Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 02.djvu/500

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CHARTER OAK 486 CHASE poor brethren must be over 50 years of age, and members of the Church of England. The Charterhouse School has been removed to new buildings near Godalming in Surrey, while the non- academic department of the Charter- house still remains in the old buildings. The school has a high reputation, and many lads are educated there other than the scholars properly so called. Several of the famous men who have received their education at the Charter-house are Isaac Barrow, Addison, Steele, John Wesley, Blackstone, Grote, Thirlwall, Havelock, John Leech and Thackeray. CHARTER OAK, a tree which for- merly stood in Hartford, Conn., in the hollow trunk of which the colonial char- ter is said to have been hidden. The story is that when Governor Andros went to Hartford in 1687 to demand the surrender of the charter, the debate in the Assembly over his demand was pro- longed until darkness set in, when the lights were suddenly extinguished, and a patriot, Captain Wadsworth, escaped with the document and hid it in the oak. The venerable tree was preserved with great care until 1856, when it was blown down in a storm. CHARTERS TOWERS, a mining town- ship of Queensland, Australia, on the N. spurs of the Towers Mountain, 820 miles N. W. of Brisbane. It dates from the gold discovery here of 1871-1872, and was incorporated in 1877. It has rail- way connection with Townsville on the coast and is in the center of rich gold fields. Pop. about 18,000. CHARTIST, a name given to a politi- cal party in England whose views were embodied in a document called the "People's Charter." The chief points were universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, payment of mem- bers, equal electoral divisions, and the abolition of property qualification for members. These principles were set out in a bill prepared in 1838. The party became divided in the following year, the extreme members advocating the em- ployment of force for the attainment of their object. These were known as Physical Force Chartists. The rise of the Chartists was in large measure pro- duced by distress, and with rising wages and cheapening food, the movement died away. Some of the most important points of the Charter, and notably household suffrage and vote by ballot, have been accepted by the Legislature and are the law of the land. CHARTRES (shiir'tr) , a town and cap- ital of the department of Eure-et-Loire, France, on the Eure, 48 miles S. W. of Paris. The cathedral is reckoned one ol the finest Gothic buildings in France. The town has one of the most important com markets in the country, and man- ufactures hosiery, hats, and leather. This is a very ancient city, being ac- counted, before the Roman conquest, as the capital of Celtic Gaul. Henry IV. was crowned here in 1594. Pop. about 25,000. CHARTRES, ROBERT PHILIPPE LQXriS EUGfiNE FERDINAND D'OR- LEANS (DUC DE) grandson of Louis Philippe, King of the French, was born in Paris, Nov. 9, 1840. When only two years old he lost his father, and six years later the Revolution drove him, along with his family, into exile. The young duke was brought up in England, and joined the Union army in the first campaign of the American Civil War, in 1862. He married, June 11, 1863, Fran^oise Marie Am^lie d'Orleans, daughter of the Prince de Joinville. He died Dec. 5, 1910. CHARTREUSE, LA GRANDE (shar- trez'), a famous monastery of France, in the department of Isere, 14 miles N. of Grenoble, among lofty mountains, at an elevation of 3,281 feet above sea-level. The access to it is very difficult. It was built in 1084, but having been several times pillaged and burnt down, the pres- ent building was erected after 1676. It is of vast extent, and cost an immense sum. During the Revolution, the monks were driven out, and their property, in- cluding a valuable library, confiscated and sold; but in 1826, the building, which had escaped the revolutionary tempest, was restored to its original des- tination, and was the chief monastery of the Carthusians until 1903, when the monks, as the result of the new Law of Associations of 1901, were expelled from France. The inmates, about 30 in number, derived their principal subsist- ence from the sale of the celebrated liqueur, which they manufactured under the name of Chartreuse, and in the com- position of which enter many aromatic herbs. CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND, an American jurist, born in Cornish, N. H., Jan. 13, 1808; educated at Windsor, Vt., in his uncle's family at Columbus, O., and in Dartmouth College; taught school in Washington, while studying law with William Wirt; opened law practice in Cincinnati, where he edited the "Ohio Statutes," and came to public notice. In 1846 he argued the Fugitive Slave Law with William H. Seward, in a celebrated case, and his support of the anti-slavery cause soon made him the leader of the