READING OF EARLEY 



4944 



REAL ESTATE 



duct, completed at a cost of $600,000. There 

 are two fine high schools, one for boys and one 

 for girls, and for more advanced education, 

 Schuylkill Seminary. 



Industry. This locality is near large anthra- 

 cite coal fields and great deposits of limestone 

 and iron ore ; the region also produces an abun- 

 dance of fruit, grain and vegetables. Iron and 

 steel are the greatest factors in the industrial 

 life of the city, 8,500 men being employed in 

 the eleven steel mills, the value of their annual 

 output being estimated at $9,000,000. About 

 5,000 people are engaged in making knit goods 

 and hosiery, and the immense locomotive and 

 car shops of the Philadelphia & Reading Rail- 

 way have about 3,000 men listed on their pay 

 roll. The industrial wealth is further increased 

 by a great variety of lesser manufactories and 

 by the coal mines and limestone quarries in the 

 vicinity. 



READING, red' ing, OF EARLEY, ur'li, Ru- 

 FUS ISAACS, first Viscount (1860- ), an Eng- 

 lish nobleman of Jewish descent, whose position 

 among England's peers is the result of initia- 

 tive and ability, not an accident of birth. 

 Viscount Reading 

 was bora in Lon- 

 don. His father, 

 a prosperous fruit 

 dealer, had him 

 educated at the 

 University Col- 

 lege School in 

 London, and in 

 Brussels and Han- 

 over. In 1887 he 

 was called to the 

 bar, and rose rap- 

 idly in his pro- 

 fession, becoming 

 Queen's Counsel 

 in 1898. Six years 

 later he was elected to the House of Commons 

 as a Liberal from Reading, and in 1910 was 

 appointed successively Solicitor-General and 

 Attorney-General, and was knighted. In 1912 

 he entered the Cabinet, and was a loyal sup- 

 porter of Asquith's Home Rule policies. He 

 was made Lord Chief Justice in 1913, in 1914 

 was created baron, and in 1916, viscount. He 

 was made an earl in 1917. He headed an Anglo- 

 French Commission to the United States in 

 1915, the mission of which was the negotiation 

 of a $500,000,000 loan for the allies. In 1918 he 

 returned to the United States as ambassador, by 

 temporary appointment. 



VISCOUNT READING 

 Lord Chief Justice of Eng- 

 land. 



REAGAN, rc'gan, JOHN HEXXIXGER (1818- 

 1905), American political leader, best known for 

 his work in franiiiij: the Interstate Commerce 

 Act of 1887. He was born in Sevier County, 

 Tenn., but at the a: e of tv.enty-one removed to 

 Texas, which thereafter remained his home. 

 He spent several years in campaigning against 

 the Indians and in surveying the Indian coun- 

 try, but in 1818 settled down to the practice of 

 law. A year earlier he had been elected to the 

 Texas' legislature, and in 1852 was elected dis- 

 trict judge, a position which brought him an 

 enviable reputation for his success in dealing 

 with border ruffians of all kinds. He then 

 served from 1857 to 1861 in Congress, resigning 

 just before the end of his second term to take 

 part in the Texas convention which passed an 

 ordinance of secession. 



Reagan was by that time a leader in the 

 state; he was promptly elected to the provi- 

 sional Confederate Congress, and in May, 1861. 

 was appointed Postmaster-General of the Con- 

 federacy by President Davis. With Davis, he 

 was captured by Federal troops near Irwinvillc, 

 Ga., on May 10, 1865, and was imprisoned until 

 October. The result of the war was accepted 

 as final by him, and his views were expressed 

 in a public letter, written from prison, in which 

 he advised Texas to grant suffrage and other 

 civil rights to the negro, thus forestalling the 

 radical legislation which he saw was certain to 

 come from Congress. This advice was not well 

 received, but he soon reestablished his popu- 

 larity and served in the United States House 

 of Representatives from 1875 to 1887 and in 

 the Senate for the next four years. In the 

 House, where he was for a decade the chairman 

 of the committee on commerce, he- was fore- 

 most as an advocate of Federal regulation of 

 railways. His name, perhaps more than that of 

 any other man, will always be associated with 

 the government policy which was adopted in 

 the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887; much of 

 the law was practically his own work, and the 

 rest of it showed his influence. 



REAL, re ' al, ESTATE, or REAL PROP- 

 ERTY. Land, the trees, and the buildings 

 upon'it, and any minerals, such as coal, iron or 

 stone, beneath the surface, are real property. In 

 other words, real estate, or real property, con- 

 sists of land and all property pertaining to it 

 that cannot be removed without destroying it. 

 The owner has a permanent right in real prop- 

 erty, and at his death it descends to his lawful 

 heirs. But when the sale of personal property 

 does not bring in a sum sufficient to pay the 



