Part 39

BOWNESS-ON-WINDERMERE, an urban district in the Appleby parliamentary division of Westmorland, England, on the east shore of Windermere, 1-1/4 m. S.W. of Windermere station on the London & North-Western railway. Together with the town of Windermere it forms an urban district (pop. 5061 in 1901), but the two towns were separate until 1905. Its situation is fine, the lake-shore here rising sharply, while at this point the lake narrows and is studded with islands. The low surrounding hills are richly wooded, and a number of country seats stand upon them. Bowness lies at the head of a small bay, is served by the lake-steamers of the Furness Railway Company, and is a favourite yachting, boating, fishing and tourist centre. The church of St Martin is ancient, and contains stained glass from Cartmel priory in Furness. (See WINDERMERE.)

BOWRING, SIR JOHN (1792-1872), English linguist, political economist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Exeter, on the 17th of October 1792, of an old Puritan family. In early life he came under the influence of Jeremy Bentham. He did not, however, share his master's contempt for _belles-lettres_, but was a diligent student of literature and foreign languages, especially those of eastern Europe. As a linguist he ranked with Mezzofanti and von Gabelentz among the greatest of the world. The first-fruits of his study of foreign literature appeared in _Specimens of the Russian Poets_ (1821-1823). These were speedily followed by _Batavian Anthology_ (1824), _Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain_ (1824), _Specimens of the Polish Poets_, and _Servian Popular Poetry_, both in 1827. During this period he began to contribute to the newly founded _Westminster Review_, of which he was appointed editor in 1825. By his contributions to the _Review_ he obtained considerable reputation as political economist and parliamentary reformer. He advocated in its pages the cause of free trade long before it was popularized by Richard Cobden and John Bright. He pleaded earnestly in behalf of parliamentary reform, Catholic emancipation and popular education. In 1828 he visited Holland, where the university of Groningen conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. In the following year he was in Denmark, preparing for the publication of a collection of Scandinavian poetry. Bowring, who had been the trusted friend of Bentham during his life, was appointed his literary executor, and was charged with the task of preparing a collected edition of his works. This appeared in eleven volumes in 1843. Meanwhile Bowring had entered parliament in 1835 as member for Kilmarnock; and in the following year he was appointed head of a government commission to be sent to France to inquire into the actual state of commerce between the two countries. He was engaged in similar investigations in Switzerland, Italy, Syria and some of the German states. The results of these missions appeared in a series of reports laid before the House of Commons. After a retirement of four years he sat in parliament from 1841 till 1849 as member for Bolton. During this busy period he found leisure for literature, and published in 1843 a translation of the _Manuscript of the Queen's Court_, a collection of old Bohemian lyrics, &c. In 1849 he was appointed British consul at Canton, and superintendent of trade in China, a post which he held for four years. After his return he distinguished himself as an advocate of the decimal system, and published a work entitled _The Decimal System in Numbers, Coins and Accounts_ (1854). The introduction of the florin as a preparatory step was chiefly due to his efforts. Knighted in 1854, he was again sent the same year to Hong-Kong as governor, invested with the supreme military and naval power. It was during his governorship that a dispute broke out with the Chinese; and the irritation caused by his "spirited" or high-handed policy led to the second war with China. In 1855 he visited Siam, and negotiated with the king a treaty of commerce. After the usual five years of service he retired and received a pension. His last employment by the English government was as a commissioner to Italy in 1861, to report on British commercial relations with the new kingdom. Sir John Bowring subsequently accepted the appointment of minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary from the Hawaiian government to the courts of Europe, and in this capacity negotiated treaties with Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. In addition to the works already named he published--_Poetry of the Magyars_ (1830); _Cheskian Anthology_ (1832); _The Kingdom and People of Siam_ (1857); a translation of _Peter Schlemihl_ (1824); translations from the Hungarian poet, Alexander Petofi (1866); and various pamphlets. He was elected F.R.S. and F.R.G.S., and received the decorations of several foreign orders of knighthood. He died at Claremont, near Exeter, on the 23rd of November 1872. His valuable collection of coleoptera was presented to the British Museum by his second son, Lewin Bowring, a well-known Anglo-Indian administrator; and his third son, E.A. Bowring, member of parliament for Exeter from 1868 to 1874, became known in the literary world as an able translator.

