Chapter XII: Applications (3)

_Government._--The present constitution of the state dates from 1874 (with amendments). Few features mark it off from the usual type of such documents. The governor holds office for two years; he has the pardoning and veto power, but his veto may be overridden by a simple majority in each house of the whole number elected to that house (a provision unusual among the state constitutions of the Union). There is no lieutenant-governor. The legislature is bicameral, senators holding office for four years, representatives (about thrice as numerous) for two. The length of the regular biennial legislative sessions is limited to sixty days, but by a vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house the length of any session may be extended. Special sessions may be called by the governor. A majority of the members elected to each of the two houses suffices to propose a constitutional amendment, which the people may then accept by a mere majority of all votes cast at an election for the legislature (an unusually democratic provision); no more than three amendments, however, can be proposed or submitted at the same time. The supreme court has five members, elected by the people for eight years; they are re-eligible. The population of the state entitles it to seven representatives in the national House of Representatives, and to nine votes in the Electoral College (census of 1900). Elections of members of the state legislature and of Congress are not held at the same time--a very unusual provision. Elections are by Australian ballot; the constitution prescribes that no law shall "be enacted whereby the right to vote at any election shall be made to depend upon any previous registration of the elector's name" (extremely unusual). The qualifications for suffrage include one year's residence in the state, six months in the county, and one month in the voting district, next before election; idiots, insane persons, convicts, Indians not taxed, minors and women are disqualified; aliens who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States vote on the same terms as actual citizens. An amendment of 1893 requires the exhibition of a poll-tax receipt by every voter (except those "who make satisfactory proof that they have attained the age of twenty-one years since the time of assessing taxes next preceding" the election). There is nothing in the constitution or laws of Arkansas with any apparent tendency to disfranchise the negroes; there are statutory provisions (1866-1867) against intermarriage of the races and constitutional and statutory (1886-1887) provisions for separate schools, a "Jim Crow" law (1891) requires railways to provide separate cars for negroes, and a law (1893) provides for separate railway waiting-rooms for negroes. Giving or accepting a challenge to a duel bars from office, but this survival of the ante-bellum social life is to-day only reminiscent. Declared atheists are similarly disqualified. There is no constitutional provision for a census. Marriage is pronounced a civil contract. A law for compulsory education was passed in 1909.

_Finance._--The constitution makes 1% on the assessed valuation of property a maximum limit of state taxation for ordinary expenses, but by an amendment of 1906 the legislature may levy three mills on the dollar per annum for common schools; and may "authorize school districts to levy by a vote of the qualified electors of such district a tax not to exceed seven mills on the dollar in any year for school purposes." The state debt in 1874 was $12,108,247, of which about $9,370,000 was incurred after the Civil War for internal improvement schemes. This new debt was practically repudiated in 1875 by a decision of the supreme court, and completely set aside in 1884 by constitutional amendment. Until 1900, when an adjustment of the matter was reached, there was also another disputed debt to the national government, owing to the collapse in 1839 of a so-called Real Estate Bank of Arkansas, in which the state had invested more than $500,000 paid to it by the United States in exchange for Arkansas bonds to be held as an investment for the Smithsonian Institution, on which bonds the state defaulted after 1839. If the unacknowledged debt be included (as it often is; and hence the necessity of reference to it), very few states--and those all western or southern--have a heavier burden per capita. But the acknowledged debt was in 1907 only $1,250,500, and this is not a true debt, being a permanent school fund that is not to be paid off; of this total in 3% bonds, $1,134,500 is held by the common schools and $116,000 by the state university. In net combined state and local debt, Arkansas ranks very low among the states of the Union. The hired labourer suffers from the "truck" system, taking his pay in board and living, in goods, in trade on his employer's credit at the village store; the independent farmer suffers in his turn from unlimited credit at the same store, where he secures everything on the credit of his future crops; and if he is reduced to borrow money, he secures it by vesting the title to his property temporarily in his creditor. His legal protections under such "title bonds" are much slighter than under mortgages. Homesteads belonging to the head of a family and containing 80 to 160 acres (according to value) if in the country, or a lot of 1/4 to one acre (according to value), if in town, village or city, are exempt from liability for debts, excepting liens for purchase money, improvements or taxes. A married man may not sell or mortgage a homestead without his wife's consent.

