Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 07.djvu/344

PLUMER 278 PLUTARCH Drainage. All waste water is carried from the house by a system of pipes which connect with the sewerage sys- tem. A drain pipe leads from each fix- ^ ture and the water flows by gravity through a trap or water sealed curved pipe or chamber which prevents gas from the sewer from backing up into the dwelling. PLUMER, BARON HERBERT CHARLES ONSLOW, a British soldier. He was born in 1857, and entered York and Lancaster Regiment in 1876. He served in the Soudan in 1884 and in South Africa in 1896, when he raised and commanded a corps of mounted rifles. He was in the South African War in 1899-1902, and commanded the 4th Bri- gade 1st Army Corps in 1902-1903. In 1904-1905 he was quartermaster-general to the Forces, and 3d military member of the Army Council 1904-1905. He com- manded the 5th Division of the Irish Command in 1906-1909, and was General Officer commanding Northern Command in 1911-1914. In the World War he commanded the 5th Army Corps till May 1915. In 1915 he was named Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and of the Star of Leopold. In 1916 he was promoted General. From 1915 to the close of the war he commanded the 2d Army of the British Expeditionary Force. PLUNKETT, SIR HORACE CUR- ZON, an Irish leader, born in 1854 of a noble family, he attended both Eton and Oxford University. Soon after grad- uating from Oxford he went to a ranch in Montana and lived there ten years, gaining that sympathetic understanding of the f armer s needs that has distin- guished^ his work for Ireland. In 1894, after his return to Ireland he founded the Irish Agricultural Organization So- ciety which has accomplished a great work for Irish Agriculture. From 1892 to 1900 he was a Unionist member of Parliament, serving most of the time on Commissions having to do with Irish affairs. Lukewarm at first toward the cause of Irish Home Rule, Sir Horace finally became an exponent of it in 1914. He presided over the convention called by the Prime Minister in 1917 and wrote the majority report. He has recently es- poused the cause of a Dominion govern- ment for Ireland. PLUSH, a shaggy pile cloth of vari- ous materials. An unshorn velvet of cotton, silk, or mixed fiber, sometimes of a silk nap and cotton back. It has two warps, one of which is brought to the surface to^ make the nap. The warp is gathered in loops by wire, and cut in the manner of velvet. It is composed regularly of a woof of a single woolen thread and a double warp; the one wool of two threads twisted, the other goat's or camel's hair. Some imitation plushee are made of other materials. SIR HORACE C. PLUNKETT PLUTARCH, a Greek biographer and moralist, a native of Chaeronea, in Boeo- tia. In A. D. 66 he was a pupil of the philosopher Ammonius at Delphi. He visited Italy, and spent some time at Rome, lecturing there on philosophy as early as the reign of Domitian. He re- turned to his native town, where he held various magistracies, and was ap- pointed priest of Apollo. He was still living in 120, but the time of his death is not known. His great work is en- titled "Parallel Lives," and consists of biographies of 46 eminent Greeks^ and Romans, arranged in pairs, each pair ac- companied by a comparison of charac- ters. They are written with a moral purpose, and present not orderly narra- tives of events, but portraitures of men, drawn with much graphic power, with great good sense, honesty, and kind- heartedness. Few books of ancient or modern times have been so widely read, so generally admired, as these "Lives." The most important of modern English translations of his work is A. H. Clough's (New York, 1910).