BLOCKADE 68 BLODGET erate port. Thus during the long run across the Atlantic, they counted them- selves safe from capture because bound for a British port and in danger only during the short run from Nassau, for example, to the coast of Georgia or Florida. Similarly, small fast vessels loaded with Confederate cotton would slip out of port, often in a fog, and if they succeeded in eluding the blockading forces would make a dash for Nassau and there trans-ship their cargo to other vessels which then sailed for England, claiming immunity from capture as British ships bound from one British port to another. To meet this subter- fuge, the United States courts an- nounced the doctrine of "continuous voy- age," in which it was held that a cargo bound to or from a blockaded port did not lose the taint of violating the block- ade either by breaking its voyage at an intermediate port or by transfer to an- other vessel. This doctrine was ulti- mately accepted by the British authori- ties as sound and is now a recognized principle of international law. The pressure of a blockade, if con- ditions are such that it can be made complete, is often more compelling than the more directly exerted pressure of a military force. The blockade of the Confederacy during the Civil War prac- tically sealed every port from Wilming- ton, N. C, to the mouth of the Rio Grande; and the South, thus thrown back upon its own very limited agricul- tural, industrial, and financial resources, was reduced to submission, not alone, as is generally supposed, by the victories of the Northern armies, but to almost a greater degree by the pressure of the naval blockade. It was the blockade of Germany by the Allied navies, not the successes of the Allied armies, that gave the Allies the victory in the World War. In each case, four years was required to bring about the exhaustion of the blockaded country, but in each case the end was inevitable from the beginning. And it is by the threat of blockade, dis- guised under the term "economic pres- sure," that it is proposed, in the latest plan for woi'ld peace, to compel govern- ments to submit their grievances to ar- bitration. During the recent World War, the laws of blockade like those of "visit and search," "contraband of war," and many others of the laws of warfare on the sea as previously established in inter- national law, were modified arbitrarily to suit the convenience of the parties to the war, under the plea that changed conditions made it impracticable to ad- here to the old laws. It is true that many new conditions arose which had never been foreseen and that some devi- ation from the letter of the law became, if not altogether justifiable, at least ex- pedient and inevitable. It is to be hoped that a new Hague Conference may be assembled in the not distant future and new rules drawn up, if such are found desirable, covering many questions growing out of the war, and among them the question of blockade. BLOCK HOUSE, a fortified edifice of one or more stories, constructed chiefiy of blocks or hewn timber. Block houses are supplied with loopholes for musketry and sometimes with embrasures for can- non, and when of more than one story the upper ones are made to overhang those below, and are furnished with machicolations or loopholes in the over- hung floor, so that a perpendicular fire can be directed against the enemy in close attack. In the World War (1914- 1918) the Germans used concrete block houses in northern France to defend their front lines. BLOCK ISLAND, an island in the At- lantic off the coast of Rhode Island, to which it belongs: named from Adrian Block, a Dutch navigator who discovered it in 1616. There is a lighthouse at its S. E. extremity visible 21 miles. The island forms the township of New Shoreham, esteemed as a summer resort. BLOCK PRINTING the method of printing from wooden blocks (producing block books), as is still done in calico printing and in making wall paper. See Printing. BLOCK SYSTEM, in railroad parlance, the division of a railroad into a certain number of telegraphic districts, the dis- tance between which is determined by the amount of traflSc, each block station having signaling instruments by which the signal man can communicate with the operator on each side of him. When a train enters any block a semaphore signal is lowered, and no train is al- lowed to follow until the one in front has reached the end of the block, when the signal is raised and at the same time lowered for the block ahead, etc. The block systems used in Europe and in the United States generally employ mechan- ical and electrical devices for lowering and raising the signal. BLODGET, SAMUEL, an American in- ventor, born in Woburn, Mass., April 1, 1724. He took part in the French and Indian War; was a member of the ex- pedition against Louisburg, in 1745; and subsequently became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, in Hillsboro