_Education._--The legal beginnings of a public school system date from 1843; in 1867 the first tax was imposed for its support. Only white children were regarded by the laws before Reconstruction days. There are now separate race schools, with terms of equal length, and offering like facilities; the number of white and coloured teachers employed is approximately in the same proportion to the number of attending children of the respective races; in negro districts two out of three school directors are usually negroes. "The coloured race as a whole go to the schools as regularly and as numerously in proportion as do the whites" (Shinn). Of the current expenses of the common schools about three-fourths is borne by the localities; the state distributes its contribution annually among the counties. There is also a permanent school fund derived wholly from land grants from the national government. The total expenditure for the schools is creditable to the state; but before 1909 hardly half the school population attended; and in general the rural conditions of the state, the shortness of the school terms and the dependence of the schools primarily upon local funds and local supervision, make the schools of inadequate and quite varying excellence. The average expenditure in 1906 for tuition per child enrolled was $4.93, and the average length of the school term was only eighty-one days. In June 1906 there were 1102 school houses in the state valued at $100 or less. In 1905-1906 the Peabody Board gave $2000 to aid rural schools, and in general it has done much for the improvement of country public schools throughout the state. In 1906 an amendment to the state constitution, greatly increasing the tax resources available for educational work, was passed by a large popular vote. The University of Arkansas was opened at Fayetteville in 1872. The law and medical faculties are at Little Rock. A branch normal school, established 1873-1875 at Pine Bluff, provides for coloured students, who enjoy the same opportunities for work, and are accorded the same degrees, as the students at Fayetteville; they are about a fourth as numerous. In 1905-1906 there were 497 students in the college of liberal arts, sciences and engineering, 548 in the preparatory school and 26 in the conservatory of music and arts, all in Fayetteville; 171 in the medical school and 46 in the law school in Little Rock; and 240 in the branch normal college at Pine Bluff. The university and the normal school are supported by the Morrill Fund and by state appropriations. The state still suffered in 1906 from the lack of a separate and special training school for teachers; but in 1907 the legislature voted to establish a state normal school. Of the Morrill Fund (see MORRILL, JUSTIN SMITH), three-elevenths goes to the normal school. The agricultural experiment station of the university dates from 1887. The financial support of the university has been light, about three-fifths coming from the United States government. Besides the university there are about a score of denominational colleges or academies, of which half-a-dozen are for coloured students. Among the large denominational colleges are Philander Smith College, Little Rock (Methodist Episcopal, 1877); Ouachita College, Arkadelphia (Baptist, 1886); Hendrix College, Conway (Methodist Episcopal, South, 1884); and Arkansas College, Batesville (Presbyterian, 1872). There are few libraries in Arkansas. In this matter her showing has long been among the very poorest in the Union relatively to her population. Daily papers are few in number. The state charitable institutions--insane asylum, deaf-mute and blind institutes--and the penitentiary, are at Little Rock.

Local government is of the ordinary southern county type, without noteworthy variations. Municipal corporations rest upon a general state law, not upon individual charters. The liquor question is left by the state to county (i.e. including "local," or town) option, and prohibition is the most common county law, the alternative being high-licence.

_History._--The first settlement by Europeans in Arkansas was made in 1686 by the French at Arkansas Post (later the residence of the French and Spanish governors, important as a trading post in the earlier days of the American occupation, and the first territorial capital, 1819-1820). In 1720 a grant on the Arkansas was made to John Law. In 1762 the territory passed to Spain, in 1780 back to France, and in 1803 to the United States as a part of the "Louisiana Purchase." Save in the beginnings of western frontier trade, and in a great mass of litigation left to the courts of later years by the curious and uncertain methods of land delimitation that prevailed among the French and Spanish colonists, the pre-American period of occupation has slight connexions with the later period, and scant historical importance.

From 1804 to 1812 what is now Arkansas was part of the district (and then the territory) of Louisiana, and from 1812 to 1819 of the territory of Missouri. Its earliest county organizations date from this time. It was erected successively into a territory of the first and second class by acts of Congress of the 2nd of March 1819 and the 21st of April 1820. By act of the 15th of June 1836 it was admitted into the Union as a slave state.

There is little of general interest in the history of ante-bellum days. Economic life centred in the slave plantation, and there was remarkable development up to the Civil War. The decade 1819-1829 saw the first newspaper (1819), the beginning of steamboating on Arkansas rivers, and the first weekly mail from the east. Trade was largely confined to the rivers and freighting for Sante Fe and Salt Lake before the war, but the first railway entered the state in 1853. Social life was sluggish in some ways and wild in others. An unhappy propensity to duelling, the origin in Arkansas of the bowie-knife,--from an alleged use of which Arkansas received the nickname, which it has always retained, of the "toothpick state,"--and other backwoods associations gave the state a reputation which to some extent has survived in spite of many years of sober history. The questions of the conduct of territorial affairs do not seem to have been contested systematically on national party lines until about 1825. The government of Arkansas before the Civil War was always in the hands of a few families closely intermarried. From the beginning the state has been unswervingly Democratic, save in the Reconstruction years, though often with heavy Whig or Republican minorities.

In February 1861 the people of Arkansas voted to hold a convention to consider the state of public affairs. The convention assembled on the 4th of March. Secession resolutions were defeated, and it was voted to submit to the people the question whether there should be "co-operation" through the Lincoln government, or "secession." The plan was endorsed of holding a convention of all the states to settle the slavery question, and delegates were chosen to the proposed Border State Convention that was to meet at Frankfort, Kentucky, on the 27th of May. Then came the fall of Fort Sumter and the proclamation of President Lincoln calling for troops to put down rebellion. The governor of Arkansas curtly refused its quota. A quick surge of ill-feeling, all the bitterer on account of the divided sentiments of the people, chilled loyalty to the Union. The convention reassembled on call of the governor, and on the 6th of May, with a single dissentient voice, passed an ordinance of secession. It then repealed its former vote submitting the question of secession to the people. On the 16th of May Arkansas became one of the Confederate States of America.

In the years of war that followed, a very large proportion of the able-bodied men of the state served in the armies of the Confederacy; several regiments, some of coloured troops, served the Union. Union sentiment was strongest in the north. In 1862-1863 various victories threw more than half the state, mainly the north and east, under the Federal arms. Accordingly, under a proclamation of the president, citizens within the conquered districts were authorized to renew allegiance to the Union, and a special election was ordered for March 1864, to reorganize the state government. But meanwhile, a convention of delegates chosen mainly at polls opened at the army posts, assembled in January 1864, abolished slavery, repudiated secession and the secession war debt, and revised in minor details the constitution of 1836, restricting the suffrage to whites. This new fundamental law was promptly adopted by the people, i.e. by its friends, who alone voted. But the representatives of Arkansas under this constitution were never admitted to Congress.

