468 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (REED ROOD.) 



active and influential. He was reelected in 1869, 

 and the next year was elected to the State Senate. 

 That same year he was elected Attorney-General 

 of the State, and in 1874-78 he was city solicitor 

 of Portland. In 1876 lie was elected to Congress, 

 and he retained his seat in that body continu- 

 ously till he resigned it in the autumn of 1899 

 and entered upon law practise in New \ ork city. 

 He first attracted special attention in Congress 

 by his speech in April, 1878, against a bill to 

 reimburse William and Mary College for damages 

 sustained in the civil war. He was soon known 

 as a brilliant and powerful debater and a stal- 

 wart Republican. When Congress assembled in 

 December, 1889, he was chosen Speaker of the 

 House of Representatives. The Republican ma- 

 jority in the House was small, and the minority 

 attempted to prevent the transaction of business 

 by refusing to answer to their names. Speaker 

 Reed promptly decided that a member who was 

 actually present must be recorded as present, and 

 could not be permitted to prevent a quorum by 

 refusing to vote or answer to his name. This 

 raised an issue that was very fiercely discussed; 

 but the Speaker was sustained in every instance, 

 and future inquiry revealed the fact that the 

 same view was taken by every presiding officer 

 of the parliaments of Europe, with the exception 

 of Portugal; and subsequently, when the Demo- 

 crats had control of the House of Representatives, 

 the rule established by Speaker Reed was vir- 

 tually adopted and repeated by them. In his 

 conduct of the business Mr. Reed displayed execu- 

 tive ability of the highest order, and always had 

 command of the House. He was elected to the 

 speakership again in 1895 and 1897. In 1896 he 

 was an aspirant to the Republican nomination 

 for the presidency, and received 84 votes. Mr. 

 McKinley received 661, Mr. Quay 60J, Mr. Mor- 

 ton 58, and Mr. Allison 35J. Mr. Reed contrib- 

 uted numerous articles to periodicals and wrote 

 an essay on the art of oratory as an introduction 

 to the volume of Great Orations in the series of 

 the World's Great Books. He was a strong Pro- 

 tectionist, but opposed the expansion policy of 

 the Government in Mr. McKinley's administra- 

 tion. He was a good story-teller and a brilliant 

 after-dinner speaker, and edited a series of vol- 

 umes of oratory. 



Reed, Walter, born in Gloucester County, 

 Virginia, in 1851; died in Washington, D. C., 

 Nov. 23, 1902. He was graduated at the medi- 

 cal department of the University of Virginia, and 

 became an assistant surgeon in the United States 

 army. He was a bacteriologist of the first rank, 

 was Professor of Bacteriology and Pathology in 

 the Army Medical School, and lecturer on these 

 subjects in Columbian Medical College of Wash- 

 ington. In 1893 he was appointed curator of the 

 Army Medical Museum, in Washington. 



Renshaw, Joseph Beresford, inventor, born 

 in Dodge Hill, Heaton Norris, England, July 31, 

 1822; died in Hartford, Conn., May 4, 1902. He 

 settled in -New York in 1847, and later removed 

 to Detroit, and became connected with the Michi- 

 gan Central Railroad as master mechanic. Still 

 later he removed to Cleveland. He patented a 

 new method of doweling for wood and iron pat- 

 terns, and a low-heat hardening method for in- 

 creasing the strength of low-grade iron. Among 

 his inventions are the draftsman's divider, a ma-< 

 chinist's micrometer depth gage, and a stay-bolt 

 cutter for use in locomotive shops. 



Bice, William Henry (William H. Pearl), 

 actor and minstrel performer, familiarly known as 

 " Billy " Rice, died in Hot Springs, Ark., March 1, 

 1902. He was one of the most famous and popular 



of the old-time minstrel performers, and had been 

 before the public more than forty years. He made 

 his first professional appearance in the Varieties 

 Theater, New York, and soon afterward joined 

 Hooley's Minstrels, with which company he re- 

 mained several years. In 1874 he assumed an 

 interest in Great Adelphi Theater, Chicago, but 

 it was burned the next year, and he returned to 

 traveling companies, appearing again with 

 Hooley's Minstrels, and with Kelly and Leon's 

 Minstrels, the San Francisco Minstrels, Thatcher, 

 Primrose and West's Minstrels, Cleveland's Min- 

 strels, and Haverly's Minstrels. In some of these 

 companies he owned an interest. Mr. Rice's 

 humor was of a peculiarly unctuous kind, and he 

 never failed to win applause and laughter wher- 

 ever he appeared. He was one of the highest paid 

 performers in his particular kind of work. 



Riddle, Albert Gallatin, lawyer, born in 

 Monson, Mass., May 28, 1816; died in Washing- 

 ton, D. C., May 15, 1902. His father removed to 

 Geauga, Ohio, in 1817, where the son studied law, 

 was admitted to the bar in 1840, and practised 

 till 1846. He served in the Legislature in 1848- 

 '49; removed to Cleveland in 1850; was elected 

 prosecuting attorney in 1856; defended the Ober- 

 lin slave rescuers in 1859; and was a Representa- 

 tive in Congress in 1861-'63. In the latter year ha 

 was appointed consul at Matanzas. He resumed 

 practise in Washington, D. C., in 1864; was 

 elected law officer of the District of Columbia in 

 1877; and for seven years was head of the law 

 department of Howard University. He wrote Stu- 

 dents and Lawyers; Bart Ridgely, a story of 

 Northern Ohio; The Portrait: A Romance of 

 Cuyahoga Valley ; Alice Brand ; Life of James A. 

 Garfield; The House of Ross; Castle Gregory; 

 Hart and His Bear; Sugar-Makers of the Wot 

 Woods; Mark Loan; Life of Benjamin F. Wade; 

 Recollections of the War Times, 1860-'65. 



Roach, William Nathaniel, legislator, born 

 in Washington, D. C., Sept. 25, 1840; died in New 

 York city, Sept. 7, 1902. He was graduated at 

 Georgetown University; was a clerk in the Uni- 

 ted States Quartermaster's Department during 

 the civil war; and removed to the site of Lari- 

 more, N. Dak., in 1879. He was a Democratic 

 United States Senator in 1893-'99. 



Rood, Ogden Nicholas, physicist, born in 

 Danbury, Conn., Feb. 3, 1831; died in New York 

 city, Nov. 12, 1902. He was the son of the Rev. 

 Anson Rood and Aleida Gouverner Ogden, and 

 was graduated at 

 Princeton in 1852. 

 He entered the 

 Sheffield Scientif- 

 ic School, then re- 

 cently organized, 

 where a year later 

 he took his mas- 

 ter's degree. In 

 1854-'58 he stud- 

 ied at the univer- 

 sities of Munich 

 and Berlin, pay- 

 ing special atten- 

 tion to scientific 

 branches. On re- 

 turning to the 

 United States he 

 was appointed to 

 the chair of Chem- 

 istry and Physics 



in Troy University, where he remained until 

 1863, when he accepted the chair of Physics 

 in Columbia, with which institution he con- 

 tinued until his death, becoming in the mean- 



