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 descent. Beaver Dam is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railway. The city is a summer resort, has a public library, and is the seat of Wayland Academy (1855, Baptist), a co-educational preparatory school affiliated with the university of Chicago. Beaver Dam is situated in the midst of a fine farming country; it has a good water-power derived from Beaver Lake, and among its manufactures are woollen and cotton goods, malleable iron, foundry products, gasolene engines, agricultural implements, stoves and beer. The city was first settled about 1841, and was incorporated in 1856.

 BEAVER FALLS, a borough of Beaver county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Beaver river, about 3 m. from its confluence with the Ohio, opposite New Brighton, and about 32 m. N.W. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 9735; (1900) 10,054, of whom 1554 were foreign-born; (1910), census, 12,191. The borough is served by the Pennsylvania and the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railways. It is built for the most part on a plateau about 50 ft. above the river, hemmed in on either side by hills that rise abruptly, especially on the W., to a height of more than 200 ft. Bituminous coal, natural gas and oil abound in the vicinity; the river provides excellent water-power; the borough is a manufacturing centre of considerable importance, its products including iron and steel bridges, boilers, steam drills, carriages, saws, files, axes, shovels, wire netting, stoves, glass-ware, scales, chemicals, pottery, cork, decorative tile, bricks and typewriters. In 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $4,907,536. Geneva College (Reformed Presbyterian, co-educational), established in 1849 at Northwood, Logan county, Ohio, was removed in 1880 to the borough of College Hill (pop. in 1900, 899), 1 m. N. of Beaver Falls; it has a preparatory and a collegiate department, departments of music, oratory and art, and a physical department, and in 1907–1908 had 13 instructors and 235 students. Beaver Falls was first settled in 1801; was laid out as a town and named Brighton in 1806; received its present name a few years later; and in 1868 was incorporated as a borough.

 BEAWAR, or, a town of British India, the administrative headquarters of Merwara district in Ajmere-Merwara. It is 33 m. from Ajmere. Pop. (1901) 21,928. It is an important centre of trade, especially in raw cotton, and has cotton presses and the Krishna cotton mills. It was founded by Colonel Dixon in 1835.

 BEBEL, FERDINAND AUGUST (1840–&emsp;&emsp;), German socialist, was born at Cologne on the 22nd of February 1840; he became a turner and worked at Leipzig. Here he took a prominent part in the workmen’s movement and in the association of working men which had been founded under the influence of Schultz-Delitzsch; at first an opponent of socialism, he came under the influence of Liebknecht, and after 1865 he was a confirmed advocate of socialism. With Liebknecht he belonged to the branch of the socialists which was in close correspondence with Karl Marx and the International, and refused to accept the leadership of Schweitzer, who had attempted to carry on the work after Lassalle’s death. He was one of those who supported a vote of want of confidence in Schweitzer at the Eisenach conference in 1867, from which his party was generally known as “the Eisenacher.” In this year he was elected a member of the North German Reichstag for a Saxon constituency, and, with an interval from 1881 to 1883, remained a member of the German parliament. His great organizing talent and oratorical power quickly made him one of the leaders of the socialists and their chief spokesman in parliament. In 1870 he and Liebknecht were the only members who did not vote the extraordinary subsidy required for the war with France; the followers of Lassalle, on the other hand, voted for the government proposals. He was the only Socialist who was elected to the Reichstag in 1871, but he used his position to protest against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and to express his full sympathy with the Paris Commune. Bismarck afterwards said that this speech of Bebel’s was a “ray of light,” showing him that Socialism was an enemy to be fought against and crushed; and in 1872 Bebel was accused in Brunswick of preparation for high treason, and condemned to two years’ imprisonment in a fortress, and, for insulting the German emperor, to nine months’ ordinary imprisonment. After his release he helped to organize, at the congress of Gotha, the united party of Social Democrats, which had been formed during his imprisonment. After the passing of the Socialist Law he continued to show great activity in the debates of the Reichstag, and was also elected a member of the Saxon parliament; when the state of siege was proclaimed in Leipzig he was expelled from the city, and in 1886 condemned to nine months’ imprisonment for taking part in a secret society. Although the rules of the Social Democratic party do not recognize a leader or president, Bebel subsequently became by far the most influential member of the party. In the party meetings of 1890 and 1891 his policy was severely attacked, first by the extremists, the “young” Socialists from Berlin, who wished to abandon parliamentary action; against these Bebel won a complete victory. On the other side he was involved in a quarrel with Volmar and his school, who desired to put aside from immediate consideration the complete attainment of the Socialist ideal, and proposed that the party should aim at bringing about, not a complete overthrow of society, but a gradual amelioration. This conflict of tendencies continued, and Bebel came to be regarded as the chief exponent of the traditional views of the orthodox Marxist party. He was exposed to some natural ridicule on the ground that the “Kladderadatsch,” which he often spoke of as imminent, failed to make its appearance. On the other hand, though a strong opponent of militarism, he publicly stated that foreign nations attacking Germany must not expect the help or the neutrality of the Social Democrats. His book, Die Frau und der Socialismus (1893), which went through many editions and contained an attack on the institution of marriage, identified him with the most extreme forms of Socialism.

 BECCAFICO (Ital. for “fig-pecker”), a small migratory bird of the warbler (Sylviidae) family, which frequents fig-trees and vineyards, and, when fattened, is considered a great delicacy.

 BECCAFUMI, DOMENICO DI PACE (1486–1551), Italian painter, of the school of Siena. In the early days of the Tuscan republics Siena had been in artistic genius, and almost in political importance, the rival of Florence. But after the great plague in 1348 the city declined; and though her population always comprised an immense number of skilled artists and artificers, yet her school did not share in the general progress of Italy in the 15th century. About the year 1500, indeed, Siena had no native artists of the first importance; and her public and private commissions were often given to natives of other cities. But after the uncovering of the works of Raphael and Michelangelo at Rome in 1508, all the schools of Italy were stirred with the desire of imitating them. Among these accomplished men who now, without the mind and inspiration of Raphael or Michelangelo, mastered a great deal of their manner, and initiated the decadence of Italian art, several of the most accomplished arose in the school of Siena. Among these was Domenico, the son of a peasant, one Giacomo di Pace, who worked on the estate of a well-to-do citizen named Lorenzo Beccafumi. Seeing some signs of a talent for drawing in his labourer’s son, Lorenzo Beccafumi took the boy into his service and presently adopted him, causing him to learn painting from masters of the city. Known afterwards as Domenico Beccafumi, or earlier as Il Mecarino (from the name of a poor artist with whom he studied), the peasant’s son soon gave proof of extraordinary industry and talent. In 1509 he went to Rome and steeped himself in the manner of the great men who had just done their first work in the Vatican. Returning to his native town, Beccafumi quickly gained employment and a reputation second only to Sodoma. He painted a vast number both of religious pieces for churches and of mythological decorations for private patrons. But the work by which he will longest be remembered is that which he did for the celebrated pavement of the cathedral of Siena. For a hundred and fifty years the best artists of the state had been engaged