SHAMMY 



SHANGHAI 



371 



the presidency of Hillel (q.v.), along with whom 

 he is, indeed, generally mentioned, and of whom 

 he was, as it were, the complement. Very little is 

 known of the history of his life ; but he was 

 probably born in Palestine, and he energetically 

 participated in all the |x>litical and religious com- 

 plications of the country. There was a harshness 

 and rigidity in his character, which contrasts most 

 strikingly with Billet's proverbial patience. His 

 religious views were painfully strict, and he even 

 trieil to extend the rigonr which he imposed upon 

 himself to the youngest children ; but the zealotism 

 with which later times have charged him is not 

 so much to be ascribed to him as to his school 

 'the House of Shanunai. ' This seems, under the 

 adverse circumstances of the commonwealth 

 sedition within, and the approaching enemy with- 

 out to have developed a fanatical zeal that at 

 times surpassed all bounds, and strongly fostered 

 that exceptional exclusiveness which proved both 

 the bane and the saving of Judaism. The dis- 

 cussions of the two rival schools, of which that of 

 Shammai preponderated long after the master's 

 death, turned all upon point* of positive law. 



Shammy. SHAMOY. See CHAMOIS, LEATHER. 



Shilllio, or GOBI. See ASIA, Vol. I. p. 486. 



Slinmo kin. a borough of Pennsylvania, 188 

 miles bv rail \V. of New York, with rich mines of 

 anthracite coal, and (1890) 14,339 inhabitants. 



Shampooing. See BATH, MASSAGE. 



Shamrock (Irish, seamrog), the national em- 

 blem of Ireland, a leaf with three leaflets, or plant 

 having such leaves, sometimes supposed to be the 

 Wood-sorrel (see UXAI.IDK.K. i. which unlike some 

 of the rival claimant** for the honour is certainly 

 indigenous to Ireland. But the name is more 

 frequently given to some species of Clover, or to 

 some common plant of some of the nearly allied 

 genera, as the Bird's -foot Trefoil (see BIKD'S-FOOT), 

 or the Black Medick. It is not improbable that 

 the name has a sort of general reference to plants 

 with trifoliate leaves indigenous to Ireland ; a 

 perfectly satisfactory determination of the species 

 is apparently as impossible as the attainment of 

 botanical accuracy in regard to the emblematic 

 thistle of Scotland. Lesser Yellow Trefoil ( Tri- 

 folium minus) is the plant usually sold in Dublin 

 on St Patrick's Day. ^he Common White Clover 



Lexer Yelli)W Trefoil ( Trifolium minut). . 



(q.v., TrifoHum repens) has had a superstitions 

 respect attached to it from early times, and is 

 frequently treated as ihe Irish shamrock ; though 

 it is believed to have been but recently introduced 

 into Ireland, where it is not so common as in 

 England. According to the elder Pliny, no serpent 

 will touch it; and the luck attached to the finding 

 'four-leave*! clover' a leaf with four leaflets in- 

 stead of three (a not very uncommon monstrosity 



in clover, though very rare in wood-sorrel) still 

 causes many a futile search. The shamrock is said 

 to have been first assumed as the badge of Ireland 

 from the circumstance that St Patrick made use 

 of it to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity. But 

 the story is a late one, and is not found in any of 

 the earlier lives of St Patrick ; and so far as the 

 theological argument is concerned, any plant with 

 trifoliate leaves would answer the saint's purpose 

 equally well. 



Shamyl (i.e. Samuel), chief of the Lesgliians 

 and leader of the independent tribes in the Cau- 

 cii-us in their thirty years' struggle against all the 

 might of Russia, was born at Aul-Himry in north- 

 ern Daghestan, became a priest or mollah, and 

 laboured with zeal and religious fervour to com- 

 pose the numerous feuds of the Caucasian tribes 

 and unite them in antagonism to their common 

 enemy, the inlidel Russians. He was one of 

 the foremost in the defence of Himry against the 

 Russians in 1831. In tlie end of 1834 he was 

 elected 'imam,' or head of the Lesgliians, and 

 soon made himself absolute temporal and spiritual 

 chief of the tribes of Daghestan. He at the same 

 time introduced a change of military tactics, 

 abandoning open warfare for surprises, ambus- 

 cades, &c., which brought numerous, and some- 

 times great, successes to the arms of the moun- 

 taineers. In 1839 the Russians succeeded in 

 hemming Shamyl into Achulgo in Daghestan, took 

 the fortress by' storm, and put every one of the 

 defenders to the sword in order to be quite certain 

 that Shamyl should not escape. But by some 

 mysterious means he did escape, and suddenly 

 appeared preaching with more vigour than ever 

 the 'holy war against the infidels.' Ten years 

 later he again escaped from the same stronghold 

 after the Russians had made themselves masters 

 of it. The Russians were completely baffled, their 

 armies sometimes disastrously beaten by their un- 

 conquerable foe, though he l>egan to lose ground 

 through the long continuance of the struggle and 

 the exhaustion it naturally brought with it. Dur- 

 ing the Crimean war he was helped by the allies, 

 who supplied him with money ana arms ; but after 

 peace was signed the Russians resumed their attacks 

 upon the Caucasian tribes with more energy, opened 

 a road over the mountains, thus cutting on one 

 portion of the patriots, and so compelled their 

 submission. On April 12, 1859, Shamyl's chief 

 stronghold, Weden, was taken after a seven weeks' 

 siege, and his authority, except over a small band 

 of personal followers, was wliolly destroyed. For 

 several months he was hunted from fastness to 

 fastness, till at last (September 6, 1859) he was 

 surprised on the plateau of Gounib, and after a 

 desperate resistance, in which his 400 followers 

 were reduced to 47, he was captured. He was 

 assigned a residence at Kaluga in the middle of 

 Russia, with a pension of 1000. and he died at 

 Medina in Arabia in March 1871, having taken up 

 his residence in Mecca the year previously. In 

 faith he was a Sufi. 



Sliandon. ST ANNE, a church of the city of 

 Cork (q.v.), famous for its peal of bells. It con- 

 tains the tomb of ' Father Prout.' See MAHONY. 



Shanghai, the most important seaport for 

 central China, stands on an affluent of the Yang- 

 tsze-kiang, about 12 miles from its mouth and 160 

 miles SET of Nanking. The Chinese city, with 

 narrow, filthy streets, is surrounded by a wall, 

 and between "it and the river lie densely-crowded 

 suburlw. On the north of the Chinese city the 

 French and English settlements, with broad streets, 

 well lighted, well paved, and handsome houses and 

 public building!, stretch northwards parallel to the 

 river. The English cathedral was designed by Sir 

 G. Scott. Powerful batteries guard the river- 



