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WEBSTER

2064

WEIMAR

Consult Life by Scudder in The American Men of Letters Series.

Webster, Pelatiah, justly called the father of the American constitution, was born in Connecticut in 1725 and died at Philadelphia in 1795. About 1755 he became a successful merchant of Philadelphia, obtaining ample leisure for study and writing. During the Revolution he was thoroughly loyal to the United States, and suffered severely in purse and person. The Continental Congress often consulted him on American currency, finance and resources. After the war he wrote much on finance and economics. Among his writings are A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the Thirteen United States (1783) and Political Essays on Money (1791). Madison afterwards mentioned the Dissertation as an early and able effort in directing popular thought toward a better form of government, and it contains every essential element of our federal constitution. See The North American Review, Aug. 16, 1907, for an eulogy of Webster. His Essays remain an authority on the finance of their time.

Wedg'wood, Josi'ah, an English potter, was born at Burslem in Staffordshire, on July 12, 1730. He learned his trade from his father, but was not satisfied with merely carrying it on in the old methods, but made effort toward improvement. He succeeded in producing a cream-colored porcelain which was known as Queen's ware. He extended his improvements also to the form and decoration of his pottery, copying from ancient models and employing Flaxman the sculptor to design for him. He thus raised the rude manufacture of pottery in England to a high position as an art. He built large factories near Burslem for the manufacture of the Wedgwood ware, invented by him in 1775, calling the village Etruria. His liberality and public spirit equaled his wealth, and he was known also as a writer on philosophical subjects. He died on Jan. 3, 1795. Consult Life by Meteyard.

Weed, Thur'low, an American journalistf was "born at Cairo, N. Y., on Nov. 15, 1797. At ten he was a cabin-boy on a sloop on the Hudson River, and at 12 an apprentice in a printing-office at Catskill, N. Y. He served as a volunteer in the War of 1812. He established The Agriculturist in western New York, editing several other journals until he was selected as the editor of The Albany Journal, an organ of the Whig party. Here he became an acknowledged leader first of the Whig and then of the Republican party, and had great influence in securing the nominations of Harrison, Taylor and Scott. In 1865 he moved to New York City and became editor of the New Y&rk Times and afterwards of the Commercial Advertiser. He died at New York on Nov. 22, 1882.

Wee'vil, a common name for a number of beetles with long snouts, abundant in the United States, the Curculios, The name of weevil is applied also to beetles of the family Bruchidce. Some of the weevils are among the most destructive insects. The plum-weevil, for example, often destroys a large part of that fruit. The female bores a hole in the fruit with her snout, and lays an egg in the cavity; the egg is then pushed to the bottom with the snout. The larva hatches and feeds upon the fruit, which spoils and drops off the tree. The same insect infests cherries, but the wormy cherries hold to the tree. It is also destructive to apricots and peaches. Fortunately, this species is not found on the Pacific coast. The acorn-weevil and the nut-weevil are destructive to acorns, hickory nuts and chestnuts, the snout being in all cases used to make a hole for the eggs. Apple and strawberry weevils attack those fruits, and the latter are especially destructive when they get into a strawberry patch. A large ana very destructive member is the Mexican cotton-boll (q. v.) weevil, which worked such devastation in Texas a few years ago. The larva, a white maggot, lives on the inner tissue of bolls and buds. The adult weevils feed on tender twigs and leaves. Adults hibernate in rubbish. Remedies recommended are the fall-plowing and burning of infested fields, early planting and cultivation. Stored rice is infested by the rice-weevil, which does a great deal of damage. Peas and beans have been greatly harmed by the pea-weevil, the larva of which bores through the pod and into the pea, feeds industriously here, when full-grown eating a passageway on one side of the pea through which it is to make exit later; in the pea it undergoes transformation, and then emerges as an adult beetle. The larva in feeding avoids the germ of the future sprout, and many peas planted for seed are infested, beetles readily emerging from them. As a rule beetles begin to appear as soon as the peas are in bloom. Certain grain and flour insects are mistakenly called weevils.

Weim'ar (vi'mdr), a town in Germany, capital of Saxe-Weimar, is 60 miles southwest of Leipsic. It is on Ilm River, in a pleasant valley, but, though a court residence, has little trade and no manufactures. It is celebrated as the home of Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Wieland. The ducal palace has rooms decorated with frescoes illustrating the works of these authors, the public library contains busts of them, and there are a double statue of Goethe and Schiller, one of Herder and one of Wieland; and the tomb of Herder is in the town-church. There are a gymnasium, a free school of design, a public library, a theater, once famous under Goethe's and Schiller's management, and a fine museum. Population 31,117.