RIDEAU 47 RIDGEWAY Questions" (1511) contains several riddles that are simply coarse jests; but others, again, well illustrate the simple faith of mediaeval Christendom — e. g., "Demand: What bare the best burden that ever was borne? Response: The ass that carried our Lady when she fled with our Lord into Egypt." The Reformation checked, if it did not wholly stop, the merry pas- time of riddle-making; but in France, in the 17th century, it began to creep back into favor, till at last riddles rivaled in popularity the madrigals and sonnets of the period. Le Pere Menestrier, in 1694, wrote a grave treatise on the subject. The taste for riddle-making grew and grew, and many brilliant French writers, such as Boileau, Voltaire, Madame du Deffand, and Rousseau, did a little in this line. In Germany we have Schiller's de- lightful extravaganza "Turandot," and in England Cowper, Fox, Canning, and Praed are a few of the makers of poetical riddles or charades. Today with us the riddle is a mere jeu d'esprit, a conundrum or pun couched question-wise; but among the Irish, German, and Russian peasantry, the gipsies, the Zulus, the Samoans, and many more races, the old-fashioned sense- riddles, often enshrining a mythological germ, still hold their own. RIDEATT, a waterway, partly natural and partly artificial, formed by lake, river and canal in the province of On- tario, Canada. The lake lies roughly 50 miles S. W. of Ottawa and the river Rideau flows out of it to become a tribu- tary of the Ottawa river at the city of Ottawa. The canal, dating from 1834, connects Ottawa with Kingston on Lake Ontario, forming with the river and lake a waterway 126 miles long with 47 locks and a navigable depth of 4% feet. The navigable portion with connections to the Cataraqui river and Mud Lake bore much commerce in the years following its link- ing up, but in later years the develop- ment of the railroad system took away from its navigation. RIDEING, WILLIAM HENRY, an American author; born in Liverpool, England, Feb. 17, 1853. His books in- clude: "Pacific Railways Illustrated" (1878) ; "A-Saddle in the Wild West" (1879) ; "Stray Moments with Thack- eray" (1880) ; "Boys in the Mountains" (1882) ; "A Little Upstart" (1885) ; "The Boyhood of Living Authors" (1887) ; "In the Land of Lorna Doone"; "The Cap- tured Cunarder"; "At Hawarden with Mr. Gladstone"; "How Tyson Came Home" (1905) ; "Boyhood of Famous Authors" (1908); "Many Celebrities and a Few Others" (1911). He died in 1919. In 1881 he became associate editor of the "Youths' Companion." RIDEOXJT, HENRY MILNER, an American author, born at Calais, Me., in 1877. He was educated at Harvard Uni- versity where he served as an instructor of English from 1899 to 1904. Besides many short stories contributed to many magazines, he published "Letters of Thomas Gray" (1899) ; Tennyson's "The Princess" (edited with C. T. Copeland), (1899) ; "Freshman English and Theme- Correcting at Harvard College" (with C. T. Copeland) (1901) ; "Beached Keels" (1906) ; "The Siamese Cat" (1907) ; "Ad- miral's Light" (1907) ; "Dragon's Blood" (1909) ; "Selections from Wordsworth, Byron, etc." (with C. T. Copeland), (1909) ; "The Twisted Foot" (1910) ; "William Jones, a Memoir" (1912) ; "White Tiger" (1915); "The Far Cry" (1916) ; "The Key of the Fields" (1917) ; and "Tin Cowrie Dass" (1918). RIDERS, additional provisions of a bill under the consideration of a legisla- tive assembly, having little connection with the subject-matter of the bill. They are usually without enough specific merit in themselves to insure their adoption in any other way. Sometimes riders are attached to important bills, in order to gain the chance of passage, since by them- selves they are likely to incur an execu- tive veto, but as a part or proviso of an important bill they are absorbed in the main subject, and so dodge the "veto" and the "table." Appropriation bills are more than others "saddled with riders." The consequence of this custom is, prac- tically, a limitation of the veto power of the executive. It has been proposed fre- quently that the Constitution of the United States be so amended that the President could veto single objectionable items, without affecting the main purpose of bills. RIDGE, WILLIAM PETT, an Eng- lish writer, born in Chatham, about 1860. He was educated in the private schools and began writing at an early age. His humorous stories of low-class life attained wide popularity. They include "A Breaker of the Laws" (1900) ; "Lost Property" (1902); "The Remington Sentence" (1913) ; "The Happy Recruit" (1914) ; "The Kennedy People" (1915) ; "Amaz- ing Years" (1917) ; and "Top Speed" (1918). RIDGEWAY, SIR WILLIAM, a Brit- ish archaeologist. He was born at Bally- dermot, Ireland, in 1853, and was edu- cated at Portarlington School and Trinity College, Dublin. He took up classical scholarship and archaeology as his spe- cial line and has been professor of archae- ology at Cambridge since 1892. He is a member of Greek, French, Italian, Ger-
