Part 40

BEAUVOIR, ROGER DE, the _nom de plume_ of EUGENE AUGUSTE ROGER DE BULLY (1806-1866), French writer, who was born on the 8th of November 1806 in Paris. He was the son and nephew of public officials who did not approve his literary inclinations, and it was at their request that he wrote over the signature of Roger de Beauvoir. A good-looking young fellow, of independent means, an indefatigable _viveur_, he astonished all Paris with his ostentatious luxury and his adventures, while his romantic novels gave him a more serious if not durable reputation. Among the best of them are _L'Ecolier de Cluny ou le Sophisme_ (1832), which is said to have furnished Alexandre Dumas and Theodore Gaillardet (1808-1882) with the idea of the _Tour de Nesle_, and _Le Chevalier de Saint Georges_ (1840). He had married in 1847 an actress, Eleonore Leocadie Doze (1822-1859), from whom he obtained a judicial separation a year or two later after a long and notorious trial, following which his mother-in-law got him imprisoned for three months and fined 500 francs for a satirical poem, _Mon Proces_ (1849). Ruined by extravagance and tied to his chair by gout, he spent the last years of his life in retirement, and died in Paris on the 27th of August 1866.

BEAUX, CECILIA (1863- ), American portrait-painter, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she became a pupil of William Sartain. But her real art training was obtained in Paris, where she started in the _atelier_ Julian and had the coaching of painters like Robert-Fleury, Bouguereau and Dagnan Bouveret. In 1890 she exhibited at the Paris Exposition. Returning to Philadelphia, Miss Beaux obtained in 1893 the gold medal of the Philadelphia Art Club, and also the Dodge prize at the New York National Academy, and later various other distinctions. She became a member of the National Academy of Design, New York, in 1902. Among her portraits are those of Bishop-Coadjutor Greer (exhibited at the Salon in 1896); Mrs Roosevelt and her daughter; and Mrs Larz Anderson. Her "Dorothea and Francesca," and "Ernesta and her Little Brother," are good examples of her skill in painting children.

BEAVER,[1] the largest European aquatic representative of the mammalian order RODENTIA (q.v.), easily recognized by its large trowel-like, scaly tail, which is expanded in the horizontal direction. The true beaver (_Castor fiber_) is a native of Europe and northern Asia, but it is represented in North America by a closely-allied species (_C. canadensis_), chiefly distinguished by the form of the nasal bones of the skull. Beavers are nearly allied to the squirrels (_Sciuridae_), agreeing in certain structural peculiarities of the lower jaw and skull. In the _Sciuridae_ the two main bones (tibia and fibula) of the lower half of the leg are quite separate, the tail is round and hairy, and the habits are arboreal and terrestrial. In the beavers or _Castoridae_ these bones are in close contact at their lower ends, the tail is depressed, expanded and scaly, and the habits are aquatic. Beavers have webbed hind-feet, and the claw of the second hind-toe double. In length beavers--European and American--measure about 2 ft. exclusive of the tail, which is about 10 in. long. They are covered with a fur to which they owe their chief commercial value; this consists of two kinds of hair--the one close-set, silky and of a greyish colour, the other much coarser and longer, and of a reddish brown. Beavers are essentially aquatic in their habits, never travelling by land unless driven by necessity. Formerly common in England, the European beaver has not only been exterminated there, but likewise in most of the countries of the continent, although a few remain on the Elbe, the Rhone and in parts of Scandinavia. The American species is also greatly diminished in numbers from incessant pursuit for the sake of its valuable fur. Beavers are sociable anirrals, living in streams, where, so as to render the water of sufficient depth, they build dams of mud and of the stems and boughs of trees felled by their powerful incisor teeth. In the neighbourhood they make their "lodges," which are roomy chambers, with the entrance beneath the water. The mud is plastered down by the fore-feet, and not, as often supposed, by the tail, which is employed solely as a rudder. They are mainly nocturnal, and subsist chiefly on bark and twigs or the roots of water plants. The dam differs in shape according to the nature of particular localities. Where the water has little motion it is almost straight; where the current is considerable it is curved, with its convexity towards the stream. The materials made use of are driftwood, green willows, birch and poplars; also mud and stones intermixed in such a manner as contributes to the strength of the dam, but there is no

