SIMS. 188 SIMSON. plays, beginning with farces like the Crutch and Toothpick (1879), which was followed by Motherin-Law and The Member for Slocitm. His greatest success, liowever, awaited him in melo- drama. The Lights o' London, first produced at the Princess's Theatre in 1881. had an extraordi- nary run in London and afterwards in the colonies and in the United States. Almost equally popular was In the Ranks, ^rst performed at the Adelphi Theatre in 1883. Among Sim's other plays are: The Romany Rye; The Golden Ring; Jack in the Box; The Harbour Lights; Two Lit- tle Vagabonds ; In Gay Piccadilly; and A Scarlet Sin. In these and other plays Sims has presented striking phases of contemporary London life. His How the Poor Lire (1883) and his various contributions to the London Daily Xeifs on the housing of the poor awakened much attention and led to reforms. In 1001 and the following years he edited Liring London, Its Work and Its Play, Its Humour and Its Pathos, Its Sights and Its Scenes. Consult for Sims's early work. Archer, English Dramatists of To-Day (London, 1882). SIMS, James M.rion (1813-83). An Ameri- can g;
- ecologist, born in South Carolina. He
was graduated in medicine by .Jefferson Medi- cal College, Philadelphia, in 1835, and entered upon the practice of his profession at Mont- gomery, Ala., in 1836. About 184.5 he became interested in the hitherto incurable , disea>e vesico-vaginal fistula, and established a private hospital for women, which for several years he supported at his own expense. The success of his experiments at closing these fistulse was due, he claimed, to the substitution of silver wire for silk and other sutures, and he afterwards extended the use of metallic sutures to general surgery. He published a full account of his operation in the American Journal of Medical Sciences in 18.52. He settled in New York City in 1853, and was instrumental in establishing the Woman's Hospital, for the treatment of diseases peculiar to women. In 18(il Dr. Sims went to Europe. Here in 1870 he organized the Anglo-American ambulance corps, of which be took charge, and which he ac- companied to Sedan. Sims's operation has been of incalculable benefit and his name deserves a place as an inventive genius among the great surgeons of the world. Sims published several monographs and contributed articles to medical journals. He piiblished the following volumes: Trismus yascentium (1846); Silver Sutures in Surgery (1858): On Intra-uterine Fibroid Tumors (1874): Clinical Notes on Uterine Surgery (1866); Anglo-American. Ambulance { 1870) ; and The Discovery of Ancesthesia ( 1877 ) . See The Story of My Life, edited by his son, Harry Marion Sims (New York, 1884) ; also Austin Flint's In Memoriam James Marion Sims (New York, 1886). SIMS, Thomas M. (c.1829— ). A fugitive slave, returned to slavery from Boston. Mass., in 1851. He escaped from slavery at Savannah. CtB.. early in 1851 and reached Boston in Feb- ruary on board a trading vessel, but on April 3d was arrested in pursuance of the Fugitive Slave Law (q.v.), and was confined in the Boston court house, which, for protection, was sur- rounded by chains. His arrest caused great excitement in Boston, and vigorous but unavail- ing efforts were made by the Abolitionists to secure his release, several large public meetings being held at which such men as endell Phil- lips, Theodore Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Mann, Henry Wilson, and Thomas W. Higgin.son delivered addresses. Sims was tried before United States Commissioner George T. Curtis (q.v.), was surrendered to the representa- tive of his master, one James Potter, and was returned to Savannah, where he was subsequently sold to a brick mason of Vicksburg. L'nsuccess- ful attempts were made by people in the Nortli, especially by Charles Devens (q.v.), the marshal wlio had caused his arrest, to buy and emanci- pate him. In 1863 he escaped to the besieging army of General Grant, about Vicksburg. and after 1877 was for several j'ears a messenger in the Department of .Justice in Washington. His return to slavery did nuu'ii to accentuate the opposition of people in the North to the Fugitive Slave Law. Consult: Adams, Richard Henry Dana, A Biography (Boston, 1891); and an article in the yew England Magazine, vol. ii. (n. s.) (Boston, 1890). SIMS, WiNFiELn ScoTi' ( 1844— ) . An Ameri- can inventor, born in New York City. He served in the Civil War in a New Jersey regiment. He experimented with electro-magnets and electro- motors, and to him belongs the lionor of hav- ing been the first to apply electricity to the ])rfipulsion and guidance of torpedoes. See ToK- PEIK). SIMSON, sim'son, Martin Eduard von ( 1810-l)il ) . A German jurist and parliamentarian, born at Konigsberg. After studying there, in Ber- lin, Bonn, and Paris, he began to lecture in his native city in 1831. and became professor there in 1833. Elected to the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, he was successive!}' its secre- tary, vice-president, and president, and in 1849 lieadcd the delegation which announced to the King of Prussia his election as Gernuin Emperor. In the same year lie represented Konigsberg in the Prussian Second Chamber with rare oratori- cal skill, and in 18.50 presided over the Erfurt Parliament. Having confined himself to his jurid- ical and academic duties from 1852 to 1858, he was again returned to the House of Repre- sentatives in 1859, was its president in 1860-61. and of the North German Reichstag from 1867 on. in which capacity lie headed the deputation which petitioned King William I. at Versailles, December, 1870, to accept the Imperial crown, offered him by the German princes. Subsequently also president of the German Reichstag, he de- clined a reelection in 1874. owing to impaired health, was appointed president of the Supreme Court at Leipzig in 1879, and retired in 1891, settling in Berlin, where lie died. His son, Bernhard (1840), born at Kiinigs- berg, professor of history at Freiburg since 1877, is known as the author of Jahrh'icher des Frank- ischen Reichs nnter Ludwig deni Frommen (1874- 76) : «7. unter Karl dem G-ro.^sen (1883) : of the 6th volume of Giesebrecht's Geschichfe der deutsehrn Kaiserzeit (1895) ; and of a biography of liis father (Leipzig. 1900). SIM'SON, Robert (1687-1768). A Scotch mathematician, born at West Kilbride, Ayrshire. He was educated at Glasgow T'niversity and in London. At the age of twenty-four he was elected professor of mathematics in Glasgow University. Directed by Halley to the study of Greek mathe-
