Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/102

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ROBINSON 76 ROCAMBOLE sas, to which he had been elected in 1912. He was elected to the United States Sen- ate in 1913 to succeed the Hon. Jeff Davis and was re-elected in 1918. ROBINSON, WILLIAM JOSEPHTJS, an American physician and writer, born at Mount Morris, New York, in 1869. He graduated from the Columbia University College of Pharmacy and from the medi- cal college of New York University, doing post-graduate work at the University of Berlin and Vienna. He was a lecturer on chemistry, pharmacology and materia medica of the Board of Pharmacy Insti- tute, New York, and president of the med- ical board and chief of the Genito-Uri- nary and Dermatological departments of the Bronx Hospital and Dispensary. He was also a Fellow of the New York Acad- emy of Medicine, and a member of vari- ous domestic and foreign medical socie- ties. Besides being a founder and editor of the "Critic and Guide," and an editor of the "American Journal of Urology," he wrote: "Never Told Tales" (1908); "Sexual Problems of To-day" (1912) ; "Practical Eugenics" (1912); "Sex Mo- rality" (1912) ; "Eugenics and Marriage" (1917). ROBINSON CRUSOE. Alexander Sel- kirk was found in the desert island of Juan Fernandez (1709), where he had been left by Captain Stradling. He had been on the island four years and four months, when he was rescued by Captain Rogers. See Selkirk. ROB ROY (Gaelic, "Red Robert"), the Scotch Robin Hood; born in 1671; sec- ond son of Lieut.-Col. Donald Macgregor of Glengyle. Till 1661 the "wicked clan Gregor" had for more than a century been constantly pursued with fire and sword; the very name was proscribed. But from that year till the Revolution the severe laws against them were some- what relaxed; and Rob Roy, who married a kinswoman, Mary Macgregor, lived quietly enough as a grazier on the Braes of Balquhidder. His herds were so often plundered by "broken men" from the N. that he had to maintain a band of armed followers to protect both himself and such of his neighbors as paid him black- mail. And so with those followers, es- pousing in 1691 the Jacobite cause, he did a little plundering for himself, and, two or three years later having purchased from his nephew the lands of Craigroy- ston and Inversnaid, laid claim thence- forth to the chief of the clan. In consequence of losses incurred about 1712 in unsucoessful speculations in cattle, for which he had borrowed money from the Duke of Montrose, his lands were seized, his houses plundered, and his wife shamefully used, turned adrift with his children in midwinter. Maddened by these misfortunes, Rob Roy gathered his clansmen and made open war on the duke, sweeping away the whole cattle of a dis- trict, and kidnaping his factor with rents to the value of more than $15,000. This was in 1716, the year after the Jacobite rebellion, in which at Sheriff- muir Rob Roy had "stood watch" for the booty, and had been sent by the Earl of Mar to raise some of the clan Gregor at Aberdeen. Marvelous stories are current round Lock Katrine and Loch Lomond of his hair-breadth escapes from capture, of his evasions when captured, and of his generosity to the poor, whose wants he supplied at the expense of the rich. Rob Roy enjoyed the protection of the Duke of Argyll, having assumed the name Campbell, his mother's. Late in life he is said to have turned Catholic, but he remained a Protestant. He died in his own house at Balquhidder Dec. 28, 1734. He left five sons, two of whom died in 1734 — James, an outlaw, in Paris; and Robin, the youngest, on the gallows at Edinburgh for abduction. ROBSON, MAY, an American actress, born in Australia. She was educated at Brussels and at Paris, and came to the United States in 1879. Her first appear- ance on the stage was as "Tilly," in "The Hoop of Gold," at Brooklyn in 1884. From 1886 to 1893 she played under the management of Daniel Frohman at the Madison Square and Lyceum Theaters, New York, and from 1893 to 1906 under the management of Charles Frohman. Her first appearance as a "star" oc- curred in 1907 at Scranton, Pa., in "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," in which play she appeared in London in 1910. Since then she has appeared in many stellar roles with great success, both in this country and in England. She wrote, together with C. T. Dazey, "A Night Out" (1911). ROC, or RTJKH, a fabulous bird of im- mense size, able to carry off an elephant in rts talons. The idea is familiar in the East, and every reader will remem- ber it in the "Arabian Nights' Enter- tainments." Mythical birds of similar size and strength were the Arabian anka and the Persian simurgh. The amru or sinamru was an older Persian supernat- ural bird ; the Indian garuda, which bears Vishnu, is the king of birds. ROCAMBOLE, in botany, (1) Allium scorodoprasum, a plant with bulbs like garlic, but with the cloves smaller. It is used for the same purposes as the shallot, garlic, etc. A native of Den- mark. (2) Allium ophioscorodon, from