CONVULSIONARIE8 



CONYZA 



449 



e tin- whole body, should at once be put in 

 not water to which a little mustard him been added, 

 ami cloths \MUIIL; out of cold water frequently 

 applied to the head. If there IB any suspicion 

 tli.it worms or undigested food may bo the cause, 

 a purgative Clyster (q.v.) should be given; and 

 aperient medicine by tin- mouth as well, if the 

 enild l>e able to swallow. Nothing more should 

 In- attempted without medical advice. The further 

 t iv.it ment generally consists in the administration 

 of nerve sedatives, especially bromide of sodium 

 or potassium and chloral, ami in obstinate cases 

 clili>ruiiiini. svi tli careful attention of course to any 

 c:i'i-e of irritation that may be present. 



Convulsions are rare amongst horses and cattle. 

 In v.Ming dogs, however, they frequently occur 

 from intestinal worms, disordered digestion, or in 

 connection with distemper or other debilitating 

 di-M'H-ses : they usually disappear when their special 

 causes are removed. 



CoilVIllsionaries, the name given to a fanati- 

 cal sect of Jansenists who sprang up in France 

 about 1730. Their meeting-place was the church- 

 yard of St Medard, in a suburb of Paris, where 

 was the tomb of a certain Francis of Paris, who 

 <lied in 1727, and was reckoned very holy by the 

 Jansenists on account of his extravagant asceti- 

 cism. At this tomb a multitude of people poured 

 forth fanatical prayers, preachments^ and prophesy- 

 ing. Miracles are also alleged to have been per- 

 formed, for proof of which we are referred to a 

 work written by M. Montgeron, a French senator, 

 and entitled La Verit6 des Miracles operes par 

 I' Intercession de Francois de Paris (Paris, 1737). 

 After 1731 the fanaticism of the convulsionaries 

 increased to utter madness. 'They threw them- 

 selves into the most violent contortions of body, 

 rolled about on the ground, imitated birds, beasts, 

 and fishes, and at last, when they had completely 

 spent 'themselves, went off in a swoon.' In 1733 

 the king issued an order for the imprisonment of 

 these fanatics, but it was found impossible to put 

 a complete stop to the mischief. They took to 

 predicting the downfall of the throne and the 

 church, which prophecy the French Revolution 

 appeared to fulfil. They were not much heard of 

 in Paris after the middle of the 18th century, but 

 have occurred in country-places at various times 

 within the present century. They brought Jan- 

 senism into so much disrepute, that Voltaire de- 

 clared the tomb of Francis to be the grave of 

 Jansenism. See Mathieu, Histoire des Miracules et 

 des Convulsionnaires (1864). 



Conway, a river in North Wales, famous for 

 the bold romantic scenery along its higher, as well 

 AS for the richly l>eautiful scenery along its lower 

 course. It rises in a small mountain-lake round 

 which meet the three counties of Merioneth, Den- 

 bigh, and Carnarvon ; and it runs 30 miles north- 

 ward past Llanrwst and Conway to Beaumaris 

 Bay. In its last ten miles, a smoothly-flowing if 

 winding stream, it is navigable for vessels of 100 

 tons. At Conway it is half a mile broad at spring- 

 tides, which rise here from 21 to 24 feet. Pearl- 

 mussels are found at its month. 



Conway, or ABERCONWAY, an ancient and 

 picturesque little seaport town of North Wales, in 

 Carnarvonshire, situated on the left bank of the 

 river Conway at its estuary, 45J miles NW. of 

 Chester by rail. The river is crossed by a fine 

 tubular bridge constructed by Stephenson in 1848, 

 as well as by a suspension bridge iiuilt by Telford 

 in 1826 (see BRIDGE). The town is triangular in 

 form, and is surrounded by a high wall 12 feet thick 

 and 1 mile in circumference, pierced by four Moorish- 

 looking gates, and crowned by twenty-one round 

 towers. In its south-eastern corner are the inagni- 

 133 



ficent remains of Conway Cattle, riiting proudly 

 from a rock above the river. It wa* lirwt built by 

 Ilir.-li LUUUH, Karl of < '|,.--i.-i. and rebuilt in 12K4 

 by Edward I., to check the Welsh. I to walk are 12 

 to _15 feet thick, with eight vant towers, four of 

 which are each surmounted by a slender turret. 

