Chapter VIII: Part 8

(a) CORNET or CORNETT (Fr. _cornet_, _cornet a bouquin_; Ger. _Zinck_, _Zincken_; Ital. _cornetto_) is the name given to a family of wood wind instruments, now obsolete, having a cup-shaped mouthpiece and a conical bore without a bell, and differing entirely from the modern cornet a pistons. The old cornets were of two kinds, the straight and the curved, characterized by radical differences in construction. There were two very different kinds of straight cornets (Ger. _gerader Zinck_, Ital. _cornetto diretto_ or _recto_), the one most commonly used having a detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece similar to that of the trumpet, while the other was made to all appearance without mouthpiece, there being not even a moulded rim at the end of the tube to break the rigid straight line. Examination of the tube, however, reveals the secret of the characteristic sweet tone of this latter kind of cornet; unsuspected inside the top of the tube is cut out of the thickness of the wood a mouthpiece, not cup-shaped, but like a funnel similar to that of the French horn, which merges gradually into the bore of the instrument. This mode of construction, together with the narrower bore adopted, greatly influenced the timbre of the instrument, whose softer tone was thus due mainly to the substitution of the funnel for the sharp angle of incidence at the bottom of the cup mouthpiece known as the throat (see MOUTHPIECE), where it communicates with the tube. It is this sharp angle, which in the other cornets with detachable mouthpiece, causes the column of air to break, producing a shrill quality of tone, while the wider bore and slightly rough walls of the tube account for the harshness. In Germany the sweet-toned cornet was known as _stiller_ or _sanfter Zinck_, and in Italy as _cornetto muto_ (fig. 1), while in France the instruments with detachable mouthpiece were distinguished by the addition of _a bouquin_ (= with mouthpiece). The curved cornet (Ger. _krummer Zinck_ or _Stadtkalb_; Ital. _cornetto curvo_) could not for obvious reasons have the bore pierced through a single piece of wood; the channel for the vibrating column of air was, therefore, hollowed out of two pieces of wood, the diameter increasing from the mouthpiece to the lower end. The two pieces of wood thus prepared were joined together with glue and covered with leather, the outer surface of the tube being finished off in octagonal shape. The separate mouthpiece, made indifferently of wood, horn, ivory or metal,[1] analogous to that of the trumpet, was distinctly cup-shaped and fixed by a tenon to the upper extremity of the pipe. The primitive instrument was an animal's horn.

FIG. 1.--Cornetto Muto.

FIG. 2.--Cornetto Curvo.]

Pipes of such short length give only, besides the first or fundamental, the second and sometimes the third note of the harmonic series. Thus a pipe that has for its fundamental A will, if the pressure of breath and tension of the lips be steadily increased, give the octave A and the twelfth E. In order to connect the first and second harmonics diatonically, the length of the pipe was progressively shortened by boring lateral holes through the tube for the fingers to cover. The successive opening of these holes furnished the instrumentalist with the different intervals of the scale, six holes sufficing for this purpose:

The fundamental was thus connected with its octave by all the degrees of a diatonic scale, which became chromatic by the help of cross-fingering and the greater or less tension of the lips stretched as vibrating reeds across the opening of the mouthpiece. This increased compass of twenty-seven notes obtained by cross-fingering is very clearly shown in a table by Eisel.[2] The fingering was completed by a seventh hole, which had for its object the production of the octave without the necessity of closing all the holes in order to produce the second note of the harmonic series. The first complete octave, thus obtained by a succession of fundamental notes, was easily octaved by a stronger pressure of breath and tension of the lips across the mouthpiece, and thus the ordinary limits of the compass of a _Zinck_ or cornet could be extended to a fifteenth. Whether straight or curved it was pierced laterally with seven holes, six through the front, and the seventh, that nearest the mouthpiece, through the back. The first three holes were usually covered with the third, second and first fingers of the right hand, the next four with the third, second and first fingers and the thumb of the left hand. But some instrumentalists inverted the position of the hands. Virdung[3] shows, besides the _cornetto recto_, a kind of _Zinck_ made of an animal's horn with only four holes, three in the front of the pipe and one at the back. Such an instrument as this had naturally a very limited compass, since these four holes only sufficed to produce the intermediate notes between the second and third proper tones of the harmonic scale, the lower octave comprised between the first and second remaining incomplete; by overblowing, however, the next octave would be obtained in addition.

At the beginning of the 17th century Praetorius[4] represents the
_Zincken_ as a complete family comprising: (1) the little _Zinck_ with
the lowest note , (2)
the ordinary _Zinck_ with the lowest note , (3) the great _Zinck_, _cornon_ or _corno
torto_, a great cornet in the shape of an
with the lowest note . In France[5] the family was composed of the following
instruments:

(1) The _dessus_ or treble cornet with the lowest note ;

(2) the _haute-contre_ or alto cornet with the lowest note
;

(3) the _taille_ or tenor cornet with the lowest note and the _basse_ or bass or _pedalle_[6]
cornet with the lowest note .

The cornets of the lowest pitch were sometimes furnished with an open
key which, when closed, lengthened the tube, and extended the compass
downwards by a note. Mersenne figures a _cornon_ with a key.

