Chapter 14

COOPER, PETER (1791-1883), American manufacturer, inventor and philanthropist, was born in New York city on the 12th of February 1791. His grandfathers and his father served in the War of American Independence. He received practically no schooling, but worked with his father at hat-making in New York city, at brewing in Peekskill, at brick-making in Catskill, and again at brewing in Newburgh. At seventeen he was apprenticed to a coach-builder in New York city. On coming of age he got employment at Hempstead, Long Island, making machines for shearing cloth; three years afterwards he set up in this business for himself, having bought the sole right to manufacture such machinery in the state of New York. Business prospered during the War of 1812, but fell off after the peace. He turned his shop into a furniture factory; soon sold this and for a short time was engaged in the grocery business on the site of the present Bible House, opposite Cooper Union; and then invested in a glue and isinglass factory, situated for twenty-one years in Manhattan (where the Park Avenue Hotel was built later) and then in Brooklyn. About 1828 he built the Canton Iron Works in Baltimore, Maryland, the foundation of his great fortune. The Baltimore & Ohio railway was to cross his property, and, after various inventions aiming to do away with the locomotive crank and thus save two-fifths of the steam, in 1830 he designed and constructed (largely after plans made two years before) the first steam locomotive built in America; though only a small model it proved the practicability of using steam power for working that line. The "Tom Thumb," as Cooper called the locomotive, was about the size of a modern hand-car; as the natural draft was far from sufficient, Cooper devised a blowing apparatus. Selling his Baltimore works, he built, in 1836, in partnership with his brother Thomas, a rolling mill in New York; in 1845 he removed it to Trenton, New Jersey, where iron structural beams were first made in 1854 and the Bessemer process first tried in America in 1856; and at Philippsburg, New Jersey, he built the largest blast furnace in the country at that time. He built other foundries at Ringwood, New Jersey, and at Durham, Pennsylvania; bought iron mines in northern New Jersey, and carried the ore thence by railways to his mills. Actively interested with Cyrus Field in the laying of the first Atlantic cable, he was president of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company, and his frequent cash advances made the success of the company possible; he was president of the North American Telegraph Company also, which controlled more than one-half of the telegraph lines of the United States. For his work in advancing the iron trade he received the Bessemer gold medal from the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain in 1879. He took a prominent part in educational affairs, strongly opposed the Roman Catholic claims for public funds for parochial schools, and conducted the campaign of the Free School Society to its successful issue in 1842, when a state law was passed forbidding the support from public funds of any "religious sectarian doctrine." He is probably best known, however, as the founder of the Cooper Union (q.v.). Cooper was an early advocate of the emancipation and the enlistment in the Union army of Southern negroes, and he upheld the administration of Lincoln. Though he had been a hard-money Democrat, he joined the Greenback party after the Civil War, and in 1876 was its candidate for the presidency, but received only 81,740 out of the 8,412,833 votes cast. He died in New York city on the 4th of April 1883. He published _The Political and Financial Opinions of Peter Cooper, with an Autobiography of his Early Life_ (1877), and _Ideas for a Science of Good Government, in Addresses, Letters and Articles on a Strictly National Currency, Tariff and Civil Service_ (1883).

There is a brief biography by R. W. Raymond, _Peter Cooper_ (Boston, 1900).

COOPER, SAMUEL (1609-1672), English miniature painter. This artist was undoubtedly the greatest painter of miniatures who ever lived. He is believed to have been born in London, and was a nephew of John Hoskins, the miniature painter, by whom he was educated. He lived in Henrietta St., Covent Garden, and frequented the Covent Garden Coffee-House. Pepys, who makes many references to him, tells us he was an excellent musician, playing well upon the lute, and also a good linguist, speaking French with ease. According to other contemporary writers, he was a short, stout man, of a ruddy countenance. He married one Christiana, whose portrait is at Welbeck Abbey, and he had one daughter. In 1668 he was instructed by Pepys to paint a portrait of Mrs Pepys, for which he charged £30. He is known to have painted also the portrait of John Aubrey, which was presented in 1691 to the Ashmolean Museum, as we learn from his correspondence with John Ray, the naturalist. Evelyn refers to him in 1662, when, on the occasion of the visit that the diarist paid to the king, Cooper was drawing the royal face and head for the new coinage.

