(T. A. J.)
KAW,orKansa, a tribe of North American Indians of Siouan stock. They were originally an offshoot of the Osages. Their early home was in Missouri, whence they were driven to Kansas by the Dakotas. They were moved from one reservation to another, till in 1873 they were settled in Indian Territory; they have since steadily decreased, and now number some 200.
KAWARDHA,a feudatory state of India, within the Central Provinces; area, 798 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 57,474, showing a decrease of 37% in the decade, due to famine; estimated revenue, £7000. Half the state consists of hill and forest. The residence of the chief, who is a Raj Gond, is at Kawardha (pop. 4772), which is also the headquarters of the Kabirpanthi sect (seeKabir).
KAY, JOHN(1742-1826), Scottish caricaturist, was born near Dalkeith, where his father was a mason. At thirteen he was apprenticed to a barber, whom he served for six years. He then went to Edinburgh, where in 1771 he obtained the freedom of the city by joining the corporation of barber-surgeons. In 1785, induced by the favour which greeted certain attempts of his to etch in aquafortis, he took down his barber’s pole and opened a small print shop in Parliament Square. There he continued to flourish, painting miniatures, and publishing at short intervals his sketches and caricatures of local celebrities and oddities, who abounded at that period in Edinburgh society. He died on the 21st of February 1826.
Kay’s portraits were collected by Hugh Paton and published under the titleA series of original portraits and caricature etchings by the late John Kay, with biographical sketches and illustrative anecdotes(Edin., 2 vols. 4to, 1838; 8vo ed., 4 vols., 1842; new 4to ed., with additional plates, 2 vols., 1877), forming a unique recordof the social life and popular habits of Edinburgh at its most interesting epoch.
Kay’s portraits were collected by Hugh Paton and published under the titleA series of original portraits and caricature etchings by the late John Kay, with biographical sketches and illustrative anecdotes(Edin., 2 vols. 4to, 1838; 8vo ed., 4 vols., 1842; new 4to ed., with additional plates, 2 vols., 1877), forming a unique recordof the social life and popular habits of Edinburgh at its most interesting epoch.
KAY, JOSEPH(1821-1878), English economist, was born at Salford, Lancashire, on the 27th of February 1821. Educated privately and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1848. He was appointed judge of the Salford Hundred court of record in 1862 and in 1869 was made a queen’s counsel. He is best known for a series of works on the social condition of the poor in France, Switzerland, Holland, Germany and Austria, the materials for which he gathered on a four years’ tour as travelling bachelor of his university. They wereThe Education of the Poor in England and Europe(London, 1846);The Social Condition of the People in England and Europe(London, 1850, 2 vols.);The Condition and Education of Poor Children in English and in German Towns(Manchester, 1853). He was also the author ofThe Law relating to Shipmasters and Seamen(London, 1875) andFree Trade in Land(1879, with a memoir). He died at Dorking, Surrey, on the 9th of October 1878.
KAYAK,orCayak, an Eskimo word for a fishing boat, in common use from Greenland to Alaska. It has been erroneously derived from the Arabiccaique, supposed to have been applied to the native boats by early explorers. The boat is made by covering a light wooden framework with sealskin. A hole is pierced in the centre of the top of the boat, and thekayaker(also dressed in sealskin) laces himself up securely when seated to prevent the entrance of water. The kayak is propelled like a canoe by a double-bladed paddle. The namekayakis properly only applied to the boat used by an Eskimo man—that used by a woman is called anumiak.
KAYASTH,the writer caste of Northern India, especially numerous and influential in Bengal. In 1901 their total number in all India was more than two millions. Their claim to be Kshattriyas who have taken to clerical work is not admitted by the Brahmans. Under Mahommedan rule they learnt Persian, and filled many important offices. They are now eager students of English, and have supplied not only several judges to the high court but also the first Hindu to be a member of the governor-general’s council. In Bombay their place is taken by the Prabhus, and in Assam by the Kalitas (Kolitas); in Southern India there is no distinct clerical caste.
KAYE, SIR JOHN WILLIAM(1814-1876), English military historian, was the son of Charles Kaye, a solicitor, and was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Addiscombe. From 1832 to 1841 he was an officer in the Bengal Artillery, afterwards spending some years in literary pursuits both in India and in England. In 1856 he entered the civil service of the East India Company, and when the government of India was transferred to the British crown succeeded John Stuart Mill as secretary of the political and secret department of the India office. In 1871 he was made a K.C.S.I. He died in London on the 24th of July 1876. Kaye’s numerous writings includeHistory of the Sepoy War in India(London, 1864-1876), which was revised and continued by Colonel G. B. Malleson and published in six volumes in 1888-1889;History of the War in Afghanistan(London, 1851), republished in 1858 and 1874;Administration of the East India Company(London, 1853);The Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe(London, 1854);The Life and Correspondence of Henry St George Tucker(London, 1854);Life and Correspondence of Sir John Malcolm(London, 1856);Christianity in India(London, 1859);Lives of Indian Officers(London, 1867); and two novels,Peregrine PultneyandLong engagements. He also edited several works dealing with Indian affairs; wroteEssays of an Optimist(London, 1870); and was a frequent contributor to periodicals.
