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OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (BENTLEY BOOTH.) 



sian House of Deputies, of which he was pres- 

 ident from 1873 till 1879. The National Liberals 

 supported Prince Bismarck's policy in all matters 

 tending to strengthen and consolidate the empire, 

 while defending the parliamentary system for 

 Prussia as well as for the German Empire. In 

 December, 1877, Bismarck invited Bennigsen to 

 take a portfolio in the Prussian ministry, but he 

 would not unless other Liberals were included 

 and the policy of the Government modified. In 

 1886 he was appointed president of the province 

 of Hanover. This office he resigned in 1897, and 

 a year later he retired from the Reichstag, in 

 which he had been a conspicuous and honored 

 leader from the beginning. 



Bentley, John Francis, English architect, 

 born in Doncaster, England, in 1839 ; died in Clap- 

 ham Common, March 2, 1902. At the age of fifteen 

 he made a beautiful model of the old parish 

 church of his native town. This church was soon 

 afterward destroyed by fire, and on the occasion 

 of its rebuilding young Bentley was placed in the 

 office of the clerk of the works, his architectural 

 education, in effect, beginning at this time. He 

 began architectural practise on his own account 

 in 1862, and the greater part of his work there- 

 after was executed for Roman Catholic patrons. 

 His most notable design is the Roman Catholic 

 cathedral at Westminster, on the site of the for- 

 mer Milbank Prison, an edifice of colossal propor- 

 tions, its nave being the widest of any in Eng- 

 land. It is a strikingly original conception, the 

 treatment, according to the requirements of his 

 commission, being Byzantine. Its exterior was 

 left practically complete at the architect's death, 

 save for the carving intended and the contem- 

 plated octagonal lantern of the lofty tower. The 

 interior was very incomplete. Other works by 

 this architect include the church and convent of 

 the Immaculate Conception, at Booking, Essex, 

 in early middle pointed style, opened in 1899; 

 the churches of the Holy Rood, at Watford ; Cor- 

 pus Christi, Brixton; and St. Mary, Kensal 

 Green; Beaumont College, near Windsor; and the 

 great Roman Catholic cathedral in Brooklyn, 

 Long Island, N. Y. He also decorated the Lon- 

 don Church of St. Botolph, Aldgate, and restored 

 that of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate within. The 

 Royal Institute of British Architects had decided 

 to give him the royal gold medal, but his death 

 occurred before it was received. Bentley was 

 most emphatically an all-round architect; in all 

 his commissions he designed and directed every- 

 thing from foundation to smallest detail of decora- 

 tion. 



Bloch, Jean de, Russian reformer, born in 

 Warsaw in 1832; died there, Jan. 7, 1902. He 

 was a Polish Jew who became one of the largest 

 builders of railroads in Russia, and a prosperous 

 banker. In his leisure time he studied the mod- 

 ern works on political economy and evolved the- 

 ories of his own in support of which he gath- 

 ered a mass of historical and statistical evidence. 

 The economic waste and the demoralization and 

 deterioration of society caused by war attracted 

 his attention, and then the scarcely less injurious 

 effect of modern armaments in hindering prog- 

 ress and crippling the productive energy of Euro- 

 pean peoples, and he concluded that the armies 

 and navies which were prepared for great wars, 

 and which the great powers were still increasing, 

 had already reached such a magnitude and the 

 death-dealing weapons such a development that 

 no Government would venture to break the 

 armed peace for fear that destruction might be- 

 fall its army, involving the fate of the whole 

 nation, and that if a great war did result it 



would wipe out the fruits of centuries of civil- 

 ization. Hence he pleaded for the arrest and re- 

 duction of the costly armaments which hem back 

 progress in the peaceful arts and general well- 

 being, and argued in favor of total disarmament 

 and the abolition of the system of the nation in 

 arms. His theories and the evidence on which 

 they are based were published in six large vol- 

 umes entitled La Guerre. The Emperor was im- 

 pressed with this work, in the preparation of 

 which M. de Bloch spent eight industrious years, 

 and he called the author into consultation before 

 he made the proposals, prefaced by a suggestion 

 of the limitation of armaments, which resulted in 

 the Peace Conference in the summer of 1899. 

 M. de Bloch was present at The Hague, and, al- 

 though he was not a delegate, he had no little 

 influence in bringing the conference to a success- 

 ful issue by stimulating and encouraging with 

 his enthusiasm the members who were in favor 

 of arbitration. His work in abridged compass 

 was published in English in 1900 under the title 

 of Modern Weapons and Modern War. 



Bonehill, Bessie (Mrs. William Seeley), Eng- 

 lish actress and singer, born in England in 1857; 

 died in Portsea, Aug. 21, 1902. Her first appear- 

 ance was in her own country when she was a 

 child, and she was a favorite there for many 

 years. In 1891 she came to the United States, 

 appearing in vaudeville performances in New 

 York city under the management of Tony Pastor. 

 Her success was immediate, and she soon became 

 as popular here as in England. After her engage- 

 ment with Mr. Pastor she went back to London 

 for two seasons, returning to the United States 

 in 1893, under the management of J. J. Rosenthal, 

 in a piece called Playmates. After this she ap- 

 peared for several seasons throughout the States 

 in musical comedy, burlesque, and vaudeville. 

 She made a specialty of singing songs that told 

 a romantic or pathetic story, and she nearly al- 

 ways sang them in picturesque male costume, 

 illustrating the story in a dramatic and effective 

 way. Her voice was a wonderfully rich and 

 powerful mezzo soprano, and her face and figure 

 were strikingly handsome. She was a brilliant 

 impromptu speaker, and as an actress she had a 

 charm that was as peculiar and original as it was 

 potent. Her last appearance in this country was 

 at Hyde and Behman's Theater, Brooklyn, N. Y. r 

 Nov. 26, 1900. After this engagement she pur- 

 chased a country place, Deer Hill Farm, at Say- 

 ville, N. Y., intending to live there permanently, 

 but she died while on a visit to her native land. 



Booth, Sallie, English actress, born in London 

 in 1839; died in Sydney, Australia, in March, 1902. 

 Miss Booth was a lineal descendant of Barton 

 Booth, the famous tragedian of Addison's day. 

 She made her first appearance in 1843 at the bene- 

 fit of her aunt (also Sallie Booth), at Drury Lane 

 Theater, London. She appeared as Rosalind in 

 As You Like It at the Haymarket Theater before 

 she was twenty, and received high praise from 

 Douglas Jerrold and other celebrated critics. At 

 various periods she played as the support of 

 Charles Kean, Charles Mathews, and other dis- 

 tinguished actors. In 1891 Miss Booth left Great 

 Britain for the first time, to play in Jamaica, and 

 finding traveling to her taste, she afterward made 

 many tours to all parts of the world where English 

 is spoken. In 1893 she played in Calcutta and 

 Hong-Kong, and in numerous other Eastern cities. 

 She traveled in the Orient four years, going a 

 far inland as the Khyber pass. In 1898 she went 

 to South Africa with George Edwardes's The Little 

 Minister company, and later she made a second 

 South African trip, playing in What Happened 