Magnificent examples of his work are to be found at Windsor Castle, Belvoir Castle, Montague House, Welbeck Abbey, Ham House, the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam and in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan. His largest miniature is in the possession of the duke of Richmond and Gordon at Goodwood. A piece of the artist's handwriting is to be seen at the back of one of his miniatures in the Welbeck Abbey collection, and one of his drawings in black chalk is in the University Gallery at Oxford. His own portrait of himself is in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan.

The date of his death has been handed down by a record in the diary of Mary Beale, the miniature painter; and in some letters from Mr Charles Manners, addressed to Lord Roos, dated 1672, now amongst the duke of Rutland's papers at Belvoir, the writer refers to Cooper's serious illness on the 4th of May, and to his doubt as to whether the artist would ever recover. Mary Beale's reference to his decease is in the following words: "Sunday, May 5, 1672--Mr Samuel Cooper, the most famous limner of the world for a face, dyed."

For a fuller account see the _History of Portrait Miniatures_, by G. C. Williamson, vol. i. p. 64. (G. C. W.)

COOPER (or COUPER), THOMAS (c. 1517-1594), English bishop and writer, was born in Oxford, where he was educated at Magdalen College. He became master of Magdalen College school, and afterwards practised as a physician in Oxford. His literary career began in 1548, when he compiled, or rather edited, a Latin dictionary _Bibliotheca Eliotae_, and in 1549 he published a continuation of Thomas Lanquet's _Chronicle of the World_. This work, known as _Cooper's Chronicle_, covers the period from A.D. 17 to the time of writing, and was reprinted in 1560 and 1565. In 1565 appeared the first edition of his greatest work, _Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae_, and this was followed by three other editions. Queen Elizabeth was greatly pleased with the _Thesaurus_, generally known as _Cooper's Dictionary_; and its author, who had been ordained about 1559, was made dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1567. Two years later he became dean of Gloucester, in 1571 bishop of Lincoln and in 1584 bishop of Winchester. Cooper was a stout controversialist; he defended the practice and precept of the Church of England against the Roman Catholics on the one hand and against the Martin Marprelate writings and the Puritans on the other. He took some part, the exact extent of which is disputed, in the persecution of religious recusants in his diocese, and died at Winchester on the 29th of April 1594.

Cooper's _Admonition against Martin Marprelate_ was reprinted in 1847, and his _Answer in Defence of the Truth against the Apology of Private Mass_ in 1850.