 The PlAs Mawr ( ' great mansion ' ) is a noble timber 

 house erected in 1585, its exterior and interior pro- 

 fusely covered with ornament. A Cistercian abl>ey 

 was founded here by Llywelyn ab Jorwerth, prince 

 of North Wales, in which Llywelyn the Great was 

 buried. The Castle Hotel now occupies it* site. 

 Pop. (1881) 3179. Conway (a chartered Wough 

 since 1876) is one of the six Carnarvon boroughs. 

 It is still visited by vast numbers of tourists, but 

 as a place of resort it has been left far behind by 

 Llanuudno, 4 rniles to the north. 



Conway, HUGH, the pseudonym of Frederick 

 John Fargus, who was born in 1847, the son of a 

 Bristol auctioneer. He adopted that pseudonym 

 from the school frigate Conway, stationed on the 

 Mersey, which he entered when he was thirteen 

 for the purpose of training for a seafaring life. 

 His father set his face against this, so young 

 Fargus entered the auctioneer business, employing 

 his leisure in writing clever newspaper verse ana 

 occasional tales. Some songs of his were accepted 

 and published in 1878, a volume of verse in 1879 ; 

 but it was the issue and rapid sale of his melo- 

 dramatic story, Called Back, as vol. i of Arrow- 

 smith's Bristol Library (1884), which made him 

 famous. Within five years 350,000 copies of 

 this book had been sold. Fargus sold his share 

 in the auctioneer's business in Bristol, and went 

 to London, where he adopted the profession of 

 authorship. His Dark Days followed, and just as 

 in A Family Affair, and other works which he now 



Eroduced in rapid succession, he had begun to show 

 igher capabilities as a novelist, he died of malarial 

 fever at Monte Carlo, 15th May 1885. 



Conway, MONCURE DANIEL, American author, 

 born in Virginia in 1832, entered the Methodist 

 ministry in 1850, but, after a course at the Cam- 

 bridge divinity school, settled as a Unitarian 

 preacher in Washington in 1854, and in Cincinnati 

 in 1857. He was a strong opponent of slavery, and 

 in 1863 came to England to lecture on the war. In 

 London he became head of the South Place Insti- 

 tute (for advanced religious thought), and pub- 

 lished The Rejected Stone (1861), The Golden Hour 

 (1862), Republican Superstitions (1872), Idols and 

 Ideals (1877), Demonology and Devil-lore (1879), 

 Thomas Carlyle ( 1881 ), Pine and Palm ( 1887), and 

 A Life of Paine ( 1892), whose works he also edited 

 (2 vols. 1892). He returned to America in 1897. 



Conway, SIR WILLIAM MARTIN, born at Roch- 

 ester in 1856, was professor of Art in University 

 College at Liverpool (1885-88), wrote on the Dutch 

 wood-engravers, and on his own mountaineering in 

 the Karakoram (1894) and his exploration of Spitz- 

 bergen (1897). He was knighted in 1895. 



Cony, See HYRAX, RABBIT. 



Conybeare, WILLIAM JOHN, joint-author with 

 Dean rfowson or a widely known Life and Epistles 

 of St Paul (1851), was born 1st August 1815, son 

 of William Daniel Conybeare (1787-1857), the 

 eminent geologist, who in 1844 became dean of 

 Llandaff. He was educated at Westminster and 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he l>ecame a 

 fellow. In 1842 he was appointed principal of the 

 newly-founded Liverpool Collegiate Institution, 

 which ill-health compelled him to exchange for the 

 vicarage of Axminster. He died at Weybridge in 

 1857. Essays, Ecclesiastical and Social ( 1856 ), and 

 a novel, were his only other works. 



Conv'za, an unimportant genus of Composite 

 (sub-order Cory m biff ni'). L'. squarrosa is known 



