BLACKWELL 



762 



ELAINE 



lectures delivered at Oxford in 1753, and when 

 five years later a new professorship of law 

 was established at the university he was given 

 the appointment. The lectures delivered at 

 this time established his fame, and his progress 

 thereafter was rapid. He resigned his professor- 

 ship in 1766, and four years later was knighted 

 and appointed justice of the court of common 

 pleas. Until his death he was occupied with 

 his duties as judge and as an advocate of prison 

 reform. 



Blackstone's Commentaries, made up of his 

 Oxford lectures, furnished the model for all 

 later English and American commentaries. For 

 a century at least after Blackstone's death it 

 was practically the only text-book on law, and 

 to-day is regarded as a leading authority. 



BLACKWELL, ELIZABETH (1821-1910), the 

 first woman to receive a medical diploma and 

 take up the profession of medicine in the 

 United States. When she was ten years of age 

 her parents moved from Bristol, England, her 

 birthplace, to New York, and later settled in 

 Cincinnati, where she was engaged for several 

 years in teaching. After numerous difficulties, 

 due to prejudice against women in the profes- 

 sion, she was graduated in medicine with the 

 highest honor, in 1849. She continued her 

 studies in Paris and London, and on her return 

 to America settled in New York, where she 

 acquired an excellent practice. In 1854 she 

 opened a hospital for women and children, and 

 in 1868,.with her sister Emily, also a physician, 

 she founded the Woman's Medical College of 

 the New York Infirmary. Miss Blackwell lec- 

 tured to women on health and physical devel- 

 opment, and published several books relating 

 to women and medical education. 



BLACKWELL 'S ISLAND, a narrow island 

 in East River, between Manhattan and Long 

 Island, a part of the territory covered by New 

 York City. It is about one and one-half miles 

 long and one-eighth of a mile wide. It is 

 devoted exclusively to penal institutions and 

 hospitals of New York City. Among these are 

 the workhouse, to which petty criminals are 

 sentenced and for which "the Island" is most 

 noted ; the city hospitals, asylums for the insane 

 and blind, the almshouse, the home for the 

 aged and infirm and the hospital for consump- 

 tives. The island in summer is carpeted with 

 grass and the buildings are well kept. All 

 vessels which sail out upon Long Island Sound 

 pass Black well's. On the rocks at the north 

 end of the island a lighthouse rises fifty-four 

 feet above the water. 



BLADDER. See KIDNEYS. 



BLADDERWORT, blad' erwert, a curious, 

 slender water plant, found in ditches, pools and 

 marshes throughout the world. About a dozen 

 kinds, yellow and blue in color, are natives of 

 the United States or Canada. The leaves have 

 little bladders that fill with air at flowering 

 time and raise the plant in the water suffi- 

 ciently to bring the blossoms above the surface. 

 From this fact the name is derived. These 

 bladders have a valve-like door, through which 

 insects enter when looking for food or shelter 

 and so are trapped. If the ditch or pool dries 

 up, the bladders hold moisture enough to keep 

 the plant alive for some time. 



ELAINE, blane, JAMES GILLESPIE (1830- 

 1893), an American statesman whose personal- 

 ity, keenness of intellect, power in debate and 

 profound knowledge of history and of human 

 nature made him one of the most influential 

 political leaders 

 for nearly t\vo 

 decades. He was 

 born at West 

 Brownsville, Pa., 

 of Scotch - Irish 

 ancestry, at the 

 age of seventeen 

 was graduated 

 from Washington 

 College, in Wash- 

 ington, Pa., and 

 during the next 

 few years taught 

 school and en- 

 gaged in the 



stiidvnflaw by Robert G. Ingerso n s 

 aw ' speech in the 1876 nominating 

 After settling in convention at Cincinnati. The 

 A/TO,', lOK/i u name electrified the audience 

 Maine in 1854, he and clung to B laine as long 



became editor of as ne lived, 

 the Kennebec Journal, soon accepted a more 

 influential position on the Portland Daily Ad- 

 vertiser, and in 1858 was elected to the lower 

 house of the state legislature. 



Elaine's Public Career. Four years later, 

 upon election to Congress, Blaine began his 

 long career as a national Republican leader. 

 Between 1869 and 1874 he was Speaker of the 

 House, and his constructive ability and genius 

 in debate were conspicuously revealed in the 

 consideration of the various measures for the 

 reconstruction of the Southern states (see RE- 

 CONSTRUCTION). As the Presidential election of 

 1876 drew near it was apparent that Blaine 

 would be a candidate for the Republican nomi- 

 nation, but he failed to secure that honor by 



JAMES G. BLAINE 

 Named the "Plumed Knight" 

 Robert G. Ingersoll in his 



