RAMUS 



RANDALL 



575 



formation here ( 1750-95) of a harbour of refuge for 

 the Downs. That harbour, 51 acres in extent, 

 with a sea-entrance 250 feet wide, is enclosed on 

 the east and west by two piers 670 and 520 yards 

 long. The aspect of the place, which George Eliot 

 calls 'a strip of London come out for an airing,' is 

 familiar through Frith's ' Ramsgate Sands ' ( 1854) ; 

 among its special features are an obelisk marking 

 the spot where George IV. in 1821 embarked for 

 Hanover, an iron promenade pier ( 1881 ), the fine 

 Granville Hotel, a beautiful Roman Catholic 

 church by the Pugins, a Benedictine monastery, 

 college, and convent, and a Jewish synagogue and 

 college, erected by Sir Moses Montefiore, who, like 

 the elder Pugin, was a resident. To the north is 

 Broadstairs (q.v.), beloved of Dickens ; and to the 

 west Pegwell Bay, with Ebbsfleet, the landing- 

 place of St Augustine, and also, traditionally, of 

 Hengist and Horsa. Here, too, is Osengall Hill, 

 with an early Saxon cemetery. Ramsgate -was 

 incorporated in 1884. Pop. (1851) 11,838; (1881) 

 22,683 ; ( 1891 ) 24,676. See James Simson's Historic 

 T/ianet (1891). 



Raniu.s. PETRUS. Pierre de la Earned, an 

 illustrious French ' humanist,' was the son of a 

 poor labourer, and was born at the village of Cuth, 

 in Vermandois, in 1515. In his twelfth year he 

 got a situation as servant to a rich scholar at the 

 College de Navarre, and, by devoting the day to 

 his master, obtained the night for study, and made 

 rapid progress. The method of teaching philo- 

 sophy then prevalent dissatisfied him, and he was 

 led to place a higher value on ' reason ' than on 

 ' authority ;' when taking his degree in his twenty- 

 first year he even maintained the extravagant 

 thesis that 'all that Aristotle had said was false.' 

 Immediately after he began lectures on the Greek 

 and Latin authors, designed to combine the study 

 of eloquence with that of philosophy. His audience 

 was large, and his success as a teacher remarkable. 

 He now turned his attention more particularly to 

 the science of logic, which, in his usual adventur- 

 ous spirit, he undertook to reform. His attempts 

 excited much hostility among the Aristotelians, 

 and when his treatise on the subject (Dialectics 

 Partitiones ) appeared in 1543 it was fiercely assailed 

 by the doctors of the Sorbonne, who managed to 

 get it suppressed by a royal edict, and his lectures 

 for a time suspended. But Ramus had at this 

 time two powerful friends, Cardinals Charles de 

 Bourbon and Charles de Lorraine, through whose 

 influence he was, in 1545, appointed principal of 

 the College de Presles. In 1551 Cardinal Lorraine 

 succeeded in instituting for him a chair of 

 Eloquence and Philosophy at the College Royal. 

 He mingled largely in the literary and scholastic 

 disputes of the time, and ultimately embraced Pro- 

 testantism. He had to flee from Paris ; after 1568 

 he travelled in Germany and Switzerland ; but on 

 returning to France in 1571 he perished in the 

 fatal massacre of St Bartholomew, 24th August 

 1572. It was believed that he was assassinated by 

 the direct instigation of one of his most persistent 

 enemies. 



Kanina holds an honourable place in the list of 

 intellectual reformers. His assault on scholasticism 

 as a method of thinking is vigorous, and his 

 exposure of ite puerile and useless subtleties is 

 thorough. His system of logic, by which his name 

 is best known, is marked by its lucid definitions, 

 its natural divisions, and its simplification of the 

 rules of the syllogism ; but it really adds little to 

 logical science. What strikes one most, however, 

 in Ramns is his universal intellectual activity. He 

 wrote treatises on arithmetic, geometry, and algebra 

 which were text-books for a hundred years ; he 

 was among the earliest adherents of the Coperni- 

 can system of astronomy; Latin, Greek, and 



French grammar, rhetoric, morals, and theology all 

 engaged his pen, and he seldom handled a subject 

 which he did not to some degree elucidate. His 

 followers were a widespread, and for long a power- 

 ful body of thinkers and teachers ; France, Eng- 

 land, the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, 

 Denmark, and even Spain had their Ramists. 



866 , n graphs bv Waddington (Paris, 1855), Des- 

 maze (1864), and Lobstein (Strasb. 1878). 



Rana. See FROG. 



RancS ARMAND DE (1626-1700), the founder 

 of the Trappists (q.v.). 



Ranching, the business of cattle-breeding as 

 pursued on a large scale in the unsettled districts 

 of the United States from the Mississippi to the 

 Pacific coasts, and from the Bad Lands of the 

 Upper Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. The name 

 is derived from the Spanish rancho, properly 

 'mess' or 'mess-room,' but used in Mexico also 

 for a herdsman's hut, and finally for a grazing- 

 farm, as distinguished from a hacienda, a planta- 

 tion or cultivated farm. The speciality of ranch- 

 ing is that the cattle are raised and kept in a half- 

 wild condition, with little or no house shelter pro- 

 vided and no artificial feeding. The life of the 

 ' cowboys ' and ranchmen, if no longer so wild and 

 adventurous as it once was, is still sufficiently free, 

 open, and exciting to have great charms for enter- 

 prising youths ; and amongst rancheros are to be 

 found not merely hereditary cattle-breeders and 

 rough frontiersmen, but accomplished university- 

 bred men, who in their scanty leisure cherish their 

 Old-World tastes for literature and music. To 

 these are added not a few men whose past history 

 would hardly bear looking into helping to provide 

 the materials of a strangely mixed society. 



Large fortunes were made in the wild old days, 

 but the gradual settlement of the ranching country 

 has seriously embarrassed the business of the ranch- 

 man. The old cattle-kings of the south often had 

 ranges, under Spanish land-grants, extending over 

 several hundred square miles, and would brand 

 many thousand calves each year. Herds would be 

 ' on the trail ' for from two to four months, the 

 cattle from Texas crossing Red River, and passing 

 through Indian Territory and southern Kansas to 

 the railway ; but the gradual settlement of the 

 country and the extension of railways render these 

 long trails impracticable and needless. The great 

 events of the ranchman's year are the 'round-up,' 

 when stock is taken, the cattle are branded, and 

 such full-grown cattle gathered into a herd as are 

 suitable for market; and the departure of the 

 herds for market or port times of hard work and 

 severe strain for all concerned. In the south there 

 is but one annual round-up ; on the more civilised 

 ranges of Wyoming, the Dakotas, Colorado, and 

 Montana there are two round-ups in the year one 

 early in spring, to brand the calves and ascertain 

 the losses during winter, another in autumn, whei. 

 the steers over three years old are separated from 

 the main herd and sent for sale. Besides the 

 branding of ownership there is a special 'road- 

 branding' of cattle for identification 'on the trail.' 



The cattle hi the south are still mainly the coarse, 

 long-horned Texan breed ; in the north-west the 

 original long-horns have been crossed with fine- 

 grade northern cattle, and produce larger and less 

 wild animals and finer beef. 



See Brinson, The Beef Bonanza (1880); Roosevelt, 

 Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (1889). 



Rancidity, the partial decomposition of butter, 

 oil, and fats. See PUTREFACTION. 



Rand or RANDT, THE. See JOHANNESBURG. 



Randall, JAMES RYDER, the author of ' Mary- 

 land, my Maryland,' was born in Baltimore, 1st 



