Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/453

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WAYZGOOSE—WAZIRISTAN
435

seven priests and seven almsmen at Caistor, Norfolk, into one for seven fellows and seven poor scholars at Magdalen. In the same year that college took possession of the alien priory of Sele, Sussex, the proceedings for the suppression of which had been going on since 1469. The new, now the old, buildings at Magdalen were begun the same year, the foundation-stone being laid in the middle of the high altar on the 5th of May 1474 (Wood, 207). Licences on the 1st of July, the 22nd of July 1477 and the 12th of February 1479, authorized additions to the endowment. On the 23rd of August 1480, the college being completed, the great west window being contracted to be made after the fashion of that at All Souls' College, a new president, Richard Mayhew, fellow of New College, was installed on the 23rd of August 1480, and statutes were promulgated. The foundation is commonly dated from this year and not from 1448, when Magdalen Hall was founded, though if not dated from 1448 it surely dates from 1458, when that hall and St John's Hospital were converted into Magdalen College. The statutes were for the most part a replica of those of New College, members of which were, equally with members of Magdalen, declared to be eligible for the presidency. They provided for a head and 70 scholars, but the latter were divided into 40 fellows and 30 scholars called demies, because their commons were half those of the fellows. Magdalen College School was established at the gates and as a part of the college, to be, like Eton, a free grammar school, free of tuition fees for all comers, under a master and usher, the first master being John Ankywyll, a married man, with a salary of £10 a year, the same as at Winchester and Eton. The renewal of interest in classical literature was shown in the prohibition of the study of sophistry by any scholar under the age of eighteen, unless he had been pronounced proficient in grammaticals. On the 22nd of September 1481 Waynflete received Edward IV. in state at the college, where he passed the night, and in July 1483 he received Richard III. there in even greater state, when Master William Grocyn, “the Grecian,” a fellow of New College, “responded,” in divinity. In 1484 Waynflete gave the college the endowment for a free grammar school at his name-place, Wainfleet, sufficient to produce for the chantry-priest schoolmaster £10 a year, the same salary as the headmaster of Magdalen School, and built the school which still exists almost untouched, a fine brick building with two towers, 76 ft. long by 26 ft. broad. The next year saw the appropriation to the college of the Augustinian Priory of Selborne, Hants.

On the 27th of April 1486, Waynflete, like Wykeham, made his will at their favourite manor, South or Bishop's Waltham. It is remarkable that he gives the same pecuniary bequests to Winchester and New Colleges as to his own college of Magdalen, but the latter he made residuary devisee of all his lands. He died on the 11th of May 1486, and was buried in the chantry chapel of St Mary Magdalen behind the high altar in Winchester cathedral, which he had erected in his lifetime. The effigy on it may be taken to be an authentic portrait.  (A. F. L.) 

WAYZGOOSE, a term for the annual dinner and outing of printers and their employés. The derivation of the term is doubtful. It may be a misspelling for “wasegoose,” from wase, Mid. Eng. for “sheaf,” thus meaning sheaf or harvest goose, the bird that was fit to eat at harvest-time, the “stubble-goose” mentioned by Chaucer in “The Cook's Prologue.” It is more probable that the merry-making which has become particularly associated with the printers' trade was once general, and an imitation of the grand goose-feast annually held at Waes, in Brabant, at Martinmas. The relations of England and Holland were formerly very close, and it is not difficult to believe that any outing or yearly banquet might have grown to be called colloquially a “Waes-Goose.” It is difficult to explain why the term should only have survived in the printing trade, though the English printers owed much to their Dutch fellow-workers. Certainly the goose has long ago parted company with the printers' wayzgoose, which is usually held in July, though it has no fixed season. An unlikely suggestion is that the original wayzgoose was a feast given by an apprentice to his comrades at which the bird formed the staple eatable.

WAZIR, or Vizier (Arabic wazir), a minister, usually the principal minister under a Mahommedan ruler. In India the nawab of Oudh was long known as the nawab wazir, the title of minister to the Mogul emperor having become hereditary in the family.

WAZIRABAD, a town of British India, in Gujranwala district of the Punjab, near the right bank of the river Chenab, 62 m. N. of Lahore. Pop. (1901) 18,069. It is an important railway junction. The main line of the North-Western railway here crosses the Chenab by the Alexandra bridge, opened by the prince of Wales in 1876. The branch to Sialkot has been extended to Jammu (51 m.); another branch follows the line of the Chenab canal towards Multan. Boat-building and manufactures of steel and iron are carried on.

WAZIRISTAN, a section of the mountain tract in the North-West Frontier Province of India, lying between the Tochi river on the north and the Gomal river on the south. The whole of Waziristan lies within the British sphere of influence, the boundary with Afghanistan having been demarcated in 1894. It forms two political agencies, but only a portion, consisting of the Tochi valley, with an area of about 700 sq. m. and a population (1903) of 24,670, is directly administered. Northern Waziristan has an area of about 2310 sq. m ., and southern Waziristan an area of about 2734 sq. m.

The Tochi and the Gomal rivers enclose Waziristan, their affluents rising to the west of that country in the upland valleys of Shawal and Birmal, and flowing north and south to a junction with the main streams. Between the two rivers stretches the central dominating range of Waziristan from north-east to south-west, geologically connected with the great limestone ranges of the Suhman hills to the south, and dominated by the great peaks of Shuidar (Sheikh Haidar) and Pirghal, both of them between 11,000 and 12,000 ft. above the sea, and hardly inferior to the Khaisargarh peak of the Takht-i-Suliman. From these peaks westwards a view is obtained across the grass slopes and cedar woods of Birmal and Shawal (lying thousands of feet below) to the long, serrated ridges of the central watershed which shuts off the plains of Ghazni. To the eastward several lines of drainage strike away for the Indus, breaking through parallel folds and flexures of the mountains, of which the conformation is here distinctly observable, although not so marked as it is south of the Gomal. These hues of drainage are, as usual, the main avenues of approach to the interior of the country. They are the Khaisora and the Shakdu on the north, which, uniting, join the Tochi south of Bannu, and the Tank Zam (which is also called Khaisor near its head) on the south. The two former lead from the frontier to Rasmak and Makin, villages of some local importance, situated on the slopes of Shuidar; and the latter leads to Kaniguram, the Waziri capital, and the centre of a considerable iron trade. Kaniguram lies at the foot of the Pirghal mountain.

Amongst the mountains of Waziristan there is much fine scenery and a delightful climate. Thick forests of ilex clothe many of the spurs, which reach down to the grassy deodar-covered uplands of Birmal on the west; and the spreading poplar attains in magnificent dimensions amongst the flats and plateaus of the eastern slopes. The indigenous trade of the country is inconsiderable, although Waziri iron is much esteemed. The agricultural products are poor, and the general appearance of the priest-ridden people is significant of the endurance of many hardships, even of chronic starvation. The most notable product of the country is the Waziri breed of horses and donkeys. The latter especially deserve to rank as the best of their kind on the Indian frontier, if not in all India.

The geological formation of Waziristan is the same as that of the contiguous frontier. Recent subaqueous deposits have been disturbed by a central upheaval of limestone; the lower hills are soft in composition and easily weather-worn, the slopes are rounded, and large masses of detritus have collected in the nullah beds and raised their level. Through these deposits heavy rain-floods have forced their way with many bends and curves to the plains, enclosing within each curve a “wam” or “raghza,” which slopes gradually to the hills and affords the only available space for irrigation and agriculture. A “wam” is a gently sloping open space, generally