The Federal and Confederate forces controlled at this time different parts of the state; there was some ebb and flow of military fortune in 1864, and for a short time two rival governments. Chaotic conditions followed the war. The fifteenth legislature (April 1864 to April 1865) ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and passed laws against "bush-whacking," a term used in the Civil War for guerilla warfare, especially as carried on by pretended neutrals. Local militia, protecting none who refused to join in the common defence, and all serving "not as soldiers but as farmers mutually pledged to protect each other from the depredations of outlaws who infest the state," strove to secure such public order as was necessary to the gathering of crops, so as "to prevent the starvation of the citizens" (governor's circular, 1865). Struggling in these difficulties, the government of the state was upset by the first Reconstruction Act. The governor in these years (1865-1868) was a Republican, the caster of the single Union vote in the convention of 1861; but the sixteenth legislature (1866-1867) was largely Democratic. It undertook to determine the rights of persons of African descent, and regrettable conflicts followed. The first Reconstruction Act having declared that "no legal state government or adequate protection for life or property" existed in the "rebel states," Arkansas was included in one of the military districts established by Congress. A registration of voters, predominantly whites, was at once carried through, and delegates were chosen for another constitutional convention, which met at Little Rock in January 1868. The secessionist element was voluntarily or perforce excluded. This convention ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, and framed the third constitution of the state, which was adopted by a small majority at a popular election, marred by various irregularities, in March 1868. By its provisions negroes secured full political rights, and all whites who had been excluded from registration for the election of delegates to the convention were now practically stripped of political privileges. The organization of Arkansas being now acceptable to Congress, a bill admitting it to the Union was passed over President Johnson's veto, and on the 22nd of June 1868 the admission was consummated.

Arkansas now became for several years Republican, and suffered considerably from the rule of the "carpet-baggers." The debt of the state was increased about $9,375,000 from 1868 to 1874, largely for railroad and levee schemes; much of the money was misappropriated, and in a case involving the payment of railway aid bonds the action of the legislature in pledging the credit of the state was held nugatory by the state supreme court in 1875 on the ground that, contrary to the constitution, the bond issue had never been referred to popular vote. An amendment to the constitution approved by a popular vote in 1884 provided that the General Assembly should "have no power to levy any tax, or make any appropriation, to pay" any of the bonds issued by legislative action in 1868, 1869 and 1871. The current expenses of the state in the years of Reconstruction were also enormously increased. The climax of the Reconstruction period was the so-called Baxter-Brooks war.

Elisha Baxter (1827-1899) was the regular Republican candidate for governor in 1872. He was opposed by a disaffected Republican faction known as "brindletails," or as they called themselves, "reformers," led by Joseph Brooks (1821-1877), and supported by the Democrats. Baxter was irregularly elected. The election was contested, and his choice was confirmed by the legislature, the court of last resort in such cases. He soon showed a willingness to rule as a non-partisan, and favoured the re-enfranchisement of white citizens. This would have put the Democrats again in power, and they rallied to Baxter, while the Brooks party now assumed the name of "regulars," and received the support of the "carpet-bag" and negro elements. After Baxter had been a year in office Brooks received a judgment of _ouster_ against him from a state circuit judge, and got possession of the public buildings (April 1874). The state flew to arms. The legislature called for Federal intervention (May 1874), and Federal troops maintained neutrality while investigations were conducted by a committee sent out by Congress. As a result, President Grant pronounced for Baxter, and the Brooks forces disbanded.

The chief result was another convention. In 1873 the article of the constitution which had disfranchised the whites was repealed, and the Democrats thus regained power. By an overwhelming majority the people now voted for another convention, which (July to October 1874) framed the present constitution. It removed all disfranchisement, and embraced equitable amnesty and exemption features. It also took away all patronage from the governor, reduced his term to two years, forbade him to proclaim martial law or suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_, and abolished all registration laws: all these provisions being reflections of Reconstruction struggles. The people ratified the new constitution on the 13th of October 1874. After Reconstruction the state again became Democratic, and the main interest of its history has been the progress of economic development.

The following is a list of the territorial and state governors of Arkansas:--

_Territorial._

James Miller[3] 1819-1825
George Izard 1825-1828
John Pope[4] 1829-1835
William S. Fulton 1835-1836

_State._

James S. Conway 1836-1840 Democrat
Archibald Yell[5] 1840-1844 "
Thomas S. Drew[6] 1844-1849 "
John S. Roane 1849-1852 "
Elias N. Conway 1852-1860 "
Henry M. Rector[7] 1860-1862 "
Harris Flannigan[8] 1862-1865 "
Isaac Murphy[9] 1864-1868 Republican
C.H. Smith[10] 1867-1868 "
Powell Clayton 1868-1871 "
Ozra A. Hadley[11] 1871-1873 "
Elisha Baxter 1873-1874 "
August H. Garland 1874-1877 Democrat
William R. Miller 1877-1881 "
Thomas J. Churchill 1881-1883 "
James H. Berry 1883-1885 "
Simon P. Hughes 1885-1889 "
James P. Eagle 1889-1893 "
William M. Fishback 1893-1895 "
James P. Clarke 1895-1897 "
Daniel W. Jones 1897-1901 "
Jefferson Davis 1901-1907 "
John S. Little 1907-1908 "
X.O. Pindall, Acting Gov. 1908 "
George W. Donaghey 1909 "

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Information regarding the resources, climate,
population and industries of Arkansas should be sought in the volumes
of the United States Census, United States Department of Agriculture
and the United States Geological Survey (for the last two there are
various bibliographical guides); consult also the publications of the
Arkansas (Agricultural) Experiment Station (at Fayetteville), the
reports of the state horticulturist, the biennial reports of the state
treasurer, of the auditor, and of the Bureau of Mines, Manufactures
and Agriculture (all published at Little Rock).

