remained independent and unattached. To bring them together and to unify the movement there was formed in Boston 1907, just 10 years after the founding of the first society, a league of handicraft societies, 20 coming together as charter members. In 1912 the Na- tional League of Handicraft Societies represented about 40 arts and crafts societies, of which many had a membership well into the hundreds. Its aim was to form a clearing house for the movement and to do statistical and educational work not within the scope of any one society. It supported a travelling exhibition of handicraft which was sent on request to places in which excellent work of this kind could not be seen, and a travelling library of technical works and other appropriate books not so well selected or easily obtainable outside of the great cities. The founding of this league, of itself, in- dicates the existence of strong and enterprising societies and the strength of the handicraft idea. When in 1909 the American Federa- tion of Arts was formed at Washington, it included the handicrafts as well as the so-called fine arts, and as the handicraft department covered much of the work of the league, the latter was merged, in 1912, into the arts and crafts department of the federation The American Federation of Arts aimed to organize a federation of all institutions, societies, city and village improvement associations, and school and other organizations in the United States, whose purpose was to promote the study and application of art, and to cultivate public taste. The educational work was along three lines: it sent out travelling exhibitions of work of a high standard; it circulated typewritten lectures pertaining to the arts and crafts; and it published a monthly magazine.
Early in its history the Boston society issued each month a booklet containing an essay upon some craft with other appropriate matter. This was taken over by the National League of Handicraft Societies and published, with a few changes, as the monthly magazine Handi- craft. In 1909 the National Society of Craftsmen, N.Y., brought out an eight-page folder each month called the Arts & Crafts Bulle- tin. This flourished for two years and then became The Arts & Crafts Magazine, published independently at Washington's Crossing, N.J. Both this and Handicraft were bought out in 1913 by the Industrial Arts Magazine. Meanwhile there had been published in connexion with the craftsman furniture a distinctive magazine, The Craftsman, which did a great deal to develop taste along these lines. The Philistine, describing the industry at East Aurora, N.Y., helped to spread the Morris idea as a practical one. In 1921 the handicraft idea had no organ of its own except as represented in the American Magazine of Art of the Federation.
In 1914 the Art Alliance was formed with the express purpose of bringing together the artist and the manufacturer. Difficult as this appeared at the time it proved its value. The alliance numbered in 1920 1,000 members in the United States and Canada with others in England, France, Germany and in Manila. Manufacturers pay a membership fee of $50 a year, artist members $5, on the theory that the former receive the greater benefits. In Dec. 1920 the fifth annual exhibition of the alliance was held in the Bush Terminal Building, New York City, at which 3,500 designs from 34 states were shown; $2,000 was distributed in prizes by the manufacturers for designs to be used commercially. In accordance with the tendency to amalgamation, four societies the Art Alliance, the New York Society of Craftsmen, the Pictorial Photographers of America and the Society of Illustrators united in the spring of 1920 to secure a local Art Centre, or Home of the Arts, in New York City, in which societies, hitherto unrelated, might have common offices, exhibition rooms, meeting rooms, etc., with a dining hall and a certain number of studios. Stock was issued at $10 a share and in a short time enough subscribed to permit of the purchase of two houses at 65-67 East 56th Street. The Art Centre was formally opened Nov. 1921.
Another evidence of the interest taken in industrial art is the formation of the Industrial Arts Survey, backed by the state of New York, with an office in Cooper Union, New York City. The aim is to investigate the development of the arts in America, especially as compared with those of Europe, in order to stimulate their develop- ment. In this the public schools and the School Arts League have aided. Also in this work and especially in the general education of the public the museums all over the country have successfully cooperated. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, there was held in Jan. 1921 a remarkable and beautiful display of industrial art, the Fifth Exhibition of Current Work by Manufac- turers and Designers. (M. B. E.)
ARTSIBASHEV, MIKHAIL PETROVICH (1878- ), Russian
novelist, was born in South Russia Oct. 18 1878. His family was of Tartar descent, and on the mother's side he was a great-grandson of Kosciusko. He at first followed an artistic career, and attained some fame as a caricaturist, but subsequently began writing short stories, followed by novels. In 1912 he was imprisoned for several months by the Imperial Government as a revolutionary.
