Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/715

 LEVI^

Order of the Star of India^ -^ug. 19, 1870. The honorary freedom of the City of London was publicly pre- sented to him, July 30, 1870. In July, 1873, the Paris Academy of Sciences chose M. de Lesseps a free member in the place of M. de Ver- neuil deceased. In 1875 he pub- lished "Lettres, journal, et docu- ments pour servir k Thistoire du canal du Suez." For this work the French Academy awarded to him the Marcelin Gu^rin prize of 6,000 francs (May, 1876). On June 21, 1881, he was elected President of the French Geographical Society in the place of Admiral de la Bonci^re- le-Noury. During the Egyptian expedition of 1882 M. de Lesseps violently opposed the policy pursued by Great Britain, and regarded Arabi Pasha as a noble patriot. In the following year M. de Lesseps entered into a preliminary agree- ment with Her Majesty's Govern- ment for the cutting of a second Suez Canal ; but as the arrangement did not receive the sanction of the House of Commons, the negotiations were abandoned. The broad ribbon of the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun was presented to M. de Lesseps, July 25, 1883.

LEVI, Leonb, F.S.A., born at Anoona, in Italy, July 6, 1821, was educated for mercantile piirsuits; in 1844 arrived at Liverpool, and in 1847 was naturalised, and became a British subject. Mr. Levi being struck with the want, in so great a commercial community as Liverpool, of a Chamber of Commerce, with a supplemental tribunal of commerce for the settlement of commercial disputes, agitated the question as one of pubUc interest. His appeal was successful, and the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce was estab- lished in 1849, and numbers up- wards of 600 members. This im- portant example led to the forma- tion of similar institutions in other commercial towns in the provinces. In his capacity of Hon. Sec. of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce,

Mr. Levi procured information re- specting similar institutions abroad, and was enabled to produce his " Commercial Law of the World," 1850, a second edition of which, under the title of "International Commercial Law," appeared in 1873. This work gained for the author the Swiney Prize awarded by the Society of Arts and'the Col- lege of Physicians, and from the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia their great gold medal for science and art. Mr. Levi sug- gested the utility of an Interna- tional Commerciid Code, and lec- tured on the subject before the Chambers of Commerce. A confer- ence presided over by Lord Brougham and the Earl of Harrow- by was held in London on the subject, and the result was that two Acts were passed, 19 & 20 Vict, c. 60, and 19 & 20 Vict. c. 97. whereby the mercantile laws of the United Kingdom were made uniform on many points. Since then, considerable advance has been made towards unity of commercial legislation even in foreign coimtries. In 1856 he read a paper on '' Judi- cial Statistics" before the Law Amendment Society, and afterwards prepared a series of resolutions and a bill on the subject which Lord Brougham introduced in the House of Lords. Hence the publication of the anpuftl volumes on Judicial Statistics for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Mr. Levi has written " On Taxation : How it is Baised, and How it is Expended/' published in 1860 ; and many of his contributions may be found in the Journal of the StcUistical Society, the Transactions of the British Associa'^ tton, and the Journal of the Society of Arts, He has also written a " History of British Commerce and of the Economic Progress of the British Nation, 1863-70 " (1872), a second edition of which, bringing the History down to 1878, was pub- lished in 1880, '* Work and Pay ; " " War, and its Consequences," &c.