Burns
Burns names 5 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Burns ROBERT, the great lyric poet of Scotland
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ROBERT, the great lyric poet of Scotland, born near Ayr, Jan. 25, 1759, his father being a gardener, and later a small farmer. He was instructed in the ordinary branches of an English education by a teacher engaged by his father and a few neighbors; to these he afterward added French and a little mathematics. But most of his education was got from the general reading of books, to which he gave himself with ROBERT BURNS passion. In this manner he learned what the best English poets might teach him, and cultivated the instincts for poetry which had been implanted in his nature. At an early age, he had to assist in the labors of the farm, and when only 15 years old he had almost to do the work of a man. His father dying in 1784, he took a small farm (Mossgiel), in conjunct conjunction with his younger brother Gilbert. He now began to produce poetical pieces which attracted the notice of his neighbors and gained him considerable reputation. His first lines had been written some time previously, having been inspired by love, a passion to which he was peculiarly susceptible. An attachment formed by the poet for a local belle, Jean Armour, rendered his position so uncomfortable that he determined to emigrate to Jamaica, and engaged himself as assistant overseer on a plantation there. To obtain the funds necessary for the voyage, he was induced to publish, by subscription, a volume of his poetical effusions. It was printed at Kilmarnock in 1786, and Burns, having thus obtained the assistance he expected, was about to set sail from his native land, when he was drawn to Edinburgh by a letter from Dr. Blacklock to an Ayrshire friend of his and the poet, recommending that he should take advantage of the general admiration his poems had excited, and publish a new edition of them. This advice was eagerly adopted, and the result exceeded his most sanguine expectations. After remaining more than a year in the Scottish metropolis, admired, flattered, and caressed by persons of rank, fortune, or talents, he retired to the country with the sum of some £500, which he had realized by the second publication of his poems. A part of this sum he advanced to his brother, and with the remainder took a considerable farm (Ellisland) but returned as Colonel of in near Dumfries, to which he subsequently added the office of exciseman. He now married Jean Armour. But the farming at Ellisland was not a success, and in about three years Burns removed to Dumfries and relied on his employment as an exciseman alone. He continued to exercise his pen, particularly in the composition of a number of beautiful songs adapted to old Scottish tunes. But his residence in Dumfries, and the society of the idle and the dissipated who gathered around him there, attracted by the brilliant wit that gave its charm to their convivialities, had an evil effect on Burns, whom disappointment and misfortune were now making somewhat reckless. In the winter of 1795 his constitution, broken by cares, irregularities, and passions, fell into premature decline, and, on July 21, 1796, a rheumatic fever terminated his life and sufferings at the early age of 37. His character, though marred by imprudence, was never contaminated by duplicity or meanness. He was an honest, proud, warm-hearted man, combining sound understanding with high passions and a vigorous and excursive imagination. He was alive to every species of emotion; and he is one of the few poets who have at once excelled in humor, in tenderness, and in sublimity. BURNS and SCALDS, injuries produced by the application of excessive heat to the human body. They are generally dangerous in proportion to the extent of surface they cover, and a widespread scald may cause serious consequences on account of the nervous shock. Congestion of the brain, pneumonia, inflammation of the bowels, or lockjaw may result from an extensive burn. Hence, the treatment requires to be both local and constitutional. If there is shivering or exhaustion, hot brandy and water may be given with good effect, and if there is much pain, a sedative solution of opium. The local treatment consists in dredging the burn with fine wheat flour, and then wrapping it up in cotton wool. An application of equal quantities of olive oil and lime water, called carron oil, is much recommended by some, the part being aft afterward covered by cotton wool. The main thing is to keep the air from the injured part, and, therefore, when a blister forms, although it may be pricked, the loose skin should not be removed.
