Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/231

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
PUCCINI—PUTUMAYO
213

knowing that the Public Trustee's fees, if and when they showed a commercial profit, would be reduced.

On the administrative side the Public Trustee Office may be regarded as an established success and an institution of great public utility in protecting beneficiaries against the loss of trust funds through incompetence and dishonesty. Its work has been brought up to a high standard of efficiency, and the system of organization under which every trust is administered by an in- dividual trust officer, who is personally responsible for its proper conduct, disarms the criticism that the functions of a private trustee cannot be performed by a department of the State. Another fear, viz. that the aggregation of a vast body of investments under the control of a single official might be a public danger, has found no justification in experience. Although the Public Trustee is re- sponsible for investments of one kind and another (apart from enemy " property) of a nominal value exceeding (in 1921) 143,000,000, they are in fact so multitudinous in character, represented by so many separate earmarked holdings, governed by so many different trust instruments, and in so many cases controlled jointly by co-trustees, that it would be impossible to deal with them en masse. As a further safeguard the Public Trustee, from 1914 on- wards, has enjoyed the advantage of the counsel of an Investment Advisory Committee composed of representatives of finance in the City of London; in 1921 it consisted of the Rt. Hon. Frederick Huth Jackson, Mr. R. 'Martin-Holland, C.B., Sir R. M. Kindersley, G.B.E., and Mr. J. A. Mullens, Junr. This Committee meets monthly to review and discuss with the Public Trustee all invest- ments and sales for reinvestment made by him.

Public Trustee in Other Countries.—The first country to possess a Public Trustee was New Zealand (1872), and the Public Trustee of New Zealand had in 1921 offices at Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington. In Australia there are Public Trustees at Sydney (N.S.W.), Adelaide (S.A.), and Hobart (Tasmania), and Public Curators (with similar functions) at Melbourne (Victoria), and Brisbane (Queensland). In Canada there is a Public Trustee at Toronto. In India and Burma there are Administrators-General and Official Trustees (offices at Allahabad, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Rangoon) who have some of the functions of the Public Trustee in England. Ireland has a Public Trustee (at Dublin), who receives only purchase moneys paid under the Irish Land Acts.


PUCCINI, GIACOMO (1858- ), Italian composer (see 22.632). His recent works include La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West, 1910); Le Rondine (1916); Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi (1918).


PULITZER, JOSEPH (1847-1911), American editor and newspaper proprietor, was born in Budapest, Hungary, April 10 1847. He came to America in 1864, entered the Union Army, and served to the end of the Civil War. In 1868 he became a reporter on the Westliche Post, a German newspaper in St. Louis, and in 1871 managing editor and part owner. In 1869 he was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives; in 1872 was a delegate to the Liberal Republican National Convention which nominated Horace Greeley for president; and in 1874 was a member of the Missouri Constitutional Convention. In 1876-7, during the Hayes-Tilden controversy, he was in Washington, D.C., as correspondent for the New York Sun. In 1878 he purchased the St. Louis Evening Dispatch and Evening Post, combining them as Post-Dispatch. In 1880 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention. In 1883 he bought from Jay Gould the New York World (see 19.569), which fearlessly attacked political corruption. In 1884 he was elected Democratic member of Congress from the state of New York, but resigned after serving a few months. In 1896 he allied himself with the " Gold " Democrats and opposed the nomination of William Jennings Bryan. During his later years he was blind and spent much of his time cruising about the world in his yacht, but to the end continued to direct his New York paper. He died on board his yacht in Charleston harbour, S.C., Oct. 29 1911. Interested in improving the profession of journalism, ha worked out a plan for establishing a school for training journalists. In 1903 he set aside $1,000,000 for establishing a school of journalism at Columbia University. His own idea as to the object of such a school is set forth in an article, " The College of Journalism," contributed to the North American Review for May 1904. In Sept. 1912 the School of Journalism of Columbia was opened. He left $500,000 each to the New York Philharmonic Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

His son, RALPH PULITZER (b. 1879), succeeded him in control of his newspaper properties. He married (1905) Miss Frederica Vanderbilt Webb of New York City.