KAYSER, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH EMANUEL(1845- ), German geologist and palaeontologist, was born at Königsberg, on the 26th of March 1845. He was educated at Berlin where he took his degree of Ph.D. in 1870. In 1882 he became professor of geology in the university at Marburg. He investigated fossils of various ages and from all parts of the world, but more especially from the Palaeozoic formations, including those of South Africa, the Polar regions, and notably the Devonian fossils of Germany, Bohemia and other parts of Europe.
Among his separate works areLehrbuch der Geologie(2 vols., ii.),Geologische Formationskunde1891 (2nd ed., 1902), and i.Allgemeine Geologie(1893), vol. ii. (the volume first issued) was translated and edited by P. Lake, 1893, under the titleTextbook of Comparative Geology. Another work isBeiträge zur Kenntniss der Fauna der Siegenschen Grauwacke(1892).
Among his separate works areLehrbuch der Geologie(2 vols., ii.),Geologische Formationskunde1891 (2nd ed., 1902), and i.Allgemeine Geologie(1893), vol. ii. (the volume first issued) was translated and edited by P. Lake, 1893, under the titleTextbook of Comparative Geology. Another work isBeiträge zur Kenntniss der Fauna der Siegenschen Grauwacke(1892).
KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, SIR JAMES PHILLIPS,Bart.(1804-1877), English politician and educationalist, was born at Rochdale, Lancashire, on the 20th of July 1804, the son of Robert Kay. At first engaged in a Rochdale bank, in 1824 he became a medical student at Edinburgh University. Settling in Manchester about 1827, he worked for the Ancoats and Ardwick Dispensary, and the experience which he thus gained of the conditions of the poor in the Lancashire factory districts, together with his interest in economic science, led to his appointment in 1835 as poor law commissioner in Norfolk and Suffolk and later in the London districts. In 1839 he was appointed first secretary of the committee formed by the Privy Council to administer the Government grant for the public education in Great Britain. He is remembered as having founded at Battersea, London, in conjunction with E. Carleton Tufnell, the first training college for school teachers (1839-1840); and the system of national school education of the present day, with its public inspection, trained teachers and its support by state as well as local funds, is largely due to his initiative. In 1842 he married Lady Janet Shuttleworth, assuming by royal licence his bride’s name and arms. A breakdown in his health led him to resign his post on the committee in 1849, but subsequent recovery enabled him to take an active part in the working of the central relief committee instituted under Lord Derby, during the Lancashire cotton famine of 1861-1865. He was created a baronet in 1849. Until the end of his life he interested himself in the movements of the Liberal party in Lancashire, and the progress of education. He died in London on the 26th of May 1877. HisPhysiology, Pathology and Treatment of Asphyxiabecame a standard textbook, and he also wrote numerous papers on public education.
His son, Sir Ughtred James Kay-Shuttleworth (b. 1844), became a well-known Liberal politician, sitting in parliament for Hastings from 1869 to 1880 and for the Clitheroe division of Lancashire from 1885 till 1902, when he was created Baron Shuttleworth. He was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1886, and secretary to the Admiralty in 1892-1895.
KAZALA,orKazalinsk, a fort and town in the Russian province of Syr-darya in West Turkestan, at the point where the Kazala River falls into the Syr-darya, about 50 m. from its mouth in Lake Aral, in 45° 45′ N. and 62° 7′ E., “at the junction,” to quote Schuyler, “of all the trade routes in Central Asia, as the road from Orenburg meets here with the Khiva, Bokhara and Tashkent roads.” Besides carrying on an active trade with the Kirghiz of the surrounding country, it is of growing importance in the general current of commerce. Pop. (1897), 7600. The floods in the river make it an island in spring; in summer it is parched by the sun and hot winds, and hardly a tree can be got to grow. The streets are wide, but the houses, as well as the fairly strong fort, are built of mud bricks.
KAZAÑ,a government of middle Russia, surrounded by the governments of Vyatka, Ufa, Samara, Simbirsk, Nizhniy-Novgorod and Kostroma. Area 24,601 sq. m. It belongs to the basins of the Volga and its tributary the Kama, and by these streams the government is divided into three regions; the first, to the right of the main river, is traversed by deep ravines sloping to the north-east, towards the Volga, and by two ranges of hills, one of which (300 to 500 ft.) skirts the river; the second region, between the left bank of the Volga and the left bank of the Kama, is an open steppe; and the third, between the left bank of the Volga and the right bank of the Kama, resembles in its eastern part the first region, and in its western part is covered with forest. Marls, limestones and sandstones, of Permian or Triassic age, are the principal rocks; the Jurassic formationappears in a small part of the Tetyúshi district in the south; and Tertiary rocks stretch along the left bank of the Volga. Mineral springs (iron, sulphur and petroleum) exist in several places. The Volga is navigable throughout its course of 200 m. through Kazañ, as well as the Kama (120 m.); and the Vyatka, Kazanka, Rutka, Tsivyl, Greater Kokshaga, Ilet, Vetluga and Mesha, are not without value as waterways. About four hundred small lakes are enumerated within the government; the upper and lower Kaban supply the city of Kazañ with water.
