Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/46

 RHODES

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RHODES

poalcd in 1SS9. At prosont Rhode Island is a local op- tion state, the question of licenee or no-licence being euhniitted annually to the voters of the several cities and towns. The licensing boards may in their discretion refuse any application. The number of licences in any town may not exceed the proportion of one licence to each 500 "inhabitants. The owners of the greater part of the land within two hundred feet of any location may bar its licence. No licence can be granted for a location within two hundred feet, measured on the street, of any public or parochial school. Maximum and minimum licence fees are fixed by statute, and the exact sum is determined by the hcensing boards. For retail licences the minimum fee is $300, and the maximum, $1000.

In the City of Cranston are located the ' State institutions"," so-called, including the State prison, the county jail, the State workhouse, a reform school for girls, "and another for boys. The probation sys- tem is extensively employed, and in the case of juven- ile offenders especially, the State makes every effort to prevent their becoming hardened criminals. Pro- bation officers have the power of bail over persons committed to them. In proper cases, probation offi- cers may provide for the maintenance of girls and women apart from their families. Capital punish- ment does not exist in the State except in cases where a life convict commits murder.

Wills disposing of personal property may be made by persons eighteen years of age or over; wills dis- posing of real estate, by persons twenty-one years of age or over. Probate clerks are required to notify corporations and voluntary associations of all gifts made to them by will. If a gift for charity is made by will to a corporation and the acceptance thereof would be ultra vires, the corporation may at once receive the gift, and may retain it on condition of securing the con.sent of the legislature within one year. It has been held that a legacj' for Ma.sses should be paid in full even if the estate were insufficient to pay general pecuniarj'^ legacies in full, on the ground that the gift for Ma.s.ses is for services to be rendered and is not gratuitous, furthermore that a gift for Masses is legal and is not void as being a superstitious use (Sherman V. Baker, XX R. I., 446, 613).

Cemeteries are regulated to the extent that town councils may prevent their location in thickly popu- lated di.'^tricte, and for the protection of health may pass ordinances regarding burials and the use of the grounds. Desecration of graves is punished. Towns may receive land for burial purpo.ses, and town coun- cils may hold funds for the perpetual care of burial lots. Ceineterics are generally owned by corporations spe- ciall}' chartered, by churches and families.

Field, St/Ue of li. I. and Proritlence Plantations (Boston, 1902); Ar.nold, Hiyt. of R. I. (New York, 1860); Staples, Annals of Pror\dence f Providence, 1843); DowuNG, Hist, of the Catholic Church in New Enijland (Boston, 1899) ; R. I. Colonial Records.

Albert B. West.

Rhodes, Alexandre de, missionary and author, b. at Avignon, 15 March, 1.591; d. at Ispahan, Persia, 5 Nov., IftW. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Rome, 24 April, 1612, with the intention of devoting his life to the conversion of the infidels. He waw assigned to the missions of the East Indies, and inaugurat^rd his missionary labours in 1624 with great success in Cochin China. In 1627 he proceeded to Tongking where, within the space of three years, he converted 6fKK) pf-rsons, inclutling several bonzes. When in 1630 p(rsecntif)n forced him to leave the country, the nrwly-mjule conv<Ttfl continued the work of evangelization. Rhodes was lat-er recalled to Rome where he obtaineri permission from his Kuperiors to undertake missionary work in Persia. Amifist the numerous a^itivities of a mis- sionary career, he found time for literary productions: "Tunchineneie hist^^^ria; libri duo" (Lyons, 1652);

"La glorieuse mort d' Andre, Catechistc . . ." (Paris, 1653); "Catechismus", published in Latin and in Tongkingcse at Rome in 1658.

De Backer-Sommervogel, Bibliolh. de la Comp. de Jesus, VI (9 vols., Brussels and Paris, 1890-1900), 1718-21; Carayon, Voyages el Missions du P. Rhodes (Paris and Lc Mans, IS.'il).

N. A. Weber.

Rhodes, Knights of. See Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem.

Rhodes (Rhodus), titular metropolitan of the Cyclades (q. v.). It is an island opposite to Lycia and Caria, from which it is separated by a narrow arm of the sea. It has an area of about 564 sq. miles, is well watered by many streams and th*^ river Candura, and is very rich in fruits of all kinds. The climate is so genial that the sun shines ever there, as recorded in a proverb already known to Pliny (Hist, natur., II, 62). The island, inhabited first b}^ the Carians and then by the Phoenicians (about 1300 B.C.) who settled several colonies there, was occupied about 800 b.c. by the Dorian Greeks. In 408 B.C. the inhabitants of the three chief towns, Lindus, lalysus, and Camirus founded the city of Rhodes, from which the island took its name. This town, built on the side of a hill, had a very fine port. On the breakwater, which separated the interior from the exterior port, was the famous bronze statue, the Colossus of Rhodes, 105 feet high, which cost 300 talents. Constructed (280) from the machines of war which Demetrius Poliorcetes had to abandon after his defeat before the town, it was thrown down by an earthquake in 203 B.C.; its ruins were sold in the seventh century by Caliph Moaviah to a Jew from Emesus, who loaded them on 900 camels. After the death of Alexander the Great and the ex- j)ulsion of the Macedonian garrison (323 B.C.) the island, owing to its navy manned by the best mariners in the world, became the rival of Carthage and Alexandria. Allied with the Romans, and more or less under their protectorate, Rhodes became a centre of art and science; its school of rhetoric was frequented by many Romans, including Cato, Cicero, Caesar, and Pompey. Ravaged by Cassius in 43 B.C., it remained nominally independent till A.D. 44, when it was incorporated with the Roman Empire by Claudius, becoming under Diocletian the capital of the Isles or of the Cyclades, which it long remained.

The First Book of Machabees (xv, 23) records that Rome sent the Rhodians a decree in favour of the Jews. St. Paul stopped there on his way from Miletus to Jerusalem (Acts, xxi, 1) ; he may even have made converts there. In three other passages of Holy Writ (Gen., x, 4; I Par., i, 7; Ezech., xxvii, 15) the Septuagint renders by Rhodians what the Hebrew and the Vulgate rightly call Dodanim and Dedan. If we except some ancient inscriptions supposed to be Christian, there is no trace of Chris- tianity until the third century, when Bishop Euphra- non is said to have opposed the Encratites. Euphro- synus assisted at the Council of Nica^a (325). As the religious metropolitan of the Cyclades, Rhodes had eleven sufTragan sees towards the middle of the seventh century (Gelzer, " Ungedruckte. . . . Texte (ler Notitia? episcopal uum", 542); at the beginning of the tenth century, it had only ten (op. cit., 558); at the close of the fifteenth, only one, Lerne (op. cit., (J35), which has since disappeared. Rhodes is still a Greek metropolitan depending on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. On 15 Atigust, 1310, under the leadership of Grand Master Foulques de Villaret, the Knights of St. John captured the i.sland in spite of the Greek emperor, Andronicus II, and for more than two centuries, thanks to their fleet, were a solid bulwark between Christendom and Islam. In 1480 Rhodes, under the orders of Pierre d'Aubusson, un- derwent a memorable siege by the lieutenants of