The constitutional documents may best be consulted in the latest
compiled _Statutes_ of the state. See also J.H. Shinn, _Education in
Arkansas_ (U.S. Bur. of Education, 1900); W.F. Pope, _Early Days in
Arkansas_ (Little Rock, 1895); and F. Hempstead, _Pictorial History of
Arkansas_ (St Louis, 1890). Similar to the last in popular character,
vast in bulk and loose in method, are a series of _Biographical and
Pictorial Histories_, covering the different sections of the state (1
vol. by J. Hallum, Albany, 1887; four others compiled anonymously,
Chicago, 1889-1891). For the Reconstruction period see especially the
Poland Report in House Rp. No. 2, 43 Cong. 2 Sess., vol. i. (1874),
and John M. Harrell's _The Brooks and Baxter War: A History of the
Reconstruction Period in Arkansas_ (St Louis, Missouri, 1893), which
is frankly in favour of Baxter; also a paper by B.S. Johnson in vol.
ii. (1908) of the _Publications of the Arkansas Historical
Association_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For 1906 the _Yearbook_ of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
reported the following statistics for Arkansas:--Indian corn,
52,802,659 bu., valued at $24,817,207; oats 3,783,706 bu., valued at
$1,589,157; wheat, 1,915,250 bu., valued at $1,436,438; rice, 131,440
bu., valued at $111,724; rye, 23,652 bu., valued at $19,631;
potatoes, 1,666,960 bu., valued at $1,116,863; hay, 113,491 tons,
valued at $1,123,561.

[2] The special census of the manufacturing industry for 1905 was
concerned only with the establishment conducted under the so-called
"factory system"; for purposes of comparison the figures for 1900
have been reduced to the same standard, and this fact should be borne
in mind with regard to the percentages of increase given above.

[3] During this period Robert Crittenden, the secretary of the
territory, was frequently the acting governor.

[4] Robert Crittenden was acting governor in 1828-1829.

[5] Samuel Adams was acting governor from the 29th of April to the
9th of November 1844.

[6] R.C. Byrd was acting governor from the 11th of January to the 19th
of April 1849.

[7] Thomas Fletcher was acting governor from the 4th to the 15th of
November 1862.

[8] Confederate governor.

[9] Union governor.

[10] United States military (sub) governor.

[11] Acting governor.

ARKANSAS CITY, a city of Cowley county, Kansas, U.S.A., situated near the S. boundary of the state, in the fork of the Arkansas and Walnut rivers. Pop. (1890) 8347; (1900) 6140, of whom 302 were negroes; (1905) 7634; (1910) 7508. The city is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Missouri Pacific, the St Louis & San Francisco, the Midland Valley and the Kansas South-Western railways. To the south is the Chilocco Indian school (in Key county, Oklahoma), established by the U.S. government in 1884. A canal joining the Arkansas and Walnut rivers furnishes good water power. The manufactories include flour mills, packing establishments, a creamery and a paint factory. The city is situated in the midst of a rich agricultural region and is a supply centre for southern Kansas and Oklahoma, with large jobbing interests. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks. Arkansas City, first known as Creswell, was settled in 1870, was chartered as a city under its present name in 1872 and was rechartered in 1880.

ARKLOW, a seaport and market town of Co. Wicklow, Ireland, in the east parliamentary division, 49 m. S. of Dublin, by the Dublin & South-Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 4944. Sea-fisheries are prosecuted, and there are oyster-beds on the coast, but the produce requires to be freed from a peculiar flavour by the purer waters of the Welsh and English coast before it is fit for food. The produce of the copper and lead mines of the Vale of Avoca is shipped from the port. There are cordite and explosives works, established by Messrs Kynoch of Birmingham, England. In 1882 an act was passed providing for the improvement of the harbour and for the appointment of harbour commissioners. The town hall and the Protestant church (1899) were gifts of the earl of Carysfort, in whose property the town is situated. There are slight ruins of an ancient castle of the Ormondes, demolished in 1649 by Cromwell. On the 9th of June 1798 the Irish insurgents, attacking the town, were defeated by the royal troops near Arklow Bridge, and their leader, Father Michael Murphy, was killed.

ARKWRIGHT, SIR RICHARD (1732-1792), English inventor, was born at Preston in Lancashire, on the 23rd of December 1732, of parents in humble circumstances. He was the youngest of thirteen children, and received but a very indifferent education. After serving his apprenticeship in his native town, he established himself as a barber at Bolton about 1750, and later amassed a little property from dealing in human hair and dyeing it by a process of his own. This business he gave up about 1767 in order to devote himself to the construction of the spinning frame. The spinning jenny, which was patented by James Hargreaves (d. 1778), a carpenter of Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1770, though he had invented it some years earlier, gave the means of spinning twenty or thirty threads at once with no more labour than had previously been required to spin a single thread. The thread spun by the jenny could not, however, be used except as weft, being destitute of the firmness or hardness required in the longitudinal threads or warp. Arkwright supplied this deficiency by the invention of the spinning-frame, which spins a vast number of threads of any degree of fineness and hardness.

The precise date of the invention is not known; but in 1767 he employed John Kay, a watchmaker at Warrington, to assist him in the preparation of the parts of his machine, and he took out a patent for it in 1769. The first model was set up in the parlour of the house belonging to the free grammar school at Preston. This invention having been brought to a fairly advanced stage, he removed to Nottingham in 1768, accompanied by Kay and John Smalley of Preston, and there erected his first spinning mill, which was worked by horses. But his operations were at first greatly fettered by want of capital, until Jedediah Strutt (q.v.), having satisfied himself of the value of the machines, entered with his partner, Samuel Need, into partnership with him, and enabled him in 1771 to build a second factory, on a much larger scale, at Cromford in Derbyshire, the machinery of which was turned by a water-wheel. A fresh patent, taken out in 1775, covered several additional improvements in the processes of carding, roving and spinning. As the value of his processes became known, he began to be troubled with infringements of his patents, and in 1781 he took action in the courts to vindicate his rights. In the first case, against Colonel Mordaunt, who was supported by a combination of manufacturers, the decision was unfavourable to him, on the sole ground that the description of the machinery in the specification was obscure and indistinct. In consequence he prepared a "case," which he at one time intended to lay before parliament, as the foundation of an application for an act for relief. But this intention was subsequently abandoned; and in a new trial (_Arkwright_ v. _Nightingale_) in February 1785, the presiding judge having expressed himself favourably with respect to the sufficiency of the specification, a verdict was given for Arkwright. On this, as on the former trial, nothing was stated against the originality of the invention.

