STRAND STRATFORD UPON AVON. 



death. Goats, however, eat it with impunity. In 

 small doses, it has been employed with advantage 

 in convulsive and epileptic affections ; and smoking 

 the dried leaves has proved beneficial in asthmatic 

 complaints. 



STRAND ; a street in London, running from 

 Westminster to London proper. It was formerly 

 the road which connected the two towns, when 

 they were entirely distinct from each other, and re- 

 ceived its name from its position along the Thames. 



STRANGLES; a disorder which attacks most 

 horses, and generally between the ages of three and 

 five years. When strangles occurs in the stables, 

 and now and then also in the field, it proves a se- 

 vere disease, and shows itself under the appearance 

 of a cold, with cough, sore throat, swelling of the 

 glands under the jaws, or behind and under the 

 cars. Sometimes there is not much external swell- 

 ing, and the tumours break inwardly, and nature 

 effects a cure. At others, they break outwardly, 

 and sometimes disperse. When the swelling lingers, 

 poultices are preferable to fomentations. Peal re- 

 commends blistering the part, to promote suppura- 

 tion. The horse should be kept very cool, and 

 bran mashes, with warm water, should be his prin- 

 cipal support, unless the complaint last long, and 

 produce much weakness, when malt mashes should 

 be substituted. Bleeding is only advisable when 

 the early symptoms are violent. 



STRANRAER. See Wigtownshire. 



STRAPPADO; a barbarous military punish- 

 ment, now abandoned. It consisted in having the 

 hands of the offender tied behind his back, by which 

 Le was drawn to a certain elevation, by a rope, and 

 then left to run suddenly towards the ground, when, 

 being stopped with a sudden jerk, his shoulders 

 were dislocated. This was also one of the punish- 

 ments of the inquisition, and of criminals in Italy. 



STRASBURG, (anciently Argentoratum); a 

 city of France, capital of Lower Rhine, formerly 

 capital of Alsace, situated at the conflux of the 

 Brusche and Ille, half a mile west of the Rhine ; 

 Ion. 7 45' E. ; lat. 48 35' N. ; population, 50,000, 

 of which one third are Protestants. It is an ancient, 

 strong, and commercial city, of semicircular form, 

 built on a plain, and divided into several parts, by 

 canals, over which are several bridges. The houses 

 are chiefly of a red stone, lofty, but often heavy and 

 inelegant, built after the German manner ; the lan- 

 guage and customs of a majority of the inhabitants 

 being still German. A few streets are wide and 

 straight, but most of them are narrow. The forti- 

 fications are extensive, divided into the old and 

 new. The citadel is a regular pentagon, lying to 

 the east, and with its out-works extending almost 

 to the Rhine. Strasburg is a bishop's see, and con- 

 tains a cathedral, six Catholic churches, seven Lu- 

 theran,' and one reformed, two hospitals, two thea- 

 tres, two public libraries, a botanic garden, a medical 

 school, a high school, a royal and a Lutheran aca- 

 demy, or university. The cathedral, or minster, 

 founded in 1015, and not completely finished till 

 1365,. is one of the most distinguished specimens of 

 Gothic architecture existing. Its tower, 474 feet 

 high, is ascended by a stairway of 725 steps, and is 

 a masterpiece of architecture, being built of hewn 

 stone, cut with such nicety as to give it at a distance 

 some resemblance to lace. The tower was planned 

 and begun by Erwin of Steinbach, after whose death, 

 in 1318, it was continued by his brother John. The 

 clock is also a masterpiece of mechanism, for, besides 

 the hour of the day, it describes the motions of the 



planets. The Protestant church of St Thomas 

 contains a splendid monument, erected by Louis 

 XV. to marshal Saxe. This city is famous in the 

 history of the reformation ; and the two principal 

 Protestant seminaries in France are at Strasburg 

 and Montauban. It is favourably situated for trade, 

 in a fertile and Avell-cultivated country, the Rhine 

 connecting it with Switzerland on the one side, and 

 with Netherlands on the other. The exports are 

 corn, flax, hemp, wine, and spirituous liquors ; also 

 linen, sail-cloth, blankets, carpets, hard ware, leather, 

 cotton, lace, tobacco, and snuff. Guttenberg is 

 said to have invented the art of printing at Stras- 

 burg, in 1436. (See Printing}. The ancient bish- 

 opric of Strasburg, in Alsace, lying on both sides 

 the Rhine, has been secularized, and is now incor- 

 porated with France and Baden. (See Alsace.} 

 It contained 500 square miles, with a population of 

 30,000 souls. 



STRATEGY (from the Greek ffr S wy!a, mili- 

 tary command, military skill) ; the art and science 

 of leading armies, the art of conducting military 

 operations ; a branch of military science, which has 

 only of late been treated separately, and in a cer- 

 tain sense contradistinguished to tactics, which 

 treats of the mode of disposing troops for battle, of 

 directing them during its continuance, and of all the 

 exercises, arms, &c., necessary to fit them for action. 

 Some writers on strategy have run into extremes, 

 as is usual in treating of subjects whose limits have 

 not been settled. Bu'low, for instance, has attempted 

 to reduce this branch of the military art to the geo- 

 metrical calculation of angles, lines, &c., in his 

 Theory of Modern Warfare a work which was 

 opposed by Henry de Jomirii and other French 

 writers. The latter, in his Traite des grander 

 Ojtcrittions Militaires, avoids Billow's fault of 

 theorizing, and founds his views more on the results 

 of actual experience, especially on the campaigns of 

 Frederic the Great and Napoleon, but falls, in his 

 turn, into partial views, by insisting constantly on the 

 principle of keeping forces concentrated, and lead- 

 ing them by the shortest possible way to meet the 

 enemy. He has forgotten that all armies are not 

 so trained for battle as the troops of those two 

 great generals, and that the forte of all generals 

 does not lie in the conduct of an engagement. His 

 theory of internal lines of operations, therefore, 

 though correct in certain cases, cannot hold good so 

 universally as he represents. Though the princi- 

 ples of Bu'low will never be adopted in their whole 

 extent, yet he did considerable service to military 

 science, by directing attention to what is now called 

 strategy, as a particular branch. To the works 

 mentioned in the articles H'idow and Jomini, we 

 may add the archduke Charles's Principles of Stra- 

 tegy, illustrated by the Description of the Cam- 

 paign of 1796, in Germany. 



STRATFORD UPON AVON; a town in War- 

 wickshire, upon the Avon, ninety-three miles north- 

 west of London, celebrated as the birth-place and 

 burial-place of Shakspeare. The house in which 

 he is said to have been born, is still shown that in 

 which he resided after his return to Stratford, and 

 died, was pulled down, in 1759, by a clergyman who 

 bought the place a few years before. The same 

 person cut down the famous mulberry tree, planted 

 by Shakspeare. The church contains the monu- 

 ment and bust of Shakspeare. The latter was 

 originally coloured to resemble life, and, in 1793, 

 was painted white, by order of Malone. These 

 coats of paint have much disfigured the characters- 



