OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Schönebeck

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​SCHÖNEBECK, a town of Germany, in the province of Prussian Saxony, on the left bank of the Elbe, 9 m. S. of Magdeburg by the railway to Halle and Leipzig. Pop. (1905) 17,786. It contains manufactories of chemicals, machinery, starch, white lead and various other articles, but is chiefly noted for its extensive salt springs and works, which produce about 75,000 tons of salt per annum. Large beds of rock-salt also occur in the neighbourhood, in which shafts have been sunk to a depth of more than 1200 ft. There is a harbour on the Elbe here, and a brisk trade is carried on in coal, grain and timber.
See Magnus, Geschichte der Stadt Schönebeck (Berlin, 1880).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Schwyz (town)

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​SCHWYZ, the capital of the Swiss canton of that name, a picturesque little town, admirably situated, amid fruit trees, on a mountain terrace (at a height of 1706 ft.), commanding a glorious view, at the north-west foot of the conical peak of the Gross Mythen (6240 ft.), and at a considerable height above the valley of the Muota. Besides a stately 18th century parish church and several convents, it contains a 16th century town hall (housing various precious MSS. and banners captured in various wars), as well as several curious old patrician houses, such as that of the Reding family, a member of which, Aloys (1765–1818), headed the patriotic resistance to the French in 1798–1799. Including the neighbouring hamlets of Ibach, Rickenbach, &c., the parish had 7398 inhabitants in 1900, practically all German-speaking and Romanists. The town is connected by an electric tramway with the Schwyz-Seewen station on the St Gotthard railway, about 3 m. from Brunnen, the port of Schwyz on the lake of Lucerne.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Schäffle, Albert Eberhard Friedrich

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​SCHÄFFLE, ALBERT EBERHARD FRIEDRICH (1831–1903), German statesman and political economist, was born at Nürtingen in Württemberg on the 24th of February 1831, and in 1848 became a student at the university of Tübingen. From 1850 to 1860 he was attached to the editorial staff of the Schwäbische Merkur in Stuttgart, and in the latter year accepted a call to the chair of political economy at Tübingen. From 1862 to 1864 Schäffle was a member of the Württemberg diet, and in 1868 he received a mandate to the German Zollparlament. This year he was appointed professor of political science at the university of Vienna, and in 1871 he entered the cabinet of Karl Siegmund Graf von Hohenwart as minister of commerce for Austria. But the government fell in the same year, and Schäffle withdrew to Stuttgart, where he took up his residence, devoting himself entirely to literary work. He died at Stuttgart on the 25th of December 1903. Among his numerous writings must be mentioned Das Gesellschaftliche System der menschlichen Wirthschaft (new ed., 1873); Die Nationalökonomische Theorie der ausschliessenden Absatzverhältnisse (1867); Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers (2nd ed. 1896); Ein Votum gegen den neuesten Zolltarif (Tübingen, 1901); Die agrarische Gefahr (Berlin, 1902); Gesammelte Aufsätze (1885–1887). From 1892 to 1901 Schäffle was the sole editor of the Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft.
See Biermann, Schäffle und der Agrarismus (Bonn, 1902) and his autobiography, Aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stephens, John Lloyd