The climate is severe, the annual mean temperature being 37.8° F. The rainfall amounts to 16 in. Agriculture is the chief occupation, and 82% of the population are peasants. Out of 7,672,600 acres of arable land, 4,516,500 are under crops—chiefly rye and oats, with some wheat, barley, buckwheat, lentils, flax, hemp and potatoes. But there generally results great scarcity, and even famine, in bad years. Live stock are numerous. Forests cover 35% of the total area. Bee-keeping is an important industry. Factories employ about 10,000 persons and include flour-mills, distilleries, factories for soap, candles and tallow, and tanneries. A great variety of petty trades, especially those connected with wood, are carried on in the villages, partly for export. The fairs are well attended. There is considerable shipping on the Volga, Kama, Vyatka and their tributaries. Kazañ is divided into twelve districts. The chief town is Kazañ (q.v.). The district capitals, with their populations in 1897 are: Cheboksary (4568), Chistopol (20,161), Kozmodemyansk (5212), Laishev (5439), Mamadyzh (4213), Spask (2779), Sviyazhsk (2363), Tetyushi (4754). Tsarevokokshaisk (1654), Tsivylsk (2337) and Yadrin (2467). Population (1879), 1,872,437; (1897), 2,190,185, of whom 1,113,555 were women, and 176,396 lived in towns. The estimated population in 1906 was 2,504,400. It consists principally of Russians and Tatars, with a variety of Finno-Turkish tribes: Chuvashes, Cheremisses, Mordvinians, Votyaks, Mescheryaks, and some Jews and Poles. The Russians belong to the Orthodox Greek Church or are Nonconformists; the Tatars are Mussulmans; and the Finno-Turkish tribes are either pagans or belong officially to the Orthodox Greek Church, the respective proportions being (in 1897): Orthodox Greek, 69.4% of the whole; Nonconformists, 1%; Mussulmans, 28.8%.
(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KAZAÑ(called by the CheremissesOzon), a town of eastern Russia, capital of the government of the same name, situated in 55° 48′ N. and 49° 26″ E., on the river Kazanka, 3 m. from the Volga, which however reaches the city when it overflows its banks every spring. Kazañ lies 650 m. E. from Moscow by rail and 253m.E. of Nizhniy-Novgorod by the Volga. Pop. (1883), 140,726; (1900), 143,707, all Russians except for some 20,000 Tatars. The most striking feature of the city is thekremlor citadel, founded in 1437, which crowns a low hill on the N.W. Within its wall, capped with five towers, it contains several churches, amongst them the cathedral of the Annunciation, founded in 1562 by Gury, the first archbishop of Kazañ, Kazañ being an archiepiscopal see of the Orthodox Greek Church. Other buildings in the kreml are a magnificent monastery, built in 1556; an arsenal; the modern castle in which the governor resides; and the red brick Suyumbeka tower, 246 ft. high, which is an object of great veneration to the Tatars as the reputed burial-place of one of their saints. A little E. of the kreml is the Bogoroditski convent, built in 1579 for the reception of the Black Virgin of Kazañ, a miracle-working image transferred to Moscow in 1612, and in St Petersburg since 1710. Kazañ is the intellectual capital of eastern Russia, and an important seat of Oriental scholarship. Its university, founded in 1804, is attended by nearly 1000 students. Attached to it are an excellent library of 220,000 vols., an astronomical observatory, a botanical garden and various museums. The ecclesiastical academy, founded in 1846, contains the old library of the Solovetsk (Solovki) monastery, which is of importance for the history of Russian religious sects. The city is adorned with bronze statues of Tsar Alexander II., set up facing the kreml in 1895, and of the poet G. R. Derzhavin (1743-1816); also with a monument commemorating the capture of Kazañ by Ivan the Terrible. The central parts of the city consist principally of small one-storeyed houses, surrounded by gardens, and are inhabited chiefly by Russians, while some 20,000 Tatars dwell in the suburbs. Kazañ is, further, the intellectual centre of the Russian Mahommedans, who have here their more important schools and their printing-presses. Between the city and the Volga is the Admiralty suburb, where Peter the Great had his Caspian fleet built for his campaigns against Persia. The more important manufactures are leather goods, soap, wax candles, sacred images, cloth, cottons, spirits and bells. A considerable trade is carried on with eastern Russia, and with Turkestan and Persia. Previous to the 13th century, the present government of Kazañ formed part of the territory of the Bulgarians, the ruins of whose ancient capital, Bolgari or Bolgary, lie 60 m. S. of Kazañ. The city of Kazañ itself stood, down to the 13th century, 30 m. to the N.E., where traces of it can still be seen. In 1438 Ulugh Mahommed (or Ulu Makhmet), khan of the Golden Horde of the Mongols, founded, on the ruins of the Bulgarian state, the kingdom of Kazañ, which in its turn was destroyed by Ivan the Terrible of Russia in 1552 and its territory annexed to Russia. In 1774 the city was laid waste by the rebel Pugachev. It has suffered repeatedly from fires, especially in 1815 and 1825. The Kazañ Tatars, from having lived so long amongst Russians and Finnish tribes, have lost a good many of the characteristic features of their Tatar (Mongol) ancestry, and bear now the stamp of a distinct ethnographic type. They are found also in the neighbouring governments of Vyatka, Ufa, Orenburg, Samara, Saratov, Simbirsk, Tambov and Nizhniy-Novgorod. They are intelligent and enterprising, and are engaged principally in trade.
