119 



CHALCONDYLAS LAONICUS. 



CHALMERS, REV. DR. THOMAS. 



150 



in 1834 ; the measnre was passed, and the Poor-Law Commission was 

 constituted. Mr. Chadwiok waa appointed by the government as the 

 secretary to the board. From this period for twenty years Mr. Chadwick 

 was connected with the administration of those large measures of local 

 improvement under cautral regulation whose principles were advocated 

 by him at au early stage of hU life, and which he has been ever actively 

 1 in workiug out through good report and evil report. Whatever 

 measure he has advocated or organised has been based upou the prin- 

 ciple of the union of the central and local control, and the parrot-cry 

 of ' centralisation,' which is still feebly heard wherever local authority 

 is sought to be made an instrument of general good, was always the 

 loudest when the evil to be remedied was most notorious. During 

 this strugnle of nearly a quarter of a century, through the labours of 

 Mr. Chadwick in connection with other able and zealous administrator.*, 

 this once-abused principle has at last come to be generally acknowledged 

 as (to use the words of Mr. Chadwick) " an agency for the removal of 

 thosa evils iu the repression of which the public at large have an 

 interest; next, as au authority of appeal and adjudication between 

 rival or conflicting local interests ; thirdly, as a security in the distri- 

 bution of charges, for the protection of minorities and absentees 

 t wasteful works or undue charges iu reapect to them ; and 

 fourthly, as a means of communication to each locality, for its guidance, 

 of the facts and principles deduced from the experience of all other 

 places from whiih information may be obtainable." 



Mr. Cbadwick, during bis secretaryship of the Poor-Law Board, 

 took much interest in n special inquiry, conducted by Dr. Arnott, 

 Dr. Kay, and Dr. Southwood Smith, into certain physical causes of 

 fever in the metropolis which might be removed by sanitary measures. 

 He was also associated with the commission for inquiring into the 

 constitution of the constabulary force for England and Wales. The 

 report of this commission, written by him, was presented in 1839. 

 The sanitary inquiry was extended from the metropolis to the country 

 at large, and in 1842 Mr. Chadwick completed the report ' On the 

 general Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes in Great Britain.' 

 He prepared a supplementary report on 'Interments.' He waa also 

 associated with the labours of several eminent engineers and scientific 

 men on the preparation of two reports upou the questions connected 

 with the water supply and drainage of towns. Mr. Chadwick con- 

 I in his position of secretary to the Poor-Law Commission, until 

 the constitution of a new board under the presidency of Mr. Charles 

 Bailor. During the latter years of his connection with Poor-Law 

 uilininiatratiou, Mr. Chadwick advocated a more stringent enforcement 

 of the principles of Poor-Law Amendment than were thought expe- 

 dient ; and a new sphere for his exertions was found, in his appointment 

 to the Metropolitan .Sanitary Commission in 1817. The importance 

 of this commission became manifest upon the approach of cholera, 

 upon which subject, and upou fever, valuable reports were published 

 in 1817 and 1848. One effect of the report upon au outbreak of fever 

 in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey was the measure for superseding 

 all local bodies having control over the sewerage of the metropolis, 

 placing this authority under one body. In 1848 the Public Health 

 Act of Lord Morpeth was passed, and a General Board of Health was 

 constituted, of which Lord Carlisle was the chief, and Lord Ashley, 

 Mr. Chadwick, ami Dr. Southwood Smith, the other members of the 

 board. Mr. Chadwick, in connection with this board, waa an 

 important mover of those local measures which have go materially 

 changed tlie condition of the country. In between one and two 

 hundred towns now works are in progress nnder these measures. 

 In various model dwellings and separate places where the house 

 and town drainage and other works have been partially executed, 

 there has been a marked reduction of epidemic disease, and in several 

 instances a reduction of mortality from a rate of thirty in a thousand 

 to fourteen and thirteen has be:n reported, the general average of 

 mortality in the country being twenty-three iu the thousand. But, 

 as we bare said, these sanitary measures disturbed various larga 

 interests ; and the government, in bringing forward a bill for the 

 r.-ii'-wal of the Public Health Act, was taken by surprise, and defeated 

 iti July 1S54 by a small majority. The administration of the Public 

 Health Act was thenceforth charged upon a member of the House o! 

 Common*, and a retiring pension waa given to Mr. Chadwick. One 

 part of the Poor-Law Amendment Act was directed to the suppression 

 of appointments to local offices, as mere patronage, and the substitution 

 of appointments for special qualifications tested by competitive exami 

 nations. Mr. Chadwick's last public paper was one in concurrence 

 with Sir Charles Trevelyan and others, urging the adoption of the 

 principle of competitive examinations as testa of qualifications for 

 appointments to the service of the general government. 



The honour of Companion of the Bath was conferred upon Mr 

 Chadwick during the period of his labours as Commissioner of the 

 General Board of Health. 



tith. Review, May, 1850 ; Poor-Law Reports; Factory and 

 CorutabiUary Reportt ; Rcportt of the General Board of Health, and 

 othur Parliamentary papers.) 



CHALCOWDYLA8 LAONICUS. [BYZANTINE HISTORIANS.] 



