Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 02.djvu/98

LEFT BLUE TIT 76 BLUNTSCHLI tendent of banking-, and required all dealers not only to be licensed, but to advise the commission in advance of all projected offerings. Any offer consid- ered unfair or fraudulent might be sus- pended, pending investigation, and later, if the suspicions were justified, prohib- ited altogether. A law^ passed in Illinois, to become effective Jan. 1, 1918, differed from the Minnesota statute in that the Illinois law prohibited the sale of any securities in the State until the dealer had been licensed, while in Minnesota the dealer was only required to give in- formation that might later result in prohibition of sales if the securities should not bear scrutiny. It is evident that under the latter provision a certain amount of business might be done be- fore the prohibition was finally decreed. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and South Dakota have passed laws pat- terned largely on similar plans. In a notable decision, under date of Jan. 22, 1917, the United States Supreme Court upheld the position of the States in a case involving Ohio, Michigan, and South Dakota laws. BLUE TIT, or BLUE TITMOUSE, a bird, called also blue tomtit, blue cap, blue bonnet, hick mall, billy biter and ox eye. It is the parus csetmleus of Lin- njeus. It has the upper part of the head light blue, encircled with white; a band around the neck and the spaces before and behind the eye of a duller blue; back light, yellowish green, the lower parts pale, grayish yellow; the middle of the breast dull blue. The male is more brightly colored than the female. It builds its nest in the chink of a wall, un- der eaves or thatch, or in a hole of a tree, and lays from 6 to 8 eggs of a reddish color. BLUFFTON, a city of Indiana, the county-seat of Wells co. It is on the Lake Erie and Western, the Toledo, St. Louis and Kansas City, and other rail- roads, and on the Wabash river. It is the center of an important agricultural region and has a large trade in grain. Its industries include foundry and ma- chine shops, a piano factory, manufac- tures of barrels, clay pottery, tile, etc. Pop. (1910) 4,987; (1920) 5,391. BLUM, BOBERT, a German Liberal leader, born in very humble circum- stances at Cologne, Nov. 10, 1807; was secretary and treasurer of a theater at Cologne, and subsequently at Leiosic, until 1847, when he established himself as bookseller and publisher. His leisure was devoted to literature and politics, and in 1840 he founded at Leipsic the Schiller Society, which celebrated the poet's anniversary, as a festival in honor of political liberty. When the revolu- tionary movement broke out in 1848, Blum was one of its most energetic lead- ers. He was elected one of the Vice- Presidents of the Provisional Parliament at Frankfort, and as such ruled that turbulent assembly. In the National As- sembly he became leader of the left, and was one of the bearers of a congratula- tory address from the Left to the peo- ple of Vienna, when they rose in Oc- tober. At Vienna he joined the insur- gents, was arrested, and was shot on Nov. 9, 1848. BLUMLISALP (blum'les-alp), a group of mountain peaks in the Bernese Ober- land in the S. of Switzerland, S. W. of the Jungfrau. The highest peak, the Bliimlisalphorn, is about 12,000 feet in altitude. BLUNDERBUSS, a short gun, un- rified and of large bore, vddening toward the muzzle. It is by no means to be ranked with arms of precision, but is loaded with many balls or slugs, which scatter when fired, so that there is a cer- tainty of some one of them hitting the mark. BLUNT, WILFRID 3CAWEN, an Irish poet, born at Crabbet Park, Sussex, in 1840. He was attache of legation at The Hague, Athens, Madrid, Buenos Ayres, and elsewhere. He supported Arabi Pasha in the revolt in Egypt in 1881; and was imprisoned in 1888 for his insurrectionary actions in Ireland. He is author of "Sonnets and Songs by Proteus" (London, 1875) ; "The Love Sonnets of Proteus" (1881; new ed. 1885) ; "Ideas About India" (1885) ; and "Esther: a Young Man's Tragedy" (1895). "Secret History of the Eng- lish Occupation of Egypt" (1907) ; "Gordon at Khartoum" (1911) ; "The Land War in Ireland" (1912); "Com- plete Works" (1914). BLUNTSCHLI, JOHANN KASPAR (blontsh'le), a Swiss jurist and states- man, born in Zurich, March 7, 1808; be- came professor in the newly founded uni- versity in that city in 1833. He took an active part in the political struggles that divided his country. In 1839 he led the Conservatives. He was a Councilor of State, and became a member of the Gov- ernment and of the Federal Directory, and afterward worked for the formation of a moderate Liberal Conservative party in Switzerland. In 1848 he went to Munich as Professor of Civil and Inter- national Law. There he published his "Allgemeines Staatsrecht" (5th ed., 1876), on which his reputation as a