The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 419

SUDETIC MOUNTAINS stretch in irregular broken ma.s.ses and subsidiary chains for 120 m. across South-East Germany, separating Bohemia and Moravia from Saxony and Prussian Silesia, and forming a link between the Carpathians and mountains of Franconia; highest and central position is known as the RIESENGEBIRGE (q. v.); Schneekoppe is the culminating point of the range.

SUDRAS, the fourth and lowest of the HINDU CASTES (q. v.); are by some alleged to be of the aboriginal race of India who to retain their freedom adopted Brahmanism.

SUE, MARIE-JOSEPH-EUGeNE, a writer of sensational novels, born at Paris; was for some years an army surgeon, and served in the Spanish campaign of 1823; his father's death (1829) bringing him a handsome fortune, he retired from the army to devote himself to literature; his reputation as a writer rests mainly on his well-known works "The Mysteries of Paris" (1842) and "The Wandering Jew" (1845), which, displaying little skill on the artistic side, yet rivet their readers'

attention by a wealth of exciting incident and plot; was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1850, but the _coup d'etat_ of 1852 drove him an exile to Annecy, in Savoy, where he died (1804-1859).

SUETONIUS, TRANQUILLUS, Roman historian; practised as an advocate in Rome in the reign of Trajan; was a friend of the Younger Pliny, became private secretary to Hadrian, but was deprived of this post through an indiscretion; wrote several works, and of those extant the chief is the "Lives of the Twelve Caesars," beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with Domitian, a work which relates a great number of anecdotes ill.u.s.trating the characters of the emperors; _b_. A.D. 70.

SUEZ (13), a town of Egypt, stands at the edge of the desert at the head of a gulf of the same name and at the S. end of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, 75 m. E. of Cairo, with which it is connected by railway; as a trading place, dating back to the times of the Ptolemies, has had a fluctuating prosperity, but since the completion of the ca.n.a.l is growing steadily in importance; is still for the most part an ill-built and ill-kept town; has a large English hospital and ship-stores.

SUEZ Ca.n.a.l, a great artificial channel cutting the isthmus of Suez, and thus forming a waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; was planned and undertaken by the French engineer Lesseps, through whose untiring efforts a company was formed and the necessary capital raised; occupied 10 years in the construction (1859-69), and cost some 20 million pounds; from Port Said on the Mediterranean to Suez at the head of the Red Sea the length is about 100 m., a portion of which lies through Lakes Menzaleh, Ballah, Timsah, and the Bitter Lakes; as widened and deepened in 1886 it has a minimum depth of 28 ft., and varies from 150 to 300 ft.

in width; traffic is facilitated by electric light during the night, and the pa.s.sage occupies little more than 24 hours; has been neutralised and exempted from blockade, vessels of all nations in peace or war being free to pa.s.s through; now the highway to India and the East, shortening the voyage to India by 7600 m.; three-fourths of the ships pa.s.sing through are English; an annual toll is drawn of close on three million pounds, the net profit of which falls to be divided amongst the shareholders, of whom since 1875 the British Government has been one of the largest.

SUFFOLK (371), eastmost county of England, fronts the North Sea between Norfolk (N.) and Ess.e.x (S.); is a pleasant undulating county with pretty woods and eastward-flowing streams (Waveney, Aide, Orwell, Stour, &c.); long tracts of heathland skirt the coast; agriculture is still the staple industry, wheat the princ.i.p.al crop; is famed for its antiquities, architecture, historic a.s.sociations, and long list of worthies. Ipswich is the county town.

SUFFREN, BAILLI DE, a celebrated French admiral, who entered the navy a boy of 14 during the wars with England, and rose to be one of his country's greatest naval heroes, especially distinguishing himself as commander of a squadron in the West Indies, proving himself a master of naval tactics in more or less successful engagements with the English; is regarded by Professor Laughton as "the most ill.u.s.trious officer that has ever held command in the French navy"; sprang from good Provence stock (1729-1788).

SUFISM, the doctrine of the Sufis, a sect of Mohammedan mystics; imported into Mohammedanism the idea that the soul is the subject of ecstasies of Divine inspiration in virtue of its direct emanation from the Deity, and this in the teeth of the fundamental article of the Mohammedan creed, which exalts G.o.d as a being pa.s.sing all comprehension and ruling it by a law which is equally mysterious, which we have only to obey; this doctrine is a.s.sociated with the idea that the body is the soul's prison, and death the return of it to its original home, a doctrine of the dervish fraternity, of which the Madhi is high-priest.

