Page:EB1911 - Volume 17.djvu/303

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MADOU—MADRAS
  

on the Chautauqua model. Near the city is one of the five fish-hatcheries maintained by the state; it is largely devoted to the propagation of trout and other small fish. North of the city, occupying a tract of 500 acres, on Lake Mendota, are the buildings and grounds of the state hospital for the insane, opened in 1860.

The city’s streets are broad and heavily shaded with a profusion of elm, oak and maple trees. There are many fine stone residences dating from the middle of the 19th century. There are several parks of great beauty, and along the shores of Lake Mendota there is a broad boulevarded drive of 12 m. The municipality owns its waterworks, the water being obtained from eleven artesian wells, and being chemically similar to that of Waukesha Springs. The city and surrounding region are a summer resort, the lakes affording opportunities for fishing and for yachting and boating.

Madison is an important jobbing centre for central and south-western Wisconsin; it has an extensive trade in farm, garden and dairy products, poultry and tobacco; and there are various manufactures. In 1905 the value of the total factory product was $3,291,143, an increase of 22.4% over that in 1900.

At the time of the settlement by the whites the aboriginal inhabitants of the Four-Lakes region were the Winnebago. Prehistoric earthworks are to be seen in the neighbourhood, several animal-shaped mounds upon the shores of Lakes Mendota, Monona and Waubesa being among the best examples. A regular trading post is known to have been established on Lake Mendota as early as 1820. The title to the Indian lands was acquired by the United States by treaty in 1825. Colonel Ebenezer Brigham established himself at Blue Mounds, in the western part of Dane county, in 1827. In 1832 the “Four-Lakes” country was in the theatre of hostilities during the Black Hawk War; Colonel Henry Dodge held a conference with Winnebago chiefs on Lake Mendota, and there were several skirmishes in the neighbourhood between his troops and the followers of Black Hawk, one of which took place on the site of Madison. After Black Hawk’s defeat on the Bad Axe he fled to the Wisconsin river Dalles, near the present Kilbourn, where he was betrayed by the Winnebago. In 1836 Stevens T. Mason, governor of Michigan, and James Duane Doty, then U.S. district judge, who had visited the region as early as 1829, recorded a tract of land, including most of the present site of Madison. Here they surveyed a “paper” city which they named in honour of James Madison. On the 3rd of December 1836 the territorial legislature in session at Belmont, after a protracted and acrimonious debate, determined, largely through Doty’s influence, to make Madison the permanent capital. The construction of houses began in the early spring of 1837. The first constitutional convention met here in 1846, the second in 1847. Madison was chartered as a city in 1856. In 1862 a large number of Confederate prisoners were confined in Camp Randall, at Madison, and many of them died in hospital.

See D. S. Durrie, History of Madison, Wisconsin (Madison, 1874); Lyman C. Draper, Madison the Capital of Wisconsin (Madison, 1857); J. D. Butler, “The Four Lakes Country” in Wisconsin Historical Society Collections, vol. 10 (1888), and R. G. Thwaites, “Madison” in Historic Towns of the Western States (New York, 1900), and his “Story of Madison” in The University of Wisconsin (Madison, 1900).


MADOU, JEAN BAPTISTE (1796–1877), Belgian painter and lithographer, was born at Brussels on the 3rd of February 1796. He studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts and was a pupil of François. While draughtsman to the topographical military division at Courtrai, he received a commission for lithographic work from a Brussels publisher. It was about 1820 that he began his artistic career. Between 1825 and 1827 he contributed to Les Vues pittoresques de la Belgique, to a Life of Napoleon, and to works on the costumes of the Netherlands, and later made a great reputation by his work in La Physionomie de la société en Europe depuis 1400 jusqu’ à nos jours (1836) and Les Scènes de la vie des peintres. It was not until about 1840 that he began to paint in oils, and the success of his early efforts in this medium resulted in a long series of pictures representing scenes of village and city life, including “The Fiddler,” “The Jewel Merchant,” “The Police Court,” “The Drunkard,” “The Ill-regulated Household,” and “The Village Politicians.” Among his numerous works mention may also be made of “The Feast at the Château” (1851), “The Unwelcome Guests” (1852, Brussels Gallery), generally regarded as his masterpiece, “The Rat Hunt” (acquired by Leopold II., king of the Belgians), “The Arquebusier” (1860), and “The Stirrup Cup.” At the age of sixty-eight he decorated a hall in his house with a series of large paintings representing scenes from La Fontaine’s fables, and ten years later made for King Leopold a series of decorative paintings for the château of Ciergnon. Madou died at Brussels on the 31st of March 1877.