See Pineghin’sKazañ Old and New(in Russian); Velyaminov-Zernov’sKasimov Tsars(3 vols., St Petersburg, 1863-1866); Zarinsky’sSketches of Old Kazañ(Kazañ, 1877); Trofimov’sSiege of Kazañ in1552 (Kazañ, 1890); Firsov’s books on the history of the native population (Kazañ, 1864 and 1869); and Shpilevski, on the antiquities of the town and government, inIzvestia i Zapiskiof the Kazañ University (1877). A bibliography of the Oriental books published in the city is printed inBulletinsof the St Petersburg Academy (1867). Compare also L. Leger’s “Kazañ et les tartares,” inBibl. Univ. de Genève(1874).
See Pineghin’sKazañ Old and New(in Russian); Velyaminov-Zernov’sKasimov Tsars(3 vols., St Petersburg, 1863-1866); Zarinsky’sSketches of Old Kazañ(Kazañ, 1877); Trofimov’sSiege of Kazañ in1552 (Kazañ, 1890); Firsov’s books on the history of the native population (Kazañ, 1864 and 1869); and Shpilevski, on the antiquities of the town and government, inIzvestia i Zapiskiof the Kazañ University (1877). A bibliography of the Oriental books published in the city is printed inBulletinsof the St Petersburg Academy (1867). Compare also L. Leger’s “Kazañ et les tartares,” inBibl. Univ. de Genève(1874).
(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KĀZERŪN,a district and town of the province of Fars in Persia. The district is situated between Shiraz and Bushire. In its centre is the Kāzerūn Valley with a direction N.W. to S.E., a fertile plain 30 m. long and 7 to 8 m. broad, bounded S.E. by the Parishān Lake (8 m. long, 3 m. broad) N.W. by the Boshavir River, with the ruins of the old city of Beh-Shahpur (Beshāver, Boshāvir, also, short, Shāpūr) and Sassanian bas-reliefs on its banks. There also, in a cave, is a statue of Shapur. The remainder of the district is mostly hilly country intersected by numerous streams, plains and hills being covered with zizyphus, wild almond and oak. The district is divided into two divisions: town and villages, the latter being called Kuh i Marreh and again subdivided into (1) Pusht i Kuh; (2) Yarrūk; (3) Shakān. It has forty-six villages and a population of about 15,000; it produces rice of excellent quality, cotton, tobacco and opium, but very little corn, and bread made of the flour of acorns is a staple of food in many villages. Wild almonds are exported.
Kāzerūn, the chief place of the district, is an unwalled town situated in the midst of the central plain, in 29° 37′ N., 51° 43′ E. at an elevation of 2800 ft., 70 m. from Shiraz, and 96 m. from Bushire. It has a population of about 8000, and is divided into four quarters separated by open spaces. Adjoining it on the W. is the famous Nazar garden, with noble avenues of orange trees planted by a former governor, Hajji Ali Kuli Khan, in 1767. A couple of miles N. of the city behind a low range of hills are the imposing ruins of a marble building said to stand over the grave of Sheik Amin ed din Mahommed b. Zia ed din Mas‘ūd, who diedA.H.740 (A.D.1339). S.E. of the city on ahugemound are ruins of buildings with underground chambers, popularly known as Kal’eh i Gabr, “castle of the fire-worshippers.”
KAZINCZY, FERENCZ(1750-1831), Hungarian author, the most indefatigable agent in the regeneration of the Magyarlanguage and literature at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, was born on the 27th of October 1759, at Ér-Semlyén, in the county of Bihar, Hungary. He studied law at Kassa and Eperies, and in Pest, where he also obtained a thorough knowledge of French and German literature, and made the acquaintance of Gideon Ráday, who allowed him the use of his library. In 1784 Kazinczy became subnotary for the county of Abaúj; and in 1786 he was nominated inspector of schools at Kassa. There he began to devote himself to the restoration of the Magyar language and literature by translations from classical foreign works, and by the augmentation of the native vocabulary from ancient Magyar sources. In 1788, with the assistance of Baróti Szabó and John Bacsányi, he started at Kassa the first Magyar literary magazine,Magyar Muzeum; theOrpheus, which succeeded it in 1790, was his own creation. Although, upon the accession of Leopold II, Kazinczy, as a non-Catholic, was obliged to resign his post at Kassa, his literary activity in no way decreased. He not only assisted Gideon Ráday in the establishment and direction of the first Magyar dramatic society, but enriched the repertoire with several translations from foreign authors. HisHamlet, which first appeared at Kassa in 1790, is a rendering from the German version of Schröder. Implicated in the democratic conspiracy of the abbot Martinovics, Kazinczy was arrested on the 14th of December 1794, and condemned to death; but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment. He was released in 1801, and shortly afterwards married Sophia Török, daughter of his former patron, and retired to his small estate at Széphalom or “Fairhill,” near Sátor-Ujhely, in the county of Zemplén. In 1828 he took an active part in the conferences held for the establishment of the Hungarian academy in the historical section of which he became the first corresponding member. He died of Asiatic cholera, at Széphalom, on the 22nd of August 1831.
