Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/444

428 In Glasgow, 1861 the proportion is S 6 1873 9-4 -rr i i i 185G 7 6 Edinburgh, j 1S73 g-3 ,, . ( 1851 26-75 Pans, j 185g 26-35 St Petersburg, 1828-29 18 80 Stockholm, 1831-35, 40 7 Vienna, 1851, 51 7 Milan, ,, 34 Prague, ,, 46 7 per cent.

 BASTÍ, a district of British India, in the Benares divi sion, under the jurisdiction of the Lieutenant-Governor of the N.W. Provinces, situated between 26 23 and 27 30 N. lat., and 82 17 and 83 19 30 E. long. It is bounded on the 1ST. by the independent state of Nepal, on the E. by the district of Gorakhpur, on the S. by the Ghagra River, and on the W. by the district of GondA in Oudh. The district stretches out in one vast marshy plain, draining towards the south-east, and traversed by the Rapti, Kuna, Bangangd, Masdih, Janiwar, Ami, and Katnehia rivers. The tract lying between these streams consists of a rich alluvial deposit, more or less subject to inundations, but producing good crops of wheat and barley. Area of the district, 2787 square miles; population in 1872, 1,472,994 souls, residing in 6911 villages or townships, and 248,268 houses. The Hindus numbered 1,247,201; the Mahometans, 225,784; Christians, &c., 9 only. The Hindus, principally Rajput, belong to various clans. No manufacturing communities exist in the district, the entire population being cultivators. Rice and millet are the chief agricultural products. In 1870-71 the total revenue of the district amounted to 141,630, of which 132,274, or 93 per cent,, was from land; the total expen diture amounting to 9518, 12s. The chief towns are Mihdawal, population 8124 ; Basti, population 5087. The cost of the regular police force (exclusive of the village watch) was 15,896. In 1872-73 Basti contained 185 schools, attended by 6810 pupils. The land revenue settlement was made for thirty years in 18G4, with that of the district of Gorakhpur, of which Basti formed a part till 1865, when it was erected into a separate district.  BASTIA, a fortified town and seaport on the eastern coast of the island of Corsica, and the capital of an arron- dissement. Lat. 42 41 36&quot; N., long. 9 27 22&quot; E. It occupies a very picturesque situation, rising from the sea in the form of an amphitheatre ; but the town itself is ill- built, and the streets are narrow and crooked. The harbour, which is defended by a citadel, has a narrow and difficult entrance. Bastia is the seat of a royal court for the island, and of tribunals of commerce and primary jurisdiction, and has a theatre, a military and a civil hospital, a communal college, a model school, a museum, and a library of 30,000 volumes. Its principal manufactures are soap, leather, liqueurs, and wax ; and it exports oil, wine, coral, and various other products, being the principal seat of the import and export trade of the island. Bastia dates from the building of the Genoese Castle by Lionello Lomellino in 1383, and derives its name from the Bastion of St Charles. Under the Genoese it was long the principal stronghold in the north of the island, and the residence of the governor ; and, in 1553, it was the first town attacked by the French. On the division of the island in 1797 into the two departments of Golo and Liamone, Bastia remained the capital of the former ; but when the two were again united Ajaccio obtained the superiority. The city was taken by the English in 1745, and again in 1794. Popula tion, 21,535. (See view in Lear s Jour, in Corsica, 1870.)  BASTIAT,, the son of a merchant of Bayonne, was born in that town on tHe 19th of June 1801. After being educated at the Colleges of Saint-Sever and of Soreze, he entered in 1818 the counting-house of his uncle at Bayonne. Here his intensely active mind soon began to interest itself in the study of the principles of commerce, but he felt no enjoyment in the practical routine of mercantile life, and in 1825 retired to a property at Mugron, of which he became possessor on the death of his grandfather. Thus withdrawn from society, he devoted himself with eagerness to meditation and study, mastering the English and Italian languages and literatures, speculat ing on the problems of philosophy and religion, digesting the doctrines of Adam Smith and Say, of Charles Comte and Dunoyer, cultivating music, experimenting in farming, and talking over all that he read, thought, and desired, with his able, dearly loved, and life-long friend, M. Felix Coudroy. He welcomed with enthusiasm the Revolution of 1&30. In 1831 he became a justice of peace of Mugron, and in 1832, a member of the Council- General of the Landes. In 1834 he published his first pamphlet. In 1840 he visited Spain and Portugal, and spent a few weeks in London. Between 1841-44 three pamphlets appeared from his pen, all, like his first brochure, on questions of taxation affecting local interests. During this period an accidental circumstance led him to become a subscriber to an English newspaper, the Globe and Traveller, through which he was made acquainted with the nature and pro gress of the crusade so vigorously and skilfully carried on by the Anti-Corn-Law League against Protectionist doctrines and practices. After closely studying the move ment for two years he resolved to make his countrymen aware of its history and significance, and to inaugurate, if possible, a similar movement in France. To prepare the way he contributed in 1844 to the Journal des Econo- tnistes an article &quot; Sur 1 influence des tarifs Anglais et Fran9ais,&quot; which attracted great attention, and which he followed up by others, including the first series of his brilliant Sophistries Economiya.es. In 1845 he came to Paris in order to superintend the publication of his Cobden et la Ligue, ou V agitation Anglaise pour la liberte des echanges, and was very cordially received by the economists of the capital ; from Paris he went to London and Manchester, and made the personal acquaint ance of Cobden, Bright, and other leaders of the league. When he returned to France he found that his writings had been exerting a powerful influence ; and in 1846 he assisted in organizing at Bordeaux the first French Free Trade Association. The rapid spread of the movement soon required him to abandon the sweet and fruitful leisure of his beloved Mugron for the feverish and consuming activity of Paris. During the eighteen months which followed this change his labours were prodigious. He acted as secretary of the central committee of the associa tion, organized and corresponded with branch societies, waited on ministers, procured subscriptions, edited a weekly paper, the Libre-Echange, contributed to the Journal des Economistes, and to three other periodicals, addressed meetings in Paris and the provinces, and delivered a course of lectures on the principles of political economy to students of the schools of law and of medicine. The cause to which he thus devoted himself, with a zeal and a self- denial most admirable in themselves, but fatal to his own health and life, appeared for a time as if it would be as successful in France as in England ; but the forces in its favour were much weaker and those opposed to it were much stronger in the former country than in the latter, and this became always the more apparent as the struggle proceeded, until it was brought to an abrupt end by the Revolution of February 1848. This event allowed the socialism and communism which had been gathering and spreading in secret during the previous thirty years to 