His collected works were published in Moscow in 10 vols., 1912-7, and contain : 'Razskazi (Tales) ; U poslednei chertiy (At the Ex- treme Limit, translated into English as The Breaking Point, 1915); Zakon dikarya (The Law of a Misanthrope); Revnost (Jealousy);
Voina (War, translated into English 1918 under the same title) and Sanin (translated into English as Sanine, 1915).
ARZ VON STRAUSSENBURG. ARTHUR, BARON (1857- ),
Austro-Hungarian general, was born at Hermannstadt, Transyl-
vania, and served in the infantry and on the general staff. At
the outbreak of the World War he was the chief of a section in
the Ministry of War, but hurried to the Russian front, where he
commanded first the isth Div., and later the VI. Army Corps.
He shared the success of the battle of Limanowa-Lapanow in
Dec. 1914, which definitely stopped the Russian offensive, with
Col.-Gen. Freiherr von Roth (b. at Trent in 1859). In the
spring and summer campaign of 1915 Arz and his corps acted
with Mackensen's German army, and fought with special suc-
cess in the neighbourhood of Przemysl and in the further course
of the campaign captured the fortress of Brest-Litovsk. Ap-
pointed to the command of the ist Army in the summer of 1916,
he had as a Transylvanian to defend that country against the
Rumanians, whom he, in conjunction with Falkenhayn's Ger-
man troops, drove back into Wallachia. After the retirement of
Conrad von Hotzendorff , Arz was appointed by the Emperor
Charles chief of the general staff of the Austro-Hungarian armies,
the department of operations being conducted under his direc-
tion by the able Maj.-Gen. Alfred, Freiherr von Waldstatten
(b. at Vienna in 1872).
ASCHE, OSCAR (1872- ), English actor, was born at
Geelong, Victoria, Australia, June 26 1872. Norwegian by
descent, he studied for the stage at Christiania. After appearing
at the Opera Comique, London, in 1893, he joined F. R. Ben-
son's company for eight years, playing numerous parts in
Shakespearean and old English comedy. He next played Mal-
donado in Pinero's Iris at the Garrick theatre, London. In
1902 and again in 1904 he played in Shakespeare with Herbert
Tree at His Majesty's theatre. He began management at
the Adelphi at the close of that year, and, with his wife, Miss
Lily Brayton, presented The Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer
Night's Dream and Measure for Measure. In 1907 he presented
Laurence Binyon's Altila at His Majesty's theatre and also
As You Like It and other Shakespeare plays. Subsequently to
1911 he specialized in the presentation of spectacular Oriental
dramas, the best known being Kismet, played at the Garrick
theatre, London 1911-2, and Chu Chin Chow, first produced at
His Majesty's Aug. 31 1916 which ran for nearly five years.
In Oct. 1921 he produced Cairo.
ASHANTI (see 2.724). By an Order in Council dated Oct. 22 1906, the boundaries between the Ashanti Protectorate and the Crown Colony of the Gold Coast, of which the former is the principal dependency, were readjusted and defined with due regard to tribal Lands and natural features. For administrative purposes Ashanti has been divided into four provinces: the Central, the Southern, the Western and the Northern, each of which is under the charge of a provincial commissioner. The capitals of the provinces at which these officers have their headquarters are respectively Kumasi, which is also the capital of Ashanti; Obuasi, a considerable town situated upon the Kumasi-Sekondi railway some 50 m. due S. of Kumasi, and the principal centre of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation; Sunyani and Kintampo. Each province is divided up into districts which are under the charge of district commissioners, who in their turn are aided by a staff of assistant district commissioners. A chief commissioner who resides at Kumasi, and who is assisted, as in former days the King of Ashanti was similarly assisted, by a council of Kumasi chiefs, is immediately responsible to the governor of the Gold Coast for the administration of Ashanti. This post was filled until early in 1920 by Mr. (afterwards Sir Francis) Fuller, who was succeeded by Mr. Charles Harper.
As in the days preceding the conquest, the principal tribes, which at that time formed the Ashanti Confederation under the hegemony of Kumasi, are under the immediate rule of their own tribal organizations which, in each case, consist of an omanhene, or paramount chief, and of a number of ohene, or subordinate chiefs, each one of whom is the overlord of a section of the tribe, with minor chiefs and headmen under him. All these posts are filled, when a vacancy is occasioned by the death or the destoolment of their occupants, by men freely chosen by the tribe, or by the section of the tribe over