In consequence of these conflicting verdicts, the whole matter was brought, by a writ of _scire facias_, before the court of King's Bench, to have the validity of the patent finally settled, and it was not till this third trial, which took place in June 1785, that Arkwright's claim to the inventions which formed the subject of the patent was disputed. To support this new allegation, Arkwright's opponents brought forward, for the first time, Thomas Highs, or Hayes, a reed-maker at Bolton, who stated that he had invented a machine for spinning by rollers previously to 1768, and that he had employed the watchmaker Kay to make a model of that machine. Kay himself was produced to prove that he had communicated that model to Arkwright, and that this was the real source of all his pretended inventions. Having no idea that any attempt was to be made to overturn the patent on this new ground, Arkwright's counsel were not prepared with evidence to repel this statement, and the verdict went against him. On a motion for a new trial on the 10th of November of the same year it was stated that he was furnished with affidavits contradicting the evidence that had been given by Kay and others with respect to the originality of the invention; but the court refused to grant a new trial, on the ground that, whatever might be the fact as to the question of originality, the deficiency in the specification was enough to sustain the verdict, and the cancellation of the patents was ordered a few days afterwards. His fortunes, however, were not thereby seriously affected, for by this time his business capacity and organizing skill had enabled him to consolidate his position, in spite of the difficulties he had encountered not only from rival manufacturers but also from the working classes, who in 1779 displayed their antipathy to labour-saving appliances by destroying a large mill he had erected near Chorley.

Though a man of great personal strength, Arkwright never enjoyed good health, and throughout his career of invention and discovery he laboured under a severe asthmatic affection. A complication of disorders at length terminated his life on the 3rd of August 1792, at his works at Cromford. He was knighted in 1786 when he presented a congratulatory address from the wapentake of Wirksworth to George III., on his escape from the attempt on his life by Margaret Nicholson.

ARLES, a town of south-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Bouches-du-Rhone, 54 m. N.W. of Marseilles by rail. Pop. (1906) 16,191. A canal unites Arles with the harbour of Bouc on the Mediterranean. Arles stands on the left bank of the Rhone, just below the point at which the river divides to form its delta. A tubular bridge unites it with the suburb of Trinquetaille on the opposite bank. The town is hemmed in on the east by the railway line from Lyons to Marseilles, on the south by the Canal de Craponne. Its streets are narrow and irregular, and, away from the promenades which border it on the south, there is little animation. In the centre of the town stand the Place de la Republique, a spacious square overlooked by the hotel de ville, the museum, and the old cathedral of St Trophime, the finest Romanesque church in Provence. Founded in the 7th century, St Trophime has been several times rebuilt, and was restored in 1870. Its chief portal, which dates from the 12th century, is a masterpiece of graceful arrangement and rich carving. The interior, plain in itself, contains interesting sculpture. The choir opens into a beautiful cloister, the massive vaulting of which is supported on heavy piers adorned with statuary, between which intervene slender columns arranged in pairs and surmounted by delicately carved capitals. Two of the galleries are Romanesque, while two are Gothic. Arles has two other churches of the Romanesque period, and others of later date. The hotel de ville, a building of the 17th century, contains the library. Its clock tower, surmounted by a statue of Mars, dates from the previous century. The museum, occupying an old Gothic church, is particularly rich in Roman remains and in early Christian sarcophagi; there is also a museum of Provencal curiosities. The tribunal of commerce and the communal college are the chief public institutions. Arles is not a busy town and its port is of little importance. There are, however, flour mills, oil and soap works, and the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee Railway Company have large workshops. Sheep-breeding is a considerable industry in the vicinity. The women of Arles have long enjoyed a reputation for marked beauty, but the distinctive type is fast disappearing owing to their intermarriage with strangers who have immigrated to the town.

Arles still possesses many monuments of Roman architecture and art, the most remarkable being the ruins of an amphitheatre (the _Arenes_), capable of containing 25,000 spectators, which, in the 11th and 12th centuries, was flanked with massive towers, of which three are still standing. There are also a theatre, in which, besides the famous Venus of Arles, discovered in 1651, many other remains have been found; an ancient obelisk of a single block, 47 ft. high, standing since 1676 in the Place de la Republique; the ruins of the palace of Constantine, the forum, the thermae and the remains of the Roman ramparts and of aqueducts. There is, besides, a Roman cemetery known as the Aliscamps (_Elysii Campi_), consisting of a short avenue once bordered by tombs, of which a few still remain.

The ancient town, _Arelate_, was an important place at the time of the invasion of Julius Caesar, who made it a settlement for his veterans. It was pillaged in A.D. 270, but restored and embellished by Constantine, who made it his principal residence, and founded what is now the suburb of Trinquetaille. Under Honorius, it became the seat of the prefecture of the Gauls and one of the foremost cities in the western empire. Its bishopric founded by St Trophimus in the 1st century, was in the 5th century the primatial see of Gaul; it was suppressed in 1790. After the fall of the Roman empire the city passed into the power of the Visigoths, and rapidly declined. It was plundered in 730 by the Saracens, but in the 10th century became the capital of the kingdom of Arles (see below). In the 12th century it was a free city, governed by a _podesta_ and _consuls_ after the model of the Italian republics, which it also emulated in commerce and navigation. In 1251 it submitted to Charles I. of Anjou, and from that time onwards followed the fortunes of Provence. A number of ecclesiastical synods have been held at Arles, as in 314 (see below), 354, 452 and 475.

