BASE-BALL (so-called from the bases and ball used), the national summer sport of the United States, popular also throughout Canada and in Japan. Its origin is obscure. According to some authorities it is derived from the old English game of rounders (_q.v._), several variations of which were played in America during the colonial period; according to other authorities, its resemblance to rounders is merely a coincidence, and it had its origin in the United States, probably at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839, when it is said, Abner Doubleday (later a general in the U.S. army) devised a scheme for playing it. About the beginning of the 19th century a game generally known as "One Old Cat" became popular with schoolboys in the North Atlantic states; this game was played by three boys, each fielding and batting in turn, a run being scored by the batsman running to a single base and back without being put out. Two Old Cat, Three Old Cat, and Four Old Cat were modifications of this game, having respectively four, six, and eight players. A development of this game bore the name of town-ball and the Olympic Town-Ball Club of Philadelphia was organized in 1833. Matches between organized base-ball clubs were first played in the neighbourhood of New York, where the Washington Baseball Club was founded in 1843. The first regular code of rules was drawn up in 1845 by the Knickerbocker Baseball Club and used in its matches with the Gotham Eagle and Empire clubs of New York, and the Excelsior, Putnam, Atlantic and Eckford clubs of Brooklyn. In 1858 the first National Association was organized, and, while its few simple laws were generally similar to the corresponding rules of the present code, the ball was larger and "livelier," and the pitcher was compelled to deliver it with a full toss, no approach to a throw being allowed. The popularity of the game spread rapidly, resulting in the organization of many famous clubs, such as the Beacon and Lowell of Boston, the Red Stockings of Cincinnati, the Forest City of Cleveland and the Maple Leaf of Guelph, but owing to the sharp rivalry between the foremost teams, semi-professionalism soon crept in, although in those days a man who played for a financial consideration always had some other means of livelihood, as the income to be derived from playing ball in the summer time was not enough to support him throughout the year. In spite of its popularity, the game acquired certain undesirable adjuncts. The betting and pool selling evils became prominent, and before long the game was in thorough disrepute. It was not only generally believed that the matches were not played on their merits, but it was known that players themselves were not above selling contests. At that time many of the journals of the day foretold the speedy downfall of the sport. A convention of those interested financially and otherwise in the game, was held in 1867 in Philadelphia, and an effort was made to effect a reformation. That the sport even then was by no means insignificant can be seen from the fact that in that convention some 500 organizations were represented. While the work done at the convention did not accomplish all that was expected, it did produce certain reforms, and the sport grew rapidly thereafter both in the eastern and in the middle western part of the United States. In the next five years the [v.03 p.0459] interest in the game became so great that it was decided to send a representation of American base-ball players to England; and two clubs, the Bostons, who were the champions that year, and the Athletics, former champions, crossed the Atlantic and played several exhibition games with each other. While successful in exciting some interest, the trip did not succeed in popularizing base-ball in Great Britain. Fifteen years later two other nines of representative American base-ball players made a general tour of Australia and various other countries, completing their trip by a contest in England. This too, however, had little effect, and later attempts to establish base-ball in England have likewise been unsuccessful. But in America the game continued to prosper. The first entirely professional club was the Cincinnati Red Stockings (1868). Two national associations were formed in 1871, one having jurisdiction over professional clubs and the other over amateurs. In 1876 was formed the National League, of eight clubs under the presidency of Nicholas E. Young, which contained the expert ball-players of the country. There were so many people in the United States who wanted to see professional base-ball that this organization proved too small to furnish the desired number of games, and hence in 1882 the American Association was formed. For a time it seemed that there would be room for both organizations; but there was considerable rivalry, and it was not until an agreement was made between the two organizations that they were able to work together in harmony. They practically controlled professional base-ball for many