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​STEPHENS, JOHN LLOYD (1805–1852), American traveller, was born on the 28th of November 1805, at Shrewsbury, New Jersey. Having been admitted to the bar, he practised for about eight years in New York City. In 1834, the state of his health rendering it advisable that he should travel, he visited Europe, and for two years made a tour through many countries of that Continent, extending his travels to Egypt and Syria. On his return to New York he published in 1837 (under the name of “George” Stephens) Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land. This work was followed next year by the publication of Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia and Poland. In 1839 Stephens arranged with Frederick Catherwood of London, who had accompanied him on some of his travels, and illustrated the above-mentioned publications, to make an exploration in Central America, with a view to discovering and examining the antiquities said to exist there. Stephens, meantime, was appointed to a mission to Central America. The joint travels of Stephens and Catherwood occupied some eight months in 1839 and 1840. As the result of these researches Stephens published in 1841 Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. In the autumn of 1841 the two travellers made a second exploration of Yucatan, and a work followed in 1843—Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. This work describes the most extensive travels executed till that date by a stranger in the peninsula, and, as the author claims, “contains account of visits to forty-four ruined cities or places in which remains or vestiges of ancient populations were found.” It enjoyed a wide popularity, and Stephens was urged to prosecute his researches of American researches in Peru, but was disinclined to so distant an expedition. He became a director of the newly-formed American Ocean Steam Navigation Company, which established the first American line of transatlantic steamships. He visited Panama to reconnoitre the ground with a view to the construction of a railway across the isthmus, and, first as vice-president and then as president of the Panama Railway Company, spent the greater part of two years in superintending the project. His health was, however, undermined by exposure to the climate of Central America, and he died at New York on the 10th of October 1852.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stephenson, Robert

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​STEPHENSON, ROBERT (1803-1859), English engineer, only son of George Stephenson (q.v.), was born at Willington Quay on the 16th of October 1803. His father, remembering his own early difficulties, bestowed special care on his son's education, and sent him in his twelfth year to Mr Bruce's school in Percy Street, Newcastle, where he remained about four years. In 1819 he was apprenticed to Nicholas Wood, a coal-viewer at Killingworth, after which he was sent in 1822 to attend the science classes at the university of Edinburgh. On his return he assisted his father in surveying the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester lines, but in 1824 he accepted an engagement in South America to take charge of the engineering operations of the Colombian Mining Association of London. On account of the difficulties of the situation he resigned it in 1827, and returned to England via New York in company with Richard Trevithick, whom he had met in a penniless condition at Cartagena. He then undertook the management of his father's factory in Newcastle, and greatly aided him in the improvement of the locomotives. His practice was not confined to his own country, but extended also to Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Piedmont and Egypt. In this connexion his most remarkable achievements were his railway bridges, especially those of the tubular girder type. Among his more notable examples are the Royal Border bridge at Berwick-on-Tweed, the High Level bridge at Newcastle-on-Tyne, the Britannia tubular bridge over the Menai Straits, the Conway tubular bridge, and the Victoria tubular bridge over the St Lawrence at Montreal. In 1847 he entered the House of Commons as member for Whitby, retaining the seat till the end of his life. In 1855 he was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which he became a member in 1830. He died in London on the 12th of October 1859, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
See The Story of the Life of George Stephenson, including a Memoir of his Son Robert Stephenson, by Samuel Smiles (1857; new ed., 1873); Jeaffreson, Life of Robert Stephenson (2 vols., 1864); and Smiles's Lives of British Engineers, vol. iii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stepney, George

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​STEPNEY, GEORGE (1663-1707), English poet and diplomatist, son of George Stepney, groom of the chamber to Charles II., was born at Westminster in 1663. He was admitted on the foundation of Westminster School in 1676, and in 1682 became a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, becoming a fellow of his college in 1687. Through his friend Charles Montagu, afterwards earl of Halifax, he entered the diplomatic service, and in 1692 was sent as envoy to Brandenburg. He represented William III. at various other German courts, and in 1702 was sent to Vienna, where he had already acted as envoy in 1693. In 1705 Prince Eugene desired his withdrawal on the ground of his alleged partiality to the Hungarian insurgents, but the demand was taken back at the request of Marlborough, who had great confidence in Stepney. He was, nevertheless, removed in 1706 to the Hague. In the next year he returned to England in the hope of recovering from a severe illness, but died in Chelsea, London, on the 15th of September 1707, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Stepney had a very full and accurate knowledge of German affairs, and was an excellent letter-writer. Among his correspondents was Baron Leibnitz, with whom he was on the friendliest terms. Much of his official and other correspondence is preserved in the letters and papers of Sir John Ellis (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 28875-28947), purchased from the earl of Macclesfield in 1872, and others are available in the record office. He contributed a version of the eighth satire of Juvenal to the translation (1693) of the satires "by Mr Dryden and several other eminent hands." Dr Johnson, who included him in his Lives of the Poets, called him a "very licentious translator," and remarked that he did not "recompense his neglect of the author by beauties of his own."
His poems appear in Chalmers's English Poets, vol. viii., and other collections of the kind. Some of his correspondence is printed by J. M. Kemble in State Papers and Correspondence . . . from the Revolution to the Accession of the House of Hanover (1857). A list of the Macclesfield letters is to be found in the Report of the Hist. MSS. Commission, No. i., app. pp. 34-40. For an account of Stepney's family and circumstances, see R. Harrison, Some Notices of the Stepney Family (1870), pp. 22-28.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stephen V. of Hungary