## particular method observed, except that the work is carried on with a

regular sweep, and that all the parts are made of equal strength. "In places," writes Hearne, "which have been long frequented by beavers undisturbed, their dams, by frequent repairing, become a solid bank, capable of resisting a great force both of ice and water; and as the willow, poplar and birch generally take root and shoot up, they by degrees form a kind of regular planted hedge, which I have seen in some places so tall that birds have built their nests among the branches." Their houses are formed of the same materials as the dams, with little order or regularity of structure, and seldom contain more than four old, and six or eight young beavers. It not unfrequently happens that some of the larger houses have one or more partitions, but these are only posts of the main building left by the builders to support the roof, for the apartments have usually no communication with each other except by water. The beavers carry the mud and stones with their fore-paws and the timber between their teeth. They always work in the night and with great expedition. They cover their houses late every autumn with fresh mud, which, freezing when the frost sets in, becomes almost as hard as stone, so that neither wolves nor wolverines can disturb their repose.

The favourite food of the American beaver is the water-lily (_Nuphar luteum_), which bears a resemblance to a cabbage-stalk, and grows at the bottom of lakes and rivers. Beavers also gnaw the bark of birch, poplar and willow trees; but during the summer a more varied herbage, with the addition of berries, is consumed. When the ice breaks up in spring they always leave their embankments, and rove about until a little before the fall of the leaf, when they return to their old habitations, and lay in their winter stock of wood. They seldom begin to repair the houses till the frost sets in, and never finish the outer coating till the cold becomes severe. When they erect a new habitation they fell the wood early in summer, but seldom begin building till towards the end of August.

The flesh of the American beaver is eaten by the Indians, and when roasted in the skin is esteemed a delicacy and is said to taste like pork. _Castoreum_ is a substance contained in two pear-shaped pouches situated near the organs of reproduction, of a bitter taste and slightly foetid odour, at one time largely employed as a medicine, but now used only in perfumery.

Fossil remains of beavers are found in the peat and other superficial deposits of England and the continent of Europe; while in the Pleistocene formations of England and Siberia occur remains of a giant extinct beaver, _Trogontherium cuvieri_, representing a genus by itself.

For an account of beavers in Norway see R. Collett, in the _Bergens Museum Aarbog_ for 1897. See also R.T. Martin, _Castorologia, a History and Traditions of the Canadian Beaver_ (London, 1892). (R. L.*)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The word is descended from the Aryan name of the animal, cf. Sanskrit _babhrus_, brown, the great ichneumon, Lat. _fiber_, Ger. _Biber_, Swed. _bafver_, Russ. _bobr'_; the root _bhru_ has given "brown," and, through Romanic, "bronze" and "burnish."

BEAVER (from Fr. _baviere_, a child's bib, from _bave_, saliva), the lower part of the helmet, fixed to the neck-armour to protect the face and cheeks; properly it moved upwards, as the visor moved down, but the word is sometimes used to include the visor. The right form of the word, "baver," has been altered from a confusion with "beaver," a hat made of beaver-fur or a silk imitation, also, in slang, called a "castor," from the zoological name of the beaver family.

BEAVER DAM, a city of Dodge county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., situated in the S.E. part of the state, 63 m. N.W. of Milwaukee, on Beaver Lake, which is 9 m. long and 3 m. wide. Pop. (1890) 4222; (1900) 5128, of whom 1023 were foreign-born; (1905) 5615; (1910) 6758. Most of the population is of German descent. Beaver Dam is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railway. The city is a summer resort, has a public library, and is the seat of Wayland Academy (1855, Baptist), a co-educational preparatory school affiliated with the university of Chicago. Beaver Dam is situated in the midst of a fine farming country; it has a good water-power derived from Beaver Lake, and among its manufactures are woollen and cotton goods, malleable iron, foundry products, gasolene engines, agricultural implements, stoves and beer. The city was first settled about 1841, and was incorporated in 1856.

