WAITE 



6123 



WALDENSES 



variegated black and white. The yellow wag- 

 tail has olive-green upper parts and a breast 

 and abdomen of rich sulphur-yellow. A spe- 

 cies of wagtail is found on the coast and islands 

 of Alaska in summer, nesting under or beside 

 stones and in bunches of grass. The nest is 

 woven of roots and grasses, and lined with moss 

 and animal fur. The four to six eggs are white, 

 thickly spotted with brown. Certain birds 

 which are larger than most members of the 

 warbler family are frequently called warblers in 

 the United States and Southern Canada. 



WAITE, wayt, MORRISON REMICK (1816- 

 1888), an American jurist, for fourteen years 

 Chief Justice of the United States Supreme 

 Court. He was born at Lyme, Conn., was 

 graduated at Yale in 1837, and two years later 

 was admitted to the bar in Maumee City, O. 

 In the practice of his profession there and later 

 in Toledo he became one of the best-known 

 lawyers in the state. For one term he served 

 in the Ohio legislature as a Whig, but in 1856 

 he took part in the founding of the Republican 

 party and enthusiastically supported Abraham 

 Lincoln. In 1871 he was a representative of 

 the United States before the Geneva Tribunal 

 which considered the Alabama claims (see page 

 131); in 1873 he was president of the Ohio 

 constitutional convention, and in 1874 was ap- 

 pointed by President Grant to succeed Salmon 

 P. Chase as Chief Justice. 



The questions which came before the court 

 during his term were many and important. 

 Among those cases on which he wrote the opin- 

 ions were the interpretation of the "war amend- 

 ments" in the Constitution, the power of the 

 President to remove from office, the power of 

 tin states to prohibit the liquor traffic and 

 polygamy cases. In the office of Chief Justice 

 he was succeeded by Melville Weston Fuller 

 (which see). 



WAKE, formerly, in the Church of Eng- 

 land, an annual parish celebration of the dedi- 

 cation of a church, a feature of which was the 

 reading of prayers on the preceding evening 

 and the singing of hymns through the nmhf. 

 The festival afterward degenerated into a street 

 fair, often last ing several days and marked with 

 Inuking and dancing. The Roman Catholic 

 custom of keeping watch over the dead through 

 the night is also known as observing a wake. 



WAKE 'FIELD, MASS., a town of Middlesex 

 County, composed of the villages of Green- 

 wood, Montrose and Wakefield. It is ten miles 

 north of Boston and on the Boston A Maine 

 Railroad. Intcrurban lines operate from th< 



city in all directions. The chief industrial 

 plants are manufactories of rattan furniture, 

 pianos, knit goods, shoes, stoves and lead-lined 

 iron pipe. Wakefield has a $100,000 town hall, 

 a state armory, a Y. M. C. A. building, the 

 Beebe Library and a good park system. Great 

 numbers of militiamen are attracted to the 

 town annually by the state and New England 

 rifle tournaments held there. The place was 

 settled in 1639. Population in 1910, 11,449; in 

 1916, 12,733 (Federal estimate). 



WAKE-ROBIN, a poetic name frequently ap- 

 plied to the trillium (which see). 



WALDECK-ROUSSEAU, valdek' TOO so', 

 PIERRE MARIE RENE (1846-1904), a French 

 statesman, bora at Nantes and educated for the 

 law. In 1879 he was elected to the Chamber 

 of Deputies from Rennes, and two years later 

 became Minister of the Interior in Gambetta's 

 Cabinet. This position he also held in the 

 Cabinet of Ferry from 1883 to 1885. He en- 

 tered the Senate in 1894 and in the next year 

 was an unsuccessful candidate for the Presi- 

 dency of the republic. 



In 1899 he was called upon to form a Cabi- 

 net, and at once set himself the definite task 

 of restoring the faith in the republic which the 

 Dreyfus case and other disorders had shaken. 

 The Dreyfus case was again taken up and was 

 finally brought to a conclusion by a proclama- 

 tion of amnesty to all connected with it. In 

 1902 he resigned, having accomplished much 

 toward the strengthening of the state and hav- 

 ing held office longer than any other Premier. 



WALDENSES, wolden'sccz, a Christian sect 

 founded in the Middle Ages, whose members 

 were followers of Peter Waldo. Waldo was a 

 wealthy merchant of Lyons, France. In 1170 

 he gave his money to the poor and began a 

 of poverty and devotion ; many followers gladly 

 took his vows of poverty, chastity and obedi- 

 ence. The Waldenscs believed, further, that 

 men should interpret the Bible in their own 

 way, that religious works should be translated 

 into and preached in dialects and tongues of 

 the common people, and that any layman 

 might preach. Tlu-y were subjected to perse- 

 cution, and in 1231 were excommunicated by 

 Pope Gregory IX, but they grew in numbers 

 and the sect persisted until the dawn of re- 

 IiKiims tol.-nition freed thorn from interference 

 of Church or state. To-day there are over 12,- 

 000 communicants in Italy, and stations arc 

 maintained also in Argentine Republic, Uru- 

 guay and the United States. 



Consult SchaflTn Creed* of Christendom. 



