Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going now. They're in a band. -- Ira Kaplan
CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM (1824-1892), American man of letters, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on the 24th of February 1824, of old New England stock. His mother died when he was two years old. At six he was sent with his elder brother to school in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, where he remained for five years. Then, his father having again married happily, the boys were brought home to Providence, where they stayed till, in 1839, their father removed to New York. Three years later, Curtis, being allowed to determine for himself his course of life, and being in sympathy with the spirit of the so-called Transcendental movement, became a boarder at the community of Brook Farm. He was accompanied by his brother, James Burrill Curtis, whose influence upon him was strong and helpful. He remained there for two years, brought into stimulating and serviceable relations with many interesting men and women. Then came two years, passed partly in New York, partly in Concord in order mainly to be in the friendly neighbourhood of Emerson, and then followed four years spent in Europe, Egypt and Syria. Entry: CURTIS
HUTCHINSON, ANNE (c. 1600-1643), American religious enthusiast, leader of the "Antinomians" in New England, was born in Lincolnshire, England, about 1600. She was the daughter of a clergyman named Francis Marbury, and, according to tradition, was a cousin of John Dryden. She married William Hutchinson, and in 1634 emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, as a follower and admirer of the Rev. John Cotton. Her orthodoxy was suspected and for a time she was not admitted to the church, but soon she organized meetings among the Boston women, among whom her exceptional ability and her services as a nurse had given her great influence; and at these meetings she discussed and commented upon recent sermons and gave expression to her own theological views. The meetings became increasingly popular, and were soon attended not only by the women but even by some of the ministers and magistrates, including Governor Henry Vane. At these meetings she asserted that she, Cotton and her brother-in-law, the Rev. John Wheelwright--whom she was trying to make second "teacher" in the Boston church--were under a "covenant of grace," that they had a special inspiration, a "peculiar indwelling of the Holy Ghost," whereas the Rev. John Wilson, the pastor of the Boston church, and the other ministers of the colony were under a "covenant of works." Anne Hutchinson was, in fact, voicing a protest against the legalism of the Massachusetts Puritans, and was also striking at the authority of the clergy in an intensely theocratic community. In such a community a theological controversy inevitably was carried into secular politics, and the entire colony was divided into factions. Mrs Hutchinson was supported by Governor Vane, Cotton, Wheelwright and the great majority of the Boston church; opposed to her were Deputy-Governor John Winthrop, Wilson and all of the country magistrates and churches. At a general fast, held late in January 1637, Wheelwright preached a sermon which was taken as a criticism of Wilson and his friends. The strength of the parties was tested at the General Court of Election of May 1637, when Winthrop defeated Vane for the governorship. Cotton recanted, Vane returned to England in disgust, Wheelwright was tried and banished and the rank and file either followed Cotton in making submission or suffered various minor punishments. Mrs Hutchinson was tried (November 1637) by the General Court chiefly for "traducing the ministers," and was sentenced to banishment; later, in March 1638, she was tried before the Boston church and was formally excommunicated. With William Coddington (d. 1678), John Clarke and others, she established a settlement on the island of Aquidneck (now Rhode Island) in 1638. Four years later, after the death of her husband, she settled on Long Island Sound near what is now New Rochelle, Westchester county, New York, and was killed in an Indian rising in August 1643, an event regarded in Massachusetts as a manifestation of Divine Providence. Anne Hutchinson and her followers were called "Antinomians," probably more as a term of reproach than with any special reference to her doctrinal theories; and the controversy in which she was involved is known as the "Antinomian Controversy." Entry: HUTCHINSON
_Industry and Trade._--Delaware is pre-eminently an agricultural state. In 1900 85% of its total land surface was enclosed in farms--a slight decline since 1880. Seven-tenths of this was improved land, and the expenditure per farm for fertilizers, greater in 1890 than the average of the Atlantic states, approximated $55 per farm in 1900. In 1899 Delaware spent more per acre for fertilizers than any of the other states except New Jersey, Rhode Island and Maryland. The average size of farms, as in the other states, has declined, falling from 124.6 acres in 1880 to 110.1 acres in 1900. A large proportion of farms (49.7%) were operated by the owners, and the prevailing form of tenantry was the share system by which 42.5% of the farms were cultivated, while 8.24% of the farms were operated by negroes; these represented less than 4% of the total value of farm property, the average value of farms operated by negroes being $17 per acre, that of farms operated by whites, $23 per acre. The total value of farm products in 1900 was $9,190,777, an increase of 30% over that of 1890, while the cultivation of cereals suffered on account of the competition of the western states. Indian corn and wheat form the two largest crops, their product in 1900 being respectively 24% and 52% greater than in 1890; but these crops when compared with those of other states are relatively unimportant. In 1906 the acreage of Indian corn was 196,472 acres with a yield of 5,894,160 bushels valued at $2,475,547, and the acreage of wheat was 121,745 acres with a yield of 1,947,920 bushels valued at $1,383,023. The value of the fruit crop, for which Delaware has long been noted, also increased during the same decade, but disease and frost caused a marked decline in the production of peaches, a loss balanced by an increased production of apples, pears and other orchard fruits. Large quantities of small fruits, particularly of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, are produced, the southern portion of Sussex county being particularly favourable for strawberry culture. The vicissitudes of fruit raising have also caused increasing attention to be paid to market gardening, dairying and stock raising, particularly to market gardening, an industry which is favoured by the proximity of large cities. The same influence also explains, partly at least, the decrease (of 13%) in the value of farm property between 1890 and 1900. Entry: DELAWARE