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​STEPHEN V. (1239–1272), king of Hungary, was the eldest son of Bela IV., whom he succeeded in 1270. As crown prince he had exhibited considerable ability, but also a disquieting restlessness and violence. In 1262 he compelled his father, whom he had assisted in the Bohemian War, to surrender twenty-nine counties to him, so that Hungary was virtually divided into two kingdoms. Not content with this he subsequently seized the southern banate of Macso, which led to a fresh war between father and son in which the latter triumphed. In 1268 he undertook an expedition against the Bulgarians, conquering the land as far as Tirnova and styling himself henceforth king of Bulgaria. Stephen was a keen and circumspect politician, and for his future security contracted, during his father’s lifetime, a double matrimonial alliance with the Neapolitan princes of the House of Anjou, the chief partisans of the pope. He certainly needed exterior support; for on his accession to the Hungarian throne, as he himself declared, every one was his enemy. This hostility was due to the almost universal opinion of western Europe that Stephen was a semi-pagan. His father had married him while still a youth (c. 1255) to Elizabeth, daughter of the Rumanian chieftain Roteny, with a view to binding the Rumanians (who could put in the field 16,000 men; see Hungary: History) more closely to the dynasty in the then by no means improbable contingency of a second Tatar invasion. The lady was duly baptized and remained a Christian; but the adversaries of Stephen, especially Ottakar II. of Bohemia, affected to believe that Stephen was too great a friend of the Rumanians to be a true Catholic. Ottakar endeavoured, with the aid of the Magyar malcontents, to conquer the western provinces of Hungary, but after some successes was utterly routed by Stephen in 1271 near Mosony, and by the peace of Pressburg, the same year, relinquished all his conquests. Stephen died suddenly on the 6th of August 1272, just as he was raising an army to recover his kidnapped infant son Ladislaus from the hands of his rebellious vassals.
See Ignacz Acsády, History of the Hungarian Realm, vol. i. (Hung.; Budapest, 1903). (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pirogue

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​PIROGUE, or Piragua (the French and Spanish forms respectively of a Caribbean word for this type of vessel; it has at various times taken many corrupt forms, e.g. periagua, pettiaugua, pettyoagar), originally the native name of a vessel made by hollowing out the trunk of a tree, a “ dug-out ”; hence applied to many different developments of this type of vessel used in the West Indies and along the American coast. An early improvement was to split the “ dug-out ” into two sections and insert a flat bottom of planking to widen it; another form had a leeboard, was decked in at either end, and had two masts.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pirmez, Octave

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​PIRMEZ, OCTAVE (1832–1883), Belgian author, was born at Châtelineau in 1832. He belonged to a well-known Belgian family, and his cousin, Édouard Pirmez, was distinguished for his works on literary and political subjects. He lived an uneventful life at his château of Acoz, in Hainaut, where he died in May 1883. Pirmez was an ardent admirer of the French romanticists. His works include Les Feuillées: pensées et maximes (1862), Victor Hugo (1863); Jours de solitude (1869); Rémo; Souvenirs d'un frère (1880); Heures de philosophies (1881); and the posthumous Lettres à José (1884). These books form a history of his emotional life, and reveal an extreme melancholy. See Vie et correspondence d'Octave Pirmez (1888), by Adolphe Siret and José de Copp1n.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pirna