Kazinczy, although possessing great beauty of style, cannot be regarded as a powerful and original thinker; his fame is chiefly due to the felicity of his translations from the masterpieces of Lessing, Goethe, Wieland, Klopstock, Ossian, La Rochefoucauld, Marmontel, Molière, Metastasio, Shakespeare, Sterne, Cicero, Sallust, Anacreon, and many others. He also edited the works of Baróczy (Pest, 1812, 8 vols.) and of the poet Zrinyi (1817, 2 vols.), and the poems of Dayka (1813, 3 vols.) and of John Kis, (1815, 3 vols.). A collective edition of his works (Szép Literatura), consisting for the most part of translations, was published at Pest, 1814-1816, in 9 vols. His original productions (Eredeti Mukái), largely made up of letters, were edited by Joseph Bajza and Francis Toldy at Pest, 1836-1845, in 5 vols. Editions of his poems appeared in 1858 and in 1863.
Kazinczy, although possessing great beauty of style, cannot be regarded as a powerful and original thinker; his fame is chiefly due to the felicity of his translations from the masterpieces of Lessing, Goethe, Wieland, Klopstock, Ossian, La Rochefoucauld, Marmontel, Molière, Metastasio, Shakespeare, Sterne, Cicero, Sallust, Anacreon, and many others. He also edited the works of Baróczy (Pest, 1812, 8 vols.) and of the poet Zrinyi (1817, 2 vols.), and the poems of Dayka (1813, 3 vols.) and of John Kis, (1815, 3 vols.). A collective edition of his works (Szép Literatura), consisting for the most part of translations, was published at Pest, 1814-1816, in 9 vols. His original productions (Eredeti Mukái), largely made up of letters, were edited by Joseph Bajza and Francis Toldy at Pest, 1836-1845, in 5 vols. Editions of his poems appeared in 1858 and in 1863.
KAZVIN,a province and town of Persia. The province is situated N.W. of Teheran and S. of Gilan. On the W. it is bounded by Khamseh. It pays a yearly revenue of about £22,000, and contains many rich villages which produce much grain and fruit, great quantities of the latter being dried and exported.
Kazvin, the capital of the province, is situated at an elevation of 4165 ft., in 36° 15′ N. and 50° E., and 92 m. by road from Teheran. The city is said to have been founded in the 4th century by the Sassanian king Shapur II (309-379). It has been repeatedly damaged by earthquakes. Many of its streets and most of the magnificent buildings seen there by Chardin in 1674 and other travellers during the 17th century are in ruins. The most remarkable remains are the palace of the Safawid shahs and the mosque with its large blue dome. In the 16th century Shah Tahmasp I. (1524-1576) made Kazvin his capital, and it remained so till Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629) transferred the seat of government to Isfahán. The town still bears the title Dar es Salteneh, “the seat of government.” Kazvin has many baths and cisterns fed by underground canals. The system of irrigation formerly carried on by these canals rendered the plain of Kazvin one of the most fertile regions in Persia; now most of the canals are choked up. The city has a population of about 50,000 and a thriving transit trade, particularly since 1899 when the carriage road between Resht and Teheran with Kazvin as a half-way stage was opened under the auspices of the Russian “Enzeli-Teheran Road Company.” Great quantities of rice, fish and silk are brought to it from Gilan for distribution in Persia and export to Turkey.
KEAN, EDMUND(1787-1833), was born in London on the 17th of March11787. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk; and his mother was an actress, Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey. When in his fourth year Kean made his first appearance on the stage as Cupid in Noverre’s ballet ofCymon. As a child his vivacity and cleverness, and his ready affection for those who treated him with kindness, made him a universal favourite, but the harsh circumstances of his lot, and the want of proper restraint, while they developed strong self-reliance, fostered wayward tendencies. About 1794 a few benevolent persons provided the means of sending him to school, where he mastered his tasks with remarkable ease and rapidity; but finding the restraint intolerable, he shipped as a cabin boy at Portsmouth. Discovering that he had only escaped to a more rigorous bondage, he counterfeited both deafness and lameness with a histrionic mastery which deceived even the physicians at Madeira. On his return to England he sought the protection of his uncle Moses Kean, mimic, ventriloquist and general entertainer, who, besides continuing his pantomimic studies, introduced him to the study of Shakespeare. At the same time Miss Tidswell, an actress who had been specially kind to him from infancy, taught him the principles of acting. On the death of his uncle he was taken charge of by Miss Tidswell, and under her direction he began the systematic study of the principal Shakespearian characters, displaying the peculiar originality of his genius by interpretations entirely different from those of Kemble. His talents and interesting countenance induced a Mrs Clarke to adopt him, but the slight of a visitor so wounded his pride that he suddenly left her house and went back to his old surroundings. In his fourteenth year he obtained an engagement to play leading characters for twenty nights in York Theatre, appearing as Hamlet, Hastings and Cato. Shortly afterwards, while he was in the strolling troupe belonging to Richardson’s show, the rumour of his abilities reached George III., who commanded him to recite at Windsor. He subsequently joined Saunders’s circus, where in the performance of an equestrian feat he fell and broke his legs—the accident leaving traces of swelling in his insteps throughout his life. About this time he picked up music from Charles Incledon, dancing from D’Egville, and fencing from Angelo. In 1807 he played leading parts in the Belfast theatre with Mrs Siddons, who began by calling him “a horrid little man” and on further experience of his ability said that he “played very, very well,” but that “there was too little of him to make a great actor.” An engagement in 1808 to play leading characters in Beverley’s provincial troupe was brought to an abrupt close by his marriage (July 17) with Miss Mary Chambers of Waterford, the leading actress. For several years his prospects were very gloomy, but in 1814 the committee of Drury Lane theatre, the fortunes of which were then so low that bankruptcy seemed inevitable, resolved to give him a chance among the “experiments” they were making to win a return of popularity. When the expectation of his first appearance in London was close upon him he was so feverish that he exclaimed “If I succeed I shall go mad.” His opening at Drury Lane on the 26th of January 1814 as Shylock roused the audience to almost uncontrollable enthusiasm. Successive appearances in Richard III., Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and Lear served to demonstrate his complete mastery of the whole range of tragic emotion. His triumph was so great that he himself said on one occasion, “I could not feel the stage under me.” On the 29th of November 1820 Kean appeared for the first time in New York as Richard III. The success of his visit to America was unequivocal, although he fell into a vexatious dispute with the press. On the 4th of June 1821 he returned to England.