LA FARGE, JOHN (1835-1910), American artist, was born in New York, on the 31st of March 1835, of French parentage. He received instruction in drawing from his grandfather, Binsse de St Victor, a painter of miniatures; studied law and architecture; entered the atelier of Thomas Couture in Paris, where he remained a short time, giving especial attention to the study and copying of old masters at the Louvre; and began by making illustrations to the poets (1859). An intimacy with the artist William M. Hunt had a strong influence on him, the two working together at Newport, Rhode Island. La Farge painted landscape, still life and figure alike in the early sixties. But from 1866 on he was for some time incapacitated for work, and when he regained strength he did some decorative work for Trinity church, Boston, in 1876, and turned his attention to stained glass, becoming president of the Society of Mural Painters. Some of his important commissions include windows for St Thomas's church (1877), St Peter's church, the Paulist church, the Brick church (1882), the churches of the Incarnation (1885) and the Ascension (1887), New York; Trinity church, Buffalo, and the "Battle Window" in Memorial Hall at Harvard; ceilings and windows for the house of Cornelius Vanderbilt, windows for the houses of W. H. Vanderbilt and D. O. Mills, and panels for the house of Whitelaw Reid, New York; panels for the Congressional Library, Washington; Bowdoin College, the Capitol at St Paul, Minn., besides designs for many stained glass windows. He was also a prolific painter in oil and water colour, the latter seen notably in some water-colour sketches, the result of a voyage in the South Seas, shown in 1895. His influence on American art was powerfully exhibited in such men as Augustus St Gaudens, Wilton Lockwood, Francis Lathrop and John Humphreys Johnston. He became president of the Society of American Artists, a member of the National Academy of Design in 1869; an officer of the Legion of Honour of France; and received many medals and decorations. He published _Considerations on Painting_ (New York, 1895), _Hokusai: A Talk about Hokusai_ (New York, 1897), and _An Artist's Letters from Japan_ (New York, 1897). Entry: LA
_Automatic Sprinklers._--Factories, warehouses and other buildings in which the fire risks are great, are sometimes fitted with automatic sprinklers which discharge water from the ceiling of a room as soon as the temperature rises to a certain point. Lines of pipes containing water under pressure are carried through the building near the ceilings at distances of 8 or 10 ft. apart, and to these pipes are attached sprinkler heads at intervals such that the water from them is distributed all over the room. The valves of the sprinklers are normally kept closed by a device the essential feature of which is a piece of fusible metal; this as soon as it is softened (at a temperature of about 160° F.) by the heat from an incipient fire, gives way and releases the water, which striking against a deflecting plate is spread in a shower. In situations where the water is liable to freeze, the ceiling pipes are filled only with air at a pressure of say 10 lb. per sq. in. When the sprinkler head opens under the influence of the heat from a fire, the compressed air escapes, and the consequent loss of pressure in the pipes is arranged to operate a system of levers that opens the water-valve of the main-feed pipe. The idea of automatic sprinklers is an old one, and a system was patented by Sir William Congreve in 1812; but in their present development they are specially associated with the name of Frederick Grinnell, of Providence, Rhode Island. Entry: A
The Providence church maintained a rather feeble existence after Williams's withdrawal, with Thomas Olney (d. 1682), William Wickenden, Chad Brown (d. 1665) and Gregory Dexter as leading members. A schism occurred in 1652, the last three with a majority of the members contending for general redemption and for the laying on of hands as indispensable to fellowship, Olney, with the minority, maintaining particular redemption and rejecting the laying on of hands as an ordinance. Olney's party became extinct soon after his death in 1682. The surviving church became involved in Socinianism and Universalism, but maintained a somewhat vigorous life and, through Wickenden and others, exerted considerable influence at Newport, in Connecticut, New York and elsewhere. Dexter became, with Williams and Clarke, a leading statesman in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Entry: 4