See V. Clair, _Monuments d'Arles_ (1837); J.J. Estrangin,
_Description de la ville d'Arles_ (1845); F. Beissier, _Le Pays
d'Arles_ (1889); Roger Peyre, _Nimes, Arles, Orange_ (1903).
(R. Tr.)

_Synod of Arles (314)._--As negotiations held at Rome in October 313 had failed to settle the dispute between the Catholics and the Donatists, the emperor Constantine summoned the first general council of his western half of the empire to meet at Arles by the 1st of August following. The attempt of Seeck to date the synod 316 presupposes that the emperor was present in person, which is highly improbable. Thirty-three bishops are included in the most authentic list of signatures, among them three from Britain,--York, London and "Colonia Londinensium" (probably a corruption of Lindensium, or Lincoln, rather than of Legionensium or Caerleon-On-Usk). The twenty-two canons deal chiefly with the discipline of clergy and people. Husbands of adulterous wives are advised not to remarry during the lifetime of the guilty party. Reiteration of baptism in the name of the Trinity is forbidden. For the consecration of a bishop at least three bishops are required. It is noteworthy that British representatives assented to Canon I., providing that Easter be everywhere celebrated on the same day: the later divergence between Rome and the Celtic church is due to improvements in the _supputatio Romana_ adopted at Rome in 343 and subsequently.

For the canons see Mansi ii. 471 ff.; Bruns ii. 107 ff.; Lauchert 26
ff. See also W. Smith and S. Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian
Antiquities_ (Boston, 1875), i. 141 ff. (contains also notices of
later synods at Arles); W. Bright, _Chapters of Early English Church
History_ (2nd edition, Oxford, 1888), 9 f.; Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyklopadie_ (3rd edition), ii. 59, x. 238 ff.; W. Moller,
_Kirchengeschichte_ (2nd edition by H. von Schubert, Tubingen, 1902),
i. 417. For full titles see COUNCIL. (W. W. R.*)

ARLES, KINGDOM OF, the name given to the kingdom formed about 933 by the union of the old kingdoms of Provence (q.v.) or Cisjurane Burgundy, and Burgundy (q.v.) Transjurane, and bequeathed in 1032 by its last sovereign, Rudolph III., to the emperor Conrad II. It comprised the countship of Burgundy (_Franche-Comte_), part of which is now Switzerland (the dioceses of Geneva, Lausanne, Sion and part of that of Basel), the Lyonnais, and the whole of the territory bounded by the Alps, the Mediterranean and the Rhone; on the right bank of the Rhone it further included the Vivarais. It is only after the end of the 12th century that the name "kingdom of Arles" is applied to this district; formerly it was known generally as the kingdom of Burgundy, but under the Empire the name of Burgundy came to be limited more and more to the countship of Burgundy, and the districts lying beyond the Jura. The authority of Rudolph III. over the chief lords of the land, the count of Burgundy and the count of Maurienne, founder of the house of Savoy, was already merely nominal, and the Franconian emperors (1039-1125), whose visits to the country were rare and of short duration, did not establish their power any more firmly. During the first fifty years of their domination they could rely on the support of the ecclesiastical feudatories, who generally favoured their cause, but the investiture struggle, in which the prelates of the kingdom of Arles mostly sided with the pope, deprived the Germanic sovereigns even of this support. The emperors, on the other hand, realized early that their absence from the country was a grave source of weakness; in 1043 Henry III. conferred on Rudolph, count of Rheinfelden (afterwards duke of Swabia), the title of _dux et rector Burgundiae_, giving him authority over the barons of the northern part of the kingdom of Arles. Towards the middle of the 12th century Lothair II. revived this system, conferring the rectorate on Conrad of Zahringen, in whose family it remained hereditary up to the death of the last representative of the house, Berthold V., in 1218; and it was the lords of Zahringen who were foremost in defending the cause of the Empire against its chief adversaries, the counts of Burgundy. In the time of the Swabian emperors, the Germanic sovereignty in the kingdom of Arles was again, during almost the whole period, merely nominal, and it was only in consequence of fortuitous circumstances that certain of the heads of the Empire were able to exercise a real authority in these parts. Frederick I., by his marriage with Beatrix (1156), had become uncontested master of the countship of Burgundy; Frederick II., who was more powerful in Italy than his predecessors had been, and was extending his activities into the countries of the Levant, found Provence more accessible to his influence, thanks to the commercial relations existing between the great cities of this country and Italy and the East. Moreover, the heretics and enemies of the church, who were numerous in the south, upheld the emperor in his struggle against the pope. Henry VII. also, thanks to his good relations with the princes of Savoy, succeeded in exercising a certain influence over a part of the kingdom of Arles. The emperors further tried to make their power more effective by delegating it, first to a viceroy, William of Baux, prince of Orange (1215), then to an imperial vicar, William of Montferrat (1220), who was succeeded by Henry of Revello and William of Manupello. In spite of this, the history of the kingdom of Arles in the 13th century, and still more in the 14th, is distinguished particularly by the decline of the imperial authority and the progress of French influence in the country. In 1246 the marriage of Charles, the brother of Saint Louis, with Beatrice, the heiress to the countship of Provence, caused Provence to pass into the hands of the house of Anjou, and many plans were made to win the whole of the kingdom for a prince of this house. At the beginning of the 14th century the bishops of Lyons and Viviers recognized the suzerainty of the king of France, and in 1343 Humbert II., dauphin of Viennois, made a compact with the French king Philip VI. that on his death his inheritance should pass to a son or a grandson of the French king. Humbert, who was perhaps the most powerful noble in Arles, was induced to take this step as he had just lost his only son, and Philip had already cast covetous eyes on his lands. Then in 1349, being in want of money, he agreed to sell his possessions outright, and thus Viennois, or Dauphine, passed into the hands of Philip's grandson, afterwards King Charles V. The emperor Charles IV. took an active part in the affairs of the kingdom, but without any consistent policy, and in 1378 he, in turn, ceded the imperial vicariate of the kingdom to the dauphin, afterwards King Charles VI. This date may be taken as marking the end of the history of the kingdom of Arles, considered as an independent territorial area.

