KOCK, CHARLES P. DE. 



KOHL, JOHAN" G. 



439 



rate fund for the support of their paupers and 

 the education of their children. 



Charitable institutions are cared for in Ken- 

 tucky with commendable solicitude. The 

 State maintains two Asylums for the Insane, 

 which are accomplishing great results, but are 

 much too small and inadequate for the recep- 

 tion of the unfortunate who should, but can- 

 not, be admitted and treated in either of them 

 for want of room. The number of the insane 

 within the asylums at the beginning of Decem- 

 ber, 1871, was : in the Eastern 352, which is 

 from 150 to 200 above the proper capacity of 

 that institution; and in the Western 360, 

 which is its full capacity. 



The School for Feeble-minded Children and 

 Idiots has been in successful operation since 

 the year 1860, when it was first established. 



The Deaf and Dumb Asylum, at Danville, 

 now in the forty-eighth year of its existence, has 

 at present 81 pupils under its tuition. Since its 

 foundation this institution has educated and 

 sent out 485 deaf-mutes, male and female, pre- 

 pared to be useful members of society. Dur- 

 ing the period of forty-seven years nine deaths 

 have occurred among its pupils. 



The Kentucky Institution for the Education 

 of the Blind, situated near Louisville, is not less 

 creditable to the State, nor the results of its 

 operation less gratifying. The number of its 

 inmates during the last year was 64, of whom 

 32 were males and 32 females. To work with 

 the sewing-machine is now among the instruc- 

 tions given to its pupils. 



The number of convicts in the State Peni- 

 tentiary on March 1, 1871, was 616, and 233 

 more were received there since that day up to 

 the beginning of December, in all 849. Of 

 these, 187 had been discharged within that 

 time for expiration of sentence, 60 were par- 

 doned by the Executive, 6 had escaped, and 

 17 died. 



KOOK, CHARLES PAUL DE, a popular French 

 novelist and dramatist, born in Passy, near 

 Paris, in 1794; died in Paris, September 1, 

 1871. He was the son of a Dutch banker, who 

 perished on the scaffold in the revolutionary 

 period. After having received at home a very 

 incomplete education, he was placed with a 

 commercial firm at the age of fifteen. But the 

 passion for writing tormented him, and after a 

 time he threw up his situation, greatly to the 

 dissatisfaction of his family, in order to give 

 himself up to literary pursuits. In 1811, when 

 not quite seventeen years of age, he completed 

 his first novel, " IS Enfant de ma Femme" but 

 could find no publisher for it, and was obliged 

 to publish it, in 1812, at his own expense. This 

 juvenile effort was received with indifference, 

 and he promptly prepared live melodramas of 

 an extravagant character. He next essayed 

 vaudevilles and comic operas, and by his thir- 

 tieth year had produced over thirteen pieces, 

 and acquired moderate success. About 1825 

 he abandoned for a time the drama, and applied 

 himself to writing the romances which have 



rendered his name a household word in France, 

 and secured him an enduring place in the pop- 

 ular literature of that country. He observed 

 that the fashionable novel represented soci- 

 ety in an artificial and exaggerated form, and 

 rigidly excluded the many romantic incidents 

 existing in the " annals of the poor." M. de 

 Kock, who was intimately acquainted with the 

 different phases of French life, resolved to de- 

 viate from the style of his predecessors in this 

 respect, convinced that in the common walks 

 of life, in ordinary characters and manners, an 

 inexhaustible mine of delineation might be 

 worked, and that true and real pictures of so- 

 ciety would be more attractive than over- 

 charged and fabulous portraitures. The result 

 verified the correctness of his opinion. All 

 his works are of a homely character, but 

 abounding in humor, and displaying a graphic 

 power of description. They are unequal in 

 merit, but are all marked by an animated, 

 natural style of composition, and occupy in 

 France pretty nearly the position of those of 

 Dickens in Great Britain. It is, however, a 

 sad commentary on the popular taste in France 

 that nearly all of them, even those most in de- 

 mand, are marred by a grossness and licen- 

 tiousness which render them utterly unfit for 

 the family, the staple of them being the in- 

 trigues and 'debauchery so prevalent among 

 the lower classes in Paris. The romances are 

 over fifty in number, and have appeared at in- 

 tervals from 1820 to 1867. About 1834 M. de 

 Kock recommenced contributing to the the- 

 atres, and during the succeeding thirty years 

 he prepared, with some assistance, about one 

 hundred vaudevilles, many of which are found- 

 ed upon incidents in his romances. Five col- 

 lected editions of his works have been pub- 

 lished; none of these, however, are complete. 

 He continued to write till a short time before 

 his death. 



KOHL, JOIIAN GEORG, Ph. D., a geographer, 

 traveller, and author, born in Bremen, April 

 28, 1808; died in that city, June 6, 1871. His 

 father was a merchant in Bremen. The son, 

 having studied science in his native town, and 

 law in the Universities of Gottingen, Heidel- 

 berg, and Munich, obtained, on the death of 

 his father, in 1832, the post of private tutor in 

 the family of the Baron de Manteuffel, in Cour- 

 land, and afterward in that of Count Medan, 

 situations which occupied him for five years. 

 After this he travelled over Livonia, visited a 

 great part of Russia, and, returning to Germany 

 in 1838, settled at Dresden, whence he made 

 those journeys to various parts of Europe which 

 have since rendered his name as a traveller so 

 familiar. Among the numerous works written 

 by him may be mentioned "Sketches and 

 Pictures in St. Petersburg," "Travels in the 

 Interior of Russia and Poland," and "Travels 

 in the South of Russia," all published in 1841 ; 

 "A Hundred Days' Travel in the Austrian 

 States," "Travels in Hungary," "Travels in 

 Styria and Upper Bavaria," in 1842 ; "Travels 



