Russian Empire, having wide streets, and houses mostly of stone, with large gardens surrounding the houses. There are public libraries, a people's palace and several scientific societies. Stavropol has flour-mills and various small factories. Large numbers of cattle are sent to Moscow and St Petersburg, while cereals, tallow and sheepskins are exported to Russia, and manufactured wares imported. Armenian, Georgian and Persian merchants carry on a lively trade in local wares.
STAWELL, SIR WILLIAM FOSTER (1815–1889), British colonial statesman, was the son of Jonas Stawell, of Old Court, in the county of Cork, and of Anna, daughter of the Right Rev. William Foster, bishop of Clogher. He was born on the 27th of June 1815, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, studied law at King's Inn, Dublin, and Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Irish bar in 1839. He practised in Ireland until 1842, and then, making his home in Australia, was admitted to the Melbourne bar in 1843. He engaged extensively in pastoral pursuits, and had sheep stations at Natte Yallock, on the banks of the river Avoca, and in the neighbourhood of Lake Wallace, near the South Australian border. For many years he enjoyed the leading practice at the local bar, and when the Port Phillip district of New South Wales was separated from the parent colony, and entered upon an independent existence as the colony of Victoria, Mr Stawell accepted the position of attorney general and became a member of the executive and legislative councils. A few weeks after his appointment gold was discovered, and to Mr Stawell fell the arduous duties of creating a system of government which could cope adequately with the difficulties of the position. He had to establish a police force, frame regulations for the government of the goldfields, appoint magistrates and officials of every grade, and protect life and property against the attacks of the hordes of adventurers, many of desperate character, who landed in Victoria, first from the neighbouring colonies, and later from Europe and America. It was very much owing to the firm administration of Mr Stawell that, at a time when the government was weak and a. large section of the newcomers impatient of control, lynch law was never resorted to. He had very little assistance for some time from any of his colleagues, and until the executive council was strengthened by the admission of Captain (afterwards Sir Andrew) Clarke and Mr H. C. E. Childers Mr Stawell was the brains as well as the body of the administration. The success of his policy was upon the whole remarkable. In the legislature he was sometimes opposed, and at other times assisted, by Mr (afterwards Sir John) O'Shanassy, who was the leader of the popular party, and between them they managed to pass a number of statutes which added greatly to the prosperity of the colony. Mr Stawell was indefatigable in the discharge of his duties, and extraordinary stories are told of the long journeys on horseback to visit distant outposts which he would take after being all day long in the law courts or in the council chamber. Mr Stawell bore an active part in drafting the Constitution Act which gave to Victoria representative institutions and a responsible ministry, instead of an executive appointed and removable by the governor and a legislature in which one-third of the members were chosen by the Crown. At the first general election after the new constitution in 1856 Mr Stawell was returned as one of the members for Melbourne, and became the attorney-general of the first responsible ministry. In 1857, on the resignation of the chief justice, Sir William A'Beckett, he succeeded to the vacant post, and was created a knight-bachelor. He administered the government of Victoria in 1873, 1875–1876, and 1884. Sir William never left Australia from his arrival in 1843 till 1872, when he paid short visits to the neighbouring colonies and New Zealand, and 1873, when he returned to Europe on two years' leave of absence. He took a very deep interest in the proceedings of the Church of England, and was a member of the synod. On his retirement from the bench in 1886 he was created K.C.M.G. He died at Naples in 1889. In 1856 he had married Mary Frances Elizabeth, only daughter of W. P. Greene, R.N. (G. C. L.)
STAWELL, a municipality of Borung county, Victoria, Australia, 179 m. by rail W.N.W. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901), 5296. The quartz reefs of the Pleasant Creek goldfields near the town are worked at very deep levels and there are several extensive cyanide plants on the reef. In the adjacent Grampians, which are connected by rail with Stawell, there are numerous freestone quarries. Wheat is extensively grown in the vicinity and also large numbers of vines, for which the soil is particularly adapted. Stawell is the changing station on the line from Melbourne to Adelaide, and has large engine-houses and repairing shops.
STAY BARS, in architecture, saddle bars passing through the mullions in one length across the whole window, and secured to the jambs on each side (see Saddle).
STEAD, WILLIAM THOMAS (1849–), English journalist, was born at Embleton, Northumberland, on the 5th of July 1849, the son of a Congregational minister. He went to school at Wakefield, but was early apprenticed in a merchant's office at Newcastle-on-Tyne; he soon gravitated however, into journalism, and in 1871 became editor of the Darlington Northern Echo. In 1880 he went to London to be assistant editor of the Pall Mall Gazette under John Morley, and when the latter retired he became editor (1883–1889). Up to 1885 he had distinguished himself for his vigorous handling of public affairs, and his brilliant modernity in the presentation of news. He introduced the “interview,” made a feature of the Pall Mall “extras” (see also Newspapers: London), and his enterprise and originality exercised a potent influence on contemporary journalism and politics. His enthusiasm, however, carried him too far when in 1885 he entered upon a crusade against vice by publishing a series of articles on the “Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” Though his action undoubtedly furthered the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, it made his position on the paper impossible; and his imprisonment at Holloway for three months on a charge arising out of his crusade made his connexion with the whole subject a source of considerable prejudice. On leaving the Pall Mall he founded the monthly Review of Reviews (1890), and his abundant energy and facile pen found scope in many other directions in journalism of an advanced humanitarian type. He started cheap reprints (Penny Poets and Prose Classics, &c.), conducted a spiritualistic organ, called Borderland (1893–1897), in which he gave full play to his interest in psychical research; and became an enthusiastic supporter of the peace movement, and of many other movements, popular and unpopular, in which he impressed the public generally as an extreme visionary, though his practical energy was recognized by a considerable circle of admirers and pupils. At the time of the Boer War of 1899 he threw himself into the Boer cause and attacked the government with characteristic violence. Yet amid all his unpopularity, and all the suspicion and opposition engendered by his methods, his personality remained a forceful one both in public and private life. He was an early imperialist dreamer, whose influence on Cecil Rhodes in South Africa remained of primary importance; and many politicians and statesmen, who on most subjects were completely at variance with his ideas, nevertheless owed something to them. Mr Rhodes made him his confidant, and was inspired in his will by his suggestions; and Mr Stead was intended to be one of Mr Rhodes's executors, though his name was struck out after the Boer War (see his Last Will and Testament of C. J. Rhodes, 1902). The number of his publications gradually became very large, as he wrote with facility and sensational fervour on all sorts of subjects, from The Truth about Russia (1888) to If Christ came to Chicago (1893), and from Mrs Booth (1900) to The Americanization of the World (1902). In private life his keen sense of merit and kindly interest influenced many aspirants to journalism and literature.
STEAK, a thick slice or piece of meat cut for frying, broiling or stewing. The word is apparently derived from Icel. steik, used in the same sense, which meant properly roasted meat, from steikja, to roast, that is, placed on a stick or peg of wood before the fire, stika, stick, cf. Swed. stek; Dan. steg, roast meat. A