Sir John Bowring's _Recollections_ were edited by Lewin Bowring (d. 1910) in 1877.

BOWTELL, a medieval term in architecture for a round or corniced moulding; the word is a variant of "boltel," which is probably the diminutive of "bolt," the shaft of an arrow or javelin. A "roving" bowtell is one which passes up the side of a bench end and round a finial, the term "roving" being applied to that which follows the line of a curve.

BOWYER, WILLIAM (1663-1737), English printer, was born in 1663, apprenticed to a printer in 1679, made a liveryman of the Stationers' Company in 1700, and nominated as one of the twenty printers allowed by the Star Chamber. He was burned out in the great fire of 1712, but his loss was partly made good by the subscription of friends and fellow craftsmen, as recorded on a tablet in Stationers' Hall, and in 1713 he returned to his Whitefriars shop and became the leading printer of his day. He died on the 27th of December 1737.

His son, WILLIAM BOWYER (1699-1777), was born in London on the 19th of December 1699. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, and in 1722 became a partner in his father's business. In 1729 he was appointed printer of the votes of the House of Commons, and in 1736 printer to the Society of Antiquaries, of which he was elected a fellow in 1737. In 1737 he took as apprentice John Nichols, who was to be his successor and biographer. In 1761 Bowyer became printer to the Royal Society, and in 1767 printer of the rolls of the House of Lords and the journals of the House of Commons. He died on the 13th of November 1777, leaving unfinished a number of large works and among them the reprint of Domesday Book. He wrote a great many tracts and pamphlets, edited, arranged and published a host of books, but perhaps his principal work was an edition of the New Testament in Greek, with notes. His generous bequests in favour of his own profession are administered by the Stationers' Company, of which he became a liveryman in 1738, and in whose hall is his portrait bust and a painting of his father. He was known as "the learned printer."

BOX (Gr. [Greek: puxos], Lat. _buxus_, box-wood; cf. [Greek: puxis], a pyx), the most varied of all receptacles. A box may be square, oblong, round or oval, or of an even less normal shape; it usually opens by raising, sliding or removing the lid, which may be fastened by a catch, hasp or lock. Whatever its shape or purpose or the material of which it is fashioned, it is the direct descendant of the chest, one of the most ancient articles of domestic furniture. Its uses are infinite, and the name, preceded by a qualifying adjective, has been given to many objects of artistic or antiquarian interest.

Of the boxes which possess some attraction beyond their immediate purpose the feminine work-box is the commonest. It is usually fitted with a tray divided into many small compartments, for needles, reels of silk and cotton and other necessaries of stitchery. The date of its introduction is in considerable doubt, but 17th-century examples have come down to us, with covers of silk, stitched with beads and adorned with embroidery. In the 18th century no lady was without her work-box, and, especially in the second half of that period, much taste and elaborate pains were expended upon the case, which was often exceedingly dainty and elegant. These boxes are ordinarily portable, but sometimes form the top of a table.

