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LA FOLLETTE—LAMMASCH

LA FOLLETTE, ROBERT MARION (1855- ), American politician, was born on a farm in Primrose township, Dane co., Wis., June 14 1855. He graduated from the university of Wis- consin in 1879, studied law there for one term, and was admitted to the bar in 1880. He began immediately to practise in Madison and served as district attorney for Dane co. for two terms (1880-4). From 1885 to 1891 he was a representative in Congress, and, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, helped to draft the McKinley Tariff bill. On being defeated for Congress in 1891 he returned to practise in Madison. In 1896 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. He was elected governor of Wisconsin in 1901 and was reelected in 1903 and 1905. It was largely due to him that state laws were passed for taxing railways according to valuation (1903), for nominating all candidates for public office by direct vote of the people (1904), and for regulating the railways in the state through a state commission (1905). He resigned the governorship in 1905 on being elected to the U.S. Senate, and was reelected for two succeeding terms. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in 1908. In 1915 he was sponsor in the Senate for the seamen's bill providing for better working con- ditions and increase of life-saving equipment on board ship. He favoured, in 1916, an embargo on the shipment of arms from America, but supported armed intervention in Mexico. After America's entrance into the World War he was a pro- nounced and conspicuous pacifist.

He was the author of La Follette's Autobiography (1913).

LAGERLOF, SELMA (1858- ), Swedish writer, was born Nov. 20 1858 at Marbacke in Varmland (Vermland). She grew up among country surroundings in a province in which tradition and folk-lore survived to an extent unknown else- where in the land. After going through the course in the Royal Women's Superior Training College of Stockholm, she became a teacher in the girls' high school at Landskrona. A weekly journal offered a prize for competition. She sent in some chap- ters of her first work, Gosta Berlings Saga, and won the prize. Thus began her public career as author. The book was a collec- tion of tales, each to some extent independent of the others, gathered together in one framework: wild and moving scenes from Varmland life, depicted with lively imagination in a style of diction in keeping with her subject. The book is peculiarly Swedish in its character but it has been translated into English, Danish, German, Finnish, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Hun- garian, Portuguese, Czech and Russian. In 1894 she published Osynliga Lankar (Invisible Links).

In 1895 she was able to give up her work as teacher. Two journeys abroad which she now made, one of them to Italy, the other to Palestine and other parts of the East, were largely instrumental in providing material for her next book. In Antikrists Mirakler (1897) she gives a picture, in legendary shape, of the mystical and socialistic aspects of Sicilian life. In Jerusalem (1901-2) she tells of a strange flitting from the Swedish province of Dalarne to the Holy Land. Among her other works may be mentioned Drottningar i Kungahalla, stories from Swedish history (1899); En Herrgardssagen (1899); Krisluslegender (1904); Herr Arnes Penningar (1904); Nils Hol- gerssons Underbara Resa (1906-7), a book for children, recount- ing a small boy's remarkable adventures on a journey through Sweden on the back of a wild-goose, embodying at the same time a series of stories touching on Swedish nature and history; En Saga om en Saga (1908); Liljecronas Hem (1911); Korkarlen (1912); Dunungen, a comedy (1914); Kejsarn ail Portugallien (1914); Troll och Miinniskor (1915); Bannlysl (1918) and Kaiialjersnoveller (1918); as well as a volume of essays entitled Hem och Slat, published in 1911. Most of her books have been translated into English and other languages.

Honours and marks of esteem began gradually to come to her. In 1907 she was given a doctor's degree by Upsala University; in 1909 the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel prize for literature, and subsequently she was elected one of its 18 mem- bers the first woman to be elected since its foundation in the 18th century. She purchased and restored the old farm in Varmland which was the home of her fathers.

See M. Kristenson, Selma Lagerlof (1917); O. I. Levertin, Selma Lagerlof (1904).

LAGOS (see 16.74), the principal port and the administrative capital of the colony and protectorate of Nigeria. The name was formerly borne also by the Crown colony of Lagos, an area of approximately 1,400 sq. m., adjoining the protectorate of Nigeria, of which the area is some 334,300 sq. m. in extent. The principal residence of the governor of Nigeria is at Lagos, and the colony possesses a Legislative Council, the authority of whirh extends only to the area enclosed within its boundaries. The town and island are linked to Iddo I., on which the terminus of the railway to Kano is situated, by Carter bridge; and Iddo I. is, in its turn, joined to the mainland by Denton bridge.

Extensive wharves were in 1921 about to be constructed by Messrs. Armstrong at Apapa, on the side of the lagoon facing the town, and a large electrical power-station to work the cranes on these wharves and to supply power to the main railway-workshops, which are under construction on the mainland beyond Denton bridge, was being built on Iddo I. to supplement the smaller power- station by which the town is at present lighted. Under the ad- ministration of Sir Walter Egerton fine waterworks were constructed at Ijau, on the mainland, which furnish an abundant supply of potable water to the town and its environs. Extensive harbour- works, still in progress in 1921, had already done much to improve the port, and these, aided by dredging, enable ships of approximately 2O-ft. draft to enter the harbour and to lie alongside the customs wharf. It was hoped that the works in hand would eventually enable ships drawing 32 ft. to make use of the port. Lagos is the outlet and inlet of all the trade of that part of Nigeria served by the Iddo- Kano railway, which is 705 m. in length, and it has also a considerable canoe-borne trade with the adjacent portions of the Southern Prov- inces of Nigeria.

LAGUERRE, JEAN HENRI GEORGES (1858-1912), French lawyer and politician (see 16.79), died J une J7 1912.

LAISANT, CHARLES ANNE (1841-1920), French politician (see 16.84), died at Asnieres, near Paris, May 5 1920.

LAKING, SIR FRANCIS HENRY, 1ST BART. (1847-1914), English physician, was born in Kensington Jan. 9 1847. He was educated at Heidelberg, and afterwards studied medicine at St. George's hospital, taking his degree of M.D. in 1869. He was for many years one of the physicians to the royal household, and was appointed physician-in-ordinary to King Edward VII. in 1901. He was knighted in 1893, created a baronet in 1902, G.C.V.O. in 1903, and K.C.B. in 1910. He died in London May 21 1914.

His son, SIR GUY FRANCIS LAKING, 2ND BART. (1875-1919), English antiquary, was born in London Oct. 21 1875. He was educated at Westminster school, and later studied art, but instead of adopting this as a career he entered Christie's, art dealers, where his apprenticeship stimulated all his antiquarian tastes. He was an enthusiastic student of armour, and this led to his appointment by King Edward VII. as keeper of the king's armoury, and also to his being appointed hon. inspector of the armouries of the Wallace collection (1900). He was also responsible for the arrangement of the London museum (1914). Sir Guy Laking published the following works: The Armoury at Windsor Castle (1904); The Armoury of the Knights of St. John (1905); The Furniture of Windsor Castle (1905) and The Sewes Porcelain of Buckingham Palace (1907), besides a catalogue raisonne of the armour at Hertford House. He died in London Nov. 22 1919.

LAMMASCH, HEINRICH (1853-1920); Austrian jurist and statesman, was born on May 18 1853. He was professor of criminal and international law, a member of the Hague Arbitration Tribunal, and in 1918 the last prime minister of Austria. He qualified for the teaching faculty at Vienna in 1878. His pioneer pamphlet on the objective danger in the conception of attempted crime won for him in 1882 an extraordinary professorship, and in 1885 a full professorship at Innsbruck. In 1889 he returned to Vienna and there became an advocate of the idea of a league of nations in the spirit of Christian philosophy. He became an international arbitrator, and arranged the Newfoundland dispute between Great Britain and the United States,