Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/680

* CHESTERFIELD. 598 CHESTNUT. supplies are managed by a special board : parks, jiulilic baths, a cemetery, markets, and slau^iliter- houses are maintained by the municipality. It also operates its street railways. The town has an exoollonl system of sewerafre. and in coiinec- tiim therewith maintains a sewajre farm. Its educational institutions include an ancient jiram- inar school ami technical school, and a public library maintained by the town. The town is ot great antiquity. Its first charter was re- ceived in the reign of King John. The parish church of All Saints, dating from the Fourteen! li Century, is renuirkable for its curious twisted spire. George Stephenson is buried in Trinity Church. Population, in ISPl, 22,000: in 1!)01, 27,200. Consult Yeatman, The Records of Ches- terfield (Chesterfield, 1884). CHESTERFIELD, Philip Dormer Stan- hope, Earl of ( l(i!14-1773). An Kngli.sh states- man and author, eldest son of the third Earl of Chesterfield. He was bin-n in London. Septendier 22, 1094. He studied for alunit a year at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and then left to travel in Flanders (1714). The next year he was appoint- ed a gentleman of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and entered the House of Commons as a Whig. On the death of his father (I72(i), he succeeded to the earldom and took his seat in the House of I^ords. Two years later he was appointed Ambassador to The Hague; in 1730 he was made a Knight of the Garter and Lord Steward of the Household. Dismissed frou ollice (1733), he became a bitter opponent of Walpole. Particularly brilliant was his speech against the Licensing Act (1737). In 1744 he joined the Pelham Rlinislry, and the next year was ap- pointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a post for which he was admirably qualified. In 1740 he became Secretary of State, and was ofl'ercd a dukedom. In 1748 he resigned office, and jiassed the rest of his life in leisure. He died Jlarch 24, 1773. Distinguished for wit and graceful man- ners, he was for a time on terms of intimacy with Pope, Swift, Bolingbroke, and other eminent contemporaries. At an ino])])ortunc time he thrust himself forward as a patron of Dr. ,fohn- spn, and was repudiated in a celebrated letter (February 7, 1755). Chesterfield's literary fame rests upon his hetters (publislied 1774) to his natural son, Pliilip Dormer, written for the im- pi'ovement of his manners. Long very popular, these letters contain counsel still valuable. Their immorality was justly censured by Dr. John- son, and with equal justice Sainte-Bcuve praised their practical good sense. Consult: J^etters of Chesterfhhl. edited bv I^ord Mahon (London, 1845-53), and by J. Bradshaw (London, 1802) ; also Browning, Wit and M'isdom of Lord Chester- field (London, 1875) : Hill, M'orldly Wisdom of Lord Chesterfield (New York. 1801): and Col- lins, ICssaijs and (Studies (London, 1895). CHESTERFIELD INLET. An inlet of Hud- son Bay. which extends westward for a distance of over 200 miles from the northwest corner of the bay (Jlap: Canada, ]M 4). It has a vari- able width, which docs not exceed 25 miles, and is in water connection, near its head, with the string of large lakes l.ving to the southwest. It contains a number of islands, and at its west- ern extremity it widens into Baker Lake. CHESTER PLAYS, The. A group of mys- tery phiys on scriptural subjects, twenty-four in all. played by the guilds of Chester during three days at Whitsuntide. A Sixteenth-Cent ury i)roc- lamation concerning tlicm ascribes them, in ob- scure phrase, to either Sir Henry Francis, a monk, or to Sir .John Arnway, mayor of Chester in 1327-28. The earliest manuscri)>t of them is in the poi^ession of the Duke of Devonshire, and is dated 1581. The only complete edition of them was nuide by Mr. Thomas Wright, for the Shakespeare' Society, London (2 vols., London, 1843-47). CHES'TERTOWN. A toA-n and county-seat of Kent Coiinly. ild., 30 miles east of Baltimore, on the Chester River, and on the Pennsylvania Railroad (Map: Maryland, N 4). It has i)lan- ing-uiills, strawbo;u'd-mills, and [diosphate and basket factories. Washington College, organized in 178.'>, is situated Iiere. The town government is administered by three eonunissioners, who hold office for three years. Population, in 1890, 2032; in 1000. 3008. CHESTNUT, ches'nut (formerly ehest en-nut, a contamination of AS. cisten, OHG. chestinna, kesiinna, Oer. Knstanie, chestnut, and OV. chas- laine, Tt. castafina, Lat. eastanea, chestnut, from Gk. Ka<rTavia,l<astanea. Arm. Icask, chestnut; con- nected with Gk. Kda-Taro, iin.s(f/)i«, orKaaravala. Kastanaitt, a cit.v of I'ontus noted for chestnuts). Castnnta. A genus of plants of the natural order Cupulifenr. closely allied to the beecli (Fagus), and distinguished from it by long male catkins, longitudinally set with groups of flowers, a five to eight celled ovary (bur), and compressed, rounded nuts. Three species are of horticultural and commercial importance for their nuts and wood— the European or Spanisli chestnut {Caslanea sativa), the .lapanese (('((.s- ianea Japoniva or Cnstanea erenalu). and the American {Castanca Americana). The Euro- l)ean chestnut grows wild in extensive forests in the south of Europe, west of .Vsia, and north of Africa, and is a large, stately tree. The nuts are usually two in each bur, very large, and of a dark uuihogany color. The American chestnut is taller and more spreading. In forests it reaches a height of 100 feet, with a trunk 3 to 4 feet in diameter. It is native from Maine to Micliigan and southward to Louisiana, and is generally found on high, sandy land, gravel ridges, or nu]untain slopes comparatively free from limestone. Twenty or more im|)roved va- rieties are in cultivation. The .lapanese chest- nut is a smaller tree than either the European or American, and has a compact, synnuetrical habit. Its large nuts, early and heavy bearing propensities, comparative freedom from blights, and complete miion on either its own .mcrican- grown or on native American .seedlings has brought it into extended use in the t'nitcd States within recent years as an orchard tree and in grafting over native chestnut forests. Chestnuts are usually propagated from seed, and the seed- lings are later grafted or budded with improved varieties. A C(mimon way in the I'nited States is to graft the sprouts arising from the stumps of cut-over chestnut lands with European or Jap- anese varieties. Chestnut timber is coarse- grained, light, and durable, and it finds exten- sive use in furniturenuiking, and for jiosts and fence-timbers. In addition to the three species noted above, there arc* a number of dwarf forms known as chinquapins. The common or tree chinquapin