But it is as a receptacle for snuff that the box has taken its most distinguished and artistic form. The snuff-box, which is now little more than a charming relic of a disagreeable practice, was throughout the larger part of the 18th century the indispensable companion of every man of birth and breeding. It long survived his sword, and was in frequent use until nearly the middle of the 19th century. The jeweller, the enameller and the artist bestowed infinite pains upon what was quite as often a delicate bijou as a piece of utility; fops and great personages possessed numbers of snuff-boxes, rich and more ordinary, their selection being regulated by their dress and by the relative splendour of the occasion. From the cheapest wood that was suitable--at one time potato-pulp was extensively used--to a frame of gold encased with diamonds, a great variety of materials was employed. Tortoise-shell was a favourite, and owing to its limpid lustre it was exceedingly effective. Mother-of-pearl was also used, together with silver, in its natural state or gilded. Costly gold boxes were often enriched with enamels or set with diamonds or other precious stones, and sometimes the lid was adorned with a portrait, a classical vignette, or a tiny miniature, often some choice work by an old master. After snuff-taking had ceased to be general it lingered for some time among diplomatists, either because--as Talleyrand explained--they found a ceremonious pinch to be a useful aid to reflection in a business interview, or because monarchs retained the habit of bestowing snuff-boxes upon ambassadors and other intermediaries, who could not well be honoured in any other way. It is, indeed, to the cessation of the habit of snuff-taking that we may trace much of modern lavishness in the distribution of decorations. To be invited to take a pinch from a monarch's snuff-box was a distinction almost equivalent to having one's ear pulled by Napoleon. At the coronation of George IV. of England, Messrs Rundell & Bridge, the court jewellers, were paid L8205 for snuff-boxes for foreign ministers. Now that the snuff-box is no longer used it is collected by wealthy amateurs or deposited in museums, and especially artistic examples command large sums. George, duke of Cambridge (1819-1904), possessed an important collection; a Louis XV. gold box was sold by auction after his death for L2000.

A jewel-box is a receptacle for trinkets. It may take a very modest form, covered in leather and lined with satin, or it may reach the monumental proportions of the jewel cabinets which were made for Marie Antoinette, one of which is at Windsor, and another at Versailles, the work of Schwerdfeger as cabinet-maker, Degault as miniature-painter, and Thomire as chaser.

A strong-box is a receptacle for money, deeds and securities. Its place has been taken in modern life by the safe. Some of those which have survived, such as that of Sir Thomas Bodley in the Bodleian library, possess locks with an extremely elaborate mechanism contrived in the under-side of the lid.

The knife-box is one of the most charming of the minor pieces of furniture which we owe to the artistic taste and mechanical ingenuity of the English cabinet-makers of the last quarter of the 18th century. Some of the most elegant were the work of Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Occasionally flat-topped boxes, they were most frequently either vase-shaped, or tall and narrow with a sloping lid necessitated by a series of raised stages for exhibiting the handles of knives and the bowls of spoons. Mahogany and satinwood were the woods most frequently employed, and they were occasionally inlaid with marqueterie or edged with boxwood. These graceful receptacles still exist in large numbers; they are often converted into stationery cabinets.

The Bible-box, usually of the 17th century, but now and again more ancient, probably obtained its name from the fact that it was of a size to hold a large Bible. It often has a carved or incised lid.

The powder-box and the patch-box were respectively receptacles for the powder and the patches of the 18th century; the former was the direct ancestor of the puff-box of the modern dressing-table.

The _etui_ is a cylindrical box or case of very various materials, often of pleasing shape or adornment, for holding sewing materials or small articles of feminine use. It was worn on the chatelaine.

BOXING (M.E. _box_, a blow, probably from Dan. _bask_, a buffet), the art of attack and defence with the fists protected by padded gloves, as distinguished from pugilism, in which the bare fists, or some kind of light gloves affording little moderation of the blow, are employed. The ancient Greeks used a sort of glove in practice, but, although far less formidable than the terrible caestus worn in serious encounters, it was by no means so mild an implement as the modern boxing-glove, the invention of which is traditionally ascribed to Jack Broughton (1705-1789), "the father of British pugilism." In any case gloves were first used in his time, though only in practice, all prize-fights being decided with bare fists. Broughton, who was for years champion of England, also drew up the rules by which prize-fights were for many years regulated, and no doubt, with the help of the newly invented gloves, imparted instruction in boxing to the young aristocrats of his day. The most popular teacher of the art was, however, John Jackson (1769-1845), called "Gentleman Jackson," who was champion from 1795 to 1800, and who is credited with imparting to boxing its scientific principles, such as countering, accurate judging of distance in hitting, and agility on the feet. Tom Moore, the poet, in his _Memoirs_, asserted that Jackson "made more than a thousand a year by teaching sparring." Among his pupils was Lord Byron, who, when chided for keeping company with a pugilist, insisted that Jackson's manners were "infinitely superior to those of the fellows of the college whom I meet at the high table," and referred to him in the following lines in _Hints from Horace_:--

