the Scottish commissioners who visited England in 1644. He died in February 1649 and was succeeded as 3rd lord by his son JOHN (1623-1704), who in 1669 inherited from his' uncle James the title of Lord Coupar. John's son JOHN, 4thLord Balmerino (1652-1736), was a lawyer of some repute and, although a sturdy opponent of the Union, was a Scottish representative peer in 1710 and 1713. John's son Arthur (1688-1746) who became 6th Lord Balmerino on the death of his half-brother John in January 1746, is famous as a Jacobite. He joined the partisans of James Edward, the Old Pretender, after the battle of Sheriffmuir in November 1715, and then lived for some time in exile, returning to Scotland in 1733 when his father had

[ocr errors]

secured for him a pardon. He was one of the first to join Charles Edward in 1745; he marched with the Jacobites to Derby, fought at Falkirk and was captured at Culloden. Tried for treason in Westminster Hall he was found guilty, and was beheaded on the 11th of August 1746, behaving both at his trial and at his execution with great constancy and courage. On his death without issue his titles became extinct.

BALMÈS, JAIME LUCIANO (1810-1848), Spanish ecclesiastic, eminent as a political writer and a philosopher, was born at Vich in Catalonia, on the 28th of August 1810, and died there on the 9th of July 1848. Having attacked the regent Espartero and been exiled he founded and edited on his return the El Pensamiento de la Nacion, a Catholic and Conservative weekly; but his fame rests principally on El Protestantismo comparado con el Catolicismo en sus relaciones con la Civilisacion Europea (3 vols., 1842-1844, 6th edition, 1879; Eng. trans. London, 1849), an able defence of Catholicism on the ground that it represents the spirit of obedience or order, as opposed to Protestantism, the spirit of revolt or anarchy. From the historical standpoint it is of little value. The best of his philosophical works, which are clear expositions of the scholastic system of thought, are the Filosofia Fondamental (4 vols., 1846, Eng. trans. by H. F. Brownson, 2 vols. New York, 1856), and the Curso de Filosofia Elemental (4 vols., 1847), which he translated into Latin for use in seminaries.

See A. de Blanche-Raffin, Jacques Balmès, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1849); and E. Bullón Fernández, Jaime Balmès y sus oberas (Madrid, 1903).

BALMORAL CASTLE (Gaelic, "the majestic dwelling "), a private residence of the British sovereign, in the parish of Crathie and Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on the right bank of the Dee (here spanned by a fine suspension bridge), 9 m. W. of Ballater and at a height of 900 ft. above the sea. The property formerly belonged to the Farquharsons of Inverey, from whom it was acquired by Sir Robert Gordon, whose trustees disposed of the lease in 1848 to the prince consort, by whom the whole estate was purchased in 1852 and bequeathed to Queen Victoria. The castle is built of granite in the Scots baronial style, with an eastern tower 100 ft. high commanding a superb viewBallochbuie and Braemar to the W., Glen Gairn to the N., Lochnagar and the beautiful valley of the Dee to the S. On Craig Gowan (1319 ft.), a hill 1 m. to the south, have been erected memorial cairns to Queen Victoria, the prince consort, Princess Alice and other members of the royal family of Great Britain. The parish church of Crathie (1903), replacing the kirk of 1806, is 1 m. to the W., and about 2 m. farther west stands Abergeldie Castle, another Highland royal residence, an ancient building to which modern additions have been made, inhabited by King Edward VII. when prince of Wales, and after his accession to the throne used as a shooting-lodge.

BALNAVES, HENRY (1512?-1579), Scottish politician and reformer, born at Kirkcaldy about 1512, was educated at St Andrews and on the continent, where he adopted Protestant views. Returning to Scotland, he continued his legal studies and in 1538 was appointed a lord of session. He married about the same time Christian Scheves, and in 1539 was granted the estate of Halhill in Fife, after which he is generally named. Before 1540 he was sworn of James V's. privy council, and was known as one of the party in favour of the English alliance and of an ecclesiastical reformation. He is also described as treasurer to James (Letters and Papers, 1543, i. 64), but the regent Arran appointed him secretary in the new government of the infant Queen Mary (January 1543). He promoted the act permitting the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange a marriage treaty between the little queen and the future Edward VI. In London he was not considered so complaisant as some of the other commissioners, and was not made privy to all the engagements taken by his colleagues (ib. i. 834). But Beton "loved him worst of all," and, when Arran went over to the priestly party, Balnaves was, in November 1543, deprived of his offices and imprisoned in Blackness Castle.