COOPER, THOMAS (1759-1840), American educationalist and political philosopher, was born in London, England, on the 22nd of October 1759, and educated at Oxford. Threatened with prosecution at home because of his active sympathy with the French Revolution, he emigrated to America about 1793, and began the practice of law in Northumberland county, Pennsylvania. He was president-judge of the Fourth District of Pennsylvania in 1806-1811. Like his friend Joseph Priestley, who was then living in Northumberland, he sympathized with the Anti-Federalists, and took part in the agitation against the Sedition Act, and for a newspaper attack in 1799 on President John Adams, Cooper was convicted, fined and imprisoned for libel. Like Priestley, Cooper was very highly esteemed by Thomas Jefferson, who secured for him the appointment as first professor of natural science and law in the University of Virginia--a position which Cooper was forced to resign under the fierce attack made on him by the Virginia clergy. After filling the chair of chemistry in Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. (1811-1814), and in the University of Pennsylvania (1818-1819), he became professor of chemistry in South Carolina College, at Columbia, in 1819, and afterwards gave instruction in political economy also. In 1820 he became acting president of this institution, and was president from 1821 until 1833, when he resigned owing to the opposition within the state to his liberal religious views. In December 1834, owing to continued opposition, he resigned his professorship. He had been formally tried for infidelity in 1832. He was a born agitator: John Adams described him as "a learned, ingenious, scientific and talented madcap." Before his college classes, in public lectures, and in numerous pamphlets, he constantly preached the doctrine of free trade, and tried to show that the protective system was especially burdensome to the South. His remedy was state action. Each state, he contended, was a sovereign power and was in duty bound to protest against the tyrannical acts of the Federal government. He exercised considerable influence in preparing the people of South Carolina for nullification and secession; in fact he preceded Calhoun in advocating a practical application of the state sovereignty principle. The last years of his life were spent in preparing an edition of the Statutes at Large of the state, which was completed by David James McCord (1797-1855) and published in ten volumes (1836-1841). Dr Cooper died in Columbia on the 11th of May 1840. As a philosopher he was a follower of Hartley, Erasmus Darwin, Priestley and Broussais; he was a physiological materialist, and a severe critic of Scotch metaphysics. Among his publications are _Political Essays_ (1800); _An English Version of the Institutes of Justinian_ (1812); _Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy_ (1826); _A Treatise on the Law of Libel and the Liberty of the Press_ (1830); and a translation of Broussais' _On Irritation and Insanity_ (1831), with which were printed his own essays, "The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism," "View of the Metaphysical and Physiological Arguments in favour of Materialism," and "Outline of the Doctrine of the Association of Ideas."

See I. Woodbridge Riley, _American Philosophy: the Early Schools_ (New York, 1907).

COOPER, THOMAS (1805-1892), English Chartist and writer, the son of a working dyer, was born at Leicester on the 20th of March 1805. After his father's death his mother began business as a dyer and fancy box-maker at Gainsborough. Young Cooper was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He had a passion for knowledge; studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew in his spare time; and in 1827 gave up cobbling to become a schoolmaster, and, later, a Methodist preacher. His affairs did not prosper, and after going to Lincoln, where he obtained work on a local newspaper, he came to London in 1839. Here he became assistant to a second-hand bookseller, but in 1840 he joined the staff of the _Leicestershire Mercury_. His support of the Chartist movement obliged him to resign his position, but he undertook to edit _The Midland Counties Illuminator_, a Chartist journal, in 1841. He became a leader of the extreme Chartist party, and for his action in urging on the strike of 1842 he was imprisoned in Stafford gaol for two years. Here he produced _The Purgatory of Suicides_, a political epic in ten books, embodying the radical ideas of the time. In his efforts to publish this work after his liberation he came under the notice of Benjamin Disraeli and Douglas Jerrold. Through Jerrold's help it appeared in 1845, and Cooper then turned his attention to lecturing upon historical and educational subjects. In 1856 he suddenly renounced the free-thinking doctrines which he had held for many years, and became a lecturer on Christian evidences. He died at Lincoln on the 15th of July 1892. Among his other works may be mentioned the _Bridge of History over the Gulf of Time_ (1871) and the _Life of Thomas Cooper, written by Himself_ (1872).

