There is no State Church, nor State assistance to any religion. The Church of England, the largest denomination, had 432,732 adherents in 1901. The adherents of the other denominations in the same year numbered as follows: Roman Catholics, 263,712; Presbyterians, 191,471; and Wesleyans and other Methodists, 180,287.

In 1891 nearly 96 per cent. of the population over 15 years of age could read and write. School attendance is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 13. The public system is secular and the In 1900 there were primary grades are free. 243,667 pupils enrolled in 1948 State schools. The average attendance was 147,020. Secondary education is in the hands of private and denominational interests. In 1900 there were 51,834 scholars in attendance at 884 private schools. The Roman Catholic schools contained over half of the total private school enrollment. The State encourages attendance at the grammar schools and universities by the awarding of scholarships. The higher educational institutions include 18 technical schools, 3 workingmen's colleges, 10 schools of mines, an agricultural and horticultural school, and 5 schools of art. For a comparison with other Australian States, see Aus

TRALIA.

HISTORY. The coast of Victoria was sighted by Captain Cook in 1770, and the first explorations were made in 1798 by George Bass, who discovered Bass Strait. In 1802 Lieutenant Murray took formal possession of Port Phillip Bay, and in 1803 an unsuccessful attempt was made by the English Government to establish a settlement. Exploring parties traversed the country from time to time, but the first permanent settlement was not made until 1834, and was then accomplished by the individual enterprise of one Henty. The settlement of the Henty family is usually regarded as the founding of Victoria. Henty and his seven sons were squatters on the shore of Portland Bay, where they set up a whale-fishing establishment, and also carried on sheep-farming. That type of settlement had been a source of much vexation to the home Government, and Henty was unable for some time to obtain any legal recognition. His settlement never grew, but was absorbed in the Port Phillip Association, led by John Batman, from Tasmania, in 1835, and reinforced during the year by colonists under a trader named Faukner, who is jointly with Batman entitled to the credit of founding the colony. The settlers bought land of the natives. Such titles were not favored by Great Britain, but the colony at Port Phillip obtained such accessions of number that its recognition could not be avoided. It was incorporated within the territory of New South Wales in 1835, and formally opened for settlement in 1836. In 1837 the town of Melbourne was laid out, and in 1842 it received a city charter. The colony grew rapidly. In 1842 agitation began for separation from New South Wales. This was accomplished in 1850, although the new colony of Victoria was not formally organized until 1851. By this time the population had reached 77,000. Upon the discovery of gold Victoria had an extraordinary rush of immigration, the population increasing from 77,455 in 1851 to 540,322 in 1861. Discontent with the mining regulations imposed by the Legislature led to serious miners' riots at Ballarat in

severe

1854 and to the enactment of more liberal laws. The period after 1855 witnessed the rise of a powerful democratic party, which entered into bitter conflict with the squatter or land-owning class on the question of a protective tariff for the purpose of encouraging home industries. The conservative attitude of the squatters, who were in control of the Upper House of the legislature, kept back until after 1860 the full development of the agricultural resources of the colony. Like its sister colonies, Victoria during the last ten years of the nineteenth century enacted many legislative measures of a decidedly democratic and even socialistic character. Among other things these acts provided for old age pensions, and for every trade established mixed tribunals of employers and employees for the determination of a minimum wage. The people of Victoria were from the beginning overwhelmingly in favor of Australian federation (q.v.), and in 1898 ratified the first draft of the Federal Constitution by a vote of five to one.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. McCoy, Victoria and Its Metropolis (Melbourne, 1889); Coghlan, Seven Colonies of Australia (ib., annually); Jenks, The Government of Victoria (London, 1891); Bannow, The Colony of Victoria (ib., 1897). For ethnology, consult Smyth (comp.), The Aborigines of Victoria (Melbourne, 1878); Curr, The Australian Race (ib., 1886-87); Hare, The Last of the Bushrangers (London, 1894). geology, Murray, Victoria Geology and Physical Geography (Melbourne, 1895). For history, Labilliere, Early History of the Colony of Victoria (London, 1878); Turner, History of Victoria (Melbourne, 1879).

