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* EPPING. 162 EQUATION. in 1901, 3S00. Epping Forest is a part of Waltham Forest, which covered all Essex and extended almost to London. It is now limited tu a comparatively small area in the southwest part of the county. Here for many centuries a fair was held under the enormous Fairlop oak, no longer existent, and a stag was yearly turned out in the forest on East to be hunted by the general public. In L882, .3000 acres of Epping Forest were bought by the corporation of London, and declared free to the public in perpetuity. EPPING FOREST. See Epping. EP'SOM. A market town on the margin of the Banstead Downs in Sumy. England, 15 miles south-southwest of London (Hap, England, F 5). The lamed sulphate of magnesia springs of Epsom gave their name to the Epsom salts formerly manufactured from them. The Royal Medical College erected on the Downs provides education for about 170 boys, the sons of medical men. and affords a home to indigent members of the profession and their widows. Population, in 1901. 10,900. On the Downs, IV2 miles south of the town, the famous Epsom horse-races are held yearly. They are said to have been instituted by Charles L, but have become of greater im- portance since the institution of the Derby stakes in 1TS0. There are two annual meetings, one in the spring and one in the summer. In the latter the two famous stakes for three-year-olds, tlie Derby and Oaks, are contested. EPSOM SALT. A hydrous magnesium sul- phate found native as the mineral kieserite and as epsomite, also in mineral waters. The kieser- ite is found in the Stassfurt salt beds, and the epsomite occurs in the gypsum quarries of Mont- martre, Frame, in Spain, in Chile, and in the limestone eaves of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ten- nessee, and especially in the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. It was originally obtained from the waters of the mineral spring in Epsom, England, and subsequently was made by decomposing dolomite with sulphuric acid; but the principal source of the commercial salt is now the Stass- furt salt-mines in Saxony, where the crude min- eral i- separated from the accompanying mag- lie-ium and -odium chlorides by dissolving out these two --alts with water, which leaves the magnesium sulphate as a line powder that may Red by crystallization from water. Epsom salt i- used in medicine as a cathartic; it is also employed for agricultural purposes, in the proc- ess of warp-sizing cotton, and for dyeing with aniline colors. EP'WORTH LEAGUE (named after Ep- worth, Lincolnshire, England, the birthplace of John Wesley). A society of .the Methodist t hurcb. It was organized in Cleveland. Ohio, in May. 1889, by representatives of five different Ml i ieties for young people, anil is lim- ited in it-, membership to Methodists. While lila r to that of the Young 1 dri tiarj Endeai or. i> d< * I ; in a ad 1 ho ki ens the to their fealty to the Mel ho dial Episcopal Church. Its strength is in the 1 hurch, but it extends also into the 11 them and Canadian branches. Its headquai it he / pirorlll //. ,-.i/./ : present !00 000. For particulars, consult Bacon and Northrop, Young People's .Societies (New York, 1900). EQUALITY. A vague term of varying sig- nification in the recent history of social and political speculation. In its primary sense it denotes the equal worthiness of all human beings, and calls for such an arrangement of the struc- ture of society as to insure to all an equal degree of the material advantages of life. It is in this sense that it was employed by Rousseau in his famous declaration that it was the function of the State to maintain liberty and equality among its subjects (Contrat Social, ii. 11), and in the assertion of the American Declaration of Inde- pendence of the 'self-evident' truth that all men are created equal. It was this kind of equality that, under the influence of Rousseau, the French Revolution aimed to realize, and the ideal to which it points has been the inspiration of more than one movement for the emancipation of hu- manity. How much the steady march of the democratic movement of the last century, and the spread of popular government, owe to this humanitarian sentiment for equality can only be imagined. It is in this extreme and senti- mental form, also, that the doctrine has incurred the hostile criticism of hard-headed and unsym- pathetic writers such as Mr. Justice Stephen (Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity) and Sir Henry Maine (Popular Government). The in- fluence of the doctrine in the communistic and socialistic movements of the day will be de- scribed in connection with those topics. The term equality is somewhat more definitely employed in a secondary sense to denote one of the two great aims of the modern democratic move- ment in society and politics. One of these aims is individual liberty, and the other is such a measure of equality as is compatible with a rational lib- erty. The reconciliation of these two conflicting aims is the great task of government, and it is through this process of reconciliation that the conception of equality has been brought within the sphere of practical discussion. As a political programme, then, it includes the following definite aims: First, equality of political status; second, equality of civil rights; and third, equality of opportunity. The first of these is secured by the widest possible extension of the principle of popular government: the second by the abolition of privilege, whether based on wealth, on birth, or on public service; the third by breaking down the artificial barriers of caste, affording to all an equal enjoyment of public utilities and the advantages of a common education. Equality of political rights and equality before the law- have been measurably attained in some favored lands: but industrial equality is still far to sick. This principle of human equality is a puiely modern conception, and had its origin in the ' I ri-tian conception of the equality of all men before God. It derived its impulse, as a social and political principle, mainly from the pas-ion ate writings of .Tean Jacques Rousseau. Sec 1>i:- I.HKV; LTBEETT OF Till iMiivini'AL. Consult the authorities referred to under such titles as Democracy ; Political Science, etc EQUAL RIGHTS PARTY, Tut:. See I 1 oeo. EQUATION (Lat. tzquatio, from (square, to e. from cequus, equal). In algebra, an equality which exi-ls only for particular values