COOPER, THOMAS SIDNEY (1803-1902), English painter, was born at Canterbury on the 20th of September 1803. In very early childhood he showed in many ways the strength of his artistic inclinations, but as the circumstances of his family did not admit of his receiving any systematic training, he began before he was twelve years old to work in the shop of a coach painter. A little later he obtained employment as a scene painter; and he alternated between these two occupations for about eight years. But the desire to become an artist continued to influence him, and all his spare moments were given up to drawing and painting from nature. At the age of twenty he went to London, drew for a while in the British Museum, and was admitted as a student of the Royal Academy. He then returned to Canterbury, where he was able to earn a living as a drawing-master and by the sale of sketches and drawings. In 1827 he settled in Brussels; but four years later he returned to London to live, and by showing his first picture at the Royal Academy (1833) began an unprecedentedly prolonged career as an exhibitor. Cooper's name is mainly associated with pictures of cattle or sheep, and the most notable of the many hundred he produced are: "A Summer's Noon" (1836), "A Drover's Halt on the Fells" (1838), "A Group in the Meadows" (1845), "The Half-past One o'Clock Charge at Waterloo" (1847), "The Shepherd's Sabbath" (1866), "The Monarch of the Meadows" (1873), "Separated but not Divorced" (1874), "Isaac's Substitute" (1880), "Pushing off for Tilbury Fort" (1884), "On a Farm in East Kent" (1889), "Return to the Farm, Milking Time" (1897). He was elected A.R.A. in 1845 and R.A. in 1867. He presented to his native place, in 1882, the Sidney Cooper Art Gallery, built on the site of the house in which he was born. He wrote his reminiscences, under the title of _My Life_, in 1890; and died on the 7th of February 1902.

COOPERAGE, or COPERAGE (Flemish and Dutch _kooper_, a trader, dealer), a system of traffic in spirituous liquors, tobacco and other articles amongst the fishermen in the North Sea. The practice began in the middle of the 19th century, when Flemish and Dutch _koopers_ frequented the fishing fleets for the purpose of barter. Trading first in tobacco, they extended their operations, and soon became practically floating grog-shops.

The demoralizing nature of the traffic was brought to the public notice in 1881, and a convention was held at the Hague in 1882 to consider means of remedying the abuses. In 1887 Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France and the Netherlands signed an agreement to prevent the sale or purchase of spirituous liquors among fishermen at sea. In Great Britain an act (the North Sea Fisheries Act 1888) was passed to carry into effect the terms of the convention. The act (now repealed and replaced by the North Sea Fisheries Act 1893, with which it is identical but for some slight verbal modifications) imposes a fine not exceeding £50 or a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months for supplying, exchanging or otherwise selling spirits. It imposes a like penalty for purchasing spirits by exchange or otherwise, and requires every British vessel dealing in provisions or other articles to have a licence and to carry a special mark. In 1882 Mr E. J. Mather started a mission to deep sea fishermen, which sends out mission ships and supplies the fishermen with good clothing, literature, tobacco, &c., at a fair price. This mission, now the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, is registered by the Board of Trade.

See E. J. Mather, _Nor'ard of the Dogger_ (1888), and publications of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.