years, although there were occasional attempts to overthrow their authority, the most notable being the formation in 1890 of a brotherhood of players called the Players' League, organized for the purpose of securing some of the financial benefits accruing to the managers, as well as for the purpose of abolishing black-listing and other supposed abuses. The Players' League proved not sufficiently strong for the task, and fell to pieces. For some years the National League consisted of twelve clubs organized as stock companies, representing cities as far apart as Boston and St Louis, but in 1900 the number was reduced to eight, namely, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia and St Louis. Certain aggressive and dissatisfied elements took advantage of this change to organize a second great professional association under the presidency of B. B. Johnson, the "American League," of eight clubs, six of them in cities where the National League was already represented. Most of the clubs of both leagues flourish financially, as also do the many minor associations which control the clubs of the different sections of the country, among which are the Eastern League, the American Association, Western League, Southern Association, New England League, Pacific League and the different state leagues. Professional base-ball has not been free from certain objectionable elements, of which the unnecessary and rowdyish fault-finding with the umpires has been the most evident, but the authorities of the different leagues have lately succeeded, by strenuous legislation, in abating these. Of authorities on base-ball, Henry Chadwick (d. 1908) is the best known. Entry: BASE
_Communications._--Transportation facilities have been an important factor in the economic development of Illinois. The first European settlers, who were French, came by way of the Great Lakes, and established intimate relations with New Orleans by the Mississippi river. The American settlers came by way of the Ohio river, and the immigrants from the New England and Eastern states found their way to Illinois over the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. The first transportation problem was to connect Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river; this was accomplished by building the Illinois & Michigan canal to La Salle, at the head of the navigation on the Illinois river, a work which was begun in 1836 and completed in 1848 under the auspices of the state. In 1890 the Sanitary District of Chicago undertook the construction of a canal from Chicago to Joliet, where the new canal joins the Illinois & Michigan canal; this canal is 24 ft. deep and 160 ft. wide. The Federal government completed in October 1907 the construction of a new canal, the Illinois & Mississippi, popularly known as the Hennepin, from Hennepin to Rock river (just above the mouth of Green river), 7 ft. deep, 52 ft. wide (at bottom), and 80 ft. wide at the water-line. This canal provides, with the Illinois & Michigan canal and the Illinois river, an improved waterway from Chicago to the Mississippi river, and greatly increases the commercial and industrial importance of the "twin cities" of Sterling and Rock Falls, where the Rock river is dammed by a dam nearly 1500 ft. long, making the main feeder for the canal. This feeder, formally opened in 1907, runs nearly due S. to a point on the canal N.W. of Sheffield and N.E. of Mineral; there are important locks on either side of this junction. At the general election in November 1908 the people of Illinois authorized the issue of bonds to the amount of $20,000,000 to provide for the canalizing of the Desplaines and Illinois rivers as far as the city of Utica, on the latter river, and connecting with the channel of the Chicago Sanitary District at Joliet. The situation of Illinois between the Great Lakes and the Appalachian Mountains has made it a natural gateway for railroads connecting the North Atlantic and the far Western states. The first railway constructed in the West was the Northern-Cross railroad from Meredosia on the Illinois river to Springfield, completed in 1842; during the last thirty years of the 19th century Illinois had a larger railway mileage than any of the American states, her mileage in January 1909 amounting to 12,215.63 m., second only to that of Texas. A Railway and Warehouse Commission has authority to fix freight and passenger rates for each road. It is the oldest commission with such power in the United States, and the litigation with railways which followed its establishment in 1871 fully demonstrated the public character of the railway business and was the precedent for the policy of state control elsewhere.[3] Entry: ILLINOIS