See the monumental work of P. Fournier, _Le Royaume d'Arles et de
Vienne_ (Paris, 1890); Leroux, _Recherches critiques sur les relations
politiques de la France avec l'Allemagne de 1292 a 1378_ (Paris,
1882). For the early history of the kingdom, L. Jacob, _Le Royaume de
Bourgogne sous les empereurs franconiens_ (_1038-1129_), (Paris,
1906). The question of the nature and extent of the rights of the
Empire over the kingdom of Arles has given rise, ever since the 16th
century, to numerous juridical polemics; the chief dissertations
published on this subject are indicated in A. Leroux, _Bibliographie
des conflits entre la France et l'Empire_ (Paris, 1902). (R. Po.)

ARLINGTON, HENRY BENNET, EARL OF (1618-1685), English statesman, son of Sir John Bennet of Dawley, Middlesex, and of Dorothy Crofts, was baptized at Little Saxham, Suffolk, in 1618, and was educated at Westminster school and Christ Church, Oxford. He gained some distinction as a scholar and a poet, and was originally destined for holy orders. In 1643 he was secretary to Lord Digby at Oxford, and was employed as a messenger between the queen and Ormonde in Ireland. Subsequently he took up arms for the king, and received a wound in the skirmish at Andover in 1644, the scar of which remained on his face through life.[1] And after the defeat of the royal cause he travelled in France and Italy, joined the exiled royal family in 1650, and in 1654 became official secretary to James on Charles's recommendation, who had already been attracted by his "pleasant and agreeable humour."[2] In March 1657 he was knighted, and the same year was sent as Charles's agent to Madrid, where he remained, endeavouring to obtain assistance for the royal cause, till after the Restoration. On his return to England in 1661 he was made keeper of the privy purse, and became the prime favourite. One of his duties was the procuring and management of the royal mistresses, in which his success gained him great credit. Allying himself with Lady Castlemaine, he encouraged Charles's increasing dislike to Clarendon; and he was made secretary of state in October 1662 in spite of the opposition of Clarendon, who had to find him a seat in parliament. He represented Callington from 1661 till 1665, but appears never to have taken part in debate. He served subsequently on the committees for explaining the Irish Act of Settlement and for Tangiers. In 1663 he obtained a peerage as Baron Arlington of Arlington, or Harlington, in Middlesex, and in 1667 was appointed one of the postmasters-general. The control of foreign affairs was entrusted to him, and he was chiefly responsible for the attack on the Smyrna fleet and for the first Dutch War. In 1665 he advised Charles to grant liberty of conscience, but this was merely a concession to gain money during the war; and he showed great activity later in oppressing the nonconformists. On the death of Southampton, whose administration he had attacked, his great ambition, the treasurership, was not satisfied; and on the fall of Clarendon, against whom he had intrigued, he did not, though becoming a member of the Cabal ministry, obtain the supreme influence which he had expected; for Buckingham first shared, and soon surpassed him, in the royal favour. With Buckingham a sharp rivalry sprang up, and they only combined forces when endeavouring to bring about some evil measure, such as the ruin of the great Ormonde, who was an opponent of their policy and their schemes. Another object of jealousy to Arlington was Sir William Temple, who achieved a great popular success in 1668 by the conclusion of the Triple Alliance; Arlington endeavoured to procure his removal to Madrid, and entered with alacrity into Charles's plans for destroying the whole policy embodied in the treaty, and for making terms with France. He refused a bribe from Louis XIV., but allowed his wife to accept a gift of 10,000 crowns;[3] in 1670 he was the only minister besides the Roman Catholic Clifford to whom the first secret treaty of Dover (May 1670), one clause of which provided for Charles's declaration of his conversion to Romanism, was confided (see CHARLES II.); and he was the chief actor in the deception practised upon the rest of the council.[4] He supported several other pernicious measures--the scheme for rendering the king's power absolute by force of arms; the "stop of the exchequer," involving a repudiation of the state debt in 1672; and the declaration of indulgence the same year, "that we might keep all quiet at home whilst we are busy abroad."[5] On the 22nd of April 1672 he was created an earl, and on the 13th of June obtained the Garter; the same month he proceeded with Buckingham on a mission, first to William at the Hague, and afterwards to Louis at Utrecht, endeavouring to force upon the Dutch terms of peace which were indignantly refused. But Arlington's support of the court policy was entirely subordinate to personal interests; and after the appointment of Clifford in November 1672 to the treasurership, his jealousy and mortification, together with his alarm at the violent opposition aroused in parliament, caused him to veer over to the other side. He advised Charles in March 1673 to submit the legality of the declaration of indulgence to the House of Lords, and supported the Test Act of the same year, which compelled Clifford to resign. He joined the Dutch party, and in order to make his peace with his new allies, disclosed the secret treaty of Dover to the staunch Protestants Ormonde and Shaftesbury.[6] Arlington had, however, lost the confidence of all parties, and these efforts to procure support met with little success. On the 15th of January 1674 he was impeached by the Commons, the specific charges being "popery," corruption and the betrayal of his trust--Buckingham in his own defence having accused him the day before of being the chief instigator of the French and anti-Protestant policy, of the scheme of governing by the army, of responsibility for the Dutch War, and of embezzlement. But the motion for his removal, owing chiefly to the influence of his brother-in-law, the popular Lord Ossory, was rejected by 166 votes to 127. His escape could not, however, prevent his fall, and he resigned the secretaryship on the 11th of September 1674, being appointed lord chamberlain instead. In 1675 he made another attempt to gain favour with the parliament by supporting measures against France and against the Roman Catholics, and by joining in the pressure put upon Charles to remove James from the court. In November he went on a mission to the Hague, with the popular objects of effecting a peace and of concluding an alliance with William and James's daughter Mary. In this he entirely failed, and he returned home completely discredited. He had again been disappointed of the treasurership when Danby succeeded Clifford; Charles having declared "that he had too much kindness for him to let him have it, for he was not fit for the office."[7] His intrigues with discontented persons in parliament to stir up an opposition to his successful rival came to nothing. From this time, though lingering on at court, he possessed no influence, and was treated with scanty respect. It was safe to ridicule his person and behaviour, and it became a common jest for "some courtier to put a black patch upon his nose and strut about with a white staff in his hand in order to make the king merry at his expense."[8] He was appointed a commissioner of the treasury in March 1679, was included in Sir William Temple's new modelled council the same year, and was a member of the inner cabinet which was almost immediately formed. In 1681 he was made lord lieutenant of Suffolk. He died on the 28th of July 1685, and was buried at Euston, where he had bought a large estate and had carried out extensive building operations. His residence in London was Goring House, on the site of which was built the present Arlington Street.