Probably his irregular habits were prejudicial to the refinement of his taste, and latterly they tended to exaggerate his special defects and mannerisms. The adverse decision in the divorce case of Cox v. Kean on the 17th of January 1825 caused his wife to leave him, and aroused against him such bitter feeling, shown by the almost riotous conduct of the audiences before which he appeared about this time, as nearly to compel him to retire permanently into private life. A second visit to America in 1825 was largely a repetition of the persecution which, in the name of morality, he had suffered in England. Some cities showed him a spirit of charity; many audiences submitted him to the grossest insults and endangered his life by the violence of their disapproval. In Quebec he was much impressed with the kindness of some Huron Indians who attended his performances, and he was made chief of the tribe, receiving the name Alanienouidet. Kean’s last appearance in New York was on the 5th of December 1826 in Richard III., the rôle in which he was first seen in America. He returned to England and was ultimately received with all the old favour, but the contest had made him so dependent on the use of stimulants that the gradual deterioration of his gifts was inevitable. Still, even in their decay his great powers triumphed during the moments of his inspiration over the absolute wreck of his physical faculties, and compelled admiration after his gait had degenerated into a weak hobble, and the lightning brilliancy of his eyes had become dull and bloodshot, and the tones of his matchless voice marred by rough and grating hoarseness. His appearance in Paris was a failure owing to a fit of drunkenness. His last appearance on the stage was at Covent Garden, on the 25th of March 1833 when he played Othello to the Iago of his son Charles. At the words “Villain, be sure,” in scene 3 of act iii., he suddenly broke down, and crying in a faltering voice “O God, I am dying. Speak to them, Charles,” fell insensible into his son’s arms. He died at Richmond on the 15th of May 1833.
It was in the impersonation of the great creations of Shakespeare’s genius that the varied beauty and grandeur of the acting of Kean were displayed in their highest form, although probably his most powerful character was Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger’sA New Way to Pay Old Debts, the effect of his first impersonation of which was such that the pit roseen masse, and even the actors and actresses themselves were overcome by the terrific dramatic illusion. His only personal disadvantage as an actor was his small stature. His countenance was strikingly interesting and unusually mobile; he had a matchless command of facial expression; his fine eyes scintillated with the slightest shades of emotion and thought; his voice, though weak and harsh in the upper register, possessed in its lower range tones of penetrating and resistless power, and a thrilling sweetness like the witchery of the finest music; above all, in the grander moments of his passion, his intellect and soul seemed to rise beyond material barriers and to glorify physical defects with their own greatness. Kean specially excelled as the exponent of passion. In Othello, Iago, Shylock and Richard III., characters utterly different from each other, but in which the predominant element is some form of passion, his identification with the personality, as he had conceived it, was as nearly as possible perfect, and each isolated phase and aspect of the plot was elaborated with the minutest attention to details, and yet with an absolute subordination of these to the distinct individuality he was endeavouring to portray. Coleridge said, “Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.” If the range of character in which Kean attained supreme excellence was narrow, no one except Garrick has been so successful in so many great impersonations. Unlike Garrick, he had no true talent for comedy, but in the expression of biting and saturnine wit, of grim and ghostly gaiety, he was unsurpassed. His eccentricities at the height of his fame were numerous. Sometimes he would ride recklessly on his horse Shylock throughout the night. He was presented with a tame lion with which he might be found playing in his drawing-room. The prizefighters Mendoza and Richmond the Black were among his visitors. Grattan was his devoted friend. In his earlier days Talma said of him, “He is a magnificent uncut gem; polish and round him off and he will be a perfect tragedian.” Macready, who was much impressed by Kean’s Richard III. and met the actor at supper, speaks of his “unassuming manner ... partaking in some degree of shyness” and of the “touching grace” of his singing. Kean’s delivery of the three words “I answer—NO!” in the part of Sir Edward Mortimer inThe Iron Chest, cast Macready into an abyss of despair at rivalling him in this rôle. So full of dramatic interest is the life of Edmund Kean that it formed the subject for a play by the elder Dumas, entitledKean on désordre et génie, in which Frederick-Lemaître achieved one of his greatest triumphs.
