BUCHAREST 



973 



BUCKETSHOP 



Washington Irving, called in his own day the 

 "Prince of American Letters," died during this 

 administration. 



It was during Buchanan's term of office that 

 the Lincoln-Douglas debates, among the most 

 famous in the history of the country, took 

 place. 



When Buchanan was nominated for the 

 Presidency a paper in his home town which 

 was opposed to him politically and could not 

 therefore be accused of partiality wrote as fol- 

 lows: 



We know him as a friend of the poor as a 

 perpetual benefactor of the poor widows of this 

 city, who, when the piercing blasts of each suc- 

 cessive winter brought shrieks of cold, and hun- 

 ger, and want, in the frail tenements of Poverty, 

 could apply to the Buchanan Relief Donation for 

 their annual supply of wood. 



Mr. Buchanan was "a large, muscular man, 

 who enjoyed the most perfect health," and at 

 the age of sixty-five was "capable of enduring 

 as much labor as a young man." 



Minnesota, Oregon and Kansas were ad- 

 mitted to the Union during this administra- 

 tion. 



Consult Wilson's Division and Reunion; Bu- 

 chanan's own book, Mr. Buchanan's Adminis- 

 tration on the Eve of the Rebellion; Grant's 

 Personal Memoirs. 



BUCHAREST, or BUKHAREST, boo ka- 

 rest' , the capital of Rumania, a picturesque 

 city on both banks of the River Dimbovitza, 

 about thirty-three miles north of the Danube. 

 The city is ordinarily one of the gayest of Euro- 

 pean capitals and has acquired the popular 

 name of "Little Paris." It is famous alike for 

 its bohemian atmosphere and for its fashion. 



Although there are still portions which retain 

 their Oriental appearance, with narrow, crooked 

 and somewhat dirty streets, the city is for the 

 most part modern and well-planned. Twelve 

 fine bridges across the river connect the two 

 portions of the city. There are many beautiful 

 buildings, and the city is noted for its great 

 churches. The manufactures are not highly 

 developed, and before Rumania entered the 

 War of the Nations in 1916 the industries were 

 chiefly in the hands of Germans. Bucharest is 

 an important center of trade in petroleum, 

 cereals, timber, hides, honey and wax. The 

 population is composed of many nationalities, 

 including Greeks, Turks, Jews, Russians, Poles, 

 Germans and Hungarians. The city was made 

 the capital of Rumania in 1862 when that king- 

 dom was created by the union of Wallachia 

 and Moldavia. Bucharest has been visited by 



plague several times, and in 1813 this dreadful 

 scourge claimed 70,000 victims in six weeks. 

 In December, 1916, after a campaign of but a 

 few weeks, the Austro-German forces captured 

 the city and 15,000 square miles of Rumanian 

 territory. Population in 1913, 338,109. See 

 RUMANIA. 



BUCK, DUDLEY (1839-1909), a distinguished 

 organist and composer, holding first rank 

 among modern American composers of church 

 music. He was born at Hartford, Conn., began 

 his musical studies at the age of sixteen, and 

 was an organist in his home city until 1858. 

 Thereafter he studied in Europe for five years, 

 and on his return to America began a long and 

 honored public career. He held important 

 organ positions in Chicago, New York and 

 Boston, engaged in concert tours, assisted Theo- 

 dore Thomas in conducting his orchestra con- 

 certs in New York City, and for several years 

 was organist and conductor for the Brooklyn 

 Apollo Club. Occupying a conspicuous place 

 among musicians, he rendered a lasting service 

 to his fellow Americans by developing in them 

 an appreciation for good music. By his church 

 music, especially, he helped to elevate musical 

 taste in his own country. 



Buck's best-known compositions include 

 numerous songs, hymns, anthems and other 

 church music; the .music for Sidney Larder's 

 cantata sung at the opening of the Philadelphia 

 Centennial in 1876 ; the cantata based on Long- 

 fellow's Golden Legend, which won a thousand- 

 dollar prize offered by the Cincinnati Musical 

 Festival of 1880; the cantatas entitled King 

 Olaf's Christmas, The Light of Asia and The 

 Voyage of Columbus; the overture to Mar- 

 mion; two operas; and the organ sonatas in 

 E flat and G minor. 



BUCKETSHOP, an establishment which ap- 

 pears to transact a regular, legitimate business 

 in buying and selling grain or securities, but is 

 in reality merely gambling with its customers. 

 A customer, for example, buys 100 shares of 

 stock on "margin." The bucketshop broker, 

 instead of buying the stock, merely makes the 

 necessary entry in his books. If the stock 

 rises in price the customer gets his margin back 

 and the extra profit; if it falls, the broker 

 keeps the margin. 



The margins are usually small, sometimes 

 as low as one per cent, and a slight fluctuation 

 is enough to put them in the pockets of the 

 bucketshop operator. Bucketshops are nothing 

 more or less than gambling houses, and laws 

 prohibiting them are practically universal. 