_Industry and Commerce._--Chicago's situation at the head of the most south-western of the Great Lakes has given it great importance in trade and industry. The development of its extraordinary railway facilities was a recognition of its supreme advantages as the easiest outlet for the products of the Middle West, on whose wealth its prosperity is founded. The growth of its trade has been marvellous. The last years of the 19th century showed, however, an inevitable loss to Chicago in the growth of Duluth, Kansas City and other rivals in strategic situations. In particular, the struggle of the North and South railway lines in the Mississippi Valley to divert to ports on the Gulf of Mexico grain and other freight caused great losses to Chicago. An enormous increase in the cereal trade of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newport News and Norfolk was partly due to the traffic eastward over lines S. of Chicago. The traffic of the routes through Duluth and Canada does not, indeed, represent in the main actual losses, for the traffic is largely a new growth; but there has been nevertheless a considerable drain to these routes from American territory once tributary to Chicago. Altogether the competition of the Gulf roads and the lines running S.W. from Duluth had largely excluded Chicago by 1899 (according to her Board of Trade) from the grain trade W. of the Missouri river, and in conjunction with southerly E. and W. routes had made serious inroads upon trade E. of that river. Its facilities for receiving and distributing remain nevertheless unequalled, and it still practically monopolizes the traffic between the northern Atlantic seaboard and the West. New York alone, among American cities, has a greater trade. Chicago is the greatest railway centre, the greatest grain market, the greatest live-stock market and meat-packing centre, and the greatest lumber market of the world. The clearings of her 'associated banks amounted to $13,781,843,612 in the year 1909. The wholesale trade was estimated in 1875 at $293,900,000 and in 1905 at $1,781,000,000. The average annual grain receipts (including flour in wheat equivalent) in the five years 1900-1904 amounted to 265,500,000 bu. (12,902,310 in 1854; 72,369,194 in 1875), and the shipments to 209,862,966 bu. The first shipment of wheat was of 78 bu. in 1838. The grain elevators are among the sights of Chicago. They are enormous storehouses into which the grain is elevated from ships and cars, sorted into grades and reloaded for shipment; all the work is done by machinery. Their capacity in 1904 was 65,140,000 bu.[13] In the same quinquennial period, 1900-1904, the average yearly receipts of lumber aggregated 1,807,066,000 ft.,[14] and of shingles, 410,711 thousand; of cattle, 3,078,734; of hogs, 8,334,904; of sheep, 3,338,291; of butter, 239,696,921 lb; the exports of hides, 167,442,077 lb; of dressed beef, 1,126,995,490 lb; of lard, 410,688,319 lb; of pork, 191,371 bbl.; of other hog products, 600,503,394 lb. The combined tonnage in and out averaged 14,135,406 tons.[15] There is a large direct trade with Europe, mainly in goods that come in bond by rail from Atlantic ports. In 1907 the value of Chicago's imports was $27,058,662, and of its exports, $5,643,302. Entry: CHICAGO
In 1852 Thomson married Margaret, daughter of Walter Crum of Thornliebank, who died in 1870; and in 1874 he married Frances Anna, daughter of Charles R. Blandy of Madeira. In 1866, perhaps chiefly in acknowledgment of his services to trans-Atlantic telegraphy, Thomson received the honour of knighthood, and in 1892 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Kelvin of Largs. The Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order was conferred on him in 1896, the year of the jubilee of his professoriate. In 1890 he became president of the Royal Society, and he received the Order of Merit on its institution in 1902. A list of the degrees and other honours which he received during the fifty-three years he held his Glasgow chair would occupy as much space as this article; but any biographical sketch would be conspicuously incomplete if it failed to notice the celebration in 1896 of the jubilee of his professorship. Never before had such a gathering of rank and science assembled as that which filled the halls in the university of Glasgow on the 15th, 16th and 17th of June in that year. The city authorities joined with the university in honouring their most distinguished citizen. About 2500 guests were received in the university buildings, the library of which was devoted to an exhibition of the instruments invented by Lord Kelvin, together with his certificates, diplomas and medals. The Eastern, the Anglo-American and the Commercial Cable companies united to celebrate the event, and from the university library a message was sent through Newfoundland, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Florida and Washington, and was received by Lord Kelvin seven and a half minutes after it had been despatched, having travelled about 20,000 miles and twice crossed the Atlantic during the interval. It was at the banquet in connexion with the jubilee celebration that the Lord Provost of Glasgow thus summarized Lord Kelvin's character: "His industry is unwearied; and he seems to take rest by turning from one difficulty to another--difficulties that would appal most men and be taken as enjoyment by no one else.... This life of unwearied industry, of universal honour, has left Lord Kelvin with a lovable nature that charms all with whom he comes in contact." Entry: KELVIN