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​PIRNA, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, on the left bank of the Elbe, 11 m. above Dresden, and on the railway to Bodenbach and Prague. Pop. (1905), 19,22O. The town is regularly built, with promenades covering the site of the old fortifications; the most notable edifices are the line Gothic parish church, built in the 16th century and restored in 1890, and the old town-hall. Excellent sandstone is found on both banks of the Elbe. There are manufactures of glass, machinery, cigars, pottery and enamelled goods; and there is a trade in grain, fruit and timber, mainly carried on by river, and a little shipbuilding. Pirna, originally a Slavonic settlement, was for many years in the alternate possession of Bohemia and Meissen, but it became permanently united with the latter, and thus with Saxony, in 1405. The Sonnenstein, a fortress on a commanding eminence above the town, was erected in the 16th century on the site of an older castle by the elector of Saxony, Augustus I. It was once considered the most important fortress on the Elbe, and successfully withstood the Swedes in 1639, but it was captured and dismantled by the Prussians in 1758, and in 1813 was occupied by the French.
See R. Hofmann, Zur Geschichte der Stadt Pirna (Pirna, 1891); E. Küngel, Führer durch Pirna (Pirna, 1889), the Urkundenbuch der Städte Dresden und Pirna, edited by C. F. von Posern-Klett (Leipzig, 1875); and the publications of the Verein für Geschichte der Städt Pirna (Pirna, 1897 seq).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Piron, Alexis

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​PIRON, ALEXIS (1689-1773), French epigrammatist and dramatist, was born at Dijon on the 9th of July 1689. His father, Aimé Piron, was an apothecary, who wrote verse in the Burgundian patois. Alexis began life as clerk and secretary to a banker, and then studied law. In 1719, when nearly thirty years old, he went to seek his fortune at Paris. An accident brought him money and notoriety. The jealousy of the regular actors produced an edict restricting the Théâtre de la Foire, or licensed booths at fair times, to a single character on the stage. None of the ordinary writers for this theatre would attempt a monologue-drama for the purpose, and Piron made a great success with a piece called Arlequin Deucalion, representing Deucalion immediately after the Deluge, amusing himself with recreating in succession the different types of man. In 1728 he produced Les Fils ingrats (known later as L'École des pères) at the Comédie Française. He attempted tragedy in Callisthène (1730), Gustave Vasa (1733) and Fernaud Cortès (1744), but none of these succeeded, and Piron returned to comedy with La Métromanie (1738), in which the hero, Damis, suffers from the verse mania. His most intimate associates at this time were Mlle Quinault, the actress, and her friend Marie Thérèse Quenaudon, known as Mlle de Bar. This lady was slightly older than Piron and not beautiful, but after twenty years' acquaintance he married her in 1741. He died on the 21st of January 1773, in his eighty-fourth year. He was elected in 1753 to the Academy, but his enemies raked up a certain Ode à Priape, dating from his early days, and induced Louis XV. to interpose his veto. Piron however was pensioned, and during the last half-century of his life was never in any want. His best title to remembrance lies in his epigrams. The burlesque epitaph on himself, in which he ridicules the Academy—
“Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut rien, Pas meme académicien"—
is well-known, While many others are as brilliant. Grimm called him a “machine à saillies.”
Piron published his own theatrical works in 1758, and after his death his friend and literary executor, Rigoley de Juvigny, published his Œuvres complètes. M. Bonhomme produced a critical egition in 1859, completed by Poésies choisies et pièces inédites in 1879.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pisacane, Carlo

