Davitt
MICHAEL, founder of the Irish Land League; born near Straid, County Mayo, in 1846. Evicted from their small holding, the family emigrated to Haslingden in Lancashire (1851); and here six years later the boy lost his right arm in a cotton machine. In 1866 he joined the Fenian movement, the result being that he was sentenced in 1870 to 15 years' penal servitude. He was released in 1877; and began some two years later an anti-landlord crusade in Ireland, which culminated in the foundation of the Irish Land League (Oct. 21, 1879).
Davitt was thenceforward in frequent collision with the government, and from February, 1881, to May, 1882, was imprisoned in Portland for breaking his ticket-of-leave. His "Leaves from a Prison Diary" were published in 1885.
Though a strong Home Ruler, on the question of land nationalization he found himself in opposition to the Parnellites.
He opposed the continued leadership of Mr. Parnell, and was returned to Parliament in 1892 as an anti-Parnellite, but unseated on petition. He was returned unopposed for South Mayo in 1895. He died May 31, 1906.
DAVOS (dä'vōs), a small valley lying among the Alps of the eastern Grisons, 16 miles S. E. of Coire. The village of Davos-Platz stands 5,105 feet above sealevel; but the valley, inclosed by lofty hills, has become famous as a healthresort in winter, especially for such as suffer from chest disease. The inhabitants of the valley, which till 1848 was one of the 26 independent republics of the Grisons, are mostly German Protestants. a