Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 02.djvu/285

LEFT BUIINS 251 BUIINS generally speaking, well built, mostly of stone. The staple manufacture is cotton goods, and there are large cotton mills and several extensive foundries and ma- chine shops, with collieries and other works, in the vicinity. Fop. about 110,000, BtJB,NS, 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 at- tempt to rescue Burns under the leader- ship 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 Ro- man 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 Uni- versity 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 the- ology at Holy Cross College, Washing- ton, 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 As- sociation. He wrote several works on the educational system of the Catholic Church. BURNS, JOHN, an English labor or- ganizer 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 audi- ences of workingmen, and was a per- sistent labor agitator. He was one of the leaders in the West End riot in Lon- don, February, 1887, and was impris- oned the same year for maintaining the right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square. As an arbitrator, he is re- spected 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 presi- dent of the Local Government Board (1905-1914). In 1914 he became presi- dent of the Board of Trade and resigned later in the year because of differences on the conduct of the war. BURNS, ROBERT, the great lyric poet of Scotland, born near Ayi% Jan. 25, 1759, his father being a gardener, and later a small farmer. He was in- structed 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 edu- cation 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 conjunction with his younger brother Gilbert. He now began to produce poetical pieces which at- tracted 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 sus-