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​PISACANE, CARLO, duke of San Giovanni (1818–1857). Italian revolutionary, was born at Naples, and entered the Neapolitan army in 1839; but having become imbued with Mazzinian ideas he emigrated in 1847, and after a short stay in England and France served in the French army in Algeria. The revolution of 1848 recalled him to Italy; he played a part in the brief but glorious history of the Roman Republic, and was the life and soul of the war commission in the defence of the city. After its capture by the French he again went into exile, first to London and then to Genoa, maintaining himself by teaching. He regarded the rule of the house of Savoy as no better than that of Austria. When Mazzini, undeterred by the failure of the abortive Milan rising on the 6th of February 1853, determined to organize an expedition to provoke a rising in the Neapolitan kingdom, Pisacane offered himself for the task, and sailed from Genoa with a few followers (including Giovanni Nicotera) on board the "Caghari" on the 2 5th of June 1857. They landed on the island of Ponza, where the guards were overpowered and some hundreds of prisoners liberated, and on the 28th arrived at Sapri in Calabria and attempted to reach the Cilento. But hardly any assistance from the inhabitants was forthcoming, and the invaders were quickly overpowered, Pisacane himself being killed.
See P. M. Bilotti, La Spedizione di Sapri (Salerno, 1907).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pirmasens

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​PIRMASENS, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian Palatinate, 40 m. W. by S. of Spires, on the railway from Biebermühle. Pop. (1905), 34,002. The only noteworthy buildings are the town-hall and the principal Evangelical church, which contains a fine monumcnt to Louis IX. (d. 1790), landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, who made the town his residence. The staple industry is the production of boots and shoes; but musical instruments, leather and machines are also manufactured. Pirmasens owes its name to a St Pirmin, who is said to have preached Christianity here in the Sth century. It originally belonged to the count of Hanau-Lichtenberg, but passed to Hesse-Darmstadt in 1736. In September 1793 the Prussians gained a victory here over a body of French troops.
See T. Weiss, Pirmasens in der Franzosenzeit (Pirmasens, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pirot

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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pyrgi

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​PYRGI (mod. S. Severa), an ancient town of Etruria, Italy, on the south-west coast, 9 m. W.N.W. of Caere. The name is Greek (πύργοι, towers), and the place of considerable antiquity. Remains of its defensive walls exist in polygonal blocks of limestone and sandstone, neatly jointed. They enclosed a rectangular area some 200 yds. in width and at least 220 yds. in length. The south-west extremity has probably been destroyed by the sea. It contained a rich temple of Leucothea, the foundation of which was ascribed to the Pelasgi. It was plundered by Dionysius in 384 B.C. Later it became dependent on Caere, though it is not probable that it was originally merely the harbour of Caere; Alsium (q.v.) is a good deal nearer (5 m. south). The Romans planted a colony here, which is first mentioned in 191 B.C. Later still it supplied fish to the capital, and became a favourite summer resort, as did also Punicum (S. Marinella) 5 m. to the north-west, where are many remains of villas. Both were stations on the coast road (Via Aurelia).
See H. Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, i. 289. (London, 1883).
(T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pyramidion

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​PYRAMIDION (diminutive of “pyramid”), an architectural term for the copper-gilt casing covering the apex of an obelisk, and generally extended to its upper termination of pyramidical form.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pyramus and Thisbe

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​PYRAMUS AND THISBE, the hero and heroine of a Babylonian love-story told by Ovid (Metam. iv. 55–465). Their parents refused to consent to their union, and the lovers used to converse through a chink in the wall separating their houses. At last they resolved to flee together, and agreed to meet under a mulberry tree near the tomb of Ninus. Thisbe was the first to arrive, but, terrified by the roar of a lion, took to flight. In her haste she dropped her veil, which the lion tore to pieces with jaws stained with the blood of an ox. Pyramus, believing that she had been devoured by the lion, stabbed himself. Thisbe returned to the rendezvous, and finding her lover mortally wounded, put an end to her own life. From that time the fruit of the mulberry, previously white, was always black.
See G. Hart, Die Ursprung und Verbreitung der Pyramus- und-Thisbesage (1889–1892).