For a list of his paintings see the annual report of the Academy of Belgium for 1879.  (F. K.*) 


MADOZ, PASCUAL (1806–1870), Spanish statistician, was born at Pampeluna on the 7th of May 1806. In early life he was settled in Barcelona, as a writer and journalist. He joined the Progresista party formed during the first Carlist war, 1833–40. He saw some service against the Carlists; was elected deputy to the Cortes of 1836; took part for Espartero, and then against him; was imprisoned in 1843; went into exile and returned; was governor of Barcelona in 1854, and minister of finance in 1855; had a large share in secularizing the Church lands; and after the revolution of 1868 was governor of Madrid. He had, however, no great influence as a leader and soon went abroad, dying at Genoa in 1870. Madoz was distinguished from most of the politicians of his generation by the fact that in middle life he compiled what is still a book of value—a geographical, statistical and historical dictionary of Spain and its possessions oversea, Diccionario geográfico, estadístico y histórico de España, y sus posesiones de Ultramar (Madrid, 1848–1850).


MADRAS, a presidency of British India—officially styled Fort St George—occupying, with its dependencies, the entire south of the Indian peninsula. The north boundary is extremely irregular. On the extreme N.E. is the Bengal province of Orissa; then the wild highlands of the Central Provinces; next the dominions of the nizam of Hyderabad; and lastly, on the N.W., the Bombay districts of Dharwar and North Kanara. Geographically Mysore and Coorg lie within the bounds of Madras, and politically it includes the Laccadive Islands, off the Malabar coast, in the Indian Ocean. Its total area, including native states, is 151,695 sq. m., and its population in 1901 was 42,397,522, showing an increase of 7.7% in the decade. The seat of government is at Madras city (q.v.).

Physical Aspect.—The Madras presidency may be roughly divided into three tracts: (1) the long and broad east coast, (2) the shorter and narrower west coast, and (3) the high interior table-land. These divisions are determined by the great mountain ranges of the Eastern and Western Ghats (q.v.). Between these two ranges lies the central table-land, with an elevation of 1000 to 3000 ft., which includes the whole of Mysore, and extends over about half a dozen districts of Madras. The Anaimudi mountain (8837 ft.) in Travancore is the highest in southern India. The Nilgiri hills, which join the Ghats, culminate in Dodabetta (8760 ft.). There are besides many outlying spurs and tangled masses of hills, of which the Shevaroys, Anamalais and Palnis are the most important. The Godavari, Kistna and Cauvery rivers, each having a large tributary system, all rise in the Western Ghats, and run across the peninsula in a south-east direction into the Bay of Bengal. In the upper parts of their course they drain rather than water the country through which they flow, and are comparatively valueless either for navigation or irrigation; but before reaching the sea they spread over alluvial deltas. Smaller rivers of the same character are the Pennar and South Pennar or Ponniar, Palar, Vaigai, Vellar and Tambraparni. The principal lake is that of Pulicat on the east coast, which is 37 m. long from north to south, and forms an important means of communication between Madras city and the northern districts. On the west coast are a remarkable series of backwaters or lagoons, fringing the seaboard of Kanara, Malabar and Travancore. The largest is the backwater of Cochin, which extends 120 m. from north to south.