Antitrinitarian Biography (1850); Bonet-Maury, Early Sources of
Eng. Unit. Christianity (1884); W. A. J. Archbold in Dict. Nat.
Biog. (1892) under “Laski,” George Pascal, Jean de Lasco (Paris,
1894); Life in Polish by Antoni Walewski (Warsaw, 1872); and
Julian Bukowski, History of the Reformation in Poland (Pol.) (Cracow,
1883). (R. N. B.)
LAS PALMAS, the capital of the Spanish island of Grand
Canary, in the Canary archipelago, and of an administrative
district which also comprises the islands of Lanzarote and
Fuerteventura; on the east coast, in 28° 7′ N. and 5° 24′ W.
Pop. (1900) 44,517. Las Palmas is the largest city in the Canary
Islands, of which it was the capital until 1833. It is the seat of
a court of appeal, of a brigadier, who commands the military forces
in the district, of a civil lieutenant-governor, who is independent
of the governor-general except in connexion with elections and
municipal administration, and of a bishop, who is subordinate
to the archbishop of Seville. The palms from which the city
derives its name are still characteristic of the fertile valley which
it occupies. Las Palmas is built on both banks of a small river,
and although parts of it date from the 16th century, it is on the
whole a clean and modern city, well drained, and supplied with
pure water, conveyed by an aqueduct from the highlands of the
interior. Its principal buildings include a handsome cathedral,
founded in the 16th century but only completed in the 19th, a
theatre, a museum, an academy of art, and several hospitals and
good schools. The modern development of Las Palmas is largely
due to the foreign merchants, and especially to the British who
control the greater portion of the local commerce. La Luz, the
port, is connected with Las Palmas by a railway 4 m. long;
it is a free port and harbour of refuge, officially considered the
third in importance of Spanish ports, but actually the first in
the matter of tonnage. It is strongly fortified. The harbour,
protected by the promontory of La Isleta, which is connected
with the mainland by a narrow bar of sand, can accommodate
the largest ships, and affords secure anchorage in all weathers.
Ships can discharge at the breakwater (1257 yds. long) or at the
Santa Catalina mole, constructed in 1883–1902. The minimum
depth of water alongside the quays is 412 ft. There are floating
water-tanks, numerous lighters, titan and other cranes, repairing
workshops, and very large supplies of coal afloat and ashore. La
Luz is one of the principal Atlantic coaling stations, and the coal-trade
is entirely in British hands. Other important industries
are shipbuilding, fishing, and the manufacture of glass, leather
and hats. The chief exports are fruit, vegetables, sugar, wine
and cochineal; coal, iron, cement, timber, petroleum, manure,
textiles and provisions are the chief imports. (See also Canary Islands.)
LASSALLE, FERDINAND (1825–1864), German socialist,
was born at Breslau on the 11th of April 1825, of Jewish extraction.
His father, a prosperous merchant in Breslau, intended
Ferdinand for a business career, and sent him to the commercial
school at Leipzig; but the boy got himself transferred to the
university, first at Breslau, and afterwards at Berlin. His
favourite studies were philology and philosophy; he became
an ardent Hegelian. Having completed his university studies
in 1845, he began to write a work on Heraclitus from the Hegelian
point of view; but it was soon interrupted by more stirring
interests, and did not see the light for many years. It was
in Berlin, towards the end of 1845, that he met the lady with
whom his life was to be associated in so remarkable a way, the
Countess Hatzfeldt. She had been separated from her husband
for many years, and was at feud with him on questions of
property and the custody of their children. Lassalle attached
himself to the cause of the countess, whom he believed to have
been outrageously wronged, made special study of law, and,
after bringing the case before thirty-six tribunals, reduced
the powerful count to a compromise on terms most favourable
to his client. The process, which lasted ten years, gave rise
to not a little scandal, especially that of the Cassettengeschichte
which pursued Lassalle all the rest of his life. This “affair
of the casket” arose out of an attempt by the countess’s friends
to get possession of a bond for a large life annuity settled by
the count on his mistress, a Baroness Meyendorf, to the prejudice
of the countess and her children. Two of Lassalle’s comrades
succeeded in carrying off the casket, which contained the lady’s
jewels, from the baroness’s room at an hotel in Cologne. They
were prosecuted for theft, one of them being condemned to
six months’ imprisonment. Lassalle, accused of moral complicity,
was acquitted on appeal. He was not so fortunate
in 1849, when he underwent a year’s durance for resistance
to the authorities of Düsseldorf during the troubles of that
stormy period. But going to prison was a familiar experience
in Lassalle’s life. Till 1859 Lassalle resided mostly in the Rhine
country, prosecuting the suit of the countess, finishing the
work on Heraclitus, which was not published till 1858, taking
little part in political agitation, but ever a helpful friend of
the working men. He was not allowed to live in Berlin because
of his connexion with the disturbances of ’48. In 1859, however,
he entered the city disguised as a carter, and, through the
influence of Humboldt with the king, got permission to stay
there. The same year he published a remarkable pamphlet
on the Italian War and the Mission of Prussia, in which he
warned his countrymen against going to the rescue of Austria
in her war with France. He pointed out that if France drove
Austria out of Italy she might annex Savoy, but could not prevent
the restoration of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel. France
was doing the work of Germany by weakening Austria; Prussia
should form an alliance with France to drive out Austria and
make herself supreme in Germany. After their realization
by Bismarck these ideas have become sufficiently commonplace;
but they were nowise obvious when thus published by Lassalle.
In 1861 he published a great work in two volumes, System der
erworbenen Rechte (System of Acquired Rights).
Now began the short-lived activity which was to give him an historical significance. It was early in 1862, when the struggle of Bismarck with the Prussian liberals was already begun. Lassalle, a democrat of the most advanced type, saw that an opportunity had come for asserting a third great cause—that of the working men—which would outflank the liberalism of the middle classes, and might even command the sympathy of the government. His political programme was, however, entirely subordinate to the social, that of bettering the condition of the working classes, for which he believed the schemes of Schulze-Delitzsch were utterly inadequate. Lassalle flung himself into the career of agitator with his accustomed vigour. His worst difficulties were with the working men themselves, among whom he met the most discouraging apathy. His mission as organizer and emancipator of the working class lasted only two years and a half. In that period he issued about twenty separate publications, most of them speeches and pamphlets, but one of them, that against Schulze-Delitzsch, a considerable treatise, and all full of keen and vigorous thought. He founded the “Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein,” was its president and almost single-handed champion, conducted its affairs, and carried on a vast correspondence, not to mention about a dozen state prosecutions in which he was during that period involved. Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfort and the industrial centres on the Rhine were the chief scenes of his activity. His greatest success was on the Rhine, where in the summers of 1863 and 1864 his travels as missionary of the new gospel resembled a triumphal procession. The agitation was growing rapidly, but he had achieved little substantial success when a most unworthy death closed his career.
While posing as the messiah of the poor, Lassalle was a man of decidedly fashionable and luxurious habits. His suppers were well known as among the most exquisite in Berlin. It was the most piquant feature of his life that he, one of the gilded youth, a connoisseur in wines, and a learned man to boot, had become agitator and the champion of the working man. In one of the literary and fashionable circles of Berlin he had met a Fräulein von Dönniges, for whom he at once felt a passion, which was ardently reciprocated. In the summer of 1864 he met her again on the Rigi, when they resolved to marry. She was a young lady of twenty, decidedly unconventional and original in character, but the daughter of a Bavarian