BEAVER FALLS, a borough of Beaver county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Beaver river, about 3-1/2 m. from its confluence with the Ohio, opposite New Brighton, and about 32 m. N.W. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 9735; (1900) 10,054, of whom 1554 were foreign-born; (1910), census, 12,191. The borough is served by the Pennsylvania and the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railways. It is built for the most part on a plateau about 50 ft. above the river, hemmed in on either side by hills that rise abruptly, especially on the W., to a height of more than 200 ft. Bituminous coal, natural gas and oil abound in the vicinity; the river provides excellent water-power; the borough is a manufacturing centre of considerable importance, its products including iron and steel bridges, boilers, steam drills, carriages, saws, files, axes, shovels, wire netting, stoves, glass-ware, scales, chemicals, pottery, cork, decorative tile, bricks and typewriters. In 1905 the city's factory products were valued at $4,907,536. Geneva College (Reformed Presbyterian, co-educational), established in 1849 at Northwood, Logan county, Ohio, was removed in 1880 to the borough of College Hill (pop. in 1900, 899), 1 m. N. of Beaver Falls; it has a preparatory and a collegiate department, departments of music, oratory and art, and a physical department, and in 1907-1908 had 13 instructors and 235 students. Beaver Falls was first settled in 1801; was laid out as a town and named Brighton in 1806; received its present name a few years later; and in 1868 was incorporated as a borough.

BEAWAR, or NAYANAGAR, a town of British India, the administrative headquarters of Merwara district in Ajmere-Merwara. It is 33 m. from Ajmere. Pop. (1901) 21,928. It is an important centre of trade, especially in raw cotton, and has cotton presses and the Krishna cotton mills. It was founded by Colonel Dixon in 1835.

BEBEL, FERDINAND AUGUST (1840- ), German socialist, was born at Cologne on the 22nd of February 1840; he became a turner and worked at Leipzig. Here he took a prominent part in the workmen's movement and in the association of working men which had been founded under the influence of Schultz-Delitzsch; at first an opponent of socialism, he came under the influence of Liebknecht, and after 1865 he was a confirmed advocate of socialism. With Liebknecht he belonged to the branch of the socialists which was in close correspondence with Karl Marx and the International, and refused to accept the leadership of Schweitzer, who had attempted to carry on the work after Lassalle's death. He was one of those who supported a vote of want of confidence in Schweitzer at the Eisenach conference in 1867, from which his party was generally known as "the Eisenacher." In this year he was elected a member of the North German Reichstag for a Saxon constituency, and, with an interval from 1881 to 1883, remained a member of the German parliament. His great organizing talent and oratorical power quickly made him one of the leaders of the socialists and their chief spokesman in parliament. In 1870 he and Liebknecht were the only members who did not vote the extraordinary subsidy required for the war with France; the followers of Lassalle, on the other hand, voted for the government proposals. He was the only Socialist who was elected to the Reichstag in 1871, but he used his position to protest against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and to express his full sympathy with the Paris Commune. Bismarck afterwards said that this speech of Bebel's was a "ray of light," showing him that Socialism was an enemy to be fought against and crushed; and in 1872 Bebel was accused in Brunswick of preparation for high treason, and condemned to two years' imprisonment in a fortress, and, for insulting the German emperor, to nine months' ordinary imprisonment. After his release he helped to organize, at the congress of Gotha, the united party of Social Democrats, which had been formed during his imprisonment. After the passing of the Socialist Law he continued to show great activity in the debates of the Reichstag, and was also elected a member of the Saxon parliament; when the state of siege was proclaimed in Leipzig he was expelled from the city, and in 1886 condemned to nine months' imprisonment for taking part in a secret society. Although the rules of the Social Democratic party do not recognize a leader or president, Bebel subsequently became by far the most influential member of the party. In the party meetings of 1890 and 1891 his policy was severely attacked, first by the extremists, the "young" Socialists from Berlin, who wished to abandon parliamentary