CHALMEUS, ALEXANDER, was a native of Aberdeen, where to 



waa born March 29, 1759. His father, who was a printer, and pos 



sessed of considerable classical attainments, established the lira 



Aberdeen newspaper, Alexander, after receiving a classical anc 



modical education, left his native town for Portsmouth, intending to 



oiu a West India ship to which he had been appointed surgeon ; but 



uddenly altering his intention he went to London, where he settled 



and maintained himself by his literary labours. He lived iu intimate 



ntercourse with most of the eminent London booksellers and printers 



of his time, by whom he was almost constantly employed. He died 



December 10th 1834, aged 76 years. He contributed largely to tho 



>olitical and literary periodicals of the day, and edited a great variety 



>f works. The chief are, ' The British Essayists, with Prefaces his- 



iorical and biographical,' in 45 vols, ; ' Shakspeare,' in 9 vols. ; tho 



Works of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper,' in 21 vols. ; 



a ' History of the Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings of Oxford,' and 



a ' General Biographical Dictionary,' in 32 vols. 



CHALMERS, DAVID, of Ormond, waa born in the shire of Boss 

 about the year 1530. He was bred to the church, and having taken 

 orders at Aberdeen, where he had his early education, he proceeded 

 .broad and studied theology and the laws iu France and Italy. At 

 Jologna he was, in 1556, the pupil of Mariaunus Sozeuus. On his 

 return to Scotland he was successively appointed parson of Suddy, 

 provost of Creiohton, and chancellor of the diocese of Ross. He waa 

 ;hen employed in digesting the laws of Scotland, aud was principally 

 concerned in publishing the acts of parliament of that kingdom, by 

 authority, in 1566. 



On the 2Gth January 1565, he was admitted an ordinary lord of 

 session on the spiritual side, and he was also called by the queen to 

 her privy council. In December 1566, he obtained a charter of tho 

 lands of Castletou, and others iu the earldom of Ross, from the crown. 

 This grant was ratified by parliament in April 1567, two mouths after 

 the murder of Daruley, although he was commonly accused of being 

 concerned in that deed. He is said to have afterwards acknowledged 

 his guilt by a precipitate flight to France. (Tytler's ' Cr.iig,' 95.) If 

 so he must soon have returned again; for on the 19th August 1563, 

 he was forfeited for his assistance to Queen Mary, in her escape from 

 Lochleven ('Act. Parl.,' iii. 54); and on the 2nd June that year, his 

 place of a lord of session was given to Robert Pitcairn, commendator 

 of Duuferuiliue. (Pitmedden Manuscript.) 



After the deposition of Mary he retired to Spain, where he was 

 well received by Philip II., and after some stay in that country he 

 went to France, where, in 1572, he presented Charles IX. his ' Histoire 

 abregee de tous Its Roys de France, Angleterre, et Ecosie ; ' a work 

 which was afterwards enlarged with a History of the Popes aud 

 Emperors, and dedicated to King Henri III. In 1573 ho published 

 his ' Discours de la Legitimd Succession des femmes, et du Gouverne- 

 ment des Princesses aux Empires et Royaumes,' which was meant as 

 an answer to Knox's ' First Blast against the monstrous Regiment of 

 Women.' Aud iu 1579 ho published ' La Recherche des Singularitez 

 plus remarkable concernment 1'etat d'Ecosse,' which he dedicated to 

 Queen Mary. He soon afterwards returned to Scotland, and on the 

 4th of September 1583, was restored by the king to all his lands, offices, 

 aud dignities. Tho remission was ratified by parliament on the 22nd 

 of May 1684, but under proviso that it should not cover "the odious 

 murthera of our soverane lordis dearest fader and twa regents." (' Act. 

 Parl.' iii. 314.) He was never brought to trial for these or any other 

 crimes ; and on the 21st of July 1586, he was restored to his seat on tho 

 bench. He retained his seat till his death, which happened in 1592. 



CHALMERS, GEORGE, waa born at Fochabers, iu Elginshire, 

 Scotland, about the end of the year 1742. He received his education 

 principally at the university of Aberdeen ; and after studying law, ha 

 went to the British colonies of North America, where he practised at 

 the bar until the breaking out of the revolutionary war. He then 

 returned to Britain, and settled in London. He wrote ' Political 

 Annals of the United Colonies, from their settlement till 1763 ; ' and 

 ' An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain,' which 

 works are said to have introduced him to au official connection with 

 the Board of Trade, which he maintained till his dotvth, May 31, 1825, 

 aged 82 years. 



He was the author of ' Caledonia,' a topographical history of North 

 Britain ; the lives of De Foe, Thomas Ruddiman, Sir John Davis, 

 Allan Ramsay, Sir James Stuart, Gregory King, and Charles Smith, 

 which were prefixed to editions of, or selections from, their works; 

 and under the name of Oldys, he published a life of Thomas Paine. 

 He also contributed occasionally to periodicals, and published a 

 number of pamphlets, some of them anonymously. 



CHALMERS, THE KEV. DR. THOMAS, was born at Aiistruther, 

 in Fifeshire, on the 17th of March 1780. He was tho sixth child of a 

 family of fourteen, born to Mr. John Chalmers, a dyer, shipowner, 

 and general merchant in Austruther, by his wife Elizabeth Hall. 

 Educated first at the parish school of Anstruther, and next at the 

 University of St. Andrews, he very early displayed powers of no 

 common order less however in the formal business of the classes, than 

 in his general intercourse with his fellow-students. Having chosen 

 the clerical profession, and gone through the usual theological studies 

 at St. Andrews, he obtained, when yet not past his nineteenth year, 

 a preacher's or probationer's "licence" in the Scottish Church. His 

 first sermon however was preached in England, in the Scotch church 

 in Wigan, on the 25th of August 1799, during a visit to an elder 

 brother. The winter of that year and also that of the next were spent 

 by him iu Edinburgh, where he occupied himself in teaching, and also 