BOSTON, the capital of the state of Massachusetts, U.S.A., in Suffolk county; lat. 42° 21' 27.6" N., long. 71° 3' 30" W. Pop. (1900) 560,892, (197,129 being foreign born); (1905, state census) 595,580; (1910), 670,585. Boston is the terminus of the Boston & Albany (New York Central), the Old Colony system of the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and the Boston & Maine railway systems, each of which controls several minor roads once independent. The city lies on Massachusetts bay, on what was once a pear-shaped peninsula attached to the mainland by a narrow, marshy neck, often swept by the spray and water. On the north is the Charles river, which widens here into a broad, originally much broader, inner harbour or back-bay. The surface of the peninsula was very hilly and irregular, the shore-line was deeply indented with coves, and there were salt marshes that fringed the neck and the river-channel and were left oozy by the ebbing tides. Until after the War of Independence the primitive topography remained unchanged, but it was afterwards subjected to changes greater than those effected on the site of any other American city. The area of the original Boston was only 783 acres, but by the filling in of tidal flats (since 1804) this was increased to 1829 acres; while the larger corporate Boston of the present day--including the annexed territories of South Boston (1804), Roxbury (1868), Charlestown, Dorchester, Brighton and West Roxbury (1874)--comprehends almost 43 sq. m. The beautiful Public Garden and the finest residential quarter of the city--the Back Bay, so called from that inner harbour from whose waters it was reclaimed (1856-1886)--stand on what was once the narrowest, but to-day is the widest and fairest portion of the original site. Whole forests, vast quarries of granite, and hills of gravel were used in fringing the water margins, constructing wharves, piers and causeways, redeeming flats, and furnishing piling and solid foundations for buildings. At the edge of the Common, which is now well within the city, the British troops in 1775 took their boats on the eve of the battle of Lexington; and the post-office, now in the very heart of the business section of the city, stands on the original shore-line. The reclaimed territory is level and excellently drained. The original territory still preserves to a large degree its irregularity of surface, but its hills have been much degraded or wholly razed. Beacon Hill, so called from its ancient use as a signal warning station, is still the most conspicuous topographical feature of the city, but it has been changed from a bold and picturesque eminence into a gentle slope. After the great fire of 1872 it became possible, in the reconstruction of the business district, to widen and straighten its streets and create squares, and so provide for the traffic that had long outgrown the narrow, crooked ways of the older city. Atlantic Avenue, along the harbour front, was created, and Washington Street, the chief business artery, was largely remade after 1866. It is probable that up to 1875, at least, there had been a larger outlay of labour, material and money, in reducing, levelling and reclaiming territory, and in straightening and widening thoroughfares[1] in Boston, than had been expended for the same purposes in all the other chief cities of the United States together. Washington Street, still narrow, is perhaps the most crowded and congested thoroughfare in America. The finest residence streets are in the Back Bay, which is laid out, in sharp contrast with the older quarters, in a regular, rectangular arrangement. The North End, the original city and afterwards the fashionable quarter, is now given over to the Jews and foreign colonies. Entry: BOSTON
BIDDEFORD, a city of York county, Maine, U.S.A., on the Saco river, opposite Saco, and on the Atlantic Ocean, 15 m. S.W. of Portland. Pop. (1890) 14,443; (1900) 16,145, of whom 7,149 were foreign-born (mostly French Canadians); (census, 1910) 17,079. Biddeford is served by the Boston & Maine railway, and is connected by electric lines with Portland and with Old Orchard Beach, a popular summer resort north of the Saco river. The climate and the scenery in and about Biddeford attract summer visitors and there are two resorts, Biddeford Pool and Fortune Rocks within the municipal limits; but the city is chiefly a manufacturing centre (third in rank among the cities of the state in 1905)--good water-power being furnished by the river--and cotton goods, foundry and machine shop products and lumber are the principal products, the first being by far the most important. The value of the factory products increased from $5,472,254 in 1900 to $6,948,722 in 1905, or 27%. There are large quarries of granite of excellent quality. A permanent settlement was established on both sides of the river about 1630 under the leadership of Richard Vines (1585-1651) and was named Saco. In 1718 the present name was adopted. In 1762 that portion of Biddeford which lay east of the river was incorporated as the town of Pepperellborough, for which name Saco was substituted in 1805. Biddeford was incorporated as a city in 1855. Entry: BIDDEFORD