For

VICTORIA (Brazilian, Nossa Senhora da Victoria). A seaport, the capital of the State of Espiritu Santo, Brazil, situated on the island of Espiritu Santo, 275 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro (Map: Brazil, J 8). The former Jesuit College, now used as the Government palace, is the chief edifice. The harbor is good, with a lighthouse and batteries. The chief exports are sugar, coffee, rice, and manioc. The town was founded in 1535. Population, about 10,000.

VICTORIA. The capital of Hong Kong (q.v.). VICTORIA. A town of Luzon, Philippines, in the Province of Tárlac, situated six miles northeast of Tárlac, near the confines of Nueva Ecija (Map: Luzon, D 4). Population, 10,362.

VICTORIA.

A town of Venezuela, situated on the Aragua River, 45 miles southwest of Caracas, near Lake Valencia. Its favorable position gives it an extensive trade in coffee, sugar, and cacao. Population, about 12,000.

VICTORIA. The capital of the Province of British Columbia, Canada, and of the Victoria district, at the southeast extremity of Vancouver Island, on the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, and the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railroad, 84 miles southwest of Vancouver (Map: British Columbia, E 5). It was originally a trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, was platted for a town in 1852, incorporated as a city in 1862, and has since become the most important Canadian city on the Pacific. It has extensive commercial interests, good harbor accommodation, regular steamship communication with San

Francisco, Alaska, New Westminster, and other points on the northwest coast. Esquimalt (q.v.), the British Pacific naval station, is three miles distant. Victoria's public buildings include the fine Government building, opened in 1897, comprising the Parliament House, a provincial museum and library, and administrative offices. Other important edifices are the city hall, the Anglican and the Catholic cathedrals, the exhibition building, the Anglican Women's College, hospitals, and charitable institutions. Victoria is favored with a perennially temperate climate. Population, in 1891, 16,841; in 1901, 20,821.

VICTORIA. The county-seat of Victoria County, Tex., 128 miles southwest of Houston; on the Guadalupe River, and on the Southern Pacific and the San Antonio and Aransas Pass railroads (Map: Texas, F 5). It is the seat of St. Joseph's College (Roman Catholic), and has the Nazareth Seminary, an attractive courthouse, and a handsome city hall. Victoria is of considerable importance as a shipping point for farm and dairy produce, and as the centre of large stock-raising interests. The industrial establishments include a large planing mill, cotton gins, an oil mill, etc. The water-works are the property of the municipality. Population, in 1890, 3046; in 1900, 4010.

VICTORIA (Neo-Lat., named in honor of Victoria, Queen of England). A genus of plants of the natural order Nymphæaceæ, resembling the common water-lily. Only one species is known, Victoria regia. This is said to have been first observed by Hänke, about 1801, but was not described until 1832, when Pöppig found it in the river Amazon. It is found in other waters of Northern South America. Its floating leaves are orbicular and attain a diameter of 5 to 6 feet; have the margin turned up about two inches, are pur

VICTORIA REGIA.

plish beneath, and exhibit prominent veins, furnished with prickles. The flowers rise among the leaves upon prickly stalks. They are more than a foot in diameter, white, internally rose-colored, and are very fragrant. The fruit is a capsule, almost globose, with a depression on the top, about half the size of a man's head, fleshy within, and divided into numerous cells, full of round farinaceous seeds, which are an agreeable article of food. The plant is called maïs del agua, or water maize, in some parts of South America. To the cultivation of the plant special hot-houses have been devoted in some places in the United States and in Europe. It has been

introduced into India from seeds produced in England.

