Part 388 (1/2)

ST. OMER (20), a fortified town of France, on the Aa, 26 m. SE. of Calais; has a fine old Gothic cathedral, a ruined Benedictine abbey church, a Catholic college, a.r.s.enal, &c.; manufactures embrace light textiles, tobacco pipes, &c.

ST. PAUL (168), capital of Minnesota State, finely situated on the Mississippi, a little below the mouth of the Minnesota River; in 1849 a village of 500 inhabitants; is now a beautiful and s.p.a.cious city, equipped with colleges, libraries, government buildings, electric street-railways, &c.; is a centre for 10 railways, and carries on a large trade in distributing groceries and dry goods throughout the State.

ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL, at West Kensington, London, a famous charity school founded by JOHN COLET (q. v.), dean of St. Paul's, for children of ”every nation, country, and cla.s.s”; originally stood in St.

Paul's Churchyard, but was burned out by the Great Fire of 1666; the present building was opened in 1884. The endowment amounts to 10,000 a year, and 1000 boys and 400 girls are provided with education and board.

There are a number of Oxford and Cambridge exhibitions.

ST. PETERSBURG (1,036), capital of Russia, an imposing city, occupying a dreary, isolated site at the head of the Gulf of Finland, on the banks and delta islands (100) of the Neva, founded in 1702 by Peter the Great; a large number of bridges span the main stream and its numerous divisions; ma.s.sive stone quays hold back the waters, but a rise of 12 ft. floods the city (a yearly occurrence in the poorer parts); the river is ice-bound nearly half the year, and is given over to sleighing, &c.; the short summer is hot; covers nearly 48 sq. m.; its palaces and government buildings for number and grandeur are unsurpa.s.sed; Neva View is the finest street in Europe; is the centre of Russian political, literary, scientific, and artistic life; has a university, numerous academies, cathedral, technical and training colleges, and libraries (the Imperial Public Library contains 1,200,000 vols.); connected with the Volga basin by a ca.n.a.l, and the centre of four railways, it is the commercial metropolis and chief port of Russia, and carries on half the foreign trade; exports one-fifth of the corn of Russia, besides flax, linseed, leather, petroleum, &c.; imports coal, machinery, &c.; princ.i.p.al manufactures are cotton goods and other textiles, leather, sugar, porcelain goods, &c.

ST. PIERRE, HENRI BERNARDIN DE, French novelist, born at Havre; an engineer by profession, was a disciple of Rousseau both sentimentally and speculatively; his chief work, ”PAUL AND VIRGINIA” (q. v.), shows here as in his other writings, says Professor Saintsbury, ”a remarkable faculty of word-painting, and also of influencing the feelings” (1737-1814).

ST. QUENTIN (48), a manufacturing town of France, on the Somme, 95 m. NE. of Paris; manufactures all kinds of cotton and woollen goods, machinery, paper, &c.; has a fine old Gothic church and town-hall; here the French were routed by the Spaniards in 1557, and by the Germans in 1871.

ST. ReAL, ABBe DE, historian, born at Chambery, where he settled in 1679, and where he died; was historiographer to the Duke of Savoy, and wrote the ”History of the Conspiracy of Spain against Venice,” a masterpiece of its kind, and modelled on Sall.u.s.t (1639-1692).

SAINT SAeNS, CHARLES CAMILLE, a French musician, born in Paris; for 19 years organist of the Madeleine; composer of a number of operas (e. g.

”Henri VIII.”) indifferently successful, and of much orchestral and chamber music of a masterly kind; is held to be one of the greatest of living pianists and organists; also noted for his musical critiques; _b_.

1835.

ST. SIMON, CLAUDE HENRI, COMTE DE, founder of French Socialism, and of a sect called after him St. Simonians, born in Paris, of an old n.o.ble family; grand-nephew of the succeeding, but renounced his t.i.tle and devoted his life and all his means of living to the promotion of his Socialist scheme, reducing himself in the end to utter penury; he made few disciples, though some of them were men of distinction; he is credited by Carlyle with having discovered, ”not without amazement, that man is still man, of which forgotten truth,” he bids us remark, ”he had made a false application”; that is, we presume, by reorganisation from without instead of regeneration from within; his scheme was a reconstruction of society by the abolition of the hereditary principle, and the vesting of the instruments of production in the State and the administration of these for the welfare of all its members (1760-1825).

ST. SIMON, LOUIS DE ROUVROY, DUC DE, French courtier and diplomatist in the reign of Louis XIV.; left ”Memoirs” in record of the times he lived in, depicting with remarkable sagacity the manners of the Court and the characters of the courtiers (1676-1755).

ST. SIMONIANS. See ST. SIMON, COMTE DE.

ST. TAMMANY, an American-Indian chief, popularly canonised as a saint, and adopted as the tutelary genius by a section of the democratic party in the States; his motto was ”Unite in peace for happiness; in war for defence.”

ST. THOMAS, 1, an unhealthy volcanic island (20) in the Gulf of Guinea, belonging to Portugal; produces coffee, cocoa, and some spices; chief town, St. Thomas (3), a port on the NE. 2, One of the Virgin Islands (14), 37 m. E. of Porto Rico; belongs to Denmark; since the abolition of slavery its prosperous sugar trade has entirely departed; capital, St. Thomas (12), is now a coaling-station for steamers.

ST. THOMAS'S, a handsome hospital on the S. side of the Thames, opposite Westminster, founded in 1553, and with an annual revenue of 40,000.

SAINT-VICTOR, PAUL DE, an ornate French writer, born in Paris; from 1851 was engaged in dramatic and other criticism, and established his reputation as a stylist of unusual brilliance. ”When I read Saint-Victor I put on blue spectacles,” said Lamartine; author of several works on historical and aesthetic subjects (e. g. ”Anciens et Modernes,” ”Hommes et Dieux”) was for a number of years General Inspector of Fine Arts (1827-1881).

ST. VINCENT (41), one of the Windward Islands, in the West Indies, 105 m. W. of Barbadoes, belongs to Britain; a coaling and cable station; mountainous and volcanic; warm, but healthy climate; exports sugar, rum, spices, &c.; chief town is Kingston (6), a port on the SW. coast.