Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/573

* SAMPSON. 513 SAMSON. From January, 1803, until Jlay, 1897, he was cliief of the liureau of Ordnance, played a con- spicuous part in tlic buildiufr up of llicMunv navy, and came to lie recognized !is one of the world's greatest authorities on ordnance. To liim more tlian to anyone else was due the adoption of the .superimposed turret. After the destruction of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15. 1SU8, he was appointed president of the naval court of inquiry to investigate the occurrence. Soon afterwards Sanijisou was ap- pointed, as acting rear-adiiiiral, to the command of the Nortli -thintic Sipiadron. He attained the rank of eonunodin-e in regular line of pro- motion on July 3, 1S98. On the same day Ad- miral Ccrvera's Spanish squadron was destroyed olT Santiago by the ships under Sampson's com- mand, although Sampson himself was absent until the battle was practically over. Aft6r the war lie served as a Cuban commissioner, was promoted rear-admiral on March 3. 1899, and until September, 1001, was in command of the Boston (Charlestown) Kavy Yard. He was re- tired from active service February 9, 1902. The closing years of liis life were clouded by the controversy between his friends and the .sup- porters of Admiral Schley over the question of the command of the fleet during the battle of Santiago, the friends of the latter asserting that in Sampson's absence the credit of the victory belonged to Schley ( q.v. ). SAMSAT, sam'sat, ancient SAMOSATA. A village in the Vilayet of Aleppo, Asiatic Turkey, on the Euphrates, 130 miles northeast of Aleppo (Jlap: Turke.y in Asia, H 4). It was the ancient capital of the Syrian Kingdom of Comiiiagcne. The place is inhabited by Kurds. SAMSHUI, sjim'shwe' (Chin., Three Waters). A hieii or prefectural city and open port of China, in the Province of Kwang-tung, situated about 30 miles west-northwest of Canton at the point Avhere the Si-kiang or 'West River' joins the Pc-kiang or 'North River' to form the Chu-kiang or 'Pearl River,' on which Canton is situated (Map: China, D 7). The city itself, which has a population of about .50.000, stands about half a mile back from the river bank, and is in a state of semi-decay. It was opened to foreign trade in 1897 in accordance with a treaty made earlier in the year with Great Britain. The native Junk trade is immense, and there is a con- siderable native canning industry here of rice- birds, soles, quail, etc. SAMSKARA, sams-kji'ra (Skt., completion). The name of the forty essential rites of the first three castes of Hindus. They are the cere- monies to be performed at the procreation of a child, the parting of the mother's hair in the sixth or eighth month of her pregnancy to cause the infant to be a male, on the birth of the child before dividing the navel string, the ceremony of naming the child on the tenth or twelfth day, feeding him with rice in the sixth month, the tonsure in the third year, investiture with the • Brahmanical cord in the fifth, eighth, or sixteenth year when he is intrusted to a guru (q.v.) to re- ceive his religious education, the four vows on beginning the study of the Vedas, the ritual bath and return home on the completion of the course, marriage, the five great ofTerings, the seven small offerings, the seven libations to the fire, and the seven Soma sacrifices. Other texts make certain additions to this list. Consult: Jolly, Recht und Sine (Strassburg, 189U) ; Hillebrnndt, nHual. Litteraiur (ib., 1897). SAM'SON (Hell. Shimslwn, from ShcmcHh, sun). .ii early Hebrew hero whose story is found in the Hook of Judges, chs. xiii.-xvi. It is stated that he was the son of .Manoah of Zerali, of the tribe of Dan. Manoah's wife was barren, but an angel ajipcared to her and pro- vided a son, who should be a Nazirite, i.e. a 'consecrated one." The angel ajipc^ars a second time at .Manoah's prayer and repeats his instruc- tions. Xo razor is to touch the boy's liead. The eliild is born, and his hair endows liim with a supernatural strength. His first feat is his tear- ing a lion, when on his way to ask a Philistine woman in marriage. Keturning the same road, to celebrate his wedding, he finds a swarm of bees in the lion's carcass, and from this pro- pounds a riddle, which, tliroiigli his wife's treacherj', costs thirty Philistines their lives. He leaves liis wife for a while and on returning to her finds that she has been given in marriage to another. In revenge he burns the fields of the Philistines by letting loose into them 300 foxes, to whose tails he has attached firebrands. The Philistines in retaliation Imrii his wife and her house, and Samson avenges this deed by a great slaughter. He escapes to Judean territory, but allows himself to be handed over to the Philis- tines; by means of his strength he bursts the ropes with which he was tied, and obtaining the jawbone of an ass, kills a thousand Philistines. Betrayed by a harlot at Gaza, Sam.son's next deed consists in carrying the doors of the city gates with the posts and bars to the top of a mountain at Hebron. Finally he is lietrayed by liis para- mour, Delilah, in the valley of Sorek, to whom he reveals that the source of his strength is his hair. While he is asleep Delilah causes his locks to be shorn and hands him over to the Philis- tines. His eyes are put out and he is forced to perform servile labor. His hair, however, grows again, and on the occasion of a festival at which Samson is exhibited as a spectacle to the people he pulls down the pillars of the house in which the Philistines had assembled, burying the imil titude with himself in the ruins. His body is placed by his relatives in the family sepulchre between Zorah and Eshtaol. The narrative ends with the statement that he judged Israel for twenty years. Jlodern critics regard the chapters which con- tain the Samson story as representing the same circles which produced the Yahwistic narrative of the Hcxateuch. ( See Hexatetcii : Fi.oinsT and Yahwist. ) Chapter xiv. is thought to show traces of some editorial revision. While thus held to be derived from a single literary source, the narrative is thought to have been pieced to- gether from a number of tales originally inde- pendent of one another; chapter .vi., more par- ticularly, represents a su]iplenient added after the narrative had alreaily been closed in an earlier form. In this chapter Samson appears to be at the mercy of harlots and jiaraiiioiirs. whereas in cha]ilers xiii.-xv. he is the failliful husband of one wife. Despite the legendary cha meter of the exploits related of Samson, there is no doubt an historical background to the narrative. Sam- son belongs to the tribe of Dan and to that por- tion of it whose seat lay to the west of Jerusa- lem. His adventures with the Philistines refiect the struggle between the Danites and Philistines