During the middle ages these instruments were in such favour that an
important part was given to them in all instrumental combinations. At
Dresden,[7] between 1647 and 1651, the Kapelle of the electoral prince
of Saxony included two cornets, the bass being supplied by the
trombone. Monteverde introduced two cornets in the 3rd and 4th acts of
his _Orfeo_ (1607). In France the charges for the _Chapelle-Musique_
of the kings of France for the year 1619 contain two entries of the
sum of 450 _livres tournois_, salary paid to one Marcel Cayty, _joueur
de cornet_, a post held by him from 1604 until at least 1631, when
another cornet player, Jean Daneau, is also mentioned.[8]

In Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries, _Zincken_ were used with
trombones in the churches to accompany the chorales. There are
examples of this use of the instrument in the sacred cantatas of J. S.
Bach, where the cornet is added to the upper voice parts to strengthen
them. Johann Mattheson, conductor of the opera at Hamburg, writing on
the orchestra in 1713[9] gives a description of the _Zinck_ as a
member of the orchestra, but in 1739,[10] in his work on the perfect
conductor, he deplores the decrease of its popularity in church music,
from which it seems to be banished as useless. Gluck was the last
composer of importance who scored for the cornet, as for instance in
_Orfeo_, in _Paride ed Elena_, in _Alceste_ and in _Armide_, &c. The
great vogue of the curved cornet is not to be accounted for by its
musical qualities, for it had a hard, hoarse, piercing sound, and it
failed utterly in truth of intonation; these natural defects,
moreover, could only be modified with great difficulty. Mersenne's
eulogium of the _dessus_, then more employed than the other cornets,
can only be appreciated at its full value if we look upon the art of
cornet playing as a lost art. "The _dessus_," he says, "was used in
the vocal concerts and to make the treble with the organ, which is
ravishing when one knows how to play it to perfection like the Sieur
Guiclet;" and again further on, "the character of its tone resembles
the brilliance of a sunbeam piercing the darkness, when it is heard
among the voices in churches, cathedrals or chapels."[11] Mersenne
further observes that the serpent is the true bass of the cornet, that
one without the other is like body without soul. A drawing in pen and
ink of a curved cornet is given by Randle Holme in his _Academy of
Armoury_ (1688);[12] and at the end of the description of the
instrument he adds, "It is a delicate pleasant wind musick, if well
played and humoured." Giovanni Maria Artusi[13] of Bologna, writing at
the end of the 16th century, devotes much space to the cornet,
explaining in detail the three kinds of tonguing used with the
instrument. By tonguing is understood a method of articulation into
the mouthpiece of flute, cornet a pistons or trumpet, of certain
syllables which add brilliance to the tone. Artusi advocates (1) for
the guttural effect, _ler, ler, ler, der, ler, der, ler_; _ter, ler,
ter_; _ler, ter, ler_; (2) for the tongue effect, _tere, tere, tere_;
(3) for the dental effect, _teche, teche, teche_, used by those who
wish to strike terror into the hearts of the hearers--an effect,
however, which offends the ear. A clue to the popularity of the
instrument during the middle ages may perhaps be found in Artusi's
remark that this instrument is the most apt in imitating the human
voice, but that it is very difficult and fatiguing to play; the
musician, he adds elsewhere, should adopt an instrument to imitate the
voice as much as possible, such as the cornetto and the trombone. He
mentions two players in Venice, Il Cavaliero del Cornetto and M.
Girolamo da Udine, who excelled in the art of playing the cornet.

Being derived from the horn of an animal through which lateral holes
had been pierced, the curved cornet was probably the earlier, and when
the instrument came to be copied in metal and in wood the straight
cornet was the result of an attempt to simplify the construction. The
evolution probably took place in Asia Minor, where tubes with conical
bore were the rule, and the instrument was thence introduced into
Europe. A straight _Zinck_, having a grotesque animal's head at the
bell-end, and six holes visible, is pictured in a miniature of the
11th century.[14] What appears to be precisely the same kind of
instrument, although differing widely in reality, the chaunter being
reed-blown, is to be found in illuminated MSS. as the chaunter of the
bagpipe, as for example in a royal roll of Henry III. at the British
Museum,[15] where it occurs twice played by a man on stilts. The
grotesque was probably added to the chaunter in imitation of that on
the straight _Zinck_. Two _stille Zincken_ or _cornetti muti_ are
among the musical instruments represented in the triumphal procession
of the emperor Maximilian I.[16] (d. 1519), designed at his command by
H. Burgmair under the superintendence of Albrecht Durer.

(b) CORNET A PISTONS, CORNET, CORNOPAEAN (Fr. _cornet a pistons_; Ger. _Cornett_; Ital. _cornetto_), are the names of a modern brass wind instrument of the same pitch as the trumpet. Being a transformation of the old post-horn, the cornet should have a conical bore of wide diameter in proportion to the length of tube, but in practice usually only a small portion of the tube is conical, i.e. from the mouthpiece to the slide of the first valve and from the slide of the third valve to the bell. The tube of the cornet is doubled round upon itself. The cup-shaped mouthpiece is larger than that of the trumpet; the shape of the cup in conjunction with the length of the tube and the proportions of the bore determines the timbre of the instrument. The outline of the bottom of the cup, where it communicates with the bore, is of the greatest importance.[17] If, as in the trumpet, it presents angles against which the column of air breaks, it produces a brilliant tone quality. In the cornet mouthpiece there are no angles at the bottom of the cup, which curves into the bore; hence the cornet's loose, coarse quality of tone. The sound is produced by stretching the lips across the mouthpiece, and making them act as double reeds, set in vibration by the breath. There are no fixed notes on the cornet as in instruments with lateral holes, or with keys; the musical scale is obtained by means of the power the performer possesses--once he has learned how to use it--of producing the notes of the harmonic series by overblowing, i.e. by varying the tension of the lips and the pressure of breath. In the cornet this series is short, comprising only the harmonics from the 2nd to the 8th:

cornet--the 7th is slightly flat, a defect which the performer corrects, if he uses the note at all.]

