Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/214

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CORRIENTES—CORRUPT PRACTICES
197

Chaco. Pop. (1895) 239,618; (1904 estimate) 299,479; area, 32,580 sq. m. Nearly one-third of the province is covered by swamps and lagoons, or is so little above their level as to be practically unfit for permanent settlement unless drained. The Iberá lagoon (c. 8500 sq. m., according to the Argentine Year Book for 1905–1906) includes a large part of the central and north-eastern departments, and the Maloya lagoon covers a large part of the north-western departments. Several streams flowing into the Paraná and Uruguay have their sources in these lagoons, the Iberá sending its waters in both directions. The southern districts of the province, however, are high and rolling, similar to the neighbouring departments of Entre Rios, and are admirably adapted to grazing and agriculture. The north-eastern corner is also high, but it is broken by ranges of hills and is heavily forested, like the adjacent territory of Misiones. The climate on the higher plains is sub-tropical, but in the northern swamps it is essentially tropical. Corrientes is the hottest province of Argentina, notwithstanding its large area of water and forest. The exports include cattle and horses, jerked beef, hides, timber and firewood, cereals and fruit. The principal towns are Corrientes, the capital; Goya, a flourishing agricultural town (1906 estimate, 7000) on a side channel of the Paraná, 150 m. S. of Corrientes, the seat of a modern normal school and the market-town of a prosperous district; Bella Vista (pop. 1906 estimate, 3000), prettily situated on the Paraná, 80 m. S. of Corrientes, the commercial centre of a large district; Esquina (pop. 1906 estimate, 3000) on the Paraná at the mouth of the Corrientes river, 86 m. S. of Goya, which exports timber and firewood from the neighbouring forest of Payubre; Monte Caseros (pop. 1906 estimate, 4000) on the Uruguay river, from which cattle are shipped to Brazil, the eastern terminus of the Argentine North-Eastern railway (which crosses the province in a N.W. direction to Corrientes), and a station on the East Argentine railway (which runs northward to Paso de Los Libres, opposite Uruguayana, Brazil and to San Tomé, and southward to a junction with the Entre Rios railways). A considerable district on the upper Uruguay was once occupied by prosperous Jesuit missions, all of which fell into decay and ruins after the expulsion of that order from the Spanish possessions in 1767. The population of the province is composed very largely of Indian and mixed races, and Guarani is still the language of the country people.


CORRIENTES (San Juan de Corrientes), a city and river port, and the capital of the above province, in the north of the Argentine Republic, on the left bank of the Paraná river, 20 m. below the junction of the Upper Paraná and Paraguay, and 832 m. N. of Buenos Aires. The name is derived from the siete corrientes (seven currents) caused by rocks in the bed of the river just above the town. Pop. (1895) 16,129; (1907 local estimate) 30,172, largely Indian and of mixed descent. The appearance of Corrientes is not equal to its commercial and political importance, the buildings both public and private being generally poor and antiquated. There are four churches, the more conspicuous of which are the Matriz and San Francisco. The government house, originally a Jesuit college, is an antiquated structure surrounding an open court (patio). There is a national college. The commercial importance of Corrientes results from its unusually favourable situation near the confluence of the Upper Paraná and Paraguay, and a short distance below the mouth of the Bermejo. The navigation of the Upper Paraná and Bermejo rivers begins here, and freight for the Upper Paraná and Chaco rivers is transhipped at Corrientes, which practically controls the trade of the extensive regions tributary to them. Corrientes is the western terminus of the Argentine North-Eastern railway, which crosses the province S.E. to Monte Caseros, where it connects with the East Argentine line running S. to Concordia and N. to San Tomé. The principal exports are timber, cereals, maté, sugar, tobacco, hides, jerked beef, fruit and quebracho.


CORRIGAN, MICHAEL AUGUSTINE (1839–1902), third archbishop of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New York, in the United States, was born in Newark, New Jersey, on the 13th of August 1839. In 1859 he graduated at Mount St Mary’s College, Emmittsburg, Maryland, and began his studies for the priesthood as the first of the twelve students with whom the American College at Rome was opened. On the 19th of September 1863 he was ordained priest, and in 1864 obtained the degree of D.D. Returning to America, he was appointed professor of Dogmatic Theology and Sacred Scripture, and director of the ecclesiastical seminary of Seton Hall College at South Orange, New Jersey; soon afterwards he was made vice-president of the institution; and in 1868 became president, succeeding Rev. Bernard J. M‘Quaid (b. 1823), the first Roman Catholic bishop of Rochester. In October 1868 Corrigan became vicar-general of Newark, a diocese then including all the state of New Jersey. When Archbishop Bayley was transferred to the see of Baltimore in 1873, Pius IX. appointed Corrigan bishop of Newark. In 1876 he resigned the presidency of Seton Hall College. In 1880 Bishop Corrigan was made coadjutor, with the right of succession, to Cardinal McCloskey, archbishop of New York, under the title of archbishop of Petra; and thereafter nearly all the practical work of the archdiocese fell to his hands. He was at the time the youngest archbishop in the Catholic Church in America. On the death of Cardinal McCloskey in 1885 Archbishop Corrigan became metropolitan of the diocese of New York. He died on the 5th of May 1902. He was a scholar of much erudition, with great power of administrative organization, simple, generous and kindly in character. The earlier years of his archiepiscopate were disturbed by his controversy with Edward McGlynn (1839–1900), a New York priest (and a fellow-student with Corrigan at Rome), who disapproved of parochial schools, refused to go to Rome for examination, and was excommunicated in July 1887, but returned to the church five years later.

See Michael Augustine Corrigan: A Memorial, with biographical sketch by John A. Mooney (New York, 1902).


CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE, Mercuric Chloride, Perchloride of Mercury (HgCl2), a white solid obtained by the action of chlorine on mercury or calomel, by the addition of hydrochloric acid to a hot, strong solution of mercurous nitrate, Hg2(NO3)2 + 4HCl = 2HgCl2 + 2H2O + 2NO2, and, commercially, by heating a mixture of mercuric sulphate and common salt, the mercuric chloride subliming and being condensed in the form of small rhombic crystals. It melts at 288°, and boils at 303°; it is sparingly soluble in cold water, more so in hot; it is very soluble in alcohol and ether. It is soluble in hydrochloric acid forming compounds such as HgCl2·2HCl, 3HgCl2·4HCl, 2HgCl2·HCl, according to the temperature and concentration; it also forms double salts with many chlorides; sal alembroth, 2NH4Cl·HgCl2·H2O, is the compound with ammonium chloride. It absorbs ammonia to form HgCl2·NH3, which may be distilled without decomposition. Various oxychlorides are formed by digesting corrosive sublimate with mercuric oxide. Corrosive sublimate has important applications in medicine—as an astringent, stimulant, caustic and antiseptic (see Mercury).


CORRUPT PRACTICES, a term used in English election law, as defined by the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883, to include bribery, treating, undue influence, personation, and aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring personation. Bribery and corruption at elections have been the subject of much legislation, statutes for their prevention have been passed in 1729, 1809, 1827, 1842, 1854, 1868 and 1883.

By the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 (which incorporated the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act 1854, an act that repealed all former legislation) the following persons are to be deemed guilty of bribery:—

1. Every person who shall directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf, give, lend, &c., or offer, promise, or promise to procure, &c., any money or valuable consideration to or for any voter or any other person in order to induce any voter to vote or refrain from voting, or shall corruptly do any such act on account of such voter having voted or refrained from voting at any election.

2. Every person who shall similarly give or procure or promise,