812 



HOUSEMAID'S KNEE 



HOWARD 



Jupiter's beard on his house'). Other species 

 possess similar properties. 8. soboliferum, with 

 yellowish-green flowers, is very frequently planted 

 on walls in Germany. The fishermen of Madeira 

 say that nets rubbed with the fresh leaves of S. 

 glutinosum are thereby rendered as durable as if 

 tanned, provided they are also steeped in some 

 alkaline liquor. Some of the species, natives of 

 the south of Europe, Canary Isles, &c. , are shrubby ; 

 others are common greenhouse plants. 



Housemaid's Knee is the term commonly 

 applied to an acute or chronic inflammation of the 

 bursa or sac that intervenes between the patella, 

 or knee-pan, and the skin. Housemaids are 

 especially liable to it from their kneeling on hard 

 damp stones. In its acute form it causes con- 

 siderable pain, swelling, and febrile disturbance. 

 The only disease for which it can be mistaken 

 is inflammation of the synovial membrane lining 

 the cavity of the joint ; but in this disease 

 the patella is thrown forwards, and the swell- 

 ing is at the sides, while in housemaid's knee the 

 swelling is very superficial, and is in front of the 

 patella. The treatment in the acute form consists 

 essentially in the means usually employed to combat 

 inflammation viz. rest, leeches, fomentations, and 

 purgatives ; if suppuration take place the sac must 

 be freely opened and the pus evacuated. The 

 chronic form may subside under rest, blisters, &c., 

 or it may require incision or excision for its cure. 



House of Lords, Commons. See PARLIA- 

 MENT. 

 House-rents. See LANDLORD AND TENANT. 



Housing of the Poor. A Royal Commission 

 to inquire into the condition of the working-classes 

 sat in 1884 and 1885. Acts for facilitating im- 

 provement in the dwellings of the working-classes 

 have been passed in 1868, 1875, and 1879. See 

 GUINNESS, HILL, PEABODY; as also COTTAGE, 

 LABOURERS, LODGING-HOUSE, POOR. 



Houssa. See HAUSSA. 



Houston, capital of Harris county, Texas, on 

 the navigable Buffalo Bayou, 51 miles by rail NW. 

 of Galveston, with which it is connected also by 

 steamboats. It is the great railway centre of the 

 state, stands in the midst of a fertile country, and 

 ships large quantities of cotton, grain, and cattle, 

 besides the products of the great pine-forests, which 

 are prepared here. The other manufactures in- 

 clude machinery, iron-castings, railway carriages, 

 farming implements, fertilisers, cotton-seed oil, &c. 

 Pop. (1870) 9382; (1880) 18,646; (1900) 44,633. 



Houston, SAMUEL, president of Texas, was 

 born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, March 2, 1793, 

 was brought up near the Cherokee territory in 

 Tennessee, and was adopted by one of the Indians 

 there. In 1813 he enlisted as a private soldier, and 

 by persistent bravery rose to the rank of second- 

 lieutenant before the end of the war. He left the 

 army in 1818, studied law at Nashville, and was 

 elected in 182,3 and 1825 a member of congress, and 

 in 1827 governor of Tennessee. In January 1829 

 he married the daughter of an ex-governor ; but in 

 the following April, for reasons never made public, 

 he abandoned wife, country, and civilisation, and 

 spent three years among the Cherokees, beyond the 

 Mississippi, where his adoptive father had settled. 

 In 1832 Houston went to Washington, and pro- 

 cured the removal of several United States Indian 

 agents on charges of fraud, but got into personal 

 difficulties with their friends. The Texan war 

 offered a new field to his ambition. He was made 

 commander-in-chief. The Americans at first sus- 

 tained some severe losses, but on 21st April 1836 

 Houston with 750 men inflicted a crushing defeat 

 on a force of 1800 Mexicans under Santa- Anna, on 



the banks of the San Jacinto, and by this one 

 decisive blow achieved the independence of Texas. 

 The hero of San Jacinto was elected first president 

 of the republic, and re-elected in 1841, and on the 

 annexation of Texas, in 1845, was elected to the 

 United States senate. Elected governor of Texas 

 in 1859, he opposed secession, was deposed in 

 March 1861, and took no further part in public 

 affairs. He died 26th July 1863. 



Hovas. See MADAGASCAR. 



Hovedon, ROGER OF, an old English chronicler, 

 most probably born at Howden, in Yorkshire, who 

 was attached to the household of Henry II. , and 

 was employed in missions to the lords of Galloway 

 and to the heads of the monastic houses. In 1189 

 he was appointed an itinerant justice for the forests 

 in the northern counties, and he seems to have spent 

 his last years in Yorkshire, probably at Howden. 

 It may be supposed that he did not survive 1201, 

 as his Chronicle ends with that year. It commences 

 with the close of the Chronicle of Bede in 732, and 

 is divided by Bishop Stubbs into four parts : the 

 first, ending with 1148, consisting chiefly of the 

 Historia post Bedam ; the second, ending with 

 1169, mainly based on the Melrose Chronicle ; the 

 third, ending with 1192, mainly an abridgment of 

 Benedict's Chronicle ; and the fourth, ending with 

 1201, a record of contemporary events, not without 

 value. The Chronicle was first printed in Sir H. 

 Saville's Scriptores post Bedam in 1596. There is 

 an English translation by H. F. Riley in Bonn's 

 ' Antiquarian Library ' (2 vols. 1853). The original 

 forms 4 volumes (1868-71) in the Rolls series, 

 under the editorship of Bishop Stubbs. 



Hovellers. See DEAL. 



Hoven. See HOOVE. 



Howard. The noble House of Howard has 

 stood for many centuries at the head of the English 

 nobility. The Howards have enjoyed the dukedom 

 of Norfolk since the middle of the 15th century, 

 and have contributed to the annals of the nation 

 several persons of the most distinguished character 

 both in politics and in literature. Neither Sir W. 

 Dugdale nor Collins claims for the Howards any 

 more ancient origin than Sir William Howard, a 

 learned Chief -justice of the Common Pleas under 

 Edward I. and Edward II., though Dugdale inci- 

 dentally mentions a tradition that their name is of 

 Saxon origin, and derived either from an eminent 

 office under the crown before the Conquest, or from 

 Hereward, the leader of those forces which for a 

 time defended the isle of Ely so valiantly against 

 William the Conqueror. The pedigree earlier 

 than Sir William Howard has been completely 

 demolished in an article on ' Doubtful Norfolk 

 Pedigrees ' printed in the Genealogist. Be this as 

 it may, it is certain that Sir John Howard, the 

 grandson of the above-mentioned judge, was not 

 only admiral and captain of the king's navy in the 

 north of England, but sheriff of Norfolk, in which 

 county he held extensive property, which was sub- 

 sequently increased by the marriage of his grand- 

 son, Sir Robert, with the co-heiress of the ancient 

 and noble House of Mowbray, Dukes of Norfolk. 

 The only son of this union was Sir John Howard, 

 one of the leading supporters of the House of York, 

 who, having gained early distinction in the French 

 wars of Henry VI., was constituted by Edward IV. 

 constable of the important castle of Norwich, and 

 sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. He subsequently 

 became treasurer of the royal household, obtained 

 ' a grant of the whole benefit that should accrue to 

 the king by coinage of money in the City and Tower 

 of London, and elsewhere in England ; ' and further, 

 was raised to the peerage as Lord Howard and 

 Duke of Norfolk. We find him in 1470 made cap-, 

 tain-general of the king's forces at sea, and he was 



