STRAUSS 



STRAW 



765 



pension of 1000 francs), and even the cantonal 

 government had to resign in the same year. 



Thrown hack on literary labour, Strauss, who had 

 published during the year his Charakteristiken und 

 Kritiken, sent forth shortly afterwards his second 

 great work, Die Christiiche Glaubenslehre, a review 

 of Christian dogma ' in its historical development 

 and its struggle with modern science ' ( 1840-41 ). 

 This formed a natural sequel to the purely critical 

 investigation of the origins of Christianity in the 

 first work. When Strauss, after a long period of 

 silence, next appeared on the literary field it was 

 no longer as a professed theologian. In 1847 he 

 drew attention by a work entitled Der Romantiker 

 auf dem Throne der Ciisaren, in which a parallel 

 was drawn between the orthodox William IV. of 

 Prussia and Julian the Apostate, as having both 

 attempted to restore dead religions. His fellow- 

 townsmen put him forward as a candidate for the 

 German revolutionary parliament of 1848, but he 

 was unable to stand against the clerical influence 

 brought to bear upon the country-people of the dis- 

 trict. His speeches on this occasion were published 

 under the title of Six Theoloffico-politicat Popular 

 Addresses, and his native place compensated the 

 defeat by sending him as its representative to the 

 Wurtemlterg Diet. From this position, however, 

 when he unexpectedly displayed conservative lean- 

 ings, and incurred a vote of censure from his 

 constituents, he retired before the end of the 

 year. In this period he also issued lives of the 

 Swabian poet Schubart (1849) and of his college- 

 friend Christian Marklin ( 1851 ) : and a work on 

 the old Swabian humanist Frischlin (1855). His 

 third period of activity was opened in 1858 by a 

 remarkable life of Ulrich von Hutten ( Eng. trans. 

 1874), followed up by the publication of Hutten's 

 Dialogues in 1860, a work on Reimarus ( 1862), and 

 a series of brilliant lectures on Voltaire ( 1870). A 

 new Life of Jesus, composed for the German People, 

 appeared in 1864 (Eng. trans. 1865), in which the 

 mythical theory was retained, but prefaced by a 

 critical examination of the gospels (some historical 

 value being allowed to Matthew), and an attempt 

 made to reconstruct a positive life of Christ. Der 

 Christus des Gla.ube.ns (1865) is a criticism of the 

 lectures of Schleiermacher on the life of Jesus, and 

 Die Halben und die Ganzen a brochure directed 

 against Schenkel and Hengstenberg. In 1872 he 

 published his last work, Der alte und der neve 

 Glaube, in which he endeavours to prove that 

 Christianity as a system of religious belief is practi- 

 cally dead,' that there is no conscious or personal 

 God, and that a new faith must be built up out 

 of art and the scientific knowledge of nature. 

 Strauss died at Ludwigsburg, 8th February 1874. 

 In 1841 he had married the opera-singer, Agnese 

 Schebest (1813-70), but some years after they 

 separated. The literary, critical, and polemical 

 powers of Strauss were unquestionably of a very 

 high order ; no more effective German prose than 

 his has been written since Lessing. 



A collected edition of Strauss's works was published in 

 12 vols. (including one of poems), edited by Zeller, in 

 1876-78. The Life by Zeller (1874) was translated the 

 same year: and there are works by Hausrath (2 vols. 

 1876-78) and Schlottmann (1878). 



Strauss. JOHANN, musical composer, best 

 known for his waltz-music, was born in Vienna on 

 25th Octol>er 1825, the son of a Johann Strauss 

 (1804-49) who also was renowned as a composer 

 of dance-music. On his father's death he took 

 the direction of his orchestra, and for many years 

 travelled with it, at the same time producing 

 melodious and catching waltzes ( Die schone blaue 

 Donau, Kiinstlerleben, &c.), as also composed some 

 very popular operettas Die Fledermaus ( 1874), La 

 Ttigane (1877), Der Zigeunerbaron (1885), &c. 



Straw, MANUFACTURES OP. Apart from the 

 importance of the straw of various cereal plants as a 

 feeding and bedding material in agriculture, such 

 substances also possess no inconsiderable value for 

 packing merchandise, for thatching, for making 

 mattresses, and for door-mats. Straw is also a 

 paper-making material of some importance, and 

 split, flattened, and coloured it is employed for 

 making a mosaic-like veneer on fancy boxes. But 

 it is in the form of plaits that straw finds its most 

 outstanding industrial application, these being 

 used to an enormous extent for making hats and 

 bonnets and for small baskets, &c. Wheaten straw 

 is the principal material used in the plait trade, the 

 present great centres of which are Bedfordshire in 

 England, Tuscany in Italy, and Canton in China. 

 At first the plait was what is called whole straw; 

 that is, the straw was cut into suitable lengths 

 without knots, and merely pressed fiat during the 

 operation of plaiting ; and so it continued until the 

 reign of George I., when it was in great demand 

 for ladies' hats, and some plait was made of split 

 straw. Since that time split 

 straw has been chiefly used. 

 The instrument employed for 

 splitting ( fig. 1 ) consists of 

 a number of little square 

 steel blades radiating from a 

 stem which terminates in the 

 point a, and at the other end 

 is bent and fixed into the 

 handle 6. The point a, being 

 inserted into the hollow of 



Kg. 1 



the straw, is pressed forward, and cuts it into as 

 many strips as there are blades in the cutting-tool. 

 The English straw used in plaiting is obtained 

 principally from the varieties, of wheat known as 

 the White Chittim and the Red Lammas, which 

 succeed best on the light rich soils of Bedfordshire 

 and the neighbouring counties. Only bright, clear, 

 and perfect pipes can be employed, and to obtain 

 the straw in good condition great care has to be 

 exercised. The crop is not mowed, but pulled up, 

 and the ears are cut off by the hand for thrashing. 

 The straws are then cut into lengths, cleared of 

 their outer sheath, and assorted into sizes in a 

 kind of sieve apparatus like fig. 2. The apertures 



Fig. 2. 



in each successive perforated top are increasingly 

 wider, so that fine straws only pass through a by 

 the shoot b, c, into the box d at the one end, and 

 thicker pipes in each succeeding box. The plaits, 

 made principally by women and children, vary 

 greatly in pattern, quality, and cost. They are 

 sold by the score of 20 yards, chiefly in Luton, 

 where spacious plait halls have been provided 

 for the accommodation of buyers and sellers. 

 The finest and most costly plaits anywhere made 

 the Tuscan or Leghorn plaits are made in 

 Tuscan villages around Florence, and are not split. 

 The straw there used very fine in the pipe and 

 bright in colour is produced from a variety of 

 wheat thickly sown and grown in a light thin soil. 

 The crop is pulled and prepared as in the English 

 trade, and the plaits are worked by all classes and 

 ages of the rural populace. The finer qualities of 