"And men unpractised in exchanging knocks Must go to Jackson ere they dare to box."

His rooms in Bond Street were crowded with men of birth and distinction, and when the allied monarchs visited London he was entrusted with the management of a boxing carnival with which they were vastly pleased. In 1814 the Pugilistic Club, the meeting-place of the aristocratic sporting element, was formed, but the high-water mark of the popularity of boxing had been reached, and it declined rapidly, although throughout the country considerable interest continued to be manifested in prize-fighting.

The sport of modern boxing, as distinguished from pugilism, may be said to date from the year 1866, when the public had become disgusted with the brutality and unfair practices of the professional "bruisers," and the laws against prize-fighting began to be more rigidly enforced. In that year the "Amateur Athletic Club" was founded, principally through the efforts of John G. Chambers (1843-1883), who, in conjunction with the 8th marquess of Queensberry, drew up a code of laws (known as the Queensberry Rules) which govern all glove contests in Great Britain, and were also authoritative in America until the adoption of the boxing rules of the Amateur Athletic Union of America. In 1867 Lord Queensberry presented cups for the British amateur championships at the recognized weights.

For the history of pugilism in classic antiquity and an account of modern prize-fighting see PUGILISM. At present two kinds of boxing contests are in vogue, that for a limited number of rounds (as in the amateur championships) and that for endurance, in which the one who cannot continue the fight loses. Endurance contests, which contain the essential element of the old prize-fights, are now indulged in only by professionals. Among amateurs boxing is far less popular than it once was, owing to the importance placed upon brute strength, and the prevailing ambition of the modern boxer to "knock out" his opponent, i.e. reduce him to a state of insensibility. Even in 3-round matches between gentlemen, in which points win, and there is therefore no need to knock an opponent senseless, it is nevertheless a common practice to strike a dazed and reeling adversary a heavy blow with a view to ending the battle at once. During the annual boxing competitions between Oxford and Cambridge more than half the bouts have been known to end in this manner. Undoubtedly the prettiest boxing is seen when two men proficient in the art indulge in a practice bout--or "sparring."

Boxing is the art of hitting without getting hit. The boxers face each other just out of reach and balanced equally on both feet, the left from 10 to 20 in. in advance of the right. The left foot is planted flat on the floor, while the right heel is raised slightly from it. The left side of the body is turned a little towards the opponent and the right shoulder slightly depressed. When the hands are clenched inside the gloves the thumb is doubled over the second and third fingers to avoid a sprain when hitting. The general position of the guard is a matter of individual taste. In the "crouch," affected by many American professionals, the right hip is thrust forward and the body bent over towards the right, while the left arm is kept well stretched out to keep the opponent at a distance. No good master, however, teaches a beginner any other than the upright position. Some boxers stand with the right foot forward, a practice common in the 18th century, which gives freer play with the right hand but is rather unstable. A boxer should stand lightly on his feet, ready to advance or retreat on the instant, using short steps, advancing with the left foot first and retreating with the right. Attacks are either simple or secondary. Simple attacks consist in straight leads, i.e. blows aimed with or without preliminary feints, at some part of the opponent's body or head. All other attacks are either "counters" or returns after a guard or "block." A counter is a lead carried out just as one is attacked, the object being to block (parry) the blow and land on the opponent at the same time. Counters are often carried out in connexion with a side-step, a slip or a crouch. In hitting, a boxer seeks to exert the greatest force at the instant of impact. Blows may be either straight, with or without the weight of the body behind them ("straight from the shouder" hits); jabs, short blows (usually with the left hand when at close quarters); hooks, or side-blows with bent arm; upper cuts (short swinging blows from beneath to the adversary's chin); chops (short blows from above); punches (usually at close quarters, with the right hand); or swings (round-arm blows, usually delivered with a partial twist of the body to augment the force of the blow). Of the dangerous blows, which often result in a knockout, or in seriously weakening an adversary, the following may be mentioned:--on the pit of the stomach, called the solar plexus, from the sensitive network of nerves situated there; a blow on the point of the chin, having a tendency slightly to paralyse the brain; a blow under the ear, painful and often resulting in partial helplessness; and one directly over the heart, kidney or liver. As a boxer is allowed ten seconds after being knocked down in which to rise, an experienced ring-fighter will drop on one knee when partially stunned, remaining in that position in order to recover until the referee has counted nine.

