SOUTH ORANGE. 377 SOUTHWELL. into a township, in 1861, was a part, first of Newark, and then, after 1800, of Orange. Con- sult Wliitteniore, t'ounders and Builders of the Oniiujrs (Newark, 1890). SOUTH'PORT. A municipal borough and watering place in Lancashire, England, at the mouth of the Ribble Estuary, 15 miles southwest of Preston (Map: England, C 3). It is a hand- some town, with fine public buildings and institu- tions. There are artitioial lakes and marine parks on the shore for bathing and model-yacht sailing. Southport owns the gas and electric lighting works, markets, and cemeteries, and maintains a free library, art gallery, and tech- nical schools. Its rise dates from 1830. Popu- lation, in 1891, 41,400; in 1901, 4S.000. Consult Stephenson, iioiithport (Southport, 1898). SOUTH PORT'LAND. A city in Cumber- land County, Jle, on Casco Bay, opposite Port- land, with which it is connected l>y ferry and four bridges, and on the Boston and ilaine Railroad (Map: Maine, C 8). It is the seat of the State School for Boys, formerly known as the State Reform School. Noteworthy are the Government fortifications, the town hall, JIasonic Building, and the Soldiers' ilonument and grounds. The city has iron works, acid works, ship railway and machine shops, etc. The government is vested in a mayor, chosen annually, and a unicameral council. South Portland was a part of Cape Elizabeth until 1895. when it was set off as the town of South Portland. In 1889 it was char- tered as a city. Population, in 1900, 0287. SOUTH SEA. A name formerly applied to the Pacific (Jccan. SOUTH SEA CHESTNUT. See Inoc.^rpus. SOUTH SEA COMPANY, The. An Eng- lish connncrcial company incorporated in 1711. It was a financial scheme organized by the Lord Treasurer Harley for the purpose of extinguishing the national debt, which then amounted to £10,- 000,000. The company assumed the debt on condi- tion of receiving from the Government an annual payment of f GOO.OOO for a certain number of years and a monopoly of trade to the South Seas. It also secured from the Spanish CJovernment the con- tract of supplying the Spanish- American colonies with slaves, and proposed to engage in whale fish- eries. On the strength of its purely prospective profits, the value of the company's stock inci-eased enormously. In the spring of 1720 it proposed to assume the entire national debt, which was at that time over thirty millions, on being guaran- teed five per cent, per annum for seven and a half years. At the end of this time the debt might be redeemed, if the Government chose, and the inter- est reduced to four per cent. The directors used every means to increase the value of the stocKs, until in the beginning of August. 1720. the shares were quoted at 1000, when the chairman and some of the principal directors sold out. This flagrant concluct and the failure of Law's Mississippi Scheme in France opened the eyes of the public, and at the end of 1720 the crash came. Thousands of innocent stockholders were ruined. Parliamentary investigation revealed a scandalous complicity on the part of a number of the Cabinet. By the able manner in which he afforded relief to the unfortunate stockholders. Sir Robert Walpole (q.v.). the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, acquired great popularity. The directors were deprived of their ill-gotten gains and almost one-third of the original capital was saved for the stockholders. Consult: Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinury I'upulnr Ddusioiis (London, 1852) ; Coxe, Memoirs of Sir Ilobert 1u;po/c (London, 1802). SOUTH SHET'LAND ISLANDS. .
Ant-
arctic archipelago lying about 000 miles south of Cape Horn, between 01° and 03^ 20' south latitude, and 54° and 03° west longitude, and separated from Graham's Land and Louis Philippe Land by the Bransfield Strait (Map: Antarctic Regions, A 4). The islands are twelve in number, the chief of which are George, Living- ston, Smith, Deception, Elephant, and Clarence. The total area is aliout 8S0 square miles. They were discovered in 1599 by Dirk Gherritz. The region was explored by Sir .John Ross in 1842, and in 1893 by Laskar in the ■Insult, who de- termined the coast-line of Graham's Land to tlie 09th degree south latitude. SOUTH SHIELDS. A seaport of England. .See Shields, South .>.d North. SOUTH VICTORIA LAND, or Victoria Laxd. a portion of the Antarctic land regions, whose coast extends in a north and south direc- tion between latitudes 71° and 79° south, and along the 170th meridian east of Greenwich, the meridian of New Zealand. It is a mountainous coinitry, falling in steep snow-crowped cliffs to the sea, and rising in Mount Melbourne to a height of over 14,000 feet. It also contains the volcanoes of Erebus and Terror, the latter 11,000 feet high. Several hundred miles inland is the Magnetic South Pole. Victoria Land was dis- covered by Ross in 1841, and explored and mapped by Borehgrevink in 1899. SOUTHWARK, suTH'erk. A Parliamentary borough in London (q.v.), on the southern side of the Thames. SOUTH'WELL. A town of the Newark Par- liamentary division of Nottinghamshire. England, 27 miles by rail southwest of Lincoln. The mag- nificent mediaeval Minster of Saint ilarj-, found- ed on the site of a church said to have been erect- ed by the first Archbishop of York in 630, still retains its three towers. The building is cruci- form, the towers, nave, and transept are twelfth- century Norman, and the choir is a beautiful example of the English CJothic. It was renovat- ed in 1882. Popuiation, in 1901, 3160. SOUTHWELL, Robert (c.1561-95). An English poet and martyr, son of Richard South- well, of Horsham Saint Faith's, in Norfolk. Hav- ing studied at Douai and at Paris, he went to Rome, where he was received into the Order of .Jesuits (1578), and ordained priest (1.584 1. He was immediately sent to England as a missionary, where he became chaplain to the Countess of Arundel (1589). As a native-born subject or- dained to the Roman Catholic priesthood, he was guilty of treason. He was not molested, however, till 1592, when he was arrested. After three years' imprisonment, with frequent tortures, he was tried, condemned, and executed (February 21. 1595). During his residence in England, Southwell wrote and circulated, usually in manu- script, several Catholic tracts, and a considerable body of choice verse (published after his death). His most ambitious poem is the long popular