The intermediate notes completing the chromatic scale are obtained by means of three pistons which, on being depressed, open valves leading into supplementary wind-ways, which lengthen the original tube. The pitch of the instrument is thus lowered respectively one tone, half a tone, and one tone and a half. The action of the piston temporarily changes the key of the instrument and with it the notes of the harmonic series. Before a performer, therefore, can play a note he must know in which harmonic series it is best obtained and use the proper piston in conjunction with the requisite lip tension. By means of the pistons the compass of the cornet is thus extended from [graphic] to [graphic].

(The minims indicate the practical compass but the extension shown by the crotchets is possible to all good players.)]

The treble clef is used in notation, and in England the music for the cornet is usually written as sounded, but most French and German composers score for it as for a transposing instrument; for example, the music for the B[flat] cornet is written in a key one tone higher than that of the composition.

The _timbre_ of the cornet lies somewhere between that of the horn and the trumpet, having the blaring, penetrating quality of the latter without its brilliant noble sonorousness. The great favour with which the cornet meets is due to the facility with which it speaks, to the little fatigue it causes, and to the simplicity of its mechanism. We must, however, regret from the point of view of art that its success has been so great, and that it has ended in usurping in brass bands the place of the bugles, the tone colour of which is infinitely preferable as a foundation for an ensemble composed entirely of brass instruments. Even the symphonic orchestra has not been secure from its intrusion, and the growing tendency in some orchestras, notably in France, to allow the cornet to supersede the trumpet, to the great detriment of tone colour, is to be deplored. The cornet used in a rich orchestral harmony is of value for completing the chords of trumpets, or to undertake diatonic and chromatic passages which on account of their rapidity cannot easily be fingered by trombones or horns. The technical possibilities of the instrument are very great, almost unrivalled in the brass wind:--notes sustained, crescendo or diminuendo; diatonic and chromatic scale and arpeggio passages; leaps, shakes, and in fact all kinds of musical figures in any key, can be played with great facility on the three-valved cornet. Double tonguing is also practicable, the articulation with the tongue of the syllables _ti-ke_ for double, and of _ti-ke-ti_ for triple time producing a striking staccato effect.

Cornet with enharmonic valves (Besson & Co.).]

Cornet with strictly conical bore throughout, Klussmann's patent (Rudall, Carte & Co.)]

The cornet was evolved in Germany, at the beginning of the 19th century, from the post-horn, by the application of the newly invented pistons of Stoelzel and Bluemel patented in 1815. It was introduced into Great Britain and France about 1830. There were at first only two pistons--for a whole tone and for a half tone--from which there naturally resulted gaps in the chromatic scale of the instrument. The use of a combination of pistons (see BOMBARDON and VALVES) fails to give acoustically correct intervals, because the length of tubing thus thrown open is not of the theoretical length required to produce the interval. A tube about 4 ft. long, such as that of the B[flat] cornet, needs an additional length of about 3 in. to lower the pitch a semitone; but, if this cornet has already been lowered one tone to the key of A[flat], the length of tube has increased some 6 in., and the 3-in. semitone piston no longer adds sufficient tubing to produce a semitone of correct intonation. To the performer falls the task of concealing the shortcomings of his instrument, and he therefore corrects the intonation by varying the lip tension. At first the cornet was supplied with a great many crooks for A, A[flat], G, F, E, E[flat] and D, but from the explanation now given, it will be readily understood that they were found unpractical for valve instruments, and all but the first two mentioned have been abandoned. The history of the cornet is a record of the endeavours of successive musical instrument makers to overcome this inherent defect in construction. The most ingenious and successful of these improvements are the following:--(1) The _six-valve-independent system_[18] of Adolphe Sax, designed about 1850, by which a separate valve was used for each position, thus obviating the necessity of using combinations of pistons. This theoretically perfect system unfortunately introduced great difficulties in practice, the valves being made _ascending_ instead of _descending_, and each piston cutting off a definite length of wind-way from the open tube, instead of adding to it. The system was eventually abandoned. (2) The _Besson Registre_ giving eight independent positions, afterwards modified as the (3) _Besson compensating system transpositeur_, patented in England in 1859, which was considered so successful that the idea was extensively used by other makers. (4) The _Boosey automatic compensating piston_, invented by D. J. Blaikley, and patented in 1878, a very ingenious device whereby when two or more pistons are used simultaneously the length of the air column is automatically adjusted to the theoretical length required to ensure correct intonation. (5) Victor Mahillon's automatic regulating pistons (_pistons regulateur automatique_) produced about 1886, the result of independent efforts in the same direction as Blaikley, and equally ingenious and effectual.[19] Finally we have (6) more recently the _Besson enharmonic valve system_ (fig. 3) with three pistons and six independent tuning slides which give the seven positions independently, thus realizing in a simple effectual manner all that Sax strove to accomplish with his six pistons. The enharmonic valves give all notes theoretically true; there are in addition separate means for adjusting each of the first six lengths, for although these lengths are theoretically correct there are always certain modifying conditions connected with brass instruments which render it essential to provide means for adjustment. All notes being true on this Besson cornet, they can be fingered to the greatest advantage for smoothness and rapidity. (7) Rudall, Carte & Co.'s cornet (fig. 4), with strictly conical bore (Klussmann's patent) throughout the open tube and additional lengths from the mouthpiece to the bell, gives a perfect intonation and is at the same time easy to blow. There are no crooks to this cornet when constructed in B[flat], but it may be instantaneously transposed into the key of A major by means of an undetachable slide guided by a piston rod. (V. M.; K. S.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Marin Mersenne, _L'Harmonie universelle_ (Paris, 1636-1637),
bk. v., pp. 273-274.