SUGER, ABBe, abbot of St. Denis, minister of Louis VI. and Louis VII.; reformed the discipline in his abbey, emanc.i.p.ated the serfs connected with it, maintained the authority of the king against the great va.s.sals; he was regent of the kingdom during the second Crusade, and earned the t.i.tle of Father of his Country; he wrote a Life of Louis VI.

(1082-1152).

SUIDAS, name of a grammarian and lexicographer of the 10th or 11th century; his "Lexicon" is a kind of encyclopaedic work, and is valuable chiefly for the extracts it contains from ancient writers.

SUIR, a river of Ireland which rises in Tipperary and joins the Barrow after a course of 100 m.

SUKKUR (29), a town on the Indus (here spanned by a fine bridge), 28 m. SE. of Shikarpur; has rail communication with Kurrachee and Afghanistan, and considerable trade in various textiles, opium, saltpetre, sugar, &c.; 1 m. distant is Old Sukkur; the island of Bukkur, in the river-channel and affording support to the bridge, is occupied and fortified by the British.

SULEIMAN PASHA, a distinguished Turkish general, born in Roumelia; entered the army in 1854, fought in various wars, became director of the Military Academy at Constantinople; distinguished himself in the Servian War of 1876, and was elected governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina; during the Russian-Turkish War made a gallant attempt to clear the enemy from the Shipka Pa.s.s, but as commander of the Danube army was defeated near Philippopolis (1878), and subsequently court-martialled and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment, but was pardoned by the sultan (1838-1883).

SULIMAN or SULEIMAN MOUNTAINS, a bare and rugged range, stretching N. and S. for upwards of 350 m. from the Kyber Pa.s.s almost to the Arabian Sea, and forming the boundary between Afghanistan and the Punjab, India.

SULIOTES, a Graeco-Albanian race who in the 17th century, to escape their Turkish oppressors, fled from their old settlement in Epirus to the mountains of Suli, in South Albania, where they prospered in the following century in independence; driven out by the Turks in 1803, they emigrated to the Ionian Islands; came to the aid of Ali Pasha against the sultan in 1820, but, defeated and scattered, found refuge in Cephalonia, and later gave valuable a.s.sistance to the Greeks in their struggle for independence. The treaty of 1829 left their district of Suli in the hands of the Turks, and since then they have dwelt among the Greeks, many of them holding high government rank.

SULLA, LUCIUS CORNELIUS, a Roman of patrician birth; leader of the aristocratic party in Rome, and the rival of Marius (q. v.), under whom he got his first lessons in war; rose to distinction in arms afterwards, and during his absence the popular party gained the ascendency, and Marius, who had been banished, was recalled; the blood of his friends had been shed in torrents, and himself proscribed; on the death of Marius he returned with his army, glutted his vengeance by the sacrifice of thousands of the opposite faction, celebrated his victory by a triumph of unprecedented splendour, and caused himself to be proclaimed Dictator 81 B.C.; he ruled with absolute power two years after, and then resigning his dictatorship retired into private life; _d_. 76 B.C. at the age of 60.

SULLAN PROSCRIPTIONS, sentences of proscription issued by Sulla against Roman citizens in 81 B.C. under his dictatorship.

SULLIVAN, SIR ARTHUR SEYMOUR, English composer, born in London; won the Mendelssohn scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, and by means of it completed his musical education at Leipzig; in 1862 composed incidental music for "The Tempest," well received at the Crystal Palace; since then has been a prolific writer of all kinds of music, ranging from hymns and oratorios to popular songs and comic operas; his oratorios include "The Prodigal Son" (1868), "The Light of the World," "The Golden Legend," &c., but it is as a writer of light and tuneful operas (librettos by W. S. GILBERT, q. v.) that he is best known; these began with "c.o.x and Box" (1866), and include "Trial by Jury," "The Sorcerer" (1877), "Pinafore," "Patience" (1881), "Mikado" (1885), &c., in all of which he displays great gifts as a melodist, and wonderful resource in clever piquant orchestration; received the Legion of Honour in 1878, and was knighted in 1883; _b_. 1842.

SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, a long and narrow island, a favourite sea-bathing resort, on the N. of the entrance to Charleston Harbour, South Carolina, U.S.

SULLY, MAXIMILIEN DE BeTHUNE, DUKE OF, celebrated minister of Henry IV. of France, born at the Chateau of Rosny, near Mantes, whence he was known at first as the Baron de Rosny; at first a ward of Henry IV. of Navarre, he joined the Huguenot ranks along with him, and distinguished himself at Coutras and Ivry, and approved of Henry's policy in changing his colours on his accession to the throne, remaining ever after by his side as most trusted adviser, directing the finances of the country with economy, and encouraging the peasantry in the cultivation of the soil; used to say, "Labourage et pasteurage, voila les deux mamelles dont La France est alimentee, les vraies mines et tresors de Perou," "Tillage and cattle-tending are the two paps whence France sucks nourishment; these are the true mines and treasures of Peru;" on the death of the king he retired from court, and occupied his leisure in writing his celebrated "Memoirs," which, while they show the author to be a great statesman, give no very pleasant idea of his character (1560-1611).

