LEE
1048
LEFEBVRE
1865. Grant's army then entered upon more active operations, and Lee was compelled to abandon both Petersburg and Richmond. He was still hotly pursued by Grant, and a few days later at Appomattox Court House his entire force surrendered, and the war came to an end. Lee might have prolonged the struggle indefinitely by breaking up his army into guerrilla bands and scattering them among the mountains, but this he refused to do. There are few instances of the nobility with which he accepted defeat, and set himself to helping to make his country once more a union of loyal states.
Although impoverished by the war and face to face with old age, he refused wealth and places of honor in service abroad, to accept the presidency of Washington and Lee University at Lexington, Virginia. Its doors had been closed four years. This was General Lee's part in the work of reconstruction. It was the last call to duty. In the last five years of his life 900 young southerners came under his care, to learn the duty of cooling their hot heads and sweetening their bitter hearts. The day of final reconciliation must have seemed very far away, indeed, when, on Oct. 12, 1870, "Marse Robert" fell asleep, and was buried in the college chapel. See General Long's Memoirs of Robert E. Lee.
Lee, Sidney, an eminent English author, critic and man of letters, was born in London in 1859 and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford. With Sir Leslie Stephen he shared the editorship of the English Dictionary of National Biography, completing that great work alone in 1891-1901. He is acknowledged the first authority on matters Shak-sperian, and has written a classic life of the poet. His other published work includes Great Englishmen of the i6th Century, the Poems of Shakespeare and Shakespeare and the Modern Stage, with Strat-ford-on-Avon. In 1886 he edited the Autobiography of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. In 1903 he visited the United States, lecturing at several of the universities.
Leech, a segmented worm usually with a flattened body having a rounded sucker at each end. Most forms live in the water and are commonly called blood-suckers. They attach themselves to cattle and swimmers, and also are parasites on fishes, Crustacea etc. There are land-leeches, too, in the damp forests of Asia, which are fearful pests. The blood-sucking leeches are provided with jaws in the middle of the front sucker. They consist of flattened plates, the outer edges of which are rounded and divided into numerous sharp points like teeth of a saw. Three of them radiate from the center, and the wound they inflict is three-parted. Leeches are used in medicine for letting blood. Tb.e stomach extends
through the body and is sacculated; it can become greatly distended by blood. The sense-organs are of especial interest to zoologists. They are located on the surface in rows of small, rounded papillae. These show a graded series in which touch-spots are gradually modified into eyes, as we pass from the hind to the front end of the body. In many species there are ten eyes.
Leech, John, an English artist, whose drawings and sketches in Punch won worldwide fame, was born at London on Aug. 29, 1817. He adopted art as his profession at an early age, and in the fourth number of Punch, Aug. 7, 1841, we find his first contribution to the journal with which his name is most closely associated and with which he was connected until his death. The cartoons which he designed for Punch, illustrating the politics, fashions and follies of the day, especially those dealing with the political life of Brougham, Palmerston and Russell, revealed genius of high order and attracted the notice of all classes. Equally delightful were the woodcuts which dealt in gently humorous fashion with everyday life. He died at Kensington, Oct. 29, 1864.
Leeds, the first town in Yorkshire and the fifth in England in population, is a municipal borough, and since 1885 returns five members to the house of commons. It is the seat of important manufactures, especially of clothing. It is estimated that merchandize to the value of $60,000,000 passes through its warehouses annually. Next to the woolen trade are the iron manufactories, which employ about 30,000 persons. There are nearly 120 churches in Leeds. The chief church-building is St. Peter's in Kirkgate. Population in 1911, estimated, 445,568.
Leeward (le'werd) Islands, name given by English and French geographers to the Lesser Antilles (see WEST INDIA ISLANDS), extending from 15° to 19° north latitude. Reckoning from the south, their order is nearly as follows: Dominica (British), Marie Galante (French), Guadeloupe (French), Montserrat (British), Antigua (British), Nevis (British), St. Christopher's (British), Barbados (British), St. Eustache (Dutch), St. Bartholomew (French), Saba (Dutch), St. Croix (Danish), St. Martin (French and Dutch), Anguilla (British), Curacoa (Dutch), Virgin Islands (Danish and British). The total area is about 5,000 square miles; that of those belonging to England is 700 square miles. The area of Antigua, the most important of the group, is about 108 square miles; chief town, St. John (population 9,300). The exports are chiefly sugar, rum, cocoa, fruit and spices.
Lefebvre (U-fdi/r*), Francois Joseph, marshal of France and duke of Dantsic, was born at Ruffach, in Alsace, Oct. 25,