[2] See Eisel's (Anon.) _Musicus [Greek: Autodidaktos], oder der sich
selbst informirende Musicus_ (Erfurt, 1738), p. 93 and table vi.

[3] Sebastian Virdung, _Musica getutscht und auszgezogen_ (Basel,
1511).

[4] Michael Praetorius, _Syntag. Music._, vol. ii. _De Organographia_
(Wolfenbuttel, 1618), pp. 25 and 41, pls. 8 and 13.

[5] See Mersenne, _loc. cit._

[6] See Ad. MS. 30342, Brit. Museum, fol. 145. A tract in French
containing pen and ink sketches of musical instruments, which dates
from the 17th or perhaps the 18th century, and was formerly in the
possession of the Jesuit college in Paris. Here the _pedalle_ is the
bass pommer, or _hautbois_, and the sackbut is indicated as second
bass or _basse-contre_. As also in Mersenne, the cornets are curved.

[7] See Moritz Furstenau, _Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am
Hofe zu Dresden_ (Dresden, 1861-1862), p. 28.

[8] See Michel Brenet, "Deux comptes de la Chapelle Musique des rois
de France," _Sammelband der Intern. Mus. Ges._, vi. 1 (Leipzig,
1904), pp. 20, 21, 29; and _Archives nationales_ (Paris), Z. Ia. 486.

[9] _Das neu-eroffnete Orchester_ (Hamburg, 1713), p. 253.

[10] _Der vollkommene Kapellmeister_ (Hamburg, 1739).

[11] See Mersenne, _op. cit._, bk. v., p. 274.

[12] Part of book iii. in MS. Harleian, 2034, fol. 207b. Brit.
Museum.

[13] _Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica_ (Venice, 1600), pp.
4, 5, 6 and 12b.

[14] Grafl. Schonborn Bibl. Pommersfelden, Cod. 2776, reproduced in
E. Buhle's _Die musikalischen Instrumente in den
Miniatur-Handschriften des Mittelalters_, part i. (Leipzig, 1903) pl.
6 and p. 24, where other references will be found.

[15] Royal Roll, 14 B. v. 13th century. See also Augustus
Hughes-Hughes, _Catalogue of MS. Music in the British Museum_, part
iii.

[16] See "Triumphzug des Kaisers Maximilians I.," _Beilage zum 1 sten
Bd. d. Jahrbuch der Samml. des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses_ (Vienna,
1883), part i. p. 26, and letterpress, Bd. i. pp. 154-181.

[17] See Victor Mahillon, _Elements d'acoustique musicale et
instrumentale_ (Brussels, 1874), pp. 96, 97, &c., with diagrams, and
Friedrich Zamminer, _Die Musik und die musikalischen Instrumente_,
&c. (Giessen, 1855), p. 310, &c., with diagrams.

[18] For a fuller description of this system see Capt. C. R. Day,
_Descriptive Catalogue of Musical Instruments_ (London, 1891), p.
207, No. 406.

[19] Id., pp. 192-193.

CORNETO TARQUINIA (anc. _Tarquinii_), a town of Italy, in the province of Rome, 62 m. N.W. by rail from the town of Rome, 490 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 5273. Corneto probably arose after the ancient town had been destroyed by the Saracens. In the 10th century it began to acquire importance, and for some time was an independent commune. It is picturesquely situated, and commands a fine view. It possesses medieval fortifications, and no less than twenty-five towers are still standing in various parts of the town, which thus has a remarkably medieval appearance. The castle on the N. contains the Romanesque church of S. Maria in Castello, begun in 1121, with a fine portal of 1143, a _ciborium_ of 1168 and a pulpit of 1209, both in "cosmatesque" work: the pavement in marble mosaic also is fine. There are several other Romanesque and Gothic churches in the town more or less restored. The oldest parts of the Palazzo Comunale date from about 1000. The Gothic Palazzo Vitelleschi (1439) contains remarkably rich windows. The municipal museum (which is to be transferred to this palace) and the Palazzo Bruschi, contain fine collections of Etruscan antiquities from the tombs of Tarquinii. Four miles to the S.W. is the Porto Clementino (perhaps the ancient _Graviscae_, the port of Tarquinii), with government saltworks, in which convicts are employed.

See L. Dasti, _Notizie storiche archeologiche di Tarquinia e Corneto_
(Rome, 1878); for the cemeteries, _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1906, 1907.

CORNICE (Fr. _corniche_, Ital. _cornice_), in architecture, the projection at the top of a wall, which is provided to throw off the rain water from the roof, beyond the face of the building. As employed in classic architecture it forms the upper part of the entablature of an order, and is there subdivided into bed mould, corona and cymatium. The term is also generally applied to any moulding projection which crowns the feature to which it is attached; thus doors and windows, internally as well as externally, have each their cornice, and the same applies to pieces of furniture (see also MASONRY).