SULLY-PRUDHOMME, French poet, born in Paris; published a volume of poems in 1865 ent.i.tled "Stances and Poemes," which commanded instant regard, and have been succeeded by others which have deepened the impression, and ent.i.tled him to the highest rank as a poet; they give evidence of a serious mind occupied with serious problems; was elected to the Academy in 1881; _b_. 1839.

SULPICIUS SEVERUS, an ecclesiastical historian, born in Aquitaine; wrote a "Historia Sacra," and a Life of St. Martin (363-406).

SULTAN, the t.i.tle of a Mohammedan sovereign, Sultana being the feminine form.

SULU ISLANDS (75), an archipelago of 162 islands in Asiatic waters, lying to the NE. of Borneo, and extending to the Philippines; belongs to the Spaniards who, in 1876, subdued the piratical Malay inhabitants; the trade in pearls and edible nests is mainly carried on by Chinese.

SUMATRA (3,572, including adjacent islands), after Borneo the largest of the East Indian islands, stretches SE. across the Equator between the Malay Peninsula (from whose SW. coast it is separated by the Strait of Malacca) to Java (Strait of Sunda separating them); has an extreme length of 1115 m., and an area more than three times that of England; is mountainous, volcanic, covered in central parts by virgin forest, abounds in rivers and lakes, and possesses an exceptionally rich flora and peculiar fauna; rainfall is abundant; some gold and coal are worked, but the chief products are rice, sugar, coffee, tobacco, petroleum, pepper, &c.; the island is mainly under Dutch control, but much of the unexplored centre is still in the hands of savage tribes who have waged continual warfare with their European invaders. Padang (150) is the official Dutch capital.

SUMBAWA (150), one of the Sunda Islands, lying between Lombok (W.) and Flores (E.); mountainous and dangerously volcanic; yields rice, tobacco, cotton, &c.; is divided among four native rulers under Dutch authority.

SUMNER, CHARLES, American statesman and abolitionist, born in Boston; graduated at Harvard (1830), and was called to the bar in 1834, but found a more congenial sphere in writing and lecturing; during 1837-40 pursued his favourite study of jurisprudence in France, Germany, and England; was brought into public notice by his 4th of July oration (1845) on "The True Grandeur of Nations," an eloquent condemnation of war; became an uncompromising opponent of the slave-trade; was one of the founders of the Free Soil Party, and in 1851 was elected to the National Senate, a position he held until the close of his life, and where he did much by his eloquent speeches to prepare the way for emanc.i.p.ation, and afterwards to win for the blacks the rights of citizenship (1811-1874).

SUMNER, JOHN BIRD, archbishop of Canterbury; rose by a succession of preferments to the Primacy, an office which he discharged with discretion and moderation (1780-1862).

SUMPTUARY LAWS, pa.s.sed in various lands and ages to restrict excess in dress, food, and luxuries generally; are to be found in the codes of Solon, Julius Caesar, and other ancient rulers; Charles VI. of France restricted dinners to one soup and two other dishes; appear at various times in English statutes down to the 16th century against the use of "costly meats," furs, silks, &c., by those unable to afford them; were issued by the Scottish Parliament against the extravagance of ladies in the matter of dress to relieve "the puir gentlemen their husbands and fathers"; were repealed in England in the reign of James I.; at no time were they carefully observed.

SUMTER, FORT, a fort on a shoal in Charleston harbour, 3 m. from the town; occupied by Major Anderson with 80 men and 62 guns in the interest of the secession of South Carolina from the Union, and the attack on which by General Beauregard on 12th April 1861 was the commencement of the Civil War; it held out against attack and bombardment till the month of July following.

SUN, THE, is a star; is the centre of the solar system, as it is in consequence called, is a globe consisting of a ma.s.s of vapour at white heat, and of such enormous size that it is 500 times larger than all the planets of the system put together, or of a bulk one million and a half times greater than the earth, from which it is ninety-two and a half million miles distant; the bright surface of it is called the _photosphere_, and this brightness is diversified with brighter spots called _faculae_, and dark ones called _sun-spots_, and by watching which latter as they move over the sun's disk we find it takes 25 days to revolve on its axis, and by means of SPECTRUM a.n.a.lYSIS (q. v.) find it is composed of hydrogen and a number of vaporised metals.