CURRIE, SIR DONALD (1825–1909), British shipowner, was born at Greenock on the 17th of September 1825. At a very early age he was employed in the office of a shipowner in that port, but at the age of eighteen left Scotland for Liverpool, where shipping business offered more scope. By a fortunate chance he attracted the notice of the chief partner in the newly started Cunard steamship line, who found him a post in that company. In 1849 the Cunard Company started a service between Havre and Liverpool to connect with their transatlantic service. Currie was appointed Cunard agent at Havre and Paris, and secured for his firm a large share of the freight traffic between France and the United States. About 1856 he returned to Liverpool, where till 1862 he held an important position at the Cunard Company’s headquarters. In 1862 he determined to strike out for himself, and leaving the Cunard established the “Castle” line of sailing-ships between Liverpool and Calcutta. Business prospered, but in 1864 Currie found it profitable to substitute London for Liverpool as the home port of his vessels, and himself settled in London. In 1872 he came to the conclusion, after a careful study of all the circumstances, that the development of Cape Colony justified the starting of a new line of steamers between England and South Africa. The result of this decision was the founding of the successful Castle line of steamers (see under Steamship Lines), which after 1876 divided the South African mail contract with the older Union line, and was finally amalgamated with the latter under the title Union Castle line in 1900. Currie’s intimate knowledge of South African conditions and persons was on several occasions of material service to the British government. His acquaintance with Sir John Brand, the president of what was then the Orange Free State, caused him to be entrusted by the home government with the negotiations in the dispute concerning the ownership of the Kimberley diamond-fields, which were brought to a successful conclusion. He introduced the two Transvaal deputations which came to England in 1877 and 1878 to protest against annexation, and though his suggestions for a settlement were disregarded by the government of the day, the terms on which the Transvaal was subsequently restored to the Boers agreed, in essentials, with those he had advised. The first news of the disaster of Isandhlwana in the Zulu War was given to the home government through his agency. At that time there was no cable between England and South Africa, and the news was sent by a Castle liner to St Vincent, and telegraphed thence to Currie. At the same time by diverting his outward mail-boat then at sea from its ordinary course to St Vincent, he enabled the government to telegraph immediate instructions to that island for conveyance thence by the mail, thus saving serious delay, and preventing the annihilation of the British garrison at Eshowe. The present arrangement under which the British admiralty is enabled to utilize certain fast steamers of the mercantile marine as armed cruisers in war-time was suggested and strongly urged by Currie in 1880. In the same year he was returned to parliament as Liberal member for Perthshire, but, though a strong personal friend of W. E. Gladstone, he was unable to follow that statesman on the Home Rule question, and from 1885 to 1900 he represented West Perthshire as a Unionist. In 1881 his services in connexion with the Zulu War were rewarded with knighthood, and in 1897 he was created G.C.M.G. He died at Sidmouth on the 13th of April 1909.
CURRIE, JAMES (1756–1805), Scottish physician and editor of Burns, son of the minister of Kirkpatrick-Fleming, in Dumfriesshire, was born there on the 31st of May 1756. Attracted by the stories of prosperity in America he went in 1771 to Virginia, where he spent five hard years, much of the time ill and always in unprofitable commercial business. The outbreak of war between the Colonies and England ended any further chance of success, and sailing for home in the spring of 1776 after many delays he reached England a year later. He then proceeded to study medicine at Edinburgh, and after taking his degree at Glasgow he settled at Liverpool in 1780, where three years later he became physician to the infirmary. He died at Sidmouth on the 31st of August 1805. Among other pamphlets Currie was the author of Medical Reports on the Effects of Water, Cold and Warm, as a Remedy in Fevers and Febrile Diseases (1797), which had some influence in promoting the use of cold water affusion, and contains the first systematic record in English of clinical observations with the thermometer. But he is best known for his edition (1800), long regarded as the standard, of Robert Burns, which he undertook in behalf of the family of the poet. It contained an introductory criticism and an essay on the character and condition of the Scottish peasantry.
See the Memoir by W. W. Currie, his son (1831).
CURRY. (1) (Through the O. Fr. correier, from Late Lat. conredare, to make ready, prepare; a later form of the French is courroyer, and modern French is corroyer), to dress a horse by rubbing down and grooming with a comb; to dress and prepare leather already tanned. The currier pares off roughnesses and inequalities, makes the leather soft and pliable, and gives it the necessary surface and colour (see Leather). The word “currier,” though early confused in origin with “to curry,” is derived from the Late Lat. coriarius, a leather dresser, from corium, hide. The phrase “to curry favour,” to flatter or cajole, is a 16th century corruption of “to curry favel,” i.e. a chestnut horse. This older phrase is an adaptation of an Old French proverbial expression estriller fauvel, and is paralleled in German by the similar den fahlen Hengst streichen. A chestnut or fallow horse seems to have been taken as typical of deceit and trickery, at least since the appearance of a French satirical beast romance the Roman de fauvel (1310), the hero of which is a counterpart of Reynard the Fox (q.v.).
(2) A name applied to a great variety of seasoned dishes, especially those of Indian origin. The word is derived from the Tamil kari, a sauce or relish for rice. In the East, where the staple food of the people consists of a dish of rice, wheaten cakes, or some other cereal, some kind of relish is required to lend attraction to this insipid food; and that is the special office of curry. In India the following are employed as ingredients in curries: anise, coriander, cumin, mustard and poppy seeds; allspice, almonds, assafoetida, butter or ghee, cardamoms, chillies, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa-nut and cocoanut milk and oil, cream and curds, fenugreek, the tender unripe fruit of Buchanania lancifolia, cheroonjie nuts (the produce of another species, B. latifolia), garlic and onions, ginger, lime-juice, vinegar, the leaves of Bergera Koenigii (the curry-leaf tree), mace, mangoes, nutmeg, pepper, saffron, salt, tamarinds and turmeric.
The cumin and coriander seeds are generally used roasted. The various materials are cleaned, dried, ground, sifted, thoroughly mixed and bottled. In the East the spices are ground freshly every day, which gives the Indian curry its superiority in flavour over dishes prepared with the curry-powders of the European market.
CURSOR, LUCIUS PAPIRIUS, Roman general, five times consul and twice dictator. In 325 he was appointed dictator to carry on the second Samnite War. His quarrel with Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus, his magister equitum, is well known. The latter had engaged the enemy against the orders of Cursor, by whom he was condemned to death, and only the intercession of his father, the senate and the people, saved his life. Cursor treated his soldiers with such harshness that they allowed themselves to be defeated; but after he had regained their good-will by more lenient treatment and lavish promises of booty, they fought with enthusiasm and gained a complete victory. After the disaster of the Caudine Forks, Cursor to some extent wiped out the disgrace by compelling Luceria (which had revolted) to surrender. He delivered the Roman hostages who were held in captivity in the town, recovered the standards lost at Caudium, and made 7000 of the enemy pass under the yoke. In 309, when the Samnites again rose, Cursor was appointed dictator for the second time, and gained a decisive victory at Longula, in honour of which he celebrated a magnificent triumph. Cursor’s strictness was proverbial; he was a man of immense bodily strength, while his bravery was