## action; against these Bebel won a complete victory. On the other side he

was involved in a quarrel with Volmar and his school, who desired to put aside from immediate consideration the complete attainment of the Socialist ideal, and proposed that the party should aim at bringing about, not a complete overthrow of society, but a gradual amelioration. This conflict of tendencies continued, and Bebel came to be regarded as the chief exponent of the traditional views of the orthodox Marxist party. He was exposed to some natural ridicule on the ground that the "Kladderadatsch," which he often spoke of as imminent, failed to make its appearance. On the other hand, though a strong opponent of militarism, he publicly stated that foreign nations attacking Germany must not expect the help or the neutrality of the Social Democrats. His book, _Die Frau und der Socialismus_ (1893), which went through many editions and contained an attack on the institution of marriage, identified him with the most extreme forms of Socialism.

See also Mehring, _Geschichte der deutschen Social-Demokratie_ (Stuttgart, 1898); _Reports of the Annual Meetings of the Social Democratic Party_, Berlin Vorwarts Publishing Company (from 1890); B. Russell, _German Social-Democracy_ (London, 1897). (J. W. He.)

BECCAFICO (Ital. for "fig-pecker"), a small migratory bird of the warbler (_Sylviidae_) family, which frequents fig-trees and vineyards, and, when fattened, is considered a great delicacy.

BECCAFUMI, DOMENICO DI PACE (1486-1551), Italian painter, of the school of Siena. In the early days of the Tuscan republics Siena had been in artistic genius, and almost in political importance, the rival of Florence. But after the great plague in 1348 the city declined; and though her population always comprised an immense number of skilled artists and artificers, yet her school did not share in the general progress of Italy in the 15th century. About the year 1500, indeed, Siena had no native artists of the first importance; and her public and private commissions were often given to natives of other cities. But after the uncovering of the works of Raphael and Michelangelo at Rome in 1508, all the schools of Italy were stirred with the desire of imitating them. Among these accomplished men who now, without the mind and inspiration of Raphael or Michelangelo, mastered a great deal of their manner, and initiated the decadence of Italian art, several of the most accomplished arose in the school of Siena. Among these was Domenico, the son of a peasant, one Giacomo di Pace, who worked on the estate of a well-to-do citizen named Lorenzo Beccafumi. Seeing some signs of a talent for drawing in his labourer's son, Lorenzo Beccafumi took the boy into his service and presently adopted him, causing him to learn painting from masters of the city. Known afterwards as Domenico Beccafumi, or earlier as Il Mecarino (from the name of a poor artist with whom he studied), the peasant's son soon gave proof of extraordinary industry and talent. In 1509 he went to Rome and steeped himself in the manner of the great men who had just done their first work in the Vatican. Returning to his native town, Beccafumi quickly gained employment and a reputation second only to Sodoma. He painted a vast number both of religious pieces for churches and of mythological decorations for private patrons. But the work by which he will longest be remembered is that which he did for the celebrated pavement of the cathedral of Siena. For a hundred and fifty years the best artists of the state had been engaged laying down this pavement with vast designs in _commesso_ work,--white marble, that is, engraved with the outlines of the subject in black, and having borders inlaid with rich patterns in many colours. From the year 1517 to 1544 Beccafumi was engaged in continuing this pavement. He made very ingenious improvements in the technical processes employed, and laid down multitudinous scenes from the stories of Ahab and Elijah, of Melchisedec, of Abraham and of Moses. These are not so interesting as the simpler work of the earlier schools, but are much more celebrated and more jealously guarded. Such was their fame that the agents of Charles I. of England, at the time when he was collecting for Whitehall, went to Siena expressly to try and purchase the original cartoons. But their owner would not part with them, and they are now in the Siena Academy and elsewhere. The subjects have been engraved on wood, by the hand, as it seems, of Beccafumi himself, who at one time or another essayed almost every branch of fine art. He made a triumphal arch and an immense mechanical horse for the procession of the emperor Charles V. on his entry into Siena. In his later days, being a solitary liver and continually at work, he is said to have accelerated his death by over-exertion upon the processes of bronze-casting.