See Francis Phippen,Authentic Memoirs of Edmund Kean(1814); B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall),The Life of Edmund Kean(1835); F. W. Hawkins,The Life of Edmund Kean(1869); J. Fitzgerald Molloy,The Life and Adventures of Edmund Kean(1888); Edward Stirling,Old Drury Lane(1887).
See Francis Phippen,Authentic Memoirs of Edmund Kean(1814); B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall),The Life of Edmund Kean(1835); F. W. Hawkins,The Life of Edmund Kean(1869); J. Fitzgerald Molloy,The Life and Adventures of Edmund Kean(1888); Edward Stirling,Old Drury Lane(1887).
His son,Charles John Kean(1811-1868), was born at Waterford, Ireland, on the 18th of January 1811. After preparatory education at Worplesdon and at Greenford, near Harrow, he was sent to Eton College, where he remained three years. In 1827 he was offered a cadetship in the East India Company’s service, which he was prepared to accept if his father would settle an income of £400 on his mother. The elder Kean refused to do this, and his son determined to become an actor. He made his first appearance at Drury Lane on the 1st of October 1827 as Norval in Home’sDouglas, but his continued failure to achieve popularity led him to leave London in the spring of 1828 for the provinces. At Glasgow, on the 1st of October in this year, father and son acted together in Arnold Payne’sBrutus, the elder Kean in the title-part and his son as Titus. After a visit to America in 1830, where he was received with much favour, he appeared in 1833 at Covent Garden as Sir Edmund Mortimer in Colman’sThe Iron Chest, but his success was not pronounced enough to encourage him to remain in London, especially as he had already won a high position in the provinces. In January 1838, however, he returned to Drury Lane, and played Hamlet with a success which gave him a place among the principal tragedians of his time. He was married to the actress Ellen Tree (1805-1880) on the 29th of January 1842, and paid a second visit to America with her from 1845 to 1847. Returning to England, he entered on a successful engagement at the Haymarket, and in 1850, with Robert Keeley, became lessee of the Princess Theatre. The most noteworthy feature of his management was a series of gorgeous Shakespearian revivals. Charles Kean was not a great tragic actor. He did all that could be done by the persevering cultivation of his powers, and in many ways manifested the possession of high intelligence and refined taste, but his defects of person and voice made it impossible for him to give a representation at all adequate of the varying and subtle emotions of pure tragedy. But in melodramatic parts such as the king in Boucicault’s adaptation of Casimir Delavigne’sLouis XI., and Louis and Fabian dei Franchi in Boucicault’s adaptation of Dumas’sThe Corsican Brothers, his success was complete. From his “tour round the world” Kean returned in 1866 in broken health, and died in London on the 22nd of January 1868.
SeeThe Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, by John William Cole (1859).
SeeThe Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, by John William Cole (1859).
1This date is apparently settled by a letter from Kean in 1829, to Dr Gibson (seeRothesay Expressfor the 28th of June 1893, where the letter is printed and vouched for), inviting him to dinner on the 17th of March to celebrate Kean’s birthday; various other dates have been given in books of reference, the 4th of November having been formerly accepted by this Encyclopaedia.
1This date is apparently settled by a letter from Kean in 1829, to Dr Gibson (seeRothesay Expressfor the 28th of June 1893, where the letter is printed and vouched for), inviting him to dinner on the 17th of March to celebrate Kean’s birthday; various other dates have been given in books of reference, the 4th of November having been formerly accepted by this Encyclopaedia.
KEANE, JOHN JOSEPH(1839- ), American Roman Catholic archbishop, was born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, Ireland, on the 12th of September 1839. His family settled in America when he was seven years old. He was educated at Saint Charles’s College, Ellicott City, Maryland, and at Saint Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore, and in 1866 was ordained a priest and made curate of St Patrick’s, Washington, D.C. On the 25th of August 1878 he was consecrated Bishop of Richmond, to succeed James Gibbons, and he had established the Confraternity of the Holy Ghost in that diocese, and founded schools and churches for negroes before his appointment as rector of the Catholic University, Washington, D.C., in 1886, and his appointment in 1888 to the see of Ajasso. He did much to upbuild the Catholic University, but his democratic and liberal policymade him enemies at Rome, whence there came in 1896 a request for his resignation of the rectorate, and where he spent the years 1897-1900 as canon of St John Lateran, assistant bishop at the pontifical throne, and counsellor to the Propaganda. In 1900 he was consecrated archbishop of Dubuque, Iowa. He took a prominent part in the Catholic Young Men’s National Union and in the Total Abstinence Union of North America; and was in general charge of the Catholic delegation to the World’s Parliament of Religions held at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. He lectured widely on temperance, education and American institutions, and in 1890 was Dudleian lecturer at Harvard University.
A selection from his writings and addresses was edited by Maurice Francis Egan under the titleOnward and Upward: A Year Book(Baltimore, 1902).
A selection from his writings and addresses was edited by Maurice Francis Egan under the titleOnward and Upward: A Year Book(Baltimore, 1902).
