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 neighbouring governments—the Orel breeds of both carriage and draught horses being held in estimation throughout Russia. Bee-keeping is widely diffused in the forest districts, as are also the timber-trade and the preparation of tar and pitch. Manufactures are rapidly increasing; they produce cast-iron rails, machinery, locomotive engines and railway wagons, glass, hemp-yarn and ropes, leather, timber, soap, tobacco and chemical produce. There are also distilleries and a great many smaller oil-works and flour-mills. Karachev and Syevsk are important centres for hemp-carding; Bolkhov and Elets are the chief centres of the tanning industry; while the districts of Elets, Dmitrov and partly Mtsensk supply flour and various food-pastes. At Bryansk there is a government cannon-foundry. The “Maltsov works” in the district of Bryansk are an industrial colony (20,000), comprising several iron, machinery, glass and rope works, where thousands of peasants find temporary or permanent employment; they have their own technical school, employ engineers of their own training, and have their own narrow-gauge railways and telegraphs, both managed by boys of the technical school. Numerous petty trades are carried on by the peasants, along with agriculture. The government is divided into twelve districts, of which the chief towns are Orel, the capital, Bolkhov, Bryansk, Dmitrovsk, Elets, Karachev, Kromy, Livny, Malo-Arkhangelsk, Mtsensk, Syevsk and Trubchevsk.

In the 9th century the country was inhabited by the Slav tribes of the Syeveryanes on the Desna and the Vyatichis on the Oka, who both paid tribute to the Khazars. The Syeveryanes recognised the rule of the princes of the Rurik family from 884, and the Vyatichis from the middle of the 10th century; but the two peoples followed different historical lines, the former being absorbed into the Suzdal principality, while the latter fell under the rule of that of Chernigov. In the 11th century both had wealthy towns and villages; during the Mongol invasion of 1239–1242 these were all burned and pillaged, and the entire territory devastated. With the decay of the Great Horde of the Mongols the western part of the country fell under Lithuanian rule, and was the object of repeated struggles between Lithuania and Moscow. In the 16th century the Russians began to erect new forts and fortify the old towns, and the territory was rapidly colonized by immigrants from the north. In 1610 the towns of the present government of Orel (then known as the Ukrayna Ukraine, i.e. “border-region,”) took an active share in the insurrection against Moscow under the false Demetrius, and suffered much from the civil war which ensued. They continued, however, to be united with the rest of Russia.

OREL, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, lies at the confluence of the Oka with the Orlik, on the line of railway to the Crimea, 238 m. S.S.W. from Moscow. Pop. (1875) 45,000. (1900) 70,075. It was founded in 1566, but developed slowly, and, had only a very few houses at the beginning of the 18th century. The cathedral, begun in 1794, was finished only in 1861. The town possesses a military gymnasium (corps of cadets), a public library, and storehouses for grain and timber. The manufactures are rapidly increasing, and include hemp-carding and spinning, rope-making, flour-mills and candle factories. Orel is one of the chief markets of central Russia for corn, hemp, hempseed oil, and tallow, exported; metal wares, tobacco, kaolin, and glass ware are also exported, while salt, groceries and manufactured goods are imported.

O’RELL, MAX, the nom-de-plume of (1848–1903), French author and journalist, who was born in Brittany in 1848. He served as a cavalry officer in the Franco-German War, was captured at Sedan, but was released in time to join the Versaillist army which overcame the Commune, and was severely wounded during the second siege of Paris. In 1872 he went to England as correspondent of several French newspapers, and in 1876 became the very efficient French master at St Paul’s school, London, retaining that post until 1884. What induced him to leave was the brilliant success of his first book, John Bull et son Île, which in its French and English forms was so widely read as to make his pseudonym a household word in England and America.

Several other volumes of a similar type dealing in a like spirit with Scotland, America and France followed. He married an Englishwoman, who translated his books. But the main work of the years between 1890 and 1900 was lecturing. Max O’Rell was a ready and amusing speaker, and his easy manner and his humorous gift made him very successful on the platform. He lectured often in the United Kingdom and still more often in America. He died in Paris, where he was acting as correspondent of the New York Journal, on the 25th of May 1903.

ORELLI, HANS KONRAD VON (1846–), Swiss theologian, was born at Zürich on the 25th of January 1846 and was educated at Lausanne, Zürich and Erlangen. He also visited Tübingen for theology and Leipzig for oriental languages. In 1869 he was appointed preacher at the orphan house, Zürich, and in 1871 Privatdozent at the university. In 1873 he went to Basel as professor extraordinarius of theology, becoming ordinary professor in 1881. His chief work is on the Old Testament; in addition to commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah (1886), Ezekiel and the Twelve Prophets (1888), most of which have been translated, he wrote Die alttestamentliche Weissagung von der Vollendung des Gottesreiches (Vienna, 1882; Eng. trans. Edinburgh, 1885), Die himmlischen Heerschaaren (Basel, 1889), and a journal of Palestinian travel, Durchs Heilige Land (Basel, 1878).

ORELLI, JOHANN CASPAR VON (1787–1849), Swiss classical scholar, was born at Zürich on the 13th of February 1787. He belonged to a distinguished Italian family, which had taken refuge in Switzerland at the time of the Reformation. His cousin, (1770–1826), was the author of several works in the department of later Greek literature. From 1807 to 1814 Orelli worked as preacher in the reformed community of Bergamo, where he acquired the taste for Italian literature which led to the publication of Contributions to the History of Italian Poetry (1810) and a biography (1812) of Vittorino da Feltre, his ideal of a teacher. In 1814 he became teacher of modern languages and history at the cantonal school at Chur (Coire); in 1819, professor of eloquence and hermeneutics at the Carolinum in Zürich, and in 1833 professor at the new university, the foundation of which was largely due to his efforts. His attention during this period was mainly devoted to classical literature and antiquities. He had already published (1814) an edition, with critical notes and commentary, of the Antidosis of Isocrates, the complete text of which, based upon the MSS. in the Ambrosian and Laurentian libraries, had recently been made known by Andreas Mystoxedes of Corfu. The three works upon which his reputation rests are the following, (1) A complete edition of Cicero in seven volumes (1826–1838). The first four volumes contained the text (new ed., 1845–1863), the fifth the old Scholiasts, the remaining three (called Onomasticon Tullianum) a life of Cicero, a bibliography of previous editions, indexes of geographical and historical names, of laws and legal formulae, of Greek words, and the consular annals. After his death, the revised edition of the text was completed by J. G. Baiter and C. Halm, and contained numerous emendations by Theodor Mommsen and J. N. Madvig. (2) The works of Horace (1837–1838; 4th ed., 1886–1892). The exegetical commentary, although confessedly only a compilation from the works of earlier commentators, shows great taste and extensive learning, although hardly up to the exacting standard of modern criticism. (3) Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Collectio (1828; revised edition by W. Henzen, 1856), extremely helpful for the study of Roman public and private life and religion. His editions of Plato (1839–1841, including the old scholia, in collaboration with A. W. Winckelmann) and Tacitus (1846–1848, new ed. by various scholars, 1875–1894) also deserve mention. Orelli died at Zürich on the 6th of January 1849. He was a most liberal-minded man, both in politics and religion, an enthusiastic supporter of popular education and a most inspiring teacher. He took great interest in the struggle of the Greeks for independence, and strongly favoured the appointment of the notorious J. F. Strauss to the chair of dogmatic theology at Zürich, which led to the disturbance of the 6th of September 1839 and the fall of the liberal government.