GOTHA 



GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 



Gotha. German aeroplane. It 

 was the type of heavier-than-air 

 craft mostly used in raiding Lon- 

 don, Paris, and other large centres 

 during the Great War, and was 

 capable of a speed of about 70 m. to 

 80 m. an hour. It was a biplane 

 fitted with twin engines, with 

 pusher or tractor air-screws. 

 See Aeroplane. 



Gotham. Village of Notting- 

 hamshire, England. It is associ- 

 ated with the phrases " wise men 

 of Gotham " and " mad men of 

 Gotham," once used as synonyms 

 for rustic simpletons, much as Ab- 

 derites was used in ancient Greece 



IMERRY TALES1 



Th 





Gotham. Facsimile of the title page of 

 an early edition of the old jest book 



for the men of Abdera (qrv. ). The 

 men of Gotham figure in the jest 

 books and plays of the 15th-16th 

 centuries, notably in the Townley 

 Mysteries and in the black letter 

 collection entitled Merry Tales of 

 the Mad Men of Gotam. 



The 20 tales or anecdotes in the 

 collection referred to include the 

 familiar jest of the men who 

 hedged in a cuckoo to compel it to 

 sing all the year, and the story of 

 the man who riding to market, with 

 two bushels of wheat, carried them 

 on his own neck so that his horse 

 should not bear too heavy a burden. 



Dekker, in The Gull's Hornbook, 

 1609, alludes to " the wise men of 

 Gotham," as does the old rhyme : 



Three wise men of Gotham 

 Went to sea in a howl ; 



And if the bowl had been stronger 



My song would liavo been Jonser. 

 Washington Irving, in Salmagundi, 

 1807, called New York Gotham. 

 See Shakespeare Jest Books, ed. 

 W. C. Hazlitt, 1864. 



Gothenburg OR GOTTEN BURO 

 (Swed. Goteborg). Second largest 

 city and chief exporting seaport of 

 Sweden. It stands on the S.W. 



coast, 5 m. from 



the mouth of the 



river Gota, 285 m. 



by rly. S.W. of 



Stockholm. The 



old ramparts are 



replaced by boule 



vards adjoining 



the moat. The 



city is traversed by 



numerous canals, 



has electric tram 



ways, and is served 



by six railways. 



It has fine new 



quarters, h a n d- 



some quays, and 



many parks, besides a cathedral, 



German and English churches, 



town hall, exchange, museum 



with pictures and statuary, and a 



university and library. 



Its spacious harbour is generally 

 ice free. Exports include timber, 

 wood pulp, joinery, paper, card- 

 board, iron, glass, calcium carbide, 

 matches, butter, fish, and hides. 

 There are shipbuilding yards, saw 

 and flour mills, tanneries, sugar re- 

 fineries, breweries, tobacco and 

 margarine f a c - 

 tories, and textile 

 and other in- 

 dustries. 



Founded by 

 Gustavus Adol- 

 phus in 1619, it 

 was at first settled 

 by f o r e i g n e rs, Gothenburg arms 

 chiefly Dutch, 



Scots, and English. During the 

 Continental blockade of 1806 it 

 was the chief British 'base in N. 

 Europe. In 1802 the city suffered 

 from a disastrous conflagration, 

 and in Nov., 1920, the fishing 

 harbour was seriously damaged by 

 fire. Pop. 197,421. 



Gothenburg System. Plan for 

 dealing with the liquor traffic intro- 

 duced at Gothenburg, Sweden, 

 about 1871. Adopted in Stockholm 

 in 1877, it has spread to Norway 

 and other countries, and has been 

 adapted in the United Kingdom by 

 the Public House Trust (q.v.). 

 Under the Gothenburg system a 

 company may buy up existing 

 licences and open in place of the 

 old licensed houses a limited 

 number of establishments for the 

 sale of pure liquor, the salaried 

 managers of which have no pe- 

 cuniary interest in the sale of the 

 liquor. Each company is under mu- 

 nicipal control, and all profit be- 

 yond the realization of 5 p.c. on the 

 capital expenditure is handed over 

 to the civic authorities, with the 

 two-fold result of lowering the rates 

 and checking the cost of main- 

 taining those impoverished by in- 

 temperance. See Liquor Traffic: 

 Temperance. 



Gothenburg, Sweden. North Hamngatan, one of the 

 quays on the Storahamn canal, which traverses the city 



Gothic (late Lat. Gothicus). 

 Term meaning connected with the 

 Goths. Originally it was applied to 

 certain distinguishing features of 

 the Middle Ages as contrasted with 

 those of classical times, and con- 

 noted rudeness or want of polish 

 The term is also applied to a certain 

 phase of art and architecture ; to 

 type used for printing German, 

 black-faced and pointed letters for- 

 merly called black letter ; and to the 

 Mozarabic liturgy spoken by the 

 Christians of Toledo, which was 

 supposed to have been introduced 

 into Spain by the Visigoths or 

 Western Goths. 



The Gothic language is now 

 generally assigned to the E. Ger- 

 manic branch of the Teutonic 

 group. Originally spoken by the 

 Visigoths, who in the 4th century 

 occupied Dacia and Moesia, it sur- 

 vived until the 16th century in the 

 Crimea. The alphabet, the in- 

 vention of which is attributed to 

 Ulphilas (q.v.), consisted of 24 let- 

 ters, based upon the Greek, but also 

 contained some Latin characters 

 and runic symbols (see Rune). 

 Some idea of this Gothic, or, rather, 

 Moeso-Gothic language, is fur- 

 nished by the fragmentary remains 

 of the translation of *the Bible by 

 Ulphilas, discovered in Germany 

 and now in the library of the uni- 

 versity of Upsala, and of one or two 

 other documents, together with a 

 portion of a calendar, found in 

 Italy. See Goths ; Typography. 



Gothic Architecture. Manner 

 of building practised in Western 

 Europe, especially in France, from 

 about 1150-1550. Before the 

 earlier date a traditional use of 

 Roman forms had lingered on in 

 some degree and in rude ways. The 

 styles of art then practised are, 

 therefore, now usually called Ro- 

 manesque. The word Gothic at 

 first was applied to Romanesque 

 art as well and was used in the 

 sense of barbaric. In reality, how- 

 ever, Gothic architecture is one of 

 the most remarkable and refined 

 types of building art ever prac- 

 tised. Gothic art is also frequently 