_History._--There are several theories as to the origin of the name of Glasgow. One holds that it comes from Gaelic words meaning "dark glen," descriptive of the narrow ravine through which the Molendinar flowed to the Clyde. But the more generally accepted version is that the word is the Celtic _Cleschu_, afterwards written Glesco or Glasghu, meaning "dear green spot" (_glas_, green; _cu_ or _ghu_, dear), which is supposed to have been the name of the settlement that Kentigern found here when he came to convert the Britons of Strathclyde. Mungo became the patron-saint of Glasgow, and the motto and arms of the city are wholly identified with him--"Let Glasgow Flourish by the Preaching of the Word," usually shortened to "Let Glasgow Flourish." It is not till the 12th century, however, that the history of the city becomes clear. About 1178 William the Lion made the town by charter a burgh of barony, and gave it a market with freedom and customs. Amongst more or less isolated episodes of which record has been preserved may be mentioned the battle of the Bell o' the Brae, on the site of High Street, in which Wallace routed the English under Percy in 1300; the betrayal of Wallace to the English in 1305 in a barn situated, according to tradition, in Robroyston, just beyond the north-eastern boundary of the city; the ravages of the plague in 1350 and thirty years later; the regent Arran's siege, in 1544, of the bishop's castle, garrisoned by the earl of Glencairn, and the subsequent fight at the Butts (now the Gallowgate) when the terms of surrender were dishonoured, in which the regent's men gained the day. Most of the inhabitants were opposed to Queen Mary and many actively supported Murray in the battle of Langside--the site of which is now occupied by the Queen's Park--on the 13th of May 1568, in which she lost crown and kingdom. A memorial of the conflict was erected on the site in 1887. Under James VI. the town became a royal burgh in 1636, with freedom of the river from the Broomielaw to the Cloch. But the efforts to establish episcopacy aroused the fervent anti-prelatical sentiment of the people, who made common cause with the Covenanters to the end of their long struggle. Montrose mulcted the citizens heavily after the battle of Kilsyth in 1645, and three years later the provost and bailies were deposed for contumacy to their sovereign lord. Plague and famine devastated the town in 1649, and in 1652 a conflagration laid a third of the burgh in ashes. Even after the restoration its sufferings were acute. It was the headquarters of the Whiggamores of the west and its prisons were constantly filled with rebels for conscience' sake. The government scourged the townsfolk with an army of Highlanders, whose brutality only served to strengthen the resistance at the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Brig. With the Union, hotly resented as it was at the time, the dawn of almost unbroken prosperity arose. By the treaty of Union Scottish ports were placed, in respect of trade, on the same footing as English ports, and the situation of Glasgow enabled it to acquire a full share of the ever-increasing Atlantic trade. Its commerce was already considerable and in population it was now the second town in Scotland. It enjoyed a practical monopoly of the sale of raw and refined sugars, had the right to distil spirits from molasses free of duty, dealt largely in cured herring and salmon, sent hides to English tanners and manufactured soap and linen. It challenged the supremacy of Bristol in the tobacco trade--fetching cargoes from Virginia, Maryland and Carolina in its own fleet--so that by 1772 its importations of tobacco amounted to more than half of the whole quantity brought into the United Kingdom. The tobacco merchants built handsome mansions and the town rapidly extended westwards. With the surplus profits new industries were created, which helped the city through the period of the American War. Most, though not all, of the manufactures in which Glasgow has always held a foremost place date from this period. It was in 1764 that James Watt succeeded in repairing a hitherto unworkable model of Newcomen's fire (steam) engine in his small workshop within the college precincts. Shipbuilding on a colossal scale and the enormous developments in the iron industries and engineering were practically the growth of the 19th century. The failure of the Western bank in 1857, the Civil War in the United States, the collapse of the City of Glasgow bank in 1878, among other disasters, involved heavy losses and distress, but recovery was always rapid. Entry: GLASGOW