Thence he was released by the arrival of Hertford's fleet in the following May, and from this time he became a paid agent of the English cause in Scotland. He took no part in the murder of Beton, but was one of the most active defenders of the castle of St Andrews. He received (100 from Henry VIII. in December 1546, was granted an annuity of £125 by Protector Somerset in 1547 and was made English paymaster of the forces in St Andrews. When that castle surrendered to the French in July Balnaves was taken prisoner to Rouen. Somerset made vain efforts to procure his release and continued his pension. He made himself useful by giving information to the English government, and even Mary Tudor sent him £50 as reward in June 1554. Balnaves also busied himself in writing what Knox calls "a comfortable treatise of justification," which was found in MS. with a preface by Knox, among the reformer's papers, and was published at Edinburgh in 1584 under the title The Confession of Faith.

In 1557 Balnaves was permitted to return to Scotland and regain his property; probably it was thought that Mary Tudor's burnings would have cooled the ardour of his English affections, and that in the war threatening between two Catholic countries, Balnaves would serve his own. The accession of Queen Elizabeth changed the situation, and Mary of Guise had reasons for accusing him of "practices out of England" (Salisbury MSS. i. 155). He took, in fact, an active part in the rising of 1559 and was commissioned by the Congregation to solicit the help of the English government through Sir Ralph Sadleir at Berwick. He was also selected one of the Scots representatives to negotiate with the duke of Norfolk in February 1560. In 1563 he was restored to his office as lord of session, and was one of those appointed by the General Assembly to revise the Book of Discipline. He was one of Bothwell's judges for the murder of Darnley in 1567, and in 1568 he accompanied Moray to the York inquiry into Queen Mary's guilt. He resigned his judicial office in 1574, and died in 1579 at Edinburgh. He has been claimed as a Scots bard on the strength of one ballad, "O gallandis all, I cry and call," which is printed in Allan Ramsay's Evergreen (2 vols. 1724-1727).

See Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. (1540-1545); Bain's and Thorp's Cal. of Scottish State-Papers; English Domestic and Foreign Cals.; Acts of Engl. Privy Council: Reg. P.C., Scotland; Reg. Great Seal of Scotland: Hamilton Papers; Border Papers; Knox, Works; Burnet, Reformation; Froude, Hist. (A. F. P.)

BALNEOTHERAPEUTICS (Lat. balneum, a bath, and Gr. Oepareve, to treat medically). The medical treatment of disease by internal and external use of mineral waters is quite distinct from "hydrotherapy," or the therapeutic uses of pure water. But the term "balneotherapeutics" has gradually come to be applied to everything relating to spa treatment, including the drinking of waters and the use of hot baths and natural vapour baths, as well as of the various kinds of mud and sand used for hot applications. The principal constituents found in mineral waters are sodium, magnesium, calcium and iron, in combination with the acids to form chlorides, sulphates, sulphides and carbonates. Other substances occasionally present in sufficient quantity to exert a therapeutic influence are arsenic, lithium, potassium, manganese, bromine, iodine, &c. The chief gases in solution are oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen. Argon and helium occur in some of the "simple thermal and "thermal sulphur waters." There are few doctors who would deny the great value of special bathing and drinking cures in certain morbid conditions. In the employment of the various mineral waters, many of the spas adopt special means by which they increase or modify their influence, e.g. the so-called "aromatic" or "medicated "baths, in which substances are mixed to exert a special influence on the skin and peripheral nerves. Of these the "pine-needle" bath has the greatest repute; it is made by adding a decoction of the needles or young shoots of firs and pines. Fir wood oil (a mixture of ethereal oils) or the tincture of an alcoholic extract acts equally well. The volatile ethereal constituents are sup posed to penetrate the skin and to stimulate the cutaneous

« السابقةمتابعة »