Guarding is done with the arm or hand, either open or shut. If a blow is caught or stopped short it is called _blocking_, but a blow may also be shoved aside, or avoided altogether by _slipping, i.e._ moving the head quickly to one side, or by ducking and allowing the adversary's swing to pass harmlessly over the head. Still another method of avoiding a blow without guarding is to bend back the head or body so as narrowly to escape the opponent's glove.

The rules of the Amateur Boxing Association (founded 1884) contain the following provisions. "An amateur is one who has never competed for a money prize or staked bet with or against a professional for any prize, except with the express sanction of the A.B.A., and who has never taught, pursued or assisted in the practice of athletic exercises as a means of obtaining a livelihood." The ring shall be roped and between 12 and 24 ft. square. No spikes shall be worn on shoes. Boxers are divided into the following classes by weight:--Bantam, not exceeding 8 st. 4 lb (116 lb); Feather, not exceeding 9 st. (126 lb); Light, not exceeding 10 st. (140 lb); Middle, not exceeding 11 st. 4 lb. (158 lb); and Heavy, any weight above. There shall be two judges, a referee and a timekeeper. The votes of the judges decide the winner of a bout, unless they disagree, in which case the referee has the deciding vote. In case of doubt he may order an extra round of two minutes' duration. Each match is for three rounds, the first two lasting three minutes and the third four, with one minute rest between the rounds. A competitor failing to come up at the call of time loses the match. When a competitor draws a bye he must box for a specified time with an opponent chosen by the judges. A competitor is allowed one assistant (second) only, and no advice or coaching during the progress of a round is permitted. Unless one competitor is unable to respond to the call of time, or is obliged to stop before the match is over, the judges decide the winner by _points_, which are for attack, comprising successful hits cleanly delivered, and defence, comprising guarding, slipping, ducking, counter-hitting and getting away in time to avoid a return. When the points are equal the decision is given in favour of the boxer who has done the most leading, i.e. has been the more aggressive. Fouls are hitting below the belt, kicking, hitting with the open hand, the side of the hand, the wrist, elbow or shoulder, wrestling or "roughing" on the ropes, i.e. unnecessary shouldering and jostling.

The boxing rules of the American Amateur Athletic Association differ slightly from the British. The ring is roped but must be from 16 to 24 ft. square. Gloves must not be worn more than 8 oz. in weight. The recognized classes by weight are: Bantam, 105 lb. and under; Feather, 115 lb. and under; Light, 135 lb. and under; Welter, 145 lb. and under; Middle, 158 lb. and under; and Heavy, over 158 lb. The rules for officials and rounds are identical with the British, except that only in final bouts does the last round last four minutes. Two "seconds" are allowed. The rules for points and fouls coincide with the British. The amateur rules are very strict, and any one who competes in a boxing contest of more than four rounds is suspended from membership in the Athletic Association.