Burns John, a London labor leader
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
John, a London labor leader. He was born in 1858. His father was an engineer. He began work at the age of ten in a candle factory at the wage of twelve cents a day. Later, he served an apprenticeship in engineering. He became a labor leader and developed ability as an open air speaker. He joined the Socialists in 1883. In 1886 he was arrested for speaking in Hyde Park . On his release he made a speech which was printed under the title, "The Man with the Red Flag." November 13, 1887, Bloody Sunday, he broke through the police lines to speak in Trafalgar Square and was arrested again. In 1889 he became a member of the London Council, and in the same year he organized and led the famous "Dock Strike." In 1892 he was elected to Parliament by a workingmen's district in London. In 1905 he entered the Liberal cabinet organized by Mr. Campbell-Bannermann. Mr. Burns is the first English workingman to hold a cabinet office. He is (1909) president of the Local Government Board. In this position he is known as the Right Honorable John Burns, and receives a salary of $10,000 a year. He still remains a member of the Union of Amalgamated Engineers. He is a total abstainer, a man of unimpeached integrity. Mr. Burns dresses, of course, like any other professional man. When he attends a royal reception he wears the garb prescribed for the occasion and is a man of commanding appearance, but no one could mistake him for an imitation of aristocracy. To look down from one of the galleries on John Burns sitting on the Treasury bench is to see apparently an old man. The hair is almost snow-white; the forehead pale, spreading, and deeply lined; his movements as he adjusts his eyeglasses and reads over his official papers are leisurely and might even seem fatigued. But wait a moment. Wait till he lifts his face and you catch a glimpse of his great, brown, clear, burning eyes. Or wait till he rises to address the House, electrical alertness speaking from every gesture, from the very poise of the body, power and passion in his voice, his whole bearing eager, defiant, welcoming the combat. Or see him again on the Terrace outside--a thick, square man, in a blue reefer suit, his head thrown massively back, tramping up and down with free and swinging stride. You would not then think him old. Still less would you think so if you walked with him through the streets or parks, among his own people, giving and exchanging salutations, patting a youngster on the head, helping to fish out a ball that has fallen into the Serpentine, showing a boy how to handle a cricket-bat, skipping over the ropes with the girls, congratulating the mothers, jesting with the policemen, the very picture of zest, health, and jollity. The workmen know him and love him. They recognize in him the biggest man that their class in England has yet produced. And John Burns knows them and loves them in return, and uses both his knowledge and his affection to rebuke, chastise them, and make them elevate themselves. Himself a non-smoker and a total abstainer, he never shirks from rubbing in his conviction that there is little the government can do for the workingman compared with what the workingman can do for himself. No man has spoken out more strongly against drink and betting. No man has insisted more trenchantly that social and industrial reform must begin with the individual. It is here where he parts company with Mr. Keir Hardie and his followers. They are Socialists, look to the state for everything, proclaim it as a natural right of every man to have remunerative work found for him, and are swiftly, as it seems to me, rousing the laboring classes to a very ugly mood. John Burns hates nothing so much as the thought of the English working man becoming a prey to cringing, shirking pauperization. John Burns wishes to see the workingman brave, upright, and above all, independent. From the very first he has had the profoundest contempt for the charity-mongers, vicarious philanthropists whose policy of spoon-feeding the unemployed ends, as he says, "in the demoralization of the donors and the degradation of the recipient."--Sydney Brooks in Harper's Weekly.
Burns JOHN, an English labor organizer and Socialist leader
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN, an English labor organizer and Socialist leader, born in London in 1858. He was of humble birth and became a factory boy at the age of 10. He was an omnivorous reader and imbibed his Socialistic views from a French fellow employee. By working a year as engineer on the Niger river, he earned enough for a six months' tour of Europe. He constantly addressed audiences of workingmen, and was a persistent labor abor agitator. He was one of the leaders in the West End riot in London, February, 1887, and was imprisoned the same year for maintaining the right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square. As an arbitrator, he is respected by employers and employed. He has been thrice elected to the London County Council and has sat in the House of Commons since 1892. He was president of the Local Government Board (1905-1914). In 1914 he became president of the Board of Trade and resigned later in the year because of differences on the conduct of the war.
Burns ANTHONY, a fugitive slave
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ANTHONY, a fugitive slave, born in Virginia in 1836; arrested in Boston in 1854, under the Fugitive Slave Law. An indignation meeting, in which Theodore Parker and Wendell Phillips participated, was held in Faneuil Hall, while a premature and unsuccessful attempt to rescue Burns under the leadership of Thomas W. Higginson resulted in bloodshed and the death of one of the deputies. When the courts decided that the extradition was legal, Burns was escorted by a strong guard to a revenue cutter, and a riot was barely averted. Burns afterward regained his liberty, studied at Oberlin College, and became a Baptist minister in Canada. He died in St. Catharines, Canada, July 27, 1862.
Burns JAMES ALOYSIUS, a Roman Catholic clergyman and educator
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JAMES ALOYSIUS, a Roman Catholic clergyman and educator, born in Michigan City, Ind., in 1867. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1894, and studied theology at that institution and at the Catholic University of America. He was ordained priest in 1893, and from that year to 1900 was professor of sciences at the University of Notre Dame. He became president and professor of moral theology at Holy Cross College, Washington, D. C., in 1900, serving until 1919, when he was appointed president of the University of Notre Dame. He was a founder of the Catholic Educational Association. He wrote several works on the educational system of the Catholic Church.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The life of Robert Burns as Collier's told it in 1921 still stands in outline, though modern biographers reject the Victorian verdict that "irregularities, and passions" killed him; his death at 37 is now generally ascribed to rheumatic heart disease, and his birthday is marked worldwide each 25 January. The medical entry has not survived at all: dredging a burn with wheat flour and painting it with carron oil (linseed or olive oil and lime water) is now considered harmful, and first aid is cool running water, with hospital care built on fluid replacement, burn-depth assessment and skin grafting. Brandy and opium have given way to intravenous fluids and controlled analgesia. Aiton's account of John Burns, written while he was still in office, breaks off before his best-remembered act: he resigned from the Cabinet in August 1914 rather than agree to Britain's entry into the First World War, and died in 1943.
Written for this edition, 2026.