CORNIFICIUS, the author of a work on rhetorical figures, and perhaps of a general treatise (_ars_, [Greek: techne]) on the art of rhetoric (Quintilian, _Instit._, iii. 1. 21, ix. 3. 89). He has been identified with the author of the four books of _Rhetorica_ dedicated to a certain Q. Herennius and generally known under the title of _Auctor ad Herennium_. The chief argument in favour of this identity is the fact that many passages quoted by Quintilian from Cornificius are reproduced in the _Rhetorica_. Jerome, Priscian and others attributed the work to Cicero (whose _De inventione_ was called _Rhetorica prima_, the _Auctor ad Herennium_, _Rhetorica secunda_), while the claims of L. Aelius Stilo, M. Antonius Gnipho, and Ateius Praetextatus to the authorship have been supported by modern scholars. But it seems improbable that the question of authorship will ever be satisfactorily settled. Internal indications point to the date of compositions as 86-82 B.C., the period of Marian domination in Rome. The unknown author, as may be inferred from the treatise itself, did not write to make money, but to oblige his relative and friend Herennius, for whose instruction he promises to supply other works on grammar, military matters and political administration. He expresses his contempt for the ordinary school rhetorician, the hair-splitting dialecticians and their "sense of inability to speak, since they dare not even pronounce their own name for fear of expressing themselves ambiguously." Finally, he admits that rhetoric is not the highest accomplishment, and that philosophy is far more deserving of attention. Politically, it is evident that he was a staunch supporter of the popular party.

The first and second books of the _Rhetorica_ treat of _inventio_ and forensic rhetoric; the third, of _dispositio_, _pronuntiatio_, _memoria_, deliberative and demonstrative rhetoric; the fourth, of _elocutio_. The chief aims of the author are conciseness and clearness (_breviter et dilucide scribere_). In accordance with this, he ignores all rhetorical subtleties, the useless and irrelevant matter introduced by the Greeks to make the art appear more difficult of acquisition; where possible, he uses Roman terminology for technical terms, and supplies his own examples of the various rhetorical figures. The work as a whole is considered very valuable. The question of the relation of Cicero's _De inventione_ to the _Rhetorica_ has been much discussed. Three views were held: that the Auctor copied from Cicero; that they were independent of each other, parallelisms being due to their having been taught by the same rhetorician at Rome; that Cicero made extracts from the _Rhetorica_, as well as from other authorities, in his usual eclectic fashion. The latest editor, F. Marx, puts forward the theory that Cicero and the Auctor have not produced original works, but have merely given the substance of two [Greek: technai] (both emanating from the Rhodian school); that neither used the [Greek: technai] directly, but reproduced the revised version of the rhetoricians whose school they attended, the introductions alone being their own work; that the lectures on which the Ciceronian treatise was based were delivered before the lectures attended by the Auctor.

The best modern editions are by C. L. Kayser (1860), in the Tauchnitz,
and W. Friedrich (1889), in the Teubner edition of Cicero's works, and
separately by F. Marx (1894); see also _De scholiis Rhetorices ad
Herennium_, by M. Wisen (1905). Full references to authorities will be
found in the articles by Brzoska in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie_
(1901); M. Schanz, _Geschichte der romischen Litt._, i. (2nd ed., pp.
387-394); and Teuffel-Schwabe, _Hist. of Roman Lit._ (Eng. trans., p.
162); see also Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, bk. iv. ch. 13.

CORNING, ERASTUS (1794-1872), American capitalist, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on the 14th of December 1794. In 1807 he became a clerk in a hardware store at Troy, New York, but in 1814 he removed to Albany, where he eventually became the owner of extensive ironworks, obtained a controlling interest in various banking institutions, and accumulated a large fortune. He was prominently connected with the early history of railway development in New York, became president of the Utica & Schenectady line, and was the principal factor in the extension and consolidation of the various independent lines that formed the New York Central system, of which he was president from 1853 to 1865. He was also interested in the building of the Michigan Central and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railways, and was president of the company which constructed the Sault Sainte Marie ship canal, providing a navigable waterway between Lakes Huron and Superior. He was prominent in politics as a Democrat, and, after serving as mayor of Albany from 1834 to 1837, and as state senator from 1842 to 1845, he was a representative in Congress in 1857-1859 and in 1861-1863, being re-elected for a third term in 1862, but resigning before the opening of the session. In 1861 he was a delegate to the Peace Congress, but when the Civil War actually began he loyally supported the Lincoln administration. He was a delegate to the New York constitutional convention of 1867, and was for many years vice-chancellor of the board of regents of the University of the State of New York. He died at Albany, New York, on the 9th of April 1872.

CORNING, a city of Steuben county, New York, U.S.A., in the S. part of the state, on the Chemung river, 10 m. W.N.W. of Elmira. Pop. (1890) 8550; (1900) 11,061, of whom 1410 were foreign-born; (1910) 13,730. Corning is served by the Erie, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the New York Central & Hudson River railways. Among the principal buildings and institutions are a fine city hall, a Federal building, a county court house, the Corning hospital, a free public library and St Mary's orphan asylum (Roman Catholic). Corning is one of the principal markets in New York state for tobacco, which is extensively produced in the surrounding country. The principal industry is the making of cut and flint glass, and, of the several extensive plants devoted to this industry, that of the Corning Glass Works is one of the largest in the world. The city also has railway car shops and foundries, and among its manufactures are pressed brick, tile and terra-cotta, papier-mache and lumber. The total value of the factory products in 1905 was $3,083,515, 35.7% more than in 1900. There were settlers on the site of Corning as early as 1789, but it was not until 1848 that it was incorporated as a village under its present name, given in honour of Erastus Corning, the railway builder. Corning was chartered as a city in 1890.

