Chapter XIX: Part VI: After the Reformation (13)

As certain abbreviations are used in the charts, attention is called to the "signs and abbreviations adopted in the charts published by the admiralty." Certain parts of the world are still unsurveyed, or not surveyed in sufficient detail for the requirements that steamships now demand. Charts of these localities are therefore drawn in a light hair-line and unfinished manner, so that the experienced seaman sees at a glance that less trust is to be reposed upon charts drawn in this manner. The charts given to the public are only correct up to the time of their actual publication. They have to be kept up to date. Recent publications by foreign governments, newly reported dangers, changes in character or position of lights and buoys, are as soon as practicable inserted on the charts and due notice given of such insertions in the admiralty "Notices to Mariners."

The charts are supplemented by the _Admiralty Pilots_, or books of
sailing directions, with tide tables, and lists of lighthouses, light
vessels, &c., for the coasts to which a ship may be bound. The
physical charts are the continuation of the work so ably begun by
Maury of the United States and FitzRoy of the British navy, and give
the sailor a good general idea of the world's ocean winds and currents
at the different periods of the year; the probable tracks and seasons
of the tropical revolving or cyclonic storms; the coastal winds; the
extent or months of the rainy seasons; localities and times where ice
may be fallen in with; and, lastly, the direction and force of the
stream and drift currents of the oceans. (T. A. H.)

CHARTER (Lat. _charta, carta_, from Gr. [Greek: chartes], originally for _papyrus_, material for writing, thence transferred to paper and from this material to the document, in O. Eng. _boc_, book), a written instrument, contract or convention by which cessions of sales of property or of rights and privileges are confirmed and held, and which may be produced by the grantees in proof of lawful possession. The use of the word for any written document is obsolete in England, but is preserved in France, e.g. the Ecole des Chartes at Paris. In feudal times charters of privileges were granted, not only by the crown, but by mesne lords both lay and ecclesiastical, as well to communities, such as boroughs, gilds and religious foundations, as to individuals. In modern usage grants by charter have become all but obsolete, though in England this form is still used in the incorporation by the crown of such societies as the British Academy.

The grant of the Great Charter by King John in 1215 (see MAGNA CARTA), which guaranteed the preservation of English liberties, led to a special association of the word with constitutional privileges, and so in modern times it has been applied to constitutions granted by sovereigns to their subjects, in contradistinction to those based on "the will of the people." Such was the Charter (_Charte_) granted by Louis XVIII. to France in 1814. In Portugal the constitution granted by Dom Pedro in 1826 was called by the French party the "Charter," while that devised by the Cortes in 1821 was known as the "Constitution." Magna Carta also suggested to the English radicals in 1838 the name "People's Charter," which they gave to their published programme of reforms (see CHARTISM). This association of the idea of liberty with the word charter led to its figurative use in the sense of freedom or licence. This is, however, rare; the most common use being in the phrase "chartered libertine" (Shakespeare, _Henry V._ Act i. Sc. 1) from the derivative verb "to charter," e.g. to grant a charter. The common colloquialism "to charter," in the sense of to take, or hire, is derived from the special use of "to charter" as to hire (a ship) by charter-party.

CHARTERED COMPANIES. A chartered company is a trading corporation enjoying certain rights and privileges, and bound by certain obligations under a special charter granted to it by the sovereign authority of the state, such charter defining and limiting those rights, privileges and obligations, and the localities in which they are to be exercised. Such companies existed in early times, but have undergone changes and modifications in accordance with the developments which have taken place in the economic history of the states where they have existed. In Great Britain the first trading charters were granted, not to English companies, which were then non-existent, but to branches of the Hanseatic League (q.v.), and it was not till 1597 that England was finally relieved from the presence of a foreign chartered company. In that year Queen Elizabeth closed the steel-yard where Teutons had been established for 700 years.

The origin of all English trading companies is to be sought in the Merchants of the Staple. They lingered on into the 18th century, but only as a name, for their business was solely to export English products which, as English manufactures grew, were wanted at home. Of all early English chartered companies, the "Merchant Adventurers" conducted its operations the most widely. Itself a development of very early trading gilds, at the height of its prosperity it employed as many as 50,000 persons in the Netherlands, and the enormous influence it was able to exercise undoubtedly saved Antwerp from the institution of the Inquisition within its walls in the time of Charles V. In the reign of Elizabeth British trade with the Netherlands reached in one year 12,000,000 ducats, and in that of James I. the company's yearly commerce with Germany and the Netherlands was as much as L1,000,000. Hamburg afterwards was its principal depot, and it became known as the "Hamburg Company." In the "Merchant Adventurers'" enterprises is to be seen the germ of the trading companies which had so remarkable a development in the 16th and 17th centuries. These old regulated trade gilds passed gradually into joint-stock associations, which were capable of far greater extension, both as to the number of members and amount of stock, each member being only accountable for the amount of his own stock, and being able to transfer it at will to any other person.

