BLATCHFORD
BLIND
in 1848. Blanqui was the leader of the
Commune of 1871. In all he served thirty-
seven years half his life in jail. He
was no less advanced in regard to religion.
" Neither god nor master " was his motto.
Blanqui was a profoundly sincere and high-
minded political enthusiast. D.Jan. 2, 1881.
BLATCHFORD, Robert, Socialist writer. B. Mar. 17, 1851. Ed. "nowhere" (he says). He was apprenticed in his boyhood to a brushmaker, but he joined the army and became a sergeant. Leaving the army in 1878, he worked for six years as a clerk, and in 1884 he turned to journalism. From 1885 to 1891 he was on the staff of the Sunday Chronicle. In the latter year he established the Clarion as the organ of his Socialist views. For the last twenty years Mr. Blatchford has been a powerful advo cate of Eationalism, especially in his God and My Neighbour (1903) and Not Guilty (1906), as well as in the columns of his paper. Determinism is one of the chief foundations of his social philosophy, and his bold and finely-written criticisms have been one of the main influences in with drawing British workers from clerical influence. The immense circulation of Haeckel s Riddle of the Universe among the workers is due in no small measure to his recommendation.
BLATHWAYT, Lieutenant - Colonel Linley, soldier. B. Sept. 7, 1839. Ed. Maiiborough College. He took service in the 79th Highlanders and with them passed through the Indian Mutiny Cam paign. He served with the Expeditionary Force in China 1860-62 and the Bhootan Expedition 1864-65. From 1865 to 1880 he was in Civil employ in Assam and Chutia-Nagpore. He retired from the Bengal Staff Corps in 1880, and settled for the remainder of his life at Batheaston. Colonel Blathwayt, who was an Agnostic and a member of the R. P. A., belonged to the Linnaean, the Entomological, the Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological, and the Somerset Archaelogical Societies. In 1891 81
he was President of the Bath Microscopical
Society. D. Sept. 17, 1919.
BLEIBTREU, Carl, German poet and critic. B. Jan. 13, 1859. Ed. Berlin University. Bleibtreu is a leading repre sentative of naturalism in German letters, and a writer of marked individuality in style and thought. His dramatic works were published in three volumes in 1889, and he has written about fifty further volumes (poetry, history, criticism, etc.). In his Die Vertreter des Jahrhunderts (2 vols., 1904) he premises that he will " offend all parties." He is, like G. B. Shaw, equally scornful of Materialism and Christianity.
B L E I N, Baron Ange Francois Alexandre, French general. B. Nov. 27, 1767. Ed. Military School, Paris. He entered the French Army in 1794, and served in all Napoleon s wars with great distinction. He was gazetted General of Brigade in 1815. Blein was dismissed at the Restoration, but was recalled to the Army as reaction approached its term in 1830. He wrote a number of military, scientific, and political works, and a volume of essays (Essais philosophiques, 1843), in which his Voltaireanism finds expression. His death, curiously enough, is not recorded in any of the French authorities.
BLIND, Karl, agitator. B. Sept. 4, 1826. Ed. Strassburg (law). He began while a university student to advocate extreme political opinions, was imprisoned in 1847 for circulating a work by Heinzen, and was one of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in 1848. Condemned in 1849 to eight years imprisonment, he was freed by the soldiers and people, and sent as representative to Paris. Napoleon expelled him from France, and he settled in London, taking an active part in the liberation move ment all over Europe, and publishing a number of works on mythology, history, etc. Blind disdainfully rejected all theology. D. May 31, 1907.
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