See C. H. M'Master, _History of the Settlement of Steuben County_
(Bath, N.Y., 1853).

CORN LAWS. In England, legislation on corn was early applied both to home and foreign trade in this essential produce. Roads were so bad, and the chain of home trade so feeble, that there was often scarcity of grain in one part, and plenty in another part of the same kingdom. Export by sea or river to some foreign market was in many cases more easy than the carriage of corn from one market to another within the country. The frequency of local dearths, and the diversity and fluctuation of prices, were thus extreme. It was out of this general situation that the first corn laws arose, and they appear to have been wholly directed towards lowering the price of corn. Exportation was prohibited, and home merchandise in grain was in no repute or toleration. As long as the rent of land, including the extensive domains of the crown, was paid in kind, the sovereign, the barons and other landholders had little interest in the price of corn different from that of other classes of people, the only demand for corn being for consumption and not for resale or export. But as rents of land came to be paid in money, the interest of the farmer to be distinguished by a remove from that of the landowner, the difference between town and country to be developed, and the business of society to be more complex, the ruling powers of the state were likely to be actuated by other views; and hence the force which corn legislation afterward assumed in favour of what was deemed the agricultural interest. But during four centuries after the Conquest the corn law of England simply was that export of corn was prohibited, save in years of extreme plenty under forms of state licence, and that producers carried their surplus grain into the nearest market town, and sold it there for what it would bring among those who wanted it to consume; and the same rule prevailed in the principal countries of the continent of Europe. This policy, though, as one may argue from its long continuance, probably not felt to be acutely oppressive, was of no avail in removing the evils against which it was directed. On the contrary it prolonged and aggravated them. The prohibition of export discouraged agricultural improvement, and in so much diminished the security and liberality even of domestic supply; while the intolerance of any home dealing or merchandise in corn prevented the growth of a commercial and financial interest strong enough to improve the means of transport by which the plenty of one part of the same country could have come to the aid of the scarcity in another.

English corn laws, 1436-1603.

Apart from this general feudal germ of legislation on corn, the history of the British corn laws may be said to have begun with the statute in the reign of Henry VI. (1436), by which exportation was permitted without state licence, when the price of wheat or other corn fell below certain prices. The reason given in the preamble of the statute was that the previous state of the law had compelled farmers to sell their corn at low prices, which was no doubt true, but which also showed the important turn of the tide that had set in. J. R. M'Culloch, in an elaborate article in the _Commercial Dictionary_, says that the fluctuation of the prices of corn in that age was so great, and beyond all present conception, that "it is not easy to determine whether the exportation price of 6s. 8d. for wheat" [12s. 10d. in present money per quarter] "was above or below the medium price." But while the medium price of the kingdom must be held to be unascertainable in a remote time, when the medium price in any principal market town of England did not agree with that of another for any year or series of years, one may readily perceive that the cultivators of the wheat lands in the south-eastern counties of England, for example, who could frequently have sold their produce in that age to Dutch merchants to better advantage than in their own market towns, or even in London, but were prohibited to export abroad, and yet had no means of distributing their supplies at home so as to realize the highest medium price in England, must have felt aggrieved, and that their barons and knights of the shire would have a common interest in making a strong effort to rectify the injustice in parliament. This object appears to have been in some measure accomplished by this statute, and twenty-seven years afterwards (1463) a decided step was taken towards securing to agriculturists a monopoly of the home market by a statute prohibitory of importation from abroad. Foreign import was to be permitted only at and above the point of prices where the export of domestic produce was prohibited. The landed interest had now adopted the idea of sustaining and equalizing the value of corn, and promoting their own industry and gains, which for four centuries, under various modifications of plan, and great changes of social and political condition, were to maintain a firm place in the legislation and policy of England. But there were many reasons why this idea, when carried into practice, should not have the results anticipated from it.

The import of grain from abroad, even in times of dearth and high prices at home, could not be considerable as long as the policy of neighbouring countries was to prohibit export; nor could the export of native corn, even with the Dutch and other European ports open to such supplies, be effective save in limited maritime districts, as long as the internal corn trade was suppressed, not only by want of roads, but by legal interdict. The regulation of liberty of export and import by rates of price, moreover, had the same practical objection as the various sliding-scales, bounties, and other legislative expedients down to 1846, viz. that they failed, probably more in that age than in later times, to create a permanent market, and aimed only at a casual trade. When foreign supplies were needed, they were often not to be found; and when there was an excess of corn in the country a profitable outlet was both difficult and uncertain. It would appear, indeed, that during the Wars of the Roses the statutes of Henry VI. and Edward IV. had become obsolete; for a law regulating export prices in identical terms of the law of 1436 was re-enacted in the reign of Philip and Mary (1554). In the preceding reign of Edward VI., as well as in the succeeding long reign of Elizabeth, there were unceasing complaints of the decay of tillage, the dearth of corn, and the privations of the labouring classes; and these complaints were met by the same kind of measures--by statutes encouraging tillage, forbidding the enlargement of farms, imposing severer restrictions on storing and buying and selling of grain, and by renewed attempts to regulate export and import according to prices. In 1562 the price at which export might take place was raised to 10s. per quarter for wheat, and 6s. 8d. for barley and malt. This only lasted a few years, and in 1570 the export of wheat and barley was permitted from particular districts on payment of a duty of 1s. 8d. per quarter, although still liable to prohibition by the government or local authority, while it was entirely prohibited under the old regulations from other districts. Only at the close of Elizabeth's reign (1603) did a spark of new light appear in a further statute, which removed the futile provisions in favour of tillage and against enlargement of pastoral farms, and rested the whole policy for promoting an equable supply of corn, while encouraging agriculture, on an allowed export of wheat and other grain at a duty of 2s. and 1s. 4d. when the price of wheat was not more than 20s., and of barley and malt 12s. per quarter. The import of corn appears to have been much lost sight of from the period of the statute of 1463. The internal state of England, as well as the policy of other countries of Europe, was unfavourable to any regular import of grain, though many parts of the kingdom were often suffering from dearth of corn. It is obvious that this legislation, carried over more than a century and a half, failed of its purpose, and that it neither promoted agriculture nor increased the supply of bread. So great a variance and conflict between the intention of statutes and the actual course of affairs might be deemed inexplicable, but for an explanation which a close economic study of the circumstances of the times affords.