It was in the age of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts that the chartered company, in the modern sense of the term, had its rise. The discovery of the New World, and the opening out of fresh trading routes to the Indies, gave an extraordinary impulse to shipping, commerce and industrial enterprise throughout western Europe. The English, French and Dutch governments were ready to assist trade by the granting of charters to trading associations. It is to the "Russia Company," which received its first charter in 1554, that Great Britain owed its first intercourse with an empire then almost unknown. The first recorded instance of a purely chartered company annexing territory is to be found in the action of this company in setting up a cross at Spitzbergen in 1613 with King James's arms upon it. Among other associations trading to the continent of Europe, receiving charters at this time, were the Turkey Company (Levant Co.) and the Eastland Company. Both the Russia and Turkey Companies had an important effect upon British relations with those empires. They maintained British influence in those countries, and even paid the expenses of the embassies which were sent out by the English government to their courts. The Russia Company carried on a large trade with Persia through Russian territory; but from various causes their business gradually declined, though the Turkey Company existed in name until 1825.

The chartered companies which were formed during this period for trade with the Indies and the New World have had a more wide-reaching influence in history. The extraordinary career of the East India Company (q.v.) is dealt with elsewhere.

Charters were given to companies trading to Guinea, Morocco, Guiana and the Canaries, but none of these enjoyed a very long or prosperous existence, principally owing to the difficulties caused by foreign competition. It is when we turn to North America that the importance of the chartered company, as a colonizing rather than a trading agency, is seen in its full development. The "Hudson's Bay Company," which still exists as a commercial concern, is dealt with under its own heading, but most of the thirteen British North American colonies were in their inception chartered companies very much in the modern acceptation of the term. The history of these companies will be found under the heading of the different colonies of which they were the origin. It is necessary, however, to bear in mind that two classes of charters are to be found in force among the early American colonies: (1) Those granted to trading associations, which were often useful when the colony was first founded, but which formed a serious obstacle to its progress when the country had become settled and was looking forward to commercial expansion; the existence of these charters then often led to serious conflicts between the grantees of the charter and the colonies; ultimately elective assemblies everywhere superseded control of trading companies. (2) The second class of charters were those granted to the settlers themselves, to protect them against the oppressions of the crown and the provincial governors. These were highly prized by the colonists.

In France and Holland, no less than in England, the institution of chartered companies became a settled principle of the governments of those countries during the whole of the period in question. In France from 1599 to 1789, more than 70 of such companies came into existence, but after 1770, when the great _Compagnie des Indes orientales_ went into liquidation, they were almost abandoned, and finally perished in the general sweeping away of privileges which followed on the outbreak of the Revolution.

If we inquire into the economic ideas which induced the granting of charters to these earlier companies and animated their promoters, we shall find that they were entirely consistent with the general principles of government at the time and what were then held to be sound commercial views. Under the old regime everything was a matter of monopoly and privilege, and to this state of things the constitution of the old companies corresponded, the sovereign rights accorded to them being also quite in accordance with the views of the time. It would have been thought impossible then that private individuals could have found the funds or maintained the magnitude of such enterprises. It was only this necessity which induced statesmen like Colbert to countenance them, and Montesquieu took the same view (_Esprit des lois_, t. xx. c. 10). John de Witt's view was that such companies were not useful for colonization properly so called, because they want quick returns to pay their dividends. So, even in France and Holland, opinion was by no means settled as to their utility. In England historic protests were made against such monopolies, but the chartered companies were less exclusive in England than in either France or Holland, the governors of provinces almost always allowing strangers to trade on receiving some pecuniary inducement. French commercial companies were more privileged, exclusive and artificial than those in Holland and England. Those of Holland may be said to have been national enterprises. French companies rested more than did their rivals on false principles; they were more fettered by the royal power, and had less initiative of their own, and therefore had less chance of surviving. As an example of the kind of rules which prevented the growth of the French companies, it may be pointed out that no Protestants were allowed to take part in them. State subventions, rather than commerce or colonization, were often their object; but that has been a characteristic of French colonial enterprise at all times.

Such companies, however, under the old commercial system could hardly have come into existence without exclusive privileges. Their existence might have been prolonged had the whole people in time been allowed the chance of participating in them.

To sum up the causes of failure of the old chartered companies, they are to be attributed to (1) bad administration; (2) want of capital and credit; (3) bad economic organization; (4) distribution of dividends made prematurely or fictitiously. But those survived the longest which extended the most widely their privileges to outsiders. According to contemporary protests, they had a most injurious effect on the commerce of the countries where they had their rise. They were monopolies, and therefore, of course, obnoxious; and it is undoubted that the colonies they founded only became prosperous when they had escaped from their yoke.

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that they contributed in no small degree to the commercial progress of their own states. They gave colonies to the mother country, and an impulse to the development of its fleet. In the case of England and Holland, the enterprise of the companies saved them from suffering from the monopolies of Spain and Portugal, and the wars of the English, and those of the Dutch in the Indies with Spain and Portugal, were paid for by the companies. They furnished the mother country with luxuries which, by the 18th century, had become necessaries. They offered a career for the younger sons of good families, and sometimes greatly assisted large and useful enterprises.

During the last twenty years of the 19th century there was a great revival of the system of chartered companies in Great Britain. It is a feature of the general growth of interest in colonial expansion and commercial development which has made itself felt almost universally among European nations. Great Britain, however, alone has succeeded in establishing such companies as have materially contributed to the growth of her empire. These companies succeed or fail for reasons different from those which affected the chartered companies of former days, though there are points in common. Apart from causes inherent in the particular case of each company, which necessitates their being examined separately, recent experience leads us to lay down certain general principles regarding them. The modern companies are not like those of the 16th and 17th centuries. They are not privileged in the sense that those companies were. They are not monopolists; they have only a limited sovereignty, always being subject to the control of the home government. It is true that they have certain advantages given them, for without these advantages no capital would risk itself in the lands where they carry on their operations. They often have very heavy corresponding obligations, as will be seen in the case of one (the East Africa) where the obligations were too onerous for the company to discharge, though they were inseparable from its position. The charters of modern companies differ in two points strongly from those of the old: they contain clauses prohibiting any monopoly of trade, and they generally confer some special political rights directly under the control of the secretary of state. The political freedom of the old companies was much greater. In these charters state control has been made a distinguishing feature. It is to be exercised in almost all directions in which the companies may come into contact with matters political. Of course, it is inevitable in all disputes of the companies with foreign powers, and is extended over all decrees of the company regarding the administration of its territories, the taxation of natives, and mining regulations. In all cases of dispute between the companies and the natives the secretary of state is _ex officio_ the judge, and to the secretary of state (in the case of the South Africa Company) the accounts of administration have to be submitted for his approbation. It is deserving of notice that the British character of the company is insisted upon in each case in the charter which calls it into life. The crown always retains complete control over the company by reserving to itself the power of revoking the charter in case of the neglect of its stipulations. Special clauses were inserted in the charters of the British East Africa and South Africa Companies enabling the government to forfeit their charters if they did not promote the objects alleged as reasons for demanding a charter. This bound them still more strongly; and in the case of the South Africa Company the duration of the charter was fixed at twenty-five years.

The chartered company of these days is therefore very strongly fixed within limits imposed by law on its political action. As a whole, however, very remarkable results have been achieved. This may be attributed in no small degree to the personality of the men who have had the supreme direction at home and abroad, and who have, by their social position and personal qualities, acquired the confidence of the public. With the exception of the Royal Niger Company, it would be incorrect to say that they have been financially successful, but in the domain of government generally it may be said that they have added vast territories to the British empire (in Africa about 1,700,000 sq. m.), and in these territories they have acted as a civilizing force. They have made roads, opened facilities for trade, enforced peace, and laid at all events the foundation of settled administration. It is not too much to say that they have often acted unselfishly for the benefit of the mother country and even humanity. We may instance the anti-slavery and anti-alcohol campaigns which have been carried on, the latter certainly being against the immediate pecuniary interests of the companies themselves. It must, of course, be recognized that to a certain extent this has been done under the influence of the home government. The occupation of Uganda certainly, and of the Nigerian territory and Rhodesia probably, will prove to have been rather for the benefit of posterity than of the companies which effected it. In the two cases where the companies have been bought out by the state, they have had no compensation for much that they have expended. In fact, it would have been impossible to take into account actual expenditure day by day, and the cost of wars. To use the expression of Sir William Mackinnon, the shareholders have been compelled in some cases to "take out their dividends in philanthropy."

The existence of such companies to-day is justified in certain political and economic conditions only. It may be highly desirable for the government to occupy certain territories, but political exigencies at home will not permit it to incur the expenditure, or international relations may make such an undertaking inexpedient at the time. In such a case the formation of a chartered company may be the best way out of the difficulty. But it has been demonstrated again and again that, directly, the company's interests begin to clash with those of foreign powers, the home government must assume a protectorate over its territories in order to simplify the situation and save perhaps disastrous collisions. So long as the political relations of such a company are with savages or semi-savages, it may be left free to act, but directly it becomes involved with a civilized power the state has (if it wishes to retain the territory) to acquire by purchase the political rights of the company, and it is obviously much easier to induce a popular assembly to grant money for the purpose of maintaining rights already existing than to acquire new ones. With the strict system of government supervision enforced by modern charters it is not easy for the state to be involved against its will in foreign complications. Economically such companies are also justifiable up to a certain point. When there is no other means of entering into commercial relations with remote and savage races save by enterprise of such magnitude that private individuals could not incur the risk involved, then a company may be well entrusted with special privileges for the purpose, as an inventor is accorded a certain protection by law by means of a patent which enables him to bring out his invention at a profit if there is anything in it. But such privileges should not be continued longer than is necessary for the purpose of reasonably recompensing the adventurers. A successful company, even when it has lost monopoly or privileges, has, by its command of capital and general resources, established so strong a position that private individuals or new companies can rarely compete with it successfully. That this is so is clearly shown in the case of the Hudson's Bay Company as at present constituted. In colonizing new lands these companies often act successfully. They have proved more potent than the direct action of governments. This may be seen in Africa, where France and England have of late acquired vast areas, but have developed them with very different results, acting from the opposite principles of private and state promotion of colonization. Apart from national characteristics, the individual has far more to gain under the British system of private enterprise. A strong point in favour of some of the British companies has been that their undertakings have been practically extensions of existing British colonies rather than entirely isolated ventures. But a chartered company can never be anything but a transition stage of colonization; sooner or later the state must take the lead. A company may act beneficially so long as a country is undeveloped, but as soon as it becomes even semi-civilized its conflicts with private interests become so frequent and serious that its authority has to make way for that of the central government.

The companies which have been formed in France during recent years do not yet afford material for profitable study, for they have been subject to so much vexatious interference from home owing to lack of a fixed system of control sanctioned by government, that they have not been able, like the British, to develop along their own lines.

See also BORNEO; NIGERIA; BRIT. EAST AFRICA; RHODESIA; &c. The
following works deal with the subject of chartered companies
generally: Bonnassieux, _Les Grandes Compagnies de commerce_ (Paris,
1892); Chailly-Bert, _Les Compagnies de colonisation sous l'ancien
regime_ (Paris, 1898); Cawston and Keane, _The Early Chartered
Companies_ (London, 1896); W. Cunningham, _A History of British
Industry and Commerce_ (Cambridge, 1890, 1892); Egerton, _A Short
History of British Colonial Policy_ (London, 1897); J. Scott Keltie,
_The Partition of Africa_ (London, 1895); Leroy-Beaulieu, _De la
colonisation chez les peuples modernes_ (Paris, 1898); _Les Nouvelles
Societes anglo-saxonnes_ (Paris, 1897); MacDonald, _Select Charters
illustrative of American History, 1606-1775_ (New York, 1899); B.P.
Poore, _Federal and State Constitutions_, &c (Washington, 1877; a more
complete collection of American colonial charters); H.L. Osgood,
_American Colonies in the 17th Cent._ (1904-7); Carton de Wiart, _Les
Grandes Compagnies coloniales anglaises au 19me siecle_ (Paris, 1899).
Also see articles "Compagnies de Charte," "Colonies," "Privilege," in
_Nouveau Dictionnaire d'economie politique_ (Paris, 1892); and
article "Companies, Chartered," in _Encyclopaedia of the Laws of
England_, edited by A. Wood Renton (London, 1907-1909). (W. B. Du.)

CHARTERHOUSE. This name is an English corruption of the French _maison chartreuse_, a religious house of the Carthusian order. As such it occurs not uncommonly in England, in various places (e.g. Charterhouse-on-Mendip, Charterhouse Hinton) where the Carthusians were established. It is most familiar, however, in its application to the Charterhouse, London. On a site near the old city wall, west of the modern thoroughfare of Aldersgate, a Carthusian monastery was founded in 1371 by Sir Walter de Manny, a knight of French birth. After its dissolution in 1535 the property passed through various hands. In 1558, while in the possession of Lord North, it was occupied by Queen Elizabeth during the preparations for her coronation, and James I. held court here on his first entrance into London. The Charterhouse was then in the hands of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, but in May 1611 it came into those of Thomas Sutton (1532-1611) of Snaith, Lincolnshire. He acquired a fortune by the discovery of coal on two estates which he had leased near Newcastle-on-Tyne, and afterwards, removing to London, he carried on a commercial career. In the year of his death, which took place on the 12th of December 1611, he endowed a hospital on the site of the Charterhouse, calling it the hospital of King James; and in his will he bequeathed moneys to maintain a chapel, hospital (almshouse) and school. The will was hotly contested but upheld in court, and the foundation was finally constituted to afford a home for eighty male pensioners ("gentlemen by descent and in poverty, soldiers that have borne arms by sea or land, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, or servants in household to the King or Queen's Majesty"), and to educate forty boys. The school developed beyond the original intentions of its founder, and now ranks among the most eminent public schools in England. In 1872 it was removed, during the headmastership (1863-1897) of the Rev. William Haig-Brown (d. 1907), to new buildings near Godalming in Surrey, which were opened on the 18th of June in that year. The number of foundation scholarships is increased to sixty. The scholars are not now distinguished by wearing a special dress or by forming a separate house, though one house is known as Gownboys, preserving the former title of the scholars. The land on which the old school buildings stood in London was sold for new buildings to accommodate the Merchant Taylors' school, but the pensioners still occupy their picturesque home, themselves picturesque figures in the black gowns designed for them under the foundation. The buildings, of mellowed red brick, include a panelled chapel, in which is the founder's tomb, a fine dining-hall, governors' room with ornate ceiling and tapestried walls, the old library, and the beautiful great staircase.

CHARTER-PARTY (Lat. _charta partita_, a legal paper or instrument, "divided," i.e. written in duplicate so that each party retains half), a written, or partly written and partly printed, contract between merchant and shipowner, by which a ship is let or hired for the conveyance of goods on a specified voyage, or for a definite period. (See AFFREIGHTMENT.)

CHARTERS TOWERS, a mining town of Devonport county, Queensland, Australia, 82 m. by rail S.W. of Townsville and 820 m. direct N.N.W. of Brisbane. It is the centre of an important gold-field, the reefs of which improve at the lower depths, the deepest shaft on the field being 2558 ft. below the surface-level. The gold is of a very fine quality. An abundant water-supply is obtained from the Burdekin river, some 8 m. distant. The population of the town in 1901 was 5523; but within a 5 m. radius it was 20,976. Charters Towers became a municipality in 1877.

CHARTIER, ALAIN (c. 1392-c. 1430), French poet and political writer, was born at Bayeux about 1392. Chartier belonged to a family marked by considerable ability. His eldest brother Guillaume became bishop of Paris; and Thomas became notary to the king. Jean Chartier, a monk of St Denis, whose history of Charles VII. is printed in vol. iii. of _Les Grands Chroniques de Saint-Denis_ (1477), was not, as is sometimes stated, also a brother of the poet Alain studied, as his elder brother had done, at the university of Paris. His earliest poem is the _Livre des quatre dames_, written after the battle of Agincourt. This was followed by the _Debat du reveille-matin_, _La Belle Dame sans merci_, and others. None of these poems show any very patriotic feeling, though Chartier's prose is evidence that he was not indifferent to the misfortunes of his country. He followed the fortunes of the dauphin, afterwards Charles VII., acting in the triple capacity of clerk, notary and financial secretary. In 1422 he wrote the famous _Quadrilogue-invectif_. The interlocutors in this dialogue are France herself and the three orders of the state. Chartier lays bare the abuses of the feudal army and the sufferings of the peasants. He rendered an immense service to his country by maintaining that the cause of France, though desperate to all appearance, was not yet lost if the contending factions could lay aside their differences in the face of the common enemy. In 1424 Chartier was sent on an embassy to Germany, and three years later he accompanied to Scotland the mission sent to negotiate the marriage of Margaret of Scotland, then not four years old, with the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. In 1429 he wrote the _Livre d'esperance_, which contains a fierce attack on the nobility and clergy. He was the author of a diatribe on the courtiers of Charles VII. entitled _Le Curial_, translated into English (_Here foloweth the copy of a lettre whyche maistre A. Charetier wrote to his brother_) by Caxton about 1484. The date of his death is to be placed about 1430. A Latin epitaph, discovered in the 18th century, says, however, that he was archdeacon of Paris, and declares that he died in the city of Avignon in 1449. This is obviously not authentic, for Alain described himself as a _simple clerc_ and certainly died long before 1449. The story of the famous kiss bestowed by Margaret of Scotland on _la precieuse bouche de laquelle sont issus et sortis tant de bons mots et vertueuses paroles_ is mythical, for Margaret did not come to France till 1436, after the poet's death; but the story, first told by Guillaume Bouchet in his _Annales d'Aquitaine_ (1524), is interesting, if only as a proof of the high degree of estimation in which the ugliest man of his day was held. Jean de Masles, who annotated a portion of his verse, has recorded how the pages and young gentlemen of that epoch were required daily to learn by heart passages of his _Breviaire des nobles_. John Lydgate studied him affectionately. His _Belle Dame sans merci_ was translated into English by Sir Richard Ros about 1640, with an introduction of his own; and Clement Marot and Octavien de Saint-Gelais, writing fifty years after his death, find many fair words for the old poet, their master and predecessor.

See Mancel, _Alain Chartier, etude bibliographique et litteraire_, 8vo
(Paris, 1849); D. Delaunay's _Etude sur Alain Chartier_ (1876), with
considerable extracts from his writings. His works were edited by A.
Duchesne (Paris, 1617). On Jean Chartier see Vallet de Viriville,
"Essais critiques sur les historiens originaux du regne de Charles
VIII," in the _Bibl. de l'Ecole des Chartes_ (July-August 1857).

CHARTISM, the name given to a movement for political reform in England, from the so-called "People's Charter" or "National Charter," the document in which in 1838 the scheme of reforms was embodied. The movement itself may be traced to the latter years of the 18th century. Checked for a while by the reaction due to the excesses of the French Revolution, it received a fresh impetus from the awful misery that followed the Napoleonic wars and the economic changes due to the introduction of machinery. The Six Acts of 1819 were directed, not only against agrarian and industrial rioting, but against the political movement of which Sir Francis Burdett was the spokesman in the House of Commons, which demanded manhood suffrage, the ballot, annual parliaments, the abolition of the property qualification for members of parliament and their payment. The movement was checked for a while by the Reform Bill of 1832; but it was soon discovered that, though the middle classes had been enfranchised, the economic and political grievances of the labouring population remained unredressed. Two separate movements now developed: one socialistic, associated with the name of Robert Owen; the other radical, aiming at the enfranchisement of the "masses" as the first step to the amelioration of their condition. The latter was represented in the Working Men's Association, by which in 1838 the "People's Charter" was drawn up. It embodied exactly the same programme as that of the radical reformers mentioned above, with the addition of a demand for equal electoral districts.

In support of this programme a vigorous agitation began, the principal leader of which was Feargus O'Connor, whose irresponsible and erratic oratory produced a vast effect. Monster meetings were held, at which seditious language was occasionally used, and slight collisions with the military took place. Petitions of enormous size, signed in great part with fictitious names, were presented to parliament; and a great many newspapers were started, of which the _Northern Star_, conducted by Feargus O'Connor, had a circulation of 50,000. In November 1839 a Chartist mob consisting of miners and others made an attack on Newport, Mon. The rising was a total failure; the leaders, John Frost and two others, were seized, were found guilty of high treason, and were condemned to death. The sentence, however, was changed to one of transportation, and Frost spent over fourteen years in Van Diemen's Land. In 1854 he was pardoned, and from 1856 until his death on the 29th of July 1877 he lived in England. In 1840 the Chartist movement was still further organized by the inauguration at Manchester of the National Charter Association, which rapidly became powerful, being the head of about 400 sister societies, which are said to have numbered 40,000 members. Some time after, efforts were made towards a coalition with the more moderate radicals, but these failed; and a land scheme was started by O'Connor, which prospered for a few years. In 1844 the uncompromising spirit of some of the leaders was well illustrated by their hostile attitude towards the Anti-Corn-Law League. O'Connor, especially, entered into a public controversy with Cobden and Bright, in which he was worsted. But it was not till 1848, during a season of great suffering among the working classes, and under the influence of the revolution at Paris, that the real strength of the Chartist movement was discovered and the prevalent discontent became known. Early in March disturbances occurred in Glasgow which required the intervention of the military, while in the manufacturing districts all over the west of Scotland the operatives were ready to rise in the event of the main movement succeeding. Some agitation, too, took place in Edinburgh and in Manchester, but of a milder nature; in fact, while there was a real and widespread discontent, men were indisposed to resort to decided measures.

The principal scene of intended Chartist demonstration was London. An enormous gathering of half a million was announced for the 10th of April on Kennington Common, from which they were to march to the Houses of Parliament to present a petition signed by nearly six million names, in order by this imposing display of numbers to secure the enactment of the six points. Probably some of the more violent members of the party thought to imitate the Parisian mob by taking power entirely into their own hands. The announcement of the procession excited great alarm, and the most decided measures were taken by the authorities to prevent a rising. The procession was forbidden. The military were called out under the command of the duke of Wellington, and by him concealed near the bridges and other points where the procession might attempt to force its way. Even the Bank of England and other public buildings were put in a state of defence, and special constables, to the number, it is said, of 170,000, were enrolled, one of whom was destined shortly after to be the emperor of the French. After all these gigantic preparations on both sides the Chartist demonstration proved to be a very insignificant affair. Instead of half a million, only about 50,000 assembled on Kennington Common, and their leaders, Feargus O'Connor and Ernest Charles Jones, shrank from the responsibility of braving the authorities by conducting the procession to the Houses of Parliament. The monster petition was duly presented, and scrutinized, with the result that the number of signatures was found to have been grossly exaggerated, and that the most unheard-of falsification of names had been resorted to. Thereafter the movement specially called Chartism soon died out. It became merged, so far as its political programme is concerned, with the advancing radicalism of the general democratic movement.

CHARTRES, a city of north-western France, capital of the department of Eure-et-Loir, 55 m. S.W. of Paris on the railway to Le Mans. Pop. (1906) 19,433. Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure, on a hill crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in the surrounding country. To the south-east stretches the fruitful plain of Beauce, "the granary of France," of which the town is the commercial centre. The Eure, which at this point divides into three branches, is crossed by several bridges, some of them ancient, and is fringed in places by remains of the old fortifications, of which the Porte Guillaume (14th century), a gateway flanked by towers, is the most complete specimen. The steep, narrow streets of the old town contrast with the wide, shady boulevards which encircle it and divide it from the suburbs. The Clos St Jean, a pleasant park, lies to the north-west, and squares and open spaces are numerous. The cathedral of Notre-Dame (see ARCHITECTURE: _Romanesque and Gothic Architecture in France_; and CATHEDRAL), one of the finest Gothic churches in France, was founded in the 11th century by Bishop Fulbert on the site of an earlier church destroyed by fire. In 1194 another conflagration laid waste the new building then hardly completed; but clergy and people set zealously to work, and the main part of the present structure was finished by 1240. Though there have been numerous minor additions and alterations since that time, the general character of the cathedral is unimpaired. The upper woodwork was consumed by fire in 1836, but the rest of the building was saved. The statuary of the lateral portals, the stained glass of the 13th century, and the choir-screen of the Renaissance are all unique from the artistic standpoint. The cathedral is also renowned for the beauty and perfect proportions of its western towers. That to the south, the Clocher Vieux (351 ft. high), dates from the 13th century; its upper portion is lower and less rich in design than that of the Clocher Neuf (377 ft.), which was not completed till the 16th century. In length the cathedral measures 440 ft., its choir measures 150 ft. across, and the height of the vaulting is 121 ft. The abbey church of St Pierre, dating chiefly from the 13th century, contains, besides some fine stained glass, twelve representations of the apostles in enamel, executed about 1547 by Leonard Limosin. Of the other churches of Chartres the chief are St Aignan (13th, 16th and 17th centuries) and St Martin-au-Val (12th century). The hotel de ville, a building of the 17th century, containing a museum and library, an older hotel de ville of the 13th century, and several medieval and Renaissance houses, are of interest. There is a statue of General F.S. Marceau-Desgraviers (b. 1769), a native of the town.

The town is the seat of a bishop, a prefecture, a court of assizes, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, training colleges, a lycee for boys, a communal college for girls, and a branch of the Bank of France. Its trade is carried on chiefly on market-days, when the peasants of the Beauce bring their crops and live-stock to be sold and make their purchases. The game-pies and other delicacies of Chartres are well known, and the industries also include flour-milling, brewing, distilling, iron-founding, leather manufacture, dyeing, and the manufacture of stained glass, billiard requisites, hosiery, &c.

Chartres was one of the principal towns of the Carnutes, and by the Romans was called _Autricum_, from the river _Autura_ (Eure), and afterwards _civitas Carnutum_. It was burnt by the Normans in 858, and unsuccessfully besieged by them in 911. In 1417 it fell into the hands of the English, from whom it was recovered in 1432. It was attacked unsuccessfully by the Protestants in 1568, and was taken in 1591 by Henry IV., who was crowned there three years afterwards. In the Franco-German War it was seized by the Germans on the 21st of October 1870, and continued during the rest of the campaign an important centre of operations. During the middle ages it was the chief town of the district of Beauce, and gave its name to a countship which was held by the counts of Blois and Champagne and afterwards by the house of Chatillon, a member of which in 1286 sold it to the crown. It was raised to the rank of a duchy in 1528 by Francis I. After the time of Louis XIV. the title of duke of Chartres was hereditary in the family of Orleans.

See M.T. Bulteau, _Monographie de la cathedrale de Chartres_ (1887);
A. Pierval, _Chartres, sa cathedrale, ses monuments_ (1896); H.J.L.J.
Masse, _Chartres: its Cathedral and Churches_ (1900).

CHARTREUSE, a liqueur, so called from having been made at the famous Carthusian monastery, La Grande Chartreuse, at Grenoble (see below). In consequence of the Associations Law, the Chartreux monks left France in 1904, and now continue the manufacture of this liqueur in Spain. There are two main varieties of Chartreuse, the green and the yellow. The green contains about 57, the yellow about 43% of alcohol. There are other differences due to the varying nature and quantity of the flavouring matters employed, but the secrets of manufacture are jealously guarded. The genuine liqueur is undoubtedly produced by means of a distillation process.

CHARTREUSE, LA GRANDE, the mother house of the very severe order of Carthusian monks (see CARTHUSIANS). It is situated in the French department of the Isere, about 12-1/2 m. N. of Grenoble, at a height of 3205 ft. above the sea, in the heart of a group of limestone mountains, and not far from the source of the Guiers Mort. The original settlement here was founded by St Bruno about 1084, and derived its name from the small village to the S.E., formerly known as Cartusia, and now as St Pierre de Chartreuse. The first convent on the present site was built between 1132 and 1137, but the actual buildings date only from about 1676, the older ones having been often burnt. The convent stands in a very picturesque position in a large meadow, sloping to the S.W., and watered by a tiny tributary of the Guiers Mort. On the north, fine forests extend to the Col de la Ruchere, and on the west rise well-wooded heights, while on the east tower white limestone ridges, culminating in the Grand Som (6670 ft.). One of the most famous of the early Carthusian monks was St Hugh of Lincoln, who lived here from 1160 to 1181, when he went to England to found the first Carthusian house at Witham in Somerset; in 1186 he became bishop of Lincoln, and before his death in 1200 had built the angel choir and other portions of the wonderful cathedral there.

The principal approach to the convent is from St Laurent du Pont, a village situated on the Guiers Mort, and largely built by the monks--it is connected by steam tramways with Voiron (for Grenoble) and St Beron (for Chambery). Among the other routes may be mentioned those from Grenoble by Le Sappey, or by the Col de la Charmette, or from Chambery by the Col de Couz and the village of Les Echelles. St Laurent is about 5-1/2 m. from the convent. The road mounts along the Guiers Mort and soon reaches the hamlet of Fourvoirie, so called from _forata via_, as about 1510 the road was first pierced hence towards the convent. Here are iron forges, and here was formerly the chief centre of the manufacture of the famed Chartreuse liqueur. Beyond, the road enters the "Desert" and passes through most delightful scenery. Some way farther the Guiers Mort is crossed by the modern bridge of St Bruno, the older bridge of Parant being still visible higher up the stream. Here begins the splendid carriage road, constructed by M.E. Viaud between 1854 and 1856. It soon passes beneath the bold pinnacle of the Oeillette or Aiguillette, beyond which formerly women were not allowed to penetrate. After passing through four tunnels the road bends north (leaving the Guiers Mort which flows past St Pierre de Chartreuse), and the valley soon opens to form the upland hollow in which are the buildings of the convent. These are not very striking, the high roofs of dark slate, the cross-surmounted turrets and the lofty clock-tower being the chief features. But the situation is one of ideal peace and repose. Women were formerly lodged in the old infirmary, close to the main gate, which is now a hotel. Within the conventual buildings are four halls formerly used for the reception of the priors of the various branch houses in France, Italy, Burgundy and Germany. The very plain and unadorned chapel dates from the 15th century, but the cloisters, around which cluster the thirty-six small houses for the fully professed monks, are of later date. The library contained before the Revolution a very fine collection of books and MSS., now mostly in the town library at Grenoble.

The monks were expelled in 1793, but allowed to return in 1816, but then they had to pay rent for the use of the buildings and the forests around, though both one and the other were due to the industry of their predecessors. They were again expelled in 1904, and are dispersed in various houses in England, at Pinerolo (Italy) and at Tarragona (Spain). It is at the last-named spot that the various pharmaceutical preparations are now manufactured for which they are famous (though sold only since about 1840)--the _Elixir_, the _Boule d'acier_ (a mineral paste or salve), and the celebrated _liqueur_. The magnificent revenues derived from the profits of this manufacture were devoted by the monks to various purposes of benevolence, especially in the neighbouring villages, which owe to this source their churches, schools, hospitals, &c., &c., built and maintained at the expense of the monks.

See _La Grande Chartreuse par un Chartreux_ (Grenoble, 1898); H.
Ferrand, _Guide a la Grande Chartreuse_ (1889); and _Les Montagnes de
la Chartreuse_ (1899) (W. A. B. C.)

CHARWOMAN, one who is hired to do occasional household work. "Char" or "chare," which forms the first part of the word, is common, in many forms, to Teutonic languages, meaning a "turn," and, in this original sense, is seen in "ajar," properly "on char," of a door "on the turn" in the act of closing. It is thus applied to a "turn of work," an odd job, and is so used, in the form "chore," in America, and in dialects of the south-west of England.

CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND (1808-1873), American statesman and jurist, was born in Cornish township, New Hampshire, on the 13th of January 1808. His father died in 1817, and the son passed several years (1820-1824) in Ohio with his uncle, Bishop Philander Chase (1775-1852), the foremost pioneer of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the West, the first bishop of Ohio (1819-1831), and after 1835 bishop of Illinois. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1826, and after studying law under William Wirt, attorney-general of the United States, in Washington, D.C., was admitted to the bar in 1829, and removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1830. Here he soon gained a position of prominence at the bar, and published an annotated edition, which long remained standard, of the laws of Ohio. At a time when public opinion in Cincinnati was largely dominated by Southern business connexions, Chase, influenced probably by James G. Birney, associated himself after about 1836 with the anti-slavery movement, and became recognized as the leader of the political reformers as opposed to the Garrisonian abolitionists. To the cause he freely gave his services as a lawyer, and was particularly conspicuous as counsel for fugitive slaves seized in Ohio for rendition to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793--indeed, he came to be known as the "attorney-general of fugitive slaves." His argument (1847) in the famous Van Zandt case before the United States Supreme Court attracted particular attention, though in this as in other cases of the kind the judgment was against him. In brief he contended that slavery was "local, not national," that it could exist only by virtue of positive State Law, that the Federal government was not empowered by the Constitution to create slavery anywhere, and that "when a slave leaves the jurisdiction of a state he ceases to be a slave, because he continues to be a man and leaves behind him the law which made him a slave." In 1841 he abandoned the Whig party, with which he had previously been affiliated, and for seven years was the undisputed leader of the Liberty party in Ohio; he was remarkably skilful in drafting platforms and addresses, and it was he who prepared the national Liberty platform of 1843 and the Liberty address of 1845. Realizing in time that a third party movement could not succeed, he took the lead during the campaign of 1848 in combining the Liberty party with the Barnburners or Van Buren Democrats of New York to form the Free-Soilers. He drafted the famous Free-Soil platform, and it was largely through his influence that Van Buren was nominated for the presidency. His object, however, was not to establish a permanent new party organization, but to bring pressure to bear upon Northern Democrats to force them to adopt a policy opposed to the further extension of slavery.

In 1849 he was elected to the United States Senate as the result of a coalition between the Democrats and a small group of Free-Soilers in the state legislature; and for some years thereafter, except in 1852, when he rejoined the Free-Soilers, he classed himself as an Independent Democrat, though he was out of harmony with the leaders of the Democratic party. During his service in the Senate (1849-1855) he was pre-eminently the champion of anti-slavery in that body, and no one spoke more ably than he did against the Compromise Measures of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska legislation, and the subsequent troubles in Kansas, having convinced him of the futility of trying to influence the Democrats, he assumed the leadership in the North-west of the movement to form a new party to oppose the extension of slavery. The "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States," written by Chase and Giddings, and published in the New York _Times_ of the 24th of January 1854, may be regarded as the earliest draft of the Republican party creed. He was the first Republican governor of Ohio, serving from 1855 to 1859. Although, with the exception of Seward, he was the most prominent Republican in the country, and had done more against slavery than any other Republican, he failed to secure the nomination for the presidency in 1860, partly because his views on the question of protection were not orthodox from a Republican point of view, and partly because the old line Whig element could not forgive his coalition with the Democrats in the senatorial campaign of 1849; his uncompromising and conspicuous anti-slavery record, too, was against him from the point of view of "availability." As secretary of the treasury in President Lincoln's cabinet in 1861-1864, during the first three years of the Civil War, he rendered services of the greatest value. That period of crisis witnessed two great changes in American financial policy, the establishment of a national banking system and the issue of a legal tender paper currency. The former was Chase's own particular measure. He suggested the idea, worked out all of the important principles and many of the details, and induced Congress to accept them. The success of that system alone warrants his being placed in the first rank of American financiers. It not only secured an immediate market for government bonds, but it also provided a permanent uniform national currency, which, though inelastic, is absolutely stable. The issue of legal tenders, the greatest financial blunder of the war, was made contrary to his wishes, although he did not, as he perhaps ought to have done, push his opposition to the point of resigning.

Perhaps Chase's chief defect as a statesman was an insatiable desire for supreme office. It was partly this ambition, and also temperamental differences from the president, which led him to retire from the cabinet in June 1864. A few months later (December 6, 1864) he was appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court to succeed Judge Taney, a position which he held until his death in 1873. Among his most important decisions were _Texas v. White_ (7 Wallace, 700), 1869, in which he asserted that the Constitution provided for an "indestructible union composed of indestructible states," _Veazie Bank_ v. _Fenno_ (8 Wallace, 533), 1869, in defence of that part of the banking legislation of the Civil War which imposed a tax of 10% on state bank-notes, and _Hepburn_ v. _Griswold_ (8 Wallace, 603), 1869, which declared certain parts of the legal tender acts to be unconstitutional. When the legal tender decision was reversed after the appointment of new judges, 1871-1872 (Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace, 457), Chase prepared a very able dissenting opinion. Toward the end of his life he gradually drifted back toward his old Democratic position, and made an unsuccessful effort to secure the nomination of the Democratic party for the presidency in 1872. He died in New York city on the 7th of May 1873. Chase was one of the ablest political leaders of the Civil War period, and deserves to be placed in the front rank of American statesmen.