PUTNIK, RADOMIR (1847-1917), Serbian general, was born on Jan. 25 1847 at Kraguyevats. Like many other prominent figures in the life of his country, he came of a family which had emigrated to the Banat during the Turkish conquest and returned to Serbia after the expulsion of the Turks. Passing through the artillery school (which afterwards became the Serbian military academy), he obtained his commission in a line regiment. In 1876 he commanded a brigade in the war against Turkey, and when war was renewed in 1877 became chief-of-staff of the Shumaja Division. In the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885 he held a similar post in the Danubian Division, and in 1889 was made deputy-chief of the general staff, and taught as professor at the military academy in Belgrade. Like many other brilliant officers, he suffered from the favouritism which Kings Milan and Alexander had introduced into the Serbian army and from the consequent atmosphere of intrigue and personal rivalry. He was placed on the retired list, and it was only after the military revolution which destroyed the Obrenovic dynasty in 1903 that he obtained his real opportunity of service. In that autumn he was appointed general and chief of the general staff. In 1906 he succeeded Gen. Grui6 as Minister of War, and again held that office in 1912, during the decisive period when the military con- vention with Bulgaria was being negotiated. On the outbreak of war with Turkey he was made wiiiode or marshal (being the first holder of that title) and commander-in-chief, and was responsible for the rapid success of the Serbian arms at Kuma- novo, Prilep and Monastir. It was largely owing to his vigilance and foresight that the treacherous night attack by which the Bulgarians opened the second Balkan War (June 29 1913) was so complete a failure. In the preceding months of suspense he and his staff had worked out a careful plan of action, and when Gen. Savov on July i gave his amazing order for the cessation of hostilities, Putnik was able to launch a counter-offensive, which resulted in the long-drawn-out battle of the Bregalnitsa and the final retreat of the Bulgarians. When the World War broke out he was undergoing a cure at an Austrian watering place a very practical proof that the Serbian High Command was not preparing for an armed conflict. At first placed under arrest, he was released by special order of the Emperor Francis Joseph and conveyed to the Rumanian frontier. His impaired health did not prevent him from resuming the position of Serbian generalissimo and organizing the resistance of the country to invasion; and he inflicted upon the forces of Gen. Potiorek three successive defeats the battles of the Yadar (Aug. 16-20), of the Drina (Sept. 8-19) and of Rudnik, which ended on Dec. 14 1914 with an Austrian rout and the complete evacuation of Serbia. On the latter occasion Putnik's success was rendered definitive by the genius of Gen. Misic, the commander of the I. Armv. Putnik retained the supreme command during the triple invasion of Serbia by the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian armies in Nov. 1915, and shared the retreat of the Serbs through Albania. When, however, the exiled Government established itself at Corfu, he and most of his staff were placed on the retired list. He himself withdrew to France. He died on May 17 1917 at Nice.


PUTUMAYO, or ICA (see 1.788), one of the larger tributaries of the Upper Amazon, rising in Ecuador in the Cordillera of the Andes, near Pasto, flowing in a S.E. direction and joining the Amazon at a point somewhat S. of lat. 4 S. The middle reaches of the river are also known as the Caqueta, the lower reaches being called the Caqueta or Yadura. The Putumayo, which gives its name to the whole region through which it flows a wilderness of tropical forest of which the sovereignty has been long in dispute between the republics of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia obtained an evil notoriety in 1912 after the publication by the British Government of the Blue Book containing the evidence, collected by Mr. (afterwards Sir Roger) Casement, of the atrocious methods employed in this district by the agents of the Anglo-Peruvian Amazon Rubber Co. in order to force the natives to collect rubber. These crimes, which recalled those of the Congo and covered the whole gamut of hideous atrocity (there were some too horrible to publish