Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/367

Rh M A L M A L 345 the due responsibility of supporting themselves and their families. By discouraging foresight, self-control, and the spirit of self-reliant independence, it demoralized the working man. The great aim ol the new poor law was to emphasize the duty of self -support and the responsibilities of parentage. (5) Relation to modern politics. Some of the greatest difficulties in contemporary politics can be correctly understood onlyin the light of the principle of population. The most striking example of this is India, where, under the good government of England, the old and unhappy checks to population, such as war, famine, pestilence, and religious self-immolation, have been removed. As there has been no proportionate improvement in agriculture, and in the ethical development of the people, population has increased beyond the means of subsistence, and there prevails a tendency to chronic poverty, a very low standard of living, a general misery, and an unsatisfactory social morale, which correspond badly with the high European civilization under which such a state of things is main tained. (6) It is only due to the memory of a good man, who was a sincere lover of truth and of the progress of humanity, that we should emphasize the fact that Mai thus is in no way responsible for the immoral theories popularly connected with his name. Apart from such increase in the means of subsistence as may be attained by emigration and improved agriculture, Malthus approved of only one method of solving the population question, namely, moral self- restraint. His single precept is &quot; Do not marry till you have a fair prospect of supporting a family. &quot; The greatest and highest moral result of his principle is that it clearly and emphatically teaches the responsibility of parentage, and declares the sin of those who bring human beings into the world for whose physical, intellec tual, and moral wellbeing no satisfactory provision is made. Besides his great work, Maltfius wrote Observations on the Effect of the Corn Laics; An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent ; Principles of Political Economy ; and Definitions in Political Economy. His views on rent were of real importance. For his life see Memoir by his friend Dr Otter, bishop of Chichester (prefixed to 2d edition, 1836, of the Principles of Political Economy). (T. K.) MALTON, a parliamentary borough of Yorkshire, Eng land, which includes Old Malton and New Malton in the North Fading, and the parish of Norton in the East Riding. New Malton is situated on an eminence on the right bank of the Derwent, 22 miles north-east of York and 213 north of London. Old Malton lies about a mile to the north-east, and a bridge across the river connects New Malton with Norton. New Malton, which is a market-town, consists of several well-built streets radiating from the market-place. The church of St Michael is a fine building in the Late Norman style ; the church of St Leonard, of mixed archi tecture, with square tower and spire, has -three Norman arches and a Norman font ; the west doorway of the church of St Mary at Old Malton is one of the finest specimens of Norman in England. In Old Malton there is a grammar school founded in 1517, and also the remains of a priory of Gilbertine canons, founded in 1150. New Malton possesses a town-hall and a corn exchange. The town has some shipping trade, and also iron and brass foundries, agricultural implement works, corn mills, tanneries, and breweries. In the neighbourhood there are lime and whin- stone quarries. The population of the parliamentary borough (area 6855 acres) in 1871 was 81 G8, and in 1881 it was 8750. Malton was a Roman station, and various Roman remains have been found in the neighbourhood. The old castle, built by the De Vescis in the time of the Normans, was demolished by Henry II. In the reign of Stephen the town, while occupied by the Scots, was burned down by Tlmrston, archbishop of York, and on being rebuilt it was named New Malton. The borough sent members to parliament as early as the reign of Edward L, but for some years previous to 1640 the privilege was in abeyance. Since 1868 only one member has been returned. MALTZAN, HEIXRICH K. E. H. FREIHERR [BARON] VON (182G-1874), African and Oriental traveller, was born in the vicinity of Dresden, and studied law at Jena, but on account of ill-health spent much of his time from 1850 in travel. Succeeding to his father s property in 1852, he extended the range of his journeys to Morocco and other parts of the Maghrib, and before his return home in 1854 had also visited Egypt, Palestine, and other countries of the Levant. In 1856-57 he was again in Algeria ; in 1858 he reached the city of Morocco; and in 1860 he succeeded in per forming the pilgrimage to Mecca, which he afterwards described in his book Heine WaUfahrt nach Mecca, but had to flee for his life to Jeddah without visiting Medina. He then visited Aden and Bombay, and after some two years of study in Europe again began to wander through the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, repeatedly visiting Algeria. His first book of travel, Three Years in the North- West of Africa, appeared in 1 863, and was followed by a variety of works and essays, popular and scientific, till a little before his death at Pisa in 1874, when he put an end with his own hand to neuralgic pains which had tortured him for years. Maltzan s last book, Rcise in Arabicn (1873), is one of his most useful contributions. It contains, like his other works, some lively description, but is chiefly valuable as a digest of much information .about little-known parts of South Arabia collected from natives during a residence at Aden in 1870-71. Among his other services to science must be noticed his collection of Punic inscriptions (Rcisc in Tunis und Tripolis, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1870), various collections on Arabic dialects (Z. D. M. G., various dates), and the editing of Von &quot;Wrcde s remarkable journey in Hadramaut (1873). MALUS, ETIENNE Louis (1775-1812), the discoverer of the laws of the polarization of light by reflexion, born at Paris on the 23d of June 1775, was the son of Anne Louis Malus du Mitry, and of Louisa Charlotte Desboves, his wife. His father, who had a place in the treasury of France, .gave him at home an excellent education in mathematics and in the fine arts, as well as in classical literature, and he then studied with distinction in the school of military engineers ; but, being regarded as a suspected person, probably on account of the situation held by his father, he was dismissed from the school without receiving a commission, and obliged to enter the army as a private soldier. Being employed upon the fortifications of Dunkirk, he was soon distinguished by M. Lepere, the director of the works, as superior to his accidental situation, and was selected as a member of the Ecole Polytechnique then to be established under Monge, who immediately chose him as one of the twenty who were to be instructors of the rest. In this institution, which at that moment was the only refuge of the sciences in France, he passed three years, giving special attention to the mathematical theory of optics. From the Ecole he was admitted into the corps of engineers, and served in the army of the Sambre and Meuse ; he was present at the passage of the Rhine in 1797, and at the affairs of Ukratz and Altenkirch. In Germany he fell in love with the daughter of Koch, the chancellor of the university of Giessen ; and he was on the point of marrying her when he was obliged to join the Egyptian expedition. He remained in the East, and saw much service till the capitulation with the English, when he returned to France (October 1801), and hastened to Germany to fulfil his engagement. His fidelity was rewarded, during the eleven years that he survived, by the most constant and affectionate attention on the part of his wife. Though his health was much broken by the eastern campaign, Malus was still able to combine the pursuit of his favourite sciences with his official duties in superin tending the construction of works at Antwerp and at Strasburg ; and upon occasion of a prize question proposed by the Institute he undertook the investigation of the extraordinary refraction of Iceland crystal, which the experiments of Dr Wollaston had previously shown to agree very accurately with the laws laid down by Huygens ; and, besides completely confirming all Wollas- ton s results, he had the good fortune greatly to extend the Huygenian discovery of the peculiar modification of light produced by the action of such crystals, which Newton had distinguished by the name &quot;polarity,&quot; and which Malus now found to be produced in a variety of circumstances, independently of the action of crystallized XV. - 44