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BOOTH — BOPPARD
and the Sandwich Islands, and those who had known him in the East were surprised when the news came that he had captivated his audiences with his brilliant acting. From this time forward his dramatic triumphs were warmly acknowledged. There was no dissenting voice. His Hamlet, Kichard, and Richelieu were pronounced to be superior to the performances of Edwin Forrest. In 1862 he became manager of the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, where he made a series of Shakespearean productions of then unexampled magnificence (1864-67), including “Hamlet,” “Othello,” and “The Merchant of Yenice.” In 1868-69 he built a splendid theatre of his own—Booth’s Theatre—and organized a stock company. The company was headed by such actors as Edwin Adams, Lawrence Barrett, Edwin L. Davenport, and J. W. Wallack, Jr., and was of extreme excellence. It gave splendid productions of “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Winter’s Tale,” “ Julius Caesar,” “ Macbeth,” “ Much Ado about Nothing,” “ The Merchant of Yenice,” and others. In all cases Booth used the original text of Shakespeare, thus antedating by many years a similar reform in England. Besides this, Booth’s theatre presented a series of attractions by the leading actors and companies of the United States. Almost invariably his ventures were successful; but he was of a generous and confiding nature, and his management was not economical. In 1874 the grand dramatic structure he had raised was taken from him, and with it went his entire fortune. By arduous toil, however, he again accumulated wealth, in the use of which his generous nature was shown. He converted his spacious residence in Gramercy Park, New York, into a club—The Players’—for the elect of his profession, and for such members of other professions as they might choose. The house, with all his books and works of art, and many invaluable mementos of the stage, became the property of the club. A single apartment he kept for himself. In this he died on 7th June 1891. Among his parts were Macbeth, Lear, Othello, lago, Shy lock, Wolsey, Richard II., Richard III., Benedick, Petruccio, Richelieu, Sir Giles Overreach, Brutus (Payne’s), Bertuccio (in Tom Taylor’s “ The Fool’s Revenge ”), Ruy Bias, Don Cesar de Bazan, and many more. His most famous part was Hamlet, for which his extraordinary grace and beauty and his eloquent sensibility peculiarly fitted him. He probably played the part oftener than any other actor before or since. He visited London in 1851, and again in 1880 and in 1882, playing at the Haymarket Theatre with brilliant success. In the last year he also visited Germany, where his acting was received with the highest enthusiasm. His last appearance was in Brooklyn as Hamlet in 1891. Edwin Booth’s prompt books were edited by William Winter, 1878. In a series of volumes, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and America, edited by Lawrence Hutton and Brander Matthews, Edwin Booth contributed recollections of his father, which contain much valuable autobiographic material. For the same series Lawrence Barrett contributed an eloquent article on Edwin Booth. Life and Art of Edwin Booth, by William Winter, 1893. Edwin Booth, by Lawrence Hutton, 1893. (J. J.*) Booth, William (1829 ), founder of the Salvation Army, was born at Nottingham on 10th April 1829. At the age of 15 his mind took a strongly religious turn, under the influence of the Wesleyan Methodists, in which body he became a local preacher in the year following. In 1849 he came to London, where, according to his own account, his passion for open-air preaching caused his severance from the Wesleyans. Joining the New Connexion, he was ordained a minister, but not being employed as he wished in active “ travelling evangelization,” left that body also. _ During this period he had married, and had now a family of four children.
Both he and his wife occupied themselves with preaching, first in Cornwall and then in Cardiff and Walsall. At the last-named place was first organized a “ Hallelujah band ” of converted criminals and others, who testified in public of their conversion. In 1864 William Booth went to London and continued his services in tents and in the open air, and founded a body which was successively known as the East London Revival Society, the East London Christian Mission, the Christian Mission, and (in 1878) the Salvation Army. The Army operates (1) by holding meetings out of doors, and marching singing through the streets, in harmony with law and order; (2) by visiting public-houses, gin-palaces, prisons, private houses, and speaking to and praying with all who can be got at; (3) by holding meetings in theatres and the other common resorts of those who prefer pleasure to God, and turning factories and other strange buildings into meeting-rooms; (4) by using the most popular song-tunes and the language of everyday life, &c.; (5) by making every convert a daily witness for Christ, both in public and private. The Army is divided into a quasi - military organization, and Booth modelled its “ Orders and Regulations ” on those of the British army. The “campaigns” of the Army excited violent opposition, a “ Skeleton Army” being organized to break up the meetings, and for many years Booth’s followers were subjected to fine and imprisonment as breakers of the peace. Since 1889, however, these disorders have been little heard of. The operations of the Army were extended in 1880 to the United States, in 1881 to Australia, and have since spread to the Continent, to India, Ceylon, and elsewhere. The wife of Mr Booth {nee Kate Mumford), whom he married in 1855, was actively associated with him in his work, more especially in preaching. In 1859 she published a pamphlet, entitled Female Teaching, in defence of women as preachers. Mrs Booth died in 1890. In 1890 Mr Booth attracted public attention by the publication of a work entitled In Darkest England, and the Way out, in which he proposed to remedy pauperism and vice by a series of ten expedients: (1) the city colony; (2) the farm colony; (3) the over-sea colony; (4) the household salvage brigade; (5) the rescue homes for fallen women; (6) deliverance for the drunkard; (7) the prison gate brigade; (8) the poor man’s bank; (9) the poor man’s lawyer; (10) Whitechapel-by-the-sea. The scheme was much criticized, and has not been fully carried out, though a very large amount of money, for which Mr Booth appealed to the public, was subscribed to start it. In the year ending 30th September 1899 the Salvation Army possessed 68,000 “ officers ”; and £52,000 was subscribed in Great Britain alone for its operations (apart from the “ Darkest England ” scheme). Boothia, or Boothia Felix, a peninsula of Franklin district, British North America, is situated between 69° 30' and 72° N. lat. and 91° 30' and 97° W. long. It includes an area of 13,100 square miles. Boothia Gul'f, in the Arctic ocean, situated between 85° and 94° W. long, and 67° and 72° N. lat., separates the north-western portion of Baffin Land and Melville Peninsula from Boothia Peninsula. It is connected with Lancaster Sound by Prince Regent Inlet, with Franklin Strait by Bellot Strait, and with Fox Channel by Fury and Hecla Strait. The principal bays are Committee and Pelly in the southern portion, and Lord Mayor in the western. Boppard, a town of Prussia, in the Rhine province, on the left bank of the Rhine, 12 miles S. of Coblenz, is an old town in part surrounded by mediaeval fortifications. Noteworthy buildings are the parish church (12th and 13th centuries); the Carmelite church (1318); the
