Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/87

 FAN FANEUIL 79 with diamonds was presented to Queen Eliza- beth on New Year's day. Among the articles received by Cortes from Montezuma were five fans of variegated feathers, four of them with 10 and one with 13 rods embossed with gold, and one fan, also with variegated featherwork, with 37 rods plated with gold. In Spain at an early day fans were special favorites with ladies, and the Spanish lady, as well as the ladies of Spanish extraction in the new world, are inimitable in their management (manejo) of the fan (abanico.) They carry on conversa- tions with it, and a book might be written to explain the complicated code of signals by which they express their feelings with the fan. The best and cheapest lacquered fans are produced in China. Those made of i vory, bone, and feath- ers are destined chiefly for the European and American markets. The fans which the Chinese use are of polished or japanned bamboo, cov- ered with paper, and vary in price from 20 to 30 cents a dozen. The state fan which is used on great occasions in China and India is pre- cisely of the same semicircular form and point- ed top which was in fashion among the ancient Greeks. In Japan the fan is to be seen on all occasions, among all classes of society, and in the hands of men, women, and children. Where the European takes off his hat in token of politeness, the Japanese performs the same courtesy by waving his fan. In the schools dili- gent scholars receive fans in reward for their zeal. A gentleman, in giving alms to a beggar, puts the money upon his fan. When a criminal of rank is sentenced to death, his doom is pro- claimed to him by presenting him with a fan, and his head is taken off while he bows and stretches out his hand to receive the fatal gift. Japanese fans, generally ornamented with gro- tesque pictures, are exported in large quanti- ties to the United States, where they are as popular as those of China for their cheapness and neatness. Fans were used for allegorical purposes in the mythology of Greece, and the Egyptian custom of employing them in temples and for religious purposes has also been per- petuated in the ritual of the modern Greek church, which places a fan in the hands of its deacons. They are used to this day in Eome on public occasions, especially at the festa di cattedra, when the pope is escorted by two men who carry feather fans with ivory handles, but do not use them. Next to China and Japan, France is most celebrated for the manufacture of fans, but beautiful fans are also made in the United States, in England, at Brussels, Geneva, Vienna, and at various other places. The manu- facture in France presents an interesting in- stance of the subdivision of labor, 20 different processes being required to produce a fan which sells for less than three cents, as well as one worth several thousand francs. This industry gives employment to thousands of persons, and its aggregate value for Paris alone is estimated at 7,000,000 francs annually. In France, the fan is occasionally used by genttemen at the 313 VOL. vii. 6 theatres, having first appeared on a warm sum- mer evening of 1828, during the representa- tion of Corisandre at the comic opera. Hence the name of corisandre applied in France to fans used by gentlemen. FANARIOTES, or Phanariotes, the Greeks who reside in the Fanar -or Phanar district of Con- stantinople, whose ancestors had escaped the fury of the Turkish conquerors after the capture of that city by Mohammed II. (1453). Origi- nally employed as translators of public docu- ments and as secretaries and stewards of distin- guished personages, they gradually acquired by their wealth, as well as by their abilities and intrigues, great political, financial, and social importance in Turkey. The office of dragoman of the divan was for the first time intrusted to a Greek in the 17th century, under Mohammed IV., and has since been uniformly conferred upon Fanariotes. Most of the hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia from the latter part of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th were also members of Fanariote families (Callimachi, Cantacuzene, Cantemir, Ducas, Karadja, Musuri, Sutzo, Ypsilanti, &c.). The Fanariotes were the principal bankers of Con- stantinople, and as such dispensers of an exten- sive patronage in the bestowal of public offices. FANDANGO, the oldest national dance of Spain, especially of Andalusia. Some suppose it to have been introduced by the Moors ; others say the Moors found the dance already estab- lished, and trace its origin to the most an- cient times. It is danced in three-four time by one couple only, usually to the accompaniment of the guitar, and occasionally also of the tambourine, the dancers beating time with cas- tanets and the spectators by clapping their hands. The Andalusian villagers dance it al- most every evening, and always on Sunday. The dancers and their friends sing improvised couplets ; and the lady offers her cheek to the men present after each dance, and allows her- self to be embraced by all of them. The fan- dango is described as vivacious, graceful, and voluptuous. Repeated efforts of the clergy to suppress the dance have proved inadequate to overcome its popularity among the peasantry. FANEUIL, Peter, the founder of Faneuil hall in Boston, born of a French Huguenot family in New Rochelle, N, Y., in 1700, died in Bos- ton, March 3, 1743. He became a merchant in Boston, and in 1740, after the project of erect- ing a public market house in Boston had been discussed for some years, he offered at a public meeting to build a suitable edifice at his own cost as a gift to the town ; but so strong was the opposition to market houses that, although a vote of thanks was passed unanimously, the offer was accepted by a majority of only seven. The building was commenced in Dock square in September of the same year, and finished in two years. It comprised a market house on the ground floor, and a town hall with other rooms (an addition to the original plan) over it. In 1761 it was destroyed by fire ; in 1763 it