BECCARIA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1716-1781), Italian physicist, was born at Mondovi on the 3rd of October 1716, and entered the religious order of the Pious Schools in 1732. He became professor of experimental physics, first at Palermo and then at Rome, and was appointed to a similar situation at Turin in 1748. He was afterwards made tutor to the young princes de Chablais and de Carignan, and continued to reside principally at Turin during the remainder of his life. In May 1755 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and published several papers on electrical subjects in the _Phil. Trans_. He died at Turin on the 27th of May 1781. Beccaria did much, in the way both of experiment and exposition, to spread a knowledge of the electrical researches of Franklin and others. His principal work was the treatise _Dell' Elettricismo Naturale ed Artificiale_ (1753), which was translated into English in 1776.

BECCARIA-BONESANA, CESARE, MARCHESE DE (1735-1794), Italian publicist, was born at Milan on the 15th of March 1735. He was educated in the Jesuit college at Parma, and showed at first a great aptitude for mathematics. The study of Montesquieu seems to have directed his attention towards economic questions; and his first publication (1762) was a tract on the derangement of the currency in the Milanese states, with a proposal for its remedy. Shortly after, in conjunction with his friends the Verris, he formed a literary society, and began to publish a small journal, in imitation of the _Spectator_, called _Il Caffe_. In 1764 he published his brief but justly celebrated treatise _Dei Delitti e delle Pene_ ("On Crimes and Punishments"). The weighty reasonings of this work were expounded with all the additional force of a clear and animated style. It pointed out distinctly and temperately the grounds of the right of punishment, and from these principles deduced certain propositions as to the nature and amount of punishment which should be inflicted for any crime. The book had a surprising success. Within eighteen months it passed through six editions. It was translated into French by Morellet in 1766, and published with an anonymous commentary by Voltaire. An English translation appeared in 1768 and it was translated into several other languages. Many of the reforms in the penal codes of the principal European nations are traceable to Beccaria's treatise. In November 1768 he was appointed to the chair of law and economy, which had been founded expressly for him at the Palatine college of Milan. His lectures on political economy, which are based on strict utilitarian principles, are in marked accordance with the theories of the English school of economists. They are published in the collection of Italian writers on political economy (_Scrittori Classici Italiani di Economia politico_., vols. xi. and xii.). In 1771 Beccaria was made a member of the supreme economic council; and in 1791 he was appointed one of the board for the reform of the judicial code. In this post his labours were of very great value. He died at Milan on the 28th of November 1794.

BECCLES, a market town and municipal borough, in the Lowestoft parliamentary division of Suffolk, England; on the right bank of the river Waveney, 109 m. N.E. from London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 6898. It has a pleasant, well-wooded site overlooking the flat lands bordering the Waveney. The church of St Michael, wholly Perpendicular, is a fine example of the style, having an ornate south porch of two storeys and a detached bell tower. There are a grammar school (1712), and boys' school and free school on the foundation of Sir John Leman (1631). Rose Hall, in the vicinity, is a moated manor of brick, of the 16th century. Printing works, malting, brick and tile, and agricultural implement works are the chief industries. Beccles was incorporated in 1584. It is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 2017 acres.

BECERRA, GASPAR (1520-1570), Spanish painter and sculptor, was born at Baeza in Andalusia. He studied at Rome, it is said under Michelangelo, and assisted Vasari in painting the hall of the Concelleria. He also contributed to the anatomical plates of Valverde. After his return to Spain he was extensively employed by Philip II., and decorated many of the rooms in the palace at Madrid with frescoes. He also painted altar-pieces for several of the churches, most of which have been destroyed. His fame as a sculptor almost surpassed that as a painter. His best work was a magnificent figure of the Virgin, which was destroyed during the French war. He became court painter at Madrid in 1563, and played a prominent part in the establishment of the fine arts in Spain.