The first settlement on the site of Hartford was made by the Dutch from New Amsterdam, who in 1633 established on the bank of the Connecticut river, at the mouth of the Park river, a fort which they held until 1654. The township of Hartford was one of the first three original townships of Connecticut. The first English settlement was made in 1635 by sixty immigrants, mostly from New Town (now Cambridge), Massachusetts; but the main immigration was in 1636, when practically all the New Town congregation led by Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone joined those who had preceded them. Their settlement was called Newtown until 1637, when the present name was adopted from Hertford, England, the birthplace of Stone. In 1636 Hartford was the meeting-place of the first general court of the Connecticut colony; the Fundamental Orders, the first written constitution, were adopted at Hartford in 1639; and after the union of the colonies of New Haven and Connecticut, accomplished by the charter of 1662, Hartford became the sole capital: but from 1701 until 1873 that honour was shared with New Haven. At Hartford occurred in 1687 the meeting of Edmund Andros and the Connecticut officials (see CONNECTICUT). Hartford was first chartered in 1784, was rechartered in 1856 (the charter of that date has been subsequently revised), and in 1881 was made coterminous with the township of Hartford. The city was the literary centre of Federalist ideas in the latter part of the 18th century, being the home of Lemuel Hopkins, John Trumbull, Joel Barlow and David Humphreys, the leading members of a group of authors known as the "Hartford Wits"; and in 1814-1815 the city was the meeting-place of the famous Hartford Convention, an event of great importance in the history of the Federalist party. The War of 1812, with the Embargo Acts (1807-1813), which were so destructive of New England's commerce, thoroughly aroused the Federalist leaders in this part of the country against the National government as administered by the Democrats, and in 1814, when the British were not only threatening a general invasion of their territory but had actually occupied a part of the Maine coast, and the National government promised no protection, the legislature of Massachusetts invited the other New England states to join with her in sending delegates to a convention which should meet at Hartford to consider their grievances, means of preserving their resources, measures of protection against the British, and the advisability of taking measures to bring about a convention of delegates from all the United States for the purpose of revising the Federal constitution. The legislatures of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and town meetings in Cheshire and Grafton counties (New Hampshire) and in Windham county (Vermont) accepted the invitation, and the convention, composed of 12 delegates from Massachusetts, 7 from Connecticut, 4 from Rhode Island, 2 from New Hampshire and 1 from Vermont, all Federalists, met on the 15th of December 1814, chose George Cabot of Massachusetts president and Theodore Dwight of Connecticut secretary, and remained in secret session until the 5th of January 1815, when it adjourned _sine die_. At the conclusion of its work it recommended greater military control for each of the several states and that the Federal constitution be so amended that representatives and direct taxes should be apportioned among the several states "according to their respective numbers of free persons," that no new state should be admitted to the Union without the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, that Congress should not have the power to lay an embargo for more than sixty days, that the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of both Houses of Congress should be necessary to pass an act "to interdict the commercial intercourse between the United States and any foreign nation or the dependencies thereof" or to declare war against any foreign nation except in case of actual invasion, that "no person who shall hereafter be naturalized shall be eligible as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, nor capable of holding any civil office under the authority of the United States," and that "the same person shall not be elected president of the United States a second time; nor shall the president be elected from the same state two terms in succession." After making these recommendations concerning amendments the Convention resolved: "That if the application of these states to the government of the United States, recommended in a foregoing resolution, should be unsuccessful, and peace should not be concluded, and the defence of these states should be neglected, as it has been since the commencement of the war, it will, in the opinion of this convention, be expedient for the legislatures of the several states to appoint delegates to another convention, to meet at Boston in the state of Massachusetts on the third Thursday of June next, with such powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may require." The legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut approved of these proposed amendments and sent commissioners to Washington to urge their adoption, but before their arrival the war had closed, and not only did the amendments fail to receive the approval of any other state, but the legislatures of nine states expressed their disapproval of the Hartford Convention itself, some charging it with sowing "seeds of dissension and disunion." The cessation of the war brought increased popularity to the Democratic administration, and the Hartford Convention was vigorously attacked throughout the country. Entry: HARTFORD
HUDSON, a city and the county-seat of Columbia county, New York, U.S.A., on the E. side of the Hudson river, about 114 m. N. of New York City and about 28 m. S. of Albany. Pop. (1890) 9970; (1900) 9528, of whom 1155 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,417. It is served by the Boston & Albany, the New York Central & Hudson River and the (electric) Albany & Hudson railways, by river steamboats, and by a steam ferry to Athens and Catskill across the river. The city is picturesquely situated on the slope of Prospect Hill; and Promenade Park, on a bluff above the steamboat landing, commands a fine view of the river and of the Catskill Mountains. Among the public buildings and institutions are a fine city hall, the Columbia County Court House, a public library, a Federal building, a State Training School for Girls, a State Firemen's Home, an Orphan Asylum, a Home for the Aged and a hospital. The city's manufactures include