Besides the general reasons of the failure already indicated, there were three special causes in active operation, which, though not seen at the period, have become distinct enough since. (1) A comparatively free export of wool had been permitted in England from time immemorial. It was subject neither to conditions of price nor to duties in the times under consideration, was easier of transport and much less liable to damage than corn, and, under the extending manufactures of France and the Low Countries, was sure of a foreign as well as a domestic market. Here was one description of rural produce on which there was the least embargo, and on which some reliance could be placed that it would in all circumstances bring a fair value; while corn, the prime rural produce, was subject as a commodity of merchandise to every difficulty, internally and externally, which meddling legislation and popular prejudice could impose. The numerous statutes enjoining tillage and discouraging pastoral farms--or in other words requiring that agriculturists should turn from what was profitable to what was unprofitable--had consequently no substantial effect, save in the many individual instances in which the effect may have been injurious. (2) The value of the standard money of the kingdom had been undergoing great depreciation from two opposite quarters at once. The pound sterling of England was reduced in weight of pure metal from L1: 18: 9 in 1436, the date of the first of the corn statutes, to 4s. 7-3/4d. in 1551, as far as can be estimated in present money, and to L1: 0: 6-3/4 under the restoration of the coinage in the following year. At the same time the greater abundance of silver, which now began to be experienced in Europe from the discovery of the South American mines, was steadily reducing the intrinsic value of the metal. Hence a general rise of prices remarked by Hume and other historians; and hence also it followed that a price of corn fixed for export or import at one period became always at another period more or less restrictive of export than had been designed. (3) The wages of labour would have followed the advance in the prices of commodities had wages been left free, but they were kept down by statute to the three or four pence per day at which they stood when the pound sterling contained one-fourth more silver, and silver itself was much more valuable. This was a refinement of cruelty. The feudal system was breaking up; a wage-earning population was rapidly increasing both in the farms and in the towns; but the spirit of feudalism remained, and the iron collar of serfdom was riveted round the necks of the labourers by these statutes many generations after they had become nominally freemen.[1] The result was chronic privation and discontent among the common people, by which all the conditions of agriculture and trade in corn were further straitened and barbarized; and an age, in some high respects among the most brilliant in the annals of England, was marked by an enormous increase of pauperism, and by the introduction of the merciful but wasteful remedy of the Poor Laws.

1660-1773.