VICTORIA, CIUDAD. The capital of the State of Tamaulipas, Mexico. See CIUDAD VICTORIA. VICTORIA (1819-1901). Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India. She was the daughter and only child of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son Louisa, fourth daughter of Francis, Duke of Saxeof George III. Her mother, Victoria Mary Coburg-Saalfeld, and sister of Leopold, King of the Belgians, was married to the Duke of Kent in 1818, four years after the death of her former husband, the Prince of Leiningen. Victoria (baptized as Alexandrina Victoria) was born May 24, 1819, at Kensington Palace, whence her parents had temporarily removed from their home in Germany, in order that the child, a possible claimant for the British throne, might be born on English soil. The princess, left fatherless when eight months of age, was taught by her mother and the Duchess of Northumberland. She ascended the throne on the death of her uncle, William IV. (q.v.), June 20, 1837. Her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover in virtue of the Salic law, and thus terminated the connection which had lasted 123 years between the crowns of England and Han

over.

and crowned at Westminster, June 28, 1838. Victoria was proclaimed June 21, 1837,

On her accession she found at the head of the Whig Government Viscount Melbourne, by whom her early political course was largely influenced. Her long, prosperous, and comparatively peaceful reign included the administrations of Melbourne (till 1841), Peel (1841-46), Russell (184652 and 1865-66), Derby (1852, 1858-59, and 186668), Aberdeen (1852-55), Palmerston (1855-58 and 1859-65), Disraeli (1868, and as Earl of Beaconsfield, 1874-80), Gladstone (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, and 1892-94), Salisbury (1885-86, 1886-92, and 1895 to the end of the reign), Rosebery (1894-95). Of the legislative record of her reign the most important events are the establishment of penny postage (1840), amendment of the poor laws of Scotland (1845) and Ireland (1847), repeal of the corn laws (1846), the Irish encumbered estates act (1848), repeal of the navigation laws (1849), the removal of the disabilities of the Jews (1858), the reform act of 1867, the disestablishment of the Irish Church (1869), elementary education act (1870) and abolition of religious tests in the universities (1871), Irish land acts (1870, 1881), abolition of purchase in the army (1871), Scotch educational act (1872), and the franchise bill of 1884. Events of national and international importance were numerous in her long reign, among them being the rebellion in Canada (1837-38), Afghan War (1838-42), Opium War in China (1840-42), culmination of the repeal agitation in Ireland under O'Connell (1843), First Sikh War (1845-46), Irish famine (1846-47), chartist agitation (1848), Second Sikh War (1849), the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in England (1850), Crimean War (1854-56), war with China (1856-58), Indian Mutiny (1857-58), transfer of India from the East Indian Company to the Crown (1858), expedition to China (1860), complicated relations with the United States during the Civil War (1861-65), Canadian confederation (1867), Abyssinian War (1867-68), Ashanti War (1873-74),

the assumption by Victoria of the title of Empress of India (1876), Afghan War (1878-80), Zulu War (1879), Transvaal War (1880), and the virtual establishment of British domination in Egypt (1882), the struggle for the reconquest of Nubia for Egypt (1884-98), the conquest of Burma (1885), Ashanti War (1896), the great Boer War (begun in 1899), Australian federation (1900-01). The reign of Victoria witnessed an extraordinary development of Imperial Britain as shown in the growth and political organization of the Canadian, Australian, and African colonies. For many years the agitation for home rule in Ireland was the main feature of internal politics. Victoria is preëminent among sovereigns by her personal character. She "for many

years

exerted an almost unbounded moral control over the larger policies of the British Empire. She was industrious and methodical, patient and tactful, with a memory that was a great storehouse of knowledge of things past and present." The leading feature of the Victorian epoch was "the new conception of the British monarchy which sprang from the development of the colonies and dependencies of Great Britain, and the sudden strengthening of the sense of unity between them and the mother country. The Crown after 1880 became the living symbol of Imperial unity, and every year events deepened the impression that the Queen in her own person typified the common interest and the common sympathy which spread a feeling of brotherhood through the continents that formed the British Empire."