hosiery and knit goods, Portland cement (one of the largest manufactories of that product in the United States being here), foundry and machine shop products, car wheels, ice tools and machinery, ale, beer, bricks and tiles and furniture. The value of the factory products in 1905 was $4,115,525, an increase of 58.1% over that in 1900. The municipality owns and operates the water-works. Hudson, which was originally known as Claverack Landing, was for many years merely a landing with two rude wharfs and two small storehouses, to which farmers in the neighbourhood brought their produce for shipment on the river. Late in 1783 the place was settled by an association of merchants and fishermen from Rhode Island, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The present name was adopted in 1784, and the city was chartered in 1785. For many years Hudson had a considerable foreign commerce and whaling interests, but these were practically destroyed by the war of 1812. Entry: HUDSON
These returns do not include mutual companies. The compilers of the _Insurance Year-Book_, however, obtain from the several state departments of insurance the reports of all companies made to them of the business done within each state; and from these it appears that in 1899, for example, 160 mutual companies assumed fire risks to the amount of $1,119,772,848. Many small local associations have made no returns, but their operations are too limited to materially affect the aggregate. It is noteworthy that while mutual companies transact less than 6% of the business of the whole country, yet in the state of Rhode Island, a densely peopled manufacturing community, they have more than 78%, and in Massachusetts nearly 24%; and that, while less than one-ninth of the insured property of the United States is situated in these two states, they contain nearly two-thirds of that which is insured by mutual associations. Entry: A
In the United States the sovereign powers are not all lodged in one place. Such of those powers as are not granted by the Constitution to the national government are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. The power to levy taxes for the support of public education has been almost universally held to be one of the powers so reserved. The inhabitants of the several local communities, however indisposed they may have been to relinquish absolute control of their own schools, have been compelled to yield to the authority of the state government whenever it has been asserted, for except under such authority no civil division--county, city, township, or school district--possesses the power to levy taxes for school purposes. Moreover, since the exercise of state authority has uniformly improved the quality of the schools, it has usually been welcomed, not resisted. In general, it may be said that the state has used its authority to prescribe a minimum of efficiency which schools and teachers must reach, and it enforces this minimum through inspection and the withholding of its proper share of the state school fund from any locality where schools or teachers are permitted to fall below the required standard. In extreme cases the state authorities have interfered directly to prevent the evil results of local inefficiency or contumacy. In addition, the states, almost without exception, maintain at their own expense schools for the training of teachers, known as normal schools. Many of the states also offer inducements to the cities, towns and districts to exceed the prescribed minimum of efficiency. Through the steady exercise of state supervision the school buildings have improved, the standard for entrance upon the work of teaching has been raised, the programme of studies has been made more effective and more uniform, and the length of the school term has increased. The Constitution of every state now contains some provision as to public education. Each state has an executive officer charged with the enforcement of the state school laws. Sometimes, as in New York, this official has plenary powers; sometimes, as in Massachusetts and Ohio, he is little more than an adviser. In twenty-nine states this official is known as the superintendent of public instruction; in Massachusetts and Connecticut he is called secretary of the state board of education; other titles used are commissioner of public schools, superintendent of common schools, and superintendent of public schools. The schools are administered, on behalf of the taxpayers, by an elected board of school trustees in rural school districts, and by an elected (though sometimes appointed) board of education or school committee in cities and towns. In 836 cities and towns there is a local superintendent of schools, who directs and supervises the educational work and acts as the executive officer of the board of education. The schools in the rural districts are under the direct supervision of a county superintendent of schools or similar official, who is often chosen by the people, but who sometimes is named by the state authorities. The county and city superintendents are often charged with the duty of holding examinations for entrance upon the work of teaching, and of issuing licences to those persons who pass the examinations. This system works best where it is carefully regulated by state law. Thirty states, one territory, and the District of Columbia have enacted compulsory education laws, but the enforcement of them is usually very lax. In fifteen states and territories there are no compulsory education laws, although there are in existence there fully organized school systems free to all children. The usual age during which school attendance is required is from 8 to 14. Provision is made in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan, for sending habitual truants to some special institution. Laws forbidding the employment of children under a specified minimum age in any mercantile or manufacturing establishment are in force in twelve states, and are usually administered in connexion with the compulsory education laws. Entry: A