520 



OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (HUGHES HUMBERT I.) 



bringing it up to 1856 (1858); A Century of 

 Despotism in Naples and Sicily (18(50); The Tus- 

 can Poet, Giuseppe Giusti, and his Times (18G4) ; 

 A Translation of Gervinus's Introduction to the 

 History of the Nineteenth Century; Isolina, or 

 the Actor's Daughter (1875); Walks in Florence 

 (with Joanna- Homer) (1875; reissued 1877); 

 Greek Vases, Historical and Descriptive (1898). 



Hughes, Edward, an English electrician, born 

 in London. May 16, 1831; died there, Jan. 22, 

 1 '.<)<). He went to the United States as a boy, 

 -howed sucli talent for music that he was en- 

 gaged as a teacher in Bardstown, Ky., and after- 

 ward became Professor of Natural Philosophy in 

 the college there. In 1855 he invented the type- 

 printing telegraph instrument, which, by means 

 of wheels revolving synchronously at both ends 

 of the wire, enables the operator when he strikes 

 a letter on a keyboard like that of the typewrit- 

 ing machine, to cause the receiving instrument at 

 the other end to print the same letter on a con- 

 tinuous strip of paper. It was adopted in the 

 United States in competition with the Morse sys- 

 tem. He went to England in 1857, but could not 

 induce the telegraph companies to try his inven- 

 tion. It was accepted by the French Government 

 for its important lines in 1861, and subsequently 

 by other Continental governments. In 1878 Prof. 

 Hughes made public his discovery of the micro- 

 phone, and his experiments in connection with it, 

 which not only enabled the inventors of the tele- 

 phone to construct instruments sensitive enough 

 to be of practical use, but anticipated in some 

 measure the later discovery of wireless telegraphy. 

 He discovered that a divided electrical conductor, 

 such as metallic particles or wires in loose contact, 

 when introduced into a circuit, are sensitive to 

 sound, and produce an undulatory electrical cur- 

 rent with waves corresponding to the sonorous 

 waves, the molecules arranging themselves in such 

 manner as to increase or decrease the electrical 

 resistance. By experimenting with such broken 

 conductors he was able to detect electric waves, 

 and succeeded in transmitting signals by such 

 waves for a distance of 500 yards without wires. 

 Prof. Hughes invented also the induction balance., 

 an electrical contrivance that has been employed 

 to test the sensitiveness of hearing, to detect the 

 position of a bullet in a wounded man, and to 

 locate ores under the earth. He published vari- 

 ous investigations in electricity and magnetism, 

 and was admitted into the Royal Society in 1880. 



Humbert I, King of Italy, born in Turin, 

 March 14, 1844; died in Monza, July 29, 1900. 

 (For portrait see Annual Cyclopaedia for 1884, 

 page 412.) He was the eldest son of Victor Em- 

 manuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, 

 and as a boy he accompanied his father in the 

 Austrian campaign of 1859. Before the war of 

 isijti he had gone to Paris to sound the Emperor 

 Napoleon III as to the attitude he would take in 

 regard to an alliance of Italy with Prussia 

 against Austria, and when hostilities began he 

 took command of a division in Gen. Cialdini's 

 army, which was defeated by the Austrians under 

 the Archduke Albrecht at Custozza. He, by his 

 prompt and able tactics and his personal bravery, 

 which he had in common with all the members of 

 the house of Savoy, extricated the army from its 

 desperate situation, forming his regiments into 

 squares to hold back the Austrian cavalry, and 

 inspiriting his men by placing himself in the most 

 exposed position until Gen. Bixio brought up his 

 force to help cover the retreat. He had a consid- 

 erable part in the reorganization of the Italian 

 army thai was the work of the succeeding period. 

 When Koine was occupied in 1870 he received the 



command of the Roman corps and took up his 

 residence in the new capital with his wife, 

 Princess Marguerite of Savoy, his cousin, whom 

 he had married in 1868. He visited the court of 

 Prussia in 1872, the Russian court in 1873, and in 

 1875 he went to Vienna, afterward going to Eng- 

 land incognito. In 1878 he succeeded his father 

 as King of Italy, in a time of financial embarrass- 

 ment, economic depression, disappointed national 

 ambition, and internal discord, when the tariff 

 war with France was at its height, when the 

 Clericals, the Irredentists, and the Republicans 

 were assailing the Government and its policy, 

 and the socialists and anarchists were lifting 

 their heads, and when the friends of the mon- 

 archy felt disheartened and humiliated because 

 Italy, notwithstanding the sacrifices the people 

 had been called upon to make and the crushing 

 burdens imposed upon them, had gained no ap- 

 parent advantage from such sacrifices and bur- 

 dens and had returned empty-handed from the 

 Congress of Berlin. The period of ministerial in- 

 stability had already begun. King Humbert was 

 personally popular, and the attempt of Passa- 

 nante to stab him when he visited Naples in 

 November, 1878, tended to strengthen his position 

 except with those who aimed to sweep the mon- 

 archy away. But the dangers and difficulties of 

 the Government increased, and of the statesmen 

 who succeeded each other at the helm Depretis, 

 then Cairoli, then Zanardelli. then the Cairoli- 

 Depretis coalition none seemed able to guide the 

 ship off the shoals. When France occupied Tunis 

 in 1881 Italians saw all their hopes of greatness 

 dispelled, and began to regret the unification that 

 had cost so much and brought no substantial 

 return. In this moment of despair and isolation 

 Bismarck offered the triple alliance. Humbert 

 visited Vienna in October, 1881, as the first move 

 toward closer relations between Italy and the 

 two empires of central Europe. Energetic meas- 

 ures were taken to strengthen the naval and mili- 

 tary forces of the kingdom as the condition of 

 the alliance to be fulfilled by Italy. At the same 

 time, despite the additional outlay, the minister:-. 

 succeeded in bringing about a temporary equili- 

 brium in the budget and abolishing the forced 

 paper currency. The parliamentary situation 

 also became more settled, and Depretis, until In- 

 died, was able to command a working majority 

 in the Chamber. The definite treaty of defen-iv-- 

 alliance between Italy, Austria-Hungary, and 

 Germany was concluded on March 13, 1887, sup- 

 plementing and strengthening the Austro-German 

 alliance that had existed since 1879. This led to 

 a renewal of the tariff war with France in 1888, 

 which dealt a staggering blow to Italian com- 

 merce and industry. The secret Mediterranean 

 naval alliance with England, which had been 

 arranged meantime, had lured Italy, which with 

 the encouragement of England occupied Mas 

 so wah in 1885, hoping to redeem some of the 

 prestige lost by the encroachments of France 

 upon the chosen Italian sphere in north'-rn 

 Africa, into a desperate situation on the U>-d Sea. 

 The colonial enterprise in Erythrea was a serious 

 drain on the financial resources of the country, 

 already overburdened with taxation. Humbert 

 was a strictly constitutional king, who never in- 

 tervened in domestic politics at that time, fol- 

 lowing his father's example and his dying injunc- 

 tion to be always the jealous custodian of libeit y. 

 but in foreign affairs he insisted on letting his 

 voice be heard in critical junctures. When Crispi 

 fell in 1891 and the Rudini Cabinet was formed, 

 it was the King's influence that prevent' 

 weakening or rupture of the triple alliance and 



