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 338 FORUM FORWARDING MERCHANT eago road are done here. The buildings for this work are of brick, mostly two stories high, and cover six acres. Good water power is fur- nished by the canal and the river, and the man- ufactures are important. The Fort Wayne ma- chine works, with machine shop, foundery, car wheel shop, boiler shop, and blacksmith shop, employ 125 men. There are also 2 other machine shops, 8 flour mills, 8 planing mills and sash and door factories, 4 tanneries, 3 cabinet works, 2 manufactories of agricultural implements (reapers and mowers, threshing machines, &c.), a woollen factory employing 70 men, a hub, spoke, and bending factory, having 125 men, 3 national banks with a Capital of $750,000, and 3 insurance companies with $555,000 cap- ital. The city is divided into nine wards. There are efficient police and fire departments, and the streets are well paved and lighted with gas. The principal charitable institutions are the orphans' home and the city hospital. The public schools consist of a normal school, a high school, 3 grammar and 32 primary schools, which in 1872 had 55 teachers and an average attendance of 2,830 pupils; expenditure for school purposes, $41,200, of which $25,000 were for teachers' wages. Concordia college (Lutheran), established in 1850, had 4 profes- sors, 148 students, and a library of 3,000 vol- umes. Fort Wayne college (Methodist), estab- lished in 1846, had 7 professors, 132 students, and a library of 1,600 volumes. There are a German Reformed, three Lutheran, and six Catholic parochial schools. Two daily news- papers, one tri-weekly (German), and six weekly (two German) are published. There are 15 churches. The site of Fort Wayne was visited as early as 1700 by the French for the purpose of trading with the Indians. Prior to 1719 they established a regular trading post here, and sub- sequently erected Fort Miami. In December, 1760, the British built a fort on the E. bank of the St. Joseph's near its mouth. In October, 1794, Gen. Wayne erected the government post of Fort Wayne ; in 1825 the town was laid out ; and in 1840 the city was incorporated. FORUM, in ancient Roman cities, an open place used for the administration of justice or the sale of goods, and for the transaction of all kinds of public business. In this respect it corresponded with the agora of the Greeks ; but unlike this, it was oblong in form, and never square. In a Roman camp it was the open space before the tent of the general, and the word also forms a part of the name of many towns and villages. The Romans had two kinds of/onz, the cimlia, sometimes called judicially in which popular assemblies and courts of justice were held, and where the bankers and usurers usually had their stands ; and the venalia, which were used exclusively for mercantile purposes. The city of Rome contained 19 of both kinds ; but the/omw Eo- manum, whose origin is coeval with that of the city, and which is known by the general name of the Forum, was by far the most im- portant, notwithstanding some very magnifi- cent ones were built under the emperors. It occupied a hollow space between the Capito- line and Palatine hills, extending in its longest diameter probably from the arch of Septimius Severus to the temple of Antoninus and Fausti- na. Around its four sides stood temples, basili- cas, triumphal arches, and other public edifices, while within it were the rostra or stages from' which orators addressed public assemblies, sta- tues of illustrious Romans, columns, and tro- phies of war. At the comitium or upper end were suspended the laws of the twelve tables, and the fasti or calendar of all the days on which legal business could be transacted before the prrator. It is now known as the Campo Yaccino, from having been used for several centuries as a cattle market, and preserves no traces of its ancient splendor beyond a few scattered columns. A forum judiciale was built by Julius Caesar, and another by Augustus, which, with the forum Romanum, seem to have been the only ones in Rome for the trans- action of public business. FORWARDING MERCHANT, one whose busi- ness it is to send forward goods to a distant consignee. There are in the United States per- sons who engage in this business almost exclu- sively, especially in the western cities, in which produce accumulates on its way to the east, and to which eastern goods are carried for dis- tribution through the west. There is nothing, however, in their business which is so far pe- culiar to them as to be governed by peculiar laws of its own, and therefore call for especial statement. But there are two classes of per- sons who come under this name, or discharge the duties which it describes, and of whom more should be said. One of these consists of those who are called expressmen, and the other of common carriers, who, besides carrying goods on their own route, undertake to forward them still further. The whole business of expressmen is of comparatively recent origin ; but it has already reached an immense extent and impor- tance. It Jias grown out of common carriage of goods, but differs from it mainly in the fact that expressmen have no means of carriage of their own, but hire cars or vehicles, or room in them, and usually go with their parcels. It may be said, too, that they usually carry par- cels only, or if larger packages, still not car- goes or large quantities of goods, as hundreds of barrels or bales, the carriage of these things being still left to common or private carriers. The principal question in relation to express- men has been, are they still common carriers in law, and do they as such come under the strict responsibilities of common carriers ? In other words, do they insure the safe carriage and delivery of all the goods against all risks "ex- cept the act of God and the public enemy " ? It is now settled that they do thus insure the goods they receive throughout the whole route for which they profess to be carriers, and that they are therefore liable for any loss or injury