KEARNEY,a city and the county-seat of Buffalo county, Nebraska, U.S.A., about 130 m. W. of Lincoln. Pop. (1890), 8074; (1900), 5634 (650 foreign-born); (1910), 6202. It is on the main overland line of the Union Pacific, and on a branch of the Burlington & Missouri River railroad. The city is situated in the broad, flat bottom-lands a short distance N. of the Platte River. Lake Kearney, in the city, has an area of 40 acres. The surrounding region is rich farming land, devoted especially to the growing of alfalfa and Indian corn. At Kearney are a State Industrial School for boys, a State Normal School, the Kearney Military Academy, and a Carnegie library. Good water-power is provided by a canal from the Platte River about 17 m. above Kearney, and the city’s manufactures include foundry and machine-shop products, flour and bricks. Kearney Junction, as Kearney was called from 1872 to 1875, was settled a year before the two railways actually formed their junction here,wherethe city wasplanned. Kearney became a town in 1873, a city of the second class and the county seat in 1874, and a city of the first class in 1901. It is to be distinguished from an older and once famous prairie city, popularly known as “Dobey Town” (i.e.Adobe), founded in the early ’fifties on the edge of the reservation of old Fort Kearney (removed in 1848 from Nebraska City), in Kearney county, on the S. shore of the Platte about 6 m. S.E. of the present Kearney; here in 1861 the post office of Kearney City was established. In the days of the prairie freighting caravans Dobey Town was one of the most important towns between Independence, Missouri, and the Pacific coast, and it had a rough, wild, picturesque history; but it lost its immense freighting interests after the Union Pacific had been extended through it in 1866. The site of Dobey Town, together with the Fort, was abandoned in 1871. Fort Kearney and the city too were named in honour of General Stephen W. Kearny, and the name was at first correctly spelt without a second “e.”
KEARNY, PHILIP(1815-1862), American soldier, was born in New York on the 2nd of June 1815, and was originally intended for the legal profession. He graduated at Columbia University (1833), but his bent was decidedly towards soldiering, and in 1837 he obtained a commission in the cavalry regiment of which his uncle, (General) Stephen Watts Kearny (1794-1848), was colonel and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis adjutant. Two years later he was sent to France to study the methods of cavalry training in vogue there. Before his return to the United States in 1840 he had served, on leave, in Algeria. He had inherited a large fortune, but he remained in the service, and his wide experience of cavalry work caused him to be employed on the headquarters staff of the army. After six more years’ service Kearny left the army, but almost immediately afterwards he rejoined, bringing with him a company of cavalry, which he had raised and equipped chiefly at his own expense, to take part in the Mexican war. In December 1846 he was promoted captain. In leading a brilliant cavalry charge at Churubusco he lost his left arm, but he remained at the front, and won the brevet of major for his gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco. In 1851 he again resigned, to travel round the world. He saw further active service with his old comrades of the French cavalry in the Italian war of 1859, and received the cross of the Legion of Honour for his conduct at Solferino. Up to the outbreak of the American Civil War he lived in Paris, but early in 1861 he hastened home to join the Federal army. At first as a brigade commander and later as a divisional commander of infantry in the Army of the Potomac, he infused into his men his own cavalry spirit of dash and bravery. At Williamsburg, Seven Pines, and Second Bull Run, he displayed his usual romantic courage, but at Chantilly (Sept. 1, 1862), after repulsing an attack of the enemy, he rode out in the dark too far to the front, and mistaking the Confederates for his own men was shot dead. His body was sent to the Federal lines with a message from General Lee, and was buried in Trinity Churchyard, New York. His commission as major-general of volunteers was dated July 4, 1862, but he never received it.
See J. W. de Peyster,Personal and Military History of Philip Kearny(New York, 1869).
See J. W. de Peyster,Personal and Military History of Philip Kearny(New York, 1869).
KEARNY,a town of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., between the Passaic and Hackensack rivers, adjoining Harrison, and connected with Newark by bridges over the Passaic. Pop. (1900), 10,896, of whom 3597 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 18,659. The New York & Greenwood Lake division of the Erie railroad has a station at Arlington, the principal village (in the N.W. part), which contains attractive residences of Newark, Jersey City and New York City business men. The town covers an area of about 7 sq. m., including a large tract of marsh-land. In Kearny are railway repair shops of the Pennsylvania system, and a large abattoir; and there are numerous manufactures. The value of the town’s factory products increased from $1,607,002 in 1900 to $4,427,904 in 1905, or 175.5%. Among its institutions are the State Soldiers’ Home, removed here from Newark in 1880, a Carnegie library, two Italian homes for orphans, and a Catholic Industrial School for boys.
The neck of land between the Passaic and the Hackensack rivers, for 7 m. N. from where they unite, was purchased from the proprietors of East Jersey and from the Indians by Captain William Sandford in 1668 and through Nathaniel Kingsland, sergeant-major of Barbadoes, received the name “New Barbadoes.” After the town under this name had been extended considerably to the northward, the town of Lodi was formed out of the S. portion in 1825, the town of Harrison was founded out of the S. portion of Lodi in 1840, and in 1867 a portion of Harrison was set apart as a township and named in honour of General Philip Kearny, a former resident. Kearny was incorporated as a town in 1895.