COOPERAGE (from "cooper," a maker of casks, derived from such forms as Mid. Dutch _cuper_, Ger. _Küfer_, Lat. _cuparius_; the same root is seen in various Teut. words for a basket, such as Dutch _kuip_ and Eng. "kipe" and "coop," but cooper is apparently not formed directly from "coop," which never means a "cask" but always a basket-cage for poultry, &c.), the art of making casks, barrels and other rounded vessels, the sides of which are composed of separate staves, held together by hoops surrounding them. The art is one of great antiquity; Pliny ascribes its invention to the inhabitants of the Alpine valleys. The trade is one in which there are numerous subdivisions, the chief of which are tight or wet and dry or slack cask manufacture. To these may be added white cooperage, a department which embraces the construction of wooden tubs, pails, churns and other even-staved vessels. Of all departments, the manufacture of tight casks or barrels for holding liquids is that which demands the greatest care and skill since, in addition to being perfectly tight when filled with liquid, the vessels must bear the strain of transportation to great distances, and in many cases have to resist considerable internal pressure when they contain fermenting liquors. The staves are best made of well-seasoned oak. Since a cask is a double conoid, usually having its greatest diameter (technically the bulge or belly) at the centre, each stave must be properly curved to form a segment of the whole, and must be so cut as to have a suitable bilge or increase of width from the ends to the middle; it must also have its edges bevelled to such an angle that it will form tight joints with its neighbours. The staves being prepared, the next operation is to set up or raise the barrel. For this purpose as many staves as are necessary are arranged upright in a circular frame, and round their lower halves are fitted truss hoops which serve to keep them together for the permanent hooping. The upper ends are then drawn together by means of a rope which is passed round them and tightened by a windlass, and other truss hoops are dropped over them, the wood being steamed or heated to enable it to bend freely to shape. The two ends of the cask are next finished to receive the heads by forming the chime, or bevel on the extremity of the staves, and the croze or groove into which the heads fit. Finally the heads and permanent hoops are put in place. The heads, when made of two or more pieces, are jointed by wooden dowel pins, and after being cut to size are chamfered or bevelled round the edge to fit into the croze grooves. The hoops are generally of iron. The manufacture of slack casks proceeds on the same general lines, but is simpler in various respects, both because less accurate workmanship is required, and because softer woods, largely fir, may be employed. Machinery of the most elaborate and specialized character has been devised to perform most of the operations in making both slack and tight casks, and though it involves considerable capital outlay it effects so great an economy of time that it has largely superseded hand labour. (For an account of such machinery see L. H. Ransome, "Cask-making Machinery," _Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng._ vol. 115; also an article in _Engineering_, 1908, 85, p. 845.) Barrels without separate staves are made by bending a sheet of wood, sawn from a log in a continuous strip, into the required circular shape, the bulge at the centre being obtained by cutting out V gores from the ends. Barrels are also sometimes made of steel, either of the ordinary bulging form or consisting of straight-sided drums provided near the middle with rings on which they may be rolled. Immense numbers of casks of different shapes and sizes are employed in various industries. Tight barrels are a necessity to the wine and cider maker, brewer and distiller, and are largely used for the transport of oils and liquid chemicals, while slack barrels are utilized by the million for packing cement, alkali, china, fruit, fish and numerous other products.

CO-OPERATION, a term used particularly both for a theory of life, and for a system of business, with the general sense of "working together" (_con_, with, and _opus_, work). In its narrowest usage it means a combination of individuals to economize by buying in common, or increase their profits by selling in common. In its widest usage it means the creed that life may best be ordered not by the competition of individuals, where each seeks the interest of himself and his family, but by mutual help; by each individual consciously striving for the good of the social body of which he forms part, and the social body in return caring for each individual: "each for all, and all for each" is its accepted motto. Thus it proposes to replace among rational and moral beings the struggle for existence by voluntary combination for life. More or less imperfectly embodying this theory, we have co-operation in the concrete, or "the co-operative movement," meaning those forms of voluntary association where individuals unite for mutual aid in the production of wealth, which they will devote to common purposes, or share among them upon principles of equity, reason and the common good, agreed upon beforehand. Not that a co-operative society can begin by saying absolutely what those principles in their purity would dictate. It begins with current prices, current rates of wages and interest, current hours of labour, and modifies them as soon as it can wherever they seem least conformable to equity, reason and the common good.

In the industrial world there is everywhere much working together for the production of wealth, but this is not included in co-operation if the shares of those concerned are determined by competition, i.e. by a struggle and the relative ability of each to secure a large share. Nor do co-operators regard the association as truly voluntary, though it may depend on contract, if that contract be one of service only, without an opportunity for all concerned to share in the ultimate control. Co-operation in fact is essentially a democratic association. On the other hand, there is some working together for the production of wealth which without being competitive, or based on service, is not strictly voluntary: thus in primitive societies there is much customary help, combined with customary division of the produce; and in advanced societies we have state and municipal socialism. These are indeed sometimes included in co-operation, but at least they are not voluntary co-operation, since the individual has no choice but to take part in them; they depend on the power of the ruler to coerce the ruled, or of the majority to coerce the minority. In co-operation, meaning voluntary co-operation, there may also, it is true, be frequent overruling of the minority by the majority, but only so far as the minority have, when joining the association, voluntarily agreed to permit, and subject always to an effective ultimate right of secession.