The corn legislation of Elizabeth remained without change during the reign of James, the civil wars and the Commonwealth. But on the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, the question was resumed, and an act was passed of a more prohibitory character. Export and import of corn, while nominally permitted, were alike subjected to heavy duties--the need of the exchequer being the paramount consideration, while the agriculturists were no doubt pleased with the complete command secured to them in the home market. This act was followed by such high prices of corn, and so little advantage to the revenue, that parliament in 1663 reduced the duties on import to 9% _ad valorem_, while at the same time raising the price at which export ceased to 48s., and reducing the duty on export from 20s. to 5s. 4d. per quarter. In a few years this was found to be too much free-trade for the agricultural liking, and in 1670 prohibitory duties were re-imposed on import when the home price was under 53s. 4d., and a duty of 8s. between that price and 80s., with the usual make-weight in favour of home supply, that export should be prohibited when the price was 53s. 4d. and upwards. But complaints of the decline of agriculture continued to be as rife under this act as under the others, till on the accession of William and Mary, the landed interest, taking advantage of the Revolution as they had taken advantage of the Restoration to promote their own interests, took the new and surprising step of enacting a bounty on the export of grain. This evil continued to affect the corn laws of the kingdom, varied, on one occasion at least, with the further complication of bounties on import, until the 19th century. The duties on export being abolished, while the heavy duties on import were maintained, this is probably the most one-sided form which the British corn laws ever assumed, but it was attended with none of the advantages anticipated. The prices of corn fell, instead of rising. There had occurred at the period of the Revolution a depreciation of the money of the realm, analogous in one respect to that which marked the first era of the corn statutes (1436-1551), and forming one of the greatest difficulties which the government of William had to encounter. The coin of the realm was greatly debased, and as rapidly as the mint sent out money of standard weight and purity, it was melted down, and disappeared from the circulation. The influx of silver from South America to Europe had spent its action on prices before the middle of the century; the precious metals had again hardened in value; and for forty years before the Revolution the price of corn had been steadily falling in money price. The liberty of exporting wool had also now been cut down before the English manufactures were able to take up the home supply, and agriculturists were consequently forced to extend their tillage. When the current coin of the kingdom became wholly debased by clipping and other knaveries, there ensued both irregularity and inflation of nominal prices, and the producers and consumers of corn found themselves equally ill at ease. The farmers complained that the home-market for their produce was unremunerative and unsatisfactory; the masses of the people complained with no less reason that the money wages of labour could not purchase them the usual necessaries of life. Macaulay, in his _History of England_, says of this period, with little exaggeration, that "the price of the necessaries of life, of shoes, of ale, of oatmeal, rose fast. The labourer found that the bit of metal which, when he received it, was called a shilling, would hardly, when he purchased a pot of beer or a loaf of rye bread, go as far as sixpence." The state of agriculture could not be prosperous under these conditions. But when the government of William surmounted this difficulty of the coinage, as they did surmount it, under the guidance of Sir Isaac Newton, with remarkable statesmanship, it necessarily followed that prices, so far from rising, declined, because, for one reason, they were now denominated in a solid metallic value. The rise of prices of corn attending the first years of the export bounty was consequently of very brief duration. The average price of wheat in the Winchester market, which in the ten years 1600-1699 was L2: 10s., fell in the ten years 1716-1725 to L1: 5: 4, and in the ten years 1746-1755 to L1: 1: 2-3/4. The system of corn law established in the reign of William and Mary was probably the most perfect to be conceived for advancing the agricultural interest of any country. Every stroke of the legislature seemed complete to this end. Yet it wholly failed of its purpose. The price of wheat again rose in 1750-1760 and 1760-1770 to L1: 19: 3-1/4 and L2: 11: 3-3/4, but many causes had meanwhile been at work, as invariably happens in such economic developments, the operation of which no statutes could embrace, either to control or to prevent. Between the reign of William and Mary and that of George III., the question of bounty on export of grain had, in the general progress of the country, fallen into the background, while that of the heavy embargoes on import had come to the front. Therefore it is that Burke's Act of 1773, as a deliberate attempt to bring the corn laws into some degree of reason and order, is worthy of special mention. This statute permitted the import of foreign wheat at a nominal duty of 6d. when the home price was 48s. per quarter, and it stopped both the liberty to export and the bounty on export together when the home price was 44s. per quarter. The one blemish of this statute was the stopping export and cutting off bounty on export at the same point of price.

Few questions have been more discussed or more differently interpreted than the elaborate system of corn laws dating from the reign of William and Mary. So careful an observer as Malthus was of opinion that the bounty on export had enlarged the area of subsistence. That it had large operation is sufficiently attested by the fact that, in the years from 1740 to 1751, bounties were paid out of the exchequer to the amount of L1,515,000, and in 1749 alone they amounted to L324,000. But the trade thus forced was of no permanence, and the British exports of corn, which reached a maximum of 1,667,778 quarters in 1749-1750, had fallen to 600,000 quarters in 1760 and continued to decrease.

1791-1846.

Burke's Act lasted long enough to introduce a regular import of foreign grain, varying with the abundance or scarcity of the home harvest, yet establishing in the end a systematic preponderance of imports over exports. The period, moreover, was marked by great agricultural improvements, by extensive reclamation of waste lands, and by an increased home produce of wheat, in the twenty years from 1773 to 1793, of nearly 2,000,000 quarters. Nor had the course of prices been unsatisfactory. The average price of British wheat in the twenty years was L2: 6: 3, and in only three years of the twenty was the price a fraction under L2. But the ideas in favour of greater freedom of trade, of which the act of 1773 was an indication, and of which another memorable example was given in Pitt's commercial treaty with France, were overwhelmed in the extraordinary excitement caused by the French Revolution, and all the old corn law policy was destined to have a sudden revival. The landowners and farmers complained that an import of foreign grain at a nominal duty of 6d., when the price of wheat was only 48s., deprived them of the ascending scale of prices when it seemed due; and on this instigation an act was passed in 1791, whereby the price at which importation could proceed at the nominal duty of 6d. was raised to 54s., with a duty of 2s. 6d. from 54s. to 50s., and at 50s. and under 50s. a prohibitory duty of 24s. 3d. The bounty on export was maintained by this act, but exportation was allowed without bounty till the price reached 46s.; and the permission accorded by the statute of 1773 to import foreign corn at any price, to be reexported duty free, was modified by a warehouse duty of 2s. 6d. in addition to the duties on import payable at the time of sale, when the corn, instead of being re-exported, happened to be sold for home consumption. The legislative vigilance in this statute to prevent foreign bread from reaching the home consumer is remarkable. There were deficient home harvests for some years after 1791, particularly in 1795 and 1797, and parliament was forced to the new expedient of granting high bounties on importation. At this period the country was involved in a great war; all the customary commercial relations were violently disturbed; freight, insurance and other charges on import and export were multiplied fivefold; heavier and heavier taxes were imposed; and the capital resources of the kingdom were poured with a prodigality without precedent into the war channels. The consequence was that the price of corn, as of all other commodities, rose greatly: and the Bank of England having stopped paying in specie in 1797, this raised nominal prices still more under the liberal use of bank paper in loans and discounts, and the difference that began to be established in the actual value of Bank of England notes and their legal par in bullion.