Queen Victoria was married, February 10, 1840, to her cousin, Albert, Prince of SaxeCoburg-Gotha, second son of the then reigning Duke. Although the union was not at the time greatly approved of by the Queen's advisers and subjects, it proved a most felicitous one, marked by a degree of mutual affection rarely found in marriages of state. The Prince Consort died December 14, 1861; Victoria never ceased to mourn him. To them were born four sons and five daughters: The Princess Royal, Victoria, born November 21, 1840, married January 25, 1858, to Frederick William, who in 1888 became Frederick III., Emperor of Germany of brief reign (died 1901); Albert Edward, now King of Great Britain, born November 9, 1841, married March 10, 1863, Princess Alexandra Caroline, eldest daughter of Christian IX., King of Denmark; Princess Alice, born April 25, 1843, married July 1, 1862, Prince Frederick William of Hesse (died 1878); Prince Alfred, born August 6, 1844, created Duke of Edinburgh, 1866, married January 23, 1874, Marie, only daughter of the Emperor of Russia (died 1901); Princess Helena, born May 25, 1846, married in 1866 to Prince Christian of Denmark; Princess Louisa, born March 18, 1848, married in 1871 to the Marquis of Lorne; Prince Arthur, born May 1, 1850, created Duke of Connaught, 1874, married in 1879 Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia; Prince Leopold, born April 7, 1853, was created Duke of Albany, 1881, and married to Princess Helena of Waldeck in 1882 (died 1884); Princess Beatrice, born April 14, 1857, married, 1885, Prince Henry of Battenberg.

In her seclusion from public life after the death of the Prince Consort, and as later testimonials of her affection for him, Victoria super

vised the publication in 1867 of The Early Days of His Royal Highness, the Prince Consort; published in 1868 Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands; supervised a second Life of the Prince Consort in 1874; adding in 1884 More Leaves from the Journal, etc.

Among the almost numberless biographies, memoirs, and sketches of Queen Victoria the most serviceable is Lee, Queen Victoria (London and New York, 1903). Others include Ward, Reign of Queen Victoria (London and Philadelphia, 1887), a series of essays on various phases of the Victorian era; Holmes, Queen Victoria, 1819-1901 (London, 1901), a revision of his sketches of 1897; Macaulay, Life and Reign of Queen Victoria (ib., 1887); Smith, Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (ib., 1886); Wall, Fifty Years of a Good Queen's Reign (ib., 1887); Wilson, Life and Times of Queen Victoria (ib., 1888); Jeaffreson, Victoria, Queen and Empress (ib., 1893); Arnold, Victoria, Queen and Empress: the Sixty Years (ib., 1897); Tooley, Personal Life of Queen Victoria (ib., 1897).

VICTORIA, ADELAIDE MARIE LUISE (18401901). The oldest daughter of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, who at the age of seventeen years was married to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, subsequently Frederick III. (q.v.). After his death she retired to her country place, Friedrichshof, near Cronberg, where she remained until her death.

VICTORIA, GUADALUPE (1789-1843). The first Mexican President, who changed his name of Manuel Felix Fernandez during the wars of independence. Born at Durango, he joined the revolutionary movement of 1810, was promoted to be general, figured conspicuously in the revolt which deposed the Emperor Iturbide in 1823, and was elected President in 1824. This position he filled with distinguished success until the outbreak of the civil wars in 1828-29. At the expiration of his term of office he retired to private life.

VICTORIA CROSS. The most highly prized decoration of the British military and naval services. It was instituted by royal warrant, dated January 29, 1856, and promulgated in the official Gazette on February 5th. It is a Maltese cross in shape, and is made from cannon captured in the Crimean War, principally at Sebastopol, the design on the obverse side consisting of the royal crest, a crowned lion, beneath which is the inscription 'For Valour.' Non-commissioned officers and men, and such commissioned officers as may have risen from the ranks, who have been awarded the Victoria Cross receive an annuity of £10, which, under special circumstances, may be increased to £50. The ribbon is blue for the naval service and red for the military. Civilians acting in a volunteer capacity are eligible for the medal, which from the time of its origin to the close of the Boer War in 1902 had been granted to about 500 men, including three civilians and one army chaplain. See Plate of ORDERS.

VICTORIA EMBANKMENT. See THAMES

EMBANKMENT.

VICTORIA FALLS (native name Mosi-waTunya, Thundering Smoke). A magnificent cataract on the middle Zambezi in Rhodesia, a few miles below the Kwando confluence (Map: