COVENTRY 



1617 



COW 



COVENTRY, kuv ' en tri, an important manu- 

 facturing city in Warwickshire, England, 

 eighty-five miles northwest of London. It is 

 famous in history as the city through which 

 Lady Godiva is said to have ridden naked to 

 save the people from taxation. The town is 

 of great antiquity ; as early as 1043 its founder, 

 Earl Leofric, established there a Benedictine 

 monastery, which afterwards became famous 

 as the ecene of many religious pageants. It 

 contains many ancient houses, and traces of 

 the old wall surrounding the town are still 

 visible. It has far outgrown its original bound- 

 aries, but its appearance suffers considerably 

 from the fact that the new portion is not laid 

 out with any regularity. 



All public utilities are municipally owned. 

 Coventry is the center of British automobile 

 and cycle industries and has extensive manu- 

 factures of ribbons, watches, sewing machines 

 and guns. For the story of Lady Godiva, asso- 

 ciated with Coventy, see GODIVA, LADY. Pop- 

 ulation in 1911, 106,377. 



COVERDALE, kuv 1 er dale, MILES (1488- 

 1568), bishop of Exeter, England, famed as the 

 man who in 1535 brought out the first trans- 

 lation of the Bible printed in the English 

 language. He was born in Yorkshire, was 

 educated at Cambridge and became an Augus- 

 tinian monk in 1514. In 1526 his religious 

 opinions had so far changed that he left the 

 convent and devoted himself to the work of 

 the Reformation. The Bible of Cromwell, or 

 the Great Bible, was printed under his direc- 

 tion. He was married in 1540 and in 1551 was 

 appointed to the see of Exeter, and there 

 remained until the accession of the Catholic 

 Mary, -in 1553, when he was ejected and im- 

 prisoned. Through the intercession of his 

 chaplain, who was his brother-in-law, he was 

 released and went to Denmark. After Eliza- 

 beth became queen in 1559 he returned to 

 England and was appointed bishop of Lland- 

 aff, but resigned. The Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury then gave him the post at Saint Magnus 

 in London, where he remainpd until his death. 



COVINGTON, KY., one of the county seats 

 of Kenton County, is the second largest city 

 in the state. The population in 1910 was 

 53,270; in 1916 it was 57,144. It is on the Ohio 

 River, opposite Cincinnati, and at the mouth 

 of the Licking River. Across the Licking is 

 Newport, Ky. A fine suspension bridge be- 

 tween Covington and Cincinnati is 2,250 feet 

 long and cost $2,000,000. Covington is served 

 by the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Louis- 

 102 



ville & Nashville railroads, by interurban elec- 

 tric lines and by steamers to other Ohio River 

 ports. 



Covington is largely a residential town, the 

 home of many Cincinnati merchants. It occu- 

 pies an area of five square miles, on a plain 

 partially surrounded by hills. Devon and Goe- 

 , bel parks have a combined area of 600 acres. 

 The city has a Federal building built in mod- 

 ern Gothic architecture, a courthouse and city 

 hall combined, and a public library. It is the 

 see of a Roman Catholic bishop, and among 

 the important Roman Catholic institutions 

 are the Cathedral, built in flamboyant Gothic 

 and one of the finest buildings of its kind in 

 the state; Notre Dame Academy; La Sallette 

 Academy; a Benedictine priory, and a convent. 

 The city has Saint Elizabeth's Hospital, an 

 institution for contagious diseases, a home for 

 aged and indigent women and Roman Catho- 

 lic and Protestant orphan asylums. 



Its important industrial plants include large 

 pork-packing establishments, cotton and to- 

 bacco factories, distilleries and breweries, iron 

 and glass works, and manufactories of steam 

 engines, furniture, clay products, automobile 

 trucks, X-ray machines, pianos, tents, cordage 

 and vinegar. The town was settled in 1812, 

 was organized in 1815, and became a city in 

 1834. The commission form of government 

 has been adopted. 



COW, the adult female of cattle, of the 

 genus bos. The word is also used to distin- 

 guish the female of some other animals; the 

 female moose, for example, is called the cow 

 moose, whereas the male is the bull moose. 

 In ordinary use, however, the word cow, when 

 alone, means the familiar domesticated animal, 

 which is more valuable to man than any other 

 quadruped, with the possible exception of the 

 horse. In an English periodical, Household 

 Words, then edited by Charles Dickens, ap- 

 peared the following tribute to the cow, said 

 to have been written by the editor : 



"If civilized people were ever to lapse Into the 

 worship of animals, the Cow would certainly be 

 their chief goddess. What a fountain of blessings 

 Is the Cow ! She is the mother of beef, the source 

 of butter, the original cause of cheese, to say 

 nothing of shoe-horns, hair-combs and upper 

 leather. A gentle, amiable, ever-yielding crea- 

 ture, who has no joy in her family affairs which 

 she does not share with man. We rob her of her 

 children that we may rob her of her milk, and we 

 only care for her when the robbing may be per- 

 petrated." 



For the story of the cow, the reader is re- 

 ferred to the article CATTLE. The principal 