Arlington was a typical statesman of the Restoration, possessing outwardly an attractive personality, and according to Sir W. Temple "the greatest skill of court and the best turns of art in particular conversation,"[9] but thoroughly unscrupulous and self-seeking, without a spark of patriotism, faithless even to a bad cause, and regarding public office solely as a means of procuring pleasure and profit. His knowledge of foreign affairs and of foreign languages, gained during his residence abroad, was considerable, but long absence from England had also taught him a cosmopolitan indifference to constitutions and religions, and a careless disregard for English public opinion and the essential interests of the country. According to Clarendon, he "knew no more of the constitution and laws of England than he did of China, nor had he in truth a care or tenderness for church or state, but believed France was the best pattern in the world."[10] He was one of the chief promoters of the attempt to reintroduce into England arbitrary government after the French model, not because he imagined an absolute monarchy essential to the well-being and security of the state, but because under such an administration the favourites of a king enjoyed far greater privileges and profits than under a constitutional government. Of the same egotistical character was his religion, towards which his attitude was similar to that of Charles II. himself. He was credited with having inclined the king towards Romanism. Before the Restoration he had attended mass with the king abroad, and in opposition to Lord Bristol had urged Charles to declare publicly his conversion in order to obtain the long-expected succour from the foreign powers. But his religion sat lightly upon him as it did upon his master, and it was often convenient to disguise it. Like the king he continued to profess and practise Protestantism, and spent large sums in restoring the church at Euston; and, unlike Clifford, he took the Test in 1673 and remained in office, successfully concealing his faith till on his deathbed, when he declared himself an adherent of Roman Catholicism.[11]

He married Isabella of Beerwaert, daughter of Louis of Nassau, by whom he had one daughter, Isabella, who married Henry, duke of Grafton, the natural son of Charles II. and Lady Castlemaine.

AUTHORITIES.--In addition to those mentioned above, see _Biographia
Britannica_ (Kippis), accurate and careful, but too partial, and
written without complete knowledge of Arlington's career; Wood's
_Fasti Oxonienses_ (Bliss), ii. 274; _Hist. of Great Britain_ by J.
Macpherson (1776), i. 132-133; _Lauderdale Papers_ (Camden Soc. N.S.,
vols. 34, 36, 38), and MSS. in Brit. Mus.; _Original Letters of Sir R.
Fanshaw_ (1724); _Letters from the Secretaries of State to Francis
Parry_ (1817); _Add. MSS. Brit. Mus._ indexes; _Cat. of State Pap.
Dom._, and _Hist. MSS. Comm.--MSS. of Marquis of Ormonde, and Duke of
Buccleugh at Montagu House_, ii. 49. (P. C. Y.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See his portrait in the earl of Arlington's _Letters to Sir W.
Temple_, by Tho. Babington (1701).

[2] Clarendon's _Life and Continuation_, 397.

[3] _Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland_, by Sir John Dalrymple
(1790), i. 125.

[4] _Ibid._ 114 et seq.

[5] Arlington to Sir B. Gascoyn, in J.T. Brown's _Miscellanea Aulica_
(1702), 66.

[6] On the authority of Colbert, 20th November 1673; Dalrymple's
_Memoirs_, i. 131.

[7] James's statement in Macpherson's _Orig. Pap._ i. 67.

[8] Eachard's _History of England_ (1720), 911.

[9] _Memoirs of W. Temple_, ed. by T.P. Courtenay, ii. 27.

[10] _Life and Con._ 404.

[11] Cf. North's _Examen_, 26; Dalrymple's _Mem._ (1790) i. 40;
Pepys's _Diary_ (Feb. 17, 1663); _Cat. of Clarendon St. Pap._ iii.
295; T. Carte's _Life of